Thoughts of Mark

Meaning of life

mark20 — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:06:07 +0000

I heard a lot there was a higher purpose that we had to serve it during our short life time. Some people are seeking for a supernatural power which leans us to one true direction via frustrating us in some ways. It is like need for authority but do not we have enough authority to lead ourselves? In dark ages kings claimed that they got all the rules from their gods. As you see even a king needs some authority ridiculous isn’t it? It reminds me of a Latin quote: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”, “Who will guard the guardians?”. All religious people try to emphasize there must be a supernatural authority which is useful to justify their actions and solace themselves with an eternal life after death. Also they can receive their perfect morals from this powerful thing. But how healthy to believe in perfectness in an imperfect universe. Even nobody knows what perfectness is. In a changing world, our weaknesses and imperfectness make us more stronger. Every mistake is a new lesson for us. We learn what we’ve learned by trying and taking our lessons from our experiences. This is how this progressive life is running. Everything have to change. Empires, countries are established and they collapse one day and new ones will be established instead of them . You die, your corpse feed other life forms and this organic material feed other lives. Life is a circle. We are all servants of nature. You serve the nature with all of your actions, hope and greed. Why should we believe some imaginary things to feel better? As an individual why do you have to serve others big purposes? This is a good system to create kings and their slaves. This is how you sacrifice your life for others benefits just because of your imaginary eternal pleasure and happiness dreams. As long as you are leaded by majorities’ rules you are a dead personality in the crowds. You have to decide who you are and what are you serving beyond others judgments and perspectives. Just love what you want to love and hate what you want to hate. You will find other individuals to live in the community, the community which you belong to. Meaning of life is giving a meaning for it. It’s better to give this meaning by yourself than seeking for some ancient sacred writings to shape your life.

Emotions and feelings

mark20 — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:34:59 +0000

There is a trend about emotions. If you are sad, happy, unhappy, excited and you hide your mood from others, you become more stronger. If you think like this, I disagree with you. I think emotions are condiments of the life. And if you express your feelings in a good way, you improve your relations, understand your inner world and other people. You cannot lead every part your life with rational rules. Emotions are unique. Imagine this; there is a person who has never tasted sad feelings. How would you explain sadness to that person? Could you find a rational way to explain it? Could you use mathematics, physics or other sciences?As you can see, you cannot tell what sadness is to a person who has never felt it. This is how emotions are key stones in our lives. I don’t understand why should I try to hide them or eliminate them. I am not a stone. And is being a stone-like making me more stronger? I don’t think so. Life is real life with pure emotions. It’s excessively bald way to live without feelings. It’s like eating a meal without some salt or drinking a cup of coffee without sugar.

Take a look at history of arts. If those artists hadn’t expressed their feelings via their arts, we wouldn’t have known great artists or composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or Antonio Vivaldi. Feeling life and expressing emotions requires a little sophisticated side in one’s inner world. To understand artists works you have to have a delicate side. I believe if a person doesn’t feel anything, this person must have a miserable lifestyle.

I need to feel life more beyond all daily materialistic worries and shit. I believe emotions enrich this tasteless life.

Good,Bad and Morality

mark20 — Sat, 30 May 2009 17:09:03 +0000

Sometimes I hear questions such as where does an atheist get his/her morality from? How does an atheist classify good and bad? The answer is easy. Morality comes straight from the society. Religious people believe that if there is no religion, there is no morality. They believe it is a necessity to have a religion for the society if the society is needed to be healthy and well organized. It is interesting isn’t it? I would like to take a look at the similar subject about religions and laws. In the dark ages, Europe was ruled by the Christian doctrines. The leader of the society was considered as a sacred man who receives rules directly from the God. His words were the words of the God at the same time. It went good until other Christian sects appeared. After that, Europe witnessed intense wars such as European religion wars. As you can see, when the way is separated, there will be separated people and their leaders. After The Renaissance and religion reforms, European intellectuals developed some ideas like Secularism. Secularism is Separation of church and state where people are leaded by the laws society instead of doctrines . By the time Nationalism was appeared after the French Revolution. Empires collapsed and independent countries founded. And today we are leaded by democracy. Law makers makes laws according to society’s benefits instead of religion doctrines. People do not ask where we got our rules. They know laws are created by humans and no god gives rules to lead a country. Well morality does the same job where no law is required. Rather you behave in an appreciated and acceptable way to survive in the society. If there were no other people but only you, there would not be morality. Plus Morality is pretty changeable. You may believe your manner is right but it can be wrong in a different society. Or you may behave in a way that you believe right, it may turn into wrong a few decades later. I don’t know why religious people try to use morality to justify their beliefs. You don’t need laws from a super natural authority to deal with other people. Your acts are limited by society to serve society’s benefits. Like laws… It’s pretty comprehensible. Morality is not a rocket science. You don’t need fantastic stories, demons, angels, fairies, heavens or hells to understand what is good or wrong in your society. Lastly it is a narrow way to rule society with unchangeable rules in a changing world like religions do.

Are Great Apes Stupid?

mark20 — Mon, 25 May 2009 19:02:26 +0000

Creationist ideology tells us mankind was created from dust. It’s almost an insult to say mankind evaluated from apes from the creationists side. These people often think the noble human beings cannot be originated from apes. But I am wondering if our ancestors consisted from dust, does it make us more noble and superior?

Anyway I want to take a peek at our the closest relatives, the chimpanzees. According to the genetic researches the chimpanzee and human genomes are more than %98 the same. It’s interesting to see how creationist are trying to find a way to deny this fact. But beyond the genomes,the humans share a lot of common point with the great apes such as emotions, morals, unity, having a strong memory, ability to solve complex problems, ability to communicate, ability to learn,…etc

We are the supreme animals on the planet but still we did not come from another planet. We are still the part of this nature. It’s better to remember we were not much different from the great apes a few thousand years ago with our primitive lifestyle. We get what we have from our oldest generations and improve them. This is how we are doing….

Learning a foreign language

mark20 — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:48:40 +0000

Do you want to learn a new language? Hmm you don’t need books. You don’t have to go to a language school. The tool is internet. You might have bad experiences about foreign languages in the school. People hardly learn a foreign language in schools. Because language is the tool of communication. You cannot learn it from books. You can learn a language via using it. You should use it to communicate with other people. You can learn a language like a child. You must be eager to learn it. With a little passion and patience you will be able to speak it in a year. Internet provides a good opportunity to language learners. You can see, hear, read, learn, talk, write and communicate with other people. There are some great websites :

One of which is called livemocha. The website allows you to see, hear and read the sentences. Each time you learn, you can make a progress. There are plenty of exercises. You also have the other users’ help and you help the other users. There is not much grammatical information but still very nice website for new learners.

If you want to expand your vocabulary knowledge, Internet Polyglot might help you. The website has flashcards both in your native language and the language that you want to learn. There are also some games and stuff you to test what you’ve learned.

Indo-European languages tutorials provides detailed grammar rules about European languages. It is also really helpful for French learners with audi files.

You can increase your vocabulary knowledge with LingQ. There are some texts and their audi files. You can read, mark new vocabularies, learn their meanings and focus on them. It also provides social conversations by using Skype.

I have never tried but It seemed such a cool website to me. Palabea. It’s the website that provides language exchanging. It can be very useful.

Impossibility of God

mark20 — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:49:22 +0000

God always stands as a perfect thing in religions. But as you can feel something is really odd,stinking and illogical about it. People believe in god as an extraordinary existence but how it can be possible. There are some traits of god and his skill I would like to argue about. Here we go:

God can create everything and he is absolutely omnipotent:

It is said that The God can create anything he wanted to create and he can annihilate or terminate anything. He is omnipotent. Well, I want to ask these questions : 1- Can The God create another god? If he can create another god, that means another authority. It also means your religion, promise of heaven (or hell), your ethics,rights and wrongs can be ended,changed,terminated anytime by another or other gods. 2- Can he terminate himself? If he can terminate himself then again you will loose all that you’ve believed. Briefly If he cannot create another god or terminate himself, it means he is not omnipotent. His power is simply limited by these possible conditions.

God must exist because nothing could be existed without a creator :

A creator must exist and we created by The God. Nothing cannot be existed without a creator. Okay let’s see… If everything needs a creator to be existed, what is the creator of the God?

God is the cause of everything, good, bad…etc. But we have a freedom to choose a way:

God created evil, good, filth , beauty, dirty …etc. We have a freewill which is given by the God to decide which is right and wrong. We can choose a way to live. Okay but if your choices require a gift (heaven) or a punishment (hell), how possibly are you free? You are limited by the laws of God. As a believer, there is no another way to choose. Because there must be one way to choose that created by the God. No other options!!! If you really want to be free, you must be powerful as much as god to change the rules and lead your life in your way. It is like an occupied country. If you cannot fight, you will never have your freedom again.

God knows everything. Everything even before the things /happened/are happening/will be happened. We all have a fate:

God knows everything. Because everything is designed by him. We have a fate. blah blah… Okay but why we are not already in heaven or hell then. God already knows what we did/are doing/are going to do. What is the point in waiting and seeing what we gonna do for the God? Your god must need to play a game with you. Isn’t that stupid?

God is absolutely different and unique. There is no such a thing which can match with him:

God is unique. He has his own ways and styles. He is perfect. But why the hell a thing like God seems no more than a human? He has emotions. He can love, hate, detest, be happy, be sad, be angry. He even follow us. How? He will send us to the heaven or hell at the end. It’s such a human way to give a gift or punishment as a result of someone’s manner. Why cannot he find different ways which are so much superior than our fucking techniques to shape our lives ? I expect something different from a thing like GOD.

How much are you free?

mark20 — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:36:59 +0000

According to oxford dictionary freedom is the right to do or say what you want without anyone stopping you. Do we really have some unlimited rights to do whatever we want to do or say? I don’t think we have these rights. We are limited with every aspect. Let’s take a look this in some ethic aspects. It is not an acceptable state of being disrespectful,harmful,intolerable to the others in the society. It seems like we are already limited by the community. We have to obey both ethics and laws to protect our statement in the society. Okay let’s say it can be beneficial if the people of community have a lot of common points. If differences increase, you will need more tolerance to live together. And more tolerance means less rights. And less rights means less freedom. You will have to think twice before talking to do not offend someone. This may be why multicultural system comes with too many dirt. For instance: Imagine you moved to a place that is occupied by muslim community. One day you are kissing,hugging and hanging around with your girlfriend in the street. It’s pretty normal to me and you but not for muslims. These are unacceptable behaviors for them. Even if you are married with the girl. In this case some muslims may attack you, and show some kind of hostility because of their beliefs. They will claim that they are right, and you will say you are right. Who is right according to what? Another example : You are a bold,young,white man who lives in black people’s neighborhood. You don’t have too many friends around. One day you may get punched by a black gang because of your skin color and bold head seemed like a skinhead to them. In this case you will have to pay attentition what you wear and how you look like. Because some clothes and styles may have some offensive meanings for another community. This is human nature. We deal according to our similarities and fight because of our differences. Economy is another keystone for freedom. If you are not able to buy what others buy, live in a house what others live, wear brand expensive clothes what others wear,you cannot say you are as free as others.You may born in a poor family, unlike others. You haven’t had enough chance to make your life better and you live miserable now. This is how freedom depends on a person and his/her social statement. Even you are rich, you have power and everything,you are still limited. How? Well, how many rich people were able to watch television, surf on the internet, listen ipod while walking in the street 500 years ago? Hehe It’s our freedom right? But probably 500 years later our stuffs are going to be out of date. Probably the meaning of freedom will be changed in the future again.

Long life or the power of memory ?

mark20 — Sun, 10 May 2009 18:39:49 +0000

Would you like to live five hundred years or more? What would you do if you had a very long life? Would you be happy? Hmm you may get bored? But I think the vital question is: What would you remember from the old days? Sometimes I ask myself what remains from now to tomorrow. If I didn’t remember yesterday, I wouldn’t create special moments for tomorrow. Because it wouldn’t be that fun if you didn’t remember all those special moment from the past. It’s like a project that you’ve been working on your computer. If you cannot save that you’ve created, what is the point of working on it? Or you got a packet. Everyday you put a gold coin in your pocket but you recognize there is a big hole in the pocket and all those you’ve saved now is gone. How would you feel? As you can see memory is one of the most important thing in satisfaction and happiness. Everyday instead of imagining bad events, imagine happy moments from your life. Bad things seem big when we met them first . They are just momentarily difficulties. Defeat them and turn them into successes. Let them make you more powerful. And as long as you defeat them, they will be the other happy moments which are your victories. Make your happy moments immortal because they will be your savior in the bad periods of your life. And you should know that, you weren’t be that strong person if all those difficulties didn’t occur and you didn’t defeat them. Obviously this life is the only thing that I have and I just try to enjoy as much as I can . And of course I’d rather have strong and good memories than an eternal life.

And one more thing : Happiness is real if you share it

Religions

mark20 — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:42:38 +0000

They are great tools to keep people together and make them serve for one big aim. Some of them created kingdoms,empires and countries. The idea of another world is too fantastic for people who haven’t found happiness in this world. At the same time it is a great solace for the poor,wretched people. Listening about real justice,equality,happiness,eternity,pleasure,joy briefly all these utopias so fantastic for silly people. This may be why people believe without ask about facts. Religions such a big hope,aim and common point for people to assemble. Belief was a great motivation during the age of wars. Under the name of god,fighting for one’s country was an honorable and glorious death for a man. It worked well to recruit armies without any opposition and make people obey the rules that declared by the emperors and the kings. Religion also was the answer for all unknown things. Earthquakes,tsunamis,volcanic eruptions,storms were punishments of the gods for the sins of people.
People feared,prayed and gave some gifts and sacrifices to make their angry gods happy again.There are historical evidences some primitive people such as Aztecs,Celts..etc even sacrificed humans to get rid of bad spirits and misfortune. Today,in the age of knowledge and communication,these fair tales are to simple to believe. Especially,who has a real self-respect. When people stop worshiping those imaginary things,they will see this life is a unique opportunity that you could ever had. Live your life and stop serving to make your imaginary lords happy. It’d be better to stop fighting and killing each other for those imaginary things.

God and the Universe

mark20 — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:25:39 +0000

When I say “I don’t believe in god” in a conversation,people often say : “What do you think about the universe?”, “how did whole universe come to exist?,by the chance? ” Well,they expect me to answer their questions. Okay but when I ask the same questions to them,I receive only one answer. “God created!!!”Of course it is not a satisfying answer to me. Indeed,how did god decide to create the universe? How did god find that power to create it? Was there anything which encouraged god to create the universe in this way? ……etc. I can ask infinite questions about this subject. And there is no clear answers to my questions. Obviously The God is a supernatural,omnipotent,immortal thing which you can’t ask or interrogate about it in believers’ minds. They don’t even try to ask themselves about status of god. He is such an untouchable object in their minds. Such a taboo which is not enough to explain existence of universe. In this case believers cannot ask me about existence of the universe,life…etc. Because I don’t know. Maybe nobody knows. We people are too little,too small to answer the questions about this huge universe. We can’t evaluate whole universe with the rules which we met in this earth. Earth in the universe is like a piece of sand in the desert. We may have a lot of way to understand the universe. For now we are just trying to find the answers one by one. Everyday inch by inch. This is why science exists.We will learn a lot of things and a lot of thing will be changed in the future. It is too early to accept unchangeable taboos to answer the questions.