Not Intelligent Design

Tim Minchin said it best,

"Isn't this enough? Just...this? How does the natural universe so fail to hold our imaginations, that we have to diminish it with man-made myths and monsters?"

Let's assume for a moment that there is an intelligence that created this universe (and all the others). It would have to come from outside the universe. So alien as to be incomprehensible (you can't think 11 dimensional thoughts with a three dimensional brain, after all). No more capable of having a personal relationship with us, than we are of having a personal relationship with any one of the millions of nutrinos that are passing through our collective thumbnails at this very moment.

I think the only thing we could possibly have in common, is our imperfection. Nothing is perfect, nor should it be. Since, by definition, it's impossible for a perfect being to create anything imperfect, our hypothetical creator must be subject to error. Indeed, a perfect universe could not exist because the universe exists by virtue of imperfection.

An event. A broken symmetry. A point of reference.

While perfection, and, to some extent, infinity, can be imagined, they cannot exist because the physical laws of this universe prevent it. Were it otherwise, perfection would be a static, sterile thing. Probably the closest thing to absolute nothingness I can imagine. You see the paradox.

Much more likely, I think, is that this universe, and everything in it, is a very tiny part, perhaps even an unintended side effect, of some grander creation.

All of that being said, the end result ends up being the same for us. No heaven, no hell, no grey-bearded old man judging whether we have sinned by wearing two different types of fabric, or planting two different types of crops, or marrying the wrong person, or eating the wrong food, or working on the wrong day, or any of the myriad of silly rules imposed by a primitive belief system that does nothing to explain us or our place in the universe.

The question ends up being meaningless because the result of his existence is the same is that of his non-existence.

Who Deserves Rape?

A few days ago, a student 'preacher' at the U of A stood in front of the administration building, holding a sign that read 'you deserve rape'. The university's newspaper got some grief for reporting on the incident. There were those who felt that simply reporting on it lent legitimacy to his views. It did not.
Reprehensible though it was, his right to free speech is constitutionally protected.
When you think about it, it's actually a good thing. He's now out in the open, and those who have to interact with him are now forewarned, and forarmed. 
Much more dangerous, and more common, I think, are those who believe these things, but never state those beliefs. They look just like decent people. Sometimes they attain power and responsibility. Sometimes they even end up making policy and law.
A lot of bad, immoral, and unjust decisions could be avoided, had we known where they were coming from beforehand.
Still, the students did the
right thing in responding with the same free speech the misogynist availed himself of.

Found Among the Ruins, and My Own Errant Thoughts

From Hank Fox:

The existence of the (GMO)  technology doesn’t bother me in any extreme way. But that technology in the hands of nice corporations like Monsanto, in an oversight environment that includes a very friendly, very compliant pro-business government … that spooks me more than a little.

 The downside of being emphatically yourself is that you can never slip easily into a group. You will always feel just a little bit ill-at-ease, a little bit off-balance, no matter where you are or who you’re with. For me, that price has almost always been acceptable. Still, I think I can understand the great numbers of us who make the other choice.

---

 This is why I find the religious rights' passionate defense of marriage so amusing.  A few excerpts from an article called: Marriage by Barbara G. Walker

The word marriage came from the Latin maritare, union under the
auspices of the Goddess Aphrodite-Mari.  Because the Goddess’s
patronage was constantly invoked in every aspect of marriage, Christian fathers were opposed to the institution.  Origen declared, “Matrimony is impure and unholy, a means of sexual passion.” St. Jerome said the primary purpose of a man of God was “to cut down with an ax of Virginity the wood of Marriage”.(1)  St. Ambrose said marriage was a crime against god, because it changed the state of virginity that God gave every man and woman at birth.(2)

St. Augustine flatly stated that marriage is a sin and St. Paul damned Marriage with faint praise, remarking that to marry was only better than to burn ( 1 cor. 7:9).

Saturninus said God made only two kinds of people, good men and evil women.  Marriage perpetuated the deviltry of women, who dominated men through the magic of sex(8).  Centuries later, St. Bernard still proclaimed that it was easier of a man to bring back the dead to life than to live with a woman without endangering ones soul.(9)

Priests abandoned the churches’ rule of celibacy and began to take wives during the 5th and 6th centuries.  This continued to the 11th century, when papal decretals commanded married clergymen to turn their wives out  of their homes and sell their children as slaves. (5) The church displayed remarkable reluctance to deal with the matter of marriage at all.  During the Middle Ages there was no ecclesiastical definition of a valid marriage nor of any contract to validate one.
Churchmen seemed to have no ideas at all on the subject(6) The earliest form of Christian marriage was a simple blessing of the newly wedded, “in facie ecclesiae” –outside the churches closed doors– to keep the pollution of lust out of God’s house.  This blessing was a technical violation of canon law, but it became popular and gradually won status.(7).

There was no sacrament of marriage until the 16th century (3). Catholic scholars say the wedding ceremony was “imposed on” a reluctant church, and “nothing is more remarkable that the tardiness with which liturgical forms for the marriage ceremony were evolved.”  It is perhaps not remarkable to find that these liturgical forms were not evolved by the church at all, but borrowed from pagan common law (4).

1-William Fielding, Customs of Courtship and Marriage, 82, 114
2-Robert Briffault, The Mothers, Vol 3, 373
3-William Fielding, Customs of Courtship and Marriage, 233
4-Robert Briffault, The Mothers, Vol 3, 248-249
5-Jacobus de. Voragine, The Golden Legend, 90-91
6-Ronald Pearsall, The Worm in the Bud , 162-63
7-Encyclopedia Britannica, “Marriage”
8-Vern Bullough,The Subordinate Sex, 103, 112
9-Joseph Cambell, Myths to Live By, 95

---

Thomas Paine, in 1793, explains skepticism:

"Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.

    Each of those churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say, that their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all.

    As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I proceed further into the subject, offer some observations on the word ‘revelation.’ Revelation when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man.

    No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it.

    It is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication. After this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner, for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

    When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tables of the commandments from the hand of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it than some historian telling me so, the commandments carrying no internal evidence of divinity with them. They contain some good moral precepts such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver or a legislator could produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural intervention. [NOTE: It is, however, necessary to except the declamation which says that God 'visits the sins of the fathers upon the children'. This is contrary to every principle of moral justice.—Author.]

    When I am told that the Koran was written in Heaven, and brought to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes to near the same kind of hearsay evidence and second hand authority as the former. I did not see the angel myself, and therefore I have a right not to believe it.

    When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not: such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it: but we have not even this; for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves. It is only reported by others that they said so. It is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not chose to rest my belief upon such evidence."

---

"The biggest failing of Libertarianism is the inability to distinguish liberty (the rights guaranteed by the state) from freedom (the practical ability to exercise those rights). Libertarianism ensures maximum liberty, but actual freedom is reserved only for the very rich."
   
    -nigelTheBold, Abbot of the Hoppist Monks

---

The deception began, at least in the modern age, with Milton Friedman, who said "The free market system distributes the fruits of economic progress among all people...He moves fastest who moves alone."
This unflagging adherence to free-enterprise individualism is consistent with  Social Darwinism , the belief that survival of the fittest (richest) will somehow benefit society, and that the millions of people suffering from financial malfeasance are simply lacking the motivation to help themselves. Social Darwinism is a feel-good delusion for those at the top. Or, as described by John Kenneth Galbraith, a continuing "search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
A tenet of progressivism is that a strong society will create opportunities for a greater number of people, thereby leading to more instances of individual success. This is the common sense attitude suppressed by conservatives for over 30 years.

---

There is a very good reason evolution invented death. The cycle of life and death ensures that a species adapts much better to changing circumstances. Imagine a society where everybody is immortal. It quite inevitably culminates in an ultra-conservative nightmare, where “everything is like it was forever”. Imagine a society where the industry tycoons of the 19th century still own the majority of money and influence.
A static society must break down sooner or later, one of the best examples for this is the late Soviet Union, where nothing new happened and which was completely dominated by old men who still evaluated everything in terms of an economy based on heavy industry. And when society breaks down (what it does regularly in human history, this is inevitable), most people will then lose the access to this life-prolonging technology.
I am glad that death exists, and when my time arrives, I will go, to make place for the young generation. They deserve their chance.

Just So You Know Where My Head's At

Ah the good old days, back when there was actually such a thing as a lucid Republican. Granted, I disagreed with him on many issues. But that's the point. He was able to prioritize and discern real issues, rather than the stupidity and minutia that today's Republicans focus on.

This speaks for itself.



Pretty much sums it up.

Sound familiar?

Admittedly, I'm not as chipper as I once was....

Life Eternal

I'm an atheist. I don't believe in an afterlife. If you think I'm happy about that, you're wrong. The average 78 year lifespan of an American male is entirely too short for my liking.

On the other hand, if one were to think it through, eternal life would be a fate worse than death.  After a relatively short time (compared to infinity), you would have thought your last original thought. No more sense of wonder, your every action done by rote.  Assuming finite memory, you would eventually forget how you came to be, everyone you ever loved, everything you once thought important. Eternal life as a zombie? Thank you, no.

I'm sure there's a happy medium in there somewhere. We may even achieve it someday. How long is long enough to reach one's full potential? I'm sure the answer is as varied as every member of humanity.

Early in our relationship, I tried to explain to my wife (a believer) how I came to be an atheist. As I did so, I began to see a sort of fear, even panic behind her eyes. For days afterward, she was depressed. I felt horrible, and I've never brought up the subject again.  I vowed then, that if a person's belief did them no harm, and gave them comfort, I'd leave them their illusion. In the end, they'll never even know they were wrong.

As for me, I've taken Carl Sagan's advice: "Better a hard truth, than a comforting fable."

Unfortunately, believers like my wife, people whose moral compass isn't swayed by people like Pat Robertson, and other prophets of hate too numerous to mention, are becoming an endangered species.

There are those, so conditioned by their beliefs, that they would cheerfully commit the most horrible of atrocities if they believed it to be the will of their god.  For them, the wage of sin is death.  Of course, their definition of sin is often a matter of convenience.

These arbitrary definitions are a common occurrence in the Middle East, and could easily be here, if Dominionists ever succeed in their efforts of doing away with the secular nature of our government.

It is these people that should be fought tooth and nail, with every resource at our disposal. Their vision of the future is this twisted, monocultural utopia where selfishness is a virtue, compassion is a sin, and diversity is not tolerated.

Anonymous

We went to the memorial service for my friend, Jason, last Saturday. It was held at the DeGrazia Mission, which, despite it's name, is more of an art gallery than anything. To my relief, there were no clergy present. But too much talk of him being in a "better place" for my liking. I can't really fault people taking what comfort they can from loss.

As for me, I would take it as a kindness if, when my time comes, those I leave behind would forego all that silliness. Given a choice, I prefer a hard truth over a comforting fable.

It is a hard thing to know that the only immortality we get, is in the memories of those we leave behind. It behooves us to make sure those memories are good ones. But even those memories only last a couple of generations, if you're lucky.

We live our lives on the crest of a wave, crashing through time, until eventually we end up as a single drop, among the countless others, in that great sea of Those Who Came Before.

For instance, this morning on YouTube, I was watching some very early films. Street scenes from Edwardian England, taken around 1900. As I watched, I realized that even the youngest of those pictured were gone now. I found myself curious about them. How they lived their lives, and what became of them. Life is precious. They deserved remembrance. I felt myself grieving a little. Not only over their lives and deaths, but over their anonymity.

But as I continued to watch, I would catch a glimpse of...something. A smile, a gesture, a resemblance, a gait. Something that reminded me of someone I know today.

And I thought that perhaps we weren't so separate and anonymous, after all.

Infinitely Perfect

When someone asks me why I don't believe in God, my response is usually, "It's not that I don't believe in God, per se. I never even got to the point of not believing in Him".  There are a couple of other things I don't believe in, which, to me, precludes His existence.


I don't believe in perfection. In half a century of existence, I've never seen an example of it.  Nothing is perfect, nor should it be. Back when Persia was still called that, the rugmakers would weave one deliberate mistake into each rug on the principle that only God could make something perfect. Hence the term, Persian Flaw.  But the universe, by it very nature, is imperfect.  Perfection is what existed before the universe -- except that the words, "existed" and "before" really don't apply.  Let me try again. Perfection is nothingness.  In the absolute. An absence of both the light and the dark.  So, if God exists, it's a good bet he's no fun at parties.


You can probably guess the second item.  Forever. I don't believe in infinity. Again, no example to be seen anywhere in nature.  It's apparent from the previous paragraph that I believe that the universe began at some point. This belief is not borne of faith.  I believe it because I can do just enough math for it to become apparent to me.  Everything that begins, ends.  So too will the universe one day.  In about 5 billion years, the Andromeda galaxy will come crashing into the Milky Way.  It would be a great light show on Earth.  Of course our sun will be well into old age, becoming a red giant and enveloping Mercury, Venus, perhaps even earth, which will have been uninhabitable for millions of years by that point.  


Besides, think about the afterlife.  It might be fun for a few hundred years, maybe even a thousand. But even another plane of existence would begin to wear on one if it resembled this one too closely.  In order to make it different enough, we'd have to evolve into something as different from us, as we are from the atoms we are made of.  You can't think 11-dimensional thoughts with a three-dimensional brain, after all.  In essence, the very same thing as death.  Though, in this case, I think the simpler explanation prevails.

Sinner

I think the greatest damage done to humanity by religion, is the concept of original sin.  To be sure, we are all flawed.  Nothing is perfect, nor should it be.  But that is not the same as the idea that we are all born unworthy, requiring of forgiveness by some divine being.

This concept isn't exclusive to Judeo-Christian beliefs.  Almost all religions contain some facet of this idea.  The folly of basing one's life on the fear of eternal damnation became obvious to me early on.  It's a scam.  Not even a good one.  We were told that we had a disease, and that God was the only cure.  Later on, as the lie gained more power, we were told that we had a disease, and if we didn't take their cure and tell everyone how great it is, we'd be tortured and killed.  Why wait for damnation?

Even today, there are politicians in this country that would have no problem bringing back the Inquisition.  We are so saturated by batshit crazy, that it's now become the new norm.

Consider, a newborn has no capacity for good or evil.  Both are things that are learned.  A brand new human being is almost pure potential -- and a learning machine.  The first year or two is spent establishing neural pathways, and beta testing the ol' pattern recognition software.  In short, we observe.

If what we witness is hatefulness and stupidity, especially if actively reinforced later, then we tend to turn out hateful and stupid.  Luckily, the opposite is also true.  Of course there are exceptions.  Randomness makes the universe interesting.

Original Sin is a get-out-of-jail-free card that absolves us of responsibility, and reinforces the scam.  Kahlil Gibran once said that we are not completely blameless for the crimes done against us.  This world is a collective reality that we are all responsible for.  If there is too much evil, and not enough good in it, then it is not God's will, but our own.

Nothing changes

Among all the images floating around the internet, I came across this.

Does the rhetoric sound familiar?  Trade Kennedy's face for Obama's, and it could have been written today.

They call themselves the Tea Party, but they've always been around.  The intolerant, ultra-religious, racist, mouth-breathing fools may always be with us.

We fail to impart the mistakes we've made to our children, so the cycle repeats.  Or, worse, we feed them the poison that was fed to us, and the ignorance continues.

The Death of Religion

A recent BBC News story says that the end of religion is inevitable, and uses census data and physics to prove it.  The irony of this is not lost on me.  If accurate, it would also be the death of the root cause of two thousand years of death and horror.  From radical Islam, to the extreme religious right in this country, and everything that has come before, religion has kept humanity stunted and ignorant. 

Why value this life, or anything in it, when you've some mythical heaven to look forward to? 

What I personally resent most is the myth perpetrated by the religious, that in order to be a good person, one must believe in a deity.  Or, conversely, that one is evil if they believe in no god.

Buffalo bagels.

The greatest evils have been done in the name of god.  When reading the bible, it's apparent early on that god is petty, even on human terms, which leads me to believe that the book was written by men.  Ignorant, petty men who sought power over others.  The same type of men that today, use religion for personal gain. 

When legislation regarding uranium mining is enacted by those who believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old, the irony and dangerous ignorance is hard to miss.  It's the kind of thing that can get people dead.

Were religion to be replaced by logic and reason, the world would be a better place.  After all, decency and altruism are logical concepts. 

The lord isn't my shepherd, because I know the ultimate fate of the shepherd's flock.

Conservatism by the numbers

"Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear." ~William E. Gladstone, 1866

I think I figured out what been happening to this country.  The extreme religious right has gotten a serious toehold, via the Tea Party, and morally weak republicans.  The middle class has all but been wiped out, and now comes their assault on the poor.

Since the Reagan administration, class politics in the US has waned; the Republican Party benefits from the fact that many lower-income citizens vote against their economic interests because they oppose the social liberalism of the Democratic Party.

Many vote against tax increases on the rich, because even if they themselves are not wealthy, there is a tiny chance they one day will be. There is also the prevailing mythology that the wealthy class earned their place and should not be punished.  They somehow believe that the rich will show some sort of loyalty or gratitude to their servants.

I've noticed that conservative humor usually ends with a punchline that describes a (woman / liberal / poor / person of color) being killed, maimed or imprisoned (in order of their preference). 

Like the 91 year-old freshman senator (Freshman? Really?) from New Hampshire who recently resigned after suggesting the the mentally ill be shipped off to Siberia.  Or the State Rep. from Kansas who thinks illegal immigrants should be hunted from helicopter, and shot "like pigs".   Both claimed that they were just joking.  Well, they though it was funny...

The playbook from the extreme right must include this:

1. Use apocalyptic rhetoric that exacerbates fear, bigotry and extremism among the uneducated and intolerant.
2. Counter any liberal criticism of your inflammatory calls for action by saying they can't take a joke.
3. Keep turning up the heat and act shocked when somebody heeds your calls for extreme action.
4. Be sure to maintain you were only speaking figuratively and you are being unfairly blamed when violence occurs (extra credit for insinuating that liberals set this up themselves).
5. Keep your celebrations behind closed doors.

 This works for politicians, pundits, corrupt county sheriffs, equally corrupt corporate CEO's, insane cult leaders - essentially any conservative who is focused on their own interests, to the exclusion of all else.

Oh, Me of Little Faith

I believe in religious freedom, though I am, myself, an atheist. I can honestly say that I would protect, with my life if necessary, my neighbor's right to believe according to the dictates of their conscience. I do this partly because I think it is my duty as a citizen. If I don't love your freedom as I do my own, then none of us is free, and freedom itself becomes a lie. My other reason is enlightened self-interest. I know that the same laws that protect a person's right to believe, also protect my right not to. Such was the wisdom of those in the beginning.

But I am not completely devoid of belief. I believe that there is some good in everyone. Intellectually, of course, I know this not to be true. Evil exists, and it's sources are as varied as humanity itself. And at the end of the day, there is no Karma -- nothing to magically set things right with the universe.

This delusional belief in the goodness of humanity is something I cling to, because it protects me against what I've all too often witnessed as the dreariness, the hopelessness, and the futility of the human condition. The lack of compassion. The inability to imagine oneself in another's shoes. The willingness to, without hesitation or regret, give up the lives of your countrymen to protect your own. These are character traits that are, at best, dishonorable.

As of late, I've had some trouble with reality. Not its absence, but its intrusion. What little faith I hold is shaken, and I have no idea how to fix it. I've resolved to try and be more kind and patient with those around me. I'm not sure it will help, but I'm pretty certain that will do no harm.

So, you may find me somewhat less than "chipper" in the coming days. I've no doubt that will come as a relief to some of you. Enjoy it while it lasts. To the others, it is my hope that you also find me worthy of your patience.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE:

I wrote the above on a piece of paper at work this morning. It was not a good day, and it got no better as it wore on.

When I moved here three years ago, something odd happened. For the first time in almost a half century of existence, I felt a sense of community. I can see now why people find the concept so appealing. I have friends, a job, and a great fondness for my employers, my co-workers, and my customers.

There is, of course, a down side. When one becomes emotionally invested in a place and it's people, and harm comes to them, their pain becomes your own. You feel grief...and rage. I've felt it to a certain extent all day.

One the way home from work, I passed by the office of Gabrielle Giffords. I saw the people, the signs, the candles, and the rage and grief came anew.

Jared Loughner is someone who malfunctioned beyond any hope of rehabilitation or redemption. The greatest kindness we could give him would be a quick death. But at the moment, kindness is the last thing I feel. I know that in this world, there are worse things than death. Some of these things, I've been unfortunate enough to witness. It is my hope that before he dies, Jared Loughner experiences every one of them.

The rage will pass, and the words I write now will shame me. Rightly so. But perhaps by the act of writing them, I can rid myself of this wretched feeling.

But...not yet.

Is America a Christian nation?

Well, yes and no.

In 1779, as Virginia’s governor, Thomas Jefferson had drafted a bill that guaranteed legal equality for citizens of all religions—including those of no religion—in the state. It was around then that Jefferson famously wrote, “But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” But Jefferson’s plan did not advance—until after Patrick (“Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”) Henry introduced a bill in 1784 calling for state support for “teachers of the Christian religion.”

Future President James Madison stepped into the breach. In a carefully argued essay titled “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” the soon-to-be father of the Constitution eloquently laid out reasons why the state had no business supporting Christian instruction. Signed by some 2,000 Virginians, Madison’s argument became a fundamental piece of American political philosophy, a ringing endorsement of the secular state that “should be as familiar to students of American history as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution,” as Susan Jacoby has written in Freethinkers, her excellent history of American secularism.

Among Madison’s 15 points was his declaration that “the Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every...man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an inalienable right.”

Madison also made a point that any believer of any religion should understand: that the government sanction of a religion was, in essence, a threat to religion. “Who does not see,” he wrote, “that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?” Madison was writing from his memory of Baptist ministers being arrested in his native Virginia.

I've always described myself as a "devout agnostic ", but as I get older, that description seems more and more like a cop out.  While I still believe that it's possible that some intelligence may have created life, or, more likely, created a universe where such things are possible, I can say with confidence that it bears no resemblance to the Judeo-Christian deity that most of us grew up hearing about.  One could speculate endlessly about what, if anything. could have brought all of this into being, but it's not exactly constructive.  It's one of many, many reasons I now refer to myself as an Atheist. 

That being said, I'm also an American.  I consider it my duty as such to protect the religious freedoms of my countrymen.  As Jefferson stated above, " It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”  The larger issue, of course, is freedom itself.


Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Americas-True-History-of-Religious-Tolerance.html?c=y&page=2#ixzz10ZmREIX1

It's been a year...

Almost a year ago, I wrote about Neda Agha-Soltan after I, and most of the rest of the world saw a video of her murder.  A video that went so viral that it is now said that it is the most widely witnessed human death in history.  At the time, I knew little about her.  I've since learned a little more.  She was an aspiring singer and musician, who was studying violin.  She had ordered a piano, which had yet to arrive.  She was studying the Turkish language, and worked for her family's travel agency.  She had a fiancé, and in all other respects, a bright future.


She was murdered by a Basij gunman, who had been hiding on a nearby rooftop.  He was later captured, then freed.  Aside from hardships imposed on her family and those close to her, little has changed in Iran since then.  Ahmadinejad is still in power, and will hopefully only be remembered by history as the murderer and madman that he is.  Neda's grave has been desecrated.  Dr. Arash Hejazi, who tried in vain to save her life, was later accused of her murder by the state and has since fled Iran.


History keeps repeating itself.  Oh, the roles change.  The oppressed become the oppressors, but nothing is learned.  But on June 20th, and every year until it's time for me to go, I will light a candle.


And remember.

Greased Lightbox

→←+-↻

Loading image

Click anywhere to cancel

Image unavailable

Diversity

Y'know, I was never this politically active before I went to prison. During that time, I witnessed fear, hatred, racism, and no small amount of gratuitous violence on a daily basis.  When I was released, I tried to leave it all behind me in the realm of bad memories.  I succeeded at first.  

My first job was doing political surveys over the phone.  Mostly for out of state municipal candidates in local elections.  The questions were always somewhat one-sided, and I always ended up feeling cheap and sordid by the end of my shift (and not in a good way, either). I believe it's referred to as "push polling". 

As the presidential election drew closer, the nature of the surveys began to change.  They became more serious, and, thankfully, more balanced.  The answers I received, however, ranged from troubling to downright scary.  The fact that Barack Obama was a person of color was a deal-breaker, and that was that.  That got me curious.  Anyone who scared such hateful and ignorant people was worth looking into.  So, I started doing my homework.  I alway knew that the right wing's main ideology was that Washington is always the enemy, stealing their hard-earned money to redistribute it to the undeserving and shiftless poor (some of whom just happen to be immigrants or black).  The more I looked into the opposition's stance, the more outraged I became.  Rush Limbaugh, who recently advocated a return to segregated buses, was always a joke, and dismissed easily enough.  The same thing goes for Hannity and all the other nut-jobs at Fox News (scaring old, white people since 1996).

Then, there's Glenn Beck.  He had done everything short of calling for armed insurrection.

Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen writes: “Beck has spent months — literally screaming and crying — insisting that the president is a socialist/fascist/communist/racist who’s trying to destroy the country through totalitarian means. Major media outlets have plenty of irresponsible voices, but Beck has been unique in his insane rantings. It wasn’t hard to imagine some of his viewers/listeners getting so worked up, they might at least consider doing something dangerous.”

Beck has recently backpedaled away from this, saying, "But just one lunatic like Timothy McVeigh could ruin everything that everyone has worked so hard for."  Of course, he doesn't mention the thousands of innocent people that could be hurt or killed by such an act.  His only concern is the protection of his twisted ideology (and his job).  But, once you yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater, it's a little hard to take it back.

I'm really starting to get worried now.  Reading some of the signs carried during the recent "million-moron march" quite literally sickened me.  Recently a Muslim woman came in to my workplace.  She wanted my help picking out a bottle of wine for a Jewish friend for Rosh Hashanah.  (Unfortunately, I was of little help to her.  Being a atheist, most religion looks the same to me.)  Still, I thought it was really cool, and was thinking "Only in America".  My next customer, who in all other respects was a sweet, little old lady, leaned close to me and whispered, "I wish they were all dead."

It broke my heart.  Such hate and ignorance, spoken so casually, was the same I witnessed in prison.  The base, primal fear of anything that looks and acts different might have served some purpose early in our evolution.  The irony is, that same fear may also end us as a species.

Me?  I like diversity, reason, and compassion.  I like the fact that I can get on a bus and hear six different languages spoken. I've met a lot of good people from all over the world, and my first thought isn't, "Why can't they look and act more like me?"

Perhaps prison served its intended purpose.  It made me want to be a more active, responsible person; to leave behind something positive when I go.

So, to all you conservatives out there, so desperate for an enemy to hate.  Relax, you found him.

Oh, God...

Whenever anyone asks me if I believe in God, I usually rely on one of Einstein's famous quotes:

I believe in the God of Spinoza.  The God who presented himself in the harmony of all being.  I do not believe in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and actions of men.

This usually got me a blank stare.  Recently I came across an interview with Dave Matthews in Rolling Stone. He's more eloquent than I could ever be...

Rolling Stone: You've talked publicly about being an agnostic, which is pretty daring these days. Politicians are falling all over themselves. . . .

Dave Matthews: Yeah, "Get out of my way so I can get into the church." It's so small a view of things. Obviously, there's a source of all things, however big or small it is. But if you give it consciousness, it just gets smaller. If you give it concern for us, it gets smaller.

I use the word "God" in my songs all the time, because I don't know what the hell's going on. So that's God – everything that I don't know. But the idea of God as a fatherly figure who looks down on us and worries how we're doing or takes sides when we have fights – it's more irritating than Santa Claus. The world and the universe are far more wonderful if there's not a puppet master.

That says it all.