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.

Courage and Common Sense

As a liberal, I think that the Second Amendment is a good thing. Our founding fathers were worried about tyrannical government, and foreign invasions, and the Second Amendment has done an admirable job of deterring those things. Of course, at the time it was written, one man with a gun was only slightly more dangerous than one man with a knife.

Liberals aren't generally big fans of firearms. But there are those whose fear is such, that they would turn this country into an armed camp in order to feel secure.

The mistake that our founding fathers made was in assuming that their descendants would have courage and common sense.

Certainly, risk can be managed to a point (that's the common sense part). But after that, you begin trading liberty for what is often the illusion of security. As far as courage, well, the conservative obsession with the myth of a risk-free existence is indicative of a cowardice that is embarrassing to watch. Their response to that fear is to actually make things more dangerous. Maybe it's because they believe that it's not their liberty that they'll be trading.

There is no such thing as a risk-free existence, nor should there be (that way lies extinction). A certain amount of stress and strife is necessary. Of course we would prefer it to be more in the way of positive challenges. But, life is risk, and all the firepower in the world won't change that.

Big business, and the politicians that they own realized long ago that fear is a great tool for manipulating the masses.  A very lucrative tool, at that.  It's unlikely that those who crave power could ever take our freedom by force.  But they don't have to.  They have frightened people to the point where they've been gladly voting against their own interests, and selling their security and freedom, a little at a time, for decades. 

It isn't a TV show, or a video game. I can guarantee that anyone who says that they could have prevented a tragedy like this, if only they had been present and armed, hasn't ever actually had real bullets shot at them. A firefight is the very definition of chaos, and, unlike TV, someone who is mortally wounded rarely has time to deliver a moving soliloquy before a graceful exit. The end is most often horrifying, undignified, and immediate.

It's impossible for a sane person to take a human life without some damage to the psyche. It's the curse of having imagination and empathy. In times of war, or self defense, it has to be overridden, and that's when the damage occurs.

Most recover, but like any injury, there are scars.

So when I read about people like Russell Pearce, and his armchair heroics, I find it decidedly less than credible.

Aurora

I won't go into much detail about the tragedy in Aurora. Nor will I address the question of gun control, and the NRA. The situation speaks for itself. We're just not listening. I will say this:

There is a difference between the 2nd Amendment's intent, and what's going on today. The founding fathers were worried about tyrannical government, and foreign invasions.

They never considered the possibility that their descendants would actually allow public policy to be decided by those whose only qualification is a large pocketbook. They never thought we'd be so short-sighted as to allow our nation to be sold out from under us for such a pittance. They trusted the future of this nation to us. Their mistake was assuming that we'd be worthy of that trust.

Indeed, I think they would feel betrayed, and that we deserve whatever we get for that betrayal.

And they would be right.

Some statistics.

A nice lady contacted me with some good information regarding this country's obsession with putting people in prison.

Until we love each other's freedom as we do our own, none of us are free.



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