From an Atheism thread over on a pod-cast board I subscribe to.
People look for answers. They look for something to invest themselves in and believe. I feel that these are basic human traits. I think that these two ideas help explain most of human history, why people join movements, why we create gods to believe in. We search for meaning in life, both on our grand scale and within our own lives.
A third aspect is the desire for power, to have control over our own lives. There are those for whom this is their primary motivation, their drug. They manipulate the first two urges, giving people something to believe in that tries to reduce them to being a vassal of a higher will. They create gods who speak to them, prophets for whom they are his direct servants.
For many people, they look to define their lives by one of these urges. Those who seek answers become philosophers or scientists. Those who seek something to invest themselves in join groups, like the priesthood or the military to help them find purpose. These are not definite concepts, but maybe, they might be something like an explanation.
I don't really mention gods before this point here. That is because I believe that gods are defined by people. We define, each and every person, who and what forces we believe in. Those who believe that all gods are one seek to find a common brotherhood through the same goal via a differing path, that there is a common human morality that is given by a single God who reveals himself in many forms. Those who believe in a vengeful God see a world full of things to be afraid of, to hate and fear; including many emotions within themselves. Those who believe in many gods often have their gods seem very human, because they see an imperfect world filled with an imperfect race; how could a perfect creator have wrought this? Atheists or Brights, whatever you choose to be called, see no point in trying to give any cloak of illusions upon their world, they strip it to what is solid and real. Agnostics can see no supernatural forces in this world, can look at every god and find them wanting, but still leave that maybe. Each person defines it themselves, so no attempt to categorize it is perfect, so if I have you pegged wrong, I wasn't talking about you.
3.18.2006
2.25.2006
A Sudden Realization
Some people don't like each other. Wow. What an amazing revelation.
I think this is part of many of the problems that we see in other parts of the world, never-mind inside our own back-yard. When you have a groups of people who have gone to war with one another, fought against one another, and killed one another for generations, you can't force them to get together and deal with each other fairly, at least not right away.
An example: My brother and I were at each other's throats until I left for college. Didn't matter that we had to live with one another, that just made it worse, dealing with all of the petty slights and fights. Then I leave, move to another state, and come home rarely. Now we get along. We could not have done this unless we got away from each other.
This is what we are dealing with in Iraq, just a hundred times worse. Three ethnic groups with a habit of fighting each other, each wanting to be the one in the top position. You're not going to be able to deal civilly with a man when you know he's just waiting for an excuse to oppress you. We don't talk about a one-state solution in Israel and Palestine because we know they can't get along. Makes only slightly more sense to endorse a one-state solution in Iraq, because they have more value in their ethnicity then their country. But we have the problem of resources. Iraq has oil wealth, but how much besides? The area has been farmed out over the course of human civilization, so they need something to allow them to join in this global economy and not become a poor third world nation, which will make for more fighting.
We have a problem, and perhaps a difficult to find solution in the near-term. I can't prescribe a balm for this situation, but I can predict a future solution: Old Europe, or the EU. The EU is perhaps one of our most traditional places of vicious in-fighting and wars. But with the time of calm in Western Europe, they were able to deal with themselves, and stand against an external threat, first in the form of NATO against the Russians, and now the EU against the United States (economically, I mean). We need to give them an external pressure to have them cooperate with each other, and it needs to be a voluntary thing. We have to give them the ability to stand apart from each other so they realize that they need to stand together.
Preaching into the AEther,
Miles
I think this is part of many of the problems that we see in other parts of the world, never-mind inside our own back-yard. When you have a groups of people who have gone to war with one another, fought against one another, and killed one another for generations, you can't force them to get together and deal with each other fairly, at least not right away.
An example: My brother and I were at each other's throats until I left for college. Didn't matter that we had to live with one another, that just made it worse, dealing with all of the petty slights and fights. Then I leave, move to another state, and come home rarely. Now we get along. We could not have done this unless we got away from each other.
This is what we are dealing with in Iraq, just a hundred times worse. Three ethnic groups with a habit of fighting each other, each wanting to be the one in the top position. You're not going to be able to deal civilly with a man when you know he's just waiting for an excuse to oppress you. We don't talk about a one-state solution in Israel and Palestine because we know they can't get along. Makes only slightly more sense to endorse a one-state solution in Iraq, because they have more value in their ethnicity then their country. But we have the problem of resources. Iraq has oil wealth, but how much besides? The area has been farmed out over the course of human civilization, so they need something to allow them to join in this global economy and not become a poor third world nation, which will make for more fighting.
We have a problem, and perhaps a difficult to find solution in the near-term. I can't prescribe a balm for this situation, but I can predict a future solution: Old Europe, or the EU. The EU is perhaps one of our most traditional places of vicious in-fighting and wars. But with the time of calm in Western Europe, they were able to deal with themselves, and stand against an external threat, first in the form of NATO against the Russians, and now the EU against the United States (economically, I mean). We need to give them an external pressure to have them cooperate with each other, and it needs to be a voluntary thing. We have to give them the ability to stand apart from each other so they realize that they need to stand together.
Preaching into the AEther,
Miles
1.15.2006
Angry Historical Prospective: We ended up letting the South off too easy.
A disclaimer: I am, in the contexts of this discussion, a yankee. I was born in Michigan and can trace family roots to John Brown. And I'm proud of both of these facts.
Why is the Confederate Flag still allowed to fly? It's the flag that was flown by a treasonous segment of our population, who thought that they could break off from this country because they didn't like the results of one political election. Never mind the Fucking Fact that they practically owned the White house before that point, Lincoln threatened to destroy all that the South held dear, just by sitting there and being President. They forced the hand of the federal government to act against them and their barbaric institution. I know why the flag is still flown, we didn't break the soul of hatred in the South for long enough. We let their leaders off too easily, instead of being given a traitor's trial and burial (like all of the criminals in WW2). During Reconstruction, actual progress was being made towards equality. Having an equal chance, Black Americans were able to express their will and start to build for themselves a place in this country. Terrorist groups, like the KKK, threatened this, which is why federal troops were needed, because some stupid southern bastards couldn't pull their heads out of their asses and the hate they had developed for a generation. Jefferson said he trembled when he reflects that God is just in regards to slavery, and this punishment should have been visited full circle upon the controlling classes in the south, those that sought to betray their country.
Instead the beginnings of the shift of the Parties placed the Republicans in league with big business, which had no use for the radical wing that sought equality, so it allowed troops to be removed from the South before a generation could grow up knowing equality and simply allowing the anger and hatred that had been bottled up by un-hung traitors to be vented into the system, bringing us the era of Jim Crow.
Why is the Confederate Flag still allowed to fly? It's the flag that was flown by a treasonous segment of our population, who thought that they could break off from this country because they didn't like the results of one political election. Never mind the Fucking Fact that they practically owned the White house before that point, Lincoln threatened to destroy all that the South held dear, just by sitting there and being President. They forced the hand of the federal government to act against them and their barbaric institution. I know why the flag is still flown, we didn't break the soul of hatred in the South for long enough. We let their leaders off too easily, instead of being given a traitor's trial and burial (like all of the criminals in WW2). During Reconstruction, actual progress was being made towards equality. Having an equal chance, Black Americans were able to express their will and start to build for themselves a place in this country. Terrorist groups, like the KKK, threatened this, which is why federal troops were needed, because some stupid southern bastards couldn't pull their heads out of their asses and the hate they had developed for a generation. Jefferson said he trembled when he reflects that God is just in regards to slavery, and this punishment should have been visited full circle upon the controlling classes in the south, those that sought to betray their country.
Instead the beginnings of the shift of the Parties placed the Republicans in league with big business, which had no use for the radical wing that sought equality, so it allowed troops to be removed from the South before a generation could grow up knowing equality and simply allowing the anger and hatred that had been bottled up by un-hung traitors to be vented into the system, bringing us the era of Jim Crow.
1.09.2006
Gods Help them.
I'm sick and tired of hearing religious extremists attack those who feel that they can live their lives without religion, as if my very presence, even though I keep my mouth shut about it, causes them to be oppressed. They try to legislate the government to become a christian one, because they feel that they have most of the country standing behind them. The sad thing is, they might be right. Right now, with things as they are, they can probably legislate religion into the primary law of the land (as long as the corporations are free to rape and pillage as they please). But you know what my response to that idea is: France. Europe has long dealt with peoples that have an overabundance of faith and a dearth of compassion, and they have revolted in many small and large ways against it. The teacher is a joke, the law is a joke; this is one of the things that percolates in the young, a revolt on some level against authority. For some, this rebellion is wild, unfocused, and ultimately pointless. But for some, they start looking for answers, still the young child asking "Why" and because is no longer an answer that they can accept. If you place God as the Order, then children will rebel, maybe not all, but perhaps enough to change things. And when your order offers no answers but because drawn from a piece of over-translated fiction, they will reject it. I see it already among the people I knew at college, among many of them, religion was a joke, something to be laughed at and laughed off. But start attacking them, and they will start attacking back. And they will bite. Hard. And you will begin to remove God from public life. It's a cycle, a vicious one. The words change, but the melody remains the same. This country was founded by people looking to get away from religious oppression, and time has removed those oppressions from Europe and installed them here.
Christians: Stop attacking science. It just encourages science to attack you. You book is a castle built of cards, with little holding together except inertia. If you try to place God in the holes of theory, you are forced to defend those holes, even while science closes them. Try to insert your God, and he will be crushed and ground up as science seals up the holes. Stop declaring yourself morally superior to those around you. You're human. No better then the rest of us, and perhaps worse, because you think you have an out for your actions, the chance to be a bastard and still be saved because you believe in Jesus. I live knowing that my life will be judged only by the actions that I take, and that might be all my life means.
One anecdote to close out this rant: I spent some time with my grandfather over the holidays, and relished in the rabidly liberal conversations that were exchanged. But I noticed one difference, I had no respect for religion, just because it was a man's religion, while my grandfather tried to judge a man on broader terms then that. This one difference is, I think, because of the preaching and preening I've grown up with. A minister on a TV or a pulpit starts at huckster, and has to redeem himself from that point with me. It's not a hard trail, but that is the way I view things.
Christians: Stop attacking science. It just encourages science to attack you. You book is a castle built of cards, with little holding together except inertia. If you try to place God in the holes of theory, you are forced to defend those holes, even while science closes them. Try to insert your God, and he will be crushed and ground up as science seals up the holes. Stop declaring yourself morally superior to those around you. You're human. No better then the rest of us, and perhaps worse, because you think you have an out for your actions, the chance to be a bastard and still be saved because you believe in Jesus. I live knowing that my life will be judged only by the actions that I take, and that might be all my life means.
One anecdote to close out this rant: I spent some time with my grandfather over the holidays, and relished in the rabidly liberal conversations that were exchanged. But I noticed one difference, I had no respect for religion, just because it was a man's religion, while my grandfather tried to judge a man on broader terms then that. This one difference is, I think, because of the preaching and preening I've grown up with. A minister on a TV or a pulpit starts at huckster, and has to redeem himself from that point with me. It's not a hard trail, but that is the way I view things.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)