Thank You John Locke

The rule of nature asserts that a human can protect themselves and their family by whatever means necessary and use the natural resources they find, to promote and protect themselves and their family.  This is all well and good while there is only one family on earth, and even then it becomes complicated when there is more than one child in that family.  If there is only one adult human on this planet and that adult is accompanied by a single partner it is unlikely that they will fight over resources.  Hopefully the Earth holds enough for the two of them to coexist peacefully.  If those two adults have four children, two male and two female, and the four children form partnerships and have children, it is still unlikely that the sibling couples will fight over resources, again, with the entire world to gather from.  But if they do, I think it is fair to assume that they can go to their parents to help them successfully resolve their disputes.  But as the years pass and the children’s, children’s, children’s, children whatever, become embroiled in disputes, at some point the Great-great-great-great-etc. first ever parents will be dead, or at the very least overburdened with duties, so they will not be able to settle every dispute, and at this point rules/laws will have to be laid down and judges will have to be appointed/elected and committees formed and punishments meted out and things will be very complicated.

Today, every inch of land is spoken for and all of the earth’s resources are coveted, and the rule of nature is no longer viable.  Today, to be safe and successful and to protect your family and the products of your labor you can’t just rely on yourself or your family, you have to belong to a group.  And to be accepted into a group you have to go by the group’s rules.  You can change groups if you wish but you can’t just ignore the group’s rules and expect them to protect you, and you can’t live on your own and make up your own rules.  It’s too late for that, even if your name is Adam and/or Eve.

So chose a group, learn the rules and work within the system to change what you disagree with or feel is no longer applicable, or just plain don’t like.  But don’t try to make up your own rules.

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How is being human different from being any other animal? Humans are born free, and humans believe that the rest are here to either serve humans or be resources for the promotion and well-being of humans.  Humans are born helpless and remain so for many years.  Like animals, humans are born irrational.  Because humans are born helpless children should expect to be sheltered, fed, protected and educated until they reach the age of reason.  All other animals are born irrational and to a great extent, stay that way.  As the product of their parents the burden of bringing up a child falls on the parent’s equally.  It is up to the parents to restrain and correct children when they act on their irrational impulses.

Adults are humans that have reached the age of reason and are expected to be rational.  They are responsible for themselves but can neither take their own life nor let someone else take their life.  Adults have the right and the duty to take what they need from nature to prosper and protect themselves and those in their care.  Irrational adults, acting as animals, can and should be incarcerated, punished and even executed to protect rational adults and children.  If you treat rational adults as objects, if you act like an animal, (an irrational, instinct driven brute) then you can be treated like one.

Humans group together because the many are stronger than the one.  The purpose of groups, therefore, is to protect and provide for the few (the minority) and the weak against irrational brutes.  This act of coming together for strength makes for complications.

The wealth and physical well-being of the individual is supplemented by their labor.  The addition of labor to natural resources changes them and makes them more valuable and the enhanced natural resource now belongs to the laborer.

A small group is cohesive.  Conflicts within the group are adjudicated by someone everyone trusts.  The group comes together to protect itself from outside forces, to be stronger than any one individual could be.  When groups grow too large for an individual leader to effectively command they need written laws and appointed or elected; leaders, representatives, and judges.  If the group grows large enough these positions become full time jobs and the people in them need to be supported by the group.  The rules that govern the group are there to protect the individuals not restrain them.  The rules protect the individuals rights not take them away.  Surplus can be either an undesirable or desired complication of large groups.  An isolated person, family or small group generally struggles to survive and would never waste the time to produce a surplus that would go to waste.  Waste is irrational and serves no purpose.

Child Care Hierarchy

Most primitive –      Young are born fully formed and on their own from birth.

                             Young are protected for a few days.

                             Young are protected and fed by mother.

                             Young are protected and fed by both parents.

                             Young are protected, fed and taught survival skills.

                             Young are protected etc. for two or three years.

Humans-                Young are cared for until the age of reason.

Reasonable (rational) adults want to be treated with respect and treat others they way they want to be treated, but what we consider reasonable depends upon what we were taught as we grew to the state of reason.

Slavery: no one would put themselves into a state of slavery.  Slaves have no control over their life and no one can be born into slavery, we are all born free and are not indebted to anyone for the actions of our parents or guardians.  The only way to rightfully become a slave is to start a war and loose.  Once conquered, the losing individuals give up their right to freedom.  They acted irrationally by starting an unprovoked war and are held accountable for it but the children and nonparticipating spouses of the enslaved warriors did nothing to have their natural born freedom taken away.  Once the children of enslaved warriors reach the age of reason they are free and are to be judged by their peers as to how well they go by the rules/laws of the society they are in and are free to use their labor to provide for themselves and their family.

If you partake of ANY benefit of government you give tacit consent to authority of the government, its rules and laws.  Said government is restricted to the powers it is given by the people.  If you do not want to go by the rules of a group you can change groups or you can try to find a place where there are no established rules and go back to the rules of nature where you rely solely upon yourself for EVERYTHING.

Thank you John Locke for writing; Two Treatises of Government.

Religious people are less intelligent than atheists, study finds

Rob Waugh

Religious people are less intelligent than non-believers, according to a new review of 63 scientific studies stretching back over decades.

A team led by Miron Zuckerman of the University of Rochester found “a reliable negative relation between intelligence and religiosity” in 53 out of 63 studies. Even in extreme old age, intelligent people are less likely to believe, the researchers found - and the reasons why people with high IQs shun religion may not be as simple as previously thought.

Previous studies have tended to assume that intelligent people simply “know better”, the researchers write - but the reasons may be more complex.

For instance, intelligent people are more likely to be married, and more likely to be successful in life - and this may mean they “need” religion less.

The studies used in Zuckerman's paper included a life-long analysis of the beliefs of a group of 1,500 gifted children - those with IQs over 135 - in a study which began in 1921 and continues today.

Even at 75 to 91 years of age, the children from Lewis Terman’s study scored lower for religiosity than the general population - contrary to the widely held belief that people turn to God as they age. The researchers noted that data was lacking about religious attitudes in old age and say, “Additional research is needed to resolve this issue.”

As early as 1958, Michael Argyle concluded, “Although intelligent children grasp religious concepts earlier, they are also the first to doubt the truth of religion, and intelligent students are much less likely to accept orthodox beliefs, and rather less likely to have pro-religious attitudes.”

A 1916 study quoted in Zuckerman’s paper (Leuba) found that, “58% of randomly selected scientists in the United States expressed disbelief in, or doubt regarding the existence of God; this proportion rose to nearly 70% for the most eminent scientists.”

The paper, published in the academic journal Personality and Social Psychology Review, said “Most extant explanations (of a negative relation) share one central theme—the premise that religious beliefs are irrational, not anchored in science, not testable and, therefore, unappealing to intelligent people who “know better.” 

The answer may, however, be more complex. Intelligent people may simply be able to provide themselves with the psychological benefits offered by religion - such as “self-regulation and self-enhancement,” because they are more likely to be successful, and have stable lives. 

“Intelligent people typically spend more time in school—a form of self-regulation that may yield long-term benefits,” the researchers write. “More intelligent people get higher level jobs (and better employment (and higher salary) may lead to higher self-esteem, and encourage personal control beliefs.”

“Last, more intelligent people are more likely to get and stay married (greater attachment), though for intelligent people, that too comes later in life. We therefore suggest that as intelligent people move from young adulthood to adulthood and then to middle age, the benefits of intelligence may continue to accrue.”

The researchers suggest that further research on the “function” of religion may reveal more.

“People possessing the functions that religion provides are likely to adopt atheism, people lacking these very functions (e.g., the poor, the helpless) are likely to adopt theism,” the researchers wrote.

Get it Together!

   If you do not have the right to vote then your concerns will go unrepresented.  If you have the right to vote but do not have access to the voting booth, you will be unrepresented and your concerns will not be addressed.  If you exercise your right to vote and have access to education you will make smart decisions.  If you have the right to vote and exercise that right and are educated and have access to healthcare you will live a long, productive and fulfilling life that will support the country as a whole.

     Anyone who works to prevent you from voting, getting an education and staying healthy does not have your best interests at heart.  If they say otherwise they are lying.

                                    DO NOT VOTE FOR THEM!

     In the early 1700s the British Colonies, on the North American continent, grew tired of the British Parliament deciding how the colonies were to be taxed and what laws they were to be governed by.  The colonies felt that it was unfair for the rich, white, men in the Parliament to make these decisions when the people who were being affected had no representatives there to look out for what was important to them.

     Today women in the United States of America, as well as people of color, people for whom English is a second language, the poor and college students are all in a similar position even though they represent a majority of the electorate.  What’s wrong with this picture?  Why can’t these groups get together and vote as a block to effect change?

If you don’t think this is a problem just ask a poor, black woman in Texas, whose native language is something other than English and who is trying to go to school to better her life and the lives of her descendants!

     “… Congress needs to act to make sure every American has equal access to the polls. The Justice Department is eager to work with Congressional leaders of both parties, and with concerned citizens like you, to craft new legislation to fill the void left by the Court’s ruling and address voting rights discrimination. This is not a partisan issue. It is an issue about the most fundamental of all rights–the right to vote. It is about how we define our democracy.”  This is from a speech by Attorney General Eric Holder to a gathering of members of Delta Sigma Theta in July 2013 concerning the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Voters Rights Act.

     Although I believe that access to voting privileges is the most important issue of our time I can’t see how it will help to gain voting privileges if the groups that are being disenfranchised by a rich, white, minority of men, don’t get together and do something as a cohesive voting block to see that their concerns are addressed.

     They don’t need to agree on which problem to tackle first but they do need to get together and elect representation that will vote for the solutions to their problems as they come up in the US congress and their state houses of representation.

     To be clear, I believe the national priorities for citizens as well as elected officials are, in this order, the right to vote, access to; voting places, education and healthcare, and advocating for as well as supporting the efforts for, a coalition of these people; people of color, people for whom English is a second language, the poor, students and women.  If this is accomplished these actions could make this country what it has the potential to be.

Injustice Is

Ancillary Exegesis: an example of injustice.

or

If it happened it could not have been otherwise.

          When considering the circumstances surrounding an unfortunate event the opening statement, “You could have prevented this.” with its companion admonishment, “You are at fault and will be punished,” drives me nuts.  If you want to begin with, “In the future, can we prevent this from happening again?”, I have no quibble.

          It is fitting to begin your questioning with, “Did you let this happen?” or “Is this the outcome you expected?” or “Do you feel responsible for what happened?”  These questions are an attempt to determine if the person being questioned believes that they had options and made choices and whether or not what happened is what they expected or intended.  By asking these questions you are trying to determine if they believe they were in control and feel justice was done.

          Once something happens it is necessarily in the past and happened for whatever reasons, and was not and could not and would not have been prevented or done differently by the people involved, because it wasn’t.  The past can only have one outcome.  Maybe you think it should have had a different outcome but it didn’t.  End of story.

If you don’t like the outcome you may believe the participants were evil and wanted an unfortunate event to happen or if you do not believe they are evil or do not want to state publicly that you think they are evil, you may assert that they are incompetent and because of their incompetence they did not see the unfortunate event coming or did not see options that could have prevented it or you can say that because they are incompetent they were incapable of carrying out the necessary steps to stop said unfortunate event.  But you should not have the first thing that comes out of your mouth be that they could have done other than they did and judge them without a trial or at least an investigation.

          The offensive statements I mentioned in the beginning of this piece are an effort to judge, convict and punish the participants by assuming that they had choices known to them that would have prevented the unfortunate event from happening and that they had the ability to carry them out and they still let the unfortunate event happen.  The aforementioned judgmental statements assert the participants had nefarious intentions without giving them the benefit of doubt or opportunity to provide their side of the story.  The judgmental statements indicate a prejudice of, “I don’t trust you and I think you are either incompetent or evil.  You could have and should have prevented this.  And I will get justice for the injured parties by punishing you.”  I consider this abuse of power an injustice.  If you think these judgmental statements are true, fine.  But keep it to yourself until you are proven correct.  Then you can say “I knew it all the time, the evil bastards!”

Justice Is

       Whether or not you acknowledge that something is just depends upon your expectations and your perceived fulfillment of what you think should be.  If you have no concept of what should be then you cannot determine whether or not something is just.  Justice can only be determined after the fact, by someone or a group of people who have an intimate knowledge of what is being judged.  You can attempt to arrange conditions where justice may prevail but until your expectations have had an opportunity to be fulfilled the extent to which you were able to vouchsafe justice cannot be determined.

Justice is the belief that an act or set of actions have happened as they should have or a physical thing is as it should be.  If you believe that an object fulfills its function then as far as you are concerned, it is a just object and it does justice to the group it belongs to.  If you believe that what has happened is what should have happened then, as far as you are concerned, the action is just and justice has been done.

Unless you believe in an afterlife with differentiated outcomes, dependent upon history, that are adjudicated after death by an absolute power that was here before time, will exist throughout time and will continue after time stops, unchanged and unchanging, knowing all that was, is and will be, then there can be no absolute justice, no final justice, no justice for you that prevails after you die.

As we live our lives there is no justice but that which we define.  You may be lucky enough to live in a family or group that you consider just.  But you cannot live in a just world; justice is personal and pliable, temporal and local.  The best you can hope for is to be a just person in your own eyes and to surround yourself with people who generally agree with you on what justice is.

Should we fear the afterlife believers?

When life becomes a burden,

death takes longer than imagined.

Infinity : 1 :: 1 : Infinity

Belief is a fact, beliefs are not.

Your opinion is neither knowledge

Or the lack there of

It is just your opinion.

Is

Ego Sum Qui Sum

If I want to feel safe when I’m with someone I don’t know, there are things I need to find out about them, such as; 1. Do they believe; in a soul, an afterlife and a time of judgment that terminates in their soul either ascending to the light or descending into darkness?  And 2. What will they have to do to ascend?  Without this information I have no way of even attempting to figure out what they are capable of.  And I am sure that if I get in the way of their ascension they will get rid of me rather than choosing to descend into eternal darkness.

Those of us who do not believe in an afterlife may fear death and the total loss of conscious self, so long as we have something to live for.  When we have lived a long and fulfilling life and come to the time when; our organs are barely functioning, our mind no longer fully comprehends our surroundings, we find ourselves lost either literally or figuratively, and the future holds no prospect for getting better, death can be welcomed as a viable and sought after opportunity.

A young, healthy person, and those who love them, ‘should’ fear that they may die young.  But belief in a soul that will live on in an afterlife, removes the normal fear of their premature demise.  This belief encourages martyr wannabes, as well as other zealots, to fulfill the terror they imagine and are encouraged to carry out.  Their belief in a soul and its path to a better life to come, devalues my life.

Although I am considered old by some I do not want to die today or any time soon.  I try to live safely and I worry about accidents and serious illnesses that have the potential to leave me crippled or even end my life before I become incompetent and or infirmed by the normal decline in wellbeing that I expect with the passage of time.  What I fear more than then these natural events are the intentional actions of the religious that believe they will be granted a better life in the hereafter by harming others. They are delusional and think that the violent, belief based actions they commit here on earth will gain them a greater reward.  I fear what these people are capable of doing because of their beliefs.  I do not trust them to treat their life or mine as precious.  I do not think the way they do and have no reason to believe that I can protect myself from their violent acts by stopping them before they succeed.

I don’t mind looking forward to a future filled with, what others perceive as, tragedies; no life after death, no god, no ultimate justice.  Living with these assumed, and what are for them negative, possibilities is not frightening to me but enduring the actual tragedies that the religious thrust upon the world every day is.  They force others to live by their dogma and punish people who violate the beliefs they do not share.  The religious feel that they can even take the life of someone that they see as; possessed, controlled by evil powers, believing in the wrong religion, believing in an untrue religion, or believing in a false almighty or no god at all.  If you do something that is contrary to their dogma they believe they have the right, or it may even be their duty, to take your life.

Religion is for the delusional, week and lazy, who cannot be moral without something looking over their shoulder, judging them and readying their place in an imagined afterlife, and for the fearful who are scared of a world where there is no ultimate power to make sure everything comes out OK, to make sure they receive their just reward.  These people will not make the effort and do not have the strength to generate their own moral doctrine or make their own moral choices or take responsibility for their actions.  As a guide for moral action they merely use views they find in a book or hear from a trusted source.  They don’t even take the time to compare religions!  For these people, choosing a religion has nothing to do with facts or research.  The best predictor of their religious choice is geography and the second best predictor is the religion of their parents.

Every afterlife believer has their own religion.  No two afterlife believers worship in exactly the same way, believe in exactly the same morality, or the exactly the same dogma.  Even the closest of; friends, family members, parishioners, argue about the ‘true’ interpretation of what they say is their shared, holy, unassailable text.  They take what is written for everyone and make up their own interpretation of it even though they say their religion cannot be questioned, is the word of an unerring almighty and cannot be revised.  If religion were unassailable there would be one Supreme Being and there would be one dogma.

 To gain support afterlife believers will argue their personal belief passionately; on a street corner, on your front porch or from behind pulpits until someone gives in and says they agree with them. 

Religion is an attempt to use an ancient belief system to explain what they cannot understand (and that which is or was at one time unexplainable); “Where did we come from?”, “Where will we go?”, “Why are we here?”, “What can and can’t I do?”, without taking the time to make the changes necessary to adjust for what science and social evolution have taught us about the answers to some of these questions.

If there is just a single external power that ‘created’; what is now, what existed before change began and what will be when change ceases, there should be only one Supreme Being for all humans to believe in.  Just like the single, correct answers to questions about the fields of physics, chemistry, and biology, there can be only one correct answer to the god/creation/afterlife question, if there is only one Supreme Being who created everything.  But the basis for religion is belief, not fact, and belief cannot be proved or tested so their belief based claims cannot be proven or disproved.

Religious groups around the world have come up with a host of belief systems that do no more than describe cultural and personal fears and the ancient, fanciful stories that were made up by delusional or persuasive or insightful individuals for the purpose of calming their own fears and the fears of the uneducated masses they lead.

If from the very beginning one of the fundamental aspects of all religions had been that they could not be written down they would all be gone by now or at least relegated to the fringes of society and culture.  If religion had been forced to be an oral tradition it would have changed, almost imperceptibly, day by day, as people learned the answers to the previously unanswered and unanswerable.  But because religious beliefs are written down in unassailable texts, religion has not adjusted to advances in social evolution and scientific knowledge that have provided us with solutions to some old problems, like the spoilage of food and illness from disease and its remedies.  So far we have been unable to marginalize religion, because religious dogma has been cast in stone and is regarded as the indisputable word of an infallible being.  And unfortunately, religion will continue to plague the world with its fear, hate, violence and misinformation until it is forced to conform to the world as it is, today.

Whether or not....

It is a waste of time to try to answer many questions.  Like attempting to answer the question as to whether or not there are multiple infinite universes.  It can’t be proven and the best you can hope for is consensus on an opinion or belief.  Another unanswerable question is whether or not there is a creator/god/supreme being.  This question is not only unanswerable it is irrelevant.  But asking someone to answer the questions as to whether or not they believe there is; an afterlife, an ultimate reward/punishment for actions, divine intervention in answer to prayer, a soul, absolute good and evil, free will or is everything preordained, now someone’s answers to these questions is  worth knowing.  The answers to these questions have impact on everyday life.   Beliefs in regard to these questions motivate action and form personalities.  If someone answers ‘yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, preordained’ to these questions you do not want to be between them and their ascension.  They will not choose to stay and help you.  And my answers are; no, no, no, no, no and free will.  “Can I help you?”

The Question of Eternal Bliss

           I see no logical ambiguity in the idea of an all-powerful, supreme being or multiple, infinite, universes.  The concept of a presence that is greater than I can comprehend is logically possible.  In a two dimensional world three dimensional objects/beings are nonsensical. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin A. Abbott, made that clear.

           In our three dimensional world spread over the fourth dimension of time a four dimensional being spread over a, so far unseen/unproven ‘fifth’ dimension is impossible for me to comprehend.  But why couldn't there be something; that was here before change, that could know the entire universe over its entire life, all at one time, that would be here when change stops?  This ‘being’ is unknowable to me so I won’t deign the possibility of its existence.

           But there is something that I cannot see the logic of, eternal bliss.  As humans, on this earth, in this form; we are conceived, we change, we die.  If there is a next world, in it the Supreme Being; has always been, never changes, is all knowing and will exist for ever.  If humans were to exit this world and end up in the supreme being world, without changing to a supreme being state of all-knowing, never-changing-ness, the option of another ‘death’ would have to be one of the logical outcomes of a life after death, if this life after death includes change.  Simply stated, if you can change, you can die.  If you don’t know everything then you can learn something and that is change, so if you don’t know everything you will change and you can change by ceasing to exist.

           But for me the really big question is; if life after death here on earth does exist, how could eternal existence be considered bliss?  Is there anyone that can honestly say that they want to be an eternal/all-knowing consciousness? Have you thought about what that would mean?  You would never sleep.  There would be nothing to do or learn.  Nothing would ever change.  Anyone that says they want eternal bliss is a liar or at the very least, they have not given it much thought.  And I think they fear death way more than they enjoy life.

Precious

I look round and see,

Life’s not precious.

People are murdered, tortured, abandoned,

Every day.

Treated as objects,

Treated as interchangeable parts of the machine

That produces,

Someone else’s wealth.

“I do not need you;

“To do this job“,

“To take care of our children“,

“To look after me when I am old“,

“To hold me when I am in pain.”

“There are replacements waiting on queue,

To take your place.”

“I do not need you;

“I can find someone else“,

“I can make more.”

“You have no more value than a random log,

In a pile of wood.”

“You are replaceable.”

“I don’t need you.”

“You are not of value.”

“You are expendable.”

“Your death is just,

Collateral damage.”

“Your death is justice,

For what you believe.”

Every day people experience these words,

These feelings,

These lies,

These ends,

Because there are so many people.

Because some people believe

In life after death.

You will go without work,

Without companionship,

Without support,

Without sustenance,

Without shelter.

“I don’t care if you disappear because”;

“You can be replaced.”

“When you die

You will reap a greater reward.”

“I will be a martyr.”

 “You do not believe in my

Life after death.”

“You are damned.”

“You are evil incarnate,

A tool of the devil.”

When the cupboard is full

Pull out a new box of crackers,

And if one falls on the floor

Throw it away.

When the cupboard is bare

Pull out the last box of crackers,

And if one falls on the floor

Retrieve it,

Eat it.

Be glad you have food.

As long as humans reproduce

As if the cupboard is bare

And hard to fill,

People will be thrown away

As if they are expendable,

As if life is cheap,

As if life is not precious.

Can I Wait?

I want time to become me.

I have obligations,

That I carry out

Because they are the

Right thing to do.

I have duties,

That I fulfill

Because I feel

Responsible for my debts,

Responsible for my needs.

Responsible for what I want,

For myself and others.

And this does not leave me time,

To breath,

To rattle around in my world and wonder,

What do I want to do

When I have nothing to do?

I am over booked.

I am unable to relax.

I am failing to be me.

I do not have the time or energy

To explore me,

To look to my imagination and wonder,

What if….

It is just, next, next, next……

I’m sorry I didn't get that done,

Next, next, next……

There is no time to explore.

There is no time to fail.

There is no time to imagine,

There is no time to dream,

There is no time to find me.

There is no time to work on what I could be.

I Am Alone

I am alone.

I do not fear this, if I did, it will paralyze me.

My thoughts are entirely my own.

I am responsible for my actions and words.

My beliefs are mine and mine alone.

I was born alone and I will die alone.

Moreover, this is all good.

Some people are not alone.  Their heads are filled with multiple ‘people’.

I do not want to be one of them.

I do not want to fear waking up and not knowing which ‘me’ I will be that day.

It is good to be alone and the only me there is.

I accept it.

By accepting my singularity, I have the power to unapologetically be who I am.

When someone discounts who I am it is their problem.

When someone tries to change me, I may consider it, I may try it on.

Then either make the change part of whom I am or let it go.

If I change, I am not carrying a part of them inside me.  I am a different me.

I am the ever changing me.

I am the me, I have chosen to be.

I am never alone.

Every where I go I carry them with me

The voices, thoughts, words and images

Of people, poets, actors, friends and family.

They advise me,

They remind me,

They are here to support me in all that I do.

They make me strong,

The make me calm,

They fortify me against my doubts

And those who doubt my ability to succeed,

My desire to do good.

They free me to move forward.

They free me to act

When my impulse is to turn back

When I would rather not go on.

They give me the patients to choose

Then see what happens.

They help me be me.