Freethinker's corner

    Religion, with its promises, provides the wherewithal for people to commit treacherously hideous acts of violence.

    Religious belief promises everlasting life to those who obey and accept their god. If it is in service to that god, then committing an act that results in your earthly death, ends in everlasting eternal life in paradise. I am sure that the individual still suffers at least some nervousness, perhaps a lot, if belief in their god is not total.

    That’s what 9/11 was all about. These terrorists were brainwashed into accepting that this life is unimportant, meaningless, and diminutive in comparison to eternity. So, therefore, it is no great deal to waste this life in service to a god who promises the next.

    This works for any intent of a religious leader. It works to separate the people from their relatives, to reinforce belief, to manipulate them to a cause. To be clear, the victims of this leader are not serving any god, history has indicated there are none, the victims are serving the leader… the one who also collects wealth at their expense.

    There is little hope that humans will ever be free from such nonsense. There is always a given quantity of people who can be easily conned, beguiled, fooled. There will always be people who fear the end of life and will jump at any chance, however tiny, to live forever.

    The religious claim persecution and suffering, but when all is done, it is the nonbeliever who suffers. The nonbeliever is forever in danger of becoming a victim of these “victims”. Life would not be perfect without religion, nothing humans do is perfect, safe, without danger. However, it most certainly would be more pleasant to not hate someone for what they believe. It would be much more pleasant to accept that all people are related, all human. Do not be deceived… religion is the most significant source of hate in the world. Hate that is built in, hate that is required, as a price of belonging.

The information presented in this post has not been verified by the FDA. This information has been adapted from the August 2021 issue of “Life Extension Magazine“.

President and other prominent figures including Mark Twain have visited Lithia Springs, Georgia, because of its famous lithium water.

Lithium may provide neuroprotective benefits even at low doses. Research indicates does as low as 300 to 1000 micrograms may provide benefits. In addition, lithium has been linked to:

• Enlargement of the brain’s memory center
  
• Gray matter density increases
  
• Increased thickness of the brain’s outer layer
  

And there is more… researchers have found that lithium may:

• Prevent cognitive decline
  
• Slow the aging process by activating certain pathways
  
• Improve mood.
  

Lithium could inhibit GSK-3, a cellular enzyme. Increased GSK-3 correlates with rapid aging.

Lithium may promote longevity by:

• Slowing cell senescence. (Cell death)
  
• Possibly maintaining longer telomeres at the ends of chromosomes
  

Everyone would like to think that their government has their best interests at heart. Most often this thinking is fantasy.

    Americans have recently learned how little regard some politicians have for the common man. It was well shown how favoritism was given to rich donors. Only crumbs from the table were reluctantly provided the average joe.

    Some have taken that mistrust to extremes and stretched that mistrust to the scientists cited in CDC reports. This mistrust can also be credited to politicians and religious fanatics. It seems very much that conservative politicians are n collusion with religious groups attempting to magnify the divisions between the people.

    It is easy to understand why people do not trust the government. Government has sown these seeds of mistrust itself.

    Past indiscretions include Jim Crow laws, unfair treatment of Native Americans, and actual secret experimentation on American citizens. There was the Tuskegee Syphilis study, the Stateville prison malaria illegal infections, the injecting of cow’s blood into prisoners at the behest of the Navy, plutonium and mustard gas experiments and many more.

    The “masses” were considered dispensable guinea pigs. They were fodder for any desire or purpose.

Have you ever wondered if it would be possible to upload your mind to a artificial brain? Would you still be you? Even if the brain controlled a human looking body, would it act like you, would it see out of the body as you do now and experience a conscious state as you do now. Or…

Will the real you be dead. Something new and artificial continues, thinking it is you, and with what seems a conscious mind, but is not you at all?

It all depends. Are we merely the sum total of the synapses existing in your brain, or is there more… a conscience that cannot be downloaded. Some call it a soul. If it is, it most certainly is no more immortal than the body containing it.

One wishes as he/she fantasizes, that such a thing could be, that an artificial housing could be made to hold the information in your cranium. For all intents, with good maintenance and replacement, you would be immortal. You could “live” anywhere, even on the airless moon.

If you have not seen the movie “Creation of the Humanoids” I urge you to do so. Though the acting is a little mediocre, the ideas presented are interesting.

    Is this America or is this China?

    Here in America, we have a Constitution that guarantees free speech, yet on popular media censorship is rampant. I suppose we can be thankful that the penalties for saying something forbidden are not as harsh as in China, but they are nevertheless frustrating.

    On Facebook I have noticed that certain pages can get away with posting material that if the regular user posts it… even shares it… he/she runs into conflict with “community standards”.

    As it is we have to deal with ads popping up all the time. These ads provide income to Facebook. So, a user comes on and uses the utility and runs foul of “community standards” after having provided income to Facebook by looking at their crummy ads. Humor is a difficult concept it has been said, but if you say the wrong thing, even in an attempt at humor, you are penalized as if you committed a crime.

    I swear this site will be deleted if I receive a penalty equal to the time that it takes to delete a site. I believe that is 30 days. After coming off a seven day restriction and the frustrations involved in watching things happen upon which you cannot insert your two cents… I simply will leave the site go and maybe come back and establish anew at a future time.

    No, I realize no one including Facebook will care. What else can you do?

    Despite denials humanist and atheist groups hold ideologies. These are adopted credos, or beliefs, decided upon without any research, or sometimes even in contradiction to research. You find quite quickly when you attempt to join such groups that ideologies exist. If you are in disagreement with those beliefs, you are hounded until you either blithely accept them or leave the group. I have personally experienced these pressures, so I know they exist.

    For whatever reason these groups adopt a perspective about certain issues, and that perspective is based on nothing more than preference. While spouting loudly about the merits of science, they nevertheless adopt perspectives that have no science backing them. When you ask for the science backing their viewpoint, they most often become angry and label you a bigot or worse.

    Acceptance of a group is not based on science. Sometimes it is more based on compassion, sympathy, or empathy. Such acceptance does not need science. The error, the illogic, is claiming that there is science backing your preference… when there is none. More than one issue is held by otherwise reason-based groups in this way.

    What irks me is the claim of backing by science, not that they hold these ideals. I share the perspectives of some issues, knowing it is only through compassion that I hold them. I do not claim science where there is none. It is the “human” thing to do.

An incident occurs, but at the time its gravity of meaning is not realized. Many incidents occur over time that are of that nature. They remain in your mind, your memory of them occurring time and time again. It may take years for the gravity of those incidents to gel and develop into hatred.

You may struggle to relieve the thoughts, might even make a valiant effort to make them fade into obscurity. A mind does not work that way. Though time may lessen the hurt the thoughts recur again and again. Some thoughts flare into the mind with an intensity equal or surpassing the levels experienced when they occurred.

Finally, you realize the depths to which the incidents affect you. You are able to point at the specific moment when an incident became overwhelmingly disturbing, affecting your relationship with the author of the words or actions remembered. You begin to realize the emotion the memory produces is hate. From that moment on the relationship is changed. You may have been close, but now the distance between becomes insurmountable. You just don’t know them anymore. They become like a stranger. A stranger that you feel animosity towards. You desire they just stay away. In some cases, you’d rather never see them again. Yet the memories remain. Then you are eternally faced with the desire to make the memories go away.

Fret, worry, anger, anxiety, your emotions are on automatic. Your memory, mostly images, or thoughts without form, seem to initiate emotional reactions in the same degree as actual reality. Naturally, memories are desirable in order to learn, and to not make the same mistakes over and over.

    The flaw, I think, is that the memories cannot just be perceived dispassionately, instead they reignite the feelings felt at the time. If it were possible to look at them as pictures, as simple information, then the additional stress associated with the original real encounter would not be relived. Though such an ability may not be included with our software, the ability to learn exists. Perhaps with repetition and exercising will this software can be altered.

    The wear and tear on an organism from the initial emotional encounters should not have to be compounded by reliving them every time you view your archives. All of this could be rendered moot if our minds possessed a delete function. However, try as one might, neither our minds have it, nor do humans possess the technology to erase memories. Besides, how can a lesson be learned if you forget it?

    A fervent believer considers his/her god the one and only. As a result, all other gods of other belief systems are looked upon as abominations. A religion expects a believer to support and spread its particular dogma. It usually condemns the followers of any other belief system as being lost souls headed toward a nasty fate. A truly fervent believer is therefore highly motivated to convert everyone… in order to “save” them. B

    In order to enforce the particular dogma of his/her belief system it most certainly would make things go easier if the government adopted the belief system and made life difficult for anyone not a member of the faith. If the government continually issued support to one particular belief system and the religion chosen displayed prominently in every locale, as constant reinforcement of the dogma, people would be less likely to oppose it.

    This is why Christians have since day one of the United States claim it was founded on their religion. This is why they fought so hard to keep the Republican Party in office. This is why a near insurrection occurred this month.

    In the end it was clear… the Evangelicals were hoping to force the entire nation to bed knee to their particular concept of a god… at the point of a gun.

    The Islamic religion is feared for this reason. This insurrection is a reminder to all that Christian fundamentalism is every bit as dangerous and to be feared just as much.

    Remember, a religion is not a race, it is not racist to oppose religions. It is not bigotry to possess a fear of what religion is capable of.

    Beware of incrementalism, when a law is adopted now, or later, and little by little you soon find yourself a living in a country ruled by a specific belief system. Even now the right is pushing change in order to strengthen religion’s strangle hold upon the nation.