Page 5 |
BetterHuman.org Weblog |
Welcome to the BetterHuman.org Weblog. Please read this very important excerpt from my book, Meme, as it also applies to the contents of this weblog. If you'd like to be notified of weblog updates, or wish to contact us directly with compliments, criticisms, or especially corrections, please visit our Contact Us page, where you'll also see a list of frequently-asked questions. If you are looking for specific keywords in this weblog, be sure to use your browser's 'find' function. Also, I'll apologize in advance if some weblog entries seem abrupt, but in the interest of conciseness I've often been forced to remove large portions of submitter's emails, and this will occasionally make my response appear inordinately potent.
© BetterHuman.org.
No part of this writing may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written
permission of BetterHuman.org. All submitted emails become the sole property of BetterHuman.org. All submitter names are altered in order to protect identities.
Topics on this page:
#59 - If not religion, then where do morals come from? - Oct 01, 2005, 11:49 PM
#60 - How to understand the religious perspective - Oct 02, 2005, 12:04 AM
#61 - BetterHuman.org's Weblog - Oct 09, 2005, 03:39 PM
#62 - Another assault from the religious meme-virus - Oct 09, 2005, 03:45 PM
#63 - Can anarchy be a good thing? - Oct 09, 2005, 04:20 PM
#64 - Was Einstein an ethereal addict? - Oct 09, 2005, 04:27 PM
#65 - Progress? - Oct 09, 2005, 04:41 PM
#66 - The danger of 'Intelligent Design' - Oct 16, 2005, 03:09 PM
#67 - Morality revisited - Oct 16, 2005, 03:23 PM
#68 - The challenge of achieving mutual respect - Oct 24, 2005, 08:50 PM
#69 - Credibility for the Earians? - Oct 24, 2005, 09:03 PM
#70 - The threat of Intelligent Design - Oct 29, 2005, 12:54 PM
#71 - The difference between spirituality and religion - Oct 29, 2005, 01:07 PM
Click here to see next weblog page...
#58 - How to determine if you are hurting someone else - October 01, 2005, 11:36 PM |
In regard to the BetterHuman.org tenet:
- Everyone has the right to pursue happiness as they personally define it, as long as it does not negatively affect anyone, including themselves
Mr. Cornertrade wrote:
> I have to ask, how can somebody pursue happiness without negatively affecting anyone else? I'll give you some examples.
> Lets say that Joe goes out drinking, because that's what makes him happy, and tells his friend that he's going to drive his friends car while intoxicated. Right there, Joe has negatively affected someone while pursueing happiness as he defines it. If you don't see it, Joe has caused worry and stress upon his friend.
Of course, this is a perfect example of a violation of the first tenet. It is completely unacceptable that Joe has imposed his desire to intoxicate himself and to subsequently drive a vehicle, above the safety of those around him. I will address the 'stressing his friends' point later.
> Two men are in love with the same woman. One of the men marries her in the pursuit of his personal happiness making the other man jealous. Jealousy can make even the most rational and reasonable people do stupid things. My point is, no matter the scenario, every action has an equal or opposite reaction.
Very true, and fundamentally what you are trying to discover here is the 'line' at which our tenet defines 'negatively affect anyone'. This may at first seem a very difficult and subjective line to draw, however, the very heart and essence of this tenet is to prevent the inflicting of 'involuntary' harm, whether psychological or physical. I can better explain this with your examples:
With your drunk driver, Joe, I doubt that anybody can confuse his actions as being anything but reckless. To attempt to administrate thousands of pounds of automobile in less than a coherent frame of mind is utterly selfish, stupid, and demonstrates a severe lack of responsibility and consideration for the safety of others. You mentioned that his friends were stressed because of his desire to drive intoxicated and suggested that because he was stressing his friends that our tenet justified forcibly circumventing his actions, which is wrong. The real reason that his actions should be circumvented has to do with Joe's potential for causing very real harm to others while driving intoxicated, not because his friends chose to be discomforted with his desires. Pay close attention to the 'chose' in the last sentence. I'll clarify more after the next paragraph.
Your second example pits two men against each other in the pursuit of a single woman. Powerful and involuntary emotions are set forth when dealing with the most ancient instinct of love and even in the subtlest of cases, egos are going to get hurt, and emotional pain will be suffered by someone. However, this love-triangle scenario has no antagonist; the sheer nature of this equation dictates a necessary conclusion of two happy people and one sad; and this was predetermined even before anyone could possibly have guessed the final outcome. This is life, and there will always be situations in which we 'choose' to take emotional risks. Again, pay attention to the word 'choose' in the last sentence.
The 'line' that I am identifying in order to define 'negatively affect' is one of 'choice'. Joe's friends 'chose' to feel stress about his decision to drive intoxicated. This alone does not mean that Joe violates the tenet because Joe is truly not responsible for how they feel, 'however', what his friends are stressed about, the driving while intoxicated part, is a very good reason why his actions need to be deterred because this directly violates the tenet. Another example would be if Joe decided he was going to parachute off a cliff and this once again stressed his friends because many people have died trying. In this scenario, the possibility for wrongfully/ignorantly hurting someone has been removed, and the fact that Joe understands the risk he is taking also means he will not violate the tenet. His friends that are worried about him, well, that is their choice, it really is. Joe cannot be held responsible for that.
In the second example, both men are aware of the emotional gamble they are taking and as such they are entirely responsible for their own feelings once the woman has made her choice.
To break it down, if you hurt someone in a way that they cannot 'choose' to avoid, then you violate the tenet. If someone 'chooses' to be hurt by your actions (assuming you haven't intentionally misled them into investing into you emotionally or otherwise), then that is their prerogative, and their responsibility, not yours.
> for a "big bang" to occur, something had to trigger it. A particle of dust, an electron, or something had to be there, question is, where did it come from? You can't make something from nothing, so it's logical to think that some higher form caused it to happen.
My friend, science does not have all the answers, and maybe never will, but it is completely 'illogical' to suggest that because we don't have a scientific answer (yet) to a problem, automatically justifies an ethereal answer to it without having a scrap of evidence to support such. By your 'logic', couldn't the Easter Bunny just have likely caused the Big Bang? Could you live with the possibility that there may not be an answer?
You are pursuing the same endless path that Intelligent Design advocates travel, that of 'hide the god'. You see, the desperation of clamoring for an ethereal foothold in reality so that your promised immortality remains viable, has made you hypocritical, and nonsensical. Intelligent Design seeks out the current weaknesses in science (and there are many) and exploits these currently insurmountable problems to suggest that only an intelligence could have manifested these constructs; which really doesn't answer any questions because there are no explanations for where this ethereal intelligence comes from. The hypocrisy of absolutely needing to answer difficult questions with ethereal solutions, and yet not even begin to question the origin of this ethereal intelligence, absolutely reveals that the sole purpose of Intelligent Design's motivation, and that is to manufacture just enough ethereal perspective necessary in order to hang on to the promise of immortality. Once Intelligent Design advocates have found a nice spot to hide their god in the shortcomings of science, they need no further explanation, having perfectly blended science and mythology, allowing both to coexist in their minds, and retaining the rewards of an ethereal perspective. (Who cares where God came from, as long as I get to live forever!)
I wish all creationists, and Intelligent Design advocates (a creationist in sheep's clothing) could understand how transparent their motivations are; that being their sheer pursuit of immortality. Every single religious action, thought, or profession of faith simply says one thing, "I'm afraid to die and I'll do, say, and believe anything to live forever".
In your defense, I understand how incredibly complex reality may seem from your perspective, and this makes it easy to believe that some form of intelligence must be responsible, but believe me that there is always a scientific answer to everything (whether we have discovered that answer yet or not), and I have done my best to break it down into something digestible in my book, Meme. It takes a lot of determination and curiosity to pursue a reality education but trust in that it will make you stronger, wiser, and happier than you can possibly understand from within the shell of faith perspective that you are trapped within.
Take care,
Sean Sinjin
#59 - If not religion, then where do morals come from? - October 01, 2005, 11:49 PM
Mr. Paperto wrote back:
> How can society be the measure of morals, when there so many conflicting views? It would be easier to say that morals don't exist.
Morals are largely defined upon our instinctual inclinations, most notably the behaviors and thoughts that our empathic and altruistic instincts generate. So yes, I do believe a strict definition of morals does exist. However, because of the blasphemy of religions over eons, our societies have always had skewed morality definitions in order to better serve the religions' agendas. If all religious influence was removed from our societies, then I believe that you would see a large degree of moral congruency around the world. Sure there'd be notable differences in tastes, activities, etc., but the fundamental morality I think would be very similar underneath the cultures.
> Did you ever have a bad experience with a particular religious group? or any kind of religious experience?
I suspect that you are searching for the 'trigger' in my history that has spawned BetterHuman.org's assault on mythology (sexual abuse by a priest perhaps?). I assure you that I have not suffered anything specific outside of the contemporary context of the religious paradigm. However, in retrospect, I do believe any and all contact I had whatsoever with the insanity of 'any' religion was a bad experience, though I probably didn't recognize it at the time. All religions are equally fantastical and wrong. It makes no sense to say one religion is worse than another because that would be like saying cocaine addiction is worse than heroin addiction. Up until I was 12-14 years old, I was quite 'faith'ful, a very addicted ethereal junkie, not so much in the religious sense but in the spiritual sense; I completely believed in my ethereal entity and my faith was unwavering. Until my liberation from ethereal addiction, I had many experiences of the ethereal 'high' in which I mistakenly misinterpreted events, or misunderstood emotions, and easily accepted an ethereal explanation or cause for them.
Once my reasoning skills matured, and my education started to challenge the simplistic view of religion, my ethereal perspective crumbled like a house of cards, and I searched for years trying to piece together some kind of purpose in life. I would have to say the lack of trust I had after I realized that I had been lied to, and the humiliation I suffered for being so gullible (though it really wasn't my fault), and the phenomenal undertaking of trying to reorganize my perception of the universe until it finally made sense, all of this was very difficult and by far the worst experience that religion indirectly forced me to endure. Of course, there is no suffering during the ethereal addiction because you are perpetually 'high', but once you step down from that high and step into reality, you realize that ethereal addiction has phenomenal withdrawal symptoms with no easy way to soften the blow. This is another reason I wrote Meme, to help people make the transition without losing their purpose or ability to find happiness.
Life is too short to waste on fantasy,
Sean Sinjin
{All letters from this contributor: 4.56, 5.59, 5.64, 7.95, 8.108}
#60 - How to understand the religious perspective - October 02, 2005, 12:04 AM
Mr. Bareclamp wrote:
> I am incapable of understanding exactly how religious people "feel". That is, I understand the mechanisms by which they are fooled in to believing obvious lies but I can't comprehend what it feels like.
The nature of 'addiction' is such that it's nearly impossible to describe to one that has never left the confines of the natural environmental stimulation around which our instinctual minds evolved. The closest example to describe the power of addiction could perhaps be one's sex drive, but imagine instead if your sex drive was wired such that you received pleasure by biting a small piece of skin out of your arm. Doesn't make a lot of sense, but you do it anyway because every time you take a bit of skin off, your brain rewards you with a great deal of pleasure. This demonstrates that improper wiring of the brain can result in self-detrimental thoughts or actions. That is the power of addiction, beyond reason. I hope you never experience any form of addiction of this degree, but many people do, either from illicit chemicals, or psychologically (such as believing in mythological creatures).
> I am undoubitly the most vocal proponent for the common sense camp. However unlike you I am not motivated by sympathy for my common man.
A lot of the strength needed to find the empathy and compassion to help these people hasn't matured within you yet, but it will, trust me. I was exactly in your shoes when I was your age, I couldn't care less that other people were wasting their lives in the desperate grasp at immortality with mythological creatures. But, I must tell you how significantly your disposition changes as you mature into your 30's and beyond. Many powerful instincts (paternal, empathy) begin to surface and start exerting their influences upon your motivations. You will eventually find the role of 'mentor' to be very satisfying, and your perspective of our unfortunate brothers and sisters that are trapped in ethereal addiction will change to one of sympathy, instead of disregard. You may never truly understand what it is like to see a mythological world as fact, but consider yourself lucky, for a world that powerful and insane, is a terrifying world indeed.
> I can sit there with a fanatic and go though step by step in easy to understand language why their beliefs are not just improbable but simply impossible. I can have them completely understand the logic in my explanation. And yet... Still they say they don't believe me!
You have to appreciate that not everyone has the logical toolset in their heads that you or I might have. As much as we humans like to believe we are intelligent creatures, we are still largely compelled by our emotional/instinctual drives, and this can often overrule the dullness of logic. Usually a lack of formal education and/or a strong religious background is responsible for a person's inability to exercise logic enough to see beyond the confines of an ethereal perspective. If you wish to reach these people, you must connect on a more emotional and compassionate level, rather than logical. The very strength of religion is how cleverly it pulls on emotional tethers. If you want religious people to listen to you, draw them with respect, love, and patience; 'not' confrontation or logical debates, for this will send them running back to the safety of their faith cocoon faster than anything.
> When I ask them why faced with the infallible logic they still don't believe they simply say they have "faith" in god and that ultimately "faith" doesn't need proof.
They still use pseudo-logic, but the parameters they exercise in that logic are skewed out of reality. For example, they do not wish to disprove the existence of their ethereal entity because this will take away their promised immortality. The value of the ultimate reward is far greater than the value of proving the existence of it, and so it makes more logical sense to them to avoid the need to have proof.
> What should I do? is their some magic bullet that can reveal faith as the dictator and oppressor of intellectual growth that it is or must I simply try to abandon my desire to understand madness before it consumes me.
My friend, forgive my presumption but the 'irritation' you are suffering is counter-productive when interacting with ethereal addicts (or anyone for that matter). Would you be angry at someone if they caught the flu? It's important to realize that they are infected with a very tenacious meme-virus. When dealing with these people, don't react, just act logically and compassionately because they are very sick and incapable of understanding how sick they are; no less sick than if they wholeheartedly believed in unicorns, or the Tooth Fairy.
Please don't take this the wrong way, because I believe you are a very intelligent person, but I don't believe you are very altruistically motivated in your desire to 'correct' the perceptions of ethereal addicts. I too have searched for the 'magic bullet' and it simply does not exist. You will never instantly reveal the truth to ethereal addicts, any more than you can become a brain-surgeon overnight. It takes 'much' education, and the desire to see it through. Ethereal addicts are not stupid, mentally defective, or worth any less than anybody else; they are simply victims of circumstance. Through no fault of their own, they have traveled a much different path in life and it is a very difficult path to step off of. It must be appreciated how colossal the chasm is that separates an ethereal perspective from a scientific one, and how much programming must be discarded and new information acquired for them to reach a perspective that you and I take for granted. Seriously, try to see things from their world, and you will eventually see the magnitude of the task at hand in liberating ethereal addicts from their narcotic of faith. This should grant you more tolerance and patience towards them.
As for me, and BetterHuman.org, many people have asked me that if it is so hard to convince people of anything, then why bother? It is because I believe that at least some people will read these words, and their lives will change, and then they will in turn change other people's lives, and this will spread until the religious meme-virus is finally eradicated. It starts at the individual level, and if your efforts become part of the cure, than that is something we all can be proud of (not to mention a healthy pat on the back from our G.O.D., the greatest high there is).
Great feedback,
Sean Sinjin
#61 - BetterHuman.org's Weblog - October 09, 2005, 03:39 PM
Mr. Outsilt wrote:
> I have enjoyed reading the weblogs and frankly envy your ability to simply and elegantly convey the message. I look forward to reading each update. My only wish is that the weblogs would be sent more often.
Thank you very much for the support. I wish I could find more time to dedicate to the weblog but unfortunately I am just as much a victim of humankind's indentured servitude to survival as the next person.
> I would like to ask your permission to insert a link to your betterhuman.org site from my website.
Please, by all means. I welcome any connections to my website, even if the link is meant to be slanderous. I claim no jurisdiction outside of BetterHuman.org and its content.
Kind regards,
Sean Sinjin
#62 - Another assault from the religious meme-virus - October 09, 2005, 03:45 PM
In regard to my weblog statement:
"I thought I was doing what was in their best interests, but instead I ignorantly put them through some very serious psychological pain, to which they either responded with a vigorous renewed commitment to their faith drug (upping the dose to soothe the fear of death that was exposed), or were channeled into a different religion, not quite understanding that 'faith' is the problem itself."
Mr. Limbhour wrote:
> Basically, you broke the first tenet of your own philosophy/religion/faith:
That being:
- Everyone has the right to pursue happiness as they personally define it, as long as it does not negatively affect anyone, including themselves.
A very interesting take on my first tenet. My first reaction was to claim 'ignorance', as if it was an innocent mistake, making the mistake excusable, but the difficult and yet correct answer is that I had enough intelligence to at least have recognized the possibility of causing great psychological harm when exposing an ethereal addict to reality, and as such, I let my ego interfere with my judgment. My direct and personal confrontation of their beliefs made it difficult for them to 'choose' not to consider my points (I can be quite compelling at times) and as such, you are correct, I violated my first tenet (long before I ever wrote it down).
In my book, Meme, I attempt to define the steps that can lead one out of a debt of wrongdoing like the example above, and it simplifies to two words, 'prevention', and 'recuperation'. The goals are to limit the possibility of the wrongdoing from happening again, and to recuperate the victim to a state equal or better than they were before the wrongdoing. Unfortunately, our instincts are not well engineered to pursue this logical recourse, no, our instincts generally prefer very powerful retributions for any wrongdoings, usually interpreted with nonsensical but ego-placating policies such as, "an eye for an eye", which really does nothing useful but instead only serves to double the victims (two wrongs don't make a right?). We have to step beyond the instincts when it comes to revenge and justice, and step into logic if there's to be an effective solution to wrongdoings.
My part for 'prevention' was that I have sworn to grant all ethereal addicts the right to decline my perspective without fear of direct persistence or disdain from me (they'll have to accept my disappointment and pity though). This should fulfill the 'prevention' entirely.
In terms of 'recuperation', the person or people in question that suffered due to my youthful tenacity, and my ability to mentally challenge ethereal addicts in true Socratarian style, well, I was much too young at the time to affect an apology worthy and due to them for the pain I caused them. However, these people quickly resumed their ethereal addictions to historically similar levels of their ethereal 'high' and as such, the trauma they endured while I was trying to carve out their religious meme-virus, is all but forgotten, and, for lack of a better word, their 'recuperation' was complete.
I learned, I changed, and since nobody will continue to suffer due to the wrongdoings I have committed, I have released myself from further debt to correct it, knowing that the religious meme-virus is the ultimate perpetrator of their disease.
Having said all this, this perceived wrongdoing of educating people out of a mythological perspective cannot be extended to include my book, Meme, nor BetterHuman.org, for all readers of my book and visitors to this site are doing it by 'choice'. If you throw yourself in the lion's pit, you will be eaten.
In regard to my tenet:
- Accept responsibility for who you are, what you do, and who you become.
You wrote:
> Yet, you state in a blog that we have no free will. You said, "We have evolved a powerful illusion of free will to accommodate our ego, because the notion of being automatons will tend to aggravate the ego since it implies that we are not in control of our thoughts and actions; but that doesn't change the truth that we are no more truly in control of ourselves than the clouds in the sky."
Great contradiction, thanks for pointing that out. It is absolutely true that every thought, every pulse of biological energy, every electron's movement that will ever occur in the universe's lifetime is already predetermined and there's absolutely nothing we can do to change that path. We are actors in a very complicated plot that is well beyond our ability to predict the outcome of. 'My' particular role in this unfolding of the universe is to channel energy in such a way that I trigger energies in other people that manifest into actions that lead them out of ethereal addiction. If you are not slated to be freed, sorry, fate has chosen you to live out your life in a state of mythological delusion and manipulation. I wish I could help you, I wish I could change the future, but I cannot change the universe's plan.
Of course, those that believe they are 'choosing' to educate themselves about reality, and 'choosing' to reject mythology, and 'choosing' to accept responsibility for their thoughts and actions, are not truly understanding that they were already predetermined to take this path, and that the universe's unfolding simply includes them in the pursuit of a reality perspective. And even though their 'choices' were decided for them long before they even existed, it certainly feels nice for them to believe they are responsible for these choices, but they really need to thank 'blind luck' that the universe statistically took them under its wing and allowed them to break free of ethereal addiction.
Essentially, the universe hasn't told us the future yet, so take a stab and see if you're in the universe's reality program.
> you must accept responsibility for any illegitimate children born to your promiscuous sex tenet
BetterHuman.org does not have a promiscuous sex tenet, in fact, BetterHuman.org does not have a position whatsoever on acceptable degrees of sexual promiscuity because that is a personal decision. Also, sexual promiscuity is in no way related to pregnancy rates. Many people get pregnant the first time they have sex, and many people have plenty of sex and never get (someone) pregnant. Education is a very powerful tool against unplanned pregnancy ('illegitimate' seems so inappropriate when talking about a human being); unfortunately many religions turn a blind eye to the reality of sex, and will endorse ignorant draconian policies such as 'no condoms allowed' or other such nonsense.
> Also to note, I seen not once you use the term "love" in your philosophical tenets. So, would it be safe to say that there is no love to be found in your tenets?
My friend, unfortunately you didn't recognize the form of 'love' that I presented. 'Love' is too majestic to be encapsulated by a single statement, it takes 'all' of our tenets to produce the full grandeur of love that I am trying to project. Perhaps if you take a look at my tenets again and pay close attention to the words: happy, healthy, honesty, empathy, patience, tolerance, respect, responsibility, control, contentment, challenges, education, introspection, interpersonal skills, death, morality, piety, equally worthless, recuperation, prevention, potential, sex, philanthropy, intelligence, euthanasia, and mythological oppression; you may discover that the BetterHuman.org tenets are hyper-saturated with every conceivable aspect of 'love'.
> it takes far more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a born-again Christian.
Absolutely it does. You can't even imagine how complicated reality is, and the sheer volume of assumptions and flaws that have surfaced in the perception of it. It far surpasses religion in terms of tolerating misinformation and ignorance. What you fail to understand, however, is that a religious perspective is not separate from a scientific perspective. Science completely encapsulates religion, describing religion in terms of a meme-virus that controls a victim to a degree that they wholeheartedly believe in mythological creatures. Science and religion are not 'parallel' perspectives, religion is but a tiny corner of science and most people on Earth are unable to step out of that corner, either through their own religiously-founded inhibitions, or lack of further education.
Reality is 'very' intimidating. It seriously aggravates our ancient ego to imagine that we are nothing more than reproducing biological machines, and it especially bothers us that we are going to die forever, and these facts alone have forced us to manufacture the simple, familiar, and easily-digestible fantasy worlds that religions purport. I truly wish that reality wasn't so complicated so that my religiously-infected brothers and sisters could also see the beauty of true reality, without fear. Reality is a wonderful place if you don't let your ego determine your needs.
> I mean, come on, there is absolutely NO EVIDENCE to support evolution
There is a staggering amount of evidence that supports evolution. You have to open yourself to channels of education that are vehemently denied by religion. You may find a visit to an anthropological museum, or various evolutionary television programs to be very educational. The Internet is also an incredible resource. I know how terrifying it is to consider alternate perspectives but trust yourself that you are strong enough to learn new things, and that you will become much stronger when you stop denying reality with blind 'faith'.
> Intelligent design, creationism, no difference in my eyes; they are one and the same, and I won't act like they are not.
This is a very unique position you hold, considering the entire motivation for proponents of 'Intelligent Design' is to conceal the underlying ethereal premise.
> Jesus Christ DID exist. There's more proof of his existence than there is for Julius Ceasar.
I would never deny that an individual named Jesus Christ existed. However, that human being in no way represents the deified version that has manifested in religious mantra over the past 2 millennia. He was simply an ordinary human being, much like yourself.
> It is merely my hope that you will read my words with an unbiased eye, and see the truth for what it really is: the truth.
Ahh, the truth, the only key that can unlock true happiness. My brother, I wish you the best of luck in the ultimate pursuit of truth, and if you find it before me, then I will rejoice your success in the hell of your choice.
> I leave you with Isaiah 55:6-7: "Seek the LORD while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the LORD, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon."
In exchange, I leave you a message from the bravest person that ever lived. May it empower you with the courage to face the challenges in life.
"Life is an adventure, or nothing" - Helen Keller
Much respect,
Sean Sinjin
{All letters from this contributor: 5.62, 5.67, 5.68, 6.74, 6.76, 7.102}
#63 - Can anarchy be a good thing? - October 09, 2005, 04:20 PM
Mr. Bathpour wrote:
> You may be aware that until recently most dictionaries defined "atheist" as "wicked". Those who write dictionary definitions are as much a product of the societies in which they live as anyone else and, sometimes, even if they know a definition may not be factually correct, a "defiinition" is entered that is no more than propaganda to maintain the status quo. Such was the case with "atheist" and remains ever more so with "anarchist". This is also constantly reinforced by media ALWAYS linking "anarchy" with "chaos", "rioting", "violence", etc....Simply put, anarchy means "no rule by other", i.e., the only legitimate "authority" in the universe over Temy is Temy.
The perceived disparity between the two definitions of anarchy, one being of 'chaos' and the other being of 'self-rule' is not so much of the disparity as you may believe. Let's add your next statement to the formula:
> I have come to the conclusion that humanity as a species simply does not, and almost certainly never will, have the intelligence and psychological strength to deal with life as it it is.
Given the above, it seems even within your perspective of humanity that it would be unrealistic to promote a self-ruling system of society. In one hand you facedly separate 'chaos' from 'self-rule', and in the other you immediately judge most of society incapable of achieving a rational reality perspective, almost certainly a prerequisite of any practical definition of 'self-rule'.
Now outside of this contradiction, I want to assert that the 'self-rule' version of anarchy will 'always' lead to 'chaos' due to the intrinsic differences that any and all humans are born with; essentially, both definitions of anarchy have the same result. As much as our egos would be pleased with the prospect of being our own governing body, most of us are ill-equipped to project personal tenets that lend to large-scale social harmony. We all have different instinctual inclinations that shape our individual dispositions, and despite perhaps a largely congruent intinctual morality foundation, our unique personal pursuits, if not subtly choreographed and limited by a governing body, will always lead to tyranny and oppression because the conquering and selfish instincts surface quickly when the justice and revenge instincts are not systematically addressed in a capacity larger than the individual. Self-government, as witnessed from the beginning of evolution until the emergence of larger bodies of societal control, is a counter-productive form of societal evolution given that our selfish instincts are not easily self-mitigated.
Simply put, we need a system of government to provide the society-building structure that most of us are not born with. I retain the position that any definition of 'anarchy' inevitably leads to 'chaos'.
Thanks for the great feedback,
Sean Sinjin
{All letters from this contributor: 5.63, 22.319}
#64 - Was Einstein an ethereal addict? - October 09, 2005, 04:27 PM
Mr. Paperto wrote back:
> As you may have guessed by now, I am of the Ethereally Addicted variety, and subscribe wholeheartedly to the insanity of religion (Christianity to be more specific). And I completely agree with you that it makes no sense.
A very unusual dichotomy of positions to hold.
> argument of God vs No God cannot be conclusively proven either way. Nobody comes away from a debate thinking: "Wow, his views really changed my perspective" - we all go to our separate corners and try cook up more answers that justify our perspective. And lets face it - nobody has all the answers, on either side of the fence.
You are correct; an incomplete picture exists in either perspective. So, being the egocentric animals that we are, this generally reduces one's preference to be based upon how a given perspective attends to that individual's needs, rather than how accurate the information presented in that perspective may be. Whichever perspective can provide the most instinctual placation (be that ego or curiosity), will be the one that an individual subscribes to and vigorously defends. I must admit to receiving a 'high' when I learn something new that contributes to my reality perspective, and this in turn contributes to a greater commitment to my perceptions, as is the case with any individual that is pursuing their beliefs. In the end, we are all driven towards the 'high' of what we perceive to be greater wisdom.
Of course it is foolish to say with reverence that the current science perspective is absolutely correct; it most undoubtedly is riddled with errors, subjective license, agenda-driven interpretations, and the like; but that is the very nature of information itself, error-prone. Accepting that there will be errors is fundamental to a reality perspective, and the ability to adapt to new information forms the foundation of a scientific perspective. There will always be those individuals that lean too far towards irrefutably promoting a scientific concept, only to have it subsequently quashed; which is fine because this is very normal evolution of information (meme-evolution). This meme-evolution is also happening to religious perspectives in the form of 'Intelligent Design', where an ethereal perspective is necessarily adapting to new information.
If your heart is driven by fear or pain, you will subscribe to religion; if your heart is strong and curious, you will subscribe to science.
> That is what I would encourage you to get to grips with - your inner conviction. Basically, your reason for reason. Maybe ask more questions.
My friend, I don't think you quite understand that as a youth I was deeply immersed in your fantasy perspective, and I found my way out. I have seen through your eyes to the fullest capacity. Please don't underestimate my understanding of your world.
> "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." - Albert Eintstein.
Albert Einstein was irrevocably an atheist (in the context of an anthropomorphic god). His rare references to anything ethereal have often been extricated out of context by ethereal addicts as a bold attempt to pull Einstein's wonderful intellect towards the cause of mythology, but any research whatsoever on his dislocated quotes will quickly reveal that his perception was entirely scientific. This particular quote was part of a much larger paragraph in which he identifies a historical relationship between religion-defined purpose, and the pursuit of science, essentially stating that our purpose for the pursuit of science is often derived from motivations set forth by the pursuits of religion, and that the pursuits of religion can only be attained with the advent of science. This may have been more true at the time when Einstein wrote this, when atheism was perhaps a much rarer concept and virtually everyone's motivation stemmed from some form of religious doctrine, but I disagree with its validity in today's world; and I offer myself as an example, I do not need any ethereal impetus whatsoever to find the motivation to seek truth or purpose, or to generate altruism and empathy; it comes from within. If you wish to see the true context of Einstein's statement above, please read this.
Great email,
Sean Sinjin
{All letters from this contributor: 4.56, 5.59, 5.64, 7.95, 8.108}
#65 - Progress? - October 09, 2005, 04:41 PM
Mr. Brandlew wrote:
> This is a great book. I am on p. 308 (I suffered through the first part), and am impressed at the breadth of coverage. Clear and succinct, this book is eye opening even for a multiple-degreed, science and truth seeking atheist at age 40.
Thank you so much for the kudos, and sorry for the painful but necessary first part. If there's anything about it that you'd like me to clarify then please don't hesitate to ask. I hope the rest of the book makes just as much sense.
There has definitely been a shift lately from the negative to the positive from my contributors. Can it be that the ethereal addicts are influenced by the work presented so far? If so, then thanks to all of you that have made the weblog possible. Your dynamic feedback is of immeasurable importance to BetterHuman.org's mission.
> Keep up the good work Sean. Robert Ingersoll would be proud of you.
Now that's a compliment!
Sean Sinjin
#66 - The danger of 'Intelligent Design' - October 16, 2005, 03:09 PM
Mr. Siderain wrote back:
> I just wanted to ask your opinions on Intelligent Design, and my question is this: Do you think that it poses a major threat to science?
Some previous weblog entries on Intelligent Design that reference 'Intelligent Design' : 1.3, 3.42, 5.58
There is considerable damage that I can see arising from the oxymoronic concept of 'Intelligent Design', and the greatest of that would be the infiltration of this form of ethereal addiction into our education systems, polluting our children's minds with notions of ethereal intelligences being responsible for the currently inexplicable.
Science will eventually solve the difficult problems of understanding reality, but to foster the acceptance of 'easy' mythological solutions to difficult problems at a young age, only serves to plant the seeds of educational apathy, and sets the stage for a full-blown ethereal addiction later in life. Utilizing crafty and ulterior mechanics, proponents of Intelligent Design are the first to recognize that early indoctrination of ethereal concepts in our children's minds is enough to tether to later in life, reeling them into a life of wasted worship and monetary exploitation.
> What can we (As in materialists) do to educate others about the follies of Intelligent Design?
Proaction. We need to educate not only ethereal addicts but our susceptible young as well, that ethereal addiction in any form (religion, Intelligent Design, cults, etc.) is a psychological disease. We all have a responsibility as empathic and caring reality-seeking humans to do our individual part to influence those around us, to spread the word that mythology is not reality, and to not disregard opportunities to make a bigger difference, such as how we vote, or when granted the power to introduce anti-ethereal ordinances into any collective.
> I find it hard to see how so many people take one bible over the thousands of science papers and books published in the world.
This is the nature of the beast. Religions train people to close their minds to the outside world, effectively sealing themselves in their boxed-in perspective while the religions discreetly collect their resources of time, energy, and money for the sole purpose of propagating more fantasy.
> I am a student representative to my school board, and if ID comes knockin on my schools door, I know i will do anything I can to stop it from corrupting science. I just dont know if I should be worried.
My friend, you are in an 'excellent' position to make a difference. Please find it within you to proactively demonstrate to those in your range of influence, about the danger, waste, ulterior motivations, and falseness of all that ethereal addicts purport. It is the responsibility of each of us reality-perceiving individuals to define where and how we can educate about 'reality'. Let's not passively stand by while ethereal addicts continue to plant the seeds of their addiction into the minds of the innocent.
Best of luck,
Sean Sinjin
{All letters from this contributor: 3.34, 3.42, 5.66, 6.72, 6.79, 7.93, 8.113, 14.177}
#67 - Morality revisited - October 16, 2005, 03:23 PM
Mr. Limbhour wrote back:
> It's amazing that you accuse me of anger and fear motivation, when I said in my last email that my motivation wasn't anger or fear, but truth.
Yes, my friend, you did state that your motivation was to express to me what you perceive as the truth, but, and please forgive my directness, I believe your method of sharing this 'truth' was merely a thin disguise for venting your rage, and was not really meant to enlighten me. The bigger picture is that your version of 'truth' requires faith, and BetterHuman.org challenges that faith, which in turn subconsciously forces you to evaluate the depth of your faith. This subconscious evaluation ever so slightly reveals to you that your faith is not 100% pure (how could it be?), as such, your faith was rattled, forcing you to react with volatility, and it is this volatility that 'subtly' underlies the content of your emails.
Your most subconscious motivation for writing was meant to soothe your fear of having the validity of your perspective challenged. Your harsh choice of words in your last email, and the repeated tenacity in this letter, again emanate a powerful anger reaction, and anger is 'always' founded in fear or pain of some form. I believe some introspection into your writings may reveal to you that of which I speak, and perhaps you'll realize that a great deal of your message to me was not actually put into words.
> If you look in the mirror, you will see that the anger and fear that you "claim" is my motivation is, in fact, your own.
My friend, I don't believe your statement above can be justified. I have nothing to fear, nothing to lose, and nobody to be angry at. From my perspective, you represent a victim of miseducation, and that is all. How could I be angry at you? The only thing your statement tells me is that I have wounded your ego, bringing you pain, which made you angry, and for this I apologize, but please know that I did not intend to give you pain, I am only trying to help you expose what you already know in that 1% that's missing from your 99% faith conviction.
> But alas, you prefer to live in your version of "reality," where the truth is a lie, and lies are the truth, and God doesn't exist simply because you can't see him. You can't see me, yet you know that I exist, do you not? How is it that you can't come to this logical conclusion with God as well?
If your god ever sends me an irate email, I promise I'll spend a whole day at confession.
> And where exactly does evolution get its morality?
This is an excellent question. Morality can be defined as individually-enacted policies that prevent one's desires from causing harm to another, for example: not stealing, not killing, upholding justice, etc. Morals attempt to define 'right' and 'wrong', which when skewed into the myriad of our religious mythological perspectives, often lose their instinctual purity, and instead are bastardized to better serve religious agenda. However, when the religious influence is removed from one's perspective (aka, becoming an atheist) one will quickly realize that morality still exists, and will also come to realize that morality is buoyed by instinctual impetus. It 'feels' good to behave morally, and this 'feeling' is the result of these selfless, moral-driving instincts exerting their influences. Morals are 'defined' by the selfless instincts that evolved over millions of years of our evolution, and as such are inseparable from our motivations, no matter which perspective (reality or mythological) you subscribe to.
> For morality is contradictory to the theory, no, myth of evolution.
It is quite the opposite my friend. In order for any form of social evolution to occur, moral instincts are necessary to facilitate social harmony. To explain, let's step back in time. When humankind was first evolving, there obviously could not be any conceivable form of education system that could 'teach' morality. So, that left it up to mother nature to find a way to help us live together, and as such, the moral instincts evolved (over a great amount of time) to shape our behaviors in socially-congruent ways. A strong parallel of this behavioral evolution can easily be seen by observing the social activities of our distant cousins: the gorillas, or chimpanzees, etc. Admittedly, their social structures are relatively simple and still perhaps dominated by more primitive attributes (e.g. strength, aggression), it is still quite easy to see many demonstrations of what could be considered 'moral' behaviors, such as sharing, and protection, etc. These behaviors do not need to be taught to them because they are instinctual, lending to a greater social harmony, and thus allowing many members of a species to effectively band together. The resultant 'strength in numbers' makes this group more likely to survive and therefore these moral instincts propagated throughout the centuries, becoming stronger with each generation.
This is in contrast to animals that are more territorial, for example, bears, that have very weak social instincts (e.g. perhaps only maternal?) making them mostly loners that react aggressively when encroached upon. Not much morality there, but a bear's lack of social morality is statistically more complementary to the survival of their species.
> The lion in the den must be able to open his mouth before he can eat me. Secondly, he must have teeth in order to chew. God has allowed the lion to open his mouth, and indeed, the mighty lion has roard. Sadly, he doesn't realize that his teeth are broken, and has nothing by which to chew.
My friend, it always saddens me when I receive letters laced with such contempt and rage, for it only tells me how much you are suffering and how badly you want to impose that suffering back upon me. Please know that I am not your enemy. I want nothing more for you than for you to be happy and content with life, but the very sad truth is that you live a life filled with fear, fantasy, and denial, and it takes all your will to perpetually maintain this closed grip on your mind. Your life is a continuous struggle to keep yourself locked in, all in the pursuit of the false promise of immortality, and it has made you insane, and vicious. You, and people like you are the precise reason that BetterHuman.org exists, not to attempt to correct your perspective, because I have grown to understand that that is not possible, but instead it must be to try to prevent more victims like yourself. Mythology's lock on the human mind must, and will, be broken.
Much respect,
{All letters from this contributor: 4.56, 5.59, 5.64, 7.95, 8.108}
{All letters from this contributor: 5.62, 5.67, 5.68, 6.74, 6.76, 7.102}
{All letters from this contributor: 5.63, 22.319}
{All letters from this contributor: 4.56, 5.59, 5.64, 7.95, 8.108}
{All letters from this contributor: 3.34, 3.42, 5.66, 6.72, 6.79, 7.93, 8.113, 14.177}
{All letters from this contributor: 5.62, 5.67, 5.68, 6.74, 6.76, 7.102}