GOOD QUESTIONS

Along the lines of my last blog, a good friend of mine wrote a very thought provoking blog of his own on the 9/11 anniversary.  It shows up what we rarely think about when we contemplate the usually sought after goal of eternal life. 

Rather than add my own musings on the subject, I'll just refer you to his blog:  http://manningtheneutralzone.blogspot.com/2011/09/would-eternal-life-be-eternal-living.html.

I will content myself with this quote from Mark Twain: 

"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."

WHERE IS "UP THERE?"

From little children on, most of us were assured there was a great supernatural being called "god" somewhere "up there" controlling and dictating everything.  The concept is rather universal in the Western World.  It has become such a set part of our thinking that even atheists like myself find our minds reverting to the concept that was drummed into us early on in our lives when we aren't on guard.

This illusion has held sway in the world from ancient times.  The Greeks envisioned it all as a pantheon of gods and goddesses (a divine family) residing invisibly on Mount Olympus.  Other nations and tribes had equally fanciful ideas about deities inhabiting holy parts of the earth and the heavens and showing up as planets, constellations, etc.  It was not too hard to imagine these things prior to our modern technological and scientifically advanced age.

We tend to imagine souls floating off into the ether and continuing to surround us unseen.  I still find the thought comforting, but it is most likely a complete illusion.  It's probably just the last vestige of my former superstitions still trying to assert themselves in my mind.

As I asked in a previous blog, just where is "up there?"  Certainly not Mount Olympus, nor any of the planets and celestial bodies we now know about and have studied ever more thoroughly.

Go to Google or some other search engine and type in "maps of the cosmos."  You will be amazed at what you find.  Surrounding us in every direction, more than thirteen billion light years in all directions, is an "up there" that is totally unfathomable.   Among all the galaxies, stars, nebulae, black holes, etc., there is no "up there" one can point to as the abode of any fantastic being like "god."  The vastness and the distances boggle the mind.  Billions of galaxies, each containing billions of stars and attendant planets and  multitudeness wonders yet to be discovered.

The "faith slaves," are absolutely convinced that some magnificent, super-intelligent and utterly omnipotent anthropomorphized being created it all, but they never try to explain where such a being could have originated, or where, exactly, he resides.  Of course, he has to look like us because we are the pinnacle of earthly creation.  We have to be a mirror of the source.

It wasn't too long ago that people thought lightning was Thor (or some other god) hurling his hammer.  We now know better, but many people will still think someone struck by lightning was being punished by god.  We still view diseases and natural disasters as instruments of punishment wielded by "god." 

Superstition survives intact in this enlightened modern age. 

We aren't that far removed from our superstition-ridden ancestors.

OF LIES AND LIARS

Rick Perry came out and labeled Social Security a "ponzi scheme." 

In this world there are "lies" and "damn lies."  Perry's statement is a "damn lie," and he's a "damn liar."  I think he knows it, too.

If Social Security is a ponzi scheme, your life insurance policy (if you're wise enough and employed enough to have life insurance), car insurance and homeowners insurance and any other type of insurance you carry is a "ponzi scheme."

I carried life insurance for many years.  I never collected a dime because I was lucky enough to escape the "grim reaper," until the present anyway.  Somebody else got a share of my premiums when someone in their family or business suddenly and unexpectedly died. 

Do I consider myself a victim because I personally didn't get my money back?  Was I "ponzied?"

Of course not!

I had the protection of that policy during the time I carried it to protect me and mine against the vagaries of happenstance.  If I had suddenly died, those dependent on me would have had something to fall back on while they got on with their grieving lives.

I've paid out a whole lot more in auto insurance premiums than I have ever collected.  Same with homeowners insurance.  I don't resent or feel victimized when I pay my premiums and I hope I never have a future claim.  What I pay in goes into a big pot that protects a huge pool of policy holders against possible future disaster--including me.

Social Security is a national insurance policy everybody pays into.  A certain number are never going to collect on that policy because they won't live that long.  But, if they do, the protection will be there, and I can tell you from personal experience that it means a great deal to me.  I would be destitute and homeless without it.

Social Security will be solvent for a long time.  It has had to be tweaked in the past, and it will need tweaking in the future to keep it viable.  Do you still pay the same auto insurance premiums you paid a decade ago?  Of course not.  Why would you think Social Security won't need any adjusting?  Economies don't stay static.

This is just more of the push to return us to a Dickensian world of robber barons and basically destitute masses of underprivileged serfs who have nothing to protect themselves from total penury.  It would be nice if we could all be as lucky as Rick Perry who can look forward to a comfortable future as he continues to drink and eat from the public trough--with guaranteed retirement, medical coverage, and a host of other perks that would be a "ponzi scheme" if they were directed toward common citizens.

RICK PERRY, YOU'RE A LYING, DISGUSTING HYPOCRITE!

SCIENCE IS TRUE AND SCIENTISTS ARE NOT GREEDY

The spinmeisters will attack anything and anybody that publishes inconvenient truths, especially if it has any perceived effect on their privileged position, economic welfare and status.  To hear the corporate spinmeisters tell it, science and scientists are part of a greedy lie fest where climate change is concerned.

Al Gore made this graphically plain in his latest rebuttal, which you can read about and listen to here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/30/gore-climate-change-deniers_n_940802.html

The very idea that scientists as a whole would propound false information and statistics to enrich themselves is preposterous, but the charge is constantly being made by those with a vested interest in the status quo. 

As Al points out, scientists aren't rich individuals.  Most of them can live comfortably but they are not able to hire expensive lobbyists to "spin" their self-serving (and supposedly falsified) views.  That role falls to the corporate tycoons who have a very real vested interest in things staying just as they are -- and have oodles and boodles of cash lying around.  Scientists have to be content with occasionally getting an article published in some peer reviewed and criticized journal few will ever see or even hear about outside the scientific community.  Their sharpest critics will be their fellow scientists who will be looking for any inconsistency or skewed fact and ready to pounce on it if they find it.

If I'm going to believe anything, it will be those carefully studied, researched, documented and peer reviewed pronouncements -- not some spinmeistered denial by a pseudoscientist in the pay of and beholden to the corporate establishment.

IRENE -- THE BIG DISAPPOINTMENT

The prognosticators and religious nuts and the "hype mongers" had another field day.  The East Coast was for sure heading for an overwhelming disaster.  God was finally going to "get" them.  "Them" being anyone of a contrary opinion to that of the minister, prognosticator, etc. 

Irene has gone her merry way northeast and will finally rain itself out over the North Atlantic.  New York survived just fine.  There was some damage, of course, all along its path, but much less than all the doom and gloom prophesied led one to believe was in the offing.

Hurricanes don't take that route very often, but they do once in awhile.  When they do, they usually lose a lot of zip by the time they hit those colder waters around New York and New Jersey and the rest of New England. 

Surprise! 

It was just a "tropical storm" when it finally arrived at the "Big Apple."  Lots of rain.  Lots of wind.  Some storm surge.  That certainly causes a lot of problems, but I really think the "snowpocalypse" (it also had to be sensationalized someway for ratings sake) New York experienced last winter was worse.  Most people have forgotten it already.  At this writing, Irene was responsible for only 18 known deaths.  In a path that took it all the way from North Carolina to southern Canada!

Earth and its inhabitants experience weather.  Hurricanes and tropical storms, blizzards, droughts, tornados, etc. are all weather.  If there's something you don't like about the weather today, just wait a while and it will change. 

I spent about a year and a half in Flushing, New York from late 1960 to early 1962.  They had a drought while I was there, and I never even experienced one of those famous New York thunderstorms.  I did hear about the remnants of a hurricane that happened a few years earlier and made quite an impression on the local gentry.  Was "god" upset that I was there and witheld the rain?  I really don't think so. 

Nor do I think he was mad at the nation as a whole because the mythical guy doesn't exist.  There's no one "up there" to get mad.  Did you ever take a look at the maps of the cosmos that have been published lately?  Take a good look at one.  Then, try to define "up there" for me.  Over thirteen billion years worth of "up there" in all directions!  And, you think earth and the solar system are something great?  What's so far been discovered "up there" makes us look like a fly speck on the Great Wall of China!

"God" seems to get judgmental and punishing every so often, the way a lot of superstitious people view it.  They'll figure out something they don't like that their "god" is also upset about.  Since they created him in their images, it follows that he has to be mad about the same things they're mad about. 

Instant explanation for the "disaster!"

Earthquakes and volcanos are also a constant on this earth.  Go to any center where there are seismographs and you will see the evidence of hundreds of tremors, some volcanic, most unfelt and unnoticed, taking place all over the earth every day.  Earth looks solid and stable but it's constantly in motion and once in awhile those motions get downright noticeable.

Because such "disasters" are intermittent and usually years go by with very little in the way of outstanding events in any local region, the religious nuts and sensationalizers have a field day when the usual norm is breached.  They have their moment in the sun and revel that their insane shouting gets noticed and taken seriously -- at least momentarily.  The credulous just never seem to learn and will listen again next time around and get all excited all over again.

Hype, hype, hype.  There's no end to it. 

NEW SITE

Just this weekend, I became aware, through Greta Christina's blog, that there is a new and very promising website out.

I am very excited about it and have already taken steps to join in.  Check it out:  http://www.weareatheism.com/

THE ETERNAL CON JOB

I have to admit that I feel a bit discouraged this evening.  I look at the world around me and at all the lies and deceptions, the con games and the crass using of human beings for the agrandizement of those in ultimate power, and I tend to despair.

I look at the political sphere and I see an ignoramus like Perry proclaiming that God explains why we are here, and the blind ignorant masses cheer his ignorant stupidity.  Properly trained theologians know better.  They know what a contrived mass of pishtwaddle the Bible and the Christian God is.  They just don't let the masses who ultimately pay their generous salaries know what they know.  They soothe their consciences by any number of psychological machinations to convince themselves that their deception is for the good of the people.  The few who publish the facts don't get much press and their books and articles are given no front page prominence.

The masters of Banking and Wall Street and the corporate lords know they are taking everybody for a "ride."  They just don't care.  They're chuckling all the way to the bank!  The masses who are suffering and will suffer are just unfortunate collateral damage

The fact that we are destroying our planet through runaway climate change and bringing on a greater extinction than has been seen for millions of years is denied and pooh poohed.  If billions of people die, too bad.  We're over-populated anyway.  So what if multitudes of species die off.  We'll figure out how to adjust.  Keep those profits high and our taxes minuscule.

I could go on, but much of it would be redundant to what I've said in other blog entries.  I'm just going to get ready for bed.  Maybe I'll feel better in the morning.  I doubt it.