05/28/2012: The Role of Religion as Existential Security

Unfortunate, ain’t it?

In Nietzsche’s, The Gay Sciencewe are met with this famous trope:

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

Nietzsche’s pronouncement seemed prophetic at the time when belief in European rationalism was at its zenith, but belief in God has isstill very much here with us.  However the fact remains that Religion, despite being the “opiate of the people” as Marx put it, still serves a crucial function: as a protector and a firewall against uncertainty and existential insecurity.

Not surprisingly, studies have found that atheism is more likely to appear within the industrial and post-industrial countries. In impoverished, less educated countries, belief in God predominates.

Religion of course not only provides relief from existential stress by supplying existential security, it also moderates human behavior within the socio-economic insecurity of the times. Religion thus helps keep failed states somewhat stable. It might seem obvious that there are no atheists in foxholes, or in the impoverished cities of India or in sub-Sahara Africa while there are plenty of atheists in post-industrial  countries that feature high education along with strong social safety nets (Yes, Virginia, Socialism indeed breeds atheists!). One country seems to invalidate this formula. The United States is the wealthiest of all industrial nations and yet the most religious – due to extensive income disparity.

This all but guarantees that religious fundamentalism is still going to be around for a very long time (especially in the impoverished Muslim and Asian countries where existential security is nonexistent. And here is where the behavioral moderation properties of religion come into play and will grant a longer life to belief in God. Atheists make a terrible mistake in their belief that the application of applied reason and positivism alone will change the world for the better without any kind of action plan. The stealth religion that is atheism is useless as a force of reason unless those proponents can put their logical prowess into practice and help produce existential security for all. But atheists don’t seem to be interested in doing anything for all of us. The Equal Money system is such a proposal that will give all more security through social and economic programs that will ultimately give everyone that existential security only those privileged few now enjoy. We need all people to buy into economic equality and security or else we will have to endure the consequence of allowing  the grizzled, intolerant specter of religious fundamentalism to destroy what’s left of the world for centuries to come. Such a fate is only as inevitable as our avoidance to the necessity of change.

Notes:

[1] Pippa Norris, Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics), Cambridge University Press, 2004. The authors claim that their research shows that the world’s industrial nations are more secular while the third world remains religious due to economic insecurity. The birth rate in these impoverished countries have grown to numbers where there are far more people who hold religious views than ever before, while the birth rate among secular nations are dropping.  Implication: unless economic equality is installed to remove existential uncertainty, religious fundamentalism may never leave us, threatening to collapse civilization into the Dark Ages 2.0.

05/26/2012 – Is the Mind the most powerful thing in the Universe?

“Uhn.. if I could just think… a bit… harder… somethin’s bound to happen!”

Your thoughts create your reality.

Your mind is more powerful than you know.

Are you worried about something right now?

Are you feeling unsure about something these days?

God invites you to change your thinking.

Miracles seldom occur in the lives of those who do not consider them possible.

There could be a miracle waiting for you this minute.

Please make room for it in your thinking. Thanks.

Love, Your Friend….

Neale Donald Walsch

Wow. The mind has been given a lot of credit by philosophers, metaphysicians, science and religion. Not only does the miraculous mind receive credit for moving things in the universe, it has been touted as creating the universe! That sounds nice but seriously, can we really define consciousness in any other terms other than a vampirous abstraction, or as  generative and consuming energetic of substance –  like a flame devouring and evaporating a candle of wax?  But the majestic brilliance of the flickering light lasts only for a moment until it vanishes into the darkness, rubbed out from existence and from memories. But such metaphors must sound too cruel for people like Walsch when referring to something so God-like as the mind, until one realizes that  there is a difference between “God” and “God-like.” I suppose the biggest difference is that “God” is a mind-created fable and  truth-claim about a unseeable object while the mind is something we are all very intimate with, especially its oppressive, deceptive and ingratiating nature which ceaselessly drives us to erect such titanic monumental altars to worship it.  The mind has seemingly deserved all the praise that we have given it, what with all the wonderful things in the world that the mind has given us, like depleted uranium, plastic soup oceans and genetically modified vegetables (and wasn’t the world clamoring for more depleted uranium, plastic in the oceans and genetically modified food?)

If one would find any benefit to blame whoever was responsible for lifting up such a bully to eminence, we could mention the Brahmanas and the ancient Greeks. The Advaita – the orthodox philosophical school of Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism), claims that Brahman is “knowledge” and everything in the visible world, “eternal spiritual body which is full of bliss!”  He is the Supreme Person! A Consciousness of Absolute Truth! The principle Upanishads claim that Brahman is the infinite consciousness. And how did we come to know of this infinite consciousness? From the words handed down from Vedic literature. You know, from stories. But the Vedas will be the first to admit, the Brahman that can be talked about is not the true Brahman.  Talk about having your cake and eating it too!

The Greeks had their stories as well, but I’m not talking about their superhero gods like Hercules, Aphrodite and Apollo. Their conception of the mind as God was just as abstractly absolute as anything  the Brahmanas cooked up. Anaxagoras conceived of a cosmology of where there was nothing but a formless, cosmic soup that existed at the beginning , until a cosmic mind he called, nous placed everything in order.  As Donnie Darko would say, “Deus Ex Machina! Our Lord and savior.” Anaxagoras never said where is “mind” came from, but you gotta admit, it makes for a great story and it even influenced the great Plato and the Neoplatonists, who also conceived a transcendent cosmic mind as being and thought from which all things emanated. The enemies of the Neoplatonists were the Gnostics, who claimed that the physical creation was the inferior and flawed work of an evil creator and a growing post-Judean sect called Christians who worshipped a crucified man as the Son of God, the Logos, the creative principle made flesh.

And to this day, there are people who believe that the mind within our holy brains, is the most powerful thing in the universe. Good ol’ New Age. Way to keep the cosmic consciousness home fires burning. From this we gather stories about how the human mind, the “greatest force in the universe,” is evolving into achieving “higher consciousness” and increasing our vibration to the point of becoming one with the cosmic consciousness.  Which is all well and good, but goddamn, where does the love-in end, Neale Donald Walsch? Why do you ask us to “make room in our minds for miracles,” for God’s sake? I understand that some of the books you’ve presented appear rich in wisdom and profound statements and that  you made a fortune with them, but did you ever ask yourself whether the alleged contact with “God” could in any way be verified? Did you ever consider that the words you assumed that came from “God” were actually formed within  a secret compartment  within your mind that in no way was connected to any Divine source? From judging the above quote, I reckon not, because it sounds like you are serious when you suggest that “making room” ” in your thinking for a miraculous intervention from “God.” Somehow, according to the schematic of  Walsch,  ”God” is quite limited – and can only act on the human scene through the thoughts of human beings, but only if we engage in wishful, magical thinking. Again, like Eckhart Tolle, Barbara Hand Clow, Esther Hicks  and many, many others who present consciousness as the most powerful force in the universe, they present claims as truths and don’t seem to realize the difference. To tell people to make room in their thinking for a miracle is capitulation of one’s self-direction. Thus Walsch’s claims are not credible and people need to check themselves for the lack of development of their common sense if they buy into this garbage. And that so many people do buy into this trash should make one question whether consciousness is all that “powerful” after all.

05/02/2012 – 2012 and Randian “Virtue” of Selfishness Part 2

Ayn Rand. Fanboys Assemble!

 “I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for  the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

It is a common assertion of the disciples of Ayn Rand’s philosophical vision of Selfishness to justify it by saying that sacrifice is something is something “contradictory to nature.”

Can selfishness seriously be raised to an ethical (or as Rand would say, a “rational”) level? Rand herself claimed that no philosopher had ever managed to offer a reason why there should even be a code of values to follow in the first place. ( A “hint” to the Randians: “To make life easier for everybody”). While I seriously doubt her assertion was true, [1] there remains a further question. What made Rand decide on Selfishness as her moral compass?

There is plenty of room for speculation, but essentially Rand’s Virtue of Selfishness can be reduced to this quote by her:

“I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows.”

The “rest” that “follows” is the appeal for the rationalization of naked greed dissembled as a logical and worthy enterprise. This is the Randian rational self-interest trope, AKA her “pursuit of happiness” taken to the extreme. Can you imagine a world where everyone took this applied pathology as the starting point of morality?  Well, it would much look like the sociopathic world we have now, but worse. (Thankfully, and I’m being ironic here, that the policeman inside the heads of our country’s citizens moderates sociopathic tendencies for the most part). And what makes egoism such a fail in terms of its application? Well, you’d be wading through a tornado of selfish pricks with competing self-interests to deal with. Yo, Randians! Sounds like fun to you, or what?

I can’t help but think that the followers of Ayn Rand are held hostage to a hero-worship that has arrested the development of their consciousness and common sense. To insist on the virtue of selfishness is to deny that human beings are social animals. I understand that in neoliberal, libertarian and Paleo-Conservative thought, they piss on rationalism and logic when they claim that  looking out for others is a bet made by suckers. “Living for the sake of another” means that you would gladly live in someone else’s shoes. Would the head of JP Morgan trade places with an African child soldier? Would Mark Zuckerberg trade places with a Latina trying to cross the US-Mexico border? No, they would – and so would you – do everything in their power to keep such a life away from them, and in that effort, keep the wheels of oppression grinding away as if their was no tomorrow.

I’m sick of fanboy Randians. They don’t know what they are really pushing for.

NOTE

[1] Aristotle, who happened to be Rand’s favorite philosopher, provided her with the rational framework of her philosophy. The Greek Philosopher did present a line of reasoning for activating the “good will” within one towards the benefit of others (friendship) in his Nicomachean Ethics.  Rand distorted the self-love thesis of Aristotle and took it to an extreme abstraction where she proposed that the only justifiable act must be one of self-interest only, and where the benefits of others is ignored or must dovetail into the benefit of self-interest.

05/11/2012 – Flash: Oldest Known Mayan Calendar Found

End Times Prophecy, or did they just run out of space?

And guess what? The astronomical tables found in a remote Guatemala dig  at the largest-known Classic Mayan site, Xultún, are 500 years older than those preserved in the Maya codices, and they do not reference any End Times scenarios.

According to the CNN feed,

Contrary to popular myth, Mayan experts have known for a long time that this calendar is not a countdown to the end of the world on December 2012, the study researchers said in a press conference to reporters.

The Mayan used a series of cycles to track time in which there were 13 baktuns each representing a 400-year chunk.

Researchers of the study say rumors surrounding a projected apocalypse on Dec. 21, 2012, is a misconception. It is just the benchmark when a cycle of 13 baktuns will be complete and a new cycle begins.

“There was a lot more to the Mayan calendar than just 13 baktuns,” said archaeologist David Stuart of the University of Texas, who worked to decipher the hieroglyphics found on the walls of a house, dating back to the early part of the 9th century (813 A.D.-814 A.D.).

“The Mayan calendar is going to keep going for billions, trillions, octillions of years into the future,” added Stuart.

Can it be true? We shall still wait with bated breath on the December 21, 2012 New Age End Times Mayan Prophecy, but trust me on this. Barbara Hand Clow and her cottage industry of Mayanist Prophets will have to look for another story to exploit their gullible reading audience.

05/09/2012 -”Is Everything Thoughts?” 2012 and Abraham-Hicks

The question at the beginning of this Abraham-Hicks clip: “Is it fair to say that everything is thought?”

Before we continue with the answer given by Esther Hicks’ channeled personality “Abraham,” a bit of exposition.

The question comes from a historical spiritualist assumption most clearly expressed within Pre-Socratic and  New Thought metaphysical traditions , and the nature of consciousness is the key point. The pre-Socratic sage Anaxagoras developed a theory that a Universal Mind he called, Nous was responsible for creation. Heraclitus assigned the creative principle to Reason, which he called the Logos. Within New Thought metaphysics (which is the direct forerunner of the New Age movement), mind is Divine (as in the Mind of God) and superior than the physical. Hicks-Abraham mentions this directly in answer to the questioner by relating that if one tunes into a certain “frequency of being” through “reaching for the best feeling thought you can find,” one is able to receive an “alignment.” Hicks goes on to remark:

“Without alignment, you are giving up all that assistance – not completely because you are never cut off from it – but then you have to rely more on your physical activities in order to move things around. And at best, it is mediocre and unproductive.”

With this New Thought schematic, Esther Hicks lays the framework of the Law of Attraction where the thoughts of humans are invisibly influencing the course of human events. But according to the question, which assumes that the channeler will corroborate with its premise that everything in Creation exists as thoughts within the Mind of God, the physical is relegated to irrelevance. We have Plato, among others, to thank for this, as  this brand of cosmology has informed Western metaphysics that the physical is the imperfect copy of transcendent Forms, or Ideas.

So why is the answer given by the channeler a deception? This “tuning in to the frequency” of your being (whatever that means, but I’m assuming it relates to the “reaching of the best feeling thought possible” positive-thinking jazz) as the preferred course of action over physical activity is a great deception and a massive affront to common sense. The Great Wall of China and the Pyramids were not created by people sitting around reaching for the best thought feelings. They had to build the damn things. Just apply this crap to any real-world scenario and see if it makes sense. I suppose the half of humanity that are starving on their feet need only to “reach for the best possible feeling thought” to end their poverty.

But Hicks and her channeled personality are not  that concerned with  those outside of their targeted audience. Empty phraseology,word-games and regurgitated spiritualism makes sense only within that framework. “Leverage in alignment,” “tuning in to the frequency of who you really are” and ascribing anthropomorphic attributes to thought itself (“it existed in its presence and absence, and the combination of those two things caused it to become more “) forms a catalog of  nonsensical truth-claims that will lead many well-intentioned people into a massive trap of self-deception, within the so-called Law of Attraction where the Right to be Selfish is elevated to a spiritual principle, and the search for the “better feeling thought” becomes one’s mantra and moral compass. These beliefs, however, only represent a catalog of deceptive magical thinking. This is the problem with these types of beliefs, they do nothing but focus on encasing self within a make-believe world in separation with the rest of humanity through avoiding and denying real-world issues that affect everybody. Nobody within Ester Hicks’ retinue seems to notice the obvious problem of contradiction between living in a world that isn’t “real,” yet focusing on the best  possible feeling thoughts, abundance and preference. Why would preference or good feelings “matter” in an illusory, imperfect and irrelevant world? And if everything is thoughts, then why would the physical exist at all?

The questions become easier to answer when we are willing to flip the script. Moving things within the physical is much more practical and demonstrable than magical imagination. Test it out for yourself. Gather several books and arrange them into a single stack on one side of a table. Now search for the best possible feeling thought, tune into the frequency of who you really are  and move that stack to the other side of the table. Golly. Why didn’t the stack move? Perhaps you’re not trying hard enough. Come on, tune into that frequency. Still nothing? Well, don’t feel bad. I doubt Esther Hicks could have moved it with her mind either.

I have an “idea,” though. Let’s dispense with all forms of spiritualism, metaphysics and religions. These systems have not enhanced the human experience, ever.  They just superimpose a layer of sweet-sounding bullshit within the minds of the gullible and desperate that keeps us divided and diverted from the stuff that really matters, like the survival of the human race. The physical is here and no amount of love ‘n light-tooti-fruity nonsense will ever be able to remove this reality. Deal with it.

05/04/2012 – 2012 My Reply to “Franklin Beenz”

Franklin Beenz (if that’s his real name) is upset that I don’t give a fuck whether he properly investigates the Desteni Material or not. Something is stuck in Franklin’s craw and I don’t know why he insists on posting his disappointment about… why I don’t give a fuck whether he properly investigates the Desteni Material or not. The reason why I don’t give a fuck is because I’ve already investigated it, compared it to what I already knew and understood, participated fully on the various forums, visited and lived with them for years and still find the material (and the people behind it) trustworthy, impeccable and free from bullshit. So Franklin, how is it my responsibility to “prove” anything to you? You apparently know how to type, have access to the internet and seemingly have a working knowledge in English. If you can’t be bothered to research this yourself, then fuck off. Simple. Surprised I had to say that, a bit.

Now for you out there who may think I’m being too harsh on Franklin, here’s his last comment to me, submitted for your approval. He was asking my “source” responsible for the story I related in the FAQ. I told him the source was from a thread in the old Open Forum – which is archived to be viewed through permission only.

The source is from a ‘thread’ – and so that’s that, it’s true because it’s from a thread and you ‘simply don’t care’ that the words, message in that ‘thread’ should make actual and factual sense, be logical for any of your fellow human beings. So while traditional religions offer the word of god, you offer a thread and it matters not that either traditional religious beliefs nor your thread should actually make sense to your fellow humans.

The words and the message in the thread make perfect sense to me, Franklin, although according to your sensibilities it may seem like we’re pissing on logic and rationality… but I find it amusing that you would drag the Gods of the traditional religions into your bosom. Aren’t you a well-conditioned automaton?

Thanks for this little demonstration on how selflessness and equality operate in ones life if one puts into practice the teaching you are selflessly sharing and promoting here.

You’re welcome, but Franklin, I would never dream of taking your own responsibility away from you (unlike the Gods of your traditional religions). And I would never stand in your way of understanding equality and self-honesty if you sincerely asked, instead of spiking your inquiries with hater-aid.

Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if everyone arrogantly and selfish-centeredly ‘simply didn’t care’ that their religious beliefs/teachings, philosophies of life, ideologies, value systems, etc ,that they were promoting and sharing with their fellow human beings, actually and factually contained logic and actually made sense?

Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if people didn’t pretend to understand more than they actually did, and considered different ideas without the need to always place one’s own precious perspective above all others, without deceptive forked-tongued blandishments and deceitful dissembling? But that would be asking too much from you, eh Franklin?

It would be and remain a world demonstrating ‘the fucked-up nature of human beings and the world we’re bent on destroying’.

Unfortunately, I am forced to agree with my words you pasted above. There’s too much of the Desteni Material to go through to make such sweeping conclusions, Franklin.  There are thousands of documents and videos. It’s deep, gnarly and sometimes scary stuff. And you’re not going to understand a lot of it. I’ve walked this for almost 5 fucking years and I barely grasp it. So, those are the main reasons why I don’t give a fuck whether you get the message or not. Because it’s your responsibility to get it, not mine. It’s all there waiting for you. You know it’s there. But if you’re like all the other haters, then get over yourself, stop posting on my blog, go back to your Traditional Gods and fuck off. And thanks for reading.

05/01/2012 – 2012 and the Right to be Selfish

Did Anders Behring have the “right” to kill?

I usually don’t reference other blogs, but in this case, this is an exception.  This blog is directed to the comment section where the idea is presented that “people have the right to be selfish.”

“People have the right to be selfish.” This statement can be challenged directly through understanding the definition of “right” or “rights.” A “right” in the sense of an abstract idea that is attached to a liberal principle (usually conceived as “justice” or “morality”). So the statement’s sentiment is clear – “selfishness” as a principle, equals justice.”

Now, this is a highly distasteful and adolescent perspective as principles go, and it is ultimately the reasoning of a demented, unrepentant psychopath. You know, those people with a callous disregard for the welfare of others and who see themselves as Gods and everyone else as ants. Ayn Rand was certainly one of these people, as her early hero was a violent, dismembering, serial child murderer, William Edward Hickman, whom a young Ayn Rand gushed in her notebooks about, “the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should.” This is the “right of selfishness” to its ultimate, logical conclusion. And the whole of Ayn Rand’s philosophy has at its center this love for a sadistic murderer. Pathetic.

People who crow about the “right to be selfish” should have their heads examined. Seriously. There could be some pathological impulses bubbling in the subconscious, similar to the Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Behring. Wonder what Ayn Rand would’ve thought about HIM?

People DON’T have the RIGHT to be “selfish.” People just act in selfish ways, poisoning relationships and the environment with egotist, heinous, sociopathic intent to be God of their world. The USA doesn’t have the RIGHT to BOMB the fuck out of a country. We just DO it. The Elite do not have a RIGHT to control 99% of the world’s resources. We just DO it. Religions don’t have a RIGHT to brainwash people into cretinized, brainwashed dumbshits. They just DO it. To label selfishness a “right” is just a lame attempt to justify mental illness. Are there more important things in the world to consider than having your own fucking way all the time? Yes, there are, and as long as we pretend that “rights” based on murderous self-interest are somehow admirable, then we will never find a way to be able to live together with the respect that should be accorded all human beings.  We will instead be given a world where mental illness reigns supreme for now and evermore.