Are we witnessing the death throes of Religion?

Will Islam be the religion that takes us from nation state world wars (2 so far) to ideological world wars (seeing anything fomenting around you yet?). Finally pushing religion over the edge from its last vestiges post dark ages to utter obscurity and mere historical research topic?

Sure it may not look that way to believers, but these things happen and when they do, at times vast changes can take place in a very small amount of time.

Many Christians, Muslims, Islamists, religionists, theists, conservatives and even Trump supporters suffer from the arrogance of ignorance.

In that ignorance they call others out for that same thing because they have information that feels foreign or unreal to them. That behavior is a mainstay of the Republican party. A party that is not ignorant itself but guilty of their own actions, of purposefully attack Americans through government, out of their ignorance, and their desire for power and money.

Some out of a skewed desire to do good, but cannot see that within the environment they have built and allowed to be built, around them. In their desire to be their own entity outside of one they despise, they have allowed themselves to be further encased in their detached ideologies. And so other than the few bigots and racists in their party, they are very much a party desiring the best for America. No matter how many may need to die to achieve that goal.

When you have a bad idea (think, self serving Islamist or even Christian terrorism, or American conservatism) and you push it on others to the point of hurting them, of even killing them, what exactly do you think eventually is going to be the backlash?

When do people feel they have finally taken enough and what will they do about it? I'm currently writing a horror sci fi story, "The Unwritten" (soon to be out in my book, Anthology of Evil II) in which a parallel universe has had the Religious Wars and then from the backlash of that came the Science Wars. Science wins out. Because truth always will in the end, it just takes time. Religion was squashed over that of reason. With the demise of religions came the demise of conservatism, or the rise of reasonable and rational conservatism for what it was intended to be and not what it has been absconded and transformed into. The rise of reason and humane attitudes toward one another and the planet then inevitably takes over.

I am not and have never been against people, but against stupid mindsets that lead to ignorant behaviors. Believing Trump is better than someone who is obviously a better quality person in either (take your pick) Bernie OR Hillary; conservative beliefs of ludicrous anti people doctrines; murdering over stupid ideologies based in pie in the sky ancient beliefs of fantasies from ancient and ignorant cultures, and then formed those beliefs in such a way so as to disallow updating that knowledge base...because it destroys those fantasies.

An extremely dangerous and destructive habit to be sure in ignoring reality, in beleiving what is not real to be real. Just be aware of what could be coming. Because we've been setting ourselves up for failure and allowing it to progress.

Religion is also the mindset that leads to denials and one has to be careful about that. It has led to the American form of political conservatism, a cancer on American society and government. It has devastated many of our citizens leading now to a Donald Trump type candidate and no president elect.

Where DO YOU think this current form of conservative political movement came from? Do you not believe it came from religion? Specifically, Christianity? From Christian Evangelicalism? From a mindset born of religion, from their belief systems, from practicing constant denials of reality for the sake of perpetuating religious beliefs in revealed religions, of fear. Fear of a greater power outside of oneself and one's community? Fear of reprisals by a divine force who apparently actually hates you and wasn't considering loving after thousands of years until a historical figure in Jesus of Nazareth come into religious literature because of a failing empire of Constantine the Great?

Fears which conservatism is based in? Fear of knowledge? One has to ask oneself, why does religion beg it's believers to study it only and not its origins? Why is educations anti religion? Why does many of its adherents advocate avoiding education? Why are conservatives in Republicans so anti education? Why do conservatives act one way, then deny their actions, blaming those who had nothing to do with the results of what they have done. Over and over and over again?

Doesn't it all fit together rather nicely and we're not suppose to notice?

All that being said I've never been anti religion through most of my life. I don't mind people having their beliefs if they keep them out of my personal reality, including my government in a country designed to allow for all and not for one to control which we're seeing now in some conservative Christians in government abusing their positions in the Republican party to abuse our citizens. It wasn't until them, until terrorists that I started thinking we need to get control of religions. Trouble being you can't just control one or two, or just their bad parts because of their design. I find it sad for all that so few are ruining things for so many, both believers and non believers alike.

IS the current individual groundswell of attacks based in religious beliefs, white Christian domestic terrorism which we've seen for years graduating to international Islamic delusion brought real, physical desiring death?

It IS interesting to note that the oldest of these three religions in Judaism doesn't seem to be really bothering the world, perhaps because it is the eldest of the three brothers in religion from that area of origin?

Is this the beginning of the end for death based religions (life is better after death in a heaven), capitalistic religions (if I do now, I will reap the rewards later in Heaven)? Why do these problematic religions all come from the Middle East? From the ancient and harsh environment of the desert? With multiple religions based in a single location leading to discord and bitterness?

One has to realize that a single mind worm in a large entity such as Islam, a belief perpetrated by a group, can cascade down into death and destruction before one even realizes it and it's too late.

One has to realize that the end of something long lived, tough, that refuses to die can exhibit a massive amount of pain and destruction as it dies in order to fight for survival that it is losing, in order to appear more alive than it is.

Is this the end?

And if so, just whose end will it be?

We're living in interesting times, to be sure....


#Religion #Islam #Christianity #DesertReligions

Scientology, a study in theistic nature and evil

Scientology. Dianetics. L. Ron Hubbard. Church, Religion. Cult. Interesting words, interesting guy, interesting organization. But not for the reasons they specify. Let me say at the top of these words, Scientology is stupid. End of story. It was made up by a science fiction writer using pop psychology to make money and avoid taxes. Now, let's talk about that....

There was a recent documentary released: "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief " (2015) Preview.

But I kid Tom Cruz. Speaking of him, why is he such an advocate? Because he found some of the pop psych teachings useful as they would be, even without Scientology. Also because of their "auditing" where the individuals bares their soul, opening them up for a kind of emotional blackmail. And it's been reported by those who should know, that his audit info went straight to the top of the chain.

There have been plenty making fun of it's ridiculousness, including as recent as the April 4, 2015 Saturday Night Live show where they made a pseudo 1990 music video by the "Church of Neurotology" ("Neurotology Music Video - SNL"), an obvious spoof of Scientology.

I do seriously hope someone is studying Scientology and Dianetics for its theistic relevance.

It was an attempt superficially to produce a scientific religion. And for that I give it praise in the premise. Except, that wasn't the original intent. The original intent was to make money, to avoid taxes, to gain protections that so called "true" religions have, as if there is a true religion or a religion based in truth and not fantasy and conjecture, hearsay and wish fulfillment. But hey, that's another blog for another time.

Eventually, L. Ron Hubbard started to believe his own nonsense. That was when things started to deteriorate. Then he died and pretty much Satan personified took over the faux religion, and given religious status by the US Government after its employees were litigiously bullied into it.

When I was a kid back in the 1960s, I loved science fiction. I read everything I could get my hands on. I read some Hubbard too, but more Heinlein, more Asimov, more Bradbury. The better writers. Years later I read Isaac Asimov's first autobiography, "In Memory, Yet Green" which I titled my first sold short horror\sci fi story after as "In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear" published in 1990.

Now consider, you've known this guy, this science fiction writer for years. Then he comes up with a concept, "Dianetics" where he states that when you are a fetus, well, in Asimov's 1979 autobiography he says this about Hubbard's jaunt into Dianetics and religion:

"On April 6, I received the news from L. Sprague de Camp that Campbell and his wife had separated and that Dona had moved in with George O. Smith. Apparently Campbells overwhelming involvement with dianetics had been the last straw for Dona."
"On the thirteenth, Sprague and I went over the new May 1950, Astounding [magazine], which, with great fanfare, ran L. Ron Hubbard's 16,000-word article "Dianetics"."
"Apparently, Hubbard was maintaining that all human beings had their thinking mechanisms distorted by impressions received in the fetal stage. The fetus could hear, be aware, and misunderstand all that took place, and these misunderstandings produced all the wrongheadedness that plagued the human species. If each individual could be taken back, mentally, to the fetal stage by having "auditors" question them, and if all the misinterpreted impressions were erased, that individual would become "clear" and a very superior human being. Neight Sprague nor I were in the least impressed. I considered it gibberish."
"Then back to New York, and on April 14, I visited Campbell. He would talk of nothing by dianetics. I didn't argue much; I just remained impervious and said I didn't believe it. Finally Campbell said, half in anger half in jest, "Damn it, Asimov, you have a built in doubter." "Thank goodness I do, Mr. Campbell," I said."
Pages 586-7.

"Hubert Rogers, the illustrator, was with us and he amused me enormously by telling Campbell calmly that he thought Hubbard' was a faker and that dianetics was nonsense. I kept my mouth shut, since Rogers clearly needed no help." August 29, 1950, page 602.

"Campbell also told me that he had broken with Hubbard and was out of the dianetics movement. That didn't surprise me, really. I knew Campbell and I knew Hubbard, and no movement can have two Messiahs." May 28, 1951, page 625.

Certainly not proof of anything, but definitely gives insight to how the people who knew Hubbard all the way back in the 1950s viewed him and how they seemed to come to believe that Dianetics, the foundation for Scientology, was complete and utter nonsense. Not to mention, these "friends" of his, fellow writers anyway, were just idiots. Some of them, like Asimov, had brains the size of basketballs, metaphorically speaking. If he thought dianetics was nonsense, we really should listen to him..

In 1985 I was walking through downtown Tacoma. A nicely dressed, nice looking young guy and girl had clipboards in front of a place that said Dianetics on its large glass windows. They were stopping people to talk to them. The girl wanted to talk to me about Dianetics but I said, "No thanks, I know what you are doing and what this is about. I recently graduated with a university degree in psychology."

She smiled, pleased and said, "Oh, then you know exactly what we're doing!" I chuckled and said, "Oh yes, I know exactly what's going on with all this." She gave me an odd sideways look, as if I knew something and she didn't. And I did. And, she didn't. I was in a hurry or I might have chatted her up about it though I'm pretty sure it would have been useless in trying to turn the advocate of what was essentially a cult.

I had massive experience in that with the early 70s "Jesus Freaks". "Can I give you my Testament about how I found Our Lord Jesus Christ." Uh, no... thanks. After about a hundred of those, they got pretty tiring and all sounded pretty much the same.

First of all. who joins a "church" invented by an ex science fiction writer? Aren't you kind of asking for it at that point? Do you even have a brain?

That included an ignorant and young John Travolta, before "Welcome back Kotter". Well, he was a smart and talented guy. But he didn't need Dianetics. He just needed confidence and a clear vision of attaining his goals. After getting involved with Dianetics, and some basic pop psychology, he was off. But he was talented and had charisma and was going to make it regardless.

Getting back to my thoughts on someone studying all this.

Basically, L. Ron Hubbard (called by followers, "LRH") figured religion out. He reduced and synthesized it into Scientology. As ridiculous as it is, people bought into it. As ridiculous as Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Hindu, and so on are, as ridiculous as all of those are, people still buy into the grand nonsense and people still find something in it that helps them through. But the theistic elements aren't really necessary at all.

When I was getting my degree in psychology we had to study group therapy. Everyone had to do it in order to get their degree. I was against it. But we were told you had to go through it to get your degree. So, I gritted my teeth and persevered through it. , and I'm glad I did. The interesting and useful thing as it turns out, about group therapy is that in a group, people simply sharing and monitoring the discussion and talking about themselves and their issues, itself has a therapeutic, healing effect. You don't even need a leader, or a trained therapist.

Think about that for a minute. And think about all the money wasted in therapy and the time wasted in things like EST or Dianetics and Scientology. Or religion for that matter. Most of religion is people's attraction to the familiar and ritual. See, we're all a little OCD. It's in our nature and is a protective mechanism. People who have extreme cases of it, have simply got caught in a loop they have trouble breaking out of.

Now that isn't to say that some people don't need a lot of help by a professional therapist at times. But for most people with general issues or even worse issues, up to a certain point, simply getting into a group and sharing with others who will focus on your issue, and give you their best and honest help, sharing similar issues with you, will itself alone actually help you out.

Think about it for a minute longer. What is "community" all about?

People getting together and being... together. It has a therapeutic, healing effect. Focus on trouble issues and it helps with that. Have a little more knowledge about it and some basic therapeutic psychological tools and you can help someone who is really having trouble. Get a degree in it and some "practice", and you can help someone with serious issues.

So why wouldn't something like Scientology work? How could it not? Even if much of it is insane. Because Hubbard most surely was insane in one sense or another, at one time or another and certainly toward the end.

You can tell just by watching the guy (Hubbard) in videos he made, that he was a slippery, kind of sleazy character. A story teller and in the end, a charismatic charlatan. Asimov noted how charismatic he was in his book and how Hubbard spoke eloquently and engagingly. Just want a cult follower needs.

Now that doesn't mean that Scientologists who spent their entire life in it, didn't get help from being in it. That's part of the insidious thing about it which also crosses over into issues related to a fear of leaving it. But they could have gotten that same help in some other form, where people had even a little knowledge of some basic tools in psychology.

Add to that, Scientology's efforts against you if you do leave, to discredit you, cut you off from loved ones who are still on the inside and allegedly according to some personal testimonies, kill you or simply make you "disappear".

Or how they will hound you with their insidious "Squirrel Buster" squads (a name they give to those who leave). They harass you until you can't take it and if you do anything against them, as in the case of at lesat one person, YOU are the one to go to jail for it. Again, they now have the protection of being a (faux) religious organization, something that should never have happened.

And so that also points out the same actually about at least some (if not all) religions, doesn't it?

I do believe by studying the mechanisms and processes of Scientology, we could all possibly learn a lot about the dynamics of religious and magical thinking. Is Scientology really that more ridiculous than Mohammed being teleported to another city in the ancient desert? Or Jesus rising from the dead or himself having raised the dead, or turned water into fine wine, or having walked on water? Or Moses parting the Red Sea with a wave of his hand?

Or that idiot, confidence artist, Joseph Smith's Mormon religion which was at least based on a religion albeit a subversion of it. To be fair, Mormon's at least have some useful beliefs, like storing food for emergencies. But they have so many other ridiculous beliefs, they almost counter Scientology for which is the most ridiculous system. I'd give it to Scientology on this one however.

Scientology is a prime example we can use to study and better understand religion in general without the garb of historical and metaphysical baggage. Hubbard was a kind of genius and if we would only devalue Scientology and remove its religious status, studying it as we dismantle it,, humankind could learn a lot of useful things and then further and more quickly see the dismantling of religions overall simply through the course of the evolution of modern thought.

I've seen several documentaries and news reports on Scientology, Dianetics and the great grand loon, L. Ron Hubbard himself. Like BBCs John Sweeney's "Panorama". Or an actor's video on YouTube,  "Scientology: Jason Beghe Interview". But the best one I've seen is 2015's "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief".  There is also an article on Huffington Post about it. Back in 2007 had an interesting piece on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Obermann.

The evidence is overwhelming and why it's not in the courts to dismantle Scientology, well, up to this point that has been an exercise in futility.

Watch the documentary.

You'll see what I'm talking about, and hopefully, what I'm referring to about the whittled down version of religion we see in Scientology. No they are not the same and I'm sure this may offend the religious as their religion isn't some fake new age nonsense. However....

Really?

Anyway, be careful if you do watch the documentary.

I've just really been discussing one thing here. We need to study Scientology for how it relates to religions, cults and the mind sets of people believing in things that no one should rationally be believing in. Especially when there are better and more tested methods based in science out there, available and proven.

The trouble with that is the community element is usually missing, along with the other things churches have that therapy does not. But there are now new "churches", available. That is to say, new communities of atheists who may be the ones in the end to finally fix what is wrong with religions and the tax free church system of fraud on the American tax payer. This was recently explored in a CNN report on atheism.

By the way, did you catch my reference above to Scientology having actually co-opted the American governmental department of the Internal Revenue Service.

Who EVER gets the best of the IRS? Obviously, Scientology did in forcing them into giving them religious tax exempt status, something that should never have happened, gave them extensive protections, helped to legitimize them worldwide and was a travesty perpetrated upon the American people and the people of the entire world.

Scientology in the end has turned into a scary entity.

If it can kowtow the IRS to giving it tax exempt church status, only because IRS agents were sued personally into being afraid, what else can it do? Ex members are afraid, some fearing for their very lives.

Scientology was founded and based upon a desire to make money off of people who don't know any better and therefore it has grown into an insane clown chorus of abuse and fraud.

How could it have ever been otherwise?

I didn't really want to get into the ugly, evil aspects of Scientology or its leader after LRH, David Miscavige (who sounds like one scary SOB), but we need the US Government to rescind Scientology's tax exempt and religious status and then label it as the scary $3+ billion multi-national abusive company that it really is.

Watch the documentary. It will unnerve you to know what has and is really going on.

#Scientology #SillySoCalledReligions

Faith and Forgiveness, The Fall of ISIS and Islam

Faith and Forgiveness.

Two of the most powerful forces in the universe. They can also be two of the most ridiculous and a couple of our biggest problem issues.

Faith

We need faith, but not when it goes too far.

If you believe in God, you have faith. Faith that what you believe in is not total lunacy. Why is that? Because that is so obvious to anyone but a young child, that to continue on in your belief from childhood into adulthood, takes a constructed and enduring contract with oneself to continue to suspend belief in order to have faith, to believe.

Faith means to build an enduring ignorance, irregardless of reality, of fact, of  anything contrary to your beliefs. It's institutional ignorance.

When we step onto an elevator in a tall build, we suspend our belief in science (distance to ground concerns, one of our primal urges to protect ourselves) and replace it with our faith that the elevator won't drop us to a horrifying death.

In that sense, faith is good, it's a useful thing in daily life. It was a useful thing as monkey's climbing around trees having faith int heir grip that they won't fall to their death, even though, some always did. Either in a branch breaking, or falling while asleep. Faith, allowed what was necessary to survive. To stay off the ground when you could become food for a more powerful animal.
But when faith crosses the line to affect our judgement of others, to go even further to take our faith out of the realm of the suspension of belief into that of affecting others in their daily lives, then we have simply gone too far.

Forgiveness

In the Catholic religion, there is a thing called Last Rites. As you are dying, you are giving forgiveness for your life and then, you can go to heaven when you die. Uh huh, sure...like that works. The only way that could happen was if there was a contract with God, an agreement that this would be accepted and well, that doesn't make any sense at all. See the section on Faith, above.

Just as I cannot lift weights heavier than what I can normally do without first working out long and hard enough to be able to lift that heavy of a weight, so too forgiveness does us no good in being instantly forgiven. It is merely an initiator, a catalyst to start on the road to being able to lift those "heavy weights" in life. And if death is moments away, well, sorry Charley. Forgiveness merely gives us repose and a breath in order to adjust and begin on the path to getting somewhere. But when you die in a few minutes, you've had no time to adjust, to build the "muscle" in order to affect real change.

To think it is instant, is ludicrous.

Everything we have learned from nature shows us that to think you could be forgiven as in Catholic Confession, or even worse in Last Rights, and then suddenly you're purified, you can now gain entry to Heaven, simply does not in anyway reasonable way follow what we have seen in all of nature. Nature, if you buy into God, is a Nature that He created. Why would he choose one path for nature and another for humans? That too would make no sense.

But today, after hundreds of years of it being otherwise, Catholicism isn't our worst problem.

We need to have faith in order to get through the tough times. To allow us to move smoothly through life without having to be fearful of just about everything. As in a relationship with a spouse, so too with ourselves, or a deity, even.

Forgiveness is the same, sometimes, some people need to be forgiven as a right of passage to begin on a new path, to build upon our good intentions and continue that way of being in the end game, of arriving at a point where we can lift a "heavy weight" without thinking, because we have done the hard work leading up to that point, where it is at all possible and not, in spite of it.

To think otherwise, is childish. At the very least, it is naive. And as we have seen a lot in recent times, it can even be, destructive in applying religious faith to common human endeavors. The Middle East is our most gross example of that. It is Faith, lacking Forgiveness, and has shown what a destructive force that can be when you apply one in the extreme and completely turn your back on the other.

Religions Extremism

Regardless of what you believe in, especially, if you are one of the pathetic followers of ISIS\ISIL, or any religious extremist movement for that matter, you need to view life in the moderate if you want to survive; to apply both Faith AND Forgiveness, properly.

Humanity has a grand tradition of striking down what irritates it the most, be that a good irritant or a bad one, with the bad typically dying the most prominent of deaths.

To apply too either much (and you can apply even forgiveness with too much extremeness and it too can become dangerous), you are then on the road to destruction. If not yours right away, certainly those others who are innocent who you have and are, slaughtering.

In the end, we can all be assured of your own destruction. You, can be assured of your destruction. It just takes time. Perhaps not today, perhaps not right away even if you succeed in taking over regions. You cannot however hold on forever. Because in the end, all regimes of this type fail. It may very well be that yours will be spectacular.

Your failure, will be spectacular. You see, the world knows you for what you are.

I suspect you know it too. Greed always loses out in the end. Greed in religion, being the worst. The Catholic religion was once a force to reckon with and now is a dilute belief system that most people even if practicing, really don't pay that much attention to.

These capitalistic religions are a dying breed ("do good now, for reward later"; pay now, get something later; pay\receive: capitalism).

Islam, will eventually be the same.
Mohammed like Joseph Smith, is on the way out.
They just don't know it yet.

It's painfully obvious to many of the rest of us, however. Religions, are dying.

You see, that is the path Humanity is on. The path to rationality and science. At times like these, the death throws of a belief system, can be painful, for everyone. Religious ones, all the more painful because no one likes to realize that their entire lives, and generations of their families before them, have been fooled.

But it's okay. We were all fooled. Just, let it go.

What really exists, is where humanity is going, and not the ridiculous ancient religious myths and fictions of what used to be. Humanity used to be easily fooled. Many of us are starting to see that now.

With a belief system needing support necessitated to be based in faith with power over others through scripture and Imam or religious translators, and their abuses of power, we see these things on a daily basis now in the Middle East.

Not faith, and forgiveness. Faith, and killing.

Islam's time is rapidly coming to an end and with groups like ISIS\ISIL, countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran, they are only hastening yet another ancient Middle Eastern desert religion's demise. Jews mellowed out long ago being the oldest of the three. Catholics burned themselves out mostly in the Middle Ages and after. Now finally, it is Islam's time.

We do need to let Muslim's change their own however, for to try and change it from without, is to prop it up, to support its continuance through their resistance to outside forces. They do want to reform Islam. Most of them want to join the greater work and modernity. It will be reformed. There is no stopping that. There is only slowing it down, or speeding it up.

Faith and Forgiveness.

You can't have one, without the other. They need to be applied in a reasonable fashion. Face it, or face your own eventual destruction.

What's sad is not that they cannot see how ridiculous their beliefs in religion are, or in how upset they get when faced with their beliefs being discounted (drawing a picture of Mohammed is a killing offense, really? Grow up!). Or, the reality of them being proven to be as ridiculous as they are.

It is sad that they cannot clearly see the world all around them, other than in their own tiny view. With their own tiny wants and needs in a world that really doesn't care. The Middle East holds a culture that was once great and they have struggled of late to make it great again and have only succeeded in minimizing their import to the world and exemplified small minded efforts to become great.

Their violent efforts over past decades have made them become smaller and smaller in the world's view. When they really deserve veneration and respect for past accomplishments and an apology for how they have been treated for a very long time.

The world needs to face up to the fact that these are mostly our brothers and as well some of them, our sisters, and that they have reasonable needs too. They really have been abused for far too long.

Mostly, they want a normal, productive life, respect and decorum. But some of them have found the worst possible way to achieve that. One that will in the end, bring upon them their own damnation and destruction. It already is. With faith and without forgiveness.

NO one thinks that they are here for that much longer.
Not even they believe that, not even with their superhuman belief muscles.

And they do know it. At least, those in charge know it. For those who do not know it, it's really time to wake the Hell up and face the burning pyre that is their future, that of their religious agenda and the future of their religion.

If there even is one.

NOTE: this is an add on. In talking with another writer today some other things occurred to me. Here are those thoughts:

Times have past times where the days of sword against sword were the battlefield weapons. We now have these morons running around with weapons of mass destruction and I include in that, automatic weapons, even bolt action rifles. Compared to a sword, a spear or a bow and arrow which itself was a kind of WMD back then, which were more one on one weapons. 

Once weapons left our hands to go out on their own to kill, the format of war changed forever. 

With the payback of weapon's actions today, things are different and Islam no longer has the luxury of taking hundreds of more years to get their shit together. This crap people keep saying about Catholics went through this hundreds of years ago is valid, but inconsequential. 

We need to put these religious murderers down, ASAP and with great prejudice. Then, during and before, we need to put down our religious acceptance of people who are delusional and violent. 

We do NOT need to be going after pacifist theists, they need protection and respect under the circumstances, but we do need to stop giving people the freedom to allow this kind of thing to propagate in our...OUR, world, not their world, because their world Cannot be allowed to exist.

#ISIS #Islam #Iran #Iraq #Syria #Catholic

Three Counters to the Extreme Conservative Mindset

There are three major elements to be aware of in debating the conservative mindset:

• The "Closed Minded" concept
• Specificity vs Generalities
• Jumping Forms of Logic

Now to be fair it's not just conservatives who can have this mindset but also extreme liberals or religious mindsets, too.

If you keep getting into debates (or worse, bickering types of arguments), with people who maintain the extreme conservative mindset, you may find you are getting nowhere with either them. Or their argument is against what seems to be perfectly rational and something settled long ago. Or something that has been proven by perhaps even the majority of scientists in the entire world but is for no apparent reason currently controversial.

What's going on there? Are you feeling frustrated? Part of the problem is, people's tactics have changed therefore, we need to update the meanings of some of the trap words they are using. Words that once meant one thing to all of us, but now are being used against us, in a very different way; thus at times, trapping us in our own arguments.

One tactic they like is to say that it is you how has a closed mind, which let's face it, is pretty irritating. But, just laugh about it when you noticed it. As long as you have made the due diligence to have an informed opinion, that is. And to have an opinion on something means that you have closed your mind (for now) on that topic, by definition. So just tell them that a closed mind means that it can be opened, not that it is locked closed as usually, that would be them, not you. Right?

Don't let people try to mistake confidence for arrogance. Sometimes they will say that you are being arrogant in your solidarity on your opinion, cuz after all, gravity exists, and the Earth has been around longer than 6,0000 years. Look, it's okay to seem a bit arrogant at times when you are either that good, or that correct. It is never okay to be arrogant however, or to seem so when you simply don't deserve that arrogance. See, people who are very good, can seem arrogant to others who are not. It'st that feeling that "you are so much better than me, that you have to be extremely humble around me so I don't feel bad." Hogwash. That's your issue. They are that good, so you be a little humble around them as you're in the presence of  greatness; again, if they truly are that great.

There's an awful lot of people around now a days projecting that kind of arrogance when they have absolutely no right to do so. Like a lot of Americans, when they visit other countries. Okay, maybe America is that great of a country, but it's very likely that you had nothing whatsoever to do with that. I mean, died in any wars lately? Cured cancer? Won in the Olympics?

Anyway, when you know or you are really that good at something, it can seem like you arrogance to others. Or you can feel irritated or annoyed by those others for wasting your time on things, especially as an a priori consideration; where they do not, or can not see that it is due to something they are lacking; like skill, or knowledge.

You mind should only be closed for the time being on any topic, but not entirely closed overall. A permanently closed mind which never updates with new information can actually be quite deadly and the Darwin Awards are full of those types; just as Darwinian selection eliminates those from the gene pools. As long as you have sought the necessary knowledge and found a conclusion, at that point you close your mind on that topic so that you can now progress and take a stand and get things done. The thing about a closed mind is, it can be opened again when new information arrives.

Many forms of belief do not have closed minds, a good thing up to a point but not necessarily. Frequently they require (or desire) a sealed mind. A very different critter from a merely closed mind.

Science requires one to find the best information and synthesize it appropriately along with verification and a conclusion and thus consider for now, that it is a closed topic; so you can do work and progress to a yet newer truth.

Religion generally wants a sealed mind once the basics are put into place. Makes sense as once God gave His word, well, that should be it, right? Except that hasn't panned out very well over time. If it truly is God's word, well, he's been wrong a lot. Another considering is humankind progresses and so God's word needs to be updated from time to time. But he doesn't update it and yet if he tries, religions around the world will fight against it, because after all, the religion is right and unchangeable. Because, it's God's word.

And yeah, I know....

Though some are more reasonable than others, all really seem to want a mind sealed to anything to detract from their teachings and thereby, "shake the faith". Though I would argue that if you can shake faith, it's a defective form of faith and should be updated, which is not readily acceptable for obvious reasons.

Some people will say that science is faulty because it does change and what was once true, is no longer considered valid when replaced by updated information. But our best efforts are always to find a truth and update it with new information as it becomes available; thereby keeping us updated with the best available information.

So when someone tries to shoot down your beliefs that religion leaves much to be desired, relax. A lot of the issue that traps you, are just the traps that have been developed against scientific thinking for thousands of years.

For example, if someone tries to convince me that there is a vacuum in the room we are in and yet I'm breathing air quite easily, I may disagree with them and tell them that, as I know they are incorrect. If they persist I will not go against them on it at that point, as it is obviously not true and if they can't see that, there is really little I can do about it. I'm not going to perpetuate an argument or make up names for my position as I have no position, it is just something that... is. That is the trap they pull you into and then you find you are in a never ending cycle of argumentation with them. They are now wasting your time, and money, and in some cases our nation's money; our money.

There are a growing number of people who take up incorrect positions on things that are obvious, and in many cases obvious to most people as well as experts; and yet they persist on their disagreement and delusions out of mere ego, philosophy, or more frequently, theology.

All I'm saying is, you need to stop going about arguing as you would have done, historically. Things are changing, they have changed. We all have to be aware of this and stop handling it as we have always done. We need to break the cycle of finding new ways to continue believing in things that we have long since proven incorrect. We need to leave those people behind who can't keep up and after a while they will simply disappear through attrition and evolution.

Another issue in arguing with these types of people is the disparity in specificity within the argument. Frequently in arguments (debates that is and hopefully you see the difference) the two or more parties debating are on different planes of the same argument. One may be arguing a broader point and the other may be arguing a more specific, narrow point. When that happens you will seldom resolve the issue and more likely both walk away frustrated.

Finally, this is also true when someone skips logic from one form to another; sometimes within the same sentence. This is an issue either with people who are ignorant about forms of logic (which happens all the time), or those who are more highly skilled in logic, know exactly what they are doing and use it as a tool of obfuscation.

Please understand, this isn't meant to fix all this, but to make it obvious because I suspect once you know about this it will all become much easier and that was really my only content in saying all this. If not to help get around some of the blatant obfuscations on the part of those who are trying to spew nonsense into the mainstream.

So you see, you don't have to walk away frustrated with these kinds of arguments. Merely see what is going on. To just be aware of things kinds of things is a huge benefit and a useful tool to use in order to further spread genuine knowledge and start on the road where this form of behavior goes into the useless bin where all useless forms of thought need to go, along with all those winners of the Darwin Awards.

Of course you can always use something like Snopes.com too and for those who claim that to be a conspiracy you can use A Guide to Arguing With a Snopes-Denier on them....

Cheers!