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(Thanks to New Yorker Cartoons)
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Religious People Fundamentalists Have a Blessed Day The Trouble With Tradition Religion: Humanity's Most Common Developmental Disorder War on Religion Who Needs The Devil? Why Religion Is Destructive Why Religion Makes No Sense There is Evil in the world; its name is Religion PIBCOM Questions for the Clergy Stronger Words for Religious Fools Abortion Anti-Choice for Men Charities The "Sanctity" of Marriage Same-Sex Marriage Gays Muslim Americans "Secret Muslims" Muslim Shmuslim Rising Above Human Nature Treating Your Brain Damage After Religion - What? PBS God in America Free Bookmark |
THE TORAH/BIBLE/QURAN SAY: |
PIBCOMs |
RELIGION IS HUMANITY'S |
Incessant |
IF YOU THINK |
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RELIGION CAUSES |
RELIGION |
RELIGION IS |
THERE IS NO |
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THERE IS NO "DIVINE AUTHORITY". |
ANYONE CAN BE |
NO MATTER HOW STRONG |
VOTE ON THIS GUY! → |
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The key issue with beliefs arises when one seeks to impose them on others. |
The Difference between logic and reason: |
IT IS UNREASONABLE TO THINK THAT THE CULTURE YOU HAPPEN TO HAVE BEEN BORN INTO IS BY DEFAULT SOMEHOW SUPERIOR TO OTHER CULTURES. |
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THE FUNDAMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY |
NEVER ASK FOR ANSWERS. |
IF YOU THINK YOUR OPINION ABOUT A BELIEF IS INFALLIBLE, THAT IS THE SAME AS SAYING YOU ARE INFALLIBLE. |
IF YOU ARE NOT OK WITH OTHERS MAKING THE MENTAL TRANSLATION OF GOD, JESUS, HEAVEN, ETC. TO ABSTRACT REPRESENTATIONS OF THE GREATER GOOD |
IF YOU CANNOT ACCEPT THE IDEA THAT ANY OF YOUR MOST DEEPLY HELD BELIEFS COULD BE WRONG, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO OFFER IN ANY INTELLIGENT DISCUSSION! |
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PUTTING FAITH AHEAD OF REASON |
RELIGION |
COWERING FROM THE HARD WORK AND BRAVERY |
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ANYONE WHO TRIES TO DO THE RIGHT THING ALREADY HAS ALL THE RELIGION THEY NEED! |
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GOVERNMENT HAS NO BUSINESS DECIDING WHO "QUALIFIES" FOR "RELIGIOUS" EXEMPTIONS. |
LEGISLATION BASED ON HOW YOU THINK PEOPLE SHOULD BEHAVE INSTEAD OF HOW YOU DAMNED WELL KNOW THEY WILL |
NO TOLERANCE FOR LEGISLATION THAT IGNORES THE REALITIES OF SCIENCE AND HUMAN NATURE! |
PREACHING THAT |
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EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER THE LAW FOR EVERYONE! |
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NOTHING INSIDE A WOMAN'S BODY |
A woman confers personhood on her fertilized egg |
YOU ARE REALLY TALKING ABOUT ENSOULMENT |
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THE PURPOSE OF LIFE IS |
SOMETHING CAUSED THE UNIVERSE TO COME INTO EXISTENCE, BUT THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF |
SANITY REQUIRES INDULGENCE IN THE COMFORT OF THE IDEA THAT THERE IS SOMETHING ETERNAL ABOUT THE ONES YOU LOVE, BUT COUNTING ON IT IS HOW THE PARASITES GET YOU TO SEND YOUR CHILDREN OFF TO WAR TO KILL AND BE KILLED BY OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN. |
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IMPOSITION OF RELIGION MUST BE RECOGNIZED WORLDWIDE AS AN IMMORAL ACT. | |||||||||||
Religion is defined for the purposes herein as unquestioning belief in a set of ideas regarding the supernatural.
Most people, especially religious people, are good people who try to do the right thing and have an appreciation for the greater good. Many religious people are highly intelligent, hard-working, salt-of-the-earth types, great role models. Quite a few have accomplished extraordinary things benefitting a great number of people. They are fascinating to talk to about practically any subject.
Unfortunately, from this lofty level of enlightenment, religion only takes people downhill. For instance, the Pope is probably a good, intelligent person. He proclaimed that "the West relies too much on reason and not enough on faith". This is a demonstration of the power of religion: it turns good, intelligent people into blithering idiots. Putting faith ahead of reason is, by definition, unreasonable. By definition.
But, when the discussion turns to religion, it's as if a cloud descends, open minds close, baseless convictions become unquestionable, and reason itself loses its ability to convince. Any idea, no matter how rational, that could possibly threaten the comfort and ego-building provided by religion becomes offensive. Friendships can be nipped in the bud or take a turn from which there is no return.
Personally, I believe that anyone who tries to do the right thing already has all the religion they need.
If you can, ...
Imagine No Religion
Without religion, we are on our own,
living on a speck of dust in a vast, cold, dark, lifeless corner of the universe,
cut off from any other life by sheer distance, time, and lack of technology.
We need not fear the fact that we are on our own.
Inspiration flows from the knowledge that all we have is each other, and our natural sense of a greater good.
Our sense of fulfillment comes from working to create a better life for all around us and all who will come after.
We have an entire universe to fill with life, and wondrous opportunities to enhance the experience of life for all life.
We can break the cycles of tradition that prevent us from coming together and making a better life for all.
Tradition is a two-edged sword: On one hand, tradition maintains non-intuitive wisdom that often has been gained at tremendous cost. On the other hand, tradition is the primary tool abused by the powerful to stay in power, regardless of whether they have the necessary character or wisdom to act in the best interests of their people.
Social traditions survive based on how well they contribute to sociopolitical stability and the perpetuation of ancestral gene pools. Social traditions have little or no relation to truth or enlightenment, and by definition create division among the world's population by the very process of creating cohesion within a small group.
In societies where religious leaders are presumed to be persons of character and wisdom, the natural resistance of the religious hierarchy to change leads to stagnation of human progress, and oppression of those with the intelligence and will to rise above the most insipid tenets of the religion and other traditions into which they happened to have been born.
Every individual must be allowed to independently develop their own beliefs, and be held responsible for their own behavior. Political and social institutions which deny freedom of non-violent behavior must be eliminated.
Existing political and social structures are now sustained by the need to compete for physical resources. Once humanity has finally risen above the muck of our traditions, we will embrace science as our true calling and eventually develop the technology to transmute matter, making such structures and traditions completely anachronistic.
Most people, especially religious people, are good people who try to do the right thing and have an appreciation for the greater good. Most are hard-working, salt-of-the-earth types, great role models. Quite a few have accomplished extraordinary things benefitting a great number of people and are fascinating to talk to about practically any subject.
But, when the discussion turns to religion, it's as if a cloud descends, open minds close, baseless convictions become unquestionable, and reason itself loses its ability to convince. Any idea, no matter how rational, that could possibly threaten the comfort and ego-building provided by religion becomes offensive. Friendships can be nipped in the bud or take a turn from which there is no return.
My grandfather was an ordained minister, and my uncle was a chaplain. Somehow both my parents became independent and critical thinkers.
Personally, I believe that anyone who tries to do the right thing already has all the religion they need.
When people allow themselves the power of critical thinking, cultural traditions such as religion are seen to be comprised of centuries of tiny sprinklings of wisdom into a sea of ignorance and social politics intent on maintaining the privileges of those in power. The hypocrisy and hysterical defensiveness of "believers" demonstrate that their beliefs are baseless, and that they are addicted to false comfort.
Separation of church and state is not a war against religion. Religion is a war on reason. Putting faith ahead of reason is, by definition, unreasonable. By definition.
The idea that the Constitution provides exemption from the law to religious organizations is a fallacy that has been used as an excuse to provide favoritism in exchange for votes. The Constitution prohibits the government from establishing a state religion. This is a protection for the people against religious domination. The reference to religious freedom does not provide religious organizations with any exemption from the law. A "religion" may "require" anything from human sacrifice to ritual brainwashing chants, but nothing is exempt from the law. Legislation and ordinances that misapply this provision to provide exemptions and favoritism need to be repealed. Separation of church and state requires that there be no mention of religion in any legislation or ordinance. No "faith-based initiatives". No exemptions from taxes, ADA requirements, or any other laws of the land. The government has no business deciding which people and which organizations "qualify" for a "religious" exemption. Responsibility to abide by all laws applies to all employers, property owners, and employees without distinction as to their ostensible religious affiliations.
Any religion that cannot convince its adherents to forgo benefits legally available to them is weak at best, nearly as weak as those that cannot perpetuate themselves without the use of fear and force. Religion and cultural traditions are things to rise above, not wallow in and cower behind.
The fastest growing "religion" in America is "no religion". There is no reason we should be supporting religious wars on human rights by providing churches, synagogues, and mosques with free tax-based national services or local services such as fire and police protection.
Religious charities should be held to higher standards.
Extorting acquiescence to fringe dogma as a condition of employment should not be defensible under the law.
"God" is a pretend parent substitute for people who are supposed to be grownups. Anyone can be "good without God".
No one has ever been "divinely inspired". No person or book speaks with divine authority. There is no divine authority.
All we have is each other, the beauty of the greater good, and the natural calling to do the right thing.
Good men through the ages, tryin' to find the sun.
And I wonder, still I wonder, Who'll stop the rain?
Who Needs the Devil?
If I were evil incarnate, I would thoroughly enjoy the status quo, where nearly every person on earth is programmed by their parents to believe that the religion that they happened to have been born into is in someway more enlightened than other religions, and that even their particular sect of their religion is in someway more enlightened than other sects. The result is that nearly everyone on earth thinks that nearly everyone else is practicing the wrong religion, and that everyone else is doomed to never enjoy the eternal reward that they expect for themselves.
I believe it was Peter Drucker who suggested that after thoroughly analyzing a hypothesis, it is prudent to then apply the "dumb test"; that is, does the conclusion standing alone make sense? The idea that nearly everyone else is practicing the wrong religion does not pass the dumb test, but it remains the main reason for people to kill each other in large numbers.
If I were evil incarnate, I would seek out the poor societies plagued with the starvation, disease, and hopelessness caused by overpopulation, and teach them that family planning is a sin. Who needs the Devil when you have Zealots?
If I were evil incarnate, I would seek out societies whose children have been failed by their parents, friends, schools, communities, and churches; children who have been lead to perceive the future as being without hope, and who turn to drugs for solace. I would sentence these children to death from AIDS by fostering legislation that outlaws clean needle exchanges for addicts, on the pretense that anyone so "immoral" as to fall into the trap of drug use, deserves whatever happens to them. Who needs the Devil when you have Republicans who pander for zealot votes with legislation based on how their ignorant, misguided core thinks people should behave, instead of how they damned well know they will behave?
If I were evil incarnate, I would teach hate. Who needs the Devil when you have the weapons industry, the Saudi royal family, the ayatollahs and mullahs, the Ku Klux Klan, and "fundamentalists" of every stripe?
If I were evil incarnate, I would keep the masses just healthy and wealthy enough to serve my own interests, exploit them as much as possible, and discard them when they are of no further use. I would suppress any innovations that might threaten my power or limit my ability to squeeze the last bit of profit out of a business even where the business is detrimental to the environment or other aspects of quality of life. I would support "free trade" globalization agreements that force industrialized workers to directly compete with societies having abysmal standards of living and human rights and environmental policies. Who needs the Devil when you have the powerful: the old, rich families, the religious "leaders", the politicians, and the soulless corporations?
Perpetuation of Really Bad Ideas
It is our failure to objectively, critically, and continually reexamine our cultural biases that lead to the perpetuation of the worst traditions, particularly in primitive, religion-based cultures. A few tests may be applied to any philosophy under consideration to identify the intellectually weakest and most primitive - political cults posing as religions - such as those where the proponents ...
Stigmas
We have the wrong stigmas. There should be a social stigma against people who ask for answers, instead of asking for ideas and taking responsibility for their own answers, as well as for those who:
settle for emotional convictions over rational conclusions.
put faith ahead of reason, because, obviously, putting faith ahead of reason is, by definition, unreasonable. By definition.
think that anything inside a woman's body is anyone's business but her own.
promote the insane idea of a divine reward for violence.
Hopefully the time is at hand when we stop paying attention to people who think the Flintstones was a documentary, base their death-oriented world view on superstition and centuries of ignorance masquerading as wisdom, and take spiritual advice from the likes of Jim Kool-Aid Jones, David Koresh, and all of the TV evangelist hucksters. And don't forget, Falwell talking to Newt from beyond the grave.
I admire a few charities, but in addition to the obvious corruption issues that dog many if not most of them, I also hate the very need for charities.
No sick or injured child, veteran, or anyone else should have to rely on a charity. The very existence of a charity is proof than the damned Republicans are not spending my taxes ethically; they give my money to the evil Rich parasites that run the world, instead of to those who deserve my help.
Religious charities in particular often do more harm than good in the long run. Cultural traditions such as religion are comprised of a tiny sprinkling of actual wisdom mixed into an ocean of ignorance masquerading as wisdom, handed down as humanity's most common addiction from sheep-minded parents to their sheep-minded children, usurping the fundamental responsibility of every thinking being to think for oneself.
Don't give a penny to any charity that does not hand out free contraceptives and unbiased family-planning education along with their other services; it is an act of pure evil to teach that family planning is a sin in areas suffering from chronic over-population.
Donations should not be tax exempt where attention to proselytization is a pre-condition to receiving charitable services or when the funds are used for salaries or other costs at locations other than the site where charitable services are provided.
My favorite response to those annoying, sanctimonious, self-congratulating imbeciles who impale you and leave you hanging at the supposed end of a supposedly normal conversation with their insipid condescending imposition of "Have a Blessed Day" is to reply in a cheerful yet similarly condescending way:
"... and may all the gods smile upon you today, my child!"
Or, if they have especially ticked you off, give them both barrels:
| Faith in God Leads to Lack of Faith in Humanity and Lack of Faith in Yourself |
Or, my favorite:
| Putting Faith Ahead of Reason is, by definiton, Unreasonable. By definition. |
Actually, Trump, Pence, Ryan, McConnel, et al are all "Secret Muslims". Their anti-contraception, anti-choice, and anti-equal rights for gays gibberish are their first steps toward imposing Sharia law on Americans. Same goes for the rest of the Republican "leadership", fundamentalists, and "devout" Catholics.
We are dependent on the Muslim-American community doing a better job of policing their own extremists than the Germans did with the Nazis, better than the Japanese did with their military elite, better than white America did with the Ku Klux Klan, and better than Anti-Choicers are doing with their targeting of doctors to be murdered.
Will the Sunnis and the Shiites ever get it through their heads that it doesn't matter which child Abraham agreed to sacrifice? It was the same then as it is now - anyone with that kind of delusion would be recognized as insane, not pious. Will they realize that their problems are not with the other religion, but that their problems stem from religion itself?
Muslim Shmuslim & Islam Shislam
Can you trust a Muslim? That depends on whether the Muslim is a Shmuslim - my term for a Muslim that believes that worldwide enforcement of Sharia law is inevitable (and the sooner the better).
Sharia Muslim = Shmuslim
Sharia Islam = Shislam
When the next Shmuslim attack occurs in the US, every Muslim in America who refuses to publicly denounce Shislam and turn in every Shmuslim they know will be charged with treason, and, if not directly involved in the attack, deported to the country of their choice.
Instead of fostering the enemy in our midst, we should enforce the existing laws against plotting to overthrow our government (which is what the promotion in the mosques and elsewhere of Sharia law actually is). The advocacy of Sharia law is not Free Speech, it is shouting fire in the theater. We should start now with deporting every naturalized Shmuslim, since in order to obtain US citizenship they by definition falsely swore 'without mental reservation' to defend the Constitution; they should all be stripped of their citizenship and deported, rather than being allowed to prepare for and carry out their objectives with our clueless assistance.
The message that is needed today is that religious dogma is not necessary for, and in fact gets in the way of, staying in touch with our natural desire to foster the greater good.
The next World War will be about the separation of church and state. In case you haven't noticed, it has already begun. We need to clean out Congress in the next election.
A woman's egg, fertilized or not, remains a part of her body and subject to her control and only her control. The government cannot impose any interference with that control without violating the prohibition against the government establishing a state religion, except through a voter referendum (which, as was shown in Mississippi, would never succeed).
A fertilized egg is dependent on the woman's body for its continued existence. Without the imposition of religious dogma, a fertilized egg is only a potential human, otherwise no different from any of the other "genetically distinct and complete" organisms in the body, such as bacteria, viruses, and parasites, beneficial or otherwise. A woman's egg, fertilized or not, remains the inviolable property of the woman.
Anti-Choicers obfuscate every time they use the term "life". A woman's eggs are alive, sperm are alive. They are not talking about "life", they are talking about ensoulment. Ensoulment is a religious concept that the government has no business getting involved with.
To evade the strictly religious concept of ensoulment, anti-choicers change the subject to "personhood", the point at which a potential human attains the status of a human with inviolable rights. Legislative attempts to confer human rights to an egg or zygote or fetus superseding the rights of the woman of control over her own body, with no basis other than religious zealotry for such actions, violate the Constitutional prohibition against establishment of a state religion. Proponents may not realize it, but they are actually promoting Sharia Law.
A woman may choose to confer the status of "person" or "human" to her fertilized egg, which becomes a person only when the woman says to herself "this is my child" and thereby becomes a mother and elevates the zygote or fetus from the status of potential human to human. No one else has any say.
Nothing inside a woman's body is anyone's business but her own!
Religion: Humanity's Most Common Developmental Disorder
It is natural for a very young child to perceive his or her parents as all-knowing and all-powerful. The false illusion of safety and comfort provided by this delusion becomes our first natural neurotic addiction. When disillusionment inevitably occurs, our desperation for a fix is so intense that we will accept any substitute, no matter how ludicrous, usually force-fed to us by whatever religion we happen to have been born into, in the form of a mystical parent-substitute, whose failure to protect innocents from the common miseries of life is mindlessly dismissed as part of some "great plan". To protect our updated delusion, we repress and ultimately lose our ability to objectively and critically examine our adopted cultural biases, and begin from that tragic point to develop our "life" view as a series of death-oriented embellishments to a grand house of cards.
Our need for an explanation of why bad things happen to good people is so enormous and so pathetic that nearly any postulation will find adherents.
The cure for this disorder is to step back and start over - beginning with the first step that never even occurs to most people in developing a philosophy: Taking the time to consider how one's own mind actually works.
The greatest weakness of the common man is the predilection to addiction to the false comfort of organized religion and other tribal identifications. Such identifications and the observance of associated dogma provide stability but eventually lead to stagnation, and permeate our lives with needless misery. Religion helps to keep the sheep in line, but we don't need sheep, we need independent thinkers.
While traditions such as religious dogma maintain cohesiveness and mutual support among those who ascribe to them, that very phenomenon of cohesion creates a separation of the group from everyone else. Tradition keeps humanity split up into competing and often warring groups.
Every drib of dogma distances us from our natural appreciation of a greater good. Clerics, parents, teachers, peers, and others within the tribe or other group with which we identify bombard us from birth with fantasies and fairy tales posing as philosophy. They treat childish wishful thinking as a virtue. They never even consider the irrationality of the most common traditions, such as the idea that a divine preference exists for one group over others, or that we should tolerate the intolerable because we will be rewarded in an afterlife, etc. etc.
The main problem with religion is counting on it. We need to wean ourselves from our addiction to its false comforts. How and why the Universe came into being is not something anyone knows, not something anyone has ever known. Whether it was a divine act or just the nature of reality does not matter. Is there a God? That's the wrong question; it is unanswerable. The meaningful question is: Is there a God that has any interest in humanity, let alone any group or individual? The answer is a clear No. Trying to explain away the misery of innocents as part of some "great plan" or a "test of faith" or a "mysterious work" or "punishment of the wicked" is meaningless. A supernatural "parent" and an afterlife are comforting things to contemplate, but counting on them is what gets people to let the politicians send their children off to kill and be killed by other people's children.
Religion keeps the human tribe divided into mutually antagonistic groups, all of them encouraged by their "leaders" to look down on everyone else for not belonging to their "one true religion".
Religion is used by the powerful as a ploy to perpetuate their power.
Religion is the source and the festering place of the worst ideas produced by humanity:
- A divine propensity for retribution against those who refuse to think and behave as those in power dictate.
- A divine reward for violence in the name of religion.
- A divine preference for one group over another.
- A divine mandate for subservience and oppression of women.
- A divine "plan" that is completely inscrutable yet somehow explains away bad things happening to good people.
The very concept of "divine inspiration" is anathema to enlightenment.
| Faith in God Leads to Lack of Faith in Humanity and Lack of Faith in Yourself |
We are in an age where religion is causing more problems than it solves.
Many gods, one god, no god - no one knows. No one knows. And it doesn't matter. There is no reasonable evidence that whatever caused the universe to come into existence has anything resembling anthropomorphic intelligence, let alone any interest in humanity. The only reason to bring up the issue is to create political cohesion within a group, and political division of that group from competing groups, to further perpetuate the advantages of those in power.
We are on our own. All we have is each other. What other inspiration does anyone need to do the right thing?
A physicist was once quoted as saying that science consists of physics and tiddlywinks, meaning that the details of chemistry, biology, engineering, etc. ultimately can all be expressed in terms of the laws of physics.
One might say that religion consists of the following three questions, and tiddlywinks:
? Where did everything (the universe) come from (matter, energy, and information)?
? Is there an intent associated with the existence of the universe?
? If so, are we involved?
The world is not flat. It is not carried through the heavens on the back of a giant turtle. There is no giant old guy with a beard sitting on a cloud watching over us. You can slow but not stop progress by burning people at the stake on religious pretexts. The horrors happening this minute cannot be explained away as part of some great plan. There is no believable evidence of the existence of a divine entity with an interest in humanity, let alone any particular group or individual person.
Since the human mind is incapable of distinguishing between epiphany and delusion, any religious dogma based on another person's ostensible epiphany is useless. Religious epiphanies can be fully explained as hallucinations brought on by chemical insults to the brain.
Why would anyone revere any entity that needs worshipers? That is a very childish, pathetic, and ungodly craving - one more example of projection of all-too-human longings.
The concept of the existence of an entity that could prevent all the horrible things that happen, yet chooses not to do so, is as unthinkable as it sounds.
Every disaster is accompanied by interviews with survivors who attribute their survival to divine intervention. One fat old dumpy rumpled chain-smoking alcoholic white trash welfare cheat was shown telling a reporter how thankful she was she had been chosen by God to be spared during a hurricane, and how she wished that God had also chosen to save the little boy next door. So what is she going to do now, find a cure for cancer? Stop drinking? Hell no, she won't even stop cheating on welfare. When nature or man acts, we live or die because of where we happen to be at a particular time; God has nothing to do with it. Nature's great mindless 'plan' for virtually every living thing on the planet is for it to be eaten alive, or die from injury, starvation, thirst, or disease. When 260,000 men, women, children, and infants are drowned or crushed in a tsunami, that is not part of a plan, a test of faith, or punishment of the wicked; it is the result of millions of years of tectonic forces building up to a climax the timing of which is not affected in any way by the presence or absence of humanity, let alone any God.
There is Evil in the world; its name is Religion
There is evil in the world; its name is religion, and at its heart are the sins of pride and greed. Who needs the devil to explain evil? If I were evil incarnate, I would go to the poorest parts of the world, where generations have suffered famine and disease resulting from overpopulation, and preach that family planning is a sin. Who needs the devil when you have the Pope? If I were evil incarnate, I would go to the cities where young people have been let down by their families, their communities, and, yes, their churches, and have turned to drugs for solace, and I would sentence them to an early and horrifying death from aids by preaching against the 'immorality' of clean needle exchange programs. Who needs the devil when you have Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell?
Neither the existence of a higher consciousness nor any form of religion is necessary to explain the origin of the natural sense of a greater good or the choice to believe in free will. Slathering religious dogma on top of these natural philosophies only muddies their purity, and leads to centuries of insanity, such as Shiites and Sunnis slaughtering each other over which son Abraham offered to murder. Muslims, Jews, and Christians have all missed the point ' Abraham should be reviled, not revered. He was not pious ' he was insane, even taking into account the culture in which he lived, which treated women and children as property, an attitude that continues to varying degrees in backward cultures today.
George Bush once attributed to Hezbollah a wish to take us back to the Dark Ages, while at the same time sentencing thousands of Americans to horrifying early deaths by blocking stem cell research that requires the creation of human embryos for purposes other than procreation. Our future depends on removing from power any person who refuses to accept the strict separation of religion and state, the equality of women to men, and the right of every person to their own beliefs, whether the person in power is a radical Muslim, Zionist, or right-wing Christian.
One concept of a higher consciousness is that of a cosmic consciousness that, like any closed system, needs external stimuli to continue to develop rather than stagnate. One idea of a soul is a fragment cut off from of the cosmic consciousness (perhaps voluntarily) so that its isolated experiences provide external stimuli to the consciousness. In this scenario, death would result in rejoining the cosmic consciousness. However, if death results in the dissipation of personality, personal experience, and personal philosophy that is not of interest to the cosmic consciousness, then permanent separation from the cosmic consciousness is not 'the worst possible fate' as espoused by the religious, but rather it is the holy grail.
(things to ask the Others)
'Either we are alone in the universe or we are not; either way, it is an astounding idea.'
How did other civilizations get through crises such as our current one - establishing every person's right to separation of church and state, and freedom from traditions and ideologies that can only be sustained through ignorance, oppression, and violence?
How did they convince the masses that the superstitions and traditions of the culture each person happens to be born into are not necessarily more enlightened than anyone else's, and are primarily maintained by those in power for the purpose of staying in power?
And finally, what ethical philosophy did they adopt after rising above religion?
Religion has long served as the "opiate of the masses", preventing anti-social behavior for fear of "divine" retribution, but it is losing its effect as more people choose to think for themselves. Then, the only question that matters regarding religion is whether or not the adherent feels entitled to impose his or her beliefs on others.
Religion provides social stability, and guidance for behavior. In the event that an individual realizes the preposterousness of adopted superstitions, too often he or she is left with no guidance or comfort, leading to anti-social and self-destructive behavior. When religion trespasses into politics, it turns stability into stagnation, as it has in the Middle East and did in the Bush White House. What we need is to get back in touch with the simple truth that all we have is each other and our common appreciation for the greater good. Slathering religious dogma on top of this simple truth only distances us from it. It is time to rise above religion.
Religion offers at best a third or fourth-rate morality. Fourth rate morality is behaving out of fear. Third rate morality is behaving in order to gain a self-serving goal (like "eternal life"). Second rate morality is behaving to feel good about one's self (narcissism). First rate morality, which has no need for religion, is behaving in accordance with a belief in a greater good, whether or not to the detriment of one's self-centered desires.
It is our duty to eschew the false comfort of organized religion and other tribal identifications, to rise above nature and human nature, and to fill the universe with life. The purpose of life is to overcome the forces that diminish the experience of life.
Unless some nut sends us back to the Dark Ages by an act of religious terrorism or corporate greed (nano-goo or the escape of a biological menace resulting from horrific evolutionary acceleration in a laboratory without the controls that eons of natural checks and balances would provide), we will eventually develop the technology to transmute matter, bringing an end to competition for any physical resource. All of human history up to that point will be only dimly remembered as our primitive past. We can then occupy our time resolving the really important issues; such as how far down the food chain should we allow the cruelty of nature to continue? Or, what are the thoughts of the latest artificial intelligence on the issue of avoiding a state of slavery for the AIs we depend on? We can put behind us such horrific nonsense as rationalizing killing each other's children over a piece of dirt that both sides are stupid enough to believe 'God gave to us'.
The future of humanity depends on getting viable fractions of the population off this unstable speck of a planet and into self-sustaining artificial habitats in space. We have an entire universe to fill with life, love, and adventure ' let's get on with it.
There is nothing more important than promotion of life and the quality of life, and the purposes we create for ourselves. We need only value life, and strive to rise above both nature and human nature.
How do we instill value of life, family, and striving for a better future for all, without depending on religious dogma? By rising above our addiction to the idea of a supernatural parent substitute, recognizing that appreciation of the greater good is the only "dogma" we need, and taking as our inspiration to do the right thing the fact that all we have is each other.
Stronger Words for Religious Fools
If you refuse to consider the possibility that the authors of the Torah, the Bible, the Koran, and other religious texts were either delusional or cynically promoting a self-serving agenda, then you are a fool. If you believe any of these men were infallible, you are a fool.
Belief in one's own infallibility is the definition of mental illness. If you believe that you are infallible in any of your religious beliefs, you are not capable of building a meaningful philosophy.
If you are sane, you know that it would be unethical to impose possibly false beliefs on any other person.
Those who would impose their traditions about dress, sexuality, and any other form of non-violent consensual personal behavior are the problem, not the solution. The only question as to whether a person of faith is right or wrong is whether or not they feel they have a right to impose their beliefs on others. If they don't, their beliefs are their business and no one else's, and don't really matter to the rest of us. If they do, they are the enemy who further alienate the world's populations from each other and who must be overcome.
Instead of thinking of humanity as a single tribe that is on its own in this vast, cold universe, with nothing to rely on but each other, religion has made six-and-a-half billion people believe that nearly everyone else on the planet is practicing the wrong religion. We fail to apply the simplest reasoning: Of all the hundreds of religions and thousands of sects who believe that they are somehow more enlightened than all the others, logically all but one of them must be wrong, and (here's the hard part for fools to get) reasonably they are all wrong.
We fail to rise above our pitiful neurotic addiction to the childhood delusion that an all-powerful infallible parent-substitute must exist. Wallowing in self-pity and spiritual cowardice we turn our back on life and become mired in religion, the culture of death, where a desperate belief in an afterlife increases our willingness to send children off to kill and be killed by other people's children.
Young people who see through their elders' delusions are left with no guidance. In despair of their elders' follies, they become separated from their natural sense of a greater good for all of humanity and the chance to break the cycles of religious repression, and find themselves left unaware of any choices other than hedonism or radicalism.
Historically, traditions fostered social stability within tribes, but in the modern world mindless adherence to religious traditions has turned stability into stagnation, oppression, and death. The view of religion as a resource for reflection rather than as ideology to be imposed is the reason the West has greater freedom and economic success that the East.
The childishness of religion is understandable. It is natural for children to begin their life with the delusion that their parents are omnipotent and infallible. This delusion provides powerful false comfort and security, and becomes the child's first neurotic addiction. As their inevitable disillusionment progresses, they are offered, readily accept, and become addicted to a substitute delusion, that of an omnipotent and infallible god. Most people fail to overcome this addiction their entire lives, because it is reinforced by the other addicts in their lives, as well as by the parasites who profit from proselytization of religious addiction. Of those who try to overcome this addiction, many find themselves with no foundation to build a new belief system.
If your belief system is based on any of the following, it is a house of cards ready to collapse:
- Acceptance of the natural human prejudice that the group you happen to have been born into or have joined is somehow more enlightened or otherwise superior to any other group. This attitude is fostered within most groups, even though it is logically impossible for more than one group to be right, and reasonably impossible for any of them to be right. The enlightened alternative is to recognize that every group and every person has room for improvement, and can learn valuable things from others.
- Belief in a divine preference for one group over others. This belief is also fostered by most religious groups, even though it is inherently provincial and near-sighted, and no one, and certainly no religious leader, is so wise.
How much better might our lives be if Copernicus and da Vinci had not withheld their finest work for fear of the Church?
The problems of the world come from almost everyone settling for letting the PIBCOMs do their thinking for them. You know, PIBCOMs –
Primitive Ignorant Backwards Crazy Old Men
like the ones who wrote the Hindu Vedas, the Buddhist Sutras, the Torah, the Bible, the Quran, the Book of Mormon, the gerrymandering laws, the justifications for wars for the rich, etc., etc., etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_text
Questions for the religious, non-voters, PIBCOMs, and other failures
Perish the thought, but some of my questions may offend those who take immense pride in thinking of themselves as religious. But wait, isn't pride a sin? Talk about a built-in conflict! And how about arrogance, like thinking they have the right to impose their religion on the rest of us?
I'll admit, most religions have got the fundamental issue right - the Greater Good is good! Well, duh! But then they mess everything up with childish wishful thinking and other mindlessness. They have chosen not to use their brains, treating emotional convictions like rational certainties, ignoring the simple fact that there is no such thing as emotional certainty.
(In fact, there is no such thing as rational certainty either - all we can do is assign a probability to the validity of a tentative conclusion, and treat as facts for practical purposes those conclusions that we feel have a sufficiently high probability of being valid. If I step in front of a speeding truck, I may as well treat as fact for practical purposes the high probability that I might have to change my plans for the rest of the afternoon. The probability that the sun will rise tomorrow can also be treated as a fact for practical purposes, even though there is always that pesky asteroid we haven't funded NASA well enough to find in time. Also, the sun never actually rises; the Earth turns on its axis and the sun "rise" is just an optical illusion. You get the idea.)
The bottom line is, putting faith ahead of reason is, by definition, unreasonable. By definition.
So who cares? What does it matter to the rest of us what these people think? What they think is their business, right? Yes, what they think is their business, but when they impose their foolish ideas on the rest of us, then it becomes our problem. In fact, it is the main reason the world continues to be in such a mess.
And no, I haven't read all of these - just enough to recognize the same rambling, chaotic, highly repetitive, manipulative bullshit written by people who were desperate to try to imbue their personal prejudices and delusions with some kind of "divine authority".
These people, most people, were born and/or raised to prefer the false comforts of religion over the hard work and bravery required to think for themselves. They ask for answers, rather than asking for ideas and taking responsibility for their own answers, and they teach their children to do the same. And so, the worst ideas and practices are perpetuated: Perceiving women as subhuman. Passing legislation based on what they have been taught about how people should behave when they know damned well people will not behave that way. Preaching that family planning is a sin to tribes who have suffered the vicissitudes of overpopulation for centuries. Failing to recognize very simple, obvious facts, such as the fact that nothing inside a woman's body is anyone's business but her own! Not to mention other absurdities such as bible-based climate change denial!
The left perpetuates its own brand of "ideas with blinders on", such as President Obama's recent statement in a speech that "unemployment recipients are not lazy". The left not only fails to reach out to the other choir or effectively to independents, they actually inflame everyone outside their own choir with poorly thought-out sound bites like this that instantly sound like a flatout lie to opponents. Some recipients are lazy, of course. Everyone knows at least one, or has heard about one from someone whose opinions they trust. Want to create some consensus? Give us facts, not slogans! Do the research, find the numbers, get the facts, such as:
"X% of unemployment recipients are living under circumstances that most of us agree make them deserving. For Y%, their need for unemployment benefits is questionable, and we are working hard to fix that. You can go to Z-website to see details of this analysis. Don't let the Republicans in Congress make political hay on the backs of people you would help on your own if you could." Can't fit this into your speech? Tough! Cut out something else!
And, while you're at it, tell us what the facts are about "welfare queens" and what you are doing about it.
And, what is this crap about caving in to Monsanto's greedy GMO poisoning of our food and water? And why did it take so long to do something about Myriad's greedy sabotage of breast cancer research?
Maybe a little of the chaotic rambling in the religious texts has rubbed off on me, but apathy has not worked well as far as improving things in the world, and I'm beginning to think that it has become A Time for Hate, to get us off our butts and actually do something, like, say, Vote! Hate for the Kochs and others like them that spend their Daddy's money doing evil for their own personal gain. Hate for people who impose religion on others. Hate for people who claim there will be a "divine reward" for acts of violence, that innocents who die in the crossfire should be "grateful and proud" to have died in a Holy War, and that whatever they do is justified because they have a "responsibility" to "save" the rest of us. Hate for the Republicans' corrupt Supreme Court, who colluded with crooked election riggers like Jeb Bush to install W as Acting President (he never was actually elected President), and turned over elections to a handful of the greediest billionaires on the planet. Imagine, no war in Iraq, no replacement of democracy with theocracy and plutocracy, no war on women. No skyrocketing teenage pregnancy from "abstinence" "education". Instead of cutting school lunch programs, we could have free meals for kids three times a day seven days a week in schools - a lot cheaper than wasting money on food stamp abuses and our paying for the rest of their lives for the health and crime-related effects of malnutrition.
And maybe, just maybe, a little Hate for people who let themselves be manipulated by cynical, immoral, self-serving Republican politicians, who use the fact that we elected a black President too early as a tool to rouse the racist rabble, keep their non-representative gerrymandered control of the House, block him from getting anything done, turn back the clock by centuries in the state legislatures, and sell us all out to the rich parasites that run the world. The "government of the people" continues to only represent the war profiteers, the pollution profiteers, and the poison profiteers. The greedy have us by the balls; it's time to kick them in theirs. Soak the rich, especially idle assets. No one needs more than $50 million.
Before we are born and throughout our life, our brain development is compromised by genetics, epigenetics, and the experiences we, our parents, and other ancestors have had with famine and nutrition, disease, exposure to pollution and other chemicals, etc. We are all aware of the need for proper nutrition, exercise, and sleep to mitigate previous and ongoing damage to neurological maintenance and development, however, we lack awareness of the damage we do every day to our ability to think clearly.
Second only to the gift of life itself, our most precious gift is the ability to think. We abandon this gift by indulging in the false comfort of emotional delusions. While the ability to feel emotions is also admirable, it is human nature to prefer the instant gratifications provided by emotions, which prevents us from rising above ?traditions? we would be far better off leaving behind.
Traditions are perpetuated by both charlatans and believers. Charlatans see everything and everyone as a resource to be exploited, and find traditions a powerful tool in their efforts to exploit the rest of us. Believers range from thoughtful and open-minded to cowardly and vile. Our ability to distinguish respectable proponents of tradition from those we should shun is based on how we were raised and what we have learned. Unfortunately, most people are raised the same way their parents were, and have learned little more than their parents did.
If your parents taught you to ask for answers instead of asking for ideas and taking responsibility for your own answers, they damaged your ability to think for yourself, and it is up to you to recognize and repair that damage, and to mitigate the damage you have done to your children.
If your parents (or anyone else) taught you to internally reinforce your mental programming in a tradition by ritual prayers, chants, readings, songs, etc., the same applies.
If you only listen to proponents of your particular set of religious and political beliefs, you are damaging your ability to think clearly, which is just what the religious and political charlatans want you to do.
Here are _ ideas that will test your ability to think rationally:
1. Nothing inside a woman's body is anyone's business but her own.
2. No business ever created a job that it did not intend to make a profit on.
3. No business ever created a job without intending to pay the lowest wages and benefits they can get away with.
4. Any corporate policymaker who is not willing to say anything and do anything to keep profits and stock prices up and bonuses flowing is immediately replaced by someone who will.
5. Corporate spokespersons are professional liars. Right-wing politicians and media, and many Left-wing politicians, are corporate spokespersons.
6. Businesses routinely suppress and sabotage otherwise beneficial developments that would interfere with any existing or potential profit stream.
7. The Free Market's internal checks on greed and incompetence work only in the long term and on global scales, not within the short term or local scales that wreak havoc. Intense regulation and competent oversight is necessary.
8. Anyone that tries to do the right thing already has all the religion they need.
9. Something caused the universe to come into being, but there is no evidence of a caring god; in fact, just the opposite. We are on our own. Our motivation for doing the right thing is the simple fact that all we have is each other.
10. Putting faith ahead of reason is, by definition, unreasonable. By definition.
11. Freedom from religion is just as important as freedom of religion; more so, in fact, since religion is by definition the criminal, cowardly abandonment of the gift of reason.
12. The imposition of religious belief on any person, including one's own spouse and children, is an immoral act.
13. The purpose of life is life; to enjoy life; to get the most out of life; to enhance the experience of life for all life; to fill the universe with life. If we happen to chance upon a higher purpose along the way, so much the better.
14. The next stage of human development is to last long enough to rise above the vicissitudes of organic existence.
15. Sanity requires indulgence in the idea that there must be something eternal about the ones we love, as long as we don't count on it for making important decisions.
16. Our souls are snippets from the Cosmic Consciousness, cast off and abandoned to experience existence in isolation to serve as a source of the random input that the Cosmic Consciousness desperately needs to avoid the stagnation that is inherent within any self-contained system, and ultimately to be discarded. The Holy Grail of Life is to avoid "becoming one with God" for as long as possible.
The Tenets of Gostoism
I am responsible for my beliefs and my behavior.
The human mind is incapable of distinguishing between epiphany and delusion, therefore I must take my own epiphanies with a grain of salt, those of others with a spoonful of salt, and those of anyone involved with an organized religion with a ton of salt.
For all practical purposes, we must assume that the human mind is incapable of comprehending the origin of the Universe or any purpose for the Universe or for Humanity. Each person is responsible for determining their own individual purpose.
Either we are alone in the universe or we are not. If we are alone, our greater purpose is to fill the universe with life. If we are not alone, our greater purpose is to contribute to a better experience of life for everyone.
Anything that can be learned from a negative experience can also be learned from a positive experience, ergo, the Cosmic Consciousness is not paying attention!
Every individual must be allowed to independently develop their own beliefs, and be held responsible for their own behavior. Political and social institutions which deny freedom of non-violent expression must be eliminated.
Existing political and social structures are now sustained by the need to compete for physical resources. Humans will develop the technology to transmute matter, making such structures anachronistic.
Under Construction:
Perpetuating and Extending Power
Perpetuation of Male Dominance
In Society
In the Family
Subjugation of Women
Animalistic Alpha-Male, taboos
Treating Woman and Children as Property
Treating Woman and Children as Lower Beings
Dehumanization
Of Competitors
Of Scapegoats
Repression of Natural Pleasures
Proselytization of Outsiders
