RANDOM OBSERVATIONS #1
None or few of the following are original concepts. They are lessons learned, mostly via reading, from others and simply put into my own words as part of insights I have learned over many years. Maybe in years to come my viewpoints will change yet more, or at least become revised. What is life, really, but revised understandings?
Sectarian faith is but insistence that a blind man being led by inherited dogma treads surer through life than a seeing man treading through life by the light of reason.
The world AS is, IS no longer and will never be AS IS again. Nor should it. Evolution doesn't go backwards---EVER. Or fail to change---EVER.
No religion which requires persecution and laws to sustain it's dogma is worthy of respect.
Prevention of crime is a more ethical priority than overzealous revengeful punishment of criminal behavior.
If we must hate, if hate provides some sort of meaning to our lives, then at least we should hate what should be hated----violence, falsehood, the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few at the expense of the many, irresponsible reproduction, etc.
Sarah Palin will die a political death from swallowing her own lies, ignorance, and self delusions. Maybe some polar bear, on the way to extinction, will take her with him/her.
What is sex, taken from a disinterested viewpoint, but a universal, albeit individually unique, neurosis.
At the time of Christ, Jesus was a progressive radical opposed by the conservative elements of his day. Today, to accept Christianity one must look past modern rigid purists with braces on their brains. To believe that EVERYTHING CHANGES with evolutionary time EXCEPT religious dogma is to accept an apparent absurdity. Every spread of justice and human rights to those without such rights has come over the vitriolic protests of religious dogmatists.
We should cease making God our accomplice in unethical behaviors, attitudes, and intolerance . Then maybe, at some point in human evolution, peace will reign across the planet and every species be spared human assault on their well being, including other humans.
Not much has ever been done for the good of the people without the rich and religious purists having had their monopoly of power and their rights of property/religious dogmas limited by law.
Poverty is the parent of most crime, chaos, and terrorism. Unrestricted, irresponsible population growth generates inescapable poverty, the kind of poverty which, by treating just the symptoms will never effect any cure, and indeed makes the poverty worse.
The bravest are those who conquer themselves and sacrifice to help others, not those professional soldiers who practice mass slaughter of their often illusional enemies. People are not heroes because they kill whenever a government tells them too. If this is not true then where is the holiday to celebrate World War II German soldiers?
Who are the best of us? Those of us willing to let our illusions die.
When enough is not enough, misery and discontentedness follow---and this includes material wealth, power, sex, titles, fame, etc.
When the gap between the rich and the poor becomes too great and empires too overextended, such empires implode upon themselves.
The biggest of political lies: that the Government should protect the rich with tax breaks, loopholes, exemptions, etc. and that the rich in turn, via trickle down, will care for the poor, the different, the sick.
Those on the religious right seem to fall into a pattern: They begin by loving inherited sectarian dogma better than the truth, then proceed to love their neighbors as themselves---UNLESS THE NEIGHBORS' THEOLOGIES ARE NOT STRAIGHT----and then proceed to persecute, via laws and discrimination, those of different religious beliefs, and end by LOVING THEMSELVES better than everyone else.
The moral dilemma, irrespective of political bent, is that so many of the fortunate are willing to live in excessive material comfort even if the price of this is poverty, ignorance, and disease for a majority of other global inhabitants. To maintain this extravagant lifestyle wars are waged until today terroristic wars have become universal and continuous.
Science without ethics/religion is evil. Religion without science is fraud. Fraud is evil. Good people become victims of this fraud.
The expenditures (more than the expenditures of all other major powers combined) for the many wars the U.S. has launched in the last 50 years has not only killed, displaced, or wounded millions of innocent victims, but is theft from those American citizens who are hungry and are not fed, are cold and not clothed, need good schools and have not, need good health care and have little, need jobs and have no job. EVEN AMERICA is not rich enough to wage endless wars and still provide the needs of its poorest citizens.
Death is best viewed as a NECESSARY IRRELEVANCY. While we exist there is no death, and when there is death we do not exist, therefore we do not know we are dead. Why fear something which cannot exist while we exist? We know so little about life, which we have experienced, so it is farcical to claim knowledge about death which we will never experience.
The laws of nature are laws established by God. As evolutionary time passes humans better understand the laws of nature (science). All human contrived religious dogmas are based on an imperfect understanding of the laws of nature. Thus, as understanding is elevated over time, moral precepts change too. All ancient religious dogmas have many falsehoods. Failure to correct these falsehoods in an enlightened future becomes a major impediment to increased justice for all.
Democracy is never free from it's own tyranny. Ask any minority.
TRUE religious beliefs are not wrapped in dogmas, myths, fables, and cultism via an inherited religious sect. True religious beliefs emanate from the inherent universal human concept of The Golden Rule. This universal inherent ethical concept is a PRODUCT of God's evolutionary process.
Most Christians are apparent atheists. If they weren't they wouldn't behave as they do.
Capital punishment doesn't cure crime anymore than charity cures poverty.
Religion in the worse case scenario is worshipping what one doesn't understand.
Rituals, ceremonies, anthems, adulation are not real patriotism. Precisely because you love your country you owe it reasoned deliberation, and especially criticism when government policies are morally wrong. Wars like Vietnam and the 2nd Iraq War ( which is something like the 50th country we have invaded since 1950) would never have happened but for blind patriotism. Neither would it have taken so long for more American citizens to gain the justice and freedom already granted other citizens.
The tears of the poor and over the top extravagances of the rich seem directly proportional. Not a lot of trickle down.
All human concocted religions have some truths and some falsehoods. That is a demonstrable fact. Therefore, none of these religions, all originating around the same time in history, are God's Word. God doesn't get such things half ass right.
Reckless change and blind conservatism seem tied in level of imbecility.
Nonconformists, at least those who seek change to better the lives of all, are the real engines of progress in any culture, any type of government, any religion.
Of all sexual orientations or practices, abstinence seems the most unnatural.
When those in the House of the Haves attack those in the House of the Have-Nots, no matter how sophisticated the weaponry, the House of the Have's always lose---sooner or later. This seems to be one of the most immutable laws of nature.
The American modern day vast expenditures for defense fails to produce a sense of security, but does generate a VAST NUMBER OF ENEMIES---which leads to fear of other nations, a fear seeped in suspicion and distrust and evil imagining of other cultures.
Free will may be somewhat of a misnomer. Our free will is little more than the individualized organization of our brains coupled with the influence of the environment on our individual brains.
Which is better----sleep, wakeful living, or to never have been born at all? The answer seems to depend on the particular human being to whom the question is directed.
In God's evolutionary process CHANGE is the only permanence.
In modern wars battlefield deaths mean little. We can kill ten of "THEM" for every ONE of us killed, and in the end it will be WE who will tire of the carnage and halt the invasion. We lost around 3000 people in the Trade Center bombings and went emotionally berserk---all of us, and not unnaturally so. If we went berserk it was a kind of a natural berserkiness. Millions of Vietnam and Iraqis were killed by us and we tend to view their emotional responses to our killings as their being crazed loonies, religious/political zealots willing to die as blessed martyrs. Maybe the world just has too many religious/political zealots. Maybe Americans should lead by example and not meddle so much.
