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I will not go quietly into the night!

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  • Open-minded My Hind-end … February 9, 2015

    camp tentEach camp has its own set of rules, laws, and morals. What applies to one camp does not apply to all others. One camp insists that the others follow its set of social standards, while the others insist that others must follow their precepts.

    Individual members must conform to the standards of the group they are in. Though some disagreements are permitted, the main standards must prevail. Any member of any other group that wants to change groups must conform to those standards in existence in the new group.

    Many groups claim great “open-mindedness” in direct conflict with the reality that prevails. It seems that the groups that shout about their “open-mindedness” the loudest usually tend to be the most closed-minded.

    On top of this each group has its inner circle or clique of “beautiful” people that determine all the groups laws and morals. These people always tend to be the closest of friends and will not allow anyone to enter the circle that has the slightest disagreement with them. The circle usually becomes quite impenetrable. 

    Most often individuals wandering into well-established groups containing tight cliques find themselves merely orbiting the clique rather than being actually engaged by any of the members of the clique. Discouraged, these potential new members soon leave never to return. Growth of camps with tight well-established cliques usually stagnates. The clique looks around and without a clue concludes it could not have been due to anything they might have done. They did smile at the camp tent2newcomers at least once, they remark.

    My experience concludes that every camp or group has its own precepts and beliefs and if you vary from them in the least you become an outsider, no longer welcome; pack your bags please. They are indeed open-minded as long as you believe everything they do.

  • A Weight Problem … February 2, 2015

         I was reading yet another book written by an atheist when he lamented how terrible the misogyny was in the bible. He went on to describe an incident where god ordered his faithful to kill all the men and boys, all the women who had “known” men, keeping all the virgins for themselves. Well, misogyny was present, but wait… all the men and boys were killed? Seems to me the young boys would be innocent, yet… A lot more misandry than misogyny is afoot.

         How important is life as compared to the rape of women? How important are male lives compared to female lives?

         The bible has always been lambasted for its misogyny. Yet, men are killed in greater numbers than women. Despite their eventual fate as unwilling wives, the spared virgin women are not murdered.  If the numbers are the perspective from which you look, and male lives are given the same value as women’s lives, then the bible is more misandrist than misogynist. One wonders if even in the Christian religion, debased though it be, whether one can state without hesitation that it is patriarchal. It is mostly about killing males, not females.

         I guess it comes down to the weight of it. How much weight does a man’s life carry compared to a woman’s. Generally in society, it seems, it is assumed that men, and even young boys, cannot be innocent. It is always “Save the women and children”, “Women and children first”.

         There are innocent men and boys. These innocent men and boys are being devalued by society. It is time this moral crime ceased.

  • Bridge For Sale … Cheap, Just Your Eternal Soul … January 26, 2015

     

    Existence is preferred over non-existence. Something is desired over nothing. Even the adolescent teenager that possesses no maturity imagines themselves able to observe from some higher plane the aftermath of their suicide “to get even, or make them sorry”. The concept of nothingness is as impossible to grasp as is the immensity of very large numbers. Unable to understand the concept of nothingness, that the nothingness also entails not being able to experience the nothingness, people genuinely, naturally,  fear it.

    A son or daughter unable to let go of a parent prefers to think their loved one has advanced to a higher plane, “a better place” upon death. They imagine them whole again, watching down upon them, perhaps even looking out for them. Death, it has been said, is a part of life. If so, why is it so hard to face? Why do they fear the coming nothing? Isn’t it true that before they were, they were not? From nothing to nothing?

    The fear of death is the goldmine of religions. Religions offer a solution to death, though it be necessarily one that cannot be proven. Without a shred of evidence that would stand up in a court of law, religions are permitted to offer an imaginary cure for death. People buy into it by the carload. They are desperate.

    Naturally there are some that do not fear death. Nothingness, they imagine, is better than the existence they are enduring. For these religion also has an answer. It is not just an escape from death they offer, but an escape from eternal punishment for acts of immorality, sins. Even those who do not fear the nothingness fear being tortured hideously for an eternity. They buy into it by the busload. They are desperate.

    Religion wants everyone to believe. Is that enough? No. Religions also want everyone to obey. Through the use of threats of punishment and rewards for obedience religions also control the population. If the religion is the government the punishments become harsher. If they are not the government, to gain the favor of government, religions work to align the masses behind the goals of the government. If, as in the United States, the corporations are de facto rulers, the religion helps to instill a slave mentality in the masses to keep them quiescent and accepting of low wages and bad working conditions.

    The government, corporations, and religious leaders fear atheism for these reasons. Atheism frees people from the religious control and allows them to see reality. People with free minds, free thought, can only be persuaded by reason. Much of what government and business does is done without clear thought, but with only profit or power in mind.  If those in power cannot convince people that they are helpless to oppose government, or that opposing government carries a penalty in the afterlife, control becomes more difficult. Hence the biblical promise that those who have much in this life will have little in the next, while those who have little will have a greater reward. “They’ll get theirs when they die” many humble religious mutter when faced with hardship in which the rich do not have to share. Of course, they don’t want to accept that what happens when you die is nothingness. No tyrant will be punished if all there is, is nothing at all. The frustration they feel is mediated by the belief that enemies in this life will be punished in the next.

    The peoples’ greatest fear is of death and nothingness. The greatest fears of those in power is that people will lose their fear of death, their belief that there is something after this life, of atheism.

     

  • Now, Again, But With Feeling … January 19, 2015

    Empathy is the ability to experience, or know, what someone else is experiencing. It is thought to be a product of neurons within the brain called “mirror-neurons”. People commonly experience this phenomenon when they yawn in response to someone else’s yawn.

    Some people are more empathetic than others. Some seem to have a total lack of this ability.

    It is detrimental to have too much empathetic ability. The reverse, too little, is also detrimental. Optimally it would be best to have a moderate amount and be able to control the level.

    Sometimes to do what is right for the many, empathy needs to be suppressed for the few. To be fair, sometimes it is necessary to have deeper empathy for the few than is usually expressed, as in the poor, the deprived.

    Empathy is a part of a normal human’s mental bearings and cannot be totally dismissed, though sometimes, to do the right thing it must either be suppressed or enhanced depending upon the situation. You might want to help some poor street person, but you do not want to give them your whole salary as then your family will starve.

    I think it takes a severe lack of empathy for your fellow man to be a complete capitalist. To be socialists would require that everyone possessed maximum empathy for everyone else. Only a combination of capitalism and socialism would accommodate the average level of empathy found in human beings. This is the only reason the United States survived as a nation after the depression years. If we went to a pure capitalist system as desired by the conservative rich the nation would soon crash. If we became total socialists there would still be people who would be greedy and eventually destroy the nation. Capitalism with a dash of socialism seems to be more stable.

     

  • Don’t Speak to Them, Do Not Interact With Them if Possible, and Certainly, Do Not Patronize Any Businesses Owned By Feminists … February 8, 2014

    There is among us a group of haters. Many among this group are unaware that they hate. Those that are unaware are victims of this group just as much as those they hate. There are many names given to this group. An acronym NOW, Women’s Rights Activists, Empowered Women, or just plain feminists.

    From its inception among the KKK this group of haters was formed very much like a Marxist group might be formed. They needed from the onset an enemy oppressor. This oppressor would be villainized by whatever means until the general public, including most of those that were hated, believed the message. False propaganda, including made up figures about pay gaps and “rape culture” and an imaginary “glass ceiling” would be used to convince women and men alike that these poor helpless females were being oppressed. Over and over, anti-male rhetoric would be repeated in all media until the public assumed its present state, that of total gynocentricity. That means favoring only women and girls over men and boys. The campaign would start with the youngest of females. It would be part of the Girl Scouts. The message of female empowerment would be instilled within the minds of these young girls. Female empowerment, meaning, convincing females that men are unnecessary and disposable.

    Many men, and yes, even women, are waking up to realize the lies of feminism. The damage, regrettably, has already been done and is irreversible. There is an entire generation of females that have been poisoned by the message of feminism and have thus been rendered unfit for marriage, unfit for family. Even some of those women that assert they support men’s rights still cling to the lie that they face oppression in life. Once they are poisoned… the damage is done.

    Now, through the help of a willing politically motivated government, the oppression of men has been made legal. Through de facto anti-male laws such as Title IX, The Gender Equity Act (which does nothing of the sort), and VAWA, men have just begun to realize the heel of tyranny has descended.

    Despite all this, many females that participate in these groups think things should continue as if no such oppression of men has occurred. They still want doors opened for them, they still want to be treated as sugar and spice and everything nice. I think this should change.

    When someone does something outside the guidelines set in the Amish community a shunning is in order. The shunned become non-existent. They no longer matter to the community. I propose that men shun feminists, no matter what name they go by, socially and professionally. Don’t speak to them, do not interact with them if possible, and certainly, most importantly, do not patronize any businesses owned by feminists.

  • There is no Intention, Just Indifference January 5, 2015

    Hurricanes, floods, tornados, drought, dust storms, and tsunami; all natural scourges humans and animals alike have faced since the beginning of existence.

    Ancient humans decided there must be some cause for these horrible tragedies. They fabricated a cause: Gods, demons.

    Nature has no conscience or consciousness. Nature does not act for or against any organism. Nature is what simply is. It cannot continue blithely, for that would imply an ability of attentiveness that is ignored, but in reality, an attentiveness that does not exist… nature simply is. Nature is indifferent. It is not out to get you. It has no direction. It is simply a product of the forces at work around the planet.

    There are no gods to thank for your survival after a horrendous hurricane. There are no gods or demons to damn after the death of a loved one in a tornado. Luck plays no part. Luck is another of those nonexistent fabricated forces which humans invented. If you survive a flood you simply survived, it just so happened. If anything at all played a part at all it might have been your determination to survive.

    There is yet another thing which does not have any intention or plan. It is evolution. There is no goal inherent within evolution. Each organism survives simply because it possesses that which is necessary to exist within its environment. The lion is well suited to where it lives. The mouse is also well suited to where it lives. There was no plan for these organisms. They are the product of small changes over time that ended up beneficial for survival in the niche in which they live.

    Most surprising for many is the truth that humans are not the end product of evolution. We too, simply possess attributes, attributes that accumulated through minute gradual changes, unplanned, that ended up what was needed to fit the environment, our niche. These changes were affected by the environment. Changes that were not beneficial were eliminated as the pressures of the environment caused an organism that was unfit to die, eliminating them from the procreation pool. There was no goal, no end point, no higher purpose… there was only natural selection. There was no anger, no malice, no none of those, there was only indifference.

    Did you know that, where evolution is concerned, the chimp is better adapted for its environment than we? Does that make them higher on the tree? Is there a “higher” on the tree?

     

  • 2014 in review

    The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

    Here’s an excerpt:

    A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 3,700 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.

    Click here to see the complete report.

  • Final Post of the Year….. December 29, 2014

    While retaining all the rights that belong to a human being as a citizen of the United States, and while remaining a citizen of the United States, I hereby resign as a member of the human race. The reasons are many.

    1. The quality of empathy possessed by human beings is shallow and unevenly distributed.
    2. The potential of violence without reason is extreme and only weakly resisted.
    3. The greed of humanity is such that even the impending destruction of the race called human does not diminish it.
    4. The immorality of humanity as measured by my own perspectives is such that it is intolerable.
    5. I see no hope for its continuance.

    I will endeavor to add to the list as the year 2015 progresses. Although I see no hope… if anything, anything at all, occurs that offers hope, I shall mention it.

  • There Is No Room In The Medical Field For The Jaded… December 22, 2014

    One of the requirements of those working in the medical fields is that they possess the emotional qualities of empathy and sympathy. There should be a test to determine whether these qualities are in the possession of every new health worker. No one should be admitted to the field without possessing these qualities.

    Another needed quality is that of patience. A medical worker requires infinite patience. At the same time, the tendency to express knee-jerk responses to rude patients needs to be completely repressed.

    From time to time medical personnel need to be rechecked, reminded of the need for these qualities. Any found wanting should be expelled from the medical ranks.

    A degree of numbing occurs to individuals overtime, no matter how strong they may be. However, an uncaring, unsympathetic caregiver, is no caregiver at all.

  • Divorce Too Easy … December 19, 2014

    The first thing that came up when I searched for “Why are there so many divorces?” was the suggestion that too many young people are getting married simply because they are having a baby. Aside from the fact that a child needs both parents in a loving home, it could be suggested that perhaps the parents need not have been parents at all if sufficient knowledge of contraceptives had been available.

    Many religious think that abstinence should be exercised. They claim that providing knowledge of as well as the contraceptives themselves would promote more promiscuity. I agree that some young people might be tempted if they knew all the facts. Almost as many, though, will go ahead and engage in sexual activity anyway… without protection. 

    “The contraceptives are not one hundred per cent effective” the religious counter. The sex education people grudgingly admit that is so, yet proclaim “…more effective than nothing!”

    The unplanned pregnancies continue with the religious holding to their dearly held beliefs and the other side pushing its agenda.

    I think that the divorce rate depends upon more than an unplanned child. Divorce has been made too easy, at least for women. Women are taught from an early age that they should be ‘empowered’. It is a feminist ideology, it is meant to free them from the need for men in their lives. Through many government programs as well as punitive laws, feminism has made this possible. Now men are in the lives of women only when they ‘want’ them, and are quickly disposable when they no longer ‘want’ them. Government programs provide monetary relief for single mothers. Biased courts provide monetary punishment for divorced fathers.

    Also, couples are not taught that disputes should be worked out. Yet another factor is that having been promiscuous in youth they find marriage too limiting and when the first desirable comes along…. neither male nor female seem capable of staying dressed these days. Also, as our society becomes more secular the morals of religion become less binding. When there is no eye in the sky to impress there is no fear in breaking morals. People who lose their religion sometimes mistakenly throw the baby (morality) out with the bath water (irrational beliefs).