Guitar Woes

Everybody wants to learn how to play the guitar these days. Maybe it's the Dashboard Confessional cord pounding, or the Latin finger picking making people want to play this frustrating instrument. Even I want to play (because of Dashboard)!

A few weeks ago I invested in a book titled, Learning to Play Guitar. The book is actually much better than the title. The exercises are accompanied by music theory, which makes learning boring theory not so bad. I can already play some simple tunes like Oh to Joy, and even some chords. Switching between C and G7 is becoming better and better for me, though that F is difficult.

This is going to be a slow process, but it will pay off when I'm serenading women all through town. The portability of the guitar will allow me to go around town serenading. That is why I chose it over the piano.

Why Does Religion Cause War?

I know, I know. Religion causes war because different religions argue over their validity. Muslims want things to turn out their way, Christians want it theirs, and Buddhists don't care. But this all seems trivial to me. From what I know about religion, these traditions are not the core of religion. they are just part of it. Let me explain.

A few years ago I was reading Freidrich Schleiermacher's On Religion: Speeches to the Cultured Despisers, and I noticed that he drew a line between religion and a religious tradition. Religion is an experience you have when you realize that you did not decide your own existence. Some may argue that their parents decided when they had sex. But who decided the parents' existence? Go all the way down the line to the Big Bang, and ask: who decided the existence of the energy, molecules, etc. that caused the Bang? There is something that has to presuppose the existence of everything. So, religion is when we realize that.

Now a religious tradition is very different. We will call the maker of existence God, for the sake of understanding. What did God get in return for making everything? He got nothing. It seems as though He made everything out of good will. The goal of a religious tradition is to thank God for the totally selfless act of giving us ourselves. Each tradition may choose to thank God in different ways. Why fight over the way to thank God?

Please post comments or disagreements. I would really like to get a better grasp on this.

Ayn Rand as the Ultimate Conservative Libertarian

As a chug though Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, I can see her game. See, there have been thousands of people who read Rand and then grudgingly change their political views. While they read the political treatise, they battled to find the flaw in her argument. No hope for that: Rand does not have a flaw in her argument. She successfully convinces people that greed is the route to absolute virtue. But remember people, Rand is testing her Libertarian views in a society of her own creation!

The inventors, businessmen, artists, etc. are all gifted in their fields in Rand's story. By creating products for society, they expect to be repaid for their achievement. Nothing wrong with that. Where Rand starts to sway is when she attacks socialists, crippled poor, and altruists as "looters". They take money and achievement from the gifted hard working people without earning it. My problem with her is that she does not accurately portray society. Sure, there are poor people who expect handouts, but many are poor because of social factor. A person born into a bad situation cannot be deemed a looter because he or she remains in that situation. Some people want to get out of that lifestyle, they just cant.

And since when are these businessmen, etc. selling products for their proper value? Rand makes it seem like the Businessmen would never take a dollar they did not earn. Here's some news: a guy on wall street made 85 million dollars last year while working 35 hours a week. His product must be amazing to generate that kind of value. We all know there are very poor people who work much harder than people like this. Should they be called looters because they demand that he pay tax on his money? I have no problem taxing someone when they make (not earn) money like that.

To all of you Ayn Rand lovers: look at the real world. Poor people work hard; rich people work hard. We should be taxing those who earn more than than the true value of their product. If a company monopolizes the market, pules political strings, and then capitalizes on their power by overcharging, TAX them. Why did Ayn Rand not include these people in her Magnum Opus? The world would be perfect if people traded value-for-value, but what we have is a society where the rich debilitate the poor and then rip them off in the market.