Strength of Reaction

Why do I react so strongly to the "Religious", strongly negative that is.

I wasted years of my life. Believing the bullshit of the religious. I went many years between when I did not believe, but had not yet rejected all that believe, and then I completely rejected belief. I will not waste any more of my time with it. They have no evidence of a god ever, but have a lot evidence that their ancestors believed in gods. That is not evidence of a god. They wasted my time, and caused me untold stress, guilt, goofy thinking all by misleading me. It never occurred to me that my ancestors were dupes, as they had been duped. It is each man for himself, and those who follow him, until they do not.

I will express gratitude for being allowed to live, or toward others for going before; there life was their reward, just as my life is to me. I will not express gratitude to those who mislead me, or those organizations. This leaves me alone, as I actually have always been, without real support, but with mouthed support by a few.

There is a gap between theists and atheists, and since the theists are wrong, it can only be bridged by the theist examining reality. We live is wondrous times, do we not. The truth is the the way out of this, and understanding the problem is the first step. 

Knowing and Doing Divide

  http://atheistethicist.blogspot.ca/2017/12/knowing-right-action.html

Once again, the real problem is skipped over for the easy part. Knowing and getting ourselves to do it it are two separate issues. Some things we know, yet are unable to get our bodies to do. That is the real problem. It is like all those religious who get comfort and fulfillment from religion, yet know that there is no evidence of a god. It appears to me that feelings like fulfillment are just feelings induce by the brain which keeps it's self busy creating our own little imaginary world, and all that speculation, imagination, time using mental exercises creates the mental chemicals, dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, whatever, that provides us with those feelings, but stops short of motivation to action.

Buy low, sell high advice is what so much of this is. Eat less, move more advice, is similarly useless. It is a motivation problem, motivation is driven by desire, and desire is what make us uncomfortable enough to do. Stoicism and Buddhism both have suppression of desires as one of there objective, but both need to be cautioned with a selection system of which desires to suppress, yet neither have this system in place, nor discuss the selection process.

http://modernstoicism.com/buddhist-and-stoic-wisdom-by-antonia-macaro/
is the start of one more comparison of the two, yet there is no suggestion of this external issue that is much more important, yet few take on, and that is the conversion of philosophy into action, which is the major problem in modern society. It is paralyzation by too many choices, or lack of motivation. 
  

getting through christmas

As an atheist, getting through the christmas season, as a time of strange behavior of the devout is an exercise in understanding. They, many of the christians, become highly stressed trying to acheive perfection and do all that they believe is expected of them. Sitting back, becoming the anthropologist, and watch the strange customs of the religious, and the strange dress is an ideal atheist approach to the season.  Christmas is a time for the anthropologist in me to come out to observe the bizarre behaviors. There is no point trying to understand the ritualistic behaviors or the traditions. These are what they are, have developed through an evolution process, with many incremental annual changes, on an oral/memory based, modified by what is available reality. 

In a drop in archery class we have young ladies from immoral modern Japanese skimpy, women in sports bras, see through leggings, bra-less thin shirts, to the full burka of the Muslims. We have seen people in dress formal attire, long nails, high heels so high they are unable to walk. We have seen indulgent parents of bratty youth, youth being pushed into activity by parents, we have seen the young that are driven by their own desires. We see adults that struggle with youth strength bows, and youth that pull experienced adult strength bows with ease. We see adults with the physical coordination of toddlers, and the disabled, to body builders. It is often necessary to just observe, an ideal training for an anthropology like attitude.

Pythagoras, of "the sum of the squares of the two sides of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse" fame became a bit strange with age. He became aware that humans could "improve their state mentally by believing in the supernatural." or so translations suggest. So if we live in the Land of Nod, and all nod together, life is wonderful. I can believe that, for I lived that in the religion of my ancestors, and those who still do, think there life is wonderful. All this implies that our values give our life meaning, purpose, and if we never examine our life critically, everything in that life is wonderful, within that frame of reference. So our lives become just illusions until we realize this, and that we are driven by chemicals, and if and when those chemical reactions are running normally, we think we have control. We only think we have control, for if those chemicals change, we are out of control, like it or not. Our mind does not have absolute control. We have a illusion of control only, not control. We are the dog tied to the cart, we go where the chemicals take us. As long as we are going in the right direction, all is good. But our thinking over time also modify the chemicals and the makeup of our brains. It is a vicious circle, and where does it start?

Pythagoras realized that we humans can use this to live in our minds when life gets tough, and draw on the supernatural for strength, comfort, reassurance, companionship, whatever we desired in our lives. All that was necessary was that we became willing to believe in the supernatural and that belief would furnish the feedback proof that it works. When you explore this rabbit hole, you may find it warm and pleasant, and may not wish to return to the real world. That is ok, the christians created a culture of living in such rabbit holes, and have survived well at it for thousands of years. That may be the foundation of the Stoic, "live naturally", as opposed to the Pythagoras "seek the help of the supernatural".

Now that we know the root of these concepts, choose as you wish. Where is this going? I think I should go shoot something. 

Agree to Disagree

This agree to disagree concept that has been pushed by the religious as a means of backing off a discussion that they cannot win has always bothered me. It arose yesterday when I was visited by three ghosts... no the JWs, as a response to evidence of the existence of god. 

After a bit of thinking, I realized that it is an acceptance of conflicting beliefs that cannot be resolved to their satisfaction, and not wanting to resolve those truths to reality. There is no god; at least no physical god. God, beyond space and time leaves the concept realm, and no where else, that the religious will not go near. They just go away, and not challenge their own understanding, for they could not withstand the suggestion that their beliefs are wrong.

Feelings are caused by beliefs, and are underlain by beliefs that suggest something. The religious always believe they are correct; it can be no other way to drive themselves to do what they do. But when one takes the time to lay it all out, at best, god is just a concept, and the religious teachers have been creating a dream/ concept world for you to believe in. Oh well, they are just wrong, there is no other way to say it. The religious cannot deal with those who know, and challenge their beliefs, so they go to this agree to disagree and sulk off.

We each are responsible for ourselves

Why should I care about what other adults do to their bodies. I do not like adults conciliating youth to do dangerous/illegal/unsafe actions, like eating raw eggs. We know that salmonella is lurking, just ready to strike, so why take a chance? Unknowing is one thing, but knowingly take riskes?  What am I no about? Well I do not know how to reference/link to a facebook post, or I would link to it. Some old goof, is suggesting that eating raw cookie dough containing eggs is safe.

We each are responsible for ourselves, but counseling the young/uneducated to eat raw eggs is unwise to dangerous. We each are responsible for ourselves.  But counseling Russian roulette? That is what they are doing, but with long odds. I know of one young lady who will never be the same, and has suffered the last 20 years because of a moment of risk, and a few mouthfuls or raw food. It is just not worth the risk. If an adult wishes to take such a risk, ok, but to suggest that it is ok to others or youth is just abuse of reality. But then she also believes there is a god, so what should we expect.

Stoics, Live by Nature

The Stoics were group of philosopher who claimed we should live by nature, virtues were the highest good, some things are up to us and some are not, we are not troubled by events, but our thoughts about those events, and similar pithy concepts. To understand these concepts, that is what each actually means, takes a bit of time.

To live by nature sounds simple, but what does it really mean. When we live among group who think in supernatural realms, like Christians and Muslims, living by nature is, well, today, atheism. It is staying away from supernatural thinking, hope that is not possible, day dreaming, any religious thinking, after life, or anything that is not physical possible. The simplest way to express this is live by nature. 

Others have different opinions of what this actually means. https://howtobeastoic.wordpress.com/2017/11/29/living-according-to-nature/

Now that we understand that the same reduction outcome could come from many different paths, what are we left with? Pick one and away we go. There is often some truth in almost any statement, but what that truth is is often in question. 

Just thinking, throwing about stuff

I am struggling with the rights of an individual compared to the rights of the society within which they live, and the right of the society to force behaviors and/or beliefs onto others. In the US there is separation of church and state in one of the amendments, but that is being ignored now by many. Not so in Canada. There is no formal separation, but evangelizing just does not fly in politics either. 

There is sexual decorum, which is also being ignored by many, and many in positions of authority. Slavery is still alive being practiced in the halls of power. There is the opioid addiction issue, the GMO labeling issue, early vaccination vs autism, fracking vs water supply, climate change, the religious zealots vs reality, abortion vs religious, and a number of other social issues that have one thing in common; someone is trying to impose a belief or behavior onto others.

The only way to make such choices is to lay out all the statements for and against for all the choices and then to make a rational selection of the best, but also be aware that those against the decision may be quite vocal. Ultimately, the right choice may allow a great deal of personnel choice; force an action onto someone against their will cannot fly without issues; or allowing freedom of choice will arouse those that feel such action is wrong on religious belief system basis. These are not rational people anyway. Some will object, so what.

I use "forcing beliefs" as a term, forced as in not reasonable choice, as onto a child, and belief of statements without evidence, anything is a belief. When the evidence goes against our current beliefs, it takes much more evidence. This ties together two concepts, zero choice, and a belief as a concept without a evidence base. Neither is a "good behavior", but both are standard practice in religious indoctrination. Children, who are totally dependent on their parents, do not have the mental or moral/ethical fortitude to resist something without evidence. They have no choice but to accept whatever the parent is shoveling. That is indoctrination, which is not right. It is parental abuse, or some other form of enslavement.

Does the government have the right to decide what the child should learn or be indoctrinated with?  Ultimately, it is the child/young adult that should decide,n when they get old enough, and they should be trained with the tools to make such decisions, in their youth. By the age of reason, say 14, they should be free to choose, and to bear responsibility for their decisions. It is responsibility, clear responsibility, that make a person good.

No parent is going to stand for their child going against the parents wishes, where the parent feels strongly. If the parent is wish-wash on the situation, or even irrationally the other way, there will be less conflict, typically. There in lies part of the problem. Too many people are just not rational.

Too many decisions effecting people are being made for economic reasons, or convenience. not for sound science. We are, as a population consuming too much carbon, but that is not the problem. After we have extracted the energy, we expel Co2, and that is not the problem. We are expelling more Co2 that the earth can fix back as carbon, and as a result, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising. That will be a problem soon. As a result of the higher amount carbon dioxide, the amount of solar energy captured is rising, causing rising temperatures in the atmosphere, and the rising temperatures is causing more severe and erratic weather, which is the first problem/issue we see. The heat is improving living conditions in cold areas. But the methane hydrate trapped in cold areas is melting, and that is a major problem; methane hydrate really contributes to warming, and it is not good for humans, mammals, and the like.

So where is this all going? The government is only partly correct, but thinks it is right all the time. That is a problem, unless they are willing to look at there errors, and correct them. But we do not know what is the correct solutions are. 

So what about the areas where we feel that the government has overstepped their authority? Without respect, they cannot govern. Prohibition was one example. Weed is another. Opioids is the next, but that is a belief based issue. It will require a philosophical solution; once you start with chronic pain, you have it for life. Get use to dealing with the pain without mediation, or prepare for addiction and a short life. It is your choice. The medical profession has nothing to offer, long term.