Born to Shop

Does it ever strike you that, from the first moments of social awareness, we are conditioned by our culture to want to acquire 'things'? Toys, at first. Then better and better toys. Equipment, stereos, cars, boats, houses, kitchen applicances.
Our consumer-driven society pushes us into a frenzy to try to buy as much 'stuff' as humanly possible and cram it into our living space and our lives - then buy MORE living space so we can cram even MORE stuff in.

Gandhi once said, "There is enough in the world for everyone's need but not everyone's greed." And along with the accelerated consumption of goods is the accelerated consumption of the worlds resources that it takes to create them.

"In the US, wood and paper thrown away each year is enough to heat 5 million homes for 200 years." Ruth Leger Sivard, World Military & Social Expenditure (World Priorities Inc, 1991)

I just heard that the cell phone industry expects to sell over a billion cell phones this year. a Billion. Every year. There are only six billion people on the whole planet! And many of them don't need or cannot use cell phones.

Our economy is now set up such that it NEEDS frantic, frenzied rampant consumerism in order to survive. If people don't keep buying cars at the rate of one every 5 years, then the automotive industry starts to disintegrate. There are not enough sales to keep the dealerships in business. Without those sales, the car manufacturers begin shutting down plants. When the plants shut down, the people that work in them lose their jobs, and therefore their income, and therefore THEY stop spending money, and so the businesses and industries that sell to them all begin to suffer and fail. The economy is like an ecosystem and when the money stops flowing, the ecosystem fails and things fall apart.

So yes, goods needs to be manufactured and sold. And people need to consume them so that they will buy more and so the whole chain of production keeps active.
But does it have to be SO pervasive? Does it have to be the solitary focus in most of our lives? From the teenager that MUST have specific brand-names on their clothing, to the middle-aged guy who must have a $25,000 Harley-Davidson motorcycle, or a $70,000 sports car, or a boat, or the woman who MUST have a $500,000 house, and MUST fill it with all the best furniture and it MUST be all the latest 'style' or else it's all suddenly useless and must be immediately replaced.
I only watch TV for perhaps 30 minutes per day because it's on while I'm eating dinner and I can see the screen from the kitchen eating area.
But anyone who watches TV for even 15 minutes can see the blatant advertisements just SCREAMING at you to buy their stuff. Whatever it is they are selling. You need it. You need LOTS of it. And you need it now.

And if you don't have enough money to buy it, you must go into debt to buy it. This beast needs to be FED!!

Does it ever just seem a little too much to you, as it does to me?

I mean don't get me wrong, I have accumulated a decent pile of things myself over the years, but I am NOT a shopper. I am not out there trying to constantly buy new gadgets and toys, or new cars, or a new plasma TV or whatever. If something we need breaks, I replace it.

But looking around me, it seems that most people are corraled into a pen and whipped up into a feeding frenzy to go out and just CONSUME. Consume at all costs. Consume until all the money they have saved is gone. Then consume until all the money they can earn is gone. Then keep consuming until all the money they can borrow is gone.

The TV is the deliverer of the message most of the time. It sends the blatant screaming messages, but also the subtle persuasive messages too. It fires on all fronts. They use every marketing and psychological trick they that dream up to get you to go to a store right NOW and put your credit card down and buy something.

Our society could have been based upon knowledge. Or art. Or literature. Or music. Or sports. Or travel. Or storytelling. Or legends. Or religion even. (many are). Or about war and politics and land acquisition (most civilizations of history were focused on this) Or about education. Or history and tradition. Or dance. Or just about anything. We could have made it all about science. About the search for extraterrestrial life. About the elimination of disease. Or maybe our imaginations could have been caught up in something trivial and unproductive like crossword puzzles, or video games.

But instead, we chose to make it based upon accelerated commercial consumerism. It's not even about money directly. If it were just money itself, then it could be all about finance and investing and options, and the international stock markets, and currency exchanges, and THAT would be what TV was advertising and what all conversations were about, and what people would spend all their spare time doing.

But instead we are driven to buy stuff. More stuff than we need or can use, or can afford, or can even easily store in our living space. Some people even have to rent extra storage space to store the stuff they have but cannot use.

Is it a terrible, cheap shallow thing? Or is it harmless? Is it a good way to spend our time and energy, do you think? Is it constructive?

What do you think about this consumer's life we lead? Do you enjoy it? Is it fulfilling for you? Is there a better way? Is there some other central theme that you think would be better for our society than this?

Different Types of Intelligence

Do you know your IQ?
Traditionally speaking, we all know that the conventional measure of a person's intelligence is their IQ. This stands for "Intelligence Quotient" and it usually reflects the score on a Stanford-Binet test for intelligence.
Supposedly, a person of average intelligence should score approximately 100, while a developmentally-challenged person would score less than that, and a highly intelligent person would be expected to score higher than that. A score of 130 or higher was generally considered a "genius" and so that became the entrance requirement for being invited into Mensa, the high-IQ society originally based in England.
In fact, it has even been laid out as to what types of career and scio-economic status a person is qualified for and can hope to achieve based upon their IQ score.
In the 1981 book, "Straight Talk About Mental Tests", Dr. Arthur Jenson has even created a table to show how far you can expect to go in life with your IQ. The following is an excerpt.

IQ Range Freq. Educability Employment Options
Below 30 >1% illiterate unemployable. Institutionalized
30 to 50 >1%? 1st-3rd Grade Simple, non-critical house chores.
50 to 60 ~1%? 3rd-6th Grade Very simple tasks, close supervision.
60 to 74 3.5%? 6th-8th Grade "Slow, simple, supervised."
74 to 89 20% 8th-12thGrade Assembler, food service, nurse's aide
89 to 100 25% 8th-1-2 years College. Clerk, teller, Walmart
100 to 111 50% 12th-Grade-Coll. Degree Police officer, machinist, sales
111 to 120 15% College to Master's Manager, teacher, accountant
120 to 125 5% College to Non-Tech PhD. Manager, professor, accountant
125 to 132 3% PhD at 3rd-Tier Schools Attorney, editor, executive.
132 to 137 1% No limitations. Eminent professor, editor
137 to 150 0.9% No limitations. Leading math, physics professor
150 to 160 0.1% No limitations Lincoln, Copernicus, Jefferson
160 to 174 0.01% No limitations Descartes, Einstein, Spinoza
174 to 200 .0099% No limitations Shakespeare, Goethe, Newton

However, originally, the IQ test score was never meant to be used this way at all. It was first developed in France in 1904 by Alfred Binet and assisted by Theophile Simon. It was then called the Simon-Binet test, and used only as a means of sorting school children into groups of normal development, and those who needed more help. That was it's original and only purpose. Binet cautioned many times that it was not to be used as a method to measure intelligence ABILITY, and should never be used as “a general device for ranking all pupils according to mental worth.”. In fact, he said that it is not a measure of intelligence, but rather simply a measure of development for children and that was why the age of the child being measured was part of the calculation. For example, if he found that 70% of 8 year olds could pass a certain test, then that would be considered the average intelligence for an 8 year old. Different tests were given for different ages. If an 8 year old could pass the test for a 10 year old, then the score is divided by the chronological age and multiplied by 100 to get the final IQ. 10/8 X 100 = 125. Therefore, logically, a child that performed above average for his age would have an above average score on the IQ test, and vice versa.

Of course the American school system administrators didn't listen to his warnings and caveats, and saw this as a wonderfully easy way to rank the intelligence of children, so it was adopted and modified and translated into English by H.H. Goddard as a way to screen applicants for entry into his school - the Vineland Training School of New Jersey.
He invented some terms that he associated with various rankings on the Simon-Binet IQ scale. Working down from the top, was "Normal", "Moron", "Idiot", and finally, "Imbecile". Now you know where those terms came from.

Goddard was influential in affecting the immigration policies of the US of the time. He lobbied hard against allowing those of lesser mental faculties to be allowed to enter the country. His 'findings' were that most people other than northern Europeans were of inferior intelligence, and he even classified 87% of all Russian immigrants as being at the "moron" level, and so they and thousands of others were deported in 1913 and 1914 as a way to try to keep out inferior people.

However, no one ever seemed to question the fact that the test was given in English and was based upon American cultural references - all of which would be completely foreign to people who did not speak English or who were unfamiliar yet with American culture. It is a perfect example of how unfair these tests were, and are, and how they can so easily be misunderstood and misused.

Then there was another adaptation by Lewis M. Terman of Stanford in 1916 which thereafter became known as the "Stanford-Binet" test and it was this version which became enshrined into our culture over the past century as a way to measure the actual intelligence, that is the mental value, of a person. When you hear the term "IQ Test" today, that typically refers to the co-called "Stanford-Binet Scale".

It has even been touted as once of the crowning scientific achievements of the 20th century.

But as it's original designers warned, it is woefully inadequate to the task. Binet said that you cannot measure mental capacity like measuring a linear surface, because it is not linear. He would no doubt be shocked to learn that a form of it is still being used 100 years later as a means to measure the mental capabilities of ADULTS! To be fair, it has evolved over the years and is now more sophisticated, but still it is limited and abused in it's current application. The 'test' is actually a series of tests that measure the abilities of the person being tested to remember and properly understand and use vocabulary, to remember facts, to calculate arithmetic, to perform pattern recognition tasks, and to execute logical processes. It does cover a number of mental processes, and so it seems to have some use at measuring the easily measurable aspects of a person's ability to function mentally.

But I feel it is incomplete, and that it is an unreliable tool for truly measuring the mental capabilities of a person.

In more recent times, there have been some researchers who have suggested different kinds of intelligences besides that measured by the standard Stanford-Binet IQ tests. Some have suggested physical intelligence, emotional intelligence, and so on. I would say though that some of the so-called 'intelligences' are closer to what I would consider to be skills, rather than intelligences. I think the difference is whether it truly represents a way of thinking and whether it is natural or learned. I would suggest that if it can be learned, then it is more properly named a 'skill'. Using that criteria, many of these so-called intelligences would not qualify.

I propose that there are 7 intelligences. The current Stanford-Binet IQ test represents 3 different intelligences, plus 4 more besides. The 7 intelligences together make up the total mental acuity of each of us and represents the potential effectiveness of our thinking abilities. Also, I believe it is important to recognize that a person may score differently from time to time based on various factors such as how tired they are, how much pressure they are under at the moment, health issues, food that is currently in their system, drugs or chemicals in their system, and also things they have learned since the last test. So it is important to take measurements over a span of different times to get an average reading to find a fair and useful assessment. The 7 intelligences I suggest are the following:
1) Logical Intelligence
2) Pattern Recognition Intelligence
3) Memory Intelligence
4) Language Intelligence
5) Emotional Intelligence
6) Mechanical Intelligence
7) Creative Intelligence

Lets look at each of them in turn.

Logical Intelligence
This form of intelligence is covered under existing IQ tests. It represents the ability of the test taker to solve problems using inductive or deductive reasoning. This intelligence can recognize and eliminate non-sequiturs, and it can solve mathematical problems. This is at the core of analysis, which is useful in everyday life in almost every situation to some degree. This is an extremely important form of
intelligence, but it is sometimes mistaken for the ONLY form of intelligence, which I consider to be rather unfair and short-sighted.

Pattern Recognition Intelligence
This form is also included in the classic IQ tests, and represents the ability of a person to detect patterns and anticipate what will happen next. It is the ability to extrapolate and compare. It becomes very valuable for troubleshooters of any ilk from computer programmers to diesel mechanics to scientists. Any form of trouble shooting involves the ability to recognize and compare patterns of behavior and then make logical deductions based on the observations and analysis.

Memory Intelligence
This is the natural ability to store words, facts, and processes, and then recall them at will. Some people are blessed with a 'photographic memory' which means that their brain can easily memorize every thing they see. When they recall it later, they say it is like looking at a photograph. They can remember an entire book by calling up each page and reading from the image in their mind. I personally have a terrible
natural memory, so this one really fascinates me.

Language Intelligence
Some people have "the gift of gab" as it has been called. They can talk smoothly and entertainingly about anything at all. They find it easy to get along with people because they express themselves well. They make good salespeople, good teachers, good guides, and they make good radio and television hosts. However it is not limited to spoken words. Some people may be too shy to be that gregarious, but they are just born to be a poet. They have a gift for using words to great effect. A natural
ability to bring tears and joy to others through well-chosen words. Often, a person with a high intellect in this are also has the ability to learn other languages easily. Anyone can learn more languages, but it is easier for some than others. It is more than a skill. It is a natural aptitude for language in all forms. It is a way of parsing out the world, and expressing complex ideas and concepts in language terms, and so it properly belongs as an intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence
This is a much-touted form of intelligence in recent years, due in part to a book by the same name. I have read this book and it does seem to be a legitimate form of intelligence. It is essentially described as the ability of a person to recognize their own emotional states and to exercise control over them.
It can be measured in people as young as 4 years old using the "marshmallow test". The child is put in a chair at a table and the adult tells the child that the marshmallow on the table in front of them is theirs if they want it. However, if they can wait until the adult comes back into the room, then they can have all the marshmallows they want. But if they choose to take this marshmallow, then they will not be given any more. Then they are left alone in the room, but they are observed by camera. The more time that goes by, the more tempting the marshmallow in front of the child becomes. They can get a measure of it by seeing how long the child can resist.
This measures the childs ability to control their behavior despite their instincts and urges. Of course, it presupposes that the child likes marshmallows.

A person who has a high emotional intelligence can overcome panic in an emergency, or can overcome tiredness or boredom or fear, and focus all their attention on solving a certain problem at hand. This ability to focus one's attention despite emotional distractions gives this intelligence it's power. A calm, focused person of average logical ability might solve a challenging problem before a highly logical person who is emotional distraught and distracted.

Mechanical Intelligence
Some people simply have a higher ability than others in this category. Some people have an innate ability to see a physical mechanical solution to a problem and then solve it. Often these people are said to be "good with their hands". But it is more than just dexterity or flexibility or strength. It is a way of thinking. It is a physical, mechanical inventiveness. A way to see how things work and fix them in unique inventive ways if they are broken. These people often become inventors.

Creative Intelligence
The creative leap. The intuitive genius. This is the hardest one to understand and measure because who can tell when one creative solution is more creative than another? Some people have a strong natural ability to come up with unique, unorthodox solutions to problems, or unique perspectives.
Obviously, this kind of intelligence is strong in the arts. Creative people often express themselves artistically because it is the most direct way to express the creative urges and thoughts and feelings. Music, poetry, literature, sculpture, painting, photography - all the artistic paths allow ways for the highly creative mind to exercise it's abilities and creative intelligence.
A person who does not have high logical intelligence or strong emotional intelligence, can still find solutions through unorthodox perspectives and pure creative leaps of intuition. I believe that all the intelligences are valuable, but this one may be the most rare and most valuable of all.


So there you have it. In my opinion, the combination of all seven of these intelligences represents more precisely the overall intellectual capabilities of an individual. If one person is lower in one area and higher in another, and another person score the reverse, they might average out to the same overall intellectual ability because often, one form of intelligence compensates for another, as one ability compensates for a lack in another.

What we need now is a reliable way to measure all these intelligences fairly for everyone. Only then will we have a true measure of intelligence that is useful for the purpose we try and stretch the old-fashioned IQ tests to cover.

One thing I'd like to point out is that all of this only assesses the potential intelligence of a person, not necessarily the actual effective intelligence of a person. For any of these intelligences to be effective, they must be applied. Sherlock Holmes was more effective than his 'smarter' brother mycroft, because he actually got out and applied his intelligence, while Mycroft stayed back in his London club and observed at a distance.

Politicians Should Know History

A friend of mine recently mentioned that she graduated magna cum laude. In English, this translates to "with great praise". "Summa Cum Laude" translates to "With Greatest Praise".
Where I went to high school they taught us Latin. This, of course has been very useful over the years because you can figure out a lot of English words by their Latin roots. It's too bad they don't teach that here nowadays. Also, we learned Shakespeare, and that gave us a an understanding of the human condition that spans the centuries. The millenia, even. Some things about people never change. Also, we knew the geography and the history of the world. And in knowing the mistakes of history, we can avoid them in the future. You ignore history at your peril!

If I ask a person what number comes after 1,964,565, and they answer 1,964,566, it's not because they have memorized all the numbers. It's because they understand how the system works - so they can see the pattern and guess the next step. It's the same with history. If you learn enough history, you see the patterns emerge and you begin to recognize them when they form again, so you will know what to expect and how to respond at the appropriate time.

For instance, understanding that the Roman Empire fell because the weaknesses brought on by arrogance and self-indulgence which left them vulnerable to the Visigoths, insurrection, power struggles from within the body politic, and a host of barbarians from without, would help us understand that we should not fall back into complacency, and self-indulgence, and similar feelings of superiority and arrogance. Otherwise.... we become.... weak.... like they did. And then we..... lose..... our ... premium position in the world.... and are overtaken by other countries. Hmmmm

It seems that we have cut out some essential lessons of history here, wouldn't you say?? This should be required reading for all our political leaders. Other civilizations have traveled these roads before. They found the potholes. They wrote it down and called it 'history'. All we have to do is read it, and learn from their lessons, right?

Hey - it's a good thing our current leader is an avid student of world history to understand what mistakes of the past to avoid.
For instance, I'm sure President Bush would have read Sun Tzu's "The Art of War". After all, it's a classic! That's why he knows not to try to fight a war too far from home, where his support and supply lines are stretched too thin and too vulnerable. And where it costs too much to support a lengthy campaign because it drains the resources from his homeland, and makes his homeland vulnerable to attack from other directions. It costs far more to wage a war in a far distant land.
And he knows enough NOT to force an enemy to the point where they are desperate, so they will fight to the death, which makes it near impossible to win a war against them.
And I'm sure, because he understands military strategy and world politics so well, he would never go to war with a sovereign nation that had not attacked his country first, without first testing the international consensus on the issue. Surely he would never make us the global renegade that starts wars with insufficient provocation, and little support from other nations.

And I'm sure he understands the difference between trying to wage a war with a country vs trying to wage war on an "IDEA" or a tactic. An idea or tactic like "terrorism". You can send troops to a country. You can bomb a country. You can cutoff the supply lines to a country until they give up. A country can surrender. But you can't bomb a concept. You cannot shoot an idea. In a grass roots movement of concepts and ideas, there is a flow of opinion across the world - but there is no one to "surrender". So who exactly would you fight? And how would you know when it's over? How would you know when to send the troops home? When the bad idea is gone and everybody loves you now?

And it's also a good thing he is also a student of Shakespeare to understand the dynamics of human interaction, so he could predict the repercussions if he were to say, insult the religion and culture of another large group of people. Especially a group absolutely committed to their religion and culture. And I'm sure his studies of human nature through Shakespeare taught him to know the effects of interfering in the affairs of other people and telling them what to do, and plotting a regime change in someone else's country. Or of dignifying criminal activity as an ideological difference, thus allowing the criminals to coalesce under a flag of ideology and attempt to legitimize their cause on the world stage and draw support from the enemies of their enemy(us). So he knows enough not to do that. Also, reading Shakespeare would teach him the difference between strength and mere stubbornness. The difference between true leadership and merely leveraging advantage over others to grab power.


I'm SURE he must know all this. Because he went to Yale. And Yale is an excellent school! One of the very best America has to offer. I'm sure they teach all their best students all these important lessons. And surely the president was one of the very best students at Yale, correct? After all, he was asked to join the powerful Skull & Bones secret society, as his father did, and other powerful people before him for the past 170 years, So he must have been one of the very best students.

And that's why we voted for him, right? Of course! Because he is smart enough to know all these things. Because he went to one of the best schools in the land.

I mean... we wouldn't vote for somebody to be the leader of our country who DIDN'T know these basic lessons of leadership, would we? A good education is very important. And it is important to have a leader that has one.

You know what? I started out this train of thought just feeling a little sarcastic, but now I think I've actually scared myself.

In the illustrious words of Romulus Augustus, the last Emperor of Rome when he saw the end approaching...... "oh crap."

Healthcare is Sick

I think the American healthcare system needs a doctor.
I read last year that of all the developed countries in the world, only two leave the population to find their own way to provide healthcare for themselves. Those two countries are South Africa, and the United States. All others have some sort of government-provided healthcare for their taxpayers.

But here it is VERY expensive - and it keeps getting moreso. Today I have to renew my options on healthcare, dental insurance and they've gone and doubled my healthcare costs again.
Like many people employed by a company, my employer pays for some of the cost of healthcare insurance.
As it is, I pay 50% of of the premiums for myself, and 75% or the premiums for my family. Which translates to about $700 per month.
However, that doesn't actually cover the costs of healthcare completely and the parts it doesn't cover just doubled. for this year, in addition to the premiums, I must now pay $500 deductible per person, plus 20% of all the covered items, plus 100% of the uncovered items, plus up to $50 for visit co-pay BESIDES the 20% and the deductibles...... And the dental coverage has a $1500 limit, so any special procedures, even if they are covered, are not covered for more than that.

My co-worker has TWO insurances so that one will cover what the other doesn't, and now they just both refuse to pay anything because they both say let the other insurance cover it.
Last year, I paid over $8,000 in health insurance premiums and STILL had to pay over $8,000 in copays, and fees, and deductibles, etc. BESIDES that. So it cost me over $16,000 for healthcare costs last year. And we were not especially ill - that's just what it cost. We had a knee procedure and I had my gall bladder out.
I have known some people who have lost their entire lifetime-savings to pay for medical expenses from a single year of being sick, (in some cases millions of dollars), and I read some months ago that literally more than half the bankruptcies in this country (over 2 million per year) are because of people being unable to afford medical costs beyond what their insurance would cover.

I have also read that most people now going through medical school are NOT going through to become doctors, but are then following up with a second degree in Law so they can become medical lawyers. They say there is more money in medical litigation than there is in actually practicing medicine.

Yeah. I think we're broken on this healthcare system thing.

Anybody else as frustrated as I am on healthcare?
Anybody have a better way to do this?

I'll tell you one thing that could help: Change the law so that lawyers are NOT allowed to be paid as a percentage of the lawsuit awards, and instead are paid by the hour ONLY.
Suddenly I think a whole lot of spurious lawsuits would disappear, and the large amounts of claims and settlements would collapse down to just compensation for loss, and that would reduce the overall risk of practicing medicine, and therefore the insurance claims, and therefore the premiums for malpractice insurance, and therefore reduce the fees doctors have to charge and the unnecessary tests and unnecessary procedures, and therefore the costs of health care.
To me, it's a long cause-and-effect chain that starts with lawyers bumping up ridiculous lawsuits to ridiculous levels so they can bring in very high revenue to the law firms. And it's not just the lawyer's fault. Why is it that in this country, people have come to treat a lawsuit like it's a winning lottery ticket? It's not about compensation for loss anymore - now, every lawsuit is like a chance to get enough money to retire on.
I can just imagine some person running out into traffic hoping somebody runs them down. They might be set for life!.... if they live through it, that is.

3 Years ago, a family in Houston found they had some black mold in their house and their lawyers built up a case that awarded 30 million dollars in the lawsuit against insurance companies. And there isn't even any conclusive proof that the mold is medically harmful. It's been with us since the beginning of time. But because of that settlement, all but 5 home insurance companies left the state of Texas because it was too risky, and then the remaining 5 shot their premiums through the roof for everybody. My own insurance on the house I had then went from $1,800/year to over $7,600/year for the same coverage.

Anybody have a better way?
Anybody have some experiences or advice to relay?

Does God Exist?

Do I think that there was a creator of the universe? Yes, probably. Does that automatically mean that the creator of the universe gets involved in the everyday lives of individual people? No, I sincerely doubt it. If that is your definition of "God" then I have to say that I don't believe THAT kind of God exists.

Let's look at the facts as we know them:

We have traced back the origin of the universe to a big bang that occurred approximately 13 billion years ago. But what existed BEFORE the big bang? Physics is stumped. Physics suggests that time started at that moment and so there WAS no "before" for anything to exist "in". This does not throw me however, since "time" is a relative construct that is a rather abstract creation of ours anyway. But then where did the original matter come from that exploded into the current universe? Science doesn't know. More importantly - WHY did it explode into creation? Again, unknown by all the evidence and logical analysis that our current science can provide.
Also, from Stephen Hawking's calculations, we know that, as it was being created in the explosion, the rate of expansion was the EXACT right speed to create a universe. If it were slightly slower, it would have collapsed back in on itself and we would again have the singularity. If it exploded just slightly faster, then all the sub-atomic particles would have escaped the gravitational and nuclear attraction of each other, and we would again, not have "matter" as we do today. We would have a very fine "mist" of sub-atomic material shooting out across a void. No physical matter. No rocks, planets, stars, or people to wonder about where they came from.

All of these things tend to suggest the hand of an intelligent creator.

If you look at how the moon came to be where it is against absolutely incredible/impossible odds, then that strengthens the argument in favor of an intelligent creator with the power to move and influnce large amounts of matter in space. (this is another whole story I'd love to tell you sometime)

To me, the concept of 'faith' where you just simply believe in a set of stories and explanations because some religious organization tells you to, is, at best, illogical. At worst, it's a very dangerous cult-like behavior, and it leads to violence and intolerance of people that adhere to competing belief systems.

However, a belief system that is based upon one's own observations, analysis, and deductive or inductive reasoning, is perfectly fine. So, in my own case, the combination of observations and analyses that I have described above are what lead ME to believe in a creator for the universe. I welcome you to either agree with my analysis and conclusions, or I urge you to come to your own conclusions through your own means.

Now, as to a belief in a "God" being that gets involved in the everyday minutae of the lives of every person on Earth, and every animal, and tree and flower, and the course of every stream, and all the bacteria and higher lifeforms on every one of billions of planets in the universe - no. I don't see it.
Not merely because the sheer volume makes it impractical, but also because the various elements work against each other. To favor one, disfavors the other. In World War II, Germany was also a Christian country and felt that God was on their side and they prayed to God to help them win the war. So did we. So did France. So did England, and Canada. And Australia, etc. Same religious background. Same hopes and desires and prayers.
How could any God intervene on behalf of his believers without damaging his other believers. The needs of mankind in a diverse world like ours are almost ALL the time at cross purposes.

However - weird stuff DOES happen from time to time.
Look at that woman who a few weeks ago won a million dollars in the lottery - twice. Twice!! Does that mean that God intervened on her behalf? (thereby denying a few million OTHER people) I doubt it.
But the odds of winning once are 14 million to one. The odds of the same person winning twice are astronomical.

That actually tells me something. It does not tell me that there is a God who manipulates the lottery at will. But it does indicate to me that there is something going on beneath the surface of the universe. Remarkable coincidence like that is the visible hallmark of unknown, unseen things happening just outside our ability to detect and understand them. We do not know everything. This much is clear.

That is why a truly open mind is a wonderfully useful thing.

I should clarify something.
The oversimplified gist of the above is that God exists but he doesn't particularly care about all the moment to moment, day to day things that affect each of us. That's a rough way to put it, but essentially correct, I think.

However, a LOT of people believe in God because they grew up thinking that God is there to look after them personally. An omnipotent and omnicient personal guardian to help us when we need help, and to support us, and keep evil and misfortune at bay. And we are taught he does this because we are good and deserve it. If only we'll do as our minister/priest/Rabbi tells us to do, then God will see the gold star beside our name and will take care of us all our days and welcome us into permanent heaven in the afterlife when we die.

Well, I have noted before that we tend to believe anything that someone tells us when we are 6 years old. It becomes the unshakable foundation of our world view later and cannot be changed.
So those folks who have believed that since childhood, are not likely to give that up now. To imagine that they are abandoned to wild outrageous fortune is just unthinkable! And besides, what would happen to society if everyone thought there were no afterlife consequences to their actions in this life. Fear can be a useful guiding principle in keeping otherwise self-serving sociopaths on the straight and narrow.

So this belief system does have a useful purpose to society.

Yet look at the Muslim people who seek to unravel and destroy our society. Their strong belief is that God is on their side and that we are fundamentally inherently evil. Yet we seem to think that WE are the ones who are good, and if they are plotting to terrorize us then it must be THEY who are fundamentally evil. They think America is Satan's home on Earth and to destroy us is a stroke in favor of God's kingdom.

If God were to grant the wishes of some of his believers at the expense of the others, then he is not "God" anymore, is he? Because if he damages his devout followers regardless of whether they deserved that treatment, they could not actually 'earn' their respite. He has then become merely a concentration of capricious power acting unpredictably.
So, if God acts in any way to advance the position of some people over others, then he loses his status as divine arbiter of souls and judge of good and evil. Therefore, a divine super-being could NOT act in that capacity. It is a logical prerequisite.

Does this mean that we are abandoned to wild chance, and nothing we do matters or counts, and there is no reward for good behavior or punishment for bad behavior?

No. Not really.

Those who are sensitive to such things will see patterns in the chaos. They detect a plan underlying our existence. Many people extrapolate that to indicate God's hand in our lives. But I think it is something else.

If you study reincarnation you will read about the concept that we all get a chance to design our lives ahead of time just before we are born. There is a plan for us, but the architect of the plan for each of us - is ourself.

There are many people who have been regressed back into previous lives and into the bardo state between lives and this is what they discovered.

I have no proof for this except to say that this belief system suits me well. It fits all the observable facts and their logical implications. It works.

I would like to exercise another corner of the thinking I was showing above.

I implied that blind faith does not serve us well, and it could be argued that belief in God based on the Big Bang theory is just as faulty. Science has it's pet theories and it's blind adherents to those theories are somewhat akin to the religious people who adhere blindly to the doctrine of their theology. So I want to expand just slightly on my reasoning there to show that I have allowed for that theory to be wrong.

I said that I believed in a creator because it was the most logical explanation as to why the universe exploded into being in the Big Bang that started it all. Something had to cause it to happen, and physical science is at a loss to explain how or why.

But what if there was no Big Bang? After all, the reason scientists think there was a big bang is really because of a phenomenon called 'red-shift', which is simply a shift of the EM elemental signature toward the red end of the spectrum when examining the light coming from other galaxies. This is said to be caused by the fact that they are moving away from us at close to the speed of light.

It was deduced that since ALL galaxies seem to be moving away from each other, like dots on the surface of an expanding balloon, they must have started somewhere, this is the center of the metaphorical balloon. Based upon measurements assuming this underlying theory, it turned out that they did start in the same spot at the same time. That location is 15 billion lights years from here, and the time was 13 billion years ago. (The discrepancy is due to an acceleration in the expansion of the universe that started about 3 billion years ago, but that's another tangential topic for discussion).

So, if they all started at the same time in the same spot and are now shooting out from that spot still at tremendous speed, then that is an explosion of sorts, and hence the title "Big Bang".

But what if they are wrong? What if the red shift is caused by some radiation belt at the edge of our galaxy that distorts the EM signatures of light that passes through to our telescopes? Or what if there is some other atmospheric or gravitational cause for this effect? Then that might destroy the whole Big Bang theory which is now a central theme for much of cosmology as it exists today (for any physicists reading this: I am deliberately oversimplifying this to make a point. Hang with me here...)

If the Big Bang theory were found to be false, then the alternate implication is that the galaxies were NOT created in an explosion of matter from a central mathematical singularity, but rather ALWAYS existed in their current form and positions. This used to be called the "Steady State Theory" when I was first learning about this as a kid in school.

Well, even if the SST is true, then that also suggests that there was a creator, doesn't it? Science says that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, so that leaves out some 'natural' physical science explanation of how all this matter just bubbled into existance out of nothingness. And so we are again left with a divine being of supreme intelligence and massive power to create the universe as we see it today.

Let's take a third alternative. What if all we see is mere illusion? When you dream in your bed at night, you might dream of stars in the night sky. Does that mean that those stars were dreamed thousands of years ago in order for their light to reach your 'eyes' now? Of course not. You simply dreamed them into existance now just as they appear.
What if our stars in the night sky are no more than that? What if they and everything else we see are simply dreamed into existance right now for us to see and live and experience. Our scientific conclusions based on the lights we see at night seem silly and ridiculous now in this context. They are logical and reasonable but based upon faulty source information - because it's all just a dream created for us to live in and experience things.

Well, if THAT is the true nature of the world and universe around us, and if science is completely wrong on the subject of our beginnings, then still SOMEONE has to be creating this dream, correct? That creator is, by definition, God.

And so I say, whether the universe was created as it is now - billions of years ago, or whether it was created in a Big Bang explosion, or whether it is merely all a dream created to appear this way, in any of these cases, we arrive at a logical conclusion of a God to create it. There simply seems to be no other more reasonable explanation.

And so I believe in God. A creator for the universe.

But that does not mean I think he is interested in fixing the lottery for me to win this weekend. But I may buy a ticket anyway. Because you just never know...