Monday, September 17, 2007

Moraly superior?

So, tell me, why is it that believers such as Christians claim to be morally superior to non-christian-non-believers but have a believe system that excludes people for the simple fact that they don't believe?

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Cause and Effect

Today we learned of the horrible news of an airplane crashing in Thailand with more than 85 dead. On the evening news the mother of one of the survivors shared her feelings about when she heard about the news her daughter had survived. She ended by stating that she was grateful to god that her daughter had survived. After that we could hear a telephone interview with her daughter who also alluded to divine intervention when she said: "I was graced by god"

Both mother and daughter were happy with their god for intervening. And that raises some interesting questions

If their god intervened, for whatever reason, did that same god also cause the death of the other people?
If the death of those other people was not caused by their god but by an evil force such as satan why did their god only save a few people?

The fact of the matter of course is that we can't answer these questions for the simple reason that their is no god.

But that does not eliminate the issue at hand. The issue being that people will gladly embrace their god for saving their loved ones but will not scold or denounce that same god for killing others in the same instance.

That bothers me.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Reap-as-they-sow-Managers

I just heard an interview on the radio with Robert Epstein, the author of the book “The case against adolescence”. His basic point in the book is that we keep our teens from becoming adults and treat them too much as big children. It's not an argument for more freedom but an argument for more responsibility.

The author shows that teenagers have more capabilities than most grown ups are willing to admit.

We coddle our teenagers too much and treat them as if not capable of making sound decisions for themselves. We treat them as stupid. And guess what? That's how they start acting.
So, are they acting irresponsible and stupid because they are or because we made them that way?

Based on the findings of Epstein and my own experience in the “grown up” - world I argue the latter. There is a more universal principle at work here: The principle that if you treat someone a specific way that person will start acting that way. Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy by proxy..

In my encounters in the business world, the world of management, the workforce, I've come across a lot of “reap-what-you-sow” situations. Managers, bosses and supervisors complaining about their irresponsible, untrustworthy staff while not noticing that they themselves are more than anything else the cause for this behaviour.

I once had the pleasure of attending a role playing management game with a twist that proofed this point very clearly. It was one of those games where a simple case was presented with different functions/roles to be played by the participants. It was an airplane manufacturer with a sales manager, an hr manager etc. Each of the participants was given a short (not all the same) description of the situation and a description of the role and responsibilities of the person they were to play. So far nothing out of the extraordinary. The twist was that each of us got a cap and on that cap the facilitators attached a sticker with a character description. It was a short one or two letter description of the type of person we were. The catch was that no-one knew the description. The added instruction was that we had to treat the other participants as per the sticker. We were not to tell the others about the description on their caps.

So there was 'a flirt', 'a comic', 'a tyrant', 'an indecisive guy', and a whole bunch other. And do you know what happened? Within the hour everyone was acting more or less as described on their caps. So the crabby gal was really crabby, the dumb guy was acting dumb and the bossy clerk was bossing everyone around.

I know that this not a scientific exercise but it has learned me very clearly that the old saying “As you sow so shall you reap!” is very true. Especially when applied to dealing with people.

If you treat your people like imbecils don't be surprised when they start acting like that.

Ambidexter.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Should I get it or not?

I am contemplating getting an Iliad by Irex Technologies.

A what?










The iLiad is an eBook.
Apart from being a neat tech-toy it actually would be of use.
It could contain all my digital documents, I could use it for note-taking, I could use it to read books without having to carry them around with me and I could use it to read news feeds with.
It's not a pencil though!

Saturday, May 26, 2007

The God Delusion

Believe in god is false because it is believe without evidence.
We should believe things because there is evidence.
The fact that one might argue that it is faith and therefor not factual is not an argument in its favour
What matters is truth.

What is the need for religion, in other words "Qui Bono?"
There has always been a wanting to understand. Before science, superstition and religion emerged as the big explainers.

What baffles me most about religion is that believers accept their believes for true without proof. I guess that's the paradox of religion.

So am I against (a) god(s)?
Before I can answer that question I need to know if there is such thing as a god. No sense in being against rain if rain does no exist.

Is there a god?
Yes and NO.
Yes the god(s) created by man exist(s)
No the god(s) creating man do(es) not exist

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Monday, April 09, 2007

Monday, January 29, 2007