Defense vs offence

Over the past few months and weeks, I have come across many different place where I am being challenged in my faith. People asking me why I believe in God. Is there really a God? It came to a bit of a head a few days ago when I was reading the comments on an atheist blog attacking C.S. Lewis for a single statement he made.

What depressed me when reading that, was not the points brought forward, but rather the way in which the author argued her points. Sure, there is space for discussion on whether or not there is a God, but if you are going to debate, please apply logic. Perhaps my perception of logic is slightly skewed, by being a Computer Scientist, and I like cold hard irrefutable facts, but arguments should be full, and refute all points made.

I have seen lots of bad arguments, both for and against Christianity, but seriously, they don't seem to hold water either way. The only way to prove something is to begin with an irrefutable fact.  Something that everyone agrees is fundamental to life, the universe and everything. A statement of fact that will be accepted by the strongest naturalist, the most unbelieving atheist, and also the strongest, most evangelical Christian.

The argument must then build on this fact. finding possible reasons for it, and developing them until a contradiction is reached, or the are definitely still right. The proof by contradiction, is possibly one of the simplest forms of mathematical proof to understand. It is fundamentally easy to understand when you form a contradiction, so we can take our fact, and list a few possible reasons for it. We can then extrapolate from there until we reach a decision. Either what we are postulating is valid, or we will reach a contradiction, an have to return to our last correct point.

This process can be used all the way upwards until we reach an agreement, and a decision is made. I will not say now, that the decision will be either one way or the other, because then I would have to fully flesh out the argument, and that is a post in its own right. Instead I will say, if you want to argue, at least argue in a logically sound manner.

That is the offence side of the story. If you want to correctly defend your stand point, the laws of logic should still hold. You should still not argue with logical fallacies. And should argue against every point raised. It is no use when debating a point to allow emotions to cloud your judgement. Arguments should be clear and concise, and not attack the character of the person against whom you are arguing.

It is not useful to hurt the person you are arguing with, or to ignore points they put forward. It does not help to slander people in any way, unless you do not actually want your arguments to be taken seriously.

What is Computer Science?

In a rather unhelpful attempt to work out what I really want to do with my life, I decided that since my main interest at the moment is computer science, I would try googling the difference between Computer Science and Computer Programming or Software Engineering. Unfortunately for me, no-one really seems to know what the difference is, and this leads to some rather interesting discussions on forums (such as this one on Advogato) that actually told me nothing that I didn't already know.

In other words, I know that computer programmers write programs (no duh!) but that they have to understand a decent bit of theory to program well. It is also a fact that a self-taught computer programmer is able to learn enough to be one of the top at whatever they do, without a formal university education in programming or computer science. I also know that computer science is a fairly theoretical field much like physics is, but that most people consider it to be all about algorithms.

Now I know that there is far more to computer science than just algorithms, but I still can't work out what it is. My current university degree doesn't seem to help, since I've done the first three computer science courses and so far all I've learned is how to write average Java code and maybe solve problems (although I mostly learned that by entering programming competitions where the problems were harder and there was time pressure). Also I know that there is a lot more to programming that we haven't covered yet(but I did in high school) like documentation, and proper design.

All the posts that I come up with about computer science vs programming seem to be UK based where people have the opposite problem to me, they are being taught real computer science in their computer science degrees, when actually they just want to know how to do some good coding and get a job as a software engineer. I agree that that is what most people want from their computer science degree, and so my degree is teaching what most people expect it to teach them, unfortunately it doesn't seem to teach the difference between computer science and programming.

In my ignorance I feel like I am completely missing the point somehow, however, I really wanted to know the answers to my questions, and I can't find them.

New year's eve

New year's eve, and I'm sitting in front of my computer doing some thinking. Most of the world's population is out and about or has plans to be out this evening. Most of those will become so drunk that they wont even remember midnight tonight. Most of them will wake up tomorrow with a headache, some wont wake up at all. People are out having the biggest party of the year, the biggest party because its world wide. There are a few, like me and my family who will spend the evening at home, probably not even staying up until midnight, the biggest change for us being that the date has changes and new things are starting up again.

What I want to know is; what is the point of celebrating the new year? Why do people make such a big fuss about seeing in the new year? If you told me it was just an excuse to have a ginormous party I would believe you. People are willing to go out and risk their lives and the lives of other innocent people because they're driving drunk home from the last party of the year. I can understand wanting to have a joll, but why must people be so irresponsible about it?

I'm sure that the road death toll increases even more in the early hours of January than it does through December. Even though December has Christmas as its major party, which really is huge, its not everyone. There are many religions which do not believe in Christmas, meaning that the followers of those religions have much less of a Christmas party, and many people who do believe in Christmas are much more conservative than those going out partying.

Although I suppose, if you're not going to go mad on Christmas you're less likely to go all out on New Years. Unfortunately, I know there are people who will tone down Christmas, saying its a time for family, but will go wild on new years with their friends. Which means, that everybody who is willing to party at all, will take things up a notch tonight, and be willing to go wild.

If there are so many people who will go wild, that the cops have to extra careful in certain areas, surely they should apply some reason to what they are doing? It seems to me, that on New Year's eve, the entire world forgets to think rationally, and allows for the biggest consumption of alcohol in one evening, world wide, that I can possibly think of. I don't have the data but it makes sense.

So why do people do it? What's so special about the new year? We aren't more mature, We aren't going to have our pasts wiped away, sure we make resolutions, but honestly, we can do that any time. So why start now?

Happiness

I have found, that when life is going well, I don't stop to consider my actions as often. I am quite happy to just carry on with things as they are. I don't feel the need to change or to instigate change. It is this complacency that catches me out though. I stop having to try, and then when a challenge does come along I don't know what to do with it, I am unused to solving problems in my life and I struggle more than I should.

If I were to inspect my life when things are going easily what would I find? Is life going well because of something that I should make note of for when it is not? Is there something that I am suppressing that should be dealt with now that might cause me pain later? Well perhaps now is the time to have a look.

My life is pretty good at the moment, I have good friends, a loving family and I'm not having any trouble with my studies. I have the opportunity to play hockey twice or three times a week, and I am able to get eight to ten hours of sleep every night. I have slipped into the routine of University life fairly easily after the holidays, and my biggest worry is when/where I am going to eat my lunch.

So what is different now to the times when I feel stupid, unloved, or otherwise depressed? What am I doing that I don't do then? One thing could be that I am getting plenty of sleep, but there are times when I feel on top of my game and I have had too little sleep. There are also times when I've had plenty of sleep, and still felt absolutely awful.

Summer is coming, perhaps its that, I am enjoying the warmer weather and sunshine, but summer is not all "sunshine and daisies" to use the cliche, it has plenty of grey, rainy days. Maybe I am keeping busy, and so have no time to feel depressed, but when I have no time I do get stressed and negative.

So why am I happy? Should I be asking the question like this, or should I just accept the fact that I am happy and appreciate it without trying to take it apart as if it were wrong, and should not be allowed. If I try hard enough, I can think of many things to be depressed and negative about, but if I just do not allow myself that option, I can remain happy for that much longer.