Freethinker's corner

Towards many groups and on many issues I am neutral. Towards those groups that I am neutral I do not oppose or support them. On those issues that I am neutral I do not oppose or support them.

        Most groups that you inform of your neutral stance do not accept that stance. Instead, they assert that you are only permitted to be for, or you are against. This does not apply to just one group. All groups are of this nature… even the most liberal.

    In the same way, you are considered opposing an issue if you do not outright support it.

People do not allow a neutral position. It’s like a mental block. They cannot accept that it is possible to hold a noncommittal position on their issue or towards their group.

Is this flaw? Does this flaw derive from evolutionary sources? Is this flaw a product of groupthink?

    Choose a side, they cry. No, I reply. I am separate, I assert. You can’t be, they reply. I am I claim. Then you oppose, they shout.

A neutral position of non-aggression is one that is frowned upon by human nature. You cannot just exist. You cannot receive the fruits of the group without pursuing their goal. No matter that you spent your life working, earning, you are not left to your own. You must be part of some group, one that is pro or con.

No wonder so many humans are sad and pathetic creatures. They just want to survive, live, but are required to support or oppose. They will be shunned, ridiculed, if they claim neutrality. Some may object to this appraisal. I assure you, whether admitted or not… it is true of every group and almost all issues. Some groups claim the opposite of this assessment but in action are revealed to be just the same.

I will tell you what I am for, what I am against, and whether you accept it or not… I will tell you what I do not have a position on: That which I am neutral upon. (With some qualifications. I will not give an answer if I sense hostility.)

On the existence of god

Is there a god? Is it a god that is presently worshiped or one that we do not know of, or is there one at all?

    There are many religions in existence in the world. There is no evidence to support the existence of the god or gods in any of them.

    Does the god of the Old Testament exist? What evidence is there? The truth is, there is no evidence of its existence. Indeed, there is much to indicate that such a god does not exist. If you look at the history of the Jewish people you easily see the calamities, the downfalls, the suffering that has been endured. It seems as if their god, if there is one, does not lift a finger to help them when they are in need. Over a couple thousand years there have been many events that would make someone forfeit their faith. The most recent of which, is the Holocaust. The Old Testament god did nothing to stop a madman from labeling them disposable.

    The Christian god and the Islamic god, religions derived from the Jewish god, have no basis. None of the three Abrahamic gods have even the smallest mote of real evidence. Discounting eyewitness reports, always fallible, always suspect, they cannot be utilized as evidence. Even if chicanery were not an issue, the reliability of the human brain does not withstand close inspection. How something new appears to the human brain relies too heavily on what has already happened. One person may see one thing, another something else. Drug use back then was not something people eschewed either. Odd and impossible things supposedly seen can be dismissed as a “vision” emanating from a drug induced delirium.

    The Bible as constructed, of course, being a product of a government’s desire to control its people, cannot be regarded as a reliable reference. Books that were in the book before the reconstruction, were not there afterwards having been discarded to meet some desired effect. There is much doubt, considering the individuals that took on this task of reconstruction, that any god was consulted at all. The Bible is unreliable, therefore it cannot be used as evidence.

    Any god? Any at all? Humans have not been outside their own system of planets. To find if there had been a god that created everything, everything else must be limited out. Is there any way to detect creation, is there a creation footprint? There does not seem to be. Everything seems to be proceeding nicely without outside interference. The science of Biology cannot find god. It is well known how cells work, how they multiply, get sustenance. Nothing there to prove the existence of a deity.

    Did some power create everything, and then exhausted, went off to die, or hide? Again, mankind has not been everywhere. Maybe on some distant orb and future, should humans fail to destroy themselves, some thing, some power, will be found that can be determined as the creator. What difference does it make? The power does not regard humanity as important enough to stay around and protect and nurture. There is much immorality that would not exist if there were some entity that cared. Children would not be raped or get cancer. Everyone would be immortal, or death would be most painless. Bullets would not have been invented. Bombs would never be known. Even the hideous insect, the mosquito, would be unknown. If someone fell, they would glide safely to the ground. Why create life only to witness its death?

    If there is a god that does nothing and never shows its existence, of what value is it? Why bow down to what is most likely an imaginary being created by a human deep in the past? Especially a god whose mission seems to be to control the people.

Enjoy life and don’t worry about it. While you are clamoring to get ready for church to serve your god of choice your real life, the only one you will ever have, is forfeit.

    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.