THE ETERNAL STRUGGLE

Another annual milestone is just about history and it will soon be 2014. I remember when just getting into this century seemed so far away and all the angst and paranoia about that arbitrary time. People are always attaching some horrible significance to calendar dates. I'm sure the same thing will happen in 2100, but I won't be around to witness it.

And, yes, I'm sure there will still be fanatics claiming Jesus is about to return. Hopefully, they'll be a much smaller minority by that time. I'd like to think superstition is going to decrease and mythology is going to be replaced by reason, true history and science.

I wonder how long we're going to have to deal with "talibans" -- muslim, christian or whatever. The tea party is nothing other than a christian taliban every bit as deluded, ruthless and potentially violent as their middle eastern counterparts. The spirit of the inquisition has never disappeared anymore than the taliban-like southern spirit and goals of the civil war.

I sympathize with the people of Syria, but they were much better off with Assad than they will be if Al Queda manages to take control. They would make Assad look benign by comparison. We're fools to think we can impose western-style democracy in any of those nations.

We can't even shake the stupidities of religion in our own nation. How can we even dream of reforming even more regimented and controled societies? They see through the stupidities and nonsense of christianity just as easily as we see through the same situation in islam. Nobody is willing to admit that their holy book and the faith and power system that is built around it is a mythological sham.

Oh, the imams and ayatollahs can wax just as eloquent as the pope and the mormon bishops, etc. about benign sounding platitudes, but the fact of the matter is that they all sit as potentates of a power structure that keeps millions of people mentally, emotionally, financially and physically enslaved.

I escaped from such a system. I know how thoroughly it warps the minds of its adherents. I was literally insane for a number of years while being convinced that I was one of the chosen elect of god. The whole thing is evil. We have to keep chipping away at it. Maybe we can make the turn of the next century something far different from 2000.