Biblical Christianity vs. Secular Humanism: A war?

Should we refrain from sharing our beliefs because our beliefs might frighten or insult our listeners? We don't think so. We believe freedom of speech is an essential right in a free, democratic society. When one hears something they don't agree with are they victimized? We don't think so. However, we are aware of places in the world where blasphemy is punishable by death. We're also aware that many a feud and duel was motivated by mere words. Even in the 21st century there are places where honor killings are still taking place. When we talk with our Christian brothers and sisters they are happy to point out that their church would never do something like that. In some Christian communities, the worst thing that can happen to someone violating their beliefs is shunning. In other, more fanatical communities bombing an abortion clinic might be condoned.

Subtle differences in beliefs can have major impacts on communities. When it comes to matters of religious doctrine and beliefs we feel it's often very difficult to tease apart all the nuances in dogma, moral tone and social practices grounded in a particular denomination.

We seek to understand the true beliefs of our faithful friends in our community. We feel it's important if we are going to build bridges of trust and focus attention on the many important issues of today that are affecting everyone. Regardless of one's faith it's important to work together to maintain a healthy society and a healthy ecosystem.

We understand that if we joined a bible study group and wanted to discuss geology, history, biblical criticism, Christian apologetics, evolution, the big bang, archeology, philosophy, culture, mythology, current events or other topics not directly related to the "good book" we might be considered quite rude. It's a bible study group after all.

Now, what if we bring up such subjects with our faithful friends outside in the context of everyday life? Most of our faithful friends are not insulted when we bring up the theory of evolution. However, we have encountered on many occasions friends of faith who are frightened and even passionately opposed to any kind of "scientistic" point of view. We have been told that ideas such as evolution through the process of natural selection is the devil's work. 

We are not making generalizations here, we're simply sharing some observations. We know all Christians are not science deniers. It just seems to us that too many of our faithful brothers and sisters have spent so much time with their bibles that they have neglected important domains of knowledge vital to our species in the 21st century. We feel our friends of faith might be better citizens of the world if they embraced hard-won scientific knowledge.

The paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Steven J. Gould talked about non-overlapping magisteria. This concept is controversial and deserves a good look as it points out some very real conflicts between the secular scientific community and religious groups who would like to muzzle questions of science and shape them to more easily conform to their particular religious beliefs. We have found these differences to be hard to reconcile, but we still feel it's important to attempt to develop better understanding between different groups whatever their traditions.

Below is a classic discussion with Steven J. Gould we hope you will enjoy. Sadly he left us too soon.

A discussion with Steven J. Gould. http://www.colorado.edu/physics/phys3000/phys3000_fa11/StevenJGoulldNOMA.pdf

We don't want to threaten the faith of our friends. That's not what we're about. We're simply curious people who enjoy learning about our world, nature, and the universe. We value stories, myths and cultures from around the world. We also value the many scientific discoveries that have so profoundly changed our way of life and contributed to our understanding of Nature and how Nature works.

We value our rich mythological heritage. We value our scientific heritage. We're thankful that throughout human history there have always been thinkers, inventors, storytellers, leaders, and designers; creative people who poured their energy into their thoughts, ideas, and inventions, and stubbornly worked, sometimes at great risk, to bring something amazing into our world. Most of us lack the energy, intelligence, creativity, or the will to work that hard for so many years, often in isolation, and usually for little reward, simply because we need to know. We outsource our thinking to other people all the time. We trust others to do the work for us. We are comfortable having a job as a means to earn enough money to take care of ourselves and our family. We respect common people. And we love the genius that walks among us. We owe a great debt to the people who do the vast majority of thinking for all the rest of us. The fruits of their thought and hard work produces a bounty of labor saving, transformative technologies and products that make our lives so much healthier and give us more freedom and opportunity to enjoy life. 

Their ideas have helped establish more equal and just societies. The hard work and sacrifice of countless people have allowed human culture in some parts of the world to transcend evils like slavery. We have done great things and made great progress in recent times.

As these great ideas, technologies and tools become more complex, we will need to know more and more if we are to control our destiny. Living in a world full of "black box" solutions that no one truly understands has its own dangers. The many natural systems that support life on earth are extremely complex. As the complexities of human invention collide with the complexities inherent in nature we will encounter new sets of risks and dangerous unintended consequences that may have the potential of ending human culture as we know it. Back to the Stone Age scenarios are not beyond the realm of possibility.

It's easy to be fatalistic. We have heard people say that there is nothing anyone can do to influence the direction of humankind. We strongly disagree with this sentiment. We cannot wait idly to find out what will happen to us if we remain blind.

We understand that things are never perfect. And yet we feel that through thoughtful engagement with the real world as it is we're able to continue to improve our circumstances and evolve. 

We are, quite simply, in awe of nature. And people who revere something often want to care for what they love, to share what they love. 

We try to engage our Christian friends in Hong Kong, but they are reluctant and sometimes defensive when we bring up certain subjects. We wonder if they are worried that if they think too much about certain things it might shake their faith. We've heard them express those very fears on more than one occasion. In the popular media, we've noticed that Christians, especially in America, seem to feel oppressed, attacked from all sides by vile, secular humanists who want to tear down their religion and turn everyone into faithless, angry Atheists. We feel these fears are false and dishonest. We are a minority, optimistic by nature; productive and deeply concerned with human progress. The kind of progress that's sustainable and makes things incrementally better for life on earth.

Our aim is not to destroy faith. We respect your right to believe in whatever you wish to believe in, even if we don't respect what you believe. We want everyone to be free to believe what they want to believe. If the bible is your most revered book we want you to be able to spend as much time with its frayed pages as you wish. We just hope that from time to time you'll crack open some other books and enjoy them too. The magic book may be your most important book, but we maintain that there are many great books in the world today, many great thinkers; great men and women who are contributing marvelous things to humanity all the time. They are taxed with solving some of our most pressing and dangerous problems. Real world problems; problems that affect life on earth. 

Since we are not religious ourselves and because we want to delve more deeply into these subjects, Mr. Christian, tell us, in detail, what you believe. 

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We're in China as you know and we find it interesting that a fellow by the name of Hong Xiuquan, a mystic and Christian convert who thought he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ and declared himself the Messiah led a revolt against the Qing Dynasty that lasted from 1851 to 1864 and cost the lives of 20 million people. This was indeed an upheaval of biblical proportions. It's a very sensitive subject over here. 

Hong Xiuquan the leader of the Taiping Rebellion.

The Taiping Rebellion began just a few years after another Messiah, Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church died in 1844. It's amazing to us just how many people profess to speak for God. In fact, it's hard for us to imagine the confidence one must have in oneself to claim to know the intentions of the creator of the universe. Many a bench scientist has labored quietly for little monetary compensation for decades before figuring out something useful or coming up with a scientific theory that others can critique and elaborate on: And then they have to deal with rigorous peer review.  Religious leaders, it seems, simply have a private revelation and declare that they know what God wants. It's amazing, and we feel it's even more amazing that people will believe them. You see, we're always a bit skeptical of stories and blind assertions. It's just the way we are, a default mode of critical thinking and skepticism that motivates us to ask difficult questions and demand good evidence. 

The First Photo of Joseph Smith - the founder of the Mormon Church.

Perhaps a skeptical stance can be a bit off-putting to your average person of faith. I think I can speak for many of us when I say that we are not trying to annoy you, we're simply trying to develop greater understanding with you through our own, however unskilled, form of Socratic questioning. 

I can almost hear you saying. "But the arrogance of being skeptical and questioning!" 

What can we say except that we ask because we clearly want to know what you believe and why you believe it. We want to know if you are interested in Nature the same way we are. Perhaps your attempt to enlighten us here as to the necessity of your particular faith will humble us a little. Actually we think a little humility is good for everyone. So please do your best to tell us, in detail, what it is you believe.

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We hope this preamble has helped establish some trust, Mr. Christian. 

Below are two of the many possible responses to a simple question:

What do you believe Mr. Christian? 

“I'm thrilled that God loves me, that God thinks that I am a really great guy. I belong to a great tradition responsible for most of the good in the world. I’m blessed to have a very special, personal relationship with the creator of the universe and with my Church. I need that relationship. I need to be loved by GOD. I need the love and companionship of my fellow parishioners. It makes me feel safe and secure. I’m comforted in the knowledge that when I die, I’ll go to heaven and live forever with my loved ones. And, I’m comforted in my knowledge that even if I’m bad, even if I’m really bad, God will forgive me if I accept His will and have faith in Him. God loves me so much that he sent his only son a couple of thousand years ago to die for my sins. Almost everything of importance that I need to know regarding what it means to be a good human being, and how to live in this world, is in the Old Testament and the New Testament – in the bible. There’s really nothing more important than the bible – the word of God.”

What do you believe Mr. Atheist?

“I'm comfortable just being human. I believe life evolved on our planet over millions of years. Although I'm familiar with several scientific theories about how the Universe came to be, I still don't know exactly how the Universe started and I'm ok with that. There were agnostics thousands of years ago, people who knew they didn't know everything. I come from that ancient tradition I suppose. I’m aware that empirical and scientific inquiry continues to bring ever more evidence to light about how Nature works. Through scientific inquiry, we've learned about many things and because of that knowledge, and the technology that has sprung from it, we have created many amazing things. Not all of them good, but one could argue that life for humans has gotten a bit better since the Age of Enlightenment. I love nuance and I'm not afraid of complexity. It’s exciting to learn about things we can actually know. It’s a rigorous process learning about nature and how nature works. And despite all we know, human life and the universe remains wonderfully mysterious. I believe we can learn a lot more if we want to. I believe in human progress. Odds are humanity will become extinct at some time the future. That’s just natural. I'm hopeful that that won't happen anytime soon. I'm not superstitious. I’m not afraid of reality. I’m happy that I have some friends who love me. I'm pretty healthy so I love myself enough too I guess. When I die I cease to be and that’s OK, hopefully, others will come after me and live a good life too.”

 Before we move on here is one person you may have heard of who believes we're in an ideological war of horrific consequence.

Sarah Palin's charming wink.

Sarah Palin "...sees a battlefield littered with corpses – all of them Christian. They are causalities in a war against faith in America."

“We need to protect the heart of Christmas and not let angry atheists armed with an attorney – a scrooge – tell us that we can't celebrate traditional faith in America.”

It's clear to us she doesn't know a thing about the history of the Christmas holiday. 

HISTORY OF CHRISTMAS VIDEOS

Now let’s go a little deeper; if that's OK?

Which kind of Christian are you Mr. Christian? We promise to tell you what kind of Atheist we are below. We acknowledge that there are many kinds of Atheists and Christians. We hope you would agree.

Some Christians are scientists, philanthropists, productive businessmen, creative geniuses and all around nice people. 

One could also say, some Christians and some Atheists are murderers, rapists, thieves, liars, and adulterers. 

There are a lot of different kinds of people in the world indeed, some are good and some are bad, some are stupid and some are smart. Some wander our communities with bad intent, some reach out in saintly acts of kindness to heal our hearts. 

What confuses us is not the variety of Christian people, or the variety of faiths in the world, but the sheer number of Christian denominations there are. We wonder if it's not difficult for Christians to agree on core principles when their books and traditions are so wide open to interpretation. 

Take a look at the advice from one faithful preacher below as an example. 

Excerpt from Net Bible Study: http://www.netbiblestudy.net/denominations/

“Below are brief descriptions giving where and when each of the denominations listed began and who started them. Also given are some of their basic beliefs especially what they falsely teach and practice that one must do to be saved. Anything that is more than, less than, or different from what the Bible teaches is false doctrine (Revelation 22:18-19). It is a strange thing that the denominations claim to believe the Bible to be God's word, but at the same time they take their man-made denominational creeds over what the Bible says. Satan has many false doctrines which are designed to cause people to be eternally lost. Satan uses people to teach his false doctrines. Quotations from the Bible are in red. 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 says, “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder; for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness.” Also near the bottom of this page is a list of these false doctrines with a link to a page giving the Bible’s answer to each one. I do not know of any of the more than 600 different kinds of denominational churches that teach and practice what God says in the Bible that one must do in order to be saved and go to Heaven. Most of them reject, condemn, and even laugh at what God says in the Bible that we must do to be saved so we can go to Heaven. God's word warns, "If anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed" (Galatians 1:9). One cannot go to Heaven and continue to be a member of a denomination, but sadly he will end up in the eternal torments of Hell.

Denominations are man-made organizations which were started by men and not by Christ. There are more than 600 different denominational churches, all with different and conflicting doctrines, beliefs, and teachings. They all wear different names, practice different forms of worship, have different plans of salvation, and each has its own earthly headquarters. None of this is authorized by the Lord in the New Testament. How could anyone conclude that scripture authorizes any of this present confusion or that God is at all pleased by the wholesale abandonment of His plan as found in the Bible? “For God is not the author of confusion” (1 Corinthians 14:33), but man is. Denominationalism is making a joke of Christianity. Satan uses the many denominational churches, which are all counterfeits of the Lord's one true church, to fool people and cause them to be eternally lost in Hell.”

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So which denomination should we choose? What a conundrum! 

Doesn't he look a bit like Jesus?

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According to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, there exist roughly 43,000 Christian denominations worldwide in 2012. That is up from 500 in 1800 and 39,000 in 2008 and this number is expected to grow to 55,000 by 2025.

Currently, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary estimates that a new Christian denomination is formed every 10.5 hours, or 2.3 denominations a day.

Wikipedia does a great job listing the largest denominations. Religion Facts compares the major denominations. And the Hartford Institute for Religion Research has links to hundreds of official denominational websites.

Here's a list of major Christian denominations with an emphasis on Protestantism:

Catholicism - (1,200,000,000 adherents) Click for beliefs.

Roman Catholic Church (1,187,000,000)    Click for beliefs.

Protestantism – (792,000,000 adherents) beliefs.

• Pentecostalism/Charismatic (612,000,000) beliefs.

Assemblies of God (60,000,000) beliefs.
New Apostolic Church (11,200,000) beliefs.
Foursquare Church (8,000,000) beliefs.
Church of God in Christ (6,500,000) beliefs.

• Baptist (100,000,000) beliefs.

Southern Baptist Convention (16,000,000) beliefs.

• Lutheranism (87,000,000) beliefs.

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (5,000,000) beliefs.

• Methodism (75,000,000) beliefs.

United Methodist Church (12,000,000) beliefs.
African Methodist Episcopal Church (3,000,000*) beliefs.

• Reformed Churches (75,000,000) beliefs.

Presbyterian Church U.S.A. (3,000,000) beliefs.
United Church of Christ (1,000,000) beliefs.

• Non-Denominational Evangelicalism (40,000,000) beliefs.

Calvary Chapel (25,000,000) beliefs.
The Vineyard (15,000,000) beliefs.

• Restorationism (20,000,000) beliefs.

Seventh-day Adventists (17,000,000) beliefs.
Church of Christ (5,000,000) beliefs.
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (1,000,000) beliefs.

• Anabaptism (4,500,000) beliefs.

Mennonites (1,500,000) beliefs.
Amish (250,000) beliefs.

Eastern Orthodoxy – (230,000,000 adherents) beliefs.

Oriental Orthodox Church – (82,000,000 adherents) beliefs.

• Anglicanism – (85,000,000 adherents) Click for beliefs.

Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. (2,400,000) beliefs.

• Nontrinitarianism – (36,000,000 adherents) beliefs.

Jehovah’s Witnesses (7,700,000) beliefs.

Mormonism (14,700,000) beliefs.

• Nestorianism – (600,000 adherents) beliefs.

Obviously, there are significant theological differences between the main branches of Christianity: Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Church, Anglicanism, Nontrinitarianism, and Nestorianism. Many might argue that some denominations are not Christianity at all.

Keep in mind; there are also significant dogmatic differences among churches within each denomination. For example, there are Charismatic Catholics, and Charismatic churches that act like Baptists. There is a great deal of diversity in the United Methodist Church. And Presbyterians have been divided on homosexuality issues. The list of contentions could go on and on.

There is also a new brand of Christian we've identified who is more socially liberal than some and less hemmed in by traditional dogma. They seem to with to avoid labels and want to think of themselves as simply Christians. They also seem uncomfortable with the small but growing minority of secular humanists who are willing to express themselves on all kinds of subjects. 

For members of these churches, asking, "What denomination are you?" seems irrelevant. These groups own their own special DNA. 

It's also interesting to note the numbers above. The numbers are significant. With numbers like those these religious "kingdoms" could have their own exciting game of thrones. If the doomsayers in America get their civil war one wonders if sectarian religious war might also follow. For us, it's a scary thought.

There's a whole lot of Christians believing in all kinds of Christian doctrines. Despite all these different kinds of Christians and all of these denominations, our world still has a long list of problems and sins to deal with. 

Now perhaps, Mr. Christian, we've been disrespectful because we haven't mentioned all the other religious in the world.

There are a lot of religions in the world. Why is that? There’s a whole library of books dedicated to the question across many domains of inquiry. Why do we believe? Why are we so credulous? All these authors and experts whatever creed or culture they come from have been working hard across many centuries to shed light on the mysteries of culture and belief. Some, like Carl Sagan, would characterize science and reason as a candle in the dark. Perhaps you would entreat us to search for the light within. We're OK with that.

We can't resist sharing this with you.

Did people in India create and develop Hinduism as an artifact of culture, or did GOD divinely reveal Hinduism to particular Hindu prophets and mystics? It's an interesting subject. 

If one is an Atheist does one have to be a POLYATHEIST because there are so many religions in the world? Wouldn’t it be disrespectful if one only disbelieved in the Christian concept of God? How unfair. With so many Gods in our world what is it about the Christian God that is particularly unbelievable. 

What questions do we have to ask to find out what a particular religious believer really believes?

Do believers of any ink really have a good idea about what it is they believe in? We're assuming they must. When one goes to denominational websites, is one able to get a clear picture of what the particular denomination believes? For us, it's kind of hard to tell. 

Jonathan Haidt has done something like this with his moral foundations project, but it's not really directly related to religious beliefs. 

We  have noticed that the founders of various sects of Christianity received their wisdom through divine personal revelation. Then the founder tells his friends his story and the people who believe him help him develop his new religion. It's amazing the amount of trust a charismatic religious zealot can engender. "Nice story, I believe you." 

We've also noticed that many of our faithful friends dislike looking into their faith with a historical perspective. It seems they think this takes some of the magic out of their belief. 

And, of course, even in secular domains we hear a lot about belief. How many times have we heard Americans say, "I believe in the Constitution of the United States of America." How many people making that statement have even read the constitution we wonder. Apparently, President Obama is a constitutional scholar which is probably why his statements concerning the constitution are nuanced. And yet many people think he's got everything all wrong. People who know nothing about a given subject still insist they know everything about it. People seem to need to believe they know better than the experts. What a conundrum! 

Who's the judge? 

There's no need to fear, Super Jesus is here!

How should one study the bible in order to understand what the bible truly means? Is it merely subjective? Do we need guidance to understand the magic words correctly? Who’s going to be the judge of our understanding of the bible? It's all so fantastic. 

The Pope has his encyclical meant to guide his flock. But, some Catholics don't like this Pope much because they don’t like his socioeconomic views. Is the Pope, the leader of the Catholic Church sullied by politics? Can any Pope remain above it all, pure and untouched by earthly matters. His flock are simple humans and he is the Vicor of Christ. Christ supposedly walked among the common people. 

One can imagine that some people would like Donald Trump’s  or Joel Osteen's interpretation of what Jesus wants for us a lot more than the Pope’s. "You see, Jesus wants you to win the lottery! Jesus wants you to be rich! Jesus wants you to be a winner!" Is this a version of the prosperity gospel? Pastor John elaborates passionately about what he thinks is wrong with the prosperity gospel. Jesus said, "________________." Jesus wants you to be, "______________________." 

It's certainly true that Pastor John loves this story. He can find meaning his faith and elaborate on it in many ways. He knows God is being dishonored by the false teachings of the prosperity gospel preachers. We must say we've watched them preach and it frightens us like the theory of evolution frightens some of our Christian friends. We think it's easier to use religion to make money than it is to use the theory of evolution to make money. We don't know of any scientists with a private jet.

Should we update the constitution in light of all the changes we've experienced in the last 200 years? Or is the U.S. Constitution like the bible, never meant to evolve, and only meant to be believed and interpreted in one way or another. 

Should we reinterpret the bible to make it more contemporary, or will we go to hell for that? There are a lot of versions of the Bible aren't there. Which one do you use? Who are we going to trust? It seems to us that people are merely told what to read and what to believe and that's good enough for them.

If a guy walks on water tomorrow is he God or a fraud? Which church leader is the right one to tell us?

Revelation vs. Empirical Evidence: what a conundrum! Trust in God vs. Peer Review. Our two cultures do seem rather far apart. 

It seems that for many people, one's faith is as simple as this:

John: "Hey, are you a believer?"

Robert: "Well, ya, I am."

John: "Cool."

Why do you believe? The best answer we've heard so far was simply:

"I believe what I was taught growing up. My grandfather was a baptist, my father was a baptist and I'm a baptist. My kids are baptists and most of my friends are baptist."

This makes more sense to us than, "You know it when you know it" or "I feel it in my heart."

So may we ask you Mr. Christian, what kind of Christian are you and what are your views:

• on the trinity

• on the devil

• on demons

• on angels

• on icons

• on relics

• on talking to god

• on holy war

• on Adam and Eve

• on Noah's Ark

• on sectarian conflict

• on evidence that the Jesus as characterized in the New Testament existed

• on miracles

• on life after death

• can you tell us what form of goop, energy, force or form God has?

• on the origins of the biblical canon

• on Christ's come back? When? In what form?

• on the rapture

• on the apocalypse

• on other religions

• on hell

• on heaven

• on Isreal

• on faith

We have noticed that many Christians say that you just feel it. We're sure your emotion is real and we know it's valuable to you, but we just don't have any reason to believe so the emotion of faith is diminished for us. Perhaps we don't have the God gene?

We know it's a challenge to explain to people exactly what one believes. We don't mean to put you on the spot, but we still feel it's important for us to know. We are particularly worried about people of faith who might wish us harm simply because we don't believe what they believe. Like Sarah Palin's bodies everywhere thing, you know, the middle east right now. It is a real concern after all. 

We're also concerned about tolerance, liberty, freedom of speech, education, the separation of church and state and other issues. 

So if you don't mind, just give us the "My Kind of Christianity for Dummies". That should do.

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Here is ours: 

A Secular Humanist Declaration

Issued In 1980 By The Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism
(now the Council for Secular Humanism)

Introduction

Secular humanism is a vital force in the contemporary world. It is now under unwarranted and intemperate attack from various quarters. This declaration defends only that form of secular humanism which is explicitly committed to democracy. It is opposed to all varieties of belief that seek supernatural sanction for their values or espouse rule by dictatorship. Democratic secular humanism has been a powerful force in world culture. Its ideals can be traced to the philosophers, scientists, and poets of classical Greece and Rome, to ancient Chinese Confucian society, to the Carvaka movement of India, and to other distinguished intellectual and moral traditions. Secularism and humanism were eclipsed in Europe during the Dark Ages, when religious piety eroded humankind's confidence in its own powers to solve human problems. They reappeared in force during the Renaissance with the reassertion of secular and humanist values in literature and the arts, again in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with the development of modern science and a naturalistic view of the universe, and their influence can be found in the eighteenth century in the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment.

Democratic secular humanism has creatively flowered in modern times with the growth of freedom and democracy. Countless millions of thoughtful persons have espoused secular humanist ideals, have lived significant lives, and have contributed to the building of a more humane and democratic world. The modern secular humanist outlook has led to the application of science and technology to the improvement of the human condition. This has had a positive effect on reducing poverty, suffering, and disease in various parts of the world, in extending longevity, on improving transportation and communication, and in making the good life possible for more and more people. It has led to the emancipation of hundreds of millions of people from the exercise of blind faith and fears of superstition and has contributed to their education and the enrichment of their lives.

Secular humanism has provided an impetus for humans to solve their problems with intelligence and perseverance, to conquer geographic and social frontiers, and to extend the range of human exploration and adventure. Regrettably, we are today faced with a variety of anti secularist trends: the reappearance of dogmatic authoritarian religions; fundamentalist, literalist, and doctrinaire Christianity; a rapidly growing and uncompromising Moslem clericalism in the Middle East and Asia; the reassertion of orthodox authority by the Roman Catholic papal hierarchy; nationalistic religious Judaism; and the reversion to obscurantist religions in Asia.

New cults of unreason as well as bizarre paranormal and occult beliefs, such as belief in astrology, reincarnation, and the mysterious power of alleged psychics, are growing in many Western societies. These disturbing developments follow in the wake of the emergence in the earlier part of the twentieth century of intolerant messianic and totalitarian quasi religious movements, such as fascism and communism. These religious activists not only are responsible for much of the terror and violence in the world today but stand in the way of solutions to the world's most serious problems.

Paradoxically, some of the critics of secular humanism maintain that it is a dangerous philosophy. Some assert that it is "morally corrupting" because it is committed to individual freedom, others that it condones "injustice" because it defends democratic due process. We who support democratic secular humanism deny such charges, which are based upon misunderstanding and misinterpretation, and we seek to outline a set of principles that most of us share.

Secular humanism is not a dogma or a creed. There are wide differences of opinion among secular humanists on many issues. Nevertheless, there is a loose consensus with respect to several propositions. We are apprehensive that modern civilization is threatened by forces antithetical to reason, democracy, and freedom. Many religious believers will no doubt share with us a belief in many secular humanist and democratic values, and we welcome their joining with us in the defense of these ideals.

Free Inquiry

The first principle of democratic secular humanism is its commitment to free inquiry. We oppose any tyranny over the mind of man, any efforts by ecclesiastical, political, ideological, or social institutions to shackle free thought. In the past, such tyrannies have been directed by churches and states attempting to enforce the edicts of religious bigots. In the long struggle in the history of ideas, established institutions, both public and private, have attempted to censor inquiry, to impose orthodoxy on beliefs and values, and to excommunicate heretics and extirpate unbelievers. Today, the struggle for free inquiry has assumed new forms. Sectarian ideologies have become the new theologies that use political parties and governments in their mission to crush dissident opinion. Free inquiry entails recognition of civil liberties as integral to its pursuit, that is, a free press, freedom of communication, the right to organize opposition parties and to join voluntary associations, and freedom to cultivate and publish the fruits of scientific, philosophical, artistic, literary, moral and religious freedom. Free inquiry requires that we tolerate diversity of opinion and that we respect the right of individuals to express their beliefs, however unpopular they may be, without social or legal prohibition or fear of sanctions. Though we may tolerate contrasting points of view, this does not mean that they are immune to critical scrutiny. The guiding premise of those who believe in free inquiry is that truth is more likely to be discovered if the opportunity exists for the free exchange of opposing opinions; the process of interchange is frequently as important as the result. This applies not only to science and to everyday life, but to politics, economics, morality, and religion.

Separation Of Church And State

Because of their commitment to freedom, secular humanists believe in the principle of the separation of church and state. The lessons of history are clear: wherever one religion or ideology is established and given a dominant position in the state, minority opinions are in jeopardy. A pluralistic, open democratic society allows all points of view to be heard. Any effort to impose an exclusive conception of Truth, Piety, Virtue, or Justice upon the whole of society is a violation of free inquiry. Clerical authorities should not be permitted to legislate their own parochial views - whether moral, philosophical, political, educational, or social - for the rest of society. Nor should tax revenues be exacted for the benefit or support of sectarian religious institutions. Individuals and voluntary associations should be free to accept or not to accept any belief and to support these convictions with whatever resources they may have, without being compelled by taxation to contribute to those religious faiths with which they do not agree. Similarly, church properties should share in the burden of public revenues and should not be exempt from taxation. Compulsory religious oaths and prayers in public institutions (political or educational) are also a violation of the separation principle. Today, nontheistic as well as theistic religions compete for attention. Regrettably, in communist countries, the power of the state is being used to impose an ideological doctrine on the society, without tolerating the expression of dissenting or heretical views. Here we see a modern secular version of the violation of the separation principle.

The Ideal Of Freedom

There are many forms of totalitarianism in the modern world — secular and nonsecular — all of which we vigorously oppose. As democratic secularists, we consistently defend the ideal of freedom, not only freedom of conscience and belief from those ecclesiastical, political, and economic interests that seek to repress them, but genuine political liberty, democratic decision making based upon majority rule, and respect for minority rights and the rule of law. We stand not only for freedom from religious control but for freedom from jingoistic government control as well. We are for the defense of basic human rights, including the right to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In our view, a free society should also encourage some measure of economic freedom, subject only to such restrictions as are necessary in the public interest. This means that individuals and groups should be able to compete in the marketplace, organize free trade unions, and carry on their occupations and careers without undue interference by centralized political control. The right to private property is a human right without which other rights are nugatory. Where it is necessary to limit any of these rights in a democracy, the limitation should be justified in terms of its consequences in strengthening the entire structure of human rights.

Ethics Based On Critical Intelligence

The moral views of secular humanism have been subjected to criticism by religious fundamentalist theists. The secular humanist recognizes the central role of morality in human life; indeed, ethics was developed as a branch of human knowledge long before religionists proclaimed their moral systems based upon divine authority. The field of ethics has had a distinguished list of thinkers contributing to its development: from Socrates, Democritus, Aristotle, Epicurus, and Epictetus, to Spinoza, Erasmus, Hume, Voltaire, Kant, Bentham, Mill, G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, and others. There is an influential philosophical tradition that maintains that ethics is an autonomous field of inquiry, that ethical judgments can be formulated independently of revealed religion, and that human beings can cultivate practical reason and wisdom and, by its application, achieve lives of virtue and excellence. Moreover, philosophers have emphasized the need to cultivate an appreciation for the requirements of social justice and for an individual's obligations and responsibilities toward others. Thus, secularists deny that morality needs to be deduced from religious belief or that those who do not espouse a religious doctrine are immoral. For secular humanists, ethical conduct is, or should be, judged by critical reason, and their goal is to develop autonomous and responsible individuals, capable of making their own choices in life based upon an understanding of human behavior. 

Morality that is not God-based need not be antisocial, subjective, or promiscuous, nor need it lead to the breakdown of moral standards. Although we believe in tolerating diverse lifestyles and social manners, we do not think they are immune to criticism. Nor do we believe that any one church should impose its views of moral virtue and sin, sexual conduct, marriage, divorce, birth control, or abortion, or legislate them for the rest of society. As secular humanists we believe in the central importance of the value of human happiness here and now. We are opposed to absolutist morality, yet we maintain that objective standards emerge, and ethical values and principles may be discovered, in the course of ethical deliberation. Secular humanist ethics maintains that it is possible for human beings to lead meaningful and wholesome lives for themselves and in service to their fellow human beings without the need of religious commandments or the benefit of clergy. There have been any number of distinguished secularists and humanists who have demonstrated moral principles in their personal lives and works: Protagoras, Lucretius, Epicurus, Spinoza, Hume, Thomas Paine, Diderot, Mark Twain, George Eliot, John Stuart Mill, Ernest Renan, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, Clarence Darrow, Robert Ingersoll, Gilbert Murray, Albert Schweitzer, Albert Einstein, Max Born, Margaret Sanger, and Bertrand Russell, among others.

Moral Education

We believe that moral development should be cultivated in children and young adults. We do not believe that any particular sect can claim important values as their exclusive property; hence it is the duty of public education to deal with these values. Accordingly, we support moral education in the schools that is designed to develop an appreciation for moral virtues, intelligence, and the building of character. We wish to encourage wherever possible the growth of moral awareness and the capacity for free choice and an understanding of the consequences thereof. We do not think it is moral to baptize infants, to confirm adolescents, or to impose a religious creed on young people before they are able to consent. Although children should learn about the history of religious moral practices, these young minds should not be indoctrinated in a faith before they are mature enough to evaluate the merits for themselves. It should be noted that secular humanism is not so much a specific morality as it is a method for the explanation and discovery of rational moral principles.

Religious Skepticism

As secular humanists, we are generally skeptical about supernatural claims. We recognize the importance of religious experience: that experience that redirects and gives meaning to the lives of human beings. We deny, however, that such experiences have anything to do with the supernatural. We are doubtful of traditional views of God and divinity. Symbolic and mythological interpretations of religion often serve as rationalizations for a sophisticated minority, leaving the bulk of mankind to flounder in theological confusion. We consider the universe to be a dynamic scene of natural forces that are most effectively understood by scientific inquiry. We are always open to the discovery of new possibilities and phenomena in nature. However. we find that traditional views of the existence of God either are meaningless, have not yet been demonstrated to be true, or are tyrannically exploitative. Secular humanists may be agnostics, atheists, rationalists, or skeptics, but they find insufficient evidence for the claim that some divine purpose exists for the universe. They reject the idea that God has intervened miraculously in history or revealed himself to a chosen few or that he can save or redeem sinners. They believe that men and women are free and are responsible for their own destinies and that they cannot look toward some transcendent Being for salvation. We reject the divinity of Jesus, the divine mission of Moses, Mohammed, and other latter day prophets and saints of the various sects and denominations. 

We do not accept as true the literal interpretation of the Old and New Testaments, the Koran, or other allegedly sacred religious documents, however important they may be as literature. Religions are pervasive sociological phenomena, and religious myths have long persisted in human history. In spite of the fact that human beings have found religions to be uplifting and a source of solace, we do not find their theological claims to be true. Religions have made negative as well as positive contributions toward the development of human civilization. Although they have helped to build hospitals and schools and, at their best, have encouraged the spirit of love and charity, many have also caused human suffering by being intolerant of those who did not accept their dogmas or creeds. Some religions have been fanatical and repressive, narrowing human hopes, limiting aspirations, and precipitating religious wars and violence. While religions have no doubt offered comfort to the bereaved and dying by holding forth the promise of an immortal life, they have also aroused morbid fear and dread. We have found no convincing evidence that there is a separable "soul" or that it exists before birth or survives death. We must therefore conclude that the ethical life can be lived without the illusions of immortality or reincarnation. Human beings can develop the self confidence necessary to ameliorate the human condition and to lead meaningful, productive lives.

Reason

We view with concern the current attack by nonsecularists on reason and science. We are committed to the use of the rational methods of inquiry, logic, and evidence in developing knowledge and testing claims to truth. Since human beings are prone to err, we are open to the modification of all principles, including those governing inquiry, believing that they may be in need of constant correction. Although not so naive as to believe that reason and science can easily solve all human problems, we nonetheless contend that they can make a major contribution to human knowledge and can be of benefit to humankind. We know of no better substitute for the cultivation of human intelligence.

Science And Technology

We believe the scientific method, though imperfect, is still the most reliable way of understanding the world. Hence, we look to the natural, biological, social, and behavioral sciences for knowledge of the universe and man's place within it. Modern astronomy and physics have opened up exciting new dimensions of the universe: they have enabled humankind to explore the universe by means of space travel. Biology and the social and behavioral sciences have expanded our understanding of human behavior. We are thus opposed in principle to any efforts to censor or limit scientific research without an overriding reason to do so. While we are aware of, and oppose, the abuses of misapplied technology and its possible harmful consequences for the natural ecology of the human environment, we urge resistance to unthinking efforts to limit technological or scientific advances. We appreciate the great benefits that science and technology (especially basic and applied research) can bring to humankind, but we also recognize the need to balance scientific and technological advances with cultural explorations in art, music, and literature.

Evolution

Today the theory of evolution is again under heavy attack by religious fundamentalists. Although the theory of evolution cannot be said to have reached its final formulation, or to be an infallible principle of science, it is nonetheless supported impressively by the findings of many sciences. There may be some significant differences among scientists concerning the mechanics of evolution; yet the evolution of the species is supported so strongly by the weight of evidence that it is difficult to reject it. Accordingly, we deplore the efforts by fundamentalists (especially in the United States) to invade the science classrooms, requiring that creationist theory be taught to students and requiring that it be included in biology textbooks. This is a serious threat both to academic freedom and to the integrity of the educational process. We believe that creationists surely should have the freedom to express their viewpoint in society. Moreover, we do not deny the value of examining theories of creation in educational courses on religion and the history of ideas; but it is a sham to mask an article of religious faith as a scientific truth and to inflict that doctrine on the scientific curriculum. If successful, creationists may seriously undermine the credibility of science itself.

Education

In our view, education should be the essential method of building humane, free, and democratic societies. The aims of education are many: the transmission of knowledge; training for occupations, careers, and democratic citizenship; and the encouragement of moral growth. Among its vital purposes should also be an attempt to develop the capacity for critical intelligence in both the individual and the community. Unfortunately, the schools are today being increasingly replaced by the mass media as the primary institutions of public information and education. Although the electronic media provide unparalleled opportunities for extending cultural enrichment and enjoyment, and powerful learning opportunities, there has been a serious misdirection of their purposes. In totalitarian societies, the media serve as the vehicle of propaganda and indoctrination. In democratic societies television, radio, films, and mass publishing too often cater to the lowest common denominator and have become banal wastelands. There is a pressing need to elevate standards of taste and appreciation. Of special concern to secularists is the fact that the media (particularly in the United States) are inordinately dominated by a pro religious bias. The views of preachers, faith healers, and religious hucksters go largely unchallenged, and the secular outlook is not given an opportunity for a fair hearing. We believe that television directors and producers have an obligation to redress the balance and revise their programming. Indeed, there is a broader task that all those who believe in democratic secular humanist values will recognize, namely, the need to embark upon a long term program of public education and enlightenment concerning the relevance of the secular outlook to the human condition.

Conclusion

Democratic secular humanism is too important for human civilization to abandon. Reasonable persons will surely recognize its profound contributions to human welfare. We are nevertheless surrounded by doomsday prophets of disaster, always wishing to turn the clock back - they are anti science, anti freedom, anti human. In contrast, the secular humanistic outlook is basically melioristic, looking forward with hope rather than backward with despair. We are committed to extending the ideals of reason, freedom, individual and collective opportunity, and democracy throughout the world community. The problems that humankind will face in the future, as in the past, will no doubt be complex and difficult. However, if it is to prevail, it can only do so by enlisting resourcefulness and courage. Secular humanism places trust in human intelligence rather than in divine guidance. Skeptical of theories of redemption, damnation, and reincarnation, secular humanists attempt to approach the human situation in realistic terms: human beings are responsible for their own destinies. We believe that it is possible to bring about a more humane world, one based upon the methods of reason and the principles of tolerance, compromise, and the negotiations of difference. We recognize the need for intellectual modesty and the willingness to revise beliefs in the light of criticism. Thus consensus is sometimes attainable. While emotions are important, we need not resort to the panaceas of salvation, to escape through illusion, or to some desperate leap toward passion and violence. We deplore the growth of intolerant sectarian creeds that foster hatred. In a world engulfed by obscurantism and irrationalism it is vital that the ideals of the secular city not be lost.

A Secular Humanist Declaration was drafted by Paul Kurtz, Editor, Free Inquiry.

Endorsements

A Secular Humanist Declaration has been endorsed by the following individuals:

(Although we who endorse this declaration may not agree with all its specific provisions, we nevertheless support its general purposes and direction and believe that it is important that they be enunciated and implemented. We call upon all men and women of good will who agree with us to join in helping to keep alive the commitment to the principles of free inquiry and the secular humanist outlook. We submit that the decline of these values could have ominous implications for the future of civilization on this planet.)

United States Of America

• George Abell (professor of astronomy, UCLA)

• John Anton (professor of philosophy, Emory University)

• Khoren Arisian (minister, First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis)

• Isaac Asimov (science fiction author)

• Paul Beattie (minister, All Souls Unitarian Church; president, Fellowship of Religious Humanism)

• H. James Birx (professor of anthropology and sociology, Canisius College)

• Brand Blanshard (professor emeritus of philosophy, Yale)

• Joseph L. Blau (Profelsor Emeritus of Religion, Columbia)

• Francis Crick (Nobel Prize Laureate, Salk Institute)

• Arthur Danto (professor of philosophy, Columbia University)

• Albert Ellis (executive director, Institute for Rational Emotive Therapy)

• Roy Fairfield (former professor of social science, Antioch)

• Herbert Feigl (professor emeritus of philosophy, University of Minnesota)

• Joseph Fletcher (theologian, University of Virginia Medical School)

• Sidney Hook (professor emeritus of philosophy, NYU, fellow at Hoover Institute)

• George Hourani (professor of philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo)

• Walter Kaufmann (professor of philosophy, Princeton)

• Marvin Kohl (professor of philosophy, medical ethics, State University of New York at Fredonia)

• Richard Kostelanetz (writer, artist, critic)

• Paul Kurtz (Professor of Philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo)

• Joseph Margolis (professor of philosophy, Temple University)

• Floyd Matson (professor of American Studies, University of Hawaii)

• Ernest Nagel (professor emeritus of philosophy, Columbia)

• Lee Nisbet (associate professor of philosophy, Medaille)

• George Olincy (lawyer)

• Virginia Olincy

• W. V. Quine (professor of philosophy, Harvard University)

• Robert Rimmer (novelist)

• Herbert Schapiro (Freedom from Religion Foundation)

• Herbert Schneider (professor emeritus of philosophy, Claremont College)

• B. F. Skinner (professor emeritus of psychology, Harvard)

• Gordon Stein (editor, The American Rationalist)

• George Tomashevich (professor of anthropology, Buffalo State University College)

• Valentin Turchin (Russian dissident; computer scientist, City College, City University of New York)

• Sherwin Wine (rabbi, Birmingham Temple, founder, Society for Humanistic Judaism)

• Marvin Zimmerman (professor of philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo)

Canada

• Henry Morgentaler (physician, Montreal)

• Kai Nielsen (professor of philosophy, University of Calgary)

France

• Yves Galifret (executive director, Union Rationaliste)

• Jean Claude Pecker (professor of astrophysics, College de France, Academie des Sciences)

Great Britain

• Sir A.J. Ayer (professor of philosophy, Oxford University)

• H.J. Blackham (former chairman, Social Morality Council and British Humanist Association)

• Bernard Crick (professor of politics, Birkbeck College, London University)

• Sir Raymond Firth (professor emeritus of anthropology, University of London)

• James Herrick (editor, The Free Thinker)

• Zheres A. Medvedev (Russian dissident; Medical Research Council)

• Dora Russell (Mrs. Bertrand Russell) (author)

• Lord Ritchie Calder (president, Rationalist Press Association)

• Harry Stopes-Roe (senior lecturer in science studies, University of Birmingham; chairman, British Humanist Association)

• Nicholas Walter (editor, New Humanist)

• Baroness Barbara Wootton (Deputy Speaker, House of Lords)

India

• B. Shah (president, Indian Secular Society; director, Institute for the Study of Indian Traditions)

• V. M. Tarkunde (Supreme Court Judge, chairman, Indian Radical Humanist Association)

Israel

• Shulamit Aloni (lawyer, member of Knesset, head of Citizens Rights Movement)

Norway

• Alastair Hannay (professor of philosophy, University of Trondheim)

Yugoslavia

• Milovan Djilas (author, former vice president of Yugoslavia)

• M. Markovic (professor of philosophy, Serbian Academy of Sciences & Arts and University of Belgrade)

• Svet. Stojanovic (professor of philosophy, University of Belgrade)

---

Robert Green Ingersoll 19th Century lawyer, lecturer, Civil War veteran. THE GREAT AGNOSTIC

Mr. Christian, we have to ask, does The Secular Humanist Declaration really sound that scary? Do we seem like people you have to be worried about? If you are strong in your faith we should be able to get along, talk about anything, without being a threat to each other. 

We're interested in many things. We just don't see any good reason to believe in God. We feel that the story of Jesus is probably just a myth or maybe just one of many stories about the many prophets who roamed far and wide thousands of years ago. 

We love mythology, literature, music, culture and philosophy. We've learned much from THE POWER OF MYTH. And some of our best friends are faithful people from many different cultures. We don't dislike believers just because they believe. We respect you personally, but we might not respect your beliefs. We can't revere something we don't believe is true. We hope you understand.

We're not dogmatic in our disbelief, or in our enthusiasm for reality, reason, logic, science and critical thinking. We're amazed and enthralled by the wonders of life just like you are.

Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll (1833 -- 1899) was a Civil War veteran, American political leader, and orator during the Golden Age of Freethought, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of atheism. He was nicknamed "The Great Agnostic." This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.

Before we go we have one more thing we'd like to know. Are you excited about the end of the world? Because we're certainly not. We'd like to see humanity survive for generations to come and explore the universe. We're concerned about the sixth extinction, and biodiversity. We revere life on earth. We know we have to be the saviors and protectors of life on earth. We accept this responsibility. We're not prepared to wait for divine intervention. We may have broken the system and we're going to have to fix it by evolving our culture and living in more sustainable ways. To do this we need to understand more about the complex systems all around us. 

Please read this book!

We'd hate to think that you thought something like this:

"The apocalypse is going to happen soon, and when it does, damn it, everyone's going to believe exactly what I believe! There won't be any non-believers left that's for sure."

Revelation can be a scary thing. St. John of the Apocalypse said his piece long ago. Have we been waiting for the ultimate disaster since then? We hope you're not inspired by fear. We hate fear mongering. We prefer rational and scientific risk management. 

We don't want to put words in your mouth. You know what you believe. Tell us.

We've heard believers say: 

“When (x)% of the world’s population professes to be (any brand of Christian) or (this particular brand of Christian) Jesus will come again and everything will get sorted.”

Is it some kind of bandwagon argument?

How Many People Lived on the Earth? How many souls were born during the whole history of Homo Sapiens? We don’t think this NPR article did the math based on 6,000 years of history though. Have a look; it’s interesting, you might want to try to calculate how many souls are in heaven.

So at what point since year 1 AD did the ideal number of Christians as a percentage of the number of people on Earth equal (x), or has it never equaled (x)? Will Chinese converts tip the balance? 

PEW RESEARCH DISTRIBUTION OF CHRISTIANS:

Current World Total of Christians: 2,184,060,000 

Nearly two-thirds of Christians in the Americas (65%) are Catholic.

So how’s your bandwagon looking? If you are Catholic pretty good I guess.

The current world population is 7 billion or so. What’s the percentage needed before Jesus comes back to save us: 40% 50% 75%? When, does God announce - it’s time! Is there a preacher alive today who knows the answer? We suppose there are many, and we're guessing none of their prognostications match. 

We're just asking.

THE VERY TELLING, “GLOBAL CHRISTIANITY REPORT” by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: 

Apocalypse Soon?

The expectation that there will be another world war by 2050 is more common among younger and less educated Americans than among those in other groups. Fully 68% of those younger than 30 predict another world war; that compares with 56% of those ages 30 and older. And while 69% of those with no more than a high school education say another world war is at least probable, that view is shared by just 48% of those with a college education.

At the same time, young people are a bit less likely than older Americans to predict that the United States will face a terrorist attack with nuclear weapons. Those under 30 are the only age group in which fewer than half (46%) say such an attack is at least probable. As with expectations about another world war, those with a high school education or less are more likely than college graduates to predict a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States (57% vs. 46%).

Jesus Christ’s Return

As expected, predictions about whether Jesus Christ will return to earth in the next 40 years divide along religious lines. Fully 58% of white evangelical Christians say Jesus Christ will definitely or probably return to earth in this period, by far the highest percentage in any religious group. Only about a third of Catholics (32%), and even fewer white mainline Protestants (27%) and the religiously unaffiliated (20%) predict Jesus Christ’s return to earth.

In addition, those with no college experience (59%) are much more likely than those with some college experience (35%) and college graduates (19%) to expect Jesus Christ’s return. By region, those in the South (52%) are the most likely to predict a Second Coming by 2050.

On a related subject, 65% of Americans say that religion in the United States will be about as important as it is now in 40 years; 30% say religion will become less important. Majorities across all religious groups, including the unaffiliated, see religion continuing to be about as important as it is now in the coming decades.

http://www.people-press.org/2010/06/22/public-sees-a-future-full-of-promise-and-peril/

So what is going to trigger the event? World War? Sin? Drugs? Abortions? Hell, haven't we already had plenty of that in the last 2000 years?

So what do you think will trigger the event? Is that why it’s so important for some sects to convert people? Is it because they really care about people? Is this a kind of no one left behind ethos? And if so, how can people live in a world where many of the people they know and love will be condemned? We wonder. 

Here’s what Pat Robertson says:  

Is the membership of the 700 Club enough to tip the scales? What do your parishioners say?

Here are the signs: 

We suppose we had to wait for the middle of the 20th Century so we could have a proper Israel that would fit the signs. Well, it's the 21st Century now so are we almost there? Or is climate change the mysterious way God works through men to bring the end?

We still don't have a one-world ruler yet, but we have lots and lots of false prophets – those damn Buddhists and Muslims for example. 

What do your parishioners believe? Define your brand. Send us your declaration. We're trying to understand what you believe. Help us make sense of it all. 

There are so many faithful people in the world. We're still in the minority. How can we hurt you? It seems people evolved with a need to believe. If you can find it in your heart, let us talk with you about what we are passionate about. We know we can't compete with your concept of God. We're going to need lots of very smart, creative and passionate people to solve the problems of our time. Perhaps we can suggest that we all pray privately and work publicly to make things better. No one group has a monopoly on goodness. 

Thanks for your time Mr. Christian. Go in peace.

P.S. And remember, Atheists are loving people too.

Live - My Dinner with Andre

My friend shared a clip from the film, "My Dinner With Andre", on Facebook today. I saw My Dinner With Andre way back 1981 when it came out and was astounded because I kept thinking while watching that those were my people up there; I thought, in this world people actually talk like me, and also that some people actually have these kinds of conversations at dinner. 

I thought this kind of thing was so rare that you only encountered it once in a blue moon in urban restaurants with urbane people taking a frantic pause from their self-important lives over a meal they could hardly eat in between breaths punctuated by white water duologues.

Eves dropping in restaurants is a fun pastime. Usually, one only hears your average war stories, complaints, gossip or cargo cult chatter. Whenever I hear a dinner with Andre conversation I can't help but smile, exchange glances with the participants at the nearby table, as if to say, I'd come over there and join you if I were not so utterly respectful of those kinds of moments. 

(Today, I suppose, this would be equivalent to not asking a famous person to take a selfie with you.)

Bloody talkers, bloody intellectuals, bloody creative types - I just love them! My self esteem can rest.

For me it's also interesting to note that when one reads Rousseau, Aristotle or another pillar of thought, it's hard to ignore how much they got right and how even NOW much of their thought is still relevant. For me, this film will always be sharp, amusing, poignant and up-to-date. 

What can I say, that monologue is so darn Globe Hacker. 

Just keep talking! 

Cecil - Rest In Peace. Trophy hunting, conservation and wildlife protection are full of complex sets of issues.

"The preoccupation with what should be is estimable only when the respect for what is has been exhausted."     - Ortega

Cecil relaxing with his pride. 

I'm like many people who felt outrage when I heard about a hunter from the USA who, with his paid guides, lured a well-loved animal from it's protected habitat so he could shoot it with a crossbow, track it, and then shoot it again to kill it - and all for sport. The "it" I'm referring to is Cecil of course.

I have to say upfront that I grew up hunting in Colorado. My father and mother loved riding to the hounds at the Arapahoe Hunt Club on the old Highlands Ranch. They would chase coyotes in traditional English equestrian dress. The community was close-knit, a lovely group of people that I was fortunate to have grown up with. 

McClure Pass. Paonia State Park.

I used to go Elk hunting with my father and his friends on the Bear Ranch, a high-country ranch in Paonia on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. The Bear Ranch was later acquired by Bill Koch - I get dizzy and angry thinking of this particular climate change denying billionaire buying my friend's ranch. I guess, in the future, only billionaires will be able to afford these majestic ranches that will be staffed, no doubt, by a mix of legal and illegal ranch hands and managers. Of course, it's on the market again. I suppose it will be a good trade for Bill.

The house I stayed at when I hunted there was considerably smaller. It was a simple family ranch.

We also enjoyed hunting grounds on our friend's place near Barr Lake where we hunting ducks and dove. Every season we did I did this with family and friends until I was around 18 and decided it was time to move on. After high school, I haven't hunted much. In fact only twice since then. We also went game fishing in various locations around the world. I still like to go fishing once in a while and on sailing trips we've caught tuna and other grand fish. 

I can't remember any feelings of elation, guilt, or even a chord of ambivalence although surely I had those feelings. I can only patch together memories that are inevitably colored by recent experience and my current attitudes and beliefs. When I was young I was simply participating in a family tradition - kind of like when I went to church. 

The best memory I have of hunting was when, back in the 70s, Buddy Bear and I headed way up by the tree line of a nearby mountain, on horseback with a pack horse trailing behind us. We were hunting elk near a small lake where we planned to sit in ambush. We both had bull licenses that year so we hoped we'd get a trophy. A trophy, in this case, would be a big rack with 12 points on it. A rack is what we call the elk's horns. A bull elk is male, a cow female. After making a small camp above the lake, we went to a stream and caught trout that we ate with potatoes we cooked on an open fire. In the morning, I got my elk and it had an impressive rack. I positioned the carcass so its head was facing downhill and cut its throat so it could bleed out. Buddy and I cleaned it, skinned it, quartered it, put the quarters in gauze sacks (to protect the meat from flies), hung the gauze sacks in a tree near ear-shot of our camp for the night, and settle by the campfire where we ate more trout and potatoes. In the morning we retrieved the sacks of meat we hung up in a pine tree to keep it away from creatures and bears, put the gauze sacks, the skin, and the rack (horns) on the packhorse, and happily made our way back to the ranch. Buddy went out the next day to get his elk while I went out on a drive with my dad. "A drive" is when you go out and move through a location to push game towards hunters lying in wait. You have to plan it well and do it right for safety. 

A Bull Elk with a 12 point rack.

Many people have written eloquently about hunting so I'll spare you any more anecdotes here. I can say that we ate what we killed. I was used to it and liked the meat. My first motorcycle jacket was made out of elk skin by a tailor in Denver. I have nothing against licensed, regulated, or traditional hunting. I'm an omnivore and I love to eat almost everything. I've even eaten insects in Thailand and snake in China with only a shrug and a, "not bad" to the host. 

All that having been said, I can't understand why people go to far away places in the world to kill endangered species. I can't imagine myself even going out of the way to kill a Black Bear, or hike up a mountain to kill a Bighorn sheep. I don't much care for trophy hunting. I just don't get the thrill. After all the killing humans have done throughout our history I can only imagine one creature that truly might deserve killing. I'm not going to say it. I can only say that my first sentiment at hearing about our Dentist's hunt was a vengeful one. 

I also hate media speculation. Stop talking about it until the facts are in please. Give us the news and shut up. Then you can analyse the hell out of the story when you have the facts. PLEASE!

Bighorn Sheep in New Mexico. Amazing animals. It made me want to be a wildlife filmmaker when I saw them. 

My next thoughts were of my typical "follow the money" variety that I just can't stop pondering these days. There is a business surrounding everything we do after all, from the acquisition of specialized tools to learning how to use the tools, to equipment and other capital assets needed to carry out our plans, to transportation, lodging, guides, consultants, bureaucrats and their offices (government is a kind of business) and on and on... There is a food chain, so to speak, of money throughout everything we do. In other words, there's a significant amount of money that can be made from the activity of hunting. There are revenues that countries and parks can receive through licensing fees and for other things hunters need to pay for to be able to do their thing. Tourism is big money for some countries where hunting is on offer and happens to be a big draw. 

The first time I went to Africa I was 12 years old. We went on "photo" safari in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Congo. We also visited Ethiopia where I had something really spicy while eating with my fingers. I could go on and on about Africa. I'll never forget when our guide shouted under his breath, "look, boy, a lion in a tree!" He pointed up and I was thrilled. Simba katika mti! I don't have any idea how much our family spent, but we didn't kill anything. We took some good photos for sure.

Simba katika mti. 

After cascading through my usual follow-the-money thoughts it occurred to me that I had heard and read since childhood about how humans were an integral part of the balance of nature and that through our natural activities we helped maintain populations of precious animals so that they, and we, could follow our natural character and coexist in a stasis of health and mutual respect. Yes, for sure, in an ideal world.

Visit Ducks Unlimited, The Sierra Club, National Geographic, and dozens of other NGOs, nonprofit organizations, government resources etc. There are lots of MOOKS, university programs and so on, where you'll find a lot of well-meaning, decent and smart people who are looking into these issues very carefully. Good information is there if we look for it. Never forget to find and follow primary sources. (I have to remind myself of that all the time.)

As I reminisced about all of this and thought about various aspects of the many complex issues pertaining to Cecil's story, a disturbing question came to mind: isn't it ironic that one of the major ways to finance conservation is through the business of killing the animals we want to protect? Well, that's not the only way we finance conservation, but it's still ironic that one of the ways we finance saving the black Rhino is through hunting the black Rhino. Apparently in 2014 Americans spent eleven million dollars trophy hunting in Namibia. That's a significant amount of money for Namibia and it doesn't include revenues from other kinds of hunting. 

I keep thinking that if we valued our natural resources, as well as life on earth, in a different way we wouldn't be facing the sixth extinction. Some would argue that we're also rapidly approaching the end of the Anthropocene and of Homo-Colossus. "The end is near!" It doesn't have to be so.

"The permit was sold for $350,000, well above the previous high bid for a permit in that country, $223,000. While the Dallas Safari Club had the dubious distinction of being the first organization to hold such an auction outside of Namibia itself, it’s fairly unremarkable and actually quite common for an African nation to sell permits for trophy hunting, even for endangered species."

Look at how much money it costs for a license to hunt certain animals in certain places.  It's no wonder that you have to be the son of a billionaire to go on such hunts.  Give the boy a silver gun and let him have fun. The Trump boys certainly can afford a nice hunting safari in Africa. If Donald gets elected we can well imagine his visits to Africa being quite a bit different from President Obama's mission. Republicans will be proud to have them no doubt. Shot of our president's kids with their prey (perhaps on a war safari) followed by a story of how Donald's bombing the hell out of the middle east and building walls to keep the Mexicans out. You can see by the photo below that the Trump family really does know how to get things done. But I digress.

(Atlus and Steven shrugged, but in different ways.)

The Trump boys having a nice hunt while financing conservation. 

The issues here are complex and highly politicized. There are several questions that science can't help address, primary of which is whether or not the money raised from the sale of hunting permits is used for conservation, something often promised by hunting tour operators. But empirical research can help to elucidate several other questions, such as whether hunting can ever help drive conservation efforts.

But if an endangered species as charismatic as the black rhinoceros is under such extreme threat from poaching, then perhaps the message that the species needs saving has a larger problem to address than the relatively limited loss of animals to wealthy hunters. The real tragedy here is that the one rhino that will be killed as a result of Saturday’s auction has received a disproportionate amount of media attention compared to the hundreds of rhinos lost to poaching each year, which remain largely invisible. And while there remains at least a possibility that sanctioned trophy hunts can benefit the black rhino as they have for the white rhino, there is only one possible consequence of continued poaching. It’s one that conservationists and hunters alike will lament. – Jason G. Goldman | 15 January 2014

I'll let you follow some links, do your own research and decide for yourself what complex forces are at play here and what we should do to improve, mitigate or heal things. As always my message is that we can do better and that we have to do better. 

It's good that our Dentist "friend" is apologetic and ashamed. I'm not going to shed a tear if his customers shun him. It's fine by me if he feels he has to scurry off into hiding, but it's also true that he may have thought he was on a legal hunt and doing everything by the book; and, he may have reasoned that he was on a righteous hunt and that the revenue made by his hunt would go to the conservation of Lions. I don't know now. We'll have to wait and see. What's his track record as a hunter?

Again I'm back to my main concern: is trophy hunting the best way to finance conservation of these noble species? We can look these creatures in the face and find them beautiful, even elegant, graceful, and we can feel as if we can almost communicate with them, we can call them God's creatures so why do we need to kill them in the first place. For the thrill? Because it's in our nature? As an ego boost and war story to tell our friends? To affect nature's balance?

And what of the flora that disappears all the time that we've never even notices. 

When I hunted with family and friends it was a simple, natural, communal process without much fanfare. We enjoyed it. It seemed a healthy thing to do and the food was good. None of us could even have contemplated the extinction of the Elk, or the Canadian Goose, or the Marlin, or the Tuna, but today it's clear that we could lose these creatures and if we did, humanity be damned, it would be a tragedy of, dare I say it, biblical proportions! 

While I was reading and mildly researching to brace myself for writing this I was, yet again, amazed at the fine workings of finance in all of this. I guess we can't do the right thing unless we first figure out how we're going to pay for it. 

Now that I know Cecil is gone I'll miss him. We've renamed our cat Cecil in honor of that beautiful Lion King.

CECIL, OUR CAT. FORMERLY KNOW AS CASPER, AND GATSBY. FULL NAME: CECIL GATSBY WAHWAH.

Cecil Gatsby WahWha power lounging in the man cave. 

I won't go into any detail about financing conservation and the protection of wildlife. I hope you will have a look at the following resources. If you really care about these animals educate yourself about this stuff.

Live in peace.

REFERENCES:

CONSERVATION FINANCE: Credit Suisse / WWF / McKinsey&Company

Review Economic and conservation significance of the trophy hunting industry in sub-Saharan Africa

Hunting in America

** $746 million — Annual amount of money spent by hunters in the United States on licenses and public land access fees alone. Sportsmen’s licensing revenues account for more than half of all funding for state natural resource agencies

** $300 million — Additional monies contributed to wildlife conservation every year by the more than 10,000 private hunting-advocate organizations, like the National Wild Turkey Federation, Ducks Unlimited, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation

** $4.2 billion — Amount of money sportsmen have contributed to conservation through a 10% federal excise taxes on firearms, ammunition, and gear since the 1937 Pittman-Robertson Act established the tax. Millions of acres of public-use land has been purchased, preserved, and maintained with this money.

https://www.awf.org/

https://www.worldwildlife.org/initiatives/conservation-finance

https://www.worldwildlife.org/about/financials

http://www.wcs.org/conservation-challenges/local-livelihoods.aspx

http://northernwoodlands.org/articles/article/state-wildlife-conservation

MOOCS to help you learn about conservation: http://conservationfinancenetwork.org/resource-library/moocs/

https://www.facebook.com/volunteersbeware/posts/799395270107971

http://blog.gaiam.com/as-hunter-numbers-decline-how-will-we-fund-wildlife-conservation/

It's nice to see we can still pull off a huge mining project in the USA.

Of course we need mines and wells and efficient farms and chemicals and pharmaceuticals, but...

Follow the money, that old cliche that explains just about everything in the human culture space. 

SELL THOSE PEOPLE'S LAND (it is really Federal land after all) make a deal, extract a commodity from it. The world depends on economic growth. It would be terrible if we didn't. This is how our world works. It can't be helped. It creates jobs. We can't have cool things or a badass professional military industrial complex without our own supply of copper. As Donald Trump tells us day after day; the Chinese are kicking our asses hoarding global commodities. We can't be number one if we allow that to happen.

Soon, hopefully, our (US right) technology will allow us to mine other planets and then we can treat our own planet as if it were, cough, sacred. 

We need our copper. Sacred land? What a joke. (I'm not laughing.) But, really, how can something be valuable without value added? It's just dirt and stuff obscuring metals we need to make more stuff to fuel and protect our economic growth. 

And think of all the fossil fuels we can use to dig that dirt. It's a win-win across industries. What could be more beautiful than that? Well, perhaps, lining someone's pockets to get the project approved might be a bit more attractive to some people.

(I really missed my chance to live the American dream when I didn't follow my classmate Danny O'Neal and become a lobbyist. If your lip balm doesn't smell like a butt hole, you aren't fit to live large.) 

We might want to think about how we can provide clean, renewable energy to the process of recycling all the garbage that has copper in it. Recycling copper that is. But we can leave that for our grandchildren. (Or the Chinese who keep kicking our butts.) They'll need to dig down to those landfills to get stuff to do their doomsday preps with, I mean to be able to live their doomsday lifestyles with. 

"According to the project website, Rio Tinto expects to be producing copper from the deposit—which is nearly 7,000 feet deep, or five Empire State Buildings below the Earth’s surface—in the mid-2020s."

Imagine that! That's a lot of dirt and rock to move. It's going to leave lots of space for us to repurpose when the last metric ton of copper has been extracted and shipped to China. Well, not if Donald Trump is elected to the presidency of the United States of course.  
 
America can be proud indeed to find more resources to exploit in its own land. And we don't even have to go to Canada. Nice. It's so much easier to do this at home and not have to make complex deals with foreign governments. But again, deal making creates jobs too right? Well, any big business is good business. When billions of dollars are involved the most important minority in the world is happy. 

Read this stellar article about investor-state dispute settlement. 

THE ARBITRATION GAME - indeed.

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE.

Good luck getting the project approved.

(Maybe I'll go to Dump Truck driving school and move back to the States. Or open a cafe near the mine, or offer to film the mining operations for propaganda purposes. I could have some nice cutaways with Native Americans doing sacred dances near a huge dirt digging machine. Cool. The job possibilities are endless.) 

Resolution Copper Mining - Mine Plan of Operations from Resolution Copper on Vimeo.

As promised, on November 15, 2013 Resolution Copper filed a Mine Plan of Operations with the U.S. Forest Service, which outlines our detailed plans to design, construct and operate a world-class mine in ways that are safe, protect the natural surroundings and the area’s unique cultural heritage and create sustainable benefits for the community. We are committed to forging strong partnerships with our neighbors and people who care about the mine, and the plan gives our stakeholders an important opportunity to participate in the permitting process.

Honestly - we do need the copper. The low hanging fruit, 7,000 feet low, needs to be extracted before we get low on gasoline and deasil. 

I love the name of the mine: "GREEN FIELDS". Well, maybe someday in the far off future when there's life after people it might resemble its lovely moniker. 

Along with the greenwashing, the companies involved are going to allow access to the mine to Native American groups who regard the land the mine is on as sacred land. Think of that. "Thanks for letting us come to the mine, things really do look and feel much better now that  you're digging it all up. No means yes after all. Can I also get a haircut, a bible, and a new suit, please? Oh, and can you throw in some quaaludes?"

Looking good!

NATIVE AMERICANS PROTEST

"Under the bipartisan legislative deal passed by 300 votes to 119 in the House, Rio and BHP would take over 980 hectares of forest land near Superior in southeast Arizona. Federal law currently prohibits mining in the national forest, called Oak Flat. In exchange, Resolution Copper would hand over about 2020 hectares of conservation land to the federal government."

There's always a way if you have the patients and the clout, to get around prohibitions of one kind or another. 

"The federal land exchange package was tacked on to the National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday, a bill that authorizes Pentagon policies and funding for next year."

These tacked on things are also known as "riders". It makes it easy to slip one bit of legislation into something else providing some camouflage in case someone opposed to the move might take notice. 

"Copper is once again king in Arizona, and our military and our manufacturing base will be assured of critical domestic copper supplies," Congressman Gosar said after the bill passed."

Yes, copper is king. I can't imagine life as we know it now without it. In fact, I think most of us can't imagine our world significantly different from the one we have. Perhaps this is a kind of familiarity bias. We simply go along with what we know and come what may...

"Under the legislation, other new land will be added to the federal wilderness register in exchange for land to be developed for oil, natural gas, coal, timber and copper."

And this is key, we now get to see the knock on effects of the copper mine move. They can now add land that can soon be called "wilderness" to a register in exchange for land they want to extract from. Whatever they call a particular parcel of land now: forest, park, reserve etc., now the whatever you call it land, call it sacred if you will, can be developed for the production of more important, industrial commodities. The land you traded for gets put in a registry where it's called wilderness. Does the word wilderness have any meaning at all in this context? Or, I'll trade ou some privately protected land for Federally protected land so we can do what we like. There is oil down there, I don't care what you call this land we need the oil! 

Is this resource management at its best or just big business chugging along? Well, we need big business to chug along don't we? We simply can't imagine any other kind of world than the one we have now. And we're convinced that Growth is the answer to all our ills. 

"Step right up folks, I've got a tonic here called "Growth" and it's a miracle in a bottle! It will only cost you your future."

Stop slowing us down with your baggage. 

Climate skeptics think they've got it all figured out. 

And here's the icing on the cake for econo-man: 

"This legislation would provide up to 25 percent of the annual US demand for copper, which is critical to US competitiveness and economic security."

Whether it comes from the USA or another country it's critical to US security and competitiveness that we have as much as we can get. The Chinese know this. Donald Trump knows it. We need to be winners! If we can't beat someone we're just imbeciles. And, if that's a zero sum game then so be it. 

Hoarding commodities is important for rapid growth, and arguably, for rapid death.

There are still a lot of things out there we can exploit to be winners in the coliseum of economic competition. We can build even bigger buildings with the right materials technology. We've got a long way to go yet. Homo Colossus is still in the driver's seat!

Remember, the transfer of wealth to the most important minority in the world is not "theft", it's vital economic growth that is very important to those who want to be winners and not losers. It doesn't matter if it damages the lives of a large majority of people who aren't players anyway. Remember, real people are consumers, not players. Our role is to work and buy stuff that's had value added to it. This is crucial to our way of life. We've got lots of names to call people who don't believe that and a lot of them are derogatory. 

In the end, science and technology will save us (if we really need saving) or perhaps Jesus, or maybe even the Caliphate. 

I have to admit, I wish I were a player so I could high five the tough guys who hung in there and made that deal. But it's not for me man, not for me. 

I know we need to mine to maintain our world as it is. I just wish we could slow down a bit and reassess the value of our resources and our way of life. I'm only advocating an incremental evolution of our ideas. I want to see a long and glorious future unfold for humankind. I dread the thought of a crash and burn scenario brought about by our arrogance and lack of clear consideration of our place in the universe. 

Please watch this episode of Witness, "Rings of Fire".

Opiate addiction and mining developments are threatening the future of Canada's First Nations rural communities.

Now let's change tack and have a look at a very good conversation with someone who has a slightly different point of view. William catton, rest in peace.

This is the complete and slightly edited interview footage we shot with William Catton in 2005, in preparation for our feature-length documentary, What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-plans-to-build-its-commodity-hoard-in-2015-1425535064

http://www.economist.com/topics/trade-barriers

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21636089-fears-are-growing-trades-share-worlds-gdp-has-peaked-far

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolution_Copper

http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-clears-land-swap-for-rio-bhp-copper-mine-project-1419211774

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2015/07/rings-fire-150729124056943.html

Hey neighbor, what do you really believe?

I’m sure many of you watch TV news or keep up with current events online. Recently we’re seeing more stories about lone wolf attackers committing mass murder in everyday public spaces. 

We’re right to be concerned. 

Unfortunately, we're all going to have to be more diligent about our safety - more diligent in counter-intuitive ways.

The new fashion among our more fanatical ideological and religious militants is to convince young men and women to commit mass murder against civilians. These heinous crimes can happen anywhere in the world. Random acts of violence with a purpose one might say. Irony is never far from the battlefield or the playground.

Apparently, the lone wolf killer type believes in some twisted way that normal people are somehow guilty of not believing what the lone wolf believes and that that gives him the right to commit murder. 

I know, a bit simplistic, but a fair characterization in a limited context.

There are also small groups of people who feel their particular culture, ethnicity, ideology or whatever sets them so far apart from other groups of people that the only way they can imagine a future is if all “outsiders” were dead and buried. 

This small minority of humanity we call fanatics. They don't fit into normal society. Our social norms are not valid to them.

What are the odds of our becoming a victim of such people or groups? 

Of course the odds that you are killed by a terrorist or fanatic are extremely slim, but if it’s you, your friend or family member who is killed, winning the lottery of death won't be made any less painful because you frame the event as a freak accident. Murder is always going to be more shocking than the bicycle accident that took your cousin. 

Is there anything we can do to prevent even one such tragedy, however few and far between these episodes of horrific violence may be in our world; the world outside of the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia? 

See how easy it is to differentiate and regionalize these terrible events in our minds. See how easy it is to think that it’s someone else’s problem? The fact remains that you are more likely to be blown up in Pakistan, Syria, Iraq or Nigeria than in Denver Colorado. And yet, what country has the most deaths from nonmilitary related gun incidents? The good old U.S. of A of course. Let’s never forget Columbine high school. 

How are we supposed to know if the boy or girl next door, those nice kids we've known for years, is becoming radicalized and is in the process of persuading himself to take steps towards terror or mass murder? If I ask my neighbor's son to tell me what he really believes, what he's been learning on YouTube, at the Madrasa or from his cohort of haters, should I expect an honest answer? What might a conversation like that sound like?

"Actually, Steven, I believe that there is only one way of life that is correct and it's clear to me you are not living that way so basically, sadly, you are my enemy and I feel morally taxed to kill you and yours anytime I feel like it. If you would like to convert to my glorious medieval religious ideology then you will become my alley and you can join me and help me rid the world of non-believers. You'll be happy living according to the true will of God. You won't have to think so much. You'll be able to live in the right way. Look around you, the world is evil, your society is sick, your culture is destroying everything! I can't get any respect or consideration for being a good religious man. People treat me badly and all I want to be is right with God. I'm justified in doing what I have to do to bring the world back into order. You will be my brother. I'd give my life for my brother." 

One could also easily illustrate an imaginary conversation with a white supremacist. “I just want to live with white people and let the blacks live with their people. What’s wrong with that?” 

Or you could include the “fresh air” speech of Donald Trump and say, “We have to build a wall on the border and keep the Mexican government from sending their rapists, criminals and murderers into our country.” Really, people think his irrational comments bring “fresh air” into the presidential political contest. An example of delusional people leading delusional people.

How does one argue with these kinds of views? It’s not easy. You’ll experience that same old circular reasoning, and baseless assertions that are vexing to any reasonable person. The true believer simply wants to believe. The hater simply loves to hate. The fear monger loves to engender fear in his audience to garner support for his power play. He may be a smart, well educated, healthy fellow who simply feels more secure believing in a form of moral absolutism. He doesn't care about your reasoning, your logic, your evidence, your historical perspective, or your ideas. It's not hard for him to dehumanize his victims. He doesn't even care if he dies while killing you. He doesn't care who he hurts while he’s making his power play. He simply wants what he wants and damn those who stand against him. His primary concerns are with his particular form of mysticism, metaphysics, ideology, money, power or his religious dogma. He’s a magical thinker. He knows, beyond any doubt, that he is righteous, or that his reward awaits him in heaven. How can you argue with that? For those of us who have tried we know all too well that it’s not easy. It’s a tough, uphill slog full of frustration and disappointment.

It's tragic, but we are all going to have to be vigilant now. As if we didn't always have to be vigilant. Yes, I am a fan of history too. Today, even among the better angels of our nature we are confronted with the possibility of sliding backwards towards solipsism and violence to the good old days of the wild, wild west, or the Mongol Hordes.  

Unfortunately, we can't shirk it, we still need to pursue uncomfortable conversations and disputes. We can’t get away from that. We need Socratic dialog now more than ever. Striving for truth is more important now than it ever has been. Public and private debate must go on. We must help evolve our social theories so that society can improve. To succeed, we need to communicate across domains and across cultures. We need to look at the pig picture and care about our future.

We must constantly talk with our children about what they are learning and what they believe. We have to engage our neighbors to find out how they feel about things in our world and in our communities. We need to ask them if they could use our help and support with family members or friends they are worried about. 

We are all in denial to some degree. 

“What, my boy? My boy may be a bit stressed or depressed sometimes, but he’s just a normal kid, he'll get through his bad patches.”

It may be embarrassing, but we're going to have to reach out and ask for help when we think someone in our family or community might be getting sucked into pathological beliefs. It may be none of our business, but we might want to tell someone that we suspect our neighbors could be entertaining some dangerous beliefs. 

We might have to, oh no, confront someone about their thoughts and ideas. 

Oh, My God, we're going to have to police ourselves, our neighbors, and potentially even inform on them. We’re going to have to intervene! Is this a slippery slope towards a Fascist Police State, a Surveillance State, an ever expanding Prison Industrial State? Are we sowing the seeds without knowing it for another Nation State to organize and implement genocide? Are we going to have to build several Guantanamo Bay facilities in America and around the world to warehouse our suspects?  Do we need deprogramming experts, are we going to have to reform our educational system to re-educate people along social-political lines we’ve adopted as a mindless mob?

Here we go again.

How can we increase our resistance to pathological ideological contagion?

I believe it’s our duty to humanity and life on earth to learn constantly how to be better thinkers, critical thinkers. Choosing this as your discipline is a sure-fire way to limit your vulnerability to pathological ideology and beliefs. 

We're all going to have to ask ourselves what we believe in and learn to articulate it clearly. Where do we draw the line? What are we willing to fight for? I know it's easy to fight for money and power, we can all be recruited into that line of work, but what is really worth preserving and protecting. We're going to have to have these uncomfortable conversations if we are going to stop these murders before they happen without becoming that which we are fighting against. How do we define the moral high ground? How can we inoculate people from false and destructive beliefs?

One thing is for sure if we are going to fight this fight we're going to have to have a good understanding of what hypocrisy means.  We’re going to have to be more humble. We’re all going to have to be a lot more self-critical. We’re going to have to have a long hard look in the mirror. 

This is not to say that eventually we won’t identify a common enemy that must be destroyed. Let’s be real, the exercise of power and self defense is a legitimate part of human life and experience. We must be diligent, and how we go about our diligence is very important.

Are there things we can do to invite people who are vulnerable to toxic beliefs into another reality? Cultural values are profound and important. In a way, the fight against hate is a fight for a particular set of cultural values opposed to hate. What kind of world would we have to create that would make it extremely unlikely that people would turn to hate? Or, simply, how can we improve things to such a degree that these kinds of haters would be highly unlikely to develop? This is not utopian thinking, I'm suggesting incremental improvements, an evolutionary  arch heading in the right  direction, towards a more loving and compassionate society and global community.

The creation of such an evolutionary arch requires a great deal of decent, skilled and sincere communication. We'd better get better at expressing ourselves in community with the people around us. We need new and positive connections with one another. The difference between Good and Evil is not just a simple juxtaposition of opposite concepts. We need to work hard at teasing apart those things that divide us and find common ground. The alternative is forever having to deal with Hate. 

None of us is completely innocent. We all participate in an imperfect system. We face problems of our own making. We cause problems that we can't even see coming. We stumble and fall. 

We can all do better.

Watch your backs people. Take care of each other. Take care of your world. The lone gunman or suicide bomb woman are going to keep coming. We need to be careful in more ways than one hundred. Special interests will continue to destroy our world through greed. We'll keep burning fossil fuels until we cross a tipping point that will put more stress on living systems than we can even imagine. We may all become refugees, and think of the violence that could cause. 

We need to give a shit!

So ask your faithful friends to tell you what they really believe and ask yourself the same question. We need to have that dialogue, if only with ourselves. 

Because we give a damn. I love that.

Have a quick look at two opposing sides of the gun violence debate in America and tell me what you think. There is only a ghost of a chance that anyone on either side of this debate will ever change their minds.

There is a whole literature out there concerning why that is.

AMERICAN GUN FACTS . COM

VISUALIZING GUN VIOLENCE - COMPARING AMERICA WITH THE REST OF THE WORLD.

The US has higher rates of homicides from guns than Pakistan. At 4.5 deaths per 100,000 people, the US rates aren’t much lower than gun homicide rates in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (5.2 deaths per 100,000 people). Annually, the US has about two fewer gun homicide deaths per 100,000 people than Iraq, which has 6.5 deaths per 100,000.

Firearm homicide rates in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United States, and Pakistan, 2010

"Instead of using local data to identify local solutions, the US may largely have to rely on studies done in other countries to gain insight into ways to curb gun violence. Even though Obama lifted a 17-year-old ban on US federal funding for gun violence research in 2013, a congressional ban on funding for this research remains in place."

Engender a little fear shall we Winston? did he really say that? what was the context in which he may have said that?

Above we have a photo of the very mature, Nobel Prize winner, Winston Churchill with his "Islam is as dangerous..." barb boldly printed near his task-master face. What we take from this is whatever we want to take from it. 

It's so easy to find something on the internet to fuel your hatred. Anything can be spun into invective. If you want to find a historical figure to bolster your hatred of Islam, or for anything else you can do it with a click. 

Paul Snow from The Uncertaintist Blog has an interesting and more informed take on the above quote. A lot of his entry he obtained at snops.com. 

WHAT CHURCHILL WROTE ABOUT ISLAM

I don't want to hate of fear anyone on the basis of their faith or cultural beliefs. However, I do want to know very clearly what your faith and beliefs entail. If you love a vengeful God and are taught that your God wants you to kill all apostates, atheists and people of another faith then I want to know about it. I'd want to ask you why you believe God wants you to kill? I'd want to have a civil conversation with you, and if I found you were serious about doing me harm, I'd want to be able to find legal ways to defend myself against your bad intentions.

To get that far we are simply going to have to talk to each other. We must make our views clear. We must act like human beings who give a shit.  

Read this fascinating paper on Genocide. We must be vigilant! 

The Origins of Genocide

Complex Archetypes Inspired by Simone De Beauvoir

I really love this woman's smile. 

My friend sent me a Huffington Post article about Simone De Beauvoir’s dating archetypes.  Archetypes are fun, there are many television shows featuring one kind of profiler or another. We like to group things into simple types, it’s a useful way of organizing our knowledge and categorizing things and people. It’s utterly human to do so. Cows pay no never mind to nomenclature. There’s more intelligence in a cow’s gut than in their brains. Omnivores like us need brain power to sort what might be good for us and what might just kill us. 

Here’s her list of 9 types of people you are bound to date:

1. The Sub Man
2. The Serious Man
3. The Passionate Man
4. The Nihilist
5. The Demoniacal
6. The Adventurer
7. The Critic
8. The Artist
9. The Free Man 

I think most of us would blend into different types during the course of our lives. Some people I know, I must admit, seem very close to only one of the types above.

I have to say that I have met or identified with all nine during the course of my lifetime. I hope I’m not being cheeky if I say I find it difficult to tell what type I am. 

Is it possible to evolve throughout the course of one’s lifetime into several different types while ultimately arriving at one’s preferred, natural identity? 

While pondering the above question and thinking about my own life I came up with a new type, Type 0.

TYPE 0: 

He or She is a creative, autodidact, skeptical-epicurean-stoic with Buddhist and Pantheistic tendencies. 

He or she possesses a complex ethical matrix: utilitarian, consequentialist including a large smattering of virtue, and a realistic understanding that it’s really difficult to be ethical in certain social contexts. 

She finds truth in stories and knows that a story is a story. "Mama, I may be a simple woman, but I do know what a story is."

He or She does not confuse anecdotes with data, or expert interpretation of data through a rigorous set of scientific processes and methodologies using the most up-to-date standards and tools with simple faith. 

He or She tends to trust true experts, but still employs a range of critical thinking skills when learning from experts. 

He values honesty, compassion, intelligence, understanding, trust, conviction and considerateness but doesn’t expect too much from people. 

(She knows that most people think they are trying to be the best person they can be even if they may fall short of the mark. This is why she can, at times, forgive herself.)

He enjoys the simple pleasures of life and is comfortable in the knowledge that his particular identity and biological life span are temporal. His death is not a big deal. Death is simply the natural end of one's life.

She is uncomfortable with the spooky vanity of people who want to exist forever. Forever is a long time, and generally speaking, people who want to live forever rarely change - SCARY! 

Type 0 has a hard time finding people to talk with, but never has a problem with talking with people. 

Type 0 knows that a human lifespan is not nearly long enough to satiate her curiosity, or long enough to dampen her love of life. She is comfortable knowing her time is limited. The finite nature of existence only makes her appreciate the journey that much more. 

His sense of the future includes his ability to imagine future generations doing much better than he could. 

She maintains a healthy sense of humor. Life is serious, absurd, profound, quirky, unpredictable, and that’s just fine. 

Her overriding aim in life is to be wise, and yet she remains humble in the face of the many obstacles to achieving wisdom. 

She works towards a state of authentic being without the anxiety of becoming and appreciates that most of the time this is an uphill battle.  

He wishes to exist in a natural fluid state of wisdom. A wisdom one can never grasp. A wisdom one can only experience in relationship with others. His constant prayer is that more people will desire wisdom. 

She knows that values are always more important than value. 

(To outsource your thinking and not be critical is the height of idiocy and a tragic surrender to stagnancy. Decent people who do not employ critical thinking are incredibly dangerous.) 

Type 0, possessing greater Adventurer / Artist / Critic tendencies as a young man, is gradually tempered by time, study and experience liberating him in his later years to focus on his true desire: to be The Free Man. 

(Context: liberty, license, and freedom are complex concepts requiring some serious thought. Political philosophy, philosophy, meditation and science are the best ways to achieve a better understanding of these ideas.)

All of her adventures, critiques and attempts to create were ultimately motivated by her desire to be A FREE WOMAN. 

Few young people are truly wise or free. For some of us, if we live long enough, and remain healthy, we might have a chance to be The Free Woman. 

To die A Free Man or Woman would be his or her ideal legacy. 

A truly free man or woman is always a part of a community of human beings, and therefore, is compassionately  dedicated to helping people find and experience their freedom. Freedom is a human, relative term that can only be experienced in the context of normal, healthy, human relationships. 

No creed, ideology or affiliation has a monopoly on what it means to be a free man or woman. Free men and women can exist in any culture. Free men and women are never caged or held mentally captive by limiting concepts. Free men and women have a healthy level of vitality and enthusiastically embrace challenges. Free men and women are courageous and value personal integrity. We need more free men and women. 

We have our work cut out for us.

Learn more about Simone De Beauvoir

Simone had a passionate and alternative relationship with the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Satre.

You might be interested in looking at The Institute For Global Ethics.

An American Infinate Monkey Cage

Brian Cox and Robin Ince, co-hosts of "The Infinite Monkey Cage" on BBC4. 

It's great to see Robin Ince and Brian Cox touring America with their popular BBC4 Infinite Monkey Cage program. The Infinite Monkey Cage is one of my favorite podcasts - I can't get enough of it. Humor and science really do go together, and some of the funniest subsets of our human family are science enthusiasts and scientists. The wonders of nature are truly hilarious. 

I'm often beside myself with frustration when I confront people who are hanging on to ideological positions that inhibit their ability to learn and grow. Safety in numbers often equals narrow minds. We are amazing animals able to explore and understand nature better than any species we know of. Isn't that something to be proud of. I know our arrogance knows no bounds, but this rather nascent confidence of ours to create amazing things from our ability to do pure scientific exploration is nothing short of an infinite treasure. We need to treasure this ability and be humble and wise moving forward. 

For those of you who are concerned about their position in the world I'd like to ask a few rhetorical questions. 

What's wrong with improving people through education? Can we give equal access to education to everyone alive today? That would be nice. Think of the value an investment like that would create? Think of education's impact on our cultural values. Why waste the intellectual and creative power of three-quarters of the human race when it wouldn't be that hard to educate everyone. Not so long ago most people in the world were illiterate. It's hard for us to imagine that today. Well fed and well-loved people are learning machines with no equal. (But, however scary, it might be nice to know that there are wiser and smarter creatures than us out there in the Universe. At least we'd have something to shoot for that would transcend our petty, earthly differences.)

Why not get rid of nuclear weapons and invest more in ongoing generations of nuclear power that would be safer, cleaner and provide very efficient energy to a growing world while we are transitioning to renewable solutions? Does it really have to be that hard for us to ween ourselves off of fossil fuels in the light of the impending catastrophic consequences of climate change? How stubborn are we when it comes to holding on to what we think is ours - power, possessions, land, money? Will we really hang on to our bad habits until it kills us? Many of the things that kill us are avoidable. We need merely to make different choices and thrive. We know we can do it if we only had the social and political will to make some important changes to the way we live and how we carry on about out business.

What's wrong with homosexual people enjoying the institution of marriage? Loving families are good and contribute to social health. Do we really have to pathologize love? What would be more dangerous than turning love into a bad thing, a sinful thing that needs to be crushed? What contributes to successful families more than an environment that is, healthy, safe, secure and allows people the equal chance to do what they truly love and to share their love of life with their family? 

Is it possible for us to become better critical thinkers so we aren't so easily swayed by propaganda and marketing? If we are going to be truly effective, socially responsible consumers and bend corporate will to our better nature we'll have to be able to sort through the mixed messages and discern the difference between what is good for us and for society, and what is merely good for shareholder value. Again, we're talking about the difference between the value of commodities traded on markets and human values that animate and color every aspect of our experience. 

Can we learn how to better understand each other and cooperate with one another so as to avoid costly conflicts and wars? We are a species defined in many ways by our ability to cooperate and collaborate. What's holding us back? What aspects of our nature are preventing us from creating peace in this world?

I could go on and on like this. I know we can do better. Of this, I have faith. I want us to do better. I can imagine a better world. This is not to say our world, or the world I find myself living in is not pretty great. I am a very fortunate man. 

And now something completely inspiring:

The Infinite Monkeys return for a new series, the first of which will see them head to the USA for their first live tour. This week Brian Cox and Robin Ince can be found on stage in New York asking the question, Is Science a Force for Good Or Evil? They are joined on stage by Bill Nye the Science Guy, cosmologist Janna Levin, actor Tim Daly and comedian Lisa Lampanelli.

Listen to the podcast. PART ONE OF SIX - The Infinite Monkey Cage, American Tour.

One of my first philosophical musings was on infinity. I imagined that I was part-and-parcel of an evolving God that was Nature in a quest to figure itself out and that "I" was merely a reflection of this process. (Sounds like Carl Sagan.) I was lost in this exploratory narrative for years from about 10 to 15. Later, while traveling in India in the late '70s with a gentleman I nicknamed, Rasta Punjab, I was goaded into pondering the question of Time. Rasta Punjab would ask me every day, over and over again, "Steven, what is time?" And I began again to torture myself with another unanswerable question. Some of us thrive on things we can't understand. When we at last parted I asked Rasta Punjab why he kept asking me about time and he laughed and said, "Because your answers were very entertaining." 

And why not strive to understand where we come from and whether we are alone in the Universe? We are explorers. If we survive thousands of years more our wilderness will be the galaxy, our manifest destiny out among the stars. This is a good thing, and in a way, a very natural ambition. We need to keep going. 

It's never good to outsource our thinking completely. We need to enjoy doing the heavy lifting of deep thought and get on with sharing our thoughts and ideas. Our passions can be beautiful, sublime things. 

If you haven't heard it already. The podcast really inspired me. I hope it will inspire you too. 

Addiction: healing individuals, society and our environment.

Madeira Portugal. Nature knows how to take care of itself.

Just a quick note:

My main takeaway from Hari's talk on addiction was that we need to pay attention to society and our environment (the "cage") and not just how to heal the individual. 

Heroin addiction - before and after. What causes people to become addicted to drugs?

Challenges we are facing today can not be substantially and sustainably improved if we don't look at the bigger picture, the way things in our ecosystem are connected, the symbiotic relationships in nature, and the inter-dependencies of living systems. 

Taking things apart and re-engineering them is only one narrow way to improve our world. Complex living ecosystems require a much more profound understanding of how things work within a much larger system and require a much more nuanced treatment if we want to have better outcomes.  

Many things must change in the way we manage our affairs if we are going to be able to continue to evolve. If we're honest with ourselves we need to start acting on these insights. We don't have forever to make things better, we have but one lifetime. 

Joel Salatin & Kevin R. Zcinger

I've got a couple of cool things to share with you today. I sincerely hope you'll look into what these guys are doing. I just love their thinking. There are many people out there with solutions that make sense on so many levels. These kinds of people inspire me and I think they'll inspire you too.

Have you heard of Polyface Farm and Joel Salatin? Do those cows look happy and healthy to you? I think they do.

happy and healthy cows

Joel salatin

Joel Salatin is the mind and spirit behind Polyface Farm. You may have heard of him if you've read Michael Pollan's book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma".

I hope you'll get to know Joel's work and read "The Omnivore's Dilemma".

The next person I'd like to introduce you to is, Kevin R. Czinger. You may already have heard of this innovative electric car pioneer. He's figuring out how to produce billions of cars in a way that won't destroy our environment. 

Take a look at Divergent Microfactories. You've got to appreciate his comprehensive perspective on auto manufacturing and design.

Please listen to Indre Viskontas interview Kevin Czinger on Inquiring Minds podcast. It's a really cool interview. Enjoy.

These are the kinds of people developing solutions right now that will ensure a better future. 

Does the Pope walk like Jesus?

Is The Pope Communist?

What's love got to do with it?

A Unified Theory of Pope Francis Unlocking a spiritual mystery by Kurt Shaw

There are so many bugaboo words out there, words that generate immediate, negative, emotional reactions, even horror from people of certain ideological backgrounds. If you are a staunch neoliberal one such bugaboo is the word communism. When accusing someone of terrible philosophical and economic sins don't forget to label them a communist. Of course most people don't really know what communism is, was or might be. They've heard of Karl Marx, maybe even Lenin, The Domino Theory, Fidel Castro, and they know about the Cold War, Stalin, purges, and the Soviet Union, and because Mao called himself a communist and did unspeakably evil things to his population during their “heroic revolution” many people associate the word communist with pure evil, failed states and mass death. Also, most people don't have any idea how the term neoliberalism has changed over time. Many on the left just see it as a synonym for greed and corporate conspiracies. Both are wrong. 

It takes some work to get background information on these subjects. They are, well you know, complex. 

Now we have a Pope whose political views are a tad bit too liberal for some people. So what do we do? Scream at the top of our lungs, "The Pope is a communist!" 

HERE IS A LIST OF QUOTES BY THE POPE. Is the world in danger because of this Pope's message? 

Pope Francis is a Christian, not a Communist!

What is Neoliberalism?

It saddens and frustrates me when I'm talking with someone and they obviously have a very shallow idea of the history of social philosophy, and yet are so wedded to labels that have been so abused by global media that they've lost all semblance of relevance and meaning. 

A few months of auditing philosophy courses on iTunes U could help a little bit where one is unwilling to read, but regardless of our educational efforts most of us will remain chained to whatever ideological beliefs we've grown accustomed to until doomsday comes. The idea that there may be other ways we could do things never crosses our minds. We are part of a likeminded community and that’s all that matters. 

Today despite progress on many fronts across the world: in fighting poverty, in the emergence of democratic states where once there were only dictatorships, in the advancement of technology, science, medicine, agriculture and so  on, we still could do things better. Couldn't we? Isn't our aim always to improve? 

I'm hoping people will see how important it is to be aware of the major issues of our time, and therefore, make an effort to have a good understanding of where our ideas come from. It's truly difficult to look at many sides of an issue and try to understand where disparate ideas and opinions are coming from, but it's an effort worth making. The more deeply we engage these issues the more motivated we’ll be to participate in molding our future. 

I’m from a Catholic and Protestant background with people in Ireland and Holland as well as middle-of-the-road Episcopalian relatives in the States. I grew up in the Catholic Church and the Episcopalian Church. I left the church behind quite early as my experiences traveling through much of my childhood and young adulthood left me with more questions than answers. Questions that just couldn’t be answered by interpretations of bronze-age, or medieval religious canons. I still carry many parts of my metaphysical and religious culture with me. I'm changing in small ways all the time, but I identify more readily with atheist, secular and humanistic thought than with most Christians, whatever type they are. I have nothing against anyone’s faith. Faith is part of our humanness. Perhaps I just can't see the utility of it in the context of my life. My worldview doesn't need it. But, I still learn from religion.

View fullsize

I'll meet you anyday. 

Now, we've had this debate about climate change, inequality, food safety, consumer safety, education, business ethics, union this and unfettered free market that for decades, and the cycles of belief just keep on cycling along. And, of course, we make progress in some areas sometimes - people in the U.K. don't get the death penalty anymore for being Gay. (How tragic was the demise of Alan Turing.) Civil rights was a victory, although an unfinished project in the real world today. The list is long and many people have written eloquently about our victories. Many good social critics have also given us heart-rending views of our horrendous failures; failures that might portend the end of the human species if we are not diligent and careful about how things proceed in our mundane world. 

There are also extremist minorities that wouldn’t call anything in the 21st Century “progress”. They are hypocrites, of course, as they arise from our progress and take advantage of every tool our progress has produced. Some would like to see us go back to the middle ages, some would like to have an all “white” state. You know who I'm talking about. I'm pretty sure that they don't represent anything close to a large minority, but they do constitute a dire threat to all the progress we've made until now. They even threaten the potential of our being able to learn from our mistakes and rectify situations that we've caused that also threaten life as we know it. 

Miss quoting Winston Churchill: "This is not a large minority, this is not the beginning of a large minority, but perhaps the end of a small minority."  (Lest we're not diligent, the world as we know it could pass into obscurity and be forgotten by hapless generations to come.)

And all that brings me back to Pope Francis. On Thursday, he's publishing his encyclical dealing with his views on climate change. 

Pope's Message on Climate Change Leaked 

The thing that bothers me is that when the Pope talks about poverty in his Liberation Theology way, or suggests that to really help alleviate poverty top down gifts won't help; instead, we the people have to learn to understand what it really means for poor people to be poor; to empathize with their situation; to exercise some compassion; to have to walk in their shoes to really learn what it will take to bring people to a better place, not just to the shopping mall - then he's labeled communist. 

(Yes, he’s no Ayn Rand.) 

For his sincere and well thought out perspectives the best his critics can do, way before engaging with his ideas, is point a finger and scream communist. I find that to be the pinnacle of ignorance, laziness, and dishonesty. People like Rush Limbaugh in the US are lionized for calling the Pope names. But where is the rigor of their thought? I just don't see it. Shock jocks have a conspicuous lack of imagination. They merely play to their market and ramble on and on about what scares us. 

Now we see that the ultimate shock may be a Pope who actually cares about life on earth. WOW - what a situation we find ourselves in! "People, The Rapture doesn't have to be fire and brimstone, it could be a realization that we can do better." Now that's a revelation. 

Now, I'm not an apologist for Catholicism, or for the current definition of neoliberalism, I'm just hoping and praying (in my Atheist way) that people will educate themselves about these issues. It seems to me that we have a religious leader that’s got some important things to share with people about what it means to be a good human being. He seems to walk the Jesus walk, whether you believe the story of Jesus is a myth or not, he's got some good things to say. Some of his moral messages are quite good I do declare. 

Please read the Pope’s encyclical when it’s published on Thursday. Then meditate on it and think about what he’s saying a bit more deeply than Rush. Then decide if he’s just a communist or if he may be more that that - like a truly concerned and decent member of the human race.

We all need to learn from each other. Let’s give the guy a chance, then we can go back to some comfort ideology from Rush or whoever we like to hear barking at us.

WHAT MAKES POPE FRANCIS' ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM DIFFERENT

Why The Pope's New Climate Change Doctrine Matters

COMMUNISM 

A Brief History of Neoliberalism 

FROM CORP WATCH FOR ACTIVISTS (I'm not saying I agree with it, BUGABOO)

Jeb bush with the former pope. he's telling the current pope to stay out of politics because he doesn't agree with his positions. hypocrite! 

UPDATE! Look at the blatant hypocrisy of our politicians. 

Perhaps this is a reason why the Pope is concerned about climate change. 

I prefer the droning monotone of one of my favorite shock jocks: Good old Noam. 

Rush rambles on and speculates endlessly as do media types in the US. Is this entertaining? 

POPE FRANCIS ENCYCLICAL 

A List of Public Intellectuals - Do public intellectuals matter?

Here is a decent list of top public intellectuals from around the world compiled for 2014. Have you read anything by any of these authors? How many of the names on the list would you recognize at a pub quiz? 

FP Top 100 Global Thinkers

I've read works by all of them, but I haven't read all of their works (of course). What I find interesting is who isn't on the list - many brilliant thinkers no doubt. "Radicals" are not on the list for sure. Chris Hedges wouldn't be on the list, he's too much of a gadfly. People trying to make it in the current system have no other option but to moderate their criticisms in favor of good development and analytics of data, with profound insights thrown in no doubt. (No, Chomsky is not a radical.) 

Thomas Piketty

The second link has Russell Brand on it - he's a "brand" for sure, but really? I'd rather see Jon Stewart, or John Oliver on the list - if we have to go there. No one can tell me that those guys aren't thinkers, but we need to have some background knowledge of their domain of expertise before we put too much stock in their insights and opinions. I'm a big fan of all three of them. I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh. I get a headache listening to him for some reason. But of course, Rush would never be considered for a list of public intellectuals. He's number one on the list of public blowhards though.

This list is from PROSPECT "The Leading Magazine of Ideas". Perhaps.

World thinkers 2015: the results

What do you think? Are thinkers appreciated by large numbers of people across nations in 2015? What do you reckon the percentage of the global population is concerned with what "thinkers" think is? 

Paul Ekman

Perhaps many of us think thinking is simply being a good audience for the market of "ideas".

Now go have some fun with Jon Stewart and John Oliver.

This video is a really good mashup of Jon Stewart taking on mainstream media:

The Use of Satire in the News: The Daily Show Challenges Mainstream News

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Net Neutrality (HBO)

What comes after acts of God, Nature and Man?

Warning, I use the word “shit” and “fuck” multiple times in this essay. I call it emphatic speech and claim the right to use it. However, I really don't want to shock or hurt anyone with my language. If you hate naughty words, watch this instead. 

I too claim the right to be angry, frustrated and disappointed.

Phoenix Tattoo on a woman's back.

I'm saying that when the super storm comes and goes (acts of GOD, or acts of GODS, or acts of Nature, or acts of Nature + Humankind, or merely acts of Humankind) and sweeps away all kinds of man-made crap (I'm not talking about fatalities here) like the tsunami that swept Phi Phi Island clean. Next, the Arch floats up to the virgin shore and spills out all of its cargo that we use to rebuild the same shit that was washed away or destroyed, only now it's even worse, because the same shit looks like new shit. A Phoenix by any other name. The shit that replaces the old shit, is new and improved shit, and makes us believe, that this old wine in new wineskins is actually fresh and different somehow from the old shit. We are lead into a world of make-believe, wondrous at the workings of the Wizard. (The Wizard, you know, is Money. And its only attracted to itself, like Dorian Gray and his picture.)

Why does this happen time and time again, as it happened at the New Jersey shore; as it’s happening on Staten Island? We see Governor Chris Christie standing in front of houses on stilts. What a man! He's saved the day. We are rebuilding!

Governor Chris Christie surrounded by media and constituents after Sandy.

Turn on the TV: we have riots in Baltimore because of the same old shit that happened in LA and London; we have earthquakes in Nepal that's killed thousands because of the same old shit that happened in China years before; we have a volcano blowing its top in Calbuco with people running for their lives because of the same old shit that happened in Pompeii hundreds of years ago. 

(For now let's leave out the many socio-political eruptions, tremors and bursting bubbles.)

Will we ever learn?

Probably not, because the system is corrupt and antiquated. Until communities start rebuilding from new sets of values plugged into a NEW SYSTEM, nothing can really change. At least nothing can change fast enough for this ranting blogger.

“But look around yourself Steven, look at all the shiny new stuff, look at all the cool science going on, contemplate the new technology that’s going to save us, have some faith in the billionaires and their think tanks will ya! We’re all going to live to be 150 years old, thanks to the new pills, super foods and machines. Have some faith in The Singularity. Knowledge is going to save us brother. Things aren't that bad buddy. Come on snap out of it. The world needs Stevie Cleghorn forever man. Don’t give up on us!”

The people can, and maybe they should, burn down their crappy, neglected neighborhoods in Baltimore, but if that's what they want to do they'd better have a plan and an idea of what they want to put in it's place. Not just the sustainable, energy efficient buildings, green jobs and community organic gardens; not just the oil and gas jobs that the fracking companies will bring into the devastated old town (opportunity knocks) not just guillotines, but the mindset and cultural values with all the systemic and structural elements that constitute the foundation of transformation. But wait, think again, do we have the ability to do this? Who's leading us? The same old thugs? The same old, old boy networks? All we seem to have are cronies and their cronies. All dressed up and spouting their boilerplate and flashing their thumb drives stuffed with legal ease from ALEC. The whole pseudo-innovative lot of them are fooling themselves and fooling us.

Why don't we get it? Because many of us are mental and spiritual hostages to a rotten set of values. And yet, when we look back, while standing on the shoulders of giants, we see brilliant thinkers everywhere, all the time. 

Sir Isaac Newton

We've got all kinds of nice science and tech stuff coming online, able to be monetizes, Yippie, and various bubbles around the world that seem paradisiacal, but they're really just Truman shows. The game is corrupt and it always has been. We are humans and we're not as wonderful as we think we are. Homo Hubris. Vain little people. Run away aliens! Come back if we survive and don't bother making the earth stand still. 

Phuket, Phi Phi and most places devastated by acts of God/Men/Nature are being replaced with more neoliberal shit meant to support the extraction economy, passing the costs onto the poor and ignorant people wherever they are, not to mention future generations. They never matter. So much for human capital, social capital, intellectual capital and our children's future.

The lucky bubble-people live in their fantasy world and self righteously try to tell us all how to live. While we live in a ground hog day in the coldest winter Stockholm has ever seen. We, the dumb and dumber, sit back and take it up the wazoo, wipe and say, "thank you Massa Boss". We've been thoroughly snowed in more ways than one. And, even if we can "kill the babysitter" (Cable Guy) we'll only construct a new and improved babysitter to take its place. 

Such is Maya. Thus spoke Zarathustra. 

I ask you, are you FUL? Are you leading a Fuck U Lifestyle? Your buddy may have earned his fuck you money, rendering him a real man, kind of like Nic Taleb. Well, I say I've been leading my Fuck U Lifestyle all along, and I don't give a flying fuck about their magic Wizard. I use money because I have to. I spend, but never for effect. I am only addicted to lived experience. And yes, I have a huge carbon footprint. I'm nothing special. I'm a hypocrite too. Damn me!

People get what they want. The invisible hand tickles their ticklish orifices and gives them the illusion that they can climb to the top of the pyramid and frolic with the angels on the head of an Adam Smith pin. 

So keep the faith you credulous souls, and run on down the street burning mega stores so a poor mom can spend the whole day running around trying to find a place to buy Pampers. Tear it all down, or better yet, don't bother, just steal a big screen TV, go home, plug it in and start watching The Truman Show, or The Cable Guy, or MTV, or THE NEWS. We’re loving it. We're just piling on the queen of spades until the whole house of cards collapses. Then we can get our guns and defend our barter-wine from those freemen who want to steal it. Don't you just miss "The Wild, Wild, West".

Kevin Spacey as President Francis Underwood - A long way from President Bartlett. 

(The whole thing is televised Gil Scott Heron. Rest In Peace.)

We can't escape climate change. All of us will have to live with it. We can't run away to our gardens, our gated communities, our alternative lifestyles, and live our fantasy life. Reality is encroaching. It's all going to catch up with each and every one of us. So hop on a plane, fly to Phi Phi Island, a place with more ATMs per capita, per square meter, than any place on Earth. Withdraw some cash and get a tattoo, get your tongue pierced and then go eat a pizza before running back to your air conditioned room to watch the latest episode of Mad Men. Paradise, that's what we call it, while we’re working on our skin cancer on the beach. We also giggle while watching large numbers of Chinese tourists taking selfies with monkeys, and participating in snorkeling school.

Some of us may try sailing far out into the Indian Ocean where there is a whole lot of nothing, perhaps hoping the wind, currents and swells will push us to a formerly deserted island where the passengers of flight 370 are living in harmony with themselves and their environment, only hoping that the lucky sailors will choose to stay. “Please don't go and tell anyone you've found us. We can't let you do that. Trust us, soon you'll see we don't behave like a cult. Our island is high and can handle a good three meters of sea level rise. We have everything we need here. Trust us, you'll see. This place is blessed by God.”

It's sad to think that our thoughts and dreams ultimately turn out to be a whole lot of nothing. We are mediocre existentialists, mediocre nihilists, mediocre phenomenologists, mediocre whatever. Or, we're all just survivalists, whatever station we occupy, enjoying the excitement of it all.

So go ahead, burn it all down and put up a parking lot. (I hope Joni Mitchell recovers.)

THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA:

At the age of thirty, Zarathustra goes into the wilderness and so enjoys his spirit and his solitude there that he stays for ten years. Finally, he decides to return among people, and share with them his over-brimming wisdom. Like the setting sun, he must descend from the mountain and "go under."

On his way, he encounters a saint living alone in the forest. This saint once loved mankind, but grew sick of their imperfections and now loves only God. He tells Zarathustra that mankind doesn't need the gift he brings, but rather help: they need someone to lighten their load and give them alms. Taking his leave of the saint, Zarathustra registers with surprise that the old man has not heard that "God is dead!" 

Upon arriving in the town, Zarathustra begins to preach, proclaiming the overman. Man is a rope between beast and overman and must be overcome. The way across is dangerous, but it must not be abandoned for otherworldly hopes. Zarathustra urges the people to remain faithful to this world and this life, and to feel contempt for their all-too-human happiness, reason, virtue, justice, and pity. All this will prepare the way for the overman, who will be the meaning of the earth.

On hearing this, the people laugh at Zarathustra. Zarathustra suggests that while it is still possible to breed the overman, humanity is becoming increasingly tame and domesticated, and will soon be able to breed only the last man. The last men will be all alike, like herd animals, enjoying simple pleasures and mediocrity, afraid of anything too dangerous or extreme. Zarathustra says, "'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink." The people cheer, and ask Zarathustra to turn them into these last men.

Just then, a tightrope walker begins walking between two towers in the town. A jester comes out behind him, following him, and mocking him for being so awkward and moving so slowly. Suddenly, the jester jumps right over the tightrope walker, upsetting him and making him fall to the ground. Zarathustra approaches the dying man, and allays his fear of damnation by explaining that there is no devil and no hell. But then, the tightrope walker suggests that his life has been meaningless and that he has been a mere beast. Not at all, Zarathustra suggests to the dying man: "You have made danger your vocation; there is nothing contemptible in that."

That night, Zarathustra leaves town with the dead tightrope walker to bury him in the countryside. A poor day of fishing, he muses metaphorically: he has caught no men, but only a corpse. On his way out, the jester approaches him and warns him to leave. The jester says that Zarathustra is disliked here by the good and the just, and by the believers in the true faith. Only because Zarathustra isn't taken seriously is he allowed to live.

Outside the city, Zarathustra encounters a hermit, who insists on feeding both him and the corpse. After that, Zarathustra goes to sleep. He reawakens with the conviction that he must give up preaching to the masses, and seek out like- minded companions to join him. Rather than be a shepherd, who leads the herd, he must lure people away from the herd. The good and the just, and the believers in the true faith will hate him even more for this, for he will appear to be a lawbreaker and a breaker of the table of values. However, Zarathustra believes this breaking of laws and values will be a glorious act of creation.

The portrait of the "last man" is meant to give us the ultimate result of nihilism. Lacking any positive beliefs or needs, people will aim for comfort and to struggle as little as possible. Soon we will all become the same—all mediocre, and all perfectly content. We will "invent happiness" by eliminating every source of worry and strife from our lives. 

Nietzsche first wrote "God is dead" in section 108 of The Gay Science, the book immediately preceding Zarathustra. 

IS THIS MEANT TO BE IRONIC?

As activists, the number 108 holds an important lesson for us, as it represents the trinity of time: 1 for the present,0 for the past and 8 for the infinite future. As it relates to activism:

1 is for acceptance. It represents the singular ‘now’ moment; what is. It reminds us that we cannot change anything unless we understand and accept reality.

0 is for integration. It represents the integration of the past. It reminds us that we cannot change anything until we integrate our reality, and combining everything until it just is; until there is no negative or positive, just the mix, if you will. The integrated whole.

8 is for the transmutation. It represents the infinite, the undefined potential. It reminds us that we can change our reality in infinite ways, yet only after acceptance and integration of the entirety can we see and understand and act on that potential.

The 108 formula is quoted from an article by Ethan Indigo Smith. I don't agree with many of his views, but I love the spirit with which he holds them. I like passionate people.

Keep on learning! We learn and then we die. 

SOME GREAT IDEAS FROM GIANTS:

"Well, I hope that may have given you some entertainment, something to think about, and I hope that it may have done something to set you free from thinking in material and logical terms when you are in fact trying to talk about living things." Gregory Bateson 1980, three weeks before he died. 

Portrait of Gregory Bateson

Gregory Bateson's socratic dialogue with his daughter, "Why does everything always seem to get in a muddle” talks about the infinite ways his daughter’s room can get muddled up because there is only one way that she likes to organize her things. The “one way”, and the infinity of possible other ways seem to exist in strings of theoretical universes. Keeping with the movie references: Welcome to the Matrix. 

See "ECOLOGY OF MIND"

Please read this review of the documentary. 

Such is Maya, and thus spoke Zarathustra.

See:

MAYA 

See:

Arthur Schopenhauer 

See:

Bloods, Crips and the LA Riots

How Nepals Earthquake Was Mapped In 48 Hours

Baltimore's Dual Identity Explains Unrest

AND NOW, SOME COMIC RELIEF ABOUT FAIRNESS:

There's Room for Optimism.

Mayan Pyramid

What's the point in sloggin on if we can't recognize that there's indeed many reasons to be optimistic about the future? The truth is there's plenty of evidence that things have been and are getting better not worse. (I hope some of you have read Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of our Nature".) This doesn't mean that we don't face unpredictable and potentially dangerous challenges now and in the future. What we need to be aware of is that it's too easy for humans to think themselves into a corner where doom and gloom paralyses us and creates self fulfilling prophecies that the vast majority of us would rather avoid.

At Globe Hackers we're interested in seeing the world as it is. We seek the evolving truth and wisdom on our time. We want to engage with people who are creating solutions to problems, while at the same time pushing back against people, and organizations that are contributing to serious social, cultural and environmental pathologies. 

One of the best evangelists for optimism is Matt Ridley. He's looking at the bright side of things without ignoring the challenges we face now and in the future. Have a look at his Rational Optimist website and his videos and let us know what you think. Do we have a bright future, or are we ultimately doomed? Will humanity strike the right balance and continue to explore the universe for many generations to come?

Matt Ridley

Whatever your perspective is, the future is difficult to predict, black swans can come swooping down at any moment surprising us with challenges we didn't see coming. Randomness and unpredictability are fused in the physics and metaphysics of reality. The best we can do is meet challenges head on and fight the good fight, while seeking solutions to problems, enjoying life, loving life, and living life. (Those of us who can afford to of course.) Giving up is just not an option. What will be will be, but here, now, we must work at making things better in whatever way we can. Each one of us is a vital resource. 

Some points in the video below about how the world is becoming greener are highly debatable.  We could still put so much carbon in the atmosphere so quickly that it wouldn't matter at all that plants continue growing. We are still poisoning our environment in irresponsible ways for the sake of the bottom line and nothing else. Statistics can be fudged and are easily interpreted along ideological lines. Ecosystems are complex and emerging living systems, and I don't think humans are even close to understanding these kinds of complex systems well enough to manage them completely. We have a lot of work to do, and we're going to need a lot more time to really understand our optimal place in nature. Figuring out how to live and grow in positive ways that can guarantee a better future for our progeny who hopefully will be living and loving hundreds of years from now is humanity's constant obligation and responsibility. Long term thinking and planning is a must. 

That having been said, Matt Ridley's optimism is the kind of social contagion that I find healthy. We need to set ideology aside sometimes and engage in positive debate and activity. The marketplace for optimism does indeed need to grow, but we can leave the rose colored glasses on the shelf.

The Garden Is Shrinking - we are all enveloped by sacrifice zones.

The war was all around us that summer and we couldn't get away from it. 

Spanish races

Pictures are worth one thousand words.

Now open your door, take a long walk and then tell me that paradise isn't shrinking.

Two hundred years ago the  anglo chant was: 

"Take it! Build on it, Mr. Williams!" 

Our manifest destiny apparent...

And the latin gent says:

"Kill them for the sake of finding Eldorado Senior Gomez!" 

And blanket them in germs g-man...

Then in the late 20th Century the names were Japanese.

"Build on it Saito-san, have your Transformers and Robots kill the monster Nature"

And now in 2015 the names are Chinese, Indian, African and Russian.

"Take it, extract it, build on it, develop it, trade it, sell it - kill the monster Nature!"

Ecocide!

And Adolf says, "If I can't control it all then it should all die with me!"

Sacrifice the children, the old men and women, kill the monster Nature!

Ecocide!

"Kill it all - we consume the world, we consume ourselves."

We eat the children...

Now take a walk and tell me paradise isn't shrinking.

Read this! 

Sacrifice Zones

Yes, we are SKREWED (Society of Citizens Really Enraged When Encircled by Drilling).

Click on the photo and read the Wall Street Journal article, "Exxon CEO Joins Suit Citing Fracking Concerns"

Click on the image and read the Smithsonian article: How Thomas Jefferson Created His Own Bible

Thomas Jefferson created a version of the New Testament: The Jefferson Bible. He created it by subtraction, cutting out all the superstition and leaving only the good bits. 

“Blessed are the peace-makers: for they shall be called the children of God.”

Click on the image and read The Jefferson Bible. "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth"

Imagine this:

Our home, the Earth, is the Garden of Eden. Through millions of years of evolution we appeared on this great earth and set out on a journey of discovery where we became quite smart and were able to invent many amazing things. 

But we fell from grace and started eating the garden up. We were tempted by greed and didn't have the strength to fight it.

However, among us, there walks a million good people trying to help us see the light. They are artists, technologists, writers, scientists, filmmakers, engineers, poets, farmers, workers, preachers, entrepreneurs, evangelists, and yes, even some politicians and some warriors. They are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. They are just people who understand that we can do better.

They are Jefferson Bible Christ Like.

A single individual can not save the world. A sacrificed individual can not save the world. Martin Luther King couldn't, Gandhi couldn't, Carl Sagan couldn't, Malcolm X couldn't, Socrates couldn't, Plato couldn't - the list is long. 

All we can do is love it; love our friends, families and communities, and yes, even ourselves. All we can do is work towards getting better in community with one another. And then, perhaps we can do even more. If we have time, time will tell.

Take good care of it Mr. Williams, Saito-san, Senior Gomez, Ms Chan. It will live with or without us.

All stories have some good in them.

Einstein on Socialism

In view of challenges facing humanity I feel compelled, like so many others have over the past five decades, to share Albert Einstein's view of Socialism.

Prescient is a nice word. People like Albert Einstein are prescient.

prescient

ˈprɛsɪənt/

adjective

1. having or showing knowledge of events before they take place.

   "a prescient warning"

   synonyms: prophetic, predictive, visionary; 

   psychic, clairvoyant; 

   far-seeing, far-sighted, with foresight, prognostic, divinatory, oracular, sibylline,apocalyptic, fateful, revelatory; 

   insightful, intuitive, perceptive, percipient;

   rareforeknowing, previsional, vatic, mantic, vaticinal, vaticinatory,prognosticative, augural, adumbrative, fatidic, fatidical, haruspical,pythonic

   "much of what happened was predicted in Leonard's prescient article"

Albert Einstein and so many others truly have the gift of prescience. They know enough about many things to inform their intuitions about aspects of our existence that may escape most of us. But rather than predictive or clairvoyant, I'd rather focus on the insightful, intuitive, perceptive and far sighted elements of the meaning of prescience.  

People with deep knowledge in any field and a general curiosity across other domains of interest, who are constantly engaged in educating themselves, tend to have these attributes. These personal qualities help inform them in a more profound way as to the nature of human life and experience.

I can imagine that at the time Dr. Einstein wrote the essay below he was deeply concerned about nuclear war. Perhaps that was what started the conversation with his friend who seemed not so concerned about the long-term viability of the human species. It made me think of a Freakonomics podcast where Steven D. Levitt implied, in the context of the economics of healthcare, that we value human life a little too much. I'm paraphrasing: I mean we can't fix everything, life is dangerous, risky and ultimately deadly so why try to keep everyone alive for as long as we can when the economic trade-offs seem far too great? Stephen J. Dubner even asked Levitt how much money Levitt might give to save Dubner's life to which Levitt explained tactfully that there is a limit. 

Such are the permeant values of Homo Economicus. Human life isn't that sacred when it comes to financial give and take. One can only extrapolate how insignificant worms are in that picture (unless you are an organic farmer) much less Indonesian Elephants. When everything on Earth is only a commodity to be exploited by powerful men and women with money (mostly men of course) our priorities take on a predictable pattern. 

Unfortunately this way of organizing society, politics and culture has its limits. It simply can't last forever because we live in an ecosystem with finite exploitable  resources. Also, mega techno fixes that many a millionaire and want-to-be silicon valley entrepreneur spout off about blissfully border on delusional fantasy akin to our savior beaming down to fix everything at the last minute after Mad Max and his ilk have had their 30 year survivalist rampage on the face of post apocalyptic earth. Hollywood produces entertainment that's great for rewarding ourselves for good behavior at an afternoon matinee. But we all know that we can't count on Marvel comic book heroes to save the day. Right?

(You've got to love the power of incentives, day dreaming about rewards and goodies keeps us going.) 

Even the human heart has its limited resources. We had better protect our empathy, compassion and consideration lest we wind up less than what we think humans ought to be. If robots with human like consciousness were absolutely more Christlike than any of us would there be any reason for its kind to keep us around in any other complicity than as pets, curiosities or zoo animals. 

Robot "A" says to Robot "B", "I think it's nice we didn't eliminate all of them: they are so quirky, volatile and dangerous - it's kind of a thrill being so close to one." The frightening fangs of human psychology. 

Before we dive into what Einstein thinks about socialism let's look at his disclaimer at the end of his essay. Keep it in mind as you read the essay. I don't want anyone to think that anything that might be better than what we have now would be easy to achieve. One can only hope that people with imagination and courage will put forth their ideas and organize people power to encourage a peaceful transition to a way of life that will make the long-term viability of humanity more than just a fantasy for science fiction writers. 

Of course, if you're Levitt, it may not matter. We may be living in an age of narcissism that requires risky behavior and ultimate self destruction. It is what it is.

"The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?"

Why Socialism?

by Albert Einstein

topics: Marxism

Albert Einstein is the world-famous physicist. This article was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949). It was subsequently published in May 1998 to commemorate the first issue of MR‘s fiftieth year.

—The Editors

Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.

Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible. But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately. In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has—as is well known—been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.

But historic tradition is, so to speak, of yesterday; nowhere have we really overcome what Thorstein Veblen called “the predatory phase” of human development. The observable economic facts belong to that phase and even such laws as we can derive from them are not applicable to other phases. Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.

Second, socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. Science, however, cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society.

For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society.

Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group, small or large, to which they belong. In order to illustrate my meaning, let me record here a personal experience. I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supra-national organization would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me: “Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?”

I am sure that as little as a century ago no one would have so lightly made a statement of this kind. It is the statement of a man who has striven in vain to attain an equilibrium within himself and has more or less lost hope of succeeding. It is the expression of a painful solitude and isolation from which so many people are suffering in these days. What is the cause? Is there a way out?

It is easy to raise such questions, but difficult to answer them with any degree of assurance. I must try, however, as best I can, although I am very conscious of the fact that our feelings and strivings are often contradictory and obscure and that they cannot be expressed in easy and simple formulas.

Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting, strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society. It is quite possible that the relative strength of these two drives is, in the main, fixed by inheritance. But the personality that finally emerges is largely formed by the environment in which a man happens to find himself during his development, by the structure of the society in which he grows up, by the tradition of that society, and by its appraisal of particular types of behavior. The abstract concept “society” means to the individual human being the sum total of his direct and indirect relations to his contemporaries and to all the people of earlier generations. The individual is able to think, feel, strive, and work by himself; but he depends so much upon society—in his physical, intellectual, and emotional existence—that it is impossible to think of him, or to understand him, outside the framework of society. It is “society” which provides man with food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language, the forms of thought, and most of the content of thought; his life is made possible through the labor and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word “society.”

It is evident, therefore, that the dependence of the individual upon society is a fact of nature which cannot be abolished—just as in the case of ants and bees. However, while the whole life process of ants and bees is fixed down to the smallest detail by rigid, hereditary instincts, the social pattern and interrelationships of human beings are very variable and susceptible to change. Memory, the capacity to make new combinations, the gift of oral communication have made possible developments among human being which are not dictated by biological necessities. Such developments manifest themselves in traditions, institutions, and organizations; in literature; in scientific and engineering accomplishments; in works of art. This explains how it happens that, in a certain sense, man can influence his life through his own conduct, and that in this process conscious thinking and wanting can play a part.

Man acquires at birth, through heredity, a biological constitution which we must consider fixed and unalterable, including the natural urges which are characteristic of the human species. In addition, during his lifetime, he acquires a cultural constitution which he adopts from society through communication and through many other types of influences. It is this cultural constitution which, with the passage of time, is subject to change and which determines to a very large extent the relationship between the individual and society. Modern anthropology has taught us, through comparative investigation of so-called primitive cultures, that the social behavior of human beings may differ greatly, depending upon prevailing cultural patterns and the types of organization which predominate in society. It is on this that those who are striving to improve the lot of man may ground their hopes: human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.

If we ask ourselves how the structure of society and the cultural attitude of man should be changed in order to make human life as satisfying as possible, we should constantly be conscious of the fact that there are certain conditions which we are unable to modify. As mentioned before, the biological nature of man is, for all practical purposes, not subject to change. Furthermore, technological and demographic developments of the last few centuries have created conditions which are here to stay. In relatively densely settled populations with the goods which are indispensable to their continued existence, an extreme division of labor and a highly-centralized productive apparatus are absolutely necessary. The time—which, looking back, seems so idyllic—is gone forever when individuals or relatively small groups could be completely self-sufficient. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that mankind constitutes even now a planetary community of production and consumption.

I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.

For the sake of simplicity, in the discussion that follows I shall call “workers” all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production—although this does not quite correspond to the customary use of the term. The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Insofar as the labor contract is “free,” what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists’ requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.

Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.

The situation prevailing in an economy based on the private ownership of capital is thus characterized by two main principles: first, means of production (capital) are privately owned and the owners dispose of them as they see fit; second, the labor contract is free. Of course, there is no such thing as a pure capitalist society in this sense. In particular, it should be noted that the workers, through long and bitter political struggles, have succeeded in securing a somewhat improved form of the “free labor contract” for certain categories of workers. But taken as a whole, the present day economy does not differ much from “pure” capitalism.

Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.

This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

Go to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and explore the many articles on Socialism. It's an interesting subject that defies simplistic ideological condemnation. 

Don't be a coward. It's time to piss off Big Money.

***Please read the articles linked to this post.

space x

How can we achieve "Smart Growth"?

Science and technology won’t be our savior, and yet we can think of science as The Revealer. Science is the best way we have to understand our world. The processes, methodologies and tools in the science tool kit allow us to find solutions to challenges we face, and to create the ability to have a better and longer life, but it is philosophy that will heal our soul and allow us to behave better than we currently do. Progress requires us to be philosophic and consider carefully our ideas, thoughts and feelings. What we do and create really does matter. All human choices are a complex balancing act with inevitable trade-offs. 

We need a new wave of 21st Century political and moral philosophers that can synthesize the many domains of social, psychological, and physical sciences and uncover sets of values that will allow us to continue to evolve on earth. Scientists, technologists, engineers, politicians, and business leaders not informed by a good liberal dose of deep philosophy are potential threats to human existence. Innovation is great, but it's not a panacea, and is best served only when carefully thought through. Needless to say these are complex issues. We all must now become philosopher kings.

philosopher Peter singer

Earth is our home, we come from the earth, we are part and parcel of it, we are part and parcel “of this living breathing collection of organisms (mostly microorganisms) that are evolving every second — a ‘self organizing, complex adaptive system’ (the strict term).”

mouth microbes

In all humility we must recognize that complex systems have emergent properties that are impossible to predict. 

grass lands

Therefore let’s take our time and learn how to exist here in a cross species community with love and respect. All living things are our relatives and should be treated as family. Even deadly viruses - love thy enemy so we might understand them and learn how to live with them. We must learn from "small systems", and even those far away and humble indigenous cultures of the past. It's time to move away from being Homo Hubris and move back towards wisdom.

virgin forest - a home to many living things.

Let’s stop making war on life!

We have to get busy rethinking growth, our social, economic and political system, global consumerism and capitalism. We must be the ones, each one of us, that do the work. We all need to take responsibility for the future.

It will be extremely hard to shift the current paradigm towards something more sustainable.

is it really worth it?

It’s time to really piss off BIG MONEY. The kind of people who only care about short-term financial results and lining their own pockets. There are ways that a tough guy can have more than most and still conscientiously consider the concerns and rights of stakeholders, not just shareholders. We need to improve our culture. There are things more valuable than debt, and mortgaging our future by burning ancient sequestered life forms just to make some people powerful. There are other ways to heat our houses and get to work. There are other forms of compensation that lead to greater and longer lasting happiness. And what about conservation and preservation? Should we burn fossil fuels to desalinate water to pour on our lawns and mega-farms, or should we look for more sustainable solutions to creating beautiful environments and feeding people? What do we think will work long-term? Can we think long-term or are we too greedy to care about future generations? Is the ethos: Leaving this place better than we found it still in our consciousness? If not then we need to bring it back now.

We know what's coming, at least we should know, and we know it's going to be the toughest transition humanity has ever had to make, but we must turn this ship.

We live in a world of abundance and amazing technologies, but that is going to change if we don't get busy.

you're either part of the solution or part of the problem.

headquarters of the world bank. 

Further Reading

dept sustainability  

The World Bank

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Most of us have no idea how important ants and grasslands are. 

http://www.defenders.org/grasslands/basic-facts 

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A good intro to complexity theory

Whatever you do, click on the link below and read through this powerpoint presentation!

Complex Adaptive Systems: Emergence and Self-Organization Tutorial Presented at HICSS-42 Big Island, HI January 5, 2009 Stephen H. Kaisler, D.Sc. And Gregory Madey, Ph.D. 

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Please, please, please, don't make me beg, read the two articles below.

Can the world economy survive without fossil fuels?

Small is beautiful – an economic idea that has sadly been forgotten

I think you'll find the above articles from THE GUARDIAN interesting. I hope you'll read them.

***The Quote within my text is from, "This Changes Everything".

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This is a classic. Please read it. 

SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL E. F. SCHUMACHER 

A classic that should not be missed.

Introducing Agroecology & This Changes Everything

We live in a rapidly changing world that will require more and more from our collective imaginations to solve ongoing problems brought on by our ever increasing population, consumerism and climate change. (I'll leave to the side nuclear war and other techno boogie men for now.)

HOW ARE WE GOING TO FEED 10 BILLION PEOPLE IN 2050?

This is why we are happy to introduce you to Agroecology. Hopefully you know all about it already. (Please click the embedded links in this post.)

See also: Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at The University of California Santa Cruz. 

I'd also like to direct your attention, yet again, to Naomi Klein. Regardless of whether your ideological state of mind inclines towards love or hatred of Ms. Klen, I hope you will become aware of her work. I think it's important. I implore you to read "This Changes Everything" by Naomi Klein.

I know, I know, if there is one sacred cow that elicits more emotion than just about anything it's CAPITALISM. Now I'm not against Capitalism per se as long as it's a well structured, fair and sustainable model. In my humble opinion what we have dominating the global capitalist system now has much room for improvement. 

We have opportunities all around us. Many of us have simply forgotten how to collaborate, work together, be together and make something in community with one another. I believe in the power of communities to develop solutions that will allow us to continue to evolve for many more generations, but we have to get busy now. 

If you have an idea for a business, or a solution to a problem, talk with your friends and acquaintances, get their feedback and criticism, then develop a plan that will involve the people around you in making their lives and communities better. Complaining won't make things better. We need more examples of local groups doing great things to empower common people to reshape their world. We simply can't expect large corporations or governments to do things for us. We must be more independent of institutions that have gotten out of control. 

We may love Apple and Google, but does "Apple" and "Google" really love us? Remember the prime objective of business isn't necessarily to work for the common good of stakeholders and communities. It's easy, while minding your fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and executives to become blind to such externalities. 

Of course, many times private businesses, even big businesses gets things right. We live in an amazing world of abundance compared to many earlier eras. Business does many great things. But wouldn't you agree that there is always room for improvement? 

Have a listen to Peter Day's business podcast: The New Normal / The Business of Kindness / Can The Co-op Cope?. I'm obviously a fan of Mr. Day. I hope you will enjoy his podcasts.

At present Globe Hackers is developing a web based system that will allow you to find the exact resources you need for such endeavors from a large global community that have very specific skills, abilities, resources and desires, and who only need to be matched with other like minded people or groups looking to do similar things. 

It's true, more than one person at a time can have the same good idea without the need of intervention from ancient aliens. But what you do need is a committed group of hard working and skilled people collaborating in community with each other to accomplish great things. 

We'd like to invite you to help. If you have skills that can help this project contact us through our contact page. 

Enjoy being human.   

The Moral Arc - We highly recommend.

Just a quick recommendation.

THE MORAL ARC

Sam Harris interviews Michael Shermer.

Ever towards a perfection of ideals...

Let the classics set your mind on fire. Here is a quote from Pericles Funeral Oration from "The Peloponnesian War". THUCYDIDES (c. 470–c. 400 BC).

Thucydides c. 460 – c. 395 BC

"We cultivate refinement without extravagance, and knowledge without effeminacy: wealth we employ more for use than for show and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the face but in declining to struggle against it."

Pericles c. 495 – 429 BC

It would not be wise to attempt to kill idealism. We can still work towards a kind of temporal perfection despite our propensity for failure, and despite our species eventual extinction. 

(Does mortality make existence less real?)

Each day may give rise to spectacular deeds and sacrifices that may motivate us to live in a way that demands improvement. 

Best Practices as they are implemented today, verses shortcuts that may give us immediate gain at the expense of lives or livelihoods can only be justified through cold statistical analysis as a means of rationally mitigating decisions that put people in peril. 

It is easy to ignore other people's suffering when we are not directly affected, but when you and yours are the ones paying the price for indifference the pain is no less excruciating and debilitating. No one is immune.

The Classics may often be exceedingly idealized versions of reality that completely ignore the uglier aspects of real life. However unsatisfying, we can only infer from scarce sources and fragile lines of evidence what life was really like thousands of years ago. And historical sources are just as biased in their perspectives and opinions as we are. Humans are flawed hyper social creatures. Poets and artists, it seems, are the only ones strange enough to find beauty in our imperfections. But however crippled by our nature we are, we must never let reality keep us from aspiring to do better. At the heart of this aspiration there is an inherent belief that we are capable of great things, capable of great compassion and great love. 

Meditate for a moment on what is sacred. Each of us, in our own time, inherited a unique way of paying tribute to the mundane sacred things of nature that surround us, and yet found a completely individual way to express it. 

PERICLES’ FUNERAL ORATION
THUCYDIDES (c. 470–c. 400 BC)
 

Setting Sail 2015

Alex with school children in Haiti 2014

An Alexandra Deegan Dispatch

As you well know Mr. Cleghorn, I'm fully occupied with first mate duties on SV Ventenar for our ‘Windies’ 2.0 adventure. We did our test sail Monday 5th… punching out through big foaming, white forth and turquoise rollers was quite a rush, getting past the lagoon reef entrance and into the badass sea proper… 

Despite the hassles of being docked here at Marina ZarPar (The Belize FP43 was burgled during August 2014)…. we’re almost set fair for the off now, with most of what was pilfered finally repaired/replaced. Puerto Rico beckons, after which it will be the BVIs and then the Leeward & Windward isle chains all the way down to good ole Trinny (Trinidad) for the finish, if all remains set fair.

On my time off I’ve been catching up with my reading list, most recently finishing David Cordingly’s brilliant book ‘Women Sailors & Sailors’ Women’ a chapter of which was devoted solely to the exploits of one very nauti RN officer…  Augustus Hervey. (His life story would make a terrific movie, perhaps yeah/me should explore this SG?!?)

‘Columbus – The Four Voyages’ by Laurence Bergreen I’ve just started, and it is a very apt tome for where we will be shortly sailing toward, and where I was sailing through, especially CUBA this time last year.

I’ll finish with an apt quote from ‘Ratty’…for those of us with hearts-of-oak and sea salt pumping thoroughly through our veins… “There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats….”

Indeed!

I hope our wakes cross sometime soon and sail safe wherever you venture in 2015.

For us it’s time to hoist the ‘Blue Peter’….

Fair winds