Where you totally misscharacterize the facts, GOPer, is that the demonstrators are not Democrats per se; some are Democrats, some are independents, some have never been involved before, but will be now, in 2012! There may even be a Tea Party Republican or two.
They are demonstrating against Obama as much as against the financial-industry-friendly Republicans, and those politicians who take campaign donations/bribes from financial wheeler-dealer firms and from big corps. Obama, you ought to be aware, does that too. Obama likes to suck up to the Wall Street mob.
Whereas the Tea Party Republicans are anal-retentives out to laager their wagons and keep other folks from grabbing their stash or disturbing their peace and quiet in their regimented Republican ghetto neighborhoods, the Occupy Wall Street crowd are more representative of the American people as a whole-- disparate in income and ethnicity, including some out of work or having trouble with finances or concerned about those who are.
The political parties would do well to address the demonstrators' concerns. I don't know if this movement will fade out in a week or continue in some form or other. But you ignore or ridicule these demonstrators at your peril.
Which reminds me of what JS wrote above. JS sounds a lot like solid well-off Republicans 40+ years ago, talking about those demonstrating against the Vietnam War. Surprise! Turned out the protesters and draft dodgers were right! The Vietnam War was a matter of a corrupt, lying government and military here trying to prop up a corrupt, lying series of governments in South Vietnam, all to the short term profit of certain industries here in the states.
You may not like the hygiene of the messengers, but you damn well better pay attention to the message.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Unmentionable
I like Herman Cain. He's telling some hometruths, that you don't get anywhere with a chip on your shoulder, that however strong prejudice is, YOU are more responsible for what happens to you than anybody else. Similar message to that of Bill Cosby, btw.
Huntsman seems lost, left behind. Is he still in the race, theoretically speaking?
Cain, Huntsman, and Paul can really teach us something. And between them, they can articulate the various prospective futures of the Republican Party. I wish that win lose or draw they would take the debates on the road to educate Americans of both parties, to make us THINK, as Phil Donohue liked to say. Forget the others, forget the election; Cain, Huntsman and Paul are the ones to listen to, even if you don't plan to vote for them. *
Changing gears. I saw this -- http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/10/07/could-unmarried-woman-sink-obama/ -- on Google News links. Always hungry for tabloid fodder I clicked on the link. "Aha!, I thought, Obama's got a girl friend." Then I found out the headline was misleading; they weren't talking about one embarassing mistress, they were talking about Obama's appeal to single women, who voted for Obama overwhelmingly in 2008.
Read that article. Do you notice something? Something not mentioned? The A-word maybe?
That article fails to mention a component of Obama's and the Democrat's appeal to single women voters. Abortion. When GOP candidates start hitting on abortion, single women get nervous. THEY don't want some old fart, male, bald, overweight,** calling the shots on their reproductive rights. And hence they avoid certain Republicans like the plague.
Abortion in my opinion is a non-issue, at least at the federal level, or ought to be.
Did you notice something else? How much has the A-word been pushed around in the GOP "debates"? How much has Romney uttered the A-word? Can you guess why?
*Leading candidates you do not want to listen to. They say what gets them votes and avoid what costs them votes. It's the ones who trail in the polls who can afford to tell the truth, to utter the unpopular.
** Old, fat, bald, wanting power over a woman's reproduction? Like Congressman Neugebauer, maybe?
Huntsman seems lost, left behind. Is he still in the race, theoretically speaking?
Cain, Huntsman, and Paul can really teach us something. And between them, they can articulate the various prospective futures of the Republican Party. I wish that win lose or draw they would take the debates on the road to educate Americans of both parties, to make us THINK, as Phil Donohue liked to say. Forget the others, forget the election; Cain, Huntsman and Paul are the ones to listen to, even if you don't plan to vote for them. *
Changing gears. I saw this -- http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/10/07/could-unmarried-woman-sink-obama/ -- on Google News links. Always hungry for tabloid fodder I clicked on the link. "Aha!, I thought, Obama's got a girl friend." Then I found out the headline was misleading; they weren't talking about one embarassing mistress, they were talking about Obama's appeal to single women, who voted for Obama overwhelmingly in 2008.
Read that article. Do you notice something? Something not mentioned? The A-word maybe?
That article fails to mention a component of Obama's and the Democrat's appeal to single women voters. Abortion. When GOP candidates start hitting on abortion, single women get nervous. THEY don't want some old fart, male, bald, overweight,** calling the shots on their reproductive rights. And hence they avoid certain Republicans like the plague.
Abortion in my opinion is a non-issue, at least at the federal level, or ought to be.
Did you notice something else? How much has the A-word been pushed around in the GOP "debates"? How much has Romney uttered the A-word? Can you guess why?
*Leading candidates you do not want to listen to. They say what gets them votes and avoid what costs them votes. It's the ones who trail in the polls who can afford to tell the truth, to utter the unpopular.
** Old, fat, bald, wanting power over a woman's reproduction? Like Congressman Neugebauer, maybe?
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Dial 9-11 for Hypocrisy
What follows are my posts more or less in response to a thread started about the 9/11 monument in Israel.
Let me say by preamble that the wallowing in national grief over the WTC is misplaced and turns my stomach. Knowing that, you are prepared to continue reading or not. 9-11, get the fuck over it. It was only a warm-up for the tragedies to follow.
..............................................................................................................................................................
Where are the memorials for those innocent Iraqis who have died since 2003? For innocent Afghans? Way, way over 3,000 in the case of Iraq. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
One might also inquire about memorials to innocent Palestinians killed by Israelis.
................................................................................................................................................................
Mohammar Qadaffi, Hosni Mubarek, and even Saddam Hussein were American allies who were betrayed and dumped by us because a friendly or hands-off relationship with them became too embarassing and politically incorrect.
Saddam was Reagan's counterweight in the Middle East. Then 60 Minutes ran pieces about the mass killing in the Iran-Iraq war, and the use of poison gas and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction. THEN Saddam became a non-person to the Bush One administration. Too dirty, too messy to be involved with.
Before invading Kuwait, Saddam sent a communique through the State Dept to the Bush administration, asking in effect if the U.S. had any objections to his pressing his claim against Kuwait, said claim being the rationale for invading.
I first heard this in a Reader's Digest article in the early 1990s. Now, thanks to Wikileaks, we know more about it. See for example Ron Paul who claims Bush tricked Saddam into invading: http://www.dailypaul.com/156160/ron-paul-enters-evidence-of-bush-war-crimes-in-congressional-record My own interpretation was that the U.S. did not reply, thereby giving tacit permission for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
The time to draw a 'line in the sand' of course was before Saddam invaded, not after, when he could not back down without a loss of face and the respect of his enemies. At the very least, George Herbert Bush totally blew it. At the worst, well, you have Ron Paul's opinion.
Back to casualties. How many Iraqis have been killed since 2003? Iraq Body Count is a conservative count. They have debunked claims of 490,000 and a million civilian casualties. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/beyond/exaggerated-orb/ THEIR count is 115,000 civilians dead from military activity by the USA and allies. More deaths to be found in the action reports released by Wilkleaks. This does NOT include insurgents killed, it does NOT include Iraqi soldiers killed. Does anyone here think we fought bloody battles with the Republican Guard and they took only a few thousand killed? So THE TOTAL or Iraqis killed, on all sides and civilians on no side, is probably a couple of hundred thousand.
And we are making such a fuss about 3,000 killed on 9-11. Hell, we have 30,000 killed in auto accidents each year, ten thou plus killed in suicides, accidents and homicides from firearm, 40,000 killed annually from medical malpractice. Hell, we lose a lot more than 3,000 Americans every year because of a freekin lack of medical care!
Not to bring up for a millisecond all those dying in the Sudan, in Somalia, in central America, in a hundred places around the globe that few of us can find on our maps, whose deaths mean nothing in comparison to a handful of over-fed, well-heeled paperpushers who died at the WTC.
And these g.d. propagandists want to build a memorial to those killed on 9-11 and hold prayers and church services and damn those Americans and non-Americans whose preventable deaths they do not want to bother to try to prevent. As we see in that monument in Israel, and in our own 9-11 memorials and services, this is nothing but propaganda, manipulation of popular opinion for political purposes.
.................................................................................................................................................................
I'm sorry about that, _______. Sorry about your leaving. Think I'll do the same as soon as I post an attack on LISD's new $30,000 parking spaces that I've been planning for a month. Then, maybe you will come back.
You don't like my comments because I am at base a moralist, and I don't hesitate to do the politically incorrect thing of accusing you or the nation you support of being wrong or hypocritical. You want to blissfully ignore the numbers and the facts and to pretend that you, and Israel and the United States and your religion, have an hereditary exclusive on being right and just.
I agree that it should have been Saudi Arabia that put up a 9-11 monument; considering the relationship between our nations and the role of S.A. in 9/11, much of which has not been released to the public by the 9/11 Commission and will not be for another 12 years, the Saudis really should have built such a monument as a conciliatory gesture. But since the House of Saud is sitting atop a keg of gunpowder -- earlier this year it looked like they would be among the casualties of the Arab Spring -- it is somewhat understandable that they did not tweak the ears of the lion that will one day overthrow and execute them.
Why did Israel build a 9/11 monument? To show that they and we have a common enemy-- Arab fundamentalism. Never mind that 99.99% of Muslims are not terrorists, they want to express common cause with the United States in this ongoing battle against Islam. They also want U.S. aid to continue. They want America off their backs in how they treat the Arabs and Palestinians among them. I don't really consider those motivations to be all that admirable, though probably you do.
The terrorism happening in Israel cuts both ways; that is all that I have said and all I am saying; Israelis are both victims and victimizers. A missile is launched from a neighborhood in Nablus; there is a retributive attack on that part of Nablus. And so it goes in an endless cycle of vengeance. How do you break that cycle?
I wonder -- you ever watch those WWII movies where the occupying Germans execute innnocent citizens because of something the resistance has done? That actually happened, btw. In Holland for example the townspeople of Nijmegen or Arnem were told that if the culprits in the Dutch resistance did not give themselves up, that 10 or a dozen men and women would be selected at random and executed for what the resistance had done. Think about that. And consider this:
From http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/chronology-pr.cfm, quote:
[i]"October 23, 1983 - A suicide car bomb attack against the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut kills 241 servicemen. A simultaneous attack on a French base kills 58 paratroopers.
"In response, President Ronald Reagan ordered the battleship USS New Jersey, stationed off the coast of Lebanon, to shell the hills near Beirut." [/i]
Reagan asked in a press conference afterward "Ever hear the sound a 16" shell makes?" Reagan like John Wayne was an expert on war and cannon because he had been in the movies.
So if the terrorists who killed 241 Marines (because their commander was stupid enough to biillet them in one dense, vulnerable pile, but that's another part of the story) were thought to be from the Druze villages in the mountains, then we shelled the villages. Obviously it would be the merest chance that a perpetrator was killed by a shell. It was enough that someone in the same village, the same neighborhood, the same house, was killed.
Get my point? That we do the same things we accused the Germans of doing in WWII occupied areas, and tried them for, by the way, as war criminals. We and the Israelis are higher tech and we often kill from afar when we exact retribution for a terrorist attack.
Wonder what Lebanese or Palestinian families think about the bombs from above when they come. Which brings up the inevitable question, "Who is the terrorist, and who is seeking revenge for terrorism?" Are the boundaries always clear?
Let me say by preamble that the wallowing in national grief over the WTC is misplaced and turns my stomach. Knowing that, you are prepared to continue reading or not. 9-11, get the fuck over it. It was only a warm-up for the tragedies to follow.
..............................................................................................................................................................
Where are the memorials for those innocent Iraqis who have died since 2003? For innocent Afghans? Way, way over 3,000 in the case of Iraq. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
One might also inquire about memorials to innocent Palestinians killed by Israelis.
................................................................................................................................................................
Mohammar Qadaffi, Hosni Mubarek, and even Saddam Hussein were American allies who were betrayed and dumped by us because a friendly or hands-off relationship with them became too embarassing and politically incorrect.
Saddam was Reagan's counterweight in the Middle East. Then 60 Minutes ran pieces about the mass killing in the Iran-Iraq war, and the use of poison gas and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction. THEN Saddam became a non-person to the Bush One administration. Too dirty, too messy to be involved with.
Before invading Kuwait, Saddam sent a communique through the State Dept to the Bush administration, asking in effect if the U.S. had any objections to his pressing his claim against Kuwait, said claim being the rationale for invading.
I first heard this in a Reader's Digest article in the early 1990s. Now, thanks to Wikileaks, we know more about it. See for example Ron Paul who claims Bush tricked Saddam into invading: http://www.dailypaul.com/156160/ron-paul-enters-evidence-of-bush-war-crimes-in-congressional-record My own interpretation was that the U.S. did not reply, thereby giving tacit permission for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
The time to draw a 'line in the sand' of course was before Saddam invaded, not after, when he could not back down without a loss of face and the respect of his enemies. At the very least, George Herbert Bush totally blew it. At the worst, well, you have Ron Paul's opinion.
Back to casualties. How many Iraqis have been killed since 2003? Iraq Body Count is a conservative count. They have debunked claims of 490,000 and a million civilian casualties. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/beyond/exaggerated-orb/ THEIR count is 115,000 civilians dead from military activity by the USA and allies. More deaths to be found in the action reports released by Wilkleaks. This does NOT include insurgents killed, it does NOT include Iraqi soldiers killed. Does anyone here think we fought bloody battles with the Republican Guard and they took only a few thousand killed? So THE TOTAL or Iraqis killed, on all sides and civilians on no side, is probably a couple of hundred thousand.
And we are making such a fuss about 3,000 killed on 9-11. Hell, we have 30,000 killed in auto accidents each year, ten thou plus killed in suicides, accidents and homicides from firearm, 40,000 killed annually from medical malpractice. Hell, we lose a lot more than 3,000 Americans every year because of a freekin lack of medical care!
Not to bring up for a millisecond all those dying in the Sudan, in Somalia, in central America, in a hundred places around the globe that few of us can find on our maps, whose deaths mean nothing in comparison to a handful of over-fed, well-heeled paperpushers who died at the WTC.
And these g.d. propagandists want to build a memorial to those killed on 9-11 and hold prayers and church services and damn those Americans and non-Americans whose preventable deaths they do not want to bother to try to prevent. As we see in that monument in Israel, and in our own 9-11 memorials and services, this is nothing but propaganda, manipulation of popular opinion for political purposes.
.................................................................................................................................................................
I'm sorry about that, _______. Sorry about your leaving. Think I'll do the same as soon as I post an attack on LISD's new $30,000 parking spaces that I've been planning for a month. Then, maybe you will come back.
You don't like my comments because I am at base a moralist, and I don't hesitate to do the politically incorrect thing of accusing you or the nation you support of being wrong or hypocritical. You want to blissfully ignore the numbers and the facts and to pretend that you, and Israel and the United States and your religion, have an hereditary exclusive on being right and just.
I agree that it should have been Saudi Arabia that put up a 9-11 monument; considering the relationship between our nations and the role of S.A. in 9/11, much of which has not been released to the public by the 9/11 Commission and will not be for another 12 years, the Saudis really should have built such a monument as a conciliatory gesture. But since the House of Saud is sitting atop a keg of gunpowder -- earlier this year it looked like they would be among the casualties of the Arab Spring -- it is somewhat understandable that they did not tweak the ears of the lion that will one day overthrow and execute them.
Why did Israel build a 9/11 monument? To show that they and we have a common enemy-- Arab fundamentalism. Never mind that 99.99% of Muslims are not terrorists, they want to express common cause with the United States in this ongoing battle against Islam. They also want U.S. aid to continue. They want America off their backs in how they treat the Arabs and Palestinians among them. I don't really consider those motivations to be all that admirable, though probably you do.
The terrorism happening in Israel cuts both ways; that is all that I have said and all I am saying; Israelis are both victims and victimizers. A missile is launched from a neighborhood in Nablus; there is a retributive attack on that part of Nablus. And so it goes in an endless cycle of vengeance. How do you break that cycle?
I wonder -- you ever watch those WWII movies where the occupying Germans execute innnocent citizens because of something the resistance has done? That actually happened, btw. In Holland for example the townspeople of Nijmegen or Arnem were told that if the culprits in the Dutch resistance did not give themselves up, that 10 or a dozen men and women would be selected at random and executed for what the resistance had done. Think about that. And consider this:
From http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/chronology-pr.cfm, quote:
[i]"October 23, 1983 - A suicide car bomb attack against the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut kills 241 servicemen. A simultaneous attack on a French base kills 58 paratroopers.
"In response, President Ronald Reagan ordered the battleship USS New Jersey, stationed off the coast of Lebanon, to shell the hills near Beirut." [/i]
Reagan asked in a press conference afterward "Ever hear the sound a 16" shell makes?" Reagan like John Wayne was an expert on war and cannon because he had been in the movies.
So if the terrorists who killed 241 Marines (because their commander was stupid enough to biillet them in one dense, vulnerable pile, but that's another part of the story) were thought to be from the Druze villages in the mountains, then we shelled the villages. Obviously it would be the merest chance that a perpetrator was killed by a shell. It was enough that someone in the same village, the same neighborhood, the same house, was killed.
Get my point? That we do the same things we accused the Germans of doing in WWII occupied areas, and tried them for, by the way, as war criminals. We and the Israelis are higher tech and we often kill from afar when we exact retribution for a terrorist attack.
Wonder what Lebanese or Palestinian families think about the bombs from above when they come. Which brings up the inevitable question, "Who is the terrorist, and who is seeking revenge for terrorism?" Are the boundaries always clear?
Friday, September 9, 2011
Obama Speech
Well-written and delivered, in form a challenge to the other side -- "You pass this or the consequences are on your head." So now Obama can to a degree sit back and relax, knowing that the whole thing probably will not get passed unchanged and if any change is made, he can blame the Republicans for any problems with the economy. A win-win scenario for the Big O. Unless the whole proposal passes and the economy is still sour, in which case Obama takes the hit. But what is the likelihood of that? (The Jobs bill passing, I mean, not the economy staying sour.)
As to the bill itself, I cain't kick. I would like to see more of a carrot and a stick applied to American companies who move operations or jobs abroad, and more tax disadvantages to companies with officers paid a lot more than the rank and file. It ain't American, and while we can't tell companies how much to pay their board and executives, we can sure as heck penalyze them when it comes to taxing.
Also, as always, there is too much deference toward the financial industry. American business is separate from the casino shell games played in the finance sector.
And in the meantime, Republican presidential hopefuls will be tearing each other apart, while Obama, like Caesar at the Colisseum, sits on his throne and watches.
I'm disappointed in Bachmann's reception. Not that I consider her a good candidate. It's the way the GOP faithful are bypassing her in favor of taller and louder men. Her content is not that different from Perry's, both being on the looney side of the street. Why is he getting the attention while she is fading? Not fair. I think it's because she is a little woman.
I've said before that the Republican candidates are a handsome bunch this year. The hair dye and transplants, the botox, the spa treatments, have really paid off. And I am sorry to say, that is what a candidate most needs: handsomeness. The time is past when Americans will elect a fat, bald, stooped, short, or wrinkled person to the White House. We are all about appearances and soundbites and shortness on substance.
Perry would have appalled previous generations, whose children and grandchildren now stand enthralled. Sad to say, he is the man of our time, which says more about us, about some of us, than about him.
Not that Perry will win against Obama if nominated. I feel Huntsman is the best candidate to go head to head against Obama. The loss will not reform Perry or his (or Bachmann's or Gingrich's or Palin's) supporters. They will retire to their dens to lick their wounds and plan revenge. As a character said in Lord of the Rings, "After a rest and a respite, the evil grows again."
I know it's bad to characterize a significant segment of the American population as evil, but that's how I feel. They have cleaved to the false prophets and the anti-Christ prophesied in the New Testament.
See! I can wax religious too.
As to the bill itself, I cain't kick. I would like to see more of a carrot and a stick applied to American companies who move operations or jobs abroad, and more tax disadvantages to companies with officers paid a lot more than the rank and file. It ain't American, and while we can't tell companies how much to pay their board and executives, we can sure as heck penalyze them when it comes to taxing.
Also, as always, there is too much deference toward the financial industry. American business is separate from the casino shell games played in the finance sector.
And in the meantime, Republican presidential hopefuls will be tearing each other apart, while Obama, like Caesar at the Colisseum, sits on his throne and watches.
I'm disappointed in Bachmann's reception. Not that I consider her a good candidate. It's the way the GOP faithful are bypassing her in favor of taller and louder men. Her content is not that different from Perry's, both being on the looney side of the street. Why is he getting the attention while she is fading? Not fair. I think it's because she is a little woman.
I've said before that the Republican candidates are a handsome bunch this year. The hair dye and transplants, the botox, the spa treatments, have really paid off. And I am sorry to say, that is what a candidate most needs: handsomeness. The time is past when Americans will elect a fat, bald, stooped, short, or wrinkled person to the White House. We are all about appearances and soundbites and shortness on substance.
Perry would have appalled previous generations, whose children and grandchildren now stand enthralled. Sad to say, he is the man of our time, which says more about us, about some of us, than about him.
Not that Perry will win against Obama if nominated. I feel Huntsman is the best candidate to go head to head against Obama. The loss will not reform Perry or his (or Bachmann's or Gingrich's or Palin's) supporters. They will retire to their dens to lick their wounds and plan revenge. As a character said in Lord of the Rings, "After a rest and a respite, the evil grows again."
I know it's bad to characterize a significant segment of the American population as evil, but that's how I feel. They have cleaved to the false prophets and the anti-Christ prophesied in the New Testament.
See! I can wax religious too.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Cult
On the GOP, check this out: http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779 By a former Republican who had enough. He is incisive too in his dissection of the Democrats.
Despite what I post here and elsewhere, I don't really think that merely being a Republican qualifies one for a padded cell. There are thoughtful Republicans out there with a useful perspective that could help the country. But increasingly the GOP is dominated by a Far Right lunatic fringe that does behave like a cult.
In fact, their beliefs form a politico-religious complex, and are constantly reinforced by a radio-TV-print- propaganda barrage like that of Herr Goebbels in the 1930s.
To hear some preachers spin it, Jesus was the prophet of free-market capitalism and of low taxes and no restrictions on big business and the rich.
Sunday, trying to get the news programs on TV, I passed a channel where a preacher was preaching -- conservative politics and economics. So much for the Sermon on the Mount. So much for feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. So much for the parable of the rich man and the eye of the needle. The Republican-Religious Fundamentalist complex are forging a new religion, suited to their joint purposes.
If I were the parent of a young Republican today, I'd seriously think about arranging a kidnapping and deprogramming exactly as though he or she had gotten involved with the moonies or scientology or a radical sect of Islam.
I think there is a coming civil war in this country over core values that will make the 1861-65 Civil War look like boys throwing rocks at each other. The conservatives are already armed to the teeth. It is incumbent on those opposing the conservative Religio-Republican agenda to prepare as well.
Despite what I post here and elsewhere, I don't really think that merely being a Republican qualifies one for a padded cell. There are thoughtful Republicans out there with a useful perspective that could help the country. But increasingly the GOP is dominated by a Far Right lunatic fringe that does behave like a cult.
In fact, their beliefs form a politico-religious complex, and are constantly reinforced by a radio-TV-print- propaganda barrage like that of Herr Goebbels in the 1930s.
To hear some preachers spin it, Jesus was the prophet of free-market capitalism and of low taxes and no restrictions on big business and the rich.
Sunday, trying to get the news programs on TV, I passed a channel where a preacher was preaching -- conservative politics and economics. So much for the Sermon on the Mount. So much for feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. So much for the parable of the rich man and the eye of the needle. The Republican-Religious Fundamentalist complex are forging a new religion, suited to their joint purposes.
If I were the parent of a young Republican today, I'd seriously think about arranging a kidnapping and deprogramming exactly as though he or she had gotten involved with the moonies or scientology or a radical sect of Islam.
I think there is a coming civil war in this country over core values that will make the 1861-65 Civil War look like boys throwing rocks at each other. The conservatives are already armed to the teeth. It is incumbent on those opposing the conservative Religio-Republican agenda to prepare as well.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
On Creationism, Installment (n+1)
"...look at the beauty of this planet, today and through the millions of years that this planet has existed...."
Precisely. But what many creationists are saying is that the evidence that you can see and touch that the earth has existed for millions of years (or billions) is a lie, planted there by a God or a Satan wanting to entrap humankind into false belief. How do you fight that? How can you? It's impossible to argue with someone who denies logic and the evidence of one's senses.
For that matter, what alternative to evolution does a literal reading of the Bible offer? There are two separate creation stories in Genesis, neither of which agrees with the other. Genesis 1:1 through 2:4 versus Genesis 2:5 and following. Two differing accounts of Noah and the flood.
Logically, there would be a big dispute between Genesis 1:1 creationists and Genesis 2:5 creationists: "No, you're wrong, take that!" Bam! Pow! That there is no such rift among creationists is due to poor reading comprehension or nt wanting to comprehend. It is simply amazing how the biblical understanding of fundamentalists is managed and controlled by the few.
Precisely. But what many creationists are saying is that the evidence that you can see and touch that the earth has existed for millions of years (or billions) is a lie, planted there by a God or a Satan wanting to entrap humankind into false belief. How do you fight that? How can you? It's impossible to argue with someone who denies logic and the evidence of one's senses.
For that matter, what alternative to evolution does a literal reading of the Bible offer? There are two separate creation stories in Genesis, neither of which agrees with the other. Genesis 1:1 through 2:4 versus Genesis 2:5 and following. Two differing accounts of Noah and the flood.
Logically, there would be a big dispute between Genesis 1:1 creationists and Genesis 2:5 creationists: "No, you're wrong, take that!" Bam! Pow! That there is no such rift among creationists is due to poor reading comprehension or nt wanting to comprehend. It is simply amazing how the biblical understanding of fundamentalists is managed and controlled by the few.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
The Religion Disease
Extreme religiosity is associated with brain damage. Hit an agnostic hard enough on the head and he/she will turn to God. And I am convinced that some are born with defective brain wiring, that there is in effect a God gene. [Wasn't this a lead article in a Newsweek some years back?]
But lemme explain my view more clearly. Humans have big brains. Along with those big brains are baggage, self-defeating irrational behavior, an assortment of nearly paralyzing feedback loops in nerve cell programming or development. Especially, though, we fear.
With our big brains, we can imagine all the bad things that can happen to us and to those we like or depend on. The ability to anticipate bad things means fear. Fear can be paralyzing, numbing. Truly, Frank Herbert wrote in Dune that "fear is the mind-killer...." So we humans do anything we can to alleviate fear. By magic, by rituals, by appealing to gods.
Irrational behavior is not seen only in humans. It's not only a big-brain thing. Consider, if you will, the chicken. Put a chicken into a skinner box, give the chicken intermittent reinforcement. If a chicken gets fed when it pecks a certain lever, then the chicken pecks at the lever when its hungry. BUT. If the chicken is rewarded by a food pellet only SOMETIMES when it pecks a lever, the poor chicken goes crazy, obsessively pecking at that lever.
We are exactly like that chicken. [Gambling is as good an example as religion. When I go into a casino, I see all those chickens pulling at slot machine levers. Gambling is an obsession caused by intermittent reinforcement.] We pray or sacrifice, and often times, more often than not, things work out okay. (We only die once, but we fear death many times. And the last time, when we die, we do not live to draw any kind of false conclusion from the experience.) So like the chicken, we pray and propitiate the gods constantly and obsessively. That is how we deal with anxiety.
Think about sacrifice. God or gods have no need of human sacrifice. They don't eat flesh or the produce of the field or anyone's first born. But we obsessively offer these things because they mean something to us! We created the gods, in our image, with our wants, to obsess over us. We are the center of our universe, and the gods we create obsess about humans and the conduct of men and women! [I say that God needs to get a life, study astrophysics or go knit worm holes around the universe and get away from obsessing over human sexual behavior and that pet ant farm on earth.]
Confession time. I've never confessed this to anyone, though some may guess. Remember Jack Nicholson in the movie "As Good As It Gets"? I have for many years and especially in times of fear and stress engaged in ritual behavior, you know, turn three times clockwise before leaving home, touch the doorknob five times, turn the key back and forth twice, avoid the cracks in the step, and so on. Not quite like that, but close.
Why, for pete's sake, do things that stupid? Because they work, or seem to, at least part of the time. Think about that chicken in the skinner box, given intermittent reinforcement. That ritual behavior is precisely like the ceremonies of religion, in the case of Christianity, telling oneself that "Jesus is with me and there is no reason to fear death for myself or my loved ones because at death we will become one with Jesus." I knew an old man, seemingly rational, except that he would constantly, every few minutes, say quietly, "Praise Jesus!" When he was talking, he'd interrupt himself every few sentences to say, "Praise Jesus!" Perfect example of ritualistic behavior. And how is that any different from telling a rosary by fingering the beads, or spinning a prayer wheel?
Where religion is not purely the result of brain damage, it is a product of our irrational ways of coping with fear.
But lemme explain my view more clearly. Humans have big brains. Along with those big brains are baggage, self-defeating irrational behavior, an assortment of nearly paralyzing feedback loops in nerve cell programming or development. Especially, though, we fear.
With our big brains, we can imagine all the bad things that can happen to us and to those we like or depend on. The ability to anticipate bad things means fear. Fear can be paralyzing, numbing. Truly, Frank Herbert wrote in Dune that "fear is the mind-killer...." So we humans do anything we can to alleviate fear. By magic, by rituals, by appealing to gods.
Irrational behavior is not seen only in humans. It's not only a big-brain thing. Consider, if you will, the chicken. Put a chicken into a skinner box, give the chicken intermittent reinforcement. If a chicken gets fed when it pecks a certain lever, then the chicken pecks at the lever when its hungry. BUT. If the chicken is rewarded by a food pellet only SOMETIMES when it pecks a lever, the poor chicken goes crazy, obsessively pecking at that lever.
We are exactly like that chicken. [Gambling is as good an example as religion. When I go into a casino, I see all those chickens pulling at slot machine levers. Gambling is an obsession caused by intermittent reinforcement.] We pray or sacrifice, and often times, more often than not, things work out okay. (We only die once, but we fear death many times. And the last time, when we die, we do not live to draw any kind of false conclusion from the experience.) So like the chicken, we pray and propitiate the gods constantly and obsessively. That is how we deal with anxiety.
Think about sacrifice. God or gods have no need of human sacrifice. They don't eat flesh or the produce of the field or anyone's first born. But we obsessively offer these things because they mean something to us! We created the gods, in our image, with our wants, to obsess over us. We are the center of our universe, and the gods we create obsess about humans and the conduct of men and women! [I say that God needs to get a life, study astrophysics or go knit worm holes around the universe and get away from obsessing over human sexual behavior and that pet ant farm on earth.]
Confession time. I've never confessed this to anyone, though some may guess. Remember Jack Nicholson in the movie "As Good As It Gets"? I have for many years and especially in times of fear and stress engaged in ritual behavior, you know, turn three times clockwise before leaving home, touch the doorknob five times, turn the key back and forth twice, avoid the cracks in the step, and so on. Not quite like that, but close.
Why, for pete's sake, do things that stupid? Because they work, or seem to, at least part of the time. Think about that chicken in the skinner box, given intermittent reinforcement. That ritual behavior is precisely like the ceremonies of religion, in the case of Christianity, telling oneself that "Jesus is with me and there is no reason to fear death for myself or my loved ones because at death we will become one with Jesus." I knew an old man, seemingly rational, except that he would constantly, every few minutes, say quietly, "Praise Jesus!" When he was talking, he'd interrupt himself every few sentences to say, "Praise Jesus!" Perfect example of ritualistic behavior. And how is that any different from telling a rosary by fingering the beads, or spinning a prayer wheel?
Where religion is not purely the result of brain damage, it is a product of our irrational ways of coping with fear.
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