Atheism was Created by Theists... Who Came Second

I've explained this many times before and written about it at length.

Non-theists long existed first. Then theists arrived on the scene. Then they created the word "a-theist" to define all those there before them, while not even realizing that was what they were doing, forcing its definition to be what they wanted it to be, on pain of death, in describing something that existed long before the creation of religion, as something now against those who invented their deistic fantasies.

So the word "theism" should more accurately be, "Anti-Anti-Theism", as those against those against them. No wonder they're so confused.

The concept of religion and the terms associated with belief systems have evolved over time. The earliest archeological evidence of religious ideas dates back several hundred thousand years, with some interpretations suggesting that intentional burials and symbolic artifacts from the Middle Stone Age in Africa indicate early forms of religious expression.

The term “atheist” however, has its roots in ancient Greek, where it originally meant “godless” or “impious.” It began to be used more actively to describe those who severed relations with the gods or denied their existence in the 5th century BCE. The modern usage of “atheist” to denote someone who denies the existence of gods came into English around the 16th century.

However, before organized religions were formed, there were people who simply lived without a concept of gods or deities, and thus, the term “atheist” would not have applied.

It was only after theism became established that the term “atheist” was used to describe those who did not subscribe to theistic beliefs. This linguistic evolution reflects the complex interplay between belief, language, and society over time. Thus the most accurate term for "theism" is in deed, "anti-anti-theism".

Problems with American Mindworm Religious Faiths

Faith. There is a problem with it. We hadn't seen the problem (though many actually did and at times were literally burned at the stake for it) for thousands of years. But with instant media it is becoming painfully clear. It has even led in part of late to an inability to discern what is and what is not self-evident.

I know I have made a run at this topic in the past, and I may well revisit it again in the future...until I get it right. Here goes....

In epistemology (theory of knowledge), a self-evident proposition is a proposition that is known to be true by understanding its meaning without proof, and/or by ordinary human reason. - Wikipedia

We have apparently lost the ability to see what was once simply self-evident. That has been destroyed on purpose by the American political  right wing. And religion has more than a little to do with it.

There is indeed a problem with religious "faith", with religion, certainly with American Republican thinking and, most assuredly with American conservatism, most especially with extreme conservatism.

On that last, I have always said conservatism is dangerous. To survive one must be progressive. Conservatism wishes to maintain the status quo. But to maintain a status quo counter intuitively requires progress, while attempting to remain the same. Everything around us, including time, moves on either with or without us. To stay the same, one must change. And to change, is to progress.

Faith in our more ancient and ignorant times, when we did not have science or rational explanations for much of reality, served a great purpose. It served a purpose in times of no recourse when facing pain and even death. Without much explanation available for most of what happened in life, it served a valuable purpose to humanity.

It allowed one to be able to continue in blind acceptance of what was believed to be true, of what had to be true. That brought along with it the hope that needs to be, very real for one going through extraordinary trials and tribulations.

If one had faith, if one simply believed something could be done against all odds, that one could be successful and survive to enjoy the benefits of those trials, well? What could be more powerful?

If however one simply looked at the same situation, without religious faith but rather with determination and a focus to achieve above and at all costs, that one could find a way to be successful without calling to a "higher power", that one could somehow be around to enjoy the benefits of those efforts through those trials, even if one had to give up all consideration of surviving in accepting one's potential demise, that one could be successful merely through one's own efforts, then that too would be a very powerful thing.

But that's not as pretty. Not as easy to do. It requires thought, intellect, effort, education, rather than simply ignorance and blind belief. We are at a point now in human evolution when we can achieve these things without beliefs in etheralism.

The argument is that the difference between the two is if you do hit that wall where you lose your faith or lose your desire to continue, to where things have become so difficult as to see no way out to success, religious faith, based on a god, on an afterlife, could conceivably give you that extra boost to continue even after most would have given up. Especially if you throw in things like burning in Hell for all eternity if you give up, especially if giving up could be considered suicide and that requires your damnation.

That is a big part of the whole faith issue. A warning of punishment even after death. Or a kind of capitalistic reward if one acts in the appropriate ways. Ways typically defined by one's religious leaders and not just one's religion.

In ancient times when there were few realistic explanations for so many things, faith was extremely important and powerful and, eminently useful. However nowadays we have a far better understanding of things, and of the universe. We do not need so much faith to carry us over and through fears of demons, of things larger than in life. That we might just continue on even as we might once have perceived our end into the very pits of Hell for our God and our beliefs.

That's all fine and good, but the problem with all this is exactly the kind of things we're seeing today.

It has all been abused. Warped toward self interests and agendas, much as it actually always has been all through time, since the original incorporation of religion. When those who ruled first discovered the power therein and how they could control (and abuse) followers and believers.

This is something I've been saying this for years. Religion, is itself a mind, or a brain "worm".

As a mindworm originally referred to a song or melody that gets stuck in your mind and you cannot stop hearing it. As a song with a certain format can easily lend itself to that condition (think, advertising "jingle" for instance), in being the fruit of a concept that is essentially a mindworm. It is merely something to achieve in the industries of marketing or song writing. To force people to remember a product or the song itself so hopefully consumers will buy it.

As it is also in politics and today in the business of religion, to burn concepts into an electorate's or religious follower's minds, to achieve and maintain power and position for the leaders.

Religion, is itself one of those mindworms and can be used to sway and control. Just as it can be in politics. Just as we're seeing today in the conservative right in politics, which also lends itself to that condition in part because they have been conditioned through centuries of religion to accept concepts they would or should never accept. But because of their conditioning through religion, because of religion's place in humanity, they can find themselves in some very odd conundrums.

Like supporting someone like Donald J. Trump to become president, even to the point of supporting his most insane, ridiculous and damaging behaviors. It is the reason that conservatism, the Republican party and the far political right are so very dysfunctional today as seen by the median of American culture.

In conditioning and having used and abused American Christian Evangelical techniques, conservative politicos have brainwashed their electorate over time to the point that they no longer relate to or recognize reality. It doesn't help, as theists attend churches, that they also attend Fox News in some very similar ways. It has even seeped into the minds of those who would vehemently claim atheist orientations.

They can be some of the worst, because they more so than the other, have a great difficulty in seeing how they got to where they are since they now refuse to admit any religious conditioning at all. Since they are (now) atheists.

Along with conservative politicians diluting facts to the point of having no meaning, calling anyone or thing that disagrees with them as "fake news", always pointing the finger at others for their own behaviors, even having the support of a foreign power (Russian through Putin), we have now today's Republican party and their defective Trump administration. And they can't even see this.

Because of all this, America is no long a democracy but an oligarchy, just as the BBC article details.

This is not, or this should not be how one achieves and maintains power.

Though actually it is a very functional way. Even if morality and ethics dictate that it should never be done. However in a universe now where one believes it is necessary to win at any and all costs, where the ends always justifies the means, where the individuals is more important than all citizens against just one side's electorate, regardless how much damage it creates, it is a very viable tool. It is and always has been an effective authoritarian tool, a primary fascist tool. A tool of the despot, of the dictator, of the elite over the masses who lack any actual control. Except for themselves as a whole.

Therefore they need to be separated and pigeonholed to dilute their power. When that happens it is one of the greatest travesties of democracy and such that all who oppose it (Russia for instance, Putin most especially), cherish it greatly. Because, it works.

And we're seeing this in America, now. Most prominently, by the current Pres. Trump.

A direct line can be traced through religion to conservatism and Evangelism, to American Republicanism, to an American (as well as Russian, through their interventions) Oligarchy.

But let's return to two terms in particular and define "mindworm" in this context and, American evangelicalism.

In Christianity, Evangelism is the commitment to or act of publicly preaching of the Christian Gospel with the intention of spreading the message and teachings of Jesus Christ. - Wikipedia

The issue therein is with modern methodology as developed over time in America. The differences between Education and indoctrination (or brain washing as in cults) can be enigmatic. Education relies heavily upon actual facts, reality, while indoctrination can easily rely mostly on the ends justifying the means, regardless what is being proposed.

It in part depends upon the child evangelism movement, a Christian evangelism movement that originated in the 20th century. It focused on the 4/14 Window which centered on evangelizing children between the ages of 4 and 14 years old. (Wikipedia, referred here to Luis Bush). The Christian music industry has also played a significant role in modern evangelism, as well as of late, their growing film industry. There are sure to be others to follow as one succeeds and supplies money to other newer endeavors.

This necessarily needs us to refer to "Deprogramming  which refers to measures that claim to assist a person who holds a controversial belief system in changing those beliefs and abandon their allegiance to the religious, political, economic, or social group associated with the belief system. - Wikipedia

We do not have deprogramming in politics. But we need to.

Though there is no realistic way to treat the disaffected individuals and groups. To rectify it requires education (also to inoculate them in the first place). Education is something the conservative right and Republicans in general have continually defunded and attempted to support instead, "charter schools" and "home schooling" to allow their mindworm beliefs to be perpetuated untampered with by reality or more rational and reasonable outside forces (such as the Federal government). This has led to our current somewhat to completely bizarre politics and beliefs, as well as the rise of entities such as Fox News, today as we know them.

The bible proclaims:

"You are the salt of the earth...the light of the world...Go therefore and make disciples of all nations." Matthew 5:13-14; 28:19

In "A Social Psychology of Evangelism" by David G. Meyers and Charles W. Green, they begin by referring to the Principle Three: attitudes follow behavior. Also, "attitude inoculation" which basically is a method to inoculate their beliefs against all rational onslaughts.

That is, to be able to withstand all reality and rationality against one's own personal or group's or tribe's beliefs, regardless how ridiculous they are or how contrary they are to reality in general or even specifically.

Along with those are the others:
Principle Four: credible and attractive communicators have more impact.

Principle Five: personal persuasion is more effective than media persuasion.

Principle Six: ineffective appeals can be worse than none at all.

Principle Seven: vivid, concerte examples are more potent than abstract information.

Principle Eight: messages that relate to what people know or have experienced are better remembered.

Principle Nine: spaced repetition aids memory.

Principle Ten: active processing boosts persuasion. 

Principle Eleven: group discussion generally strengthens shared convictions. 

"For evangelism this faith-follows-action principle implies the desirability of creating opportunities for people to enact their uncertain beliefs, thereby confirming and strengthening their Christian identity. Bill Graham recognizes this when asking people to enact a public commitment of their newfunds faith: "Now I'm going to ask you to get up out of your seat." From the paper by Meyers and Green.

William Strunk and E.B. White asserted in their classic: The Elements of Style, "If those who have studied the art of writing are in accord on any one point, it is on this: the surest way to arouse and hold the attention of the reader is by being specific, definite, and concrete." 

The problem in attempting to counter this behavior by the disingenuous, is in maintaining an adherence to the truth. To be honest and forthright, one cannot know everything, or enough far too much of the time. The evangelical politico (at times even the religious version) will be specific, definite, concrete and self-assured, regardless.

Because it is imperative to win. To win at all costs. Reality and logic dictate that much of the time (certainly for most of us) we simply cannot know everything and in being honest about that, we can lose the battle against an evangelical type.

Which is something I learned decades ago. Beware anyone or group who seems to have all the answers. No one, has all the answers and if they seem to, something is wrong. Anyone may have all the answers for a short time, until knowledge runs out. But if it continues beyond a reasonable point, beware. In certain situations, even consider running for the door. Escape! 

It is the same old situation. Good is weaker in some ways because of rules and laws and honesty. Evil can do anything to win. We have seen this in America against the closed societies of the old Soviets and Communist Chinese. 

While America is open, published things openly, all the spying America's enemies had to do much of the time was to buy a magazine, a journal, or frequent a library. Or simply ask someone. While in their societies, merely asking the wrong question can get you in trouble. 

We see this kind of behavior with the Trump administration in being specific about things we know are fully unknown, while the counter is difficult except to admit ignorance and to point out that the President is obfuscating, conflating, and lying.

To return to the indoctrination of children. That is how the mindworm comes to be in Christianity, religion in general and American Evangelism. Get them young. Get and keep them ignorant. Steel them against reality. Follow, at all costs. Believe that "faith" is the end all be all to life. Never leave the "faith" for reality, or "earthly" beliefs (or pleasures, thus denying believers of much of what is wonderful about the human experience, not even in considering the extreme elements). Some organizations (not religion) like Scientology are very much like that. And scary, it is for they have ruined lives. Just as we have seen from the Republican party and their abuses of ethnic minorities and women's rights. 

This, is the reason religion is a mindworm. It is insidious to be able to remove it once it has wrapped its slimy body around a pristine mind. 

Through a history of religion, of following, of evangelical actions by conservative politicos, in using what the Soviets learned decades ago works very well on human beings to take control through these mindworm techniques, we see it also today in American Right Wing politics, in the conservative right of the Republican party, and in the alt-right movement of American fascism. But they don't see themselves in that light because after all, they are the "good people". 

Something they cannot see clearly as wrong because it all agrees with their more base inner desires. That of self-aggrandizement and selfish reward hidden within the guise of claims of helping others. 

It is also why someone like Donald Trump is so appealing to them. He makes it all look good and best for them and if for them in their delusional state, then of course it's for everyone. 

Oddly enough, Pres. Trump himself is a kind of mindworm. As seen in this depiction of the original science fiction story from 1950 by author, Cyril M. Kornbluth (from Wikipedia):

"The Mindworm" is a short story by science fiction author Cyril M. Kornbluth, first published in 1950. It combines the themes of mutant power, telepathy and ancient superstition.

The protagonist, the Mindworm of the title, is an orphan, the result of a liaison between a U.S. Navy lieutenant and a nurse aboard ship during viewing of early atomic tests. He is a mutant, as a result of the atomic fallout after the testing, and he can "hear" the thoughts of others around him.

Cast out into the world as a young adult, he is about to be gang raped by hoboes when he discovers an ability to feed off strong emotions, killing one of his assailants in the process. He uses this to eliminate the rest of his attackers. He moves from town to town, eavesdropping on the thoughts of people around him, and using his abilities to induce the intense emotion he craves, and to gain material wealth. The thoughts he hears often represent a brutal side of America, as he hears the large and small cruelties people inflict on each other, ranging from family quarrels to beatings carried out in dark alleyways.

He can hear thoughts in other languages, though he cannot understand them. As he moves into communities where new Eastern European immigrants have congregated, he starts hearing the term "wompyear". Just as he realizes that this is their pronunciation of the word "vampire" and they have recognized him, his neighbors burst in and kill him.

In conclusion, it is my contention in all this to be specific, definite and concrete...do not rely on religious faith. Rely on reality. Rely on education. Rely on science and truth. Even and most especially if and when it disagrees with your beliefs. That doesn't mean blindly follow science. If it disagrees with you, review the facts. The actual facts. Research until you can clearly see what the truth is, and then, stick to it. Until a better version comes along. Don't stick to outdated and misguided beliefs. That sit he road to madness and harming humanity. 

Initially it is harder to do. I'll admit that. It takes practice and more mind\brain power. Whic is why so many avoid it. It's easier not to think things out, especially if you are uneducated, or do not have a clear and logical mind. But in the end we will all be much better off for it.

And just as important if not more so, we will all be able to agree on what reality actually is. 

There is an odd twisted parallel between certainly the christian religious and American conservative politics. Where God has been replaced by oligarchs and profit. Where following God is following financial and political (because of financial) leaders. Where what is good for us (really for them) is good at all costs. Where we believe through faith what our beliefs are regardless of all reality countering those beliefs.

It is easy for those of us on the outside of American conservative politics to see. One merely needs to point it out. It is after all, quite...self-evident. For those of us who still know what that means, anyway.

However it is nearly impossible for those inculcated into it, for it ever to change for them and therefore, for us all, because of them.

And that, is most definitely a problem. 

Atheism Doesn't Really Exist

This, on Real Time with Bill Maher, between Aussie comedian Jeff Jeffries and Pierce Morgan...was just so funny. Real, but serious.

I agree with Jeffries on another topic. There shouldn't be a need for the term, atheist. It seems to be a term created by theists, by the religious, to describe those who see things differently. A viewpoint that once could get your hung, burned at the stake or killed on the spot. Which explains off much of what theists claim about how one everyone believed in God. They didn't. You just didn't bring it up and expect to have good things come, or anything ever again if you were simply murdered by others or the State.

atheist (n.) Look up atheist at Dictionary.com

1570s, "godless person, one who denies the existence of a supreme, intelligent being to whom moral obligation is due," from French athéiste (16c.), from Greek atheos "without god, denying the gods; abandoned of the gods; godless, ungodly," from a- "without" (see a- (3)) + theos "a god" (see theo-).

The existence of a world without God seems to me less absurd than the presence of a God, existing in all his perfection, creating an imperfect man in order to make him run the risk of Hell. [Armand Salacrou, "Certitudes et incertitudes," 1943]

I've blogged about this before in detail. Though I'd also argue "atheist" is not actually a term defining a disbelief in God per se, but in the definitions of a belief in a Supreme Being. What Freemasons call the Grand Architect (G.A.O.T.U., the Grand Architect of the Universe).

Possibly the God as portrayed by organized religions, but without the nonsense attributed from organized and confused religions as creatively manufactured by human societies and lost individuals who were not infrequently either on drugs or simply had mental problems. Or as in the case of Mormon's Joseph Smith, simply a conman gone seriously wrong once he found the paradise of people easily beleiving anything he said if he just invoked the concept of a God.

Like I indicated, I've previously written extensively on this.

Atheism has been generally defined as a disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or Gods.

Define God then. Yeah, exactly. Best of luck. Let's give it a shot though.

God:

1. (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.

synonyms: the Lord, the Almighty, the Creator, the Maker, the Godhead; More
2. (in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.

So, it IS God as defined by religion.

Which is what atheists object to. Though many don't realize that themselves. They think it is a God in any sense. But when you consider other definitions outside of the binary sense one gets in religions, you then get into something very interesting.

When you consider reality over fantasy and "revealed" religions such as the Middle Eastern desert region's religions of Judaism, Catholicism \ Christianity, and Islam, it offers an entirely different view on things as referred to in this article.

Good luck if you can see what I'm saying there, but that actually is an example.

And pleaseeee don't waste my time with things like, it's just as fantastical as religion.

Because it's not. It is at least based on some thing. Like logic, proven or soundly plotted elements and concepts. And yes, that actually is a far cry as opposed to being basically founded on fiction, word of mouth historical teachings, and various forms of literature. It's the difference between saying that I got to town by walking, one foot in front of the other, as opposed to say, Mohammed making it clear across the countryside in a night. 666 miles. That number sound familiar?

"God ordered Muhammad and the Islamic faithful to pray 50 times a day, and after returning to ask again, Muhammad had the number reduced to ten, then five. Upon returning from Paradise, Muhammad came back to Mecca, where he described his journey to his followers. Muhammad described Jerusalem to Abu Bakr, who had been there, and he agreed that the description was accurate."

Right. He negotiated with God, from 50 to 5? Negotiated. With God. You're buying this.

Okay then.

He traveled 666 nautical miles in a single night, back then?

No, he didn't. Cutting to the chase, yes, science is founded in some thing more real. Far more so.

Still, enjoy your beliefs. If you do insist on that, then you may find this old blog of mine interesting.

It should be a free country. It should be a free world. Just don't shove your beliefs down the throats of so many others who have a vastly different and more founded take on reality.

OK?

The End is Nigh... But Not How You Might Think

What is the first stage of religious freedom?

No, ot freedom to worship your religions of choice.
No, not freedom to have many religions in a country.
But true religious freedom.
Free of religious thought, constraints and diatribe.

We have here in the United States of America seen an upswing in mostly Christians openly speaking out (other religions are probably afraid to speak out because of them) about their religion. In some cases they demand to be given total freedom in this country for their religion in order to spread the "Word" to everyone, through government and therefore down onto the heads of the people. Believers and unbelievers alike.

Why? Why is this happening?

First off, some people have tried reading the Bible. And became atheists.

The religious, that is theists, have had to live in shame for a long time. Good people just didn't share their religion outside of their home, their tribe, their church, their religion. Back in the 1970s however we started to hear from these people about the word of Jesus Christ. And that opened a flood gate. People began to realize that this was indeed, America. We have freedom here, and the first amendment.

The protests of the 1960s were still fresh in people's minds. Evangelical churches started to get bigger eventually becoming mega churches. Because it enriched their leaders. Some of those who went to prison because of it. Most of them got carried away with it and their rock star status. That even led to some of those leaders enjoying buying sex with their profits.

America

Freedom of Speech.
Freedom to pursue happiness.
Freedom of religion.

That last one has turned into a killer, as we've seen of late. People began to lose their shame about speaking out. The internet increased that euphoria and if there's one thing theists know, it's how to exploit euphoria in their chosen beliefs.

Religion loves putting shame upon people. Like in the Catholic Church with its concept of "Original Sin" that you are born born with. A sin that was passed down from Adam and Eve. Because Eve ate a piece of fruit and talked Adam into it.

The creation of "confession" in the Middle Ages (AKA, the Dark Ages) allowed some priests an amazing amounts of power and leeway in their potential for blackmail of prominent citizens. That is, the ability to "convince" people of doing their bidding, "for the Lord."

You are therefore born losing and so are beholding to the Church to save you. You have to be brought into the Church as an infant through baptism, thus washing away your "sin" and avoiding ending up in at very least, Limbo. Pretty ridiculous. But it begins "The Shaming".

Once you realize that isn't a concern, then you can speak outwardly and openly.

The trouble is that once you begin to lose your shame, you also begin the long journey of losing your religion. So the 1960s for many was the beginning of the end. Though it really began long before that. This was just its coming out in public, openly, therein laying the foundation for the public origin of the reason of what we're seeing today.

Intelligence, education, even the Internet, are all antithetical to religion. Religion teaches to not think too much about its teachings or else it quickly evaporates in a puff of logic.

Religion has to reward ignorance.

So here we are today with new a generation, a new population of religious ignorants and emboldened shameless people.

It is the beginning of the end of religion but, they cannot see this... yet.

Go out into the wild and fatally wound a wild animal. Let it lay there in pain as it dies. Then try walking up to it and poke its wound.

Would you do that? No? Why not? Because it would be dangerous? Because it is dying, in pain and in its death throes? Because it is using all its power in a binary all or nothing attempt to protect itself at all costs? Yes, quite so.

We see this in many of the religious and religions today. We are seeing the spiritual death throes of many of the religious and many of their religions. It is merely matter of time now that will disintegrate in a serious of half lifes, like with radioactive decay.

Some are dying slower than others, some are younger than others and so will have further to go before they fall. So they will seemingly be around forever, and yet they will be zombie religions. Much as it is now with many, who believe but do nothing about it.

It is happening now all around us.

Religious death cults are not helping things much, in groups like ISIS and other Islamic based death Jihadi type groups. Although all the desert Abrahamic religions are really death oriented and capitalistic in nature. You receive your "just rewards" after death in going to heaven. You receive more of something in death for something lesser in life and so isn't death rather attractive? Proximity to the Lord in Heaven, or 72 virgins, or whatever.

Islamic extremist Jihadis have certainly keyed into that one.

Christian right wing types and apocalyptic versions of religions are looking all the time more the fool to mature rational people. They exemplify the worst religion has to offer and in their actions showcase their ignorance and even that of others who normally are more rational, albeit still religious creatures. Most use it as a method for what they could do with other forms of thought but find beauty in ancient religions. So it's an aesthetic choice.

Still the first signs are in seeing their lack of shame in public, and their inability to any longer be humble. To maintain one's religion in a private belief should require no support from others. It should require no one other than those in one's chosen religion in order to maintain or alter their lifestyles because of their beliefs.

And yet, we are seeing that happening just about everywhere. It will pass, though with time.We are seeing the adolescent phase of religious belief as humanity grows beyond the need for religion as a race of beings. So far we have advanced through paganism, Polytheism, into monotheism and finally in the closing chapter, we will see the advent of atheism spreading far and wide to be replaced by rationality, science and reason.

We see it now in religions in people being of their religion identifying with it (frequently out of fear to do otherwise) while not actively practicing their faith. A good sign that they treat it lightly. Then they get upset when called out about it, as they fear being outed. But to whom? God? Others? Society in general so they have to admit the demise of their beliefs?

What is sad and curious is we began with atheism. Before we even knew what we were doing we had fallen into giving ourselves over to fantastic explanations of the mundane, what really required only simple scientific explanations for and that we did not have, yet.

It is as if we decided to take a boat out from a lakeside dock we are standing on. We decide through new beliefs presented to us, to walk all around the lake first, only then we find our way to other lakes, as more people show up and convince us they are the ones with the magic. Until finally we arrive right back to what had been directly in front of us to being with. That which was in fact originally right under our feet, all along.

Well, at least we're finally getting there.

We just need to continue for the time being to help others along. Those who are still struggling with finding that dock. While there are many fishermen already out on the lake enjoying themselves and having far less trouble existing than the many, than those who are simply lost and continuing to think they have to find some magic element in life.

Even though it is right there before them.

It is and has been, as the Buddha said, always right there before you and within you. You have merely to see it, to recognize it. It's no magic elixir, no magic fix, no ghost in the sky. It's you. You just have to not be so scared that you cannot see it there, right there before you.

Don't worry. We'll get there.

As long as we don't destroy ourselves over literally nothing along the way.

I do care... just maybe not about you

'Screw them, we have champagne': Charlie Hebdo replies to Paris attacks

And, "Le Petite Merde", the ISIL minimind, born Abdelhamid Abaaoud 

has now been blown to bits by his own idiot female cousin during a raid by French police.

Cheers!

We shall not miss you slimy one.

Now....

Who don't I care about?

I don't care. If you are heartless, if you are a terrorist, if you are a bigot.

I don't care that you're offended.

I don't care that you feel there is a make believe war against
you, or your holidays, or religion, or your religion.
I respect a person's right to a belief, not a right to a stupid or hurtful belief.

I don't care what you think if you are talking nonsense 
that your favorite nutcases have dreamed up.

I don't care that you think your God or religion says you can hurt people or kill them. 
That's some God you've dreamed up.

I care about real people, really being hurt.

I care about real pain and real suffering,
not perceived pain and not perceived suffering.

I care about the poor who have no money for food or healthcare. 

I don't care about the rich who are sad they will have less money
just for others to have something at all,
when it will not affect those rich at all in any real substantive way.

I care about reality. 

I care about people who deserve my concern.

Not your luxuries in life when others don't have because you do.
Not when others are dying because of your God,
or your buddies who like to kill and enjoy the benefits
of power over others who are not of your
clan, cult, tribe or nonsense belief system.

So I guess I do care.
I just don't much care about you.

You know I've posted about this before, what it is to exhibit heroism. I shrink myself from the thought of my local community areas being attacked, loved ones dying becuase of terrorists.

But you have to stand up as a human being sometimes even when you don't want to, even when you are afraid, WHEN YOU HAVE REASON TO BE AFRAID. So many of late are afraid for little or no reasons, making up fears, fears unfounded.

Courage is being terrified in the face of terror and still functioning, still doing what needs to be done and not just thinking of yourself.

We all experience cowardice and heroism from time to time and those who experience heroism at certain moments in life do, act and infrequently are viewed and praised for doing such great things.

It is in those moments when we become greater than we are.

Isolationism, rejecting a chance to stand up and face down evil, to give refuge to those in need, these are those moments of heroism, moments that are gifts where we can be allowed to be more than we are.

Decide what you are, who you are, what you want to be, how you want to be seen by others, and in the future by yourself.

Cower safely in a dark corner.
Or stand forth bravely among all of humanity.

Be seen as a coward among citizens.
Or a cowardly nation among nations.

It is your choice as an individual,.
Our choice as a nation.
And now is the time to make it.

A tiny footnote: I am pleased to note that the international media has stopped calling Le Petit Merde, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Paris attack "mastermind" and instead now refers to him as the ringleader. A term that evokes a circus, a far more appropriate one, as mastermind infers some kind of exalted status, rather than that of one who merely coordinated something. 

He is someone who every time I refer to him I have to look up his name yet again. because he is already being forgotten, already barely a footnote in history.

Phenomenology of That Good Old Religion Feeling

Religion. People say things like, "I couldn't have made it this far without Jesus in my life." Or, Allah, or God, or whatever flavor you subscribe to.

So what is it that's going on there? Must be something right?

Well, yes. And, no.

Before I go on let me say one thing...

Religion was humankind's first form of government. It evolved in order to buffer life for us. To slow down reality. When you lose someone you love, it's intense, it's powerful, it's damaging to the point of killing you, nearly if not completely. Religion in its rituals, its explanations, slows down the impact of reality to the point that it can be accepted and moved through. It then evolved to the point of giving answers, wrong as they tend to me, pleasant sometimes as they tend to be, but also, horrific as they can tend to me.

From religion evolved government. Out of immediate needs that religion failed to succeed in accomplishing. A secular form of religion, also slow but faster than religion out of necessity. Even in a theocracy, there are the secular parts of government where religion simply cannot function, or at least, does not function in human society and it needs something more, or less, depending on how you view it.

Religion offers us a way to have love in our lives, without anyone to have to have our continued support and effort in being sure they will love us back, always, and unconditionally.

Like having a dog. Only your dog can run away, get hit by a car, shot by someone, be stolen by your ex, or simply die of old age. Or worse, get rabies and bite you, or turn on you, or accidentally kill your other pet, or child even. Things, can go wrong.

But with religion, or God, he never disappoints you, he's always the same, always there, wherever you are, even if you are totally and permanently isolated from people, god can always be there with you.

Except, he's not there. No one is. Just you, your mind, and the complexities there in. The multiplicity of our mind that are similar in ways to multiple people, many and varied aspects of yourself, the ability to have discrete modules of mind within your mind, as in subroutines running autonomously.

Because we have that system always running. Our autonomic processes. Breathing for instance. We can ignore it and it works, or we can consciously control it and it works.

We have the capability for the appearance of there being others within our mind. When it gets unbalanced or out of control, you find people "splitting" or seemingly having multiple personalities. Or god.

There is really nothing amazing about this, No more amazing than the computer that runs your car as a process goes. The capability is there, so it works.

And so you can feel the "love" of "god" in your life, and it energizes you. Much like masturbation, only this is mental masturbation for the purposes of feeling "agape love" and not sexual love. Love that can always be there if you have "faith" that it will be, and can never be destroyed, if you do not sully it and keep it pure in your mind.

Add in a lot of romantic talk about heart and spirit and apply some rules, get a bunch of people to agree about it, and you have a religion.

Amazing? Right?

No, not right at all. It's all in our nature as human beings. It has to do with how we developed since before we were a species. Herd mentality if you like or social and communal dynamics as we are a social animal. Take an animal like that and over 100,000s of years you have something quite like... us.

The trouble is, we've yet to evolve that far mentally and still hold onto beliefs from ancient times. Continuity is good, but adherence to what is ancient history is bad. Tradition is good, but building new traditions as they make sense, allowing them to evolve, is better. And the one thing religion has always tried to do was maintain the ancient, even archaic, status quo, evolving only covertly whenever possible.

But today we have social media and that has changed, everything .

So some religions are openly changing. Some have had standards practices for that. Still some try not to change at all. And we as a species need change. We also need to be slow in some ways to change and so religion offered us that  through history. It did a lot of good, but in ways that would have been better had we not needed or used religion.

All the things that religion offers us, we can get in other ways, if properly educated and raised to be strong enough to sustain our personality and life and that of our loved ones,

Some of the things are communal in nature. The things a love of god gives one, can be achieved in other ways, but the communal part of a group getting together who are so focused (under fear or owe of a god) on one thing and each other under that umbrella of belief, is special, however disingenuous it may be in reality.

I'd argue that it would be best to deal with reality rather than religion with its rules that fail us far too often. The rigidness and lack of insight to change that science requires and is typically anathema to religion. But we need that as a species as life becomes more and ever increasingly complex.

Religion, just makes some people feel good. It's nice to think that a parent is always watching over you and protecting you. Total nonsense but it's got a warm and fuzzy feel to it.

The thing is, when it comes down to it, we need to be reality based. Humans have an inherent need to buffer reality and I question if we can survive without buffers and filters or the world can be overwhelming. When it does get overwhelming what do we do, what happens to us?

When we feel too unloved, or rejected (remember, follow god's rules and he will never turn his back on you, even when he throws a tornado, a deadly disease, or a pick up truck at you), god is there. Right?

When we don't have that, and we have that emptiness gnawing at our minds, we turn to drink, drugs, extreme behaviors or death. Trouble is, you can fill that emptiness in the understanding that reality exists, and that we are all essentially alone. But that is okay.

There are ways of thinking as in Buddhism, certain aspects of it anyway, that gives you ways of facing reality head on, while having no illusions about magical beings. The magic you see is within each of us, in what we can do, in what we end up doing, in what we can achieve above and beyond what people consider possible. But it is. If we do it, it's possible.

And we have us to thank for it. Trouble with that is some people get too full of themselves and become bad people. If you have a god to thank for it, and not you, then you can humble yourself. But why not just have the mindset to begin with, to be humble. How many popes for instance, heading the Catholic church over it's history had no humbleness in them at all, while they professed a total subservience to god. What they also had was power, power over the believers below them.

So you can see the interplay between the human psyche, and religion and the god concept.

It bends and weaves in and out of one another so after a few thousand years, it all seems pretty real and reasonable. And yet, it's not.

Religion is a mind worm. Just as a virus in a computer system can be very hard to eliminate, so it is with humanity and religion. It has been there to fill a need, to serve a purpose. Frequently a purpose greater than any individual or group. But it has served its purpose and now it is time to move along and be adults.

Instead of claiming there is not better way, when there really is, we should be finding those better ways. And why doesn't that just happen? Plainly put? Because people don't' want it to, because we are also mentally lazy in some ways. We hug the status quo because that works and has proven to, even if it is defective in how it works.

Just as Jesus showed up to say hey, this is defective, there is a better way, how do we now stand up and say hey, this is all defective, and there is a better way? Especially when no one wants to believe it, and the religions teach from childhood, to have faith and ignore what makes you no longer believe.

Pretty clever right? Kind of like what a con man might say. "Believe in me, cuz, we'll just do it, it's to my benefit and kind of yours, though there are better ways."

Religion works, like a bicycle works to get you across town. But when  you need to get to the bottom of an ocean, or another planet, it's only kind of functional in that maybe, it can get you to work, but then it can in no way, get you to the bottom of the ocean or another planet.

Time will prove this is true. Because like it or not, humankind is evolving and growing more intelligent and sooner or later, this will all be proved to be correct and religion and the god model will fade into existence, with only fits and jerks of tiny sporadic groups popping up from time to time in thinking that maybe it is a better way, or maybe our predecessors didn't get it right and we can now do it better.

But, we can't. It won't be made better. It's simply not the most functional, productive path possible.

Yes, it's gotten us to amazing places, when those stories are told in hindsight. But so many of those stories leave out things like the business reasons things happened, or the familial things, the bonds between humans that pulled people through tough times in really, no god anywhere had a thing to do with it.

People did. We did. And we will continue to. Just as we have since the first version of us crawled from out of the primordial slime itself.

Religion is really all about two things: character, and community. The third imaginary part is the god concept. Which is completely unnecessary other than as a guiding enforcer to assure proper character and community in people and groups.

Consider a book by David Brooks, The Road to Character. From Amazon: "Blending psychology, politics, spirituality, and confessional, The Road to Character provides an opportunity for us to rethink our priorities, and strive to build rich inner lives marked by humility and moral depth. “Joy,” David Brooks writes, “is a byproduct experienced by people who are aiming for something else. But it comes.”

We can do this, build character, in other ways that religion. Spiritual is a consideration of self, in ways other than physical. We have consistently misperceived what that is all about by placing arbitrary rules on ourselves and others, invented magical beings to explain what we do not understand at the time and then pressure others and our descendants to follow those beliefs, and steep ethereal considerations upon our lives because of the echo chamber of our inner selves, where it is merely our experiencing the process of how our brain works, how our mind (mis)perceives (at times) through our senses and how we conceive of what that data means or should mean.

Just as god supposedly created everything, like humans, whose make up is amazing, but also haphazard and dysfunctional in many ways, which is inexplicable if these bodies were created by god, and yet, fully explainable and understandable if created through evolution; so existing without a god concept, is even more functional.

The only issue is assuring people do and be how they need to be, something handled in religion through divine enforcement, assuring that people evolve into being good (something religion has failed on many times by the way).

Dumping that theory and going with reality allows us to be functional without a need for all the gods in the world, all the rules and religions that fail sooner or later in various circumstances and have led people to divine hatred of others which we've seen in christianity involving gays, women's rights issues, despising the different or other races as with the white purity movement, or Islam where some in that desert religion demands total adherence to god's laws and murder is the rule of the day if you fail, as humans do.

We need to remove the power in religion so people do not have these fallacious beliefs to use in support of their bad behaviors. They believe they are living god's form of character and group behavior in themselves with is fully ridiculous and counter productive.

A reporter recently went into the ISIS controlled areas and said he'd never seen people so brainwashed before, it was amazing. That, is what religion can do when mishandled. People need to understand what they are playing with in delving deeply into religion and god concept faith based models. It may go fine when handled well, but it can also go very, very wrong as has happened with Islamic terrorism in recent times and  certainly other examples like the crusades, The Inquisition, and so on.

A mind worm is a mind worm and with certain constraints it can be deadly and a real threat to a race of beings.

Isn't it better to remove the threat, inject reality, and move forward to evolve in ways that would be more productive, lead to faster changes and greater advances based in humane concepts and not those that a race of beings has decided would be an all powerful being's desires for that race?

I think so, I really, really think so.

CNN special report, Atheism: Inside the World of Non-Believers

Last night I watched the CNN special report, Atheism: Inside the World of Non-Believers.

It makes me wonder, considering what some religious people think, such as the parents who see their son as dead since he turned his back on their beliefs.

Would they rather their child come out gay, or atheist?
Murderer or atheist?
Convert to an opposing religion, or atheist?

At what point does it all not make any sense any longer to them?

There were a few important things missed in the report but we should recognize however that people may have addressed some of those points, but between the editor and the producers, those points may not have made it into the final product.

"In God we trust" was only added recently to money and pledges and such. This is not news, only to theists and politicians who don't want to admit it. It's a huge point they failed to make, however. But they may have been theists who produced the show, in which case I'd say, good job overall, really. Because it could have been a travesty. Instead, it was actually not too bad, considering. 

I'm sure that it inflamed and hopefully enlightened a few hard core theists.

I don't have a problem with people having "church" format atheist gatherings or meetings without god. Some people just need that community thing and it may be good actually. It does however taste slightly like vegetarians who like faux turkey, which makes little sense to me in some ways and yet, perfect sense to those who indulge. 

Whatever it takes I guess to not eat meat, or avoid true religion.

Obversely, it's like atheists who play at religion without involving god in it. Baby steps, perhaps.

I have always had trouble with hard core atheists, the militant ones but then those who come out and deal with the backlash against them and their beliefs, perhaps, have to be that way, as original hard core feminists were in the early days of that movement. 

I see no need for it now however, as it only serves to alienate theists even more than they already are and can be counterproductive, as I've argued in the past about the FemiNazis types, including even those who might wish to ditch their theism.

It was an interesting show and pleasing to hear now about those 500 religious leaders (and growing) in religion who have a support group in actually being non-believers (baby steps again) but remaining leaders in their churches. Amazing. 

The reporter in the show says that atheists could be uncomfortable learning about religion or studying it. When in reality I've generally known more about religion than 99% of the theists I've come into contact with and I've seen and heard the same from other atheists.

On that note of calling oneself an atheist. I usually don't because as they indicate in the show, there is so much baggage associated with it. But that's not the reason I don't call myself one. As I see it, we evolved from lower forms of life as science has shown us and religion has not. In the beginning there was no god or religion, that came after we had brains the size that were able to handle the concept of magical thinking, and it explained things to us we did not understand.

Religion has been a placeholder, merely waiting for science to arrive on the scene to take over. Just as children need fairy tales to help them understand concepts before they are sophisticated enough to understand the larger concepts of good and evil. In that vein, I see religion as coming second and therefore I'm not an "atheist" as someone against something that was there first, but in reality religion came second and therefore is against "atheism" if you see what I'm saying.

So the correct term for "theist" should actually be, in our current lexicon, "a-atheist", as one who is against atheism. More accurately, the term for theists should be, "anti-atheist" since first there was no god (no belief in god if you prefer though it is somewhat disingenuous) and then only later did we develop beyond belief in demons, dangers and spirits in the dark, evolving THEM into a set of rules and therefore religion, and so you have theism. 

Hindus worshiping monkey god

So called, "atheists" came first people, so sorry to disenfranchise you of your long held belief that first there was god. First, there was not god, in reality. When we were just monkeys, sitting in a tree at night, staring fearful into the dark that we knew could reach out any second and snatch us and eat us, we evolved theism. Later it simply came from that. 

Aberration of multiple sets of nipples, why?

Generations and generations of having seen our loved ones who fell off a tree at night and were snatched away by an evil demon (a tiger, or lion or jackal or whathaveyou which we couldn't see) and therefore because evil. Why else do you think some people are born with tails, or multiple sets of nipples? We were once as a species, not as we are now, because of, evolution.

Not to mention how come so many of the stories in holy texts are also seen in previous civilizations predating Rome, or Egypt even?

Our forms of thinking and beliefs also evolved. 

So actually you see (hang on), god came second. The devil (satan, old scratch, whatever you want to call him), actually came first. The good magic came as a way to buffer our fears and counter our demons. From that we started to build rules, and from that we got various sects divided by geographical structures (mountains, bodies of water, etc.). 

The thing is, we are now grown up enough we don't need a crutch like religion. Or, we shouldn't. Though as much as religion is about in the world, obviously we need something. So having "church" without god, is a good direction to go. Though it scares the hell out of people. Because this is so deep seated within us.

It always cracks me up to hear a theist say, but if you're dying in a fox hole, etc., etc., when it just shows how clueless they really are and how much they don't get it. Atheists don't turn to god when dying in a fox hole, agnostics do. Atheists don't because they know there is nothing there. Does it make you feel good? Possibly, but you know in your heart it's a wasted thing and merely something that comes up out of your from your early childhood upbringing.

The fundamental fear of god built into us from childhood and through thousands of generations, if deeply seated, but it's not proof of anything, other than inherited mysticism and beliefs in magical thinking coming from our darker, less enlightened times.

The fact that atheists are the outliers in society (in America) means they are a temperature gauge for the maturity of our race and our nation. 

It's definitely gotten better since I was a kid, but there's still a long way to go. Religion, believe it or not, is on the way out and good riddance to it. It was helpful, but like a bad relationship lasting far beyond it's shelf life, it's exceeded the need to exist other than as an oddity or a way for us to evolve it yet again into what makes the most sense at this stage in our development as a species.

Yes, yes religion has done good, but good that can be done without it. That is always the cry of theists. "Look at all the good religion does." Yes, but how about we do it without religion? Why is that so impossible when it is regularly done all around the world and people just choose to ignore that reality.

Yes bad is also done in the name of no god, but far, far, more bad actually is done in the name of God. Remember the Crusades, ISIS? And don't get all squirmy about ISIS, no it's not Islam doing it, but yes, it is their excuse for it all. What if that didn't exist? Would there initially have been such reticence at removing them sooner?

Not god, religion, people's fears and beliefs

Again, remember all the wars, torture, and abuse done in the name of god. Where both sides thought "god" was on their side and they were on the just and right side of things. What were those things? Ideals, really. Just, ideals. Philosophy with magical beings sprinkled among them.  

When you remove all that, what is left? Bigotry? Elitism? Control? Power? Abuse? Time to let your childhood go and look forward to the scary realm of adulthood as a race of beings who are finally ready to take their place among the adults.

Again, here is a way to see this show now... CNN Special on Atheism

And I'll just drop this here... The Spread of Disbelief in the Arab World.
Who saw that one coming, right?

Our best example for handling God Myths is actually.... Santa Claus

Someone brought up a good point the other day about God. He's about as useful as, Santa Claus.

It made me think about my kids when they were younger. I used to do it up, kids put out cookies and milk, a note to Santa and went to bed. I'd eat the cookies, drink the milk, leave them a thank you note from Santa.

My son, when he was in 4th grade, told me he doesn't believe in Santa. I was both proud and sad for him. I tried to hold up the pretense but he gave me an analytic breakdown of how Santa simply can't be real, how I was Santa, and what I had been doing to prolong that myth. I was surprised but also pleased and impressed with his critical thinking skills.

I didn't agree so much as point out the facts.

IF you "believe" in Santa, you get more gifts. If you don't, well....

He refused to buy any of it. Finally, I said "Well look, I choose to believe in Santa because I like the idea, it's fun, harmless, and in the end, I like receiving more gifts. But you're welcome to act as you see fit. HOWEVER, you DO NOT tell your little sister. Got it?"

As for his younger sister, she went through a period of going to church in her teens, one she chose. One that unnerved her mother but that I figured she would soon outgrow, was for purposes more of its social aspects and about something she wasn't getting at home (as we were then divorced) than any true belief in "God", and so she did and eventually came to realize religion is all exactly about what is is.

Then I tried to explain how it helps to build the idea of wonder in life, of magic in the world and I believe those who don't have that understanding of the concept of magic in the world as adults, simply lose out on much of what is wonderful in life. There IS magic in the world. It's just not, "magic",per se.

So he dropped it. But he made it clear from then on he really didn't believe in Santa and so we kind of worked it out in that way. He does have a strong fascination for magic now as an adult, however.

All this made me think about religion and the "God" concept, in general.

There may be some things that are positive about it existing, though it could also be handled in a more safe and sane way through other means. But belief in "God" should also end at some point, just as Santa is useful for a time, and then should simply be let go, with a fond farewell and a move into adulthood and more mature and informed ways of thinking.

Environmentally, the God concept comes from our parents when we are very young as they are our first Gods. Genetically, our beliefs in the "Other", the "Greater" that which is all powerful and exists "out there", comes from a time that predates our humanity.

We can and I think we should, extend and buffer life for our children through parts of their young childhood, allowing them to experience magic in life.

But if we do, at some point, it should end and we should offer them more useful, productive, and more sophisticated forms.

I'm not saying we should raise our kids with "God" beliefs, but even if we did, it really should come to a conclusion at some point before they become adults. They should be led, coached, educated to have that realization come upon them naturally, organically, as it did with myself and my children.

Religion for most of us, for those who continue to believe, one of those odd animals wherein we do grow up, we do realize the silliness of it all, but then through the concept of "faith" we allow ourselves to continue to believe in what we know in our hearts is utter nonsense, but as it allows us a structure to follow and misbelive that it functions as an overall rule of law for all humans, and it simply does not, though still, many of us choose to close our minds and continue believing in those childhood mythologies.

And so we have entire cultures and nations around the world who hold this nonsense as reality until they die, who propagate it and perpetuate it among their young and in so many cases kill those, like my son, who would sanely and rationally refuse to believe in it in his young innocence into adulthood.

Religions, where people believe it is important what we wear or don't wear, what we eat or not, whether we grow facial hair, how we abuse others, especially women, for God's (really, men's) sake, and so on.

All things that at one point in ancient history may (or may not) have served a purpose and yet which are simply no longer necessary or even useful and frequently actually counterproductive, allowing certain factions to use their religion as a springboard for full out atrocities.

It's funny how wonderful one's religion is till you do a survey of all religions, add in sociology and psychology, anthropology and physics and finally start to realize one overarching necessity in the next step in our development... atheism, or at very least, non-theism.

58% of Americans say legalize Pot. So what new Drug shall we attack?

So, 58% of Americans now think we should legalize Cannabis. So let's stop wasting time and energy and legalize Pot! On the federal level. Let's now put that money into something useful. The War on Drugs has failed. So now what?

Consider that with the end of Prohibition against alcohol, Harry Jacob Anslinger (who held office as the assistant prohibition commissioner in the Bureau of Prohibition, before being appointed as the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics on August 12, 1930), replaced alcohol as the drug to war against, with pot. After all, he had to do something for those poor agents now pretty much out of work with families to support. Right?

So? Where does that leave us now? Don't we now have to replace warring on pot with something else? So what do you want to be the prime target now in our eternal war on whatever, I mean, drugs (and Americans) now?

Look, if you want to continue your wasteful "War on Drugs" then you've got to find a new drug to attack. A new group of people, new users, new addicts to attack, to ruin their lives like we have for so many pot smokers and their families (for no apparent reason or end purpose). And just what should be the new, nefarious, and most highly dangerous drug in History to attack and destroy? Well, I think I've got it. But it's not a drug, per se, though the symptoms are pretty much the same.

Extremism.

At least, extremism in ideological views. I'm all for extreme sports (within reason), as much as the next guy. Then again let's face it, extreme anything at some point, just becomes stupid. And we've seen a lot of that in recent times. The lesser of the evils, is still evil nonetheless in the form of trying to decide other's lifestyles, as in being antiGay, and needs in life, as in making abortion illegal and taking away women's rights, trying to force them into roles right out of the 1940s.

It would seem that conservatives in this country can't have a progressive thought without first leaning on their childhood fears of Hellfire and brimstone. But these are the least of our worries as there are far more ridiculous people out there. Not just people standing behind the counter-intuitive banners of ProLife, but those who out right murder people. Like abortion clinic Doctors. Or worse.

Yes, extremism has brought us suicide bombers, the destruction of the twin towers in NYC, mass murders, genocide, abuse, rape, child slavery, and on and on. It has recently even brought our government to a shut down (thanks GOP extremists), or to a slim down or whatever you want to call it. Whatever you label it, it was bad. Stupid, and bad.

Extremism is where you take something based in a truth, twist it with a half truth, then intelligently shove it down the throats of the less educated, the ignorant, the stupid, and those who are more rather than less, narcissistic. See you can't con an honest man. Conservatism and extremism, are like kissing cousins. As is Fundamentalism. It's all an attempt to decrease things to their simplest elements and let's face it, Life ain't simple. And whenever you try to make it so, people get lost in the shuffle. And a select minority find power.

Maajid Nawaz, is cofounder of the world's first counter extremism think tank, Quilliam, a campaign organization where they do "counter messaging", where they try to popularize counter narratives against extremism. They are looking for ways to "inoculate" extremists against extremist messages. Maajid was recently put on the Al Shabab hit list, so he must be doing something right. He is also author of the book, "Radical - My Journey out of Islamist Extremism", and he is one of those out there fighting the good fight, trying to squelch Islamic extremism.

Like the eleven year-old girl, Malala Yousafzai, who stood for education in her country against the Taliban, and who in 2009 was shot in the face by them for her efforts. She is now touring and continuing to speak out. Sam Harris called her, "The best thing to happen to Islam in 1,000 years."

One group engaged in this, in the arena of Women's Rights is AON. On this order of things, Valarie Plame (author of the new novel, "Blowback" and previously the non-fiction work, "Fair Game"), said recently that you can tell that "the trouble spots in the world, it is no coincidence, are places where women are treated as second class citizens."

Christopher Hitchens once said in a July 2011 Vanity Fair article, in speaking about Islam before the Talibanization of Afghanistan and Pakistan and on repression in the Islamic republic, "Let me try to summarize and update the situation like this: Here is a society where rape is not a crime. It is a punishment. Women can be sentenced to be raped, by tribal and religious kangaroo courts, if even a rumor of their immodesty brings shame on their menfolk. In such an obscenely distorted context, the counterpart term to shame—which is the noble word “honor”—becomes most commonly associated with the word “killing.” Moral courage consists of the willingness to butcher your own daughter."

Try to name some famous opposites of the Islamic extremist leaders who are on the other side of the table, as Democratic leaders in the Muslim world. Far harder to think of, isn't it? You remember Bin Laden, right? But who is his opposite number on the other side? Extremism is alive and well around the world, and here at home.

We can't keep trying to simply take out these extremists with raids and drone attacks and so on, as it works about as well as the drug war had. It's not stopping. We need to treat Islamic extremism like the ideological phenomenon that it is. As any extremism is. We can't simply remove the heads of these movements and organizations and expect them to simply go away. It just doesn't work.

They will just be replaced. Extremism needs to be nipped in the bud. It becomes as a drug to them, an addiction that they need to be extracted from, weaned off of. And because of it, they won't listen to reason. They are much like a drug addict of a real drug. Not pot for reason's sake, but we're talking your heroin or meth of the theistic type. The change needs to come in a fashion more insidious to them. They can't see it coming, because no matter how much sense the opposing argument can be, they will refuse to hear it. Spoken with an extreme American Conservative lately?

People are afraid of clarity in these things because it forces them to think, and have to avoid reason and they don't want that. They don't want it because it forces them to face that they aren't using reason, they are rationalizing what they want emotionally. And the world seems to be going that direction, more and more.

Whenever we are clear about a position, then people are forced to have to go up against it and either agree with it or more typically, disagree with it. But at that point they have to KNOW something. They have to know either that they don't know what they are talking about, or that they are avoiding dealing with it rationally. And that pisses people off. Not appropriately at themselves, but at others who are opposing them. No matter how correct those others are. Since mostly people don't know something, they then become fearful.

Richard Dawkins said that in the struggle of his Atheism against Theism, that this was exactly what he had come up against, time and time again. And it is very much how it is today in our own nation.

Since about 1980 Christians have taken over our national agendas. And that has got to stop. We need to have a secular government back to make secular decisions. Ones based in Humanity and not religious tomes. But we have been steeped in extremism ourselves in order to further these right wing religious agendas against secularism and sanity. We are in a death throw with theism around the world, and at home.

But at a more base point, it isn't just an issue with theism, Christianity, Islam, etc.

Again, it is the drug of Extremism.

Extremism, that easy drug to swallow, to become addicted to. It doesn't require much thought. But the thought it does require is easy and fun, emotionally satiating. Regardless who else out there gets hurt by it. Because it is a very narcissistic addition. It is for the "Me" generation. It is a kind of, "put your head down and ram it into the wall repeatedly" kind of thought format. It is both dangerous and holding the world back from advancing, from evolving. And it warps compassion for our race and justifies things, in the Islamic terror organization as example (and there are other religions doing this), such as killing of innocents and their own Islamic brothers and sisters.

Finally in Catholicism with Pope Francis, some sanity is coming into play. He is putting down all the avenues of extremism available to Catholics. Stop picking on Gays, stop being so focused on the concerns of birth control. Love one another, have compassion. Basically, he is turning the largest religion in the world, Buddhist, albeit with different rituals and texts. And, I am good with that.

So in the end we need a new drug. My vote as you have seen, is for a war on extremism. Or no war at all. Because the way we are really going to get a handle on things kinds of things, that keep popping up, is to treat all people of the world with compassion and not just corporate and national interests as primary concerns. But in the well being of all of Humanity, even those not of your country, or personal belief system.