Don't Try to Take Analogies Too Far

Apparently I haven't posted in a while. Sometimes if you yell at me for it I will have more motivation to do so. Anyway, I was riding back to Rochester on Saturday and I thought of this analogy. I thought I'd share it to appease my fan(s).

Life reminds me of an engineering problem. How you solve it depends a good deal on what assumptions you make. We have to start off with some sort of basis of understanding and then our view of the world follows from that. The issue with people and engineering students alike, however, is that they usually don't know why they have to make certain assumptions. They just make them so that the problem becomes solvable or at least easier. I can't tell you how many times I made the continuum assumption before I actually understood what it meant. There has to be a good justification for every assumption made in life.

Let's apply this to the commonly discussed problem of the existence of God. This assumption certainly is at the base of almost every life philosophy people have. The three factions here are the believers, the atheists and the agnostics.

Believers and atheists alike are able to form world views based on whether or not they believe God to exists. Believers obtain meaning from whatever god(s) that they believe in. Atheists say the universe is without purpose so it's up to the individual to find it. It's hard, maybe even impossible, to "solve" life without this assumption. This is my main problem with people who call themselves agnostics. They all, almost without fail, subscribe to the atheistic world view. They simply want to have some sort of insurance on the believers side because they are not certain. But most believers and atheists aren't absolutely certain. There are always doubts. If agnostics look like, walk like, and quack like atheists...

It is important to know the assumptions made by another person. The reason it is often moot to argue with someone is that the two parties are usually operating from different baselines. If you've ever heard a Christan and an atheist debate, then you probably notice that they end up debating two entirely different things as if they were the same. Christians primarily use anecdotal evidence, which really can't be refuted by any sort of logical argument. Atheists can't really disprove God, they can only try to argue that there are ways to view the universe that don't require any sort of higher being. There is NO WAY for these two sides to reach any sort of consensus. If someone is not truly seeking for the truth, no one can convince them that they are wrong (whether or not they actually are).


I had a discussion a few days ago about how people were typically bad at self-reflection. I think one good way to reflect on yourself is to think about what assumptions you make without ever really realizing it. What makes them good/bad assumptions and how do they affect your life?

That last paragraph looks like homework. FUN!