onThought – Archive

Archive for August, 2008

A Toast to My Sister

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

Rachel before wedding

From your early days as Conan the Destroyer to your wild teenage years to the beautiful woman with refined passion you are today, I am so happy to be your big brother. As a child, you proclaimed that you were going to be a famous country singer, but live in the big city. At times, you seemed bigger than me and larger than life.

There is a woman who couldn’t be here today, but at least she has valid reason for not being able to make it. Mom would be smiling ear to ear. She was so proud of her children and she was an amazing mother. I remember someone at church saying, “Mary Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? By loving Jeremiah, Rachel, Joshua, and Jonathan everyday so.” And while she is not here in person, we carry the joy of her presence in our essence and remembrance.

I see it in you more than ever: in your hopes and dreams and love for your family.

I believe that marriage should should have nothing to do with submitting to each other, but be entered so that two people can live a better life together than apart. Jonathan, please take care of my sister and her aspirations. And to the both of you, I wish the very best.

Finding the Day within the Year

Monday, August 11th, 2008

Unlike many other great languages, ActionScript 3 does not have a method for finding a date’s day within a year. For example, February 10, 2008, is the 41st day in the year. Here is my solution:

function getDayOfYear(date:Date):Number {

	var monthLengths:Array = new Array (31, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31);
	// A leap year is divisable by 4, but not by 100 unless divisable by 400. Seriously.

	if (((date.getFullYear() % 4 == 0) && (date.getFullYear() % 100 != 0)) || (date.getFullYear() % 400 == 0)) {

		monthLengths[1] = 29;

		trace ("leap year");

	}
	var dayInYear = 0;
	// get day of year up to month

	for (var i:Number = 0; i < date.getMonth(); i++) {

		dayInYear += monthLengths[i];

	}
	// add day inside month

	dayInYear += date.getDate();
	// Start counting on 0 (optional)

	dayInYear--;
	return dayInYear;

}

trace(getDayOfYear(new Date("03/10/2008")));

And for giggles, here are the starting days for months in a non leap year:

var monthStartDays:Array = new Array(0, 31, 59, 90, 120, 151, 181, 212, 243, 273, 304, 334);

Quick and Memorable Proportional Resizing in Flash

Saturday, August 9th, 2008

When needing to scale loaded assets in ActionScript so that no side is larger than a particular dimension, you can spare manual proportion calculation by using the scaleX and scaleY display object properties.

Manual proportional scaling code looks like this:

myDisplayObject.height = (originalHeight * newWidth) / originalWidth;

myDisplayObject.width = newWidth;

That’s fine and dandy, but I typically need to write out the proportion math out in my head or on paper. Utilizing the scaleX and scaleY display object properties, we can accomplish proportional scaling in more memorable manner. When you change a display object’s width or height, the scaleX and scaleY properties automatically get updated. To keep the display object proportional, set the smaller side’s scale to the scale as the larger side after the larger side’s dimension is set.

var maxSize:Number = 80;

if (myDisplayObject.width > myDisplayObject.height) {	// horizontal asset

	myDisplayObject.width = maxSize;

	myDisplayObject.scaleY = myDisplayObject.scaleX;

} else {	// vertical asset

	myDisplayObject.height = maxSize;

	myDisplayObject.scaleX = myDisplayObject.scaleY;

}

Media Along the Path to Atheism

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

As I was contemplating god and religion, several pieces of art / media accompanied my thoughts. Some of these are religious. Some are atheist. All were influential.

Contact (movie)

The topics of love, loss of a parent, and blunt discussion about the evidence of god’s existence make this one of my favorite movies of all time.

Great line: “If it’s just us, it seems like an awful waste of space.”

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn (fiction)

A fascinating novel that challenges assumptions instilled into children about humanity’s place in the universe. Atheist or not, this is a thought provoking allegory.

Great line: “There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact, in which they are the lords of the world, they will act as the lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now.”

Letting Go of God by Julia Sweeney (stage performance)

Saturday Night Live performer and cancer survivor Julia Sweeney discusses her Catholic upbringing and the life events that led her to believe that the universe can function on its own without a deity to preside over it.

Great line: “Julie, I just ignore the parts I don’t like. Why would go read the Bible, cover to cover, if you weren’t looking for reasons to get upset?”

The God Who Wasn’t There (documentary)

I’ve read the entire Bible, cover to cover, almost twice and I’ve studied large portions of the New Testament. It’s amazing how many christians have not done this, yet defend its contents. Far more useful than debating the Bible against its own contradictions is researching when and how the Bible and the church came together. This documentary explores the assumption christians make about the origins of their religion.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (non-fiction)

Great line: “There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can’t prove that there aren’t any, so shouldn’t we be agnostic with respect to fairies?”

The Purpose Drive Life by Rick Warren (“non-fiction”)

If you suffer from common middle class disconnection from the world and cannot find a worthwhile mission for the privilege you were born into, this book will help you feel less guilty about your ignorance while providing more delusion that god wants you to live self centered for his benefit.

Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller (non-fiction)

Emo kid Don Miller went on a soul search, asked great questions, whined endlessly about his mental hangups, and stopped with “it’s not you, god, it’s me” before providing any great answers.

The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are by Robert Wright and Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species

These two books explain how morality is shaped by evolution. In short, behavior promoting repetition of genetic information is good and that which harms the species is evil.

Nothing Fails by Madonna (song)

Great line: “I’m not religious, but I feel so moved; makes me want to pray.”

God by John Lennon (song)

Great line: “God is a concept by which we measure our pain.”

Elijah by Rich Mullins (song)

Great line: “When I leave I want to go out like Elijah with a whirlwind to fuel my chariot of fire. And when I look back on the stars, well, it’ll be like a candlelight in Central Park and it won’t break my heart to say good bye.”

Irish Son by Brian McFadden (song)

Great line: “This is the city that raised me with the religion they gave me. Now I’m old enough to know my own mind. It was leaving that saved me. I’ve seen so much that has changed me. So just break with your past. Feed your own mind.”

The Republic of Heaven by Philip Pullman

While I have not yet read the His Dark Materials trilogy, I did see The Golden Compass and found The Republic of Heaven arguments by Pullman quite compelling.

“We’re used to the kingdom of heaven; but you can tell from the general thrust of the book that I’m of the devil’s party, like Milton. And I think it’s time we thought about a republic of heaven instead of the kingdom of heaven. The king is dead. That’s to say I believe that the king is dead. I’m an atheist. But we need heaven nonetheless, we need all the things that heaven meant, we need joy, we need a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives, we need a connection with the universe, we need all the things that the kingdom of heaven used to promise us but failed to deliver. And, furthermore, we need it in this world where we do exist– not elsewhere, because there ain’t no elsewhere.”

[. . .]

“We mustn’t have another king. Worshipping the wrong thing is going to lead to trouble, so we have to have a republic, by which I mean that we ourselves in this world here in the physical universe where we know we live have got to make it as much like the traditional idea of heaven as we can. By which I mean it’s a place where we’re connected to other people by love and joy and delight in the universe and the physical world. And we have to use all the qualities we have– our imagination, our intelligence, our scientific understanding, our appreciation of art, our love for each other and so on– we have to work to use those things, to make the world a better place, which it sorely needs making.”

[. . .]

“I thought wasn’t it a good thing that Eve did, isn’t curiosity a valuable quality? Shouldn’t she be praised for risking this? It wasn’t, after all, that she was after money or gold or anything, she was after knowledge. What could possibly be wrong with that? …The physical world is our home, this is where we live, we’re not creatures from somewhere else or in exile. This is our home and we have to make our homes here and understand that we are physical too, we are material creatures, we are born and we will die.”

What is the meaning of life?

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008

My friend John asked to interview me for a paper he’s writing in his high school English class. He had the same questions for a variety of topics and I chose the meaning of life. Here are my answers.

Why is this question important to you?: It’s a question that I’ve thought about for a long time. I lost my mother to cancer when I was 12 and that event made me think about complex questions regarding our existence at a young age. My mom was only 35, which is just 11 years older than I am now, and in some ways, it’s difficult for me to think about living past 35.
Why did you choose this question?: When I was young, I found comfort in religion. The idea that someone or something bigger than me could see and understand the answers to the questions that I could not was comforting. As I grew older, the hope that there was a reason for my mom’s untimely death started to feel intellectually dishonest and delusional. I became an atheist and found comfort in the lack of an answer as the answer. My transition is something that I like to share with others.
Has this topic affected or touched your life?: I believe that when people don’t (falsely) believe they get to exist forever, they are more diligent about their only chance at existence: they don’t fight for stupid reasons, they don’t waste time on pettiness, they try to do something productive with their time instead of wasting away in front of the TV.
What is your opinion on this topic?: The universe does not provide a purpose for you, but that does not mean you have no purpose. You can find a purpose for yourself. The meaning of life is the pursuit of happiness as an individual and making life better for the life that will come after I no longer exist.
If you could, what would you change about it?: Everyone wants to live forever. I think death is so unfortunate. It’s more than the loss of a person. It’s a loss of everything that has gone into making that person: the education, the joy, the tears, all of the experiences that bring understanding. I know how hard I work to be better as a person and I think the world is a better place because I’m here and what I want to accomplish.
Reasons for thoughts on this?: Because I know the universe existed before I was born and I had no consciousness during that period and I know the universe will continue to exist when I resume having no consciousness.
Reasons for other peoples’ thoughts?: People like to think they’re above the natural world. Death is the only thing humans haven’t conquered. I can understand why people are okay with the delusions religion offers. We are narrative creatures. We want to feel there is a beginning and end to our story.
What’s so wrong or right about this?: Thinking about your finitude can be crippling. At the same time, it can be motivating to make today mean something when there is clearly no meaning for existence in the first place.
Why do we need to answer this question?: We all must find a reason to get up in the morning and justify the consumption of resources necessary for our existence.
Can this change a person and how?: Yes. For those that find an honest meaning of life, it causes them to behave in a manner conducive to their own answer of the meaning of life. Those that don’t start holy wars, act like sheep, and behave in a manner that is unsustainable.
Anything I forgot to add that you want to add, go for it, any random comments from you would be great.: I offer two quotes from famous atheist Richard Dawkins in his book Unweaving the Rainbow: “We are fantastically privileged to exist at all, but then we also have the privilege of understanding this beautiful world in which we find ourselves. That should make us all the more eager to soak up as much as we possibly can of understanding our world and our place in it before we die.” And: “Mysteries do not lose their poetry when solved. Quite the contrary: the solution often turns out more beautiful than the puzzle…”