I like the idea of being an independent thinker, a free agent in the world of ideas. I want to be the kind of person who figures out things, finds other people who figure out things, and discovers what kind of consensus that brings. From there we can (if we chose) work together to improve our understanding of the world and our place in it, to take on tasks that better the quality of life for ourselves and the generations to follow.
But I realize it is mostly illusion. We can be independent thinkers to a degree, but that latitude is restricted by things we barely understand. Our individual thoughts ride on our personal and corporate history, are framed by the society in which we live, are largely passed onto us by our parents, and are deeply influenced by anyone we consider to be smarter or better informed that we are ourselves. It also seems likely that much of what we think we are thinking rides on a subconscious mind, that many of our decisions are made at a level deeper than we know and are passed to our conscious selves only after the fact. We may be "just along for the ride" in ways we can't possibly imagine.
So one should approach independent thinking with a large dollop of humility. Even best efforts are likely akin to a child's first attempt at the stairs. Recognizing our limits is a necessary part of the task.
We should also admit that it is likely many people don't care for independent thinking, particularly those who consider themselves in positions of leadership. Not just government types (though they are certainly guilty) but business owners (particularly small business owners), religious leaders (that one is kind of obvious), husbands (at least in a good portion of the world including a big chunk of our society), fathers (ditto) and mothers. We all start out as completely dependent children. Gaining even a little independence is not always easy or natural, and many don't care for the responsibility. Independent thinking is not valued by all, perhaps not by most, and maybe only by the few.
In our consumer driven society advertisers are among those who have no interest in independent thinking. This might seem a minor thing but the advertisers pay for virtually everything on the airwaves, be it TV, radio, or satellite. Most of the input we get on any give day is driven by people who are absolutely dead set against you and I thinking for ourselves. They want to do our thinking for us and, we would be wise to admit, they are very good at making that happen. They are so good at it that, even when we know what they are doing, we can't fend them off completely. Look around the house. How much of that stuff, that brand, that size, did you really set out to buy?
Since advertisers are in the business of maximizing profits for themselves and their clients, they are quite willing to sell their expertize to political and religious power. At some level we all know that our political system has been utterly corrupted by advertising dollars. (You can call the providers of those dollars "special interests" and the dollars "bribes" and be pretty close to the truth.) Campaigns are nothing but political ads...think about what that really means. Our political system is now run on the exact same principles used to sell bubble-gum; and for the exact same reason...to make someone rich. America in particular sees the same kind of thing in religion. We call them "mega-churches", the leaders of which are usually living very, very well indeed. Do those who put money in the plates think they are buying the preacher a mansion and a jet? Or does someone have them thinking they are serving the kingdom of god?
Ouch. Against that unrelenting bedlam independent thinking is a tall order. The first step is to turn it off, literally. Flip the switch. We don't have commercial TV in our house. We don't really have a radio either. It is a good way to live, particularly in an election year. When I do run across a political add playing on a TV in a lobby or bar somewhere, it comes near to making me physically ill. It will also, almost certainly, offend me deeply. I will admit the same of TV preachers though, sitting on golden thrones or grimacing over some carefully worded prayer, their huckstery is a bit more blatant and thus often slightly amusing.
We do watch some movies. Music we get from an Internet station that lets us program the kinds of music we want. It isn't always free, but I will pay a modest fee to avoid those trying to do my thinking for me.
Hitting the "OFF" switch is the easy part. Being informed without being misinformed is a real challenge. Mass media sources are always suspect. (Remember, they live and die first and foremost on advertising.) The Internet is a true revolution in the free flow of information, but it is also nothing short of the wild, wild, west. Any nutcase can put anything up on the web and yes, I love the irony of posting that on a blog. Still, winnowing out the bat-shit crazy isn't that hard. Evolution works against the easily suckered and we are all descendants of those wise enough not to follow the mad-man off the cliff.
Admittedly using caution, we really should look to an expert for accurate information. For some reason we listen to actors when it comes to vaccinations for our children, athletes for guidance on pleasing a god, religious leaders for astrophysics and biology, scientists for political policy, and politicians for history. We should also remember that the talking heads on TV are chosen mostly for their looks and those on the radio for how they sound. For the most part they really have no clue about what they are saying; more good reasons for turning them off. To be an independent thinker is to look things up, read about them, balance the facts, contemplate the relationships, and draw considered conclusions.
Maybe we should devalue "opinion" a little. Most of us wouldn't bet our lives on an opinion even when it is our own. When it comes to making decisions we work pretty hard on understanding the facts of the matter to the best our our ability, and we expect the same from others. Imagine being on an airplane with the pilot making the following announcement,
"Welcome aboard Flight 292 to Detroit. I was in Detroit yesterday and the weather was okay, it should be good today as well. The last crew told me this airplane had an engine problem on the flight in. My copilot looked at it during his pre-flight. He isn't a mechanic but didn't see any oil leaking out or big parts missing. He is sure it will be fine. The fueler pumped some gas in the tanks and thinks we have enough. The dispatcher told me we have some really heavy cargo in the hold, a bunch of people on board, tonnes of baggage, but he believes we are below the max take-off weight of the airplane. We have a long runway for departure, I suspect the ice and snow you see on the wings will blow off before we reach flying speed. In my opinion you should enjoy the flight."
An opinion you would probably not appreciate. Yet listen close the next time you have a 24 hour news station playing in your face. Don't they sound a bit like our imagined pilot? Though, in the case of the TV news, they are crying out,
"You are all going to die!" (They sell more bubble-gum that way.)
Opinions do have value. Sharing them can help us balance out the facts and fit our thoughts into context with those of others. But the usefulness of opinions is severely limited and some are, it must be admitted, completely useless and often destructive. Opinions need to be offered carefully by those who hold them, handled gingerly by those who hear them, and discarded easily by all concerned.
For me one of the most difficult pieces of independent thinking is to not dismiss facts as some one's opinion. This is particularly difficult when the person sharing a fact is someone whose ideas I usually find unsavory. I am not a religious person but religious faith helps many a person live their life. I can't just dismiss that as an opinion. That their faith has had a real impact on their life is a fact I must accept. That I can understand that impact as real faith in a god that isn't real, is a fact I wish they would accept.
Another difficulty comes in balancing morality with thinking and coming to conclusions. There is a movement in our country to re-evaluate slavery, to teach it as something that must be understood in the context of history. So far so good. Several of those who founded the US of A were both slave owners and the very cutting edge of society's progressive thinkers. To dismiss their contributions to moving human kind forward because they owned slaves would be hubris. We didn't live when they lived. To accept slavery as a moral human condition because of their efforts in ending political tyranny would be evil. Those who insist that we do either one are trying to do our thinking for us.
Key to being an independent thinker is allowing others to be independent as well. Only the self-deluded or psychotic deny facts easily verified, but even when facts are accepted as is, conclusion will often vary. Ideas of how to make things work better will vary as well. Tolerance becomes an integral part of valuing independent thinking, particularly when we all remember that we are still pretty new at this.
Even at that it seems likely that independent thinkers will agree more than disagree. Seeking to face the sun the sighted will turn to the light and the blind to the warmth. If we are not trying to force an agenda on anyone else, and if we don't accept the dictates of those who are trying to force an agenda on us, it wouldn't seem odd that most of us end up facing roughly the same way.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
Things what matter...
Our family has a little insider question when it comes to nearly any issue, "Is this a thing what matters, or a thing what don't?" When it comes to the Republican primary vote I can't help but think this is a thing what don't.
The person currently winning is the person who currently has enough money to savage his or her opponent in the media. No one bothers with even a pretence of honesty; policy doesn't matter and personalities are pre-packaged and delivered in accordance with the latest poles. Is there any thinking person who believes that the eventual Republican Candidate will be talking like a birther or a T-party fanatic during the general election? Will they be calling to force gay people back into the closet or be touting their religion as the only true religion? Be they opportunists (for claiming to believe those things during the primary campaign) or hypocrites (for forgetting those claims in a national campaign) is also a thing what don't matter. At best either one makes them miserable excuses for human beings.
The national election will be pretty much the Republican primary writ large. My guess is most of the money will flow into the Obama campaign. The Republican candidates are so bat-shit crazy they will eventually bite the hands that feed them. For example a quick Internet search suggests the US birth control market is worth something like $900,000,000. Are pharmaceutical companies really going to get behind Rick Santorum and his "no birth control" policy? Will giant agricultural conglomerates fund a candidate who vows to drive the near-slave-labor that picks their crops back across the boarder?
Though the T-party / right wing / religious fanatics currently make both their headlines and their living wailing about the end of civilization should Obama remain in the White House, in reality he has remained a good servant Wall Street and the military. The stench of huge amounts of money (see that as pure corruption) will taint both the Republican attempt to move into the White House and the Democrat's defense of same, but in the end Obama will have the most money to spend and win rather handily. But his next Inauguration will be a thing what don't matter, just like his last one.
At Obama's first Inauguration there was some slight hope that he actually would be something different, set a new course for the country, end arbitrary wars, support civil rights, help us become a country of laws once again, maybe even reign in the military just a tiny little bit. It was a slight hope soon proved completely illusionary. With the full backing of a House and Senate both dominated by the Democratic party he didn't do much of anything at all. Two years later the Republicans made political hay of stagnation and then elevated doing nothing to a high art form. No matter who wins in November it is likely doing nothing while making a lot of noise will be the real agenda.
Most of the country is rightly convinced that, with Obama in command, the USA is on the wrong course and in decline. But we are on the same wrong course with Bush the Later in the lead, and Clinton, Bush the Former, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, and probably Eisenhower. Regardless of which party holds what seats in Washington, corporations and the military rule, money is diverted to power, and the needs of the many are sacrificed to the wants of the few. Damned near 60 years - we have been on this wrong course a full generation. There is little hope it can or will change.
Corruption is endemic to any empire. That is, in a way, the definition of an empire. The few, using brute force and with only their own self-interests in mind, taking advantage of the many. As empire fades that foundational corruption only gets worse. You can hear a lot of political debate about things what don't matter, but one thing that garners very little debate is that the US political system is rife with corruption. Even the corrupt (say a wanna-be POTUS who shelters income in off-shore tax havens) decry the corruption of some Super-pacs. (Not their own of course, but the Super-pacs of others.) I'm old enough to remember when Newt Gingrich was last in power. Watching Newt complain about corruption in politics is to have a front row seat in the Theater of the Absurd.
The decline of the empire of the US is something what matters. If it ends up being the beginning of the decline of any empire in the world, it will be a good thing what matters. If it is simply one corrupted empire giving way to an equally (or even more corrupt) empire, then it will be a bad thing what matters. I have a feint hope that it will be a good thing what matters. Empire, in a world where information is almost universally available and national boarders increasingly impossible to defend, seems a near impossible task. The fall of the British, German and Soviet empires is in the recent past. The fall of the US empire may be unfolding before our very eyes. One can hope that the Chinese fall short of becoming an empire, and that the nascent empires of religion will also fail. (As several have in the more distant past.) Should history look back on the early 21st century as being that of the fall of empire in the world, that would be thing what really, really matters...and matters in the best possible way.
Either way, in things what matter and things what don't, the Republican primary is a thing what don't.
The person currently winning is the person who currently has enough money to savage his or her opponent in the media. No one bothers with even a pretence of honesty; policy doesn't matter and personalities are pre-packaged and delivered in accordance with the latest poles. Is there any thinking person who believes that the eventual Republican Candidate will be talking like a birther or a T-party fanatic during the general election? Will they be calling to force gay people back into the closet or be touting their religion as the only true religion? Be they opportunists (for claiming to believe those things during the primary campaign) or hypocrites (for forgetting those claims in a national campaign) is also a thing what don't matter. At best either one makes them miserable excuses for human beings.
The national election will be pretty much the Republican primary writ large. My guess is most of the money will flow into the Obama campaign. The Republican candidates are so bat-shit crazy they will eventually bite the hands that feed them. For example a quick Internet search suggests the US birth control market is worth something like $900,000,000. Are pharmaceutical companies really going to get behind Rick Santorum and his "no birth control" policy? Will giant agricultural conglomerates fund a candidate who vows to drive the near-slave-labor that picks their crops back across the boarder?
Though the T-party / right wing / religious fanatics currently make both their headlines and their living wailing about the end of civilization should Obama remain in the White House, in reality he has remained a good servant Wall Street and the military. The stench of huge amounts of money (see that as pure corruption) will taint both the Republican attempt to move into the White House and the Democrat's defense of same, but in the end Obama will have the most money to spend and win rather handily. But his next Inauguration will be a thing what don't matter, just like his last one.
At Obama's first Inauguration there was some slight hope that he actually would be something different, set a new course for the country, end arbitrary wars, support civil rights, help us become a country of laws once again, maybe even reign in the military just a tiny little bit. It was a slight hope soon proved completely illusionary. With the full backing of a House and Senate both dominated by the Democratic party he didn't do much of anything at all. Two years later the Republicans made political hay of stagnation and then elevated doing nothing to a high art form. No matter who wins in November it is likely doing nothing while making a lot of noise will be the real agenda.
Most of the country is rightly convinced that, with Obama in command, the USA is on the wrong course and in decline. But we are on the same wrong course with Bush the Later in the lead, and Clinton, Bush the Former, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, and probably Eisenhower. Regardless of which party holds what seats in Washington, corporations and the military rule, money is diverted to power, and the needs of the many are sacrificed to the wants of the few. Damned near 60 years - we have been on this wrong course a full generation. There is little hope it can or will change.
Corruption is endemic to any empire. That is, in a way, the definition of an empire. The few, using brute force and with only their own self-interests in mind, taking advantage of the many. As empire fades that foundational corruption only gets worse. You can hear a lot of political debate about things what don't matter, but one thing that garners very little debate is that the US political system is rife with corruption. Even the corrupt (say a wanna-be POTUS who shelters income in off-shore tax havens) decry the corruption of some Super-pacs. (Not their own of course, but the Super-pacs of others.) I'm old enough to remember when Newt Gingrich was last in power. Watching Newt complain about corruption in politics is to have a front row seat in the Theater of the Absurd.
The decline of the empire of the US is something what matters. If it ends up being the beginning of the decline of any empire in the world, it will be a good thing what matters. If it is simply one corrupted empire giving way to an equally (or even more corrupt) empire, then it will be a bad thing what matters. I have a feint hope that it will be a good thing what matters. Empire, in a world where information is almost universally available and national boarders increasingly impossible to defend, seems a near impossible task. The fall of the British, German and Soviet empires is in the recent past. The fall of the US empire may be unfolding before our very eyes. One can hope that the Chinese fall short of becoming an empire, and that the nascent empires of religion will also fail. (As several have in the more distant past.) Should history look back on the early 21st century as being that of the fall of empire in the world, that would be thing what really, really matters...and matters in the best possible way.
Either way, in things what matter and things what don't, the Republican primary is a thing what don't.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Fermi's paradox and other odd ideas
Human kind is a "first generation" intelligence. But evolution doesn't stop. Just as an opposing thumb was handed down to us from our evolutionarily ancestors, could it be that we will hand intelligence down to the species that evolves from us? Perhaps two different species will branch off from ours, both keeping the most striking of human characteristics, intelligence.
Imagine 500 years from now a permanent human population on the Moon, Mars, and one or more of Jupiter's moons. How many generations would pass before those branches of humanity evolved in concert with their very different environments, thus setting off on separate paths? Given what we know of how life evolves such a future seems almost inevitable. (Assuming of course, that human kind actually makes it to the Moon, Mars, and the moons of Jupiter.)
If there are other intelligent species in the cosmos, do they look back on their evolution and see themselves as a fourth or fifth serial illustration of an intelligent species? Perhaps they share a world, or a solar system, with an intelligent sister race that branched away from a common ancestor. If intelligence has evolved elsewhere in the cosmos long before us then this must be a common occurrence out among the galaxies.
And this just may explain Fermi's paradox. Somewhere hundreds of millions of years ago intelligence evolved. That intelligent species developed technology and took to the stars, and in the process intelligence exploded along pathways uncounted, species branching from species as environmental conditions changed, other sister species genetically engineered and fusing with their technology; perhaps their collective awarness has never seen and can barely imagine an intelligence that isn't traceable back into the mists of a barely recalled but common history.
And then, out in a far corner of a common spiral galaxy they run across us; a form of intelligence clearly newborn and mostly swaddled in prehistoric animal garb. To them we might be a kind of "fossil intelligence". Would it be much of a surprise if they saw a chance to learn a bit about their own ancient history by staying out of sight? Such beings might easily be long lived. Watching our little drama unfold over a few tens of thousands of years might be just the kind of thing their PhD candidates would do for a dissertation. Unfortunately this may suggest we, being so far behind in the evolution of intelligence in the cosmos, might never be allowed to sit at the big people's table.
Imagine 500 years from now a permanent human population on the Moon, Mars, and one or more of Jupiter's moons. How many generations would pass before those branches of humanity evolved in concert with their very different environments, thus setting off on separate paths? Given what we know of how life evolves such a future seems almost inevitable. (Assuming of course, that human kind actually makes it to the Moon, Mars, and the moons of Jupiter.)
If there are other intelligent species in the cosmos, do they look back on their evolution and see themselves as a fourth or fifth serial illustration of an intelligent species? Perhaps they share a world, or a solar system, with an intelligent sister race that branched away from a common ancestor. If intelligence has evolved elsewhere in the cosmos long before us then this must be a common occurrence out among the galaxies.
And this just may explain Fermi's paradox. Somewhere hundreds of millions of years ago intelligence evolved. That intelligent species developed technology and took to the stars, and in the process intelligence exploded along pathways uncounted, species branching from species as environmental conditions changed, other sister species genetically engineered and fusing with their technology; perhaps their collective awarness has never seen and can barely imagine an intelligence that isn't traceable back into the mists of a barely recalled but common history.
And then, out in a far corner of a common spiral galaxy they run across us; a form of intelligence clearly newborn and mostly swaddled in prehistoric animal garb. To them we might be a kind of "fossil intelligence". Would it be much of a surprise if they saw a chance to learn a bit about their own ancient history by staying out of sight? Such beings might easily be long lived. Watching our little drama unfold over a few tens of thousands of years might be just the kind of thing their PhD candidates would do for a dissertation. Unfortunately this may suggest we, being so far behind in the evolution of intelligence in the cosmos, might never be allowed to sit at the big people's table.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Barriers
A few months ago an old friend sent me an email. I was best man at his wedding, we lived and worked together for years, shared a lot of miles on motorcycles, survived being broke. But that was nearly two decades ago and I am a wanderer. Still, he was a good friend.
He is also a Christian, as was I at the time.
So one day an email pops up from my old friend, and I was kind of glad to hear from him. It might have been better had I not. We traded a few emails back and forth but he was pretty hostile. Apparently I am a bad person now, a Pharisee, self-indulgent, self-absorbed, hedonistic; drifting and looking for something. I shared part of what I had learned with him only because he asked, explained what I could - but it was a waste of time. He simply assumed I was lying to him and said as much. I couldn't be really happy or satisfied, I had to have fallen into some kind of "sin". He never responded to my last email.
Oddly enough his daughter and I had a quick exchange just a few weeks ago. At least she signed off with a snide remark about how I must be putting in a lot of effort to avoid god. My affront? I had suggested that, if her faith was helping her cope with the rough patch she was in, then she should cling to it. But if it wasn't maybe she should consider that faith doesn't always make things better.
There are other Christians in my life that treat me with an underlying disdain as well. It isn't a universal response, there are exceptions. But it is certainly the norm.
It strikes me as sad that we can't even talk. I'd like to think I am hearing what they mean to say. I used to believe the things that they do, I am familiar with the doctrines and the prejudices, the ideas and the assumptions. It is pretty easy to anticipate what will be said. What I never anticipate is the hostility with which they say it. Somehow, after years of friendship and sometimes many a shared hardship, I am the enemy. Yet I have no desire to talk anyone out of their faith. Why should I? Sure they hold doctrines that often lead to people being hurt, but that happens in politics and economics at least as often as it does in religion. Ours is a young species, we haven't got much of anything right yet...religion, politics, economics, or even science for that matter.
One of the primary reasons I left religion is that it required that I hate too many people. It wasn't put in just those words of course. There was a lot of talk about love. But the bottom line was just a chosen few got eternal love, the rest burned in hell.
As it turns out I wasn't very good at loving back when I was a Christian, and I am only marginally better at it now. Most of the time people simply baffle me, believing things that are clearly mistaken, (again as much in things political and economic as religious). Most seem completely unwilling to entertain a new thought or give way to a new idea. If tomorrow someone came up with an economic system that actually worked really well, capitalists, communists and socialists would all hate it with equal passion. The perfect political system would be loathed as well. Just having a conversation without pissing everyone off is a trial these days. I have no idea how one gets around to sharing love.
What kind of love is it when no one even hears what the other person is saying? As soon as I say I am not a believer, or a capitalist, socialist, liberal, or conservative, most people could care less how I feel. What I do doesn't matter either. I can make room in my home, share anything I call mine, help with any good project, and it means nothing at all. What matters is I don't agree with what they believe which must make me the arrogant one, the lost one, the hateful one.
Nothing, it seems, will change their mind. There is no way to crawl over the barriers.
He is also a Christian, as was I at the time.
So one day an email pops up from my old friend, and I was kind of glad to hear from him. It might have been better had I not. We traded a few emails back and forth but he was pretty hostile. Apparently I am a bad person now, a Pharisee, self-indulgent, self-absorbed, hedonistic; drifting and looking for something. I shared part of what I had learned with him only because he asked, explained what I could - but it was a waste of time. He simply assumed I was lying to him and said as much. I couldn't be really happy or satisfied, I had to have fallen into some kind of "sin". He never responded to my last email.
Oddly enough his daughter and I had a quick exchange just a few weeks ago. At least she signed off with a snide remark about how I must be putting in a lot of effort to avoid god. My affront? I had suggested that, if her faith was helping her cope with the rough patch she was in, then she should cling to it. But if it wasn't maybe she should consider that faith doesn't always make things better.
There are other Christians in my life that treat me with an underlying disdain as well. It isn't a universal response, there are exceptions. But it is certainly the norm.
It strikes me as sad that we can't even talk. I'd like to think I am hearing what they mean to say. I used to believe the things that they do, I am familiar with the doctrines and the prejudices, the ideas and the assumptions. It is pretty easy to anticipate what will be said. What I never anticipate is the hostility with which they say it. Somehow, after years of friendship and sometimes many a shared hardship, I am the enemy. Yet I have no desire to talk anyone out of their faith. Why should I? Sure they hold doctrines that often lead to people being hurt, but that happens in politics and economics at least as often as it does in religion. Ours is a young species, we haven't got much of anything right yet...religion, politics, economics, or even science for that matter.
One of the primary reasons I left religion is that it required that I hate too many people. It wasn't put in just those words of course. There was a lot of talk about love. But the bottom line was just a chosen few got eternal love, the rest burned in hell.
As it turns out I wasn't very good at loving back when I was a Christian, and I am only marginally better at it now. Most of the time people simply baffle me, believing things that are clearly mistaken, (again as much in things political and economic as religious). Most seem completely unwilling to entertain a new thought or give way to a new idea. If tomorrow someone came up with an economic system that actually worked really well, capitalists, communists and socialists would all hate it with equal passion. The perfect political system would be loathed as well. Just having a conversation without pissing everyone off is a trial these days. I have no idea how one gets around to sharing love.
What kind of love is it when no one even hears what the other person is saying? As soon as I say I am not a believer, or a capitalist, socialist, liberal, or conservative, most people could care less how I feel. What I do doesn't matter either. I can make room in my home, share anything I call mine, help with any good project, and it means nothing at all. What matters is I don't agree with what they believe which must make me the arrogant one, the lost one, the hateful one.
Nothing, it seems, will change their mind. There is no way to crawl over the barriers.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Struggling with religion
It has been many, many years since I abandoned Christian-Protestant fundamentalism, moved through liberal Christianity, clung to a kind of universalism, and eventually found myself described as an atheist. It is an apt description; I have absolutely no god belief. Yet I struggle with religion.
I raised my daughters in the mentioned protestant fundamentalism. Much to my delight all have abandoned that ideology. Two however, went on to embrace profoundly conservative branches of Catholicism. My daughters are smart, well educated, capable, self assured young women. Their lives radiate a kindness and love of which any Father would be proud and, except for their religion, they are fiercely independent people.
For an atheist and an ex-Protestant there is no organization worse than the RCC. Were the RCC a secular organization the Pope and dozens of his underlings would be in jail for protecting pedophiles and obstruction of justice. The organization itself would be sued into insolvency, its assets frozen, confiscated, and eventually redistributed. Instead the RCC retains its tax except status and the protection of governments around the world who refuse to prosecute the guilty. The RCC's role in the oppression of gay people and women continues unabated and without serious challenge while its ambivalence to real education and seeking truth is unchanged since the days of Galileo. To put it bluntly, to me, the RCC is a world wide criminal enterprise supported by fraud and a naked abuse of power and corruption. Were it to implode and fade from human endeavors tomorrow, the world would be a remarkably better place.
Yet two of the people I love most are fierce supporters of this very organization, bow a knee to the Pope without reservation, and suspect that a world ruled by the Catholic church would be a world close to paradise. That two such loving, smart, independent women so love the RCC is a paradox beyond comprehension. Even after several years I have absolutely no idea how to fit the reality into my world. I am an atheist yet the RCC lies closer to my heart than my own life. And so I struggle with religion.
The United States of America is the only country where the separation of church and state is at the very core of our society. It is one of the reasons we are one of the most successful and oldest democracies on the planet. Yet that separation is being challenged by the very government that thrives on its existence. Catholic and Protestant religious fundamentalists now undermine a democratic government at all levels and have deeply infiltrated the military. Though not yet a route, secular ideals are on the defensive everywhere. Nearly every political candidate vying for any office openly wears some sect of militant Christianity on his or her sleeve. Each of them admits that assaulting the civil rights of various groups is demanded of them by their religion, and that they will use the powers of political office to fuel oppression in what was once a free society. That representatives of the various sects, Catholic, Protestant and Mormon are currently savaging each other in an attempt to solidify the support of all religious people offers the only faint hope for a future free of such idiocy.
It is hard to imagine that a Catholic would be any more pleased than I to be living in a country ruled by Protestant or Mormon fundamentalism. Nor can I imagine a Mormon or Protestant fundamentalists cherishing the idea of a President who kneels at the foot of the Pope. Throughout history murder, torture and repression are the fate of one religious order when some other religious order holds the reigns of power. When religion rules via political power everyone suffers. Religion, particularly fundamentalist religion, is determined to rule. Something I will certainly struggle against.
Every single day that I check the news a Muslim somewhere has murdered a group of people often by suicide bombing. Every single day! Islamic governments world wide promote and enforce an oppressive abuse of women that, in many cases, is hardly distinguishable from slavery. Every day hundreds of baby girls are tortured in an Islamic ritual of "purity". Churches and Mosques are routinely bombed by followers of the prophet. There does not appear to be a single redeeming idea in Muslim ideology, only oppression, hate and a demand for blind obedience to the dictates of religious oppression. As an aggressive cancer ravishes the body militant Islam ravishes the body politic, threatening civilized society.
I know from the most personal experience that not all Catholics reflect the evil that lurks deep in the Roman Catholic Church. I know that a very liberal and progressive branch of Protestant ideology exists, that the fundamentalists speak loudly but not for the majority. Knowing this is true of other religions is about the only thing that separates me from loathing Islam and all of it adherents without restraint. Most Catholics hate child abuse and would not protect the abusers. Not many Protestants support the twisted ideology of TV evangelism. It must be that few Muslims support the terrorism cherished by Islam's outspoken Imams. (If they did the world would already be a smoking cinder devoid of civilization.) Yet the Pope remains. TV evangelists rake in the millions of dollars needed to keep their operations alive. And Imams preaching murder have attentive congregations. As long as such people retain the power that comes from legions of religious followers who allow them to reign, I suspect there will be many who share my struggle with religion.
That such remain in power is, to me, one of the surest proofs that the gods they claim can't possibly exist. I don't know about you, but if I were Allah or Jehovah or Jesus, a lot of people would burst into flame the next time they stepped up to a microphone or started tapping on a keyboard. Whoever raised a rusty razor blade to a baby girl or tried to lure a child into the back of the rectory would instantly dissolve into a pile of dust to be scattered in the breeze. Any person attempting to strap a bomb on a teenager would be found a corpse with hands made of lead and a heart turned to stone. TV preachers who claimed to have god's own knowledge of an upcoming election or the reason for the latest earthquake, would feel their tongue grow rigid and swell until they choked to death on this one last lie. No god worthy of the title would tolerate what these people do in god's name.
I raised my daughters in the mentioned protestant fundamentalism. Much to my delight all have abandoned that ideology. Two however, went on to embrace profoundly conservative branches of Catholicism. My daughters are smart, well educated, capable, self assured young women. Their lives radiate a kindness and love of which any Father would be proud and, except for their religion, they are fiercely independent people.
For an atheist and an ex-Protestant there is no organization worse than the RCC. Were the RCC a secular organization the Pope and dozens of his underlings would be in jail for protecting pedophiles and obstruction of justice. The organization itself would be sued into insolvency, its assets frozen, confiscated, and eventually redistributed. Instead the RCC retains its tax except status and the protection of governments around the world who refuse to prosecute the guilty. The RCC's role in the oppression of gay people and women continues unabated and without serious challenge while its ambivalence to real education and seeking truth is unchanged since the days of Galileo. To put it bluntly, to me, the RCC is a world wide criminal enterprise supported by fraud and a naked abuse of power and corruption. Were it to implode and fade from human endeavors tomorrow, the world would be a remarkably better place.
Yet two of the people I love most are fierce supporters of this very organization, bow a knee to the Pope without reservation, and suspect that a world ruled by the Catholic church would be a world close to paradise. That two such loving, smart, independent women so love the RCC is a paradox beyond comprehension. Even after several years I have absolutely no idea how to fit the reality into my world. I am an atheist yet the RCC lies closer to my heart than my own life. And so I struggle with religion.
The United States of America is the only country where the separation of church and state is at the very core of our society. It is one of the reasons we are one of the most successful and oldest democracies on the planet. Yet that separation is being challenged by the very government that thrives on its existence. Catholic and Protestant religious fundamentalists now undermine a democratic government at all levels and have deeply infiltrated the military. Though not yet a route, secular ideals are on the defensive everywhere. Nearly every political candidate vying for any office openly wears some sect of militant Christianity on his or her sleeve. Each of them admits that assaulting the civil rights of various groups is demanded of them by their religion, and that they will use the powers of political office to fuel oppression in what was once a free society. That representatives of the various sects, Catholic, Protestant and Mormon are currently savaging each other in an attempt to solidify the support of all religious people offers the only faint hope for a future free of such idiocy.
It is hard to imagine that a Catholic would be any more pleased than I to be living in a country ruled by Protestant or Mormon fundamentalism. Nor can I imagine a Mormon or Protestant fundamentalists cherishing the idea of a President who kneels at the foot of the Pope. Throughout history murder, torture and repression are the fate of one religious order when some other religious order holds the reigns of power. When religion rules via political power everyone suffers. Religion, particularly fundamentalist religion, is determined to rule. Something I will certainly struggle against.
Every single day that I check the news a Muslim somewhere has murdered a group of people often by suicide bombing. Every single day! Islamic governments world wide promote and enforce an oppressive abuse of women that, in many cases, is hardly distinguishable from slavery. Every day hundreds of baby girls are tortured in an Islamic ritual of "purity". Churches and Mosques are routinely bombed by followers of the prophet. There does not appear to be a single redeeming idea in Muslim ideology, only oppression, hate and a demand for blind obedience to the dictates of religious oppression. As an aggressive cancer ravishes the body militant Islam ravishes the body politic, threatening civilized society.
I know from the most personal experience that not all Catholics reflect the evil that lurks deep in the Roman Catholic Church. I know that a very liberal and progressive branch of Protestant ideology exists, that the fundamentalists speak loudly but not for the majority. Knowing this is true of other religions is about the only thing that separates me from loathing Islam and all of it adherents without restraint. Most Catholics hate child abuse and would not protect the abusers. Not many Protestants support the twisted ideology of TV evangelism. It must be that few Muslims support the terrorism cherished by Islam's outspoken Imams. (If they did the world would already be a smoking cinder devoid of civilization.) Yet the Pope remains. TV evangelists rake in the millions of dollars needed to keep their operations alive. And Imams preaching murder have attentive congregations. As long as such people retain the power that comes from legions of religious followers who allow them to reign, I suspect there will be many who share my struggle with religion.
That such remain in power is, to me, one of the surest proofs that the gods they claim can't possibly exist. I don't know about you, but if I were Allah or Jehovah or Jesus, a lot of people would burst into flame the next time they stepped up to a microphone or started tapping on a keyboard. Whoever raised a rusty razor blade to a baby girl or tried to lure a child into the back of the rectory would instantly dissolve into a pile of dust to be scattered in the breeze. Any person attempting to strap a bomb on a teenager would be found a corpse with hands made of lead and a heart turned to stone. TV preachers who claimed to have god's own knowledge of an upcoming election or the reason for the latest earthquake, would feel their tongue grow rigid and swell until they choked to death on this one last lie. No god worthy of the title would tolerate what these people do in god's name.
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