I’ve Moved!
November 20, 2008
So I’m sure that most people have noticed that the site has been offline for a few days. There’s a reason for that, which I will get to shortly. But first, let me just say this:
In fact, I am blogging at a new site I have just finished setting up: kennethhynek.net. A full explanation for the reasons behind the move can be found here
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That said, this is not the end of Time Immortal. My wife Grace has expressed interest in taking over blogging at this domain, and I am working to make sure that she gets set up here as soon as possible.
Also, my profound apologies for the modification to the site face; the move was not as seamless as I would have hoped, and many of the image files for this theme, and in the gallery, were corrupted during the course of their evacuation from my previous web host’s servers. Until such time as I have repaired them, I’ve put a clean-looking template in place of the previous one.
Update: for the purposes of further traffic shaping, new posts from kennethhynek.net will be excerpted below. Full articles can be read at the new blog.
A Letter to a Fool
January 22, 2005
So yesterday, I was reading through the student newspaper at my University, "The Gateway". I don’t know why I read it, really…the writing is sometimes decent, but often inane and vulgar. I don’t agree with almost everything that is put into print, and the comics mostly suck, with the occasional pair of exceptions.
If you want to learn more about the paper, you can visit their website. I’ve said enough, and would like to discontinue my recollection of it.
Anyhow, while reading said paper yesterday, I came accross an article by one of their editorialists, Tim Peppin. I don’t know much about him, but he seems to have a major grudge against Religion, spirituality, and…well…all the really good stuff in life, with the possible exception of marijuanaand women who don’t care about their virginity. Okay, so he’s not atypical of many people in this regard…that’s fine. But his latest article wasn’t about that sort of stuff, but rather about how science is essentially the arbiter of truth - nothing is true if it cannot be scientifically quantified and proven, and those who claim otherwise are ignorant and bitter that their ‘faulty’ experiences of the metaphysical realm are not matters of scientific fact.
Well…okay, if that’s what floats his boat. You can read the article here, if you like. I won’t re-print it, mostly because I don’t want to taint my website with it (and there is also the matter of copyright infringement). The Gateway’s website is implemented in PHP, so that link should be valid tomorrow as well as months from now.
Anyhow, I just thought I’d share my response to this article, which I emailed today to The Gateway. I believe that, with the occasional rare exception, people can print whatever slanderous, offensive sort of crap it catches their fancy to write.
I just reserve the right to respond and call them on it when they do.
Once again, Tim Peppin (January 20, "Only science can give us the real truth") has proven that he needs to think through what he’s going to write before he puts fingers to keyboard.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps he meant to say exactly what he said. Perhaps we should all follow his example too. You know what? Let’s all call our signifigant others and tell them that all that "love" stuff we said earlier was all crap, and that we’re just in it for the sex.
Because that’s the logical conclusion of Peppin’s latest article. If only science can reveal the truth, then we are certainly living in a world devoid of love, because there is no scientific evidence that love exists. It can’t be measured in quantity, nor does it have physical substance. It could be argued that it is observed (and thus scientifically quantifiable) through its experience, but the same claim could be made about God, or any other metaphysical event. It is equally possible that what we call love is just a clever falsehood woven by our brains in an effort to further the cause of procreation, that our perception of love is just our way of rationalizing "faulty experience".
Or perhaps, science is not the final arbiter of truth. Perhaps scientific truth is but a subset of all truth. Perhaps there are truths that science cannot tell, cannot reveal. And, indeed, there are - love is one such truth. Families, friendships, and romantic relationships all depend on this truth, a truth which science cannot prove. And if there is one truth science cannot reveal, is it really as absurd as Tim Peppin suggests to claim that there are others?
It can be otherwise, Mr. Peppin.
