Life, the Universe and Everything

This site has moved...

2009-01-29T19:51:00.006Z

The posts below represent angrier days. The articles all seem a bit obvious. That doesn't mean I disown everything I have said, but I seem glued to the same subjects of religion and politics, important subjects yes, but obvious all the same. Yeah some of the stuff I wrote is not general knowledge despite the fact it needs to be, but it’s nothing that others haven’t written a hundred times before more eloquently. Some of it just doesn’t need to be said. And if it’s not about religion or politics, it’s some kind of crazy fanciful pseudoscience. According to me a year ago there is a random Nissan Micra floating around space simply because of the probability such things existing in such a vast universe. I’ve given up writing to this blog, and now post shorter, less angry, more varied pieces on a calm blue background, as shown above, but I keep this as an archive and an echo of days past.

The Intelligence Advantage

2008-11-17T16:24:00.002Z

Communism is generally regarded by reasonable people as a great idea on paper that just doesn’t work out in real life. And I see it as an integral part of maturing that I have come to agree with this. But it’s more than the fact that it doesn’t work. I have come to realise that even a successful true communist regime would be flawed.

The definition of a civilisation is a society whose citizens spend their time discussing arts and culture because there is nothing more pressing for them to worry about. In this way the key difference between a true civilisation and the world of animals is that for us, intelligence is more useful than physical strength. A PhD is more useful than a pectoral. A degree is of more help than a deltoid. A baccalaureate is valued higher than a bicep.

For civilisation to survive it is vital that intelligence has the advantage over physical strength. And how does intelligence gain the advantage? The answer is money. Capitalism as we currently know it does need a few adjustments to remove the greed factor, but otherwise it is a perfect mechanism for allowing people to take control of their destinies to the extent that their intellect allows.

If Communism wants to make people equal, it must go further than simply distributing wealth equally. To achieve full equality it must also find a way of standardising physical strength, or it will create a social system where power is decided by physical attribute, and with that comes the downfall of civilisation.

Clever people have to be more powerful than stupid. Brains must succeed over brawn. Intelligence must be able to overthrow ignorance. The meek will not inherit the earth by themselves.

Of course this needs balance like all things. The intellectual elite can’t just have free reign. That’s why we have democracy, so as to balance the direction of purpose. To ensure this I personally prescribe a democracy based around socialist capitalism, in which everyone has an equal opportunity to make the most of what sits between their ears. Those with lots of brain can help out those with not much with things like healthcare, education and entertainment.

Ozzy Osbourne and the Truth behind Spirituality

2008-10-30T00:16:00.004Z

I was watching the second series of reality TV programme ‘The Osbournes’ the other day. There, I admitted it. Considered trash and junk food TV by everyone who hasn’t seen it. I find it to be genuinely interesting and at times quite touching, unlike most reality TV. Although the main protagonist, ageing rock star Ozzy Osbourne, is well known as ‘the prince of darkness’, and appears to be suffering from a permanent hangover, he is actually a very sensitive and kind, loving man. And in one episode he unwittingly taught the world a very valuable lesson.

A lot of the Christian websites I have browsed through (example) condemn Ozzy as they believe him to be a Satanist. Many rock stars such as Ozzy, rock stars like Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, are often misunderstood by the religious right who actually think they are Satanists. People like Ozzy just have a fascination with the theatrics of the occult. As entertainers they can appreciate the effects and mystique. They don’t actually follow Satan. I don’t even think that many actually believe in Satan. You have to understand this before you can truly appreciate who Ozzy really is.

At the time Ozzy’s wife, Sharon Osbourne, has cancer, and although she survives, they do not know that at this stage. At the same time, Ozzy is going through the twelve step detox programme, and is accompanied on a musical tour by his ‘spiritual guide’ Robert, who tries to get Ozzy to do stuff like pray, practice yoga and discuss Jesus with recovered alcoholics. He even reads him poetry, during which Ozzy signals his indifference with a well timed fart. Robert the Spiritualist “was trying to get Ozzy into being a lot more spiritual”.

But he need not have bothered. The most touching part was when Ozzy was discussing his fears about his wife’s illness, and what would happen if she died. “She’s my whole world, she’s the best lover I’ve ever had, the best friend I’ve ever had, the worst friend I’ve ever had”. Despite describing himself as a spiritualist, Robert seemed unable to guide Ozzy though these pure and basic, yet highly complex emotions. The best he could say was “if it’s any consolation you’ll probably die long before she will”. Hmm.

Ozzy demonstrated the lost truth of spirituality. It’s not religion, its not suffocating incense or waving crystals about your head, it’s not whale song cds or mystical proverbs from the east. It’s love, pure and simple. Whether or not you feel happy, you’ve reached a good place when the only thing you care about is another human being. In this way Ozzy was already complete.

Love is often overlooked by those who want to sell ‘spirituality’. This is because love is innate and spontaneous, mystical yet chemical. If you can’t write a book about it, do a dance round it or glue a crystal to it, spirit-merchants like Robert can’t make money out of it, so it gets largely ignored. I’m sure he meant well. I’m sure they all mean well. I’m sure if I met this Robert bloke I would feel bad for having slated him. But he has a long way to go, much farther than he thinks, much farther than Ozzy, if he has not yet attuned himself with the purity and base goodness of simple, old fashioned love. As I believe Jesus said ‘do not remove the splinter from your brother’s eye before you have removed the log from your own’.

Similarities over Differences

2008-09-20T17:42:00.004+01:00

It occurs to me that the main weakness to organised religion is other organised religions. All religions, particularly the Abrahamic ones, have the same justification of faith and contact with God, and the same set of arguments as to why their scriptural teachings are genuine.

Yet their scriptures differ. This means that one of them has got divine teachings wrong, which throws the whole system of faith and prayer into disrepute. This is a clear indication that religions are man made, because if they truly taught the word of a one true God, then they would all teach the same thing. Great religions teach alike, so on that basis there are no great religions. The heavens remain silent, so man takes it upon himself to speak for them.

However scriptural teachings do correlate. Many teachings common to one religion are common to another. The basic principles of love, charity and the importance of being good to others are consistent through practically all the religions. They are taught in different ways, yes, and with different wording, but the basic essence of these core teachings remain the same.

This means that if we are to accept that there is a God, then we know to focus on where religions agree rather on where they differ. Focus on the similarities between religions rather than the differences. The piffling little nuances that fundamentalists spill blood over should be disregarded as white noise from the great and sprawling radio to God.

I am not personally religious. The places where religions agree I personally put down to the old rule of great minds think alike. However I keep my mind open to the possibility that the correlation of some scriptural teachings indicate the existence of a God.

Man created God in his own image

2008-09-20T17:07:00.005+01:00

When it comes to the question of the existence of a God, I remain agnostic, but when it comes to the Gods of individual organised religions, I am firmly atheistic.

The irony of it all is that most scriptures decree that God created man in his own image, when in actual fact it was man who created God in his own image. That is why the teachings of religions often conflict, and the nature of God appears to differ. Each author of scripture is different, and therefore their created God differs.

All it would have taken is for a self appointed ‘prophet’ to get it into his head that God communicates to him through his own thoughts, and every idea he had he would have considered to be the ‘word of God’. Hence God’s rapidly changing personality throughout the religions, a strange trait in a being that is supposed to be omnipresent.

The Origin of Good Will

2008-07-21T20:48:00.004+01:00

As an Atheist one of my key doubts as to the negativity of religion lies with the assumption that people need a motive to be good towards others, that they need some kind of system of threat and reward to maintain basic moral principles. As religion provides this system for so many, I have to ask the question: why fight something that does so much to maintain a civilised society?

But there are flaws to this assumption. Many years ago, when religious belief was consensus and unquestioned, there was still crime, worse then than now. Despite ‘knowing’ that they would go to hell, people still stole, lied, raped and murdered. Similarly Atheists are not a notoriously uncivilised bunch. I don’t feel the need to be unpleasant and selfish just because there is no omnipotent threat of reprisal nor omnipresent system for reward.

I believe this is because good will is not powered by motive, but generated by an inner drive that only exists when the spiritual wellbeing (I use the term metaphorically) of the individual is at a peak. Think about it. We feel generous when we are well off, we are friendly when we are cheerful and we are good willed when we are happy. When our mood is good we glow and this spreads to others. More or less, the happier we are the happier those around us are.

Drive from the midst of a city out into the countryside and you will find that the people, in general, get more and more cheerful and good willed. This is because they are less materialistic than city people, and therefore are closer to their goals, making them happier and therefore more generous. North Wales is generally more cheerful than South Wales. South West England is generally happier than the South East. Compare the looks of commuters on an underground train with the looks of villagers at a bus stop. The villagers are happier, and therefore friendlier. The difference is more or less quality of life.

This fundamental misunderstanding as to the root of good will is one of the reasons why religion doesn’t always work. I believe that religions are conceived by visionaries who are paranoid about the uncivilised nature of the dimwits that surround them. So they invent a boogie man to inspire in their peers the same sense of right and wrong, albeit motivated by fear, that occurs naturally in themselves to ensure a good future. However problems come when these visionaries turn out to be wrong. Most of the prophets of the Abrahamic religions appear to share all the character traits of a modern day fascist cab driver. They hate homosexuals, so a few thousand years later, so does a large chunk of the population. There is currently conflict within the Christian church over whether or not to allow gay priests. Those against it argue that the Bible is anti-gay. But if you were to take their Biblical knowledge out of the equation and rely on simple good will, they would have no problem with homosexuality. Two people love each other and want to be together, so what’s the problem? Religious teachings often act as rails that we simply do not need. Some of the advice is good, but the supernatural mumbo-jumbo isn’t.

Also endorsing the living of life by a set of pre determined rules can be dangerous. It is innately obvious to most people that killing equals bad. But if you’re the kind of thick person who abides by rules that other people have created, and as a result you don’t properly understand them, you may find a loophole through which to do wrong and your morality won’t stop you because it lies dormant in lieu of a specific text. Take extremist Islam for example. The Koran forbids suicide, yet praises the martyr. That way the former is lost in favour of the latter. If these people had been happier and worked it out for themselves, they would have realised that martyrdom only applies when death is circumstantial. Engineer the outcome to get a quick reward obviously defeats the original purpose, yet blind believers do not see this.

Never mind motive. The influence on good will to others is good vibes within ourselves. Socio-economic factors are better at explaining the quality of the innate morality of a population far better than religious convictions ever could. There is no need to force others to do good when they could just as well do good of their own free will.

I appreciate that there are exceptions to this rule. The greedy, the selfish and the downright nasty are unpleasant no matter what their mood. But they are a minority, or at least I hope they are.

Is Faith a Virtue?

2008-06-12T19:34:00.005+01:00

As an Atheist one of my pivotal doubts as to whether there is truth in religion is the emphasis on faith. I cannot understand how anyone could possibly be proud of their blind belief, let alone consider it a virtue. But I think the main source of my lack of understanding is that it had not occurred to me that faith works on two levels.

I can understand faith in the wisdom of God. I can understand, and agree with, the logic of obeying a benevolent higher power, even if the rules it sets seem illogical, because it is, after all, a higher power that will see the bigger picture and has your best interests at heart. This may be the version of faith that religious people prize so highly.

However the faith needed in order to believe in such a higher being in the first place is based on much more shaky reasoning. The best reason given for a God being illusive is so that we can believe in it of our own free will without absolute proof forcing our conviction. But with what exactly? Religious texts? Flick through most religious scripture and you will find accounts of miracles, powerful prophets and direct speech between man and God. Such obvious proof seems to rule out the possibility of faith.

Also there is the issue of other religions. For example, Christianity may be the most popular religion, but as with a hung parliament, it is outnumbered by the other religions combined. There are four times as many people who don’t follow Christianity as there are people who do. That means that if there is a Christian God, it is loosing big time, a concept I find difficult to attach to a supreme being.

The primary basis, and often the only basis, for a belief in God in organised religions is the testament of religious scripture. These scriptures offer no actual proof for their claims, and are written by people who lived long ago, before psychoanalysis and modern standards of reasoning could rule out mental illness (not counting Scientology, whose founder L. Ron Hubbard, born in 1911 is a confirmed fantasist). When you ask some religious people how they know their chosen scripture is true, the argument often goes round in circles, as demonstrated in terms of the Bible by the diagram below.

It all comes down to faith and blind belief, and although many claim that they know for certain that their God exists, I think it much more likely that, seeing as such peoples accounts contradict, this conviction springs from a deep desire for it to be true and a pure love for the idea. As it says in the Bible: ‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen’ (Hebrews C11,V5).

So is faith a virtue? Is faith something to be proud of? I’d have to say no. A blind belief in an implausible circumstance without evidence is an indication of a weak mind and an inability to cope with the responsibility for our own destiny.

Political Orientation

2008-04-29T22:23:00.008+01:00

It is time for everyone to stop thinking of right and left wing politics as two dimensional. You cannot put democratic socialism such as that endorsed by modern left wing politics in the same category as totalitarian communism such as was found in Stalin’s Russia. Similarly, you can’t put mainstream right wing politics of today in the same category as right wing politics of Hitler’s Germany. Political viewpoints can be best described using The Political Compass, as displayed below, which is more adequate as it uses four dimensions instead of two.

Below is a diagram representing the political viewpoints of famous figures in history in relation to the compass

My personal orientation is displayed below, and I'm proud to say that according to this test I'm even more liberal, freedom loving and humanitarian than Gandhi himself, although I do admit that had I been raised in the same time and place as him I would probably have been a lesser liberal than him.You can evaluate your own viewpoint using the same test that I did. It’s important to know your own viewpoint. Everyone, no matter how ignorant they are of political arguments has a viewpoint. Take the test.

The Boundaries of Racism

2008-04-07T17:56:00.003+01:00

Racism is discrimination or prejudice based on race. Racism leads to social divisions, hatred, violence and sometimes even genocide. It is generally accepted that a wide variety of intelligence and character traits are displayed in different racial groups and nationalities, thus rendering judgement based on race false and inaccurate.

We should definitely avoid racism, but how do we decide between what is racist ignorance and what is balanced cultural criticism? We need to distinguish between hatred and debate.

Racism based purely on race is baseless and wrong. To suggest that a race or nation is genetically predisposed to having certain qualities (in most cases negative) then that its racism. It’s wrong because you cannot generalise to that race as there is a wide range of qualities contained within every race’s gene pool.

But to criticise a culture or system of belief irrespective of whether that system is predominately followed by a singular race is not racism and is open to reasoned debate. This is because a culture consists of set practices that have nothing to do with genetics, and therefore can be generalised to because the cultural practices are more or less fixed bar the odd variations. This distinction needs to be made because practices are escaping the criticism and scrutiny they deserve because people do not want to appear to be racist.

But there are atrocities that are carried out around the world daily because the backward culture or government of the region endorses it. In Iran and Saudi Arabia women are persecuted as second class citizens, stoning and beheading are still used as punishments for adultery, homosexuality is met with the death sentence. In China the Tibetans are persecuted and their freedom denied, with little sympathy from the Chinese people whose media have led them to believe that the Tibetans are racist against the Chinese. In India arranged marriages, tantamount to slavery, are enforced by honour killings. In some of the darker parts of Africa children are murdered should they be suspected of ‘witchcraft’. The Bible and Koran contain highly backward, offensive and objectionable material.

All these happenings may seem random, but they are the result of the adherence to evil cultures and systems of belief. You may say I am ethnocentric but I doubt ethnocentrism applies to these extremes, as the right to freedom is self evident. The abuse of human rights is wrong no matter what perspective you come from. Criticising cultural practices for their barbaric tendencies is not racism. It’s help for the victims.

The Greatest Argument for the Left

2008-04-03T22:39:00.008+01:00

The greatest argument the Left Wing has to offer comes from a US professor called John Rawls and his book A Theory of Justice. His suggestion, the original position, is as follows.

To decide on moral principles and laws we should imagine ourselves in a position before birth: in a situation where we know all about the world, but we do not know where we are going to be born or what sex, race, class etc we would be. In this position we would be truly free of bias. We would want wealth to be spread equally and human rights to be protected. This way we could safeguard our future and have a good percentage change of a free and stable future.

Anybody who says that they would not want this is either mad or lying. Through pure logic it shows that right wing views are based on the advantage, bias and selfishness of the people who hold them. This scenario uses a person’s natural sense of selfishness to put them in a position of empathy for the entire human race.

The Cornerstones of Freedom

2008-04-03T22:36:00.004+01:00

There are many cornerstones to freedom, as freedom is a complex concept with many corners and angles that need stone foundations to support them, metaphorically speaking. But for this post I shall discuss the lesser celebrated yet most important cornerstones.

Freedom begins with choice, but you can only have choice when you have the freedom to choose. The freedom of choice is not a matter confined only by laws, but also by capability, financial as well as physical. The threat of financial ruin in many countries cripples the freedom of its citizens. In the ‘free‘ USA, if you loose your job you could face death not only from starvation but also from sickness. The US does not provide public healthcare, and health insurance companies go out of their way to avoid paying for healthcare. It hangs above people like the sword of damocles.

Not so in the UK. Every British citizen may sleep soundly in their beds because they know that whatever happens they cannot truly hit rock bottom because in this country we have a safety net. This consists of the two most important cornerstones to British freedom other than education and free speech. In the UK, should you hit financial ruin, you will not starve, nor will your children because of state benefits. You will not die of curable disease or injury because of the National Health Service. We can fly as high as we want because we know, should we fall, we can survive.

It’s not quite as simple as all that, but the basic idea is sound, and it’s a damn sight more than people get in some other countries. To those who lament their taxes being spent on benefits and the NHS, I say you are reckless to want to remove the mattress below your cliff, you shun a worthy investment, and by begrudging your duty as a citizen to support the poor of your country you are not earning the passport you hold nor the safety you get in your home towns that those who live in Baghdad or Kabul would walk over hot coals to get.

Life is not perfect, but by getting a sense of perspective we can learn to value that which we would miss most should we loose it.

Modern Anger

2008-03-27T21:52:00.004Z

A recent YouGov survey in Britain, carried out on behalf of the Mental Health Foundation, found that 64% of people polled feel they are getting angrier. But are they angry because of their own reasons, or because the feel like they should?

Anger is what makes us human. At times when I have felt most alive it was because I was angry. The problem comes when you cannot release this anger. Then it becomes unhealthy. If you are angry at someone, have power over them and are able to call them a tosser without fear of retribution, then you can release it. Otherwise we can't, and we bottle it up, occasionally letting it out by doing something stupid like hitting someone or voting Tory.

Our nation is frustrated and angry because we are more aware of injustice. It has nothing whatsoever with Britain being a so-called 'broken society'. If we had a media as effective and far reaching as today 50 years ago, we would have been even more angry, because 50 years ago everything was much worse, and the reasons for getting angry were doubly justifiable.

The most angry people seem to be people who buy tabloids, particularly Daily Mail readers. The sort of person who reads the Daily Mail is the sort of person who is likely to get angry in whatever time period they happen to find themselves in. This is because the editorial and readership of the Daily Mail is bigoted, right wing and conservative. All bigoted right wing conservatives hate change. As change is unavoidable, this makes them rather grumpy. Most of the reasons Daily Mail readers get angry are irrational or fabricated.

The right wing press seem at the moment to collaborate in trying to convince people that it is the governments fault that Britain is ‘a broken society’ (a load of old tosh in my opinion, regurgitated over the decades by change fearing conservatives). But I find it hard to believe that any other government would have been able to do better. The Thatcher government's eighties shake up may have helped the economy on a short term basis, but long term it cost our nation its soul. We are obsessed with money and consumerism. This obsession causes debt, which leads to poverty and stress, and ultimately anger. All this puts strain on relationships and families, and hey, it looks like we can see that broken society on the horizon.

According to Tony Benn "There are two ways in which people are controlled; first of all frighten people, and secondly demoralise them." By convincing the intellectually poor tabloid readership that Britain is going down the pan, and that it is specifically the Labour governments fault, they can try and get the Tory party into power. The Tory party is inherently elitist, conservative and xenophobic. Three things the right wing press wants. And three things that hold this nation back. It always amazes me that so many working class people vote Tory. It’s like a Jewish person supporting the Nazi party. Logic is lacking here.

The opposite is currently being done in America. Right wing news agencies like Fox News hardly ever report on the Iraq war, and make out that everything is going fine, despite the US army death toll recently having passed 4000. Republican candidates are respectfully left alone in televised debates whilst Democrat representatives are attacked from all corners and demonised as liberal morons. Press agencies all over the world will have been at some point responsible for distorting the truth to support their political allegiances, but the most dangerous are those who spread fear and demoralise its audience, for the people responsible are bringing down democracy. The biggest threat to western democracy is the corporate media.

Are Limits on Immigration Racist?

2008-03-27T21:33:00.004Z

Is it racist to impose limits on immigration? I suppose not. Nobody could disagree with reasonable limits and restrictions. We can’t just let anybody into our country. There has to be a system to filter out criminals and those carrying diseases. And after all, we have only so much space. But the question still remains: what is the Conservative Party's motive for imposing limits on immigration?

The reason the Conservatives, UKIP, the BNP and many other anti immigration parties around the world want to cut down on immigration is simple: xenophobia. Conservatives by their very nature dislike change, and they dislike people different from themselves. Both of their dislikes are invoked by the introduction of damned foreigners’ into the country.

In answer to this advert for the Conservative Party, it’s not necessarily racist to want to limit immigration, but it certainly is with conservative motivations for doing so.

They may claim that immigrants are ‘taking our jobs’ and that immigration ‘is out of control’, but the fact is that immigrants generate around 10% of our economic strength, despite the fact they account for only 2.5% of the population. They may claim that Britain is ‘a soft touch’ on immigration, even though we are eleventh in Europe when it comes to taking in immigrants.

They may claim that the influx of foreigners is responsible for deterioration in ‘British values’. Britain is a country made up of many nationalities. Its society is ever changing, its values subjective and unfixed. The only British value that I can think of that is not abstract or taken from a stereotype is that of freedom, as if that’s a uniquely British value. It’s worth fighting for, but it’s not under serious threat by immigrants. In fact, fresh ideas and cultures, getting used to new people and new customs, being open minded and ready to tolerate people different from ourselves can only make us stronger. The only problem is that change, open mindedness and tolerance are distinctly un-Tory ideas……

The Absurdity of Animal Charity

2008-01-04T20:09:00.000Z

On the day I write this a British newspaper, The Independent, has chosen to put a red square on its front page indicating how much living space a battery chicken has, with a caption underneath reading ‘The true cost of cheap chicken’ (I doubt a pun was intended). This is a shame, because I’ve always admired the Independent. But today they have featured a story on the front page that both fails to tug at my heartstrings AND deeply annoys me.

I know compassion is what makes us human, but I refuse to care for a creature that basically has no soul. An animal that can survive without a head does not deserve the attention of our beautiful bleeding hearts. Ever heard of Mike the Headless Chicken? It came to fame when a farmer tried to behead it, but by chance the axe missed the jugular and left enough of the brain stem to allow it to remain active. It died after 2 years of a career in headlessness when it choked on a grain of corn that its owner had fed to it using a pair of tweezers. So quite honestly I really can’t be bothered to worry about a creature that has all the sentience of a microwave oven. A chicken that has been born into such a life has no idea what it could otherwise have, so it doesn’t miss it. A chicken has no family to cry over it when it gets eaten. A chicken would kill us if it thought it would benefit. A chicken would struggle to grasp many of the basic concepts that would make battery farming horrific for a human.

The biggest aspect about this line of thinking that angers me is the fact that it represents the incredible lack of a sense of priority that people have. The day that every person in the world is above the poverty line is the day I start to worry about the plight of animals. There are people dying of curable diseases and famine, yet we give millions to cat charities and squirrel sanctuaries (something like that). Far too much charity money is given to animals whose ability to experience fear and suffering is dwarfed by the tragically complex human condition. If you think of it in terms of a flea bitten dog and an African orphan locked in an oven, and you can only save one of them, you are going to choose to save the child. It would seem absurd not to. Saving the dog would almost certainly constitute as manslaughter in a court of law. The sheer scale of human suffering in this world should rule out all animal charities. I was talking to a girl about making nuclear power safe, and I suggested that we build them in the middle of deserts. Instead of liking the idea of avoiding climate change, or preventing deaths from meltdown, she was more concerned about the snakes and scorpions that live in the desert.

And yet many people don’t understand this. England is definitely the worst. I met someone once who told me that some rich person paid her £15 a day just to talk to their hamster whilst they were on holiday. She runs a business that looks after pets whilst the owners are on holiday, and it makes a large amount of money. They tried to branch out abroad and set up an Australian equivalent, but it collapsed immediately, because people would just ask the neighbour to chuck a bone over the fence every now and then. The Spanish slaughter bulls, for fun, because they understand that bulls are stupid and mindlessly violent. Many roll their eyes at animal rights protestors. I would certainly advise them to instead picket a sweatshop because they would do more good that way.

Some animal charities are downright daft. They campaign for the protection of dangerous animals, such as lions and tigers and bears. They say it’s a shame that you don’t see such animals in the wild anymore. No it isn’t! If I see a tiger in the wild, it will only be briefly because I will spend the rest of the time running very quickly in the opposite direction, possibly with only one leg still intact. There should only be a handful of them in zoos and safari parks, and the rest of them should be processed and made into handbags. These creatures eat people! A flock of 50 bears (?) was released in the Pyrenees recently, much to the anger of locals who could no longer walk about safely and had their herds of sheep devoured by Winnie ‘sheep-masher’ Pooh. It made me want to start a charity with the soul task of preventing bears, not preserving them.

Then there is the ongoing struggle against animal testing. Why? If they kill 50 rabbits to find a cure for a disease that will save 50,000 people, then isn’t it justified? I disagree with unnecessary cruelty, and I am against experimentations on the more intelligent members of the animal kingdom, such as monkeys and dolphins. But once you get passed that kind of thing, isn’t it basically a worthy investment in human life? An example of this is the case of the Newchurch Farm that bred guinea pigs for experimentation. They were under constant attack from a horde of animal rights protestors. Anybody connected with the family who ran this business, anyone from the actual members’ right down to their cleaner and postman, was bullied and harassed. They used tactics such as bricks through windows, paint stripper on cars, smear campaigns, etc. The remains of one of the families’ mother was even exhumed and held to ransom. It sounds like these people thought that the farm was evil on par with the holocaust. They have no sense of priority. If suffering could be measured in a scale then things would be different. For arguments sake lets imagine we had the Grow-Up-And-Get-A-Sense-Of-Perspective-You-Sheep-Shagger scale, we could show that the suffering endured by the family who ran the business easily surpassed the suffering experienced by the guinea pigs, a species that has been known to eat their own babies.

I understand the appeal of a pet. They are humble, loving and cute. They make good companions, and I don’t criticise people for having them. They can even be loved to an extent where the owner imparts a portion of their soul into that animal (figuratively speaking), and after the animals death the grief will be enough to make them different people. But that doesn’t justify giving them equal charitable priority with people. By rights it should be impossible to register an animal orientated organisation as a charity. When the last human being has risen above the poverty line, when we have defeated global warming, when every child is educated, then, and only then, will I turn my attention to the plight of the mad badger or the cramped chicken. There is only so much compassion in this world, so we need a sense of priority to maximise its potential.

The Resource Tax

2007-12-30T01:40:00.000Z

Global Warming! Never mind what Exxon Mobile say, it’s the biggest problem we face today. It is not an exaggeration to say that it threatens the very future of the human race. It is nature’s reaction to mankind outgrowing the safety of insignificance, and into a new age where we have the power, the numbers and the technology to really muck things up. Unless we start taking responsibility as a race for our actions, we face extinction by uninhibited greed.

As ever I have many solutions which I have put forward on this site, and now is time for me to unveil my latest scheme, one I suspect will be my most popular, and it involves the rather irksome business of tax.

My plan is a massive overhaul in taxes that puts their main focus on global warming. First of all abolish income tax. Get rid of it altogether. Secondly, make up the difference by raising the tax on products and services which exacerbate global warming through unnecessary wastage. For instance plane tickets, low mpg cars, goods shipped from overseas using heavy gas guzzling tankers (buy local!), beef that farts, SUV’s, electronics that use exotic materials that pollute through complex mining procedures, patio heaters, packaging on a sliding scale depending on necessity, fuels, particularly leaded, non energy efficient light bulbs and so on. This would mean that people who lead a carbon considerate lifestyle would benefit financially over the selfish. Life would not become boring because huge financial benefit would be piled behind ways to have fun without damaging the environment through developing carbon neutral pastimes such as hangliding, cheese rolling, jousting and sex.

Sure it would lead to a dent in the economic benefits of consumerism, but this would be counterbalanced by the prevention of the partial destruction of the economy through escalating debt, and the full destruction of the economy through global warming. All of the energy governments put into chasing tax evaders would be put behind ensuring that taxes are fair, with an intelligent sliding scale on all goods and their various sub-categories. For some it would mean less taxes and a reward for a social conscious. For others it would mean a violent come down to earth. Global warming is not doom mongering. Doom mongers bounce up and down the street with placards in tin foil hats; they don’t command scientific opinion or conduct international debate.

Self Creating Circumstances

2007-08-21T17:14:00.000+01:00

There are many theories surrounding the origins of the universe, all of them mired in uncertainty. But one principle we can be vaguely sure of is that the answer is going to be very strange indeed.

Here is a theory I have devised

There is a basic mathematical rule of existence stating that all self creating circumstances exist simultaneously. This means that any scenario which 'ends' with it generating itself is automatically in existence in the Great Soupy Soup Soup (what lies beyond our universe, and what in a four dimensional context the universe is contained in). According to this theory there are an almost infinite number of universes, or self creating circumstances (SCC's) in which whatever it contains, most likely life, ends up creating the universe it exists in. If this is true it is our, or some other races destiny to create the universe, which would seep through the normally linear path of time to exist always, including at the beginning when it creates its creator. This theory only avoids collision with accusations of paradox because the rule exists outside the timeline.

Just imagine all those universes. Probability means that should my theory prove accurate, there are many universes similar to our own, including universes where red hair is more common than brown, and a universe in which the summit of Mt Everest is placed two inches to the left of where our version is positioned.

P.S. Paracetamol can be obtained from the nearest chemist

We are responsible for Global Warming

2007-08-17T11:30:00.000+01:00

For all those who doubt that man kind is responsible for Global Warming:

Fact 1: Over millions of years plant life has been taking in carbon dioxide and storing it in the ground as fossil fuel. As a result the planets atnosphere has reached a delicate atmospheric equillibrium.

Fact 2: We are running out of fossil fuels. This means that all the progress plants have made over millions of years is being undone so quickly that life has no time to adapt.

Thus if we are running out of fossil fuels it is only logical to assume that we are responsible for atmospheric change. Is it coincidence that the planet chooses to heat up just as industry accelerates at record levels we begin to run low on fossil fuels? The US politicians and pseudo scientists from ExxonMobile know this. They are not stupid. They are lying to you. They want profit now because they know they will be dead or dying when our climate starts to get really nasty. They are abolishing the future and must be stopped at all costs.

The Pointless War

2007-07-28T23:29:00.000+01:00

Numerous reasons have been given for going to war with Iraq, and more have been uncovered. But do they adequately justify the conflict?

Threat from Weapons of Mass Destruction – no such weapons were found, which was to be expected seeing as a UN report declared Iraq as being ’90 – 95% fundamentally disarmed’ as early as 1998.

Threat from Terrorism – Many experts agree that the key motivation driving Islamic terrorist groups is vengeance for western occupation of the Middle East. 9/11 would not have happened had it not been for US foreign policy intervening in the Middle East. The most effective response to the 9/11 attacks would have been to withdraw from the region and remove all US military bases. By invading Iraq and Afghanistan they have fuelled anti-western hatred. Men and women and children die in their thousands because our leaders lack the insight to do anything other than lash out like some great lumbering oaf.

Humanitarianism - Yes Saddam was a dictator, an evil one at that. But at the time of the war he was not at the height of his cruelty, the majority of his people were not in a heightened state of danger. If the reason was intervention, why has the neither the US nor the UK intervened in other countries of greater need? What about the genocide in Rwanda and Sudan? Why is Robert Mugabe still allowed to impose himself on the people of Zimbabwe? There are many dictatorships that are worse than Saddams which would be easier to overthrow than Iraq, and yet many western governments support them. Logic is lacking here.

Oil – Black Gold, the blood in capitalisms veins. This might explain their dubious choice in dictatorship to overthrow. The promise of cheap oil was what greased the cogs in the machine of greed, not protection from a terrorist threat or some humanitarian mission. But they failed in that their war has made the middle east more unstable than it has ever been. But even so, the desire for cheap oil is idiotic. Global Warming will wreak havoc all around the world. It will devastate and destroy unless we act now. Nuclear and renewable is the way forward, so why spend billions on Middle Eastern grease?

The question we must ask is why, truly, did they go to war with Iraq? Are our leaders stupid? Or is there a deeper reason, a reason that as yet nobody has been able to guess? I doubt it. The conflict spawns from greed without intelligence or responsibility, and is a terrifying insight into how our governments work. The Iraq war has got to be the most pointless and idiotic conflict since World War I.

Human Rights and Responsibilities

2007-06-27T15:33:00.000+01:00

As the human population expands and technology becomes more and more advanced, the need for a unified sense of responsibility for each others wellbeing is becoming increasingly vital. We have Human Rights, but with rights come responsibilities. We need to have a sense of Human Responsibility. For this I propose the following:

1. Every Human Being is responsible for protecting and maintaining the environment in which we inhabit.

2. Every Human Being is responsible for ensuring that their fellow Human Beings are able to stay above the poverty line.

3. Every Human Being is responsible for protecting the rights of all Human Beings.

4. Every Human Being is responsible for ensuring that every Human Child is safe, secure and provided with adequate education.

5. Every Human Being is responsible for fighting tyranny in all its forms.

These should act as a natural counter balance to Human Rights and ensure overall balance. The two should be listed together and considered inseparable. To ensure the future of the Human Race, draw up The Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities.

Just How Liberal is 'The Liberal Media'?

2007-06-27T13:58:00.000+01:00

A large section of the press, such as newspapers and TV, gain a large chunk of their revenue from highly lucrative corporate advertising. All other media mediums, such as film and literature, depend to a certain extent on reviews and publicity from newspapers and TV. This circle of dependency is called ‘The Liberal Media’.

Advertisement revenue is provided by profit generating, lawyer wielding, globe spanning gargantuan corporations who commit the most crimes against humanity. So how can a media organisation not be biased and remain liberal if it depends on corporate advertising to survive? Half of TV, newspapers and radio seem to be taken up by adverts, adverts for cheap airline tickets which exacerbate global warming, adverts for Nestle products from a corporation that pays its suppliers peanuts, adverts for Nike products that were made by impoverished children in sweatshops....the list goes on.

Who can you trust? You could look to the internet and the realm of blogs, but as they can be run by just about anybody, reliability is often lacking. Just take this blog for example. It, like many others, could be run by some angry attic inhabiting, star trek worshipping nerd who wants to cause trouble for the corporations online just because he can (I should probably point out at this point that I am no such thing, but you never know).

The overall message is always be astute, never entirely believe what you hear and make sure you get plenty of input from a variety of sources. Never stop questioning.

To the Fundamentalists

2007-06-11T21:56:00.001+01:00

Fundamentalism promotes rigorous following of the Christian faith with little to no compromise. To be so closed minded and unmoving is unhealthy. You could be wrong, never forget that, there is always a possibility you could be wrong.

Fundamentalist preaching is often blatant and self proclaiming. It’s like you convert people like a machine, doing all you can to impose your religion on others. Does it not occur to you that the reason god provides us with so little actual evidence of his existence is that he wants people to find him themselves? This in-your-face attitude is detrimental to your cause. The reason for this is as follows.

If you push your religion on someone the way evangelism does then you deny that person part of the experience of the spiritual journey, which may weaken or falsify their faith. A rush conversion will leave their faith with many hidden holes, and their spiritual depth will be shallow. When these holes are confronted their reaction will be an unhealthy one, as a pose to a slow conversion where these holes are filled in during the process. Jesus spoke of this effect in the Parable of the Two Builders. One man rush built his house on sand, the other took the time to build it on rock. When the storms came, the house on the sand was devastated, whilst the house on the rock survived.

The reason I am skeptical of 'born again' conversions is because of the manner in which many come about. All that screaming, dancing about and ‘speaking in tongues’. It’s just hysterics, just people getting overly emotional and thinking it’s a holy experience. And talking in 'tongues' is just gibberish. A true conversion is a deep and profound thing that requires a large amount of build up. Anybody who has read Arthur Millers ‘The Crucible’ will understand what I am talking about.

There is the danger you push that person the other way; they are permanently put off Christianity by what they perceive as a strong and imposing attitude. A negative experience of this kind can last a long time.

Many fundamentalist evangelicals try to convert other churches to your way of thinking. This does seem to be quite arrogant, and why waste your time trying to convert others to a religion they already follow?

You may say that you are trying to save as many people as possible. But how do you know it is not possible to accept Christ after death? Is the chance to accept Christ and repent denied at the gates of heaven? Why is there so much urgency to convert when firstly, rush conversions are weak and shallow and, secondly you put people off?

According to your religion Jesus died so that the harsh punishments and rules set down by the Old Testament need not apply; ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’ And yet you seem to uphold Old Testament teaching as if they are just as valid as the New Testament. Some Old Testament teaching do still have some value, but most have been rendered obsolete by the coming of Christ.

The Paradox of the Christian Right

2007-06-05T16:59:00.000+01:00

A term often heard in modern politics today, especially US politics, is the term right wing Christian, or the Christian right in general. As the name implies it refers to any person who is both Christian and supports right wing politics. They are a fast growing political force, which is odd as Christianity is the biggest left wing religion in the world.

If you are right wing then you believe that life should be every person for themselves. Each person gets what they earn, and business should be allowed to flourish free from interference. If you are left wing then you believe that everybody should be equal and that wealth should be spread equally. You believe that it is every person’s responsibility to look after and help everybody else in the community (a product of this type of thinking is the welfare state). Both ways have their merits and drawbacks.

Politically Christianity is a left wing religion. The main authority on Christian teaching is Jesus, and many of his teachings are recorded in the Bible. Jesus taught people to ‘Love thy neighbour’, a thoroughly Left wing teaching, especially when you take into account the fact that the literal translation of this teaching from the original Bible is ‘be charitable to thy neighbour’. The word love was used in the first proper English translation of the Bible to avoid connotations of money. Jesus also used the Parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate the importance of not ignoring a fellow human being in need. He also stated that ‘it would be easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle then it would be for a rich man to get into heaven’. Right wing politics is notoriously friendly to the rich.

You may say that you support right wing politics because it is pro death penalty which is supported by the Old Testament. But I thought that the whole point of Jesus dieing was to save us from sin, making the harsh punishments of the Old Testament obsolete. As Jesus said ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’. There is also a large amount of material on not killing or judging.

You may say that you are right wing in your faith; i.e. you are a fundamental Christian. But I say that the label of right wing Christian is inaccurate regarding your brand of religious practice.

You may say that you support right wing politics just because it’s opposed to left wing politics based on policies such as abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage etc. But you must understand that such policies are individual policies that either party could support without it affecting their political standpoint. And remember that far worse atrocities are committed daily by corporations that are allowed to plunder the third world unchecked by pro business right wing governments. Sometimes it’s better to pick the lesser of two evils.

I know that to be technically Christian you only have to love Jesus, but surely to love him meaningfully you must believe his teachings are true. I might not be a Christian myself but that does not make my point any less valid. To be Christian and to be Right wing is a paradox. The two are mutually exclusive.

Nothing is Everything that Could be but Isn’t

2007-05-21T12:20:00.000+01:00

We can tell there is something between us and the stars because we can measure the distance. The distance has limits which can be measured and is therefore not made of nothing, which is infinite, and infinite cannot be measured. Nothing is infinite just as it is zero. Nothing is what could be but isn’t and therefore it is everything and nothing including everything. So to perceive nothing you must be able to imagine what is absent, something only the human mind can do, which means that nothing is an illusion of the human mind, as is something.

We are made from space time. Break down our atoms and you will find energy in the form of tangles in space and time supposedly created by the Big Bang, after which matter was formed. This means that everything is one and the same, just arranged differently.

This has led me to the conclusion that the truth about everything can be learned here and now where we are without the need for travelling further than we would otherwise go. From the smallest particle we can know about the whole universe, where it has been and where it is going. And when we know the whole universe we will be the whole universe, and the difference between us and the universe will be zero. It will not matter to us or anything whether we live or die because we are just copies of the universe we inhabit.

The Dangers of Bovine Flatulence

2007-05-21T12:13:00.000+01:00

As the greatest threat facing us today, to ignore global warming is to be highly immoral and unethical. As a result more and more people are watching their carbon footprint, which is brilliant. But beware of the false causes.

For example a large patch of forest in Ontario has been destroyed by acid rain caused by nickel being mined to make the batteries in the supposedly green Toyota Prius. And carbon offsetting by planting trees has been described as being just as effective as ‘drinking more water to keep sea levels down’.

But without doubt the greatest cause of global warming is farting cows. Oh yes. You could do more to reduce your carbon footprint by murdering cows than you could by planting trees. Cow farts account for 18 percent of all carbon emissions which is more that transport does.

And it gets worse. The rainforests are being cut down for cheap grazing land for beef to sell to McDonalds. The demand for cheap beef means that more and more rainforest is cut down because the grazing land can only last so long before it is infertile and the beef farmers must move on. All this dramatically increases carbon dioxide emissions.

The problem could be solved by reducing our consumption of beef and regulating cow feed to make it less fart inducing. Cows could not come to be so harmful to the environment naturally so it must be something they eat.

So, if you care for mother earth then boycott McDonalds or any other beef product and don’t bother swerving next time you see a cow in the road.

Meet Scientology

2007-05-15T19:08:00.000+01:00

When the BBC reporter asked the scientology spokesman what his reaction was to his religion being described as a cult, the spokesman reached the sort of rage levels of a person who had just had his raw nerve roasted. And why was that? You refer to Christianity as a cult in front of a minister and he would just laugh and look at you in polite curiosity. But not the scientology spokesman, he was clearly upset. And that sort of unhealthy paranoid rant is not the result of a religion, but a definite cult.

Scientology describes itself as ‘the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, others and all of life. The Scientology religion comprises a body of knowledge extending from certain fundamental truths’. It was founded by L.Ron Hubbard based on Dianaetics which he developed. It is based around various types of therapy which members pay to attend.

Scientologists insist it is a religion, but they have yet to be granted the status in the UK because none of their activities are based around worship. I find it hard to think of it as a religion because it is clearly glorified alternative therapy that you have to pay for and has absolutely no focus on God. I know that Buddhism doesn’t either but their religion is proven and is not quite so threatening.

And by threatening I mean scary. The way they act towards those who criticize them is just wrong. Criticize Scientology and expect to be followed, harassed and have your past dug up in all its detail. The BBC reporter I mentioned earlier was followed, harassed and intimidated to the point where he lost his temper. And I don’t blame him. They saw the documentary as bias just because they interviewed people who were opposed to them, which is strange because to be unbiased you need to present equal opinions from anti and pro scientologists. The documentary producers would have been nicer about scientology had the church not given them so much hassle and let them get a bit closer. That documentary they made about panorama was arranged before the panorama team started filming, proving that they had already decided that the documentary was going to be biased before they even saw it.

I believe that to tackle Scientology we need to understand its fair game policy, a policy that aims to legitimize all harassment and intimidation of Scientology’s critics. I doubt very much that Hubbard’s original viciousness is inherent in the modern follower’s beliefs and actions.My theory is that they believe that to hate something as 'pure' as scientology you cannot yourself be pure. This makes them angry at critics of scientology because they believe them to be hypocrites, so they try to 'bring justice' by trying to expose critics with character attacking evidence that they believe just has to be there. They will not stop searching for this defaming evidence because if there is no evidence then Scientology’s teachings are wrong the basis of their faith is shattered. They will not allow this trauma to occur. And they will find some sort of evidence because no human is perfect, and they will exploit weaknesses and past mistakes to bring down their critics and secure their faith.

I would be prepared to accept scientology. I could be persuaded to accept its existence and respect its values. But their hostile attitude and bullying tactics towards people who criticise or investigate them has put them down firmly in my mind as a cult. If you are a religion you cannot expect to be immune to criticism. It is totally unreasonable to demand infallibility and privacy when you wield great power and influence. Free speech is an important part of our society and no religion or cult that demands its limitation should be allowed anywhere near anything resembling power or influence.

Plus members show eerie signs of brainwash. They seem to regard anything that does not portray scientology in bad light as bias, indicating that they are incapable of seeing scientology as anything other than amazing. If you criticise scientology as far as they are concerned you must have an alterior motive. A news reporter recently tried to film a scientology event but they were denied access. The reporter instead stood outside and interviewed scientology members as they walked past. Members got quite angry with the reporter and repeatedly asked ‘what are you afraid of?.’ They also accused the reporter of being a wife beater and a murderer. Click here to see for yourself. I challenge anybody who has seen it to honestly say that that was not the result of brainwashing. They also have a strange hatred for psychiatrists. According to them psychiatrists were involved in the holocaust. They obviously believe psychiatry to be a race not a profession as they see this as valid grounds to claim that all psychiatrists are evil. People have died as a result of not taking medication on the orders of Scientology.

Scientology may seem harmless but it could grow. It was founded on extremely shaky grounds by a man who was a fantasist and a confidence trickster. It has started out with a bad attitude towards criticism, which can lead to intolerance, violence, social divides and could result in a new equivalent to the Inquisition which would be a nightmare scenario whichever way you look at it.

Super Grass

2007-05-13T15:34:00.000+01:00

Global Warming is the most serious threat to our survival that has ever been encountered. And we are causing it. Unless we find a solution things could get apocalyptic.

The problem is excess CO2. Plants are naturally efficient with their CO2 and have evolved to depend on as little as possible because in the past it has been relatively scarce. But now that we have too much we could use them to start treating themselves. In the past they would have but with global warming it’s happening too quickly.

I propose that the common grass plant is selectively bred and maybe even genetically engineered so that it becomes less efficient with CO2. These new ‘greedy’ grass plans would take in more CO2 much quicker. They would be given out for free through government funding to people all over the world with a lawn. And thus gardens and fields would become CO2 absorbing mats that would help lock the CO2 back into the ground from whence it came. And it would not just stop at grass. A great many types of plant could be selectively bred to help with this problem.

Of course it’s more complicated than that. There would be a chance that as soon as the plant died it would release it all back into the atmosphere, so it would have to be insured that plants would keep hold of this CO2 after death. There might also be problems with genetic engineering going wrong and other unfavourable side effects. But this is just an idea, a platform for greater things. These problems can and must be overcome if we are to survive the next century.

The Improbability of Infallibility

2007-05-13T14:32:00.001+01:00

Moral infallibility is impossible. Right and wrong are concepts of the human mind and are governed by our emotional concepts and prejudices. And as no human is the same the concept of right and wrong is always vague and disputed. Therefore moral infallibility is a paradox, a fictional virtue that cancels itself out.

Religious infallibility is impossible. By religions own demand it has a separate magistra from scientific fact; i.e. God cannot be proven because scientific methodologies of detection are of this universe and thus governed by a god that requires privacy. To be infallible is to be entirely factually accurate, and if god remains outside the boundaries of fact then it is impossible to be factually accurate, and thus it is impossible to be religiously infallible.

To be infallible is a claim no person can make as the idea of an infallible human is ultimately a paradox. To be infallible is to be a God which no person can claim to be as all people have a beginning and an end.

Infinite Probability

2007-05-09T19:20:00.000+01:00

The universe is an amazingly huge place. Mind bendingly huge. Just the space between us and the nearest star is so massive our brains are not capable of imagining the sheer distance. We don’t know for sure exactly how big it is; we just know its big and getting bigger by the second. And within this impossibly huge megaverse there are billions of billions of stars to the power of twenty recurring or something like that. And many of these stars will have planets. So, with so many planets, probability alone means that there is some pretty weird stuff out there. With so many stars it is not beyond the boundaries of possibility that on one of these planets the exact right amount of elements have fallen completely by coincidence into the form of a beige Nissan Micra. The sheer volume of planets on which events may happen means that probability has some amazingly huge odds to play with. This has led me to the conclusion that every possible variation of every possible arrangement of atoms exists somewhere in the universe. So that includes wi-fi enabled computers with the capacity to communicate with other computers. There would be enough variations to ensure that there is a hefty number of them scattered across infinity, each one with a slight variation e.g. one label on the computer could say ‘Dell’ and another ‘Bell’. These computers could communicate and act together to make more fragments of computer until you have a large chunk of the universe littered with computers all interfacing with each other. This part of the universe, indeed the entire universe, will have evolved to have conscious thought, but it would be at constant war with the wi-fi enabled food blenders and radiators who would have their own ambitions. It happened here, why not elsewhere?

A Different State of Mind

2007-04-24T17:52:00.000+01:00

What is insanity if not a state of mind? The oxford dictionary defines a person insane as being ‘not of sound mind’ or ‘extremely foolish’. But these insinuate that to be insane is to be wrong or incorrect, an assumption that may not be entirely accurate.

If I may be permitted to use the teapot analogy to demonstrate my point. If I were convinced that I was a teapot people would deem me to be insane and would not take me seriously. But surely you would be no saner? You look at the seemingly random assortment of squiggles upon this page that you call words and associate meaning to them. They have no real meaning or consequence on a universal physical scale but they have meaning to you. The same is true of my hypothetical teapot identity. My life as a teapot is real to me in the same way words are to you. The term teapot is just a word; a vibration of air particles, an assortment of squiggles. There is no set element, no precise arrangement of particles that identifies something as a teapot, just a series of highly complex rules that reside within the human consciousness. You may say a teapot is hollow and has a spout, but you could also argue that my stomach is hollow and my windpipe is a spout. Pages and pages could be written on how to identify a true teapot but I or any lawyer worth their salt would still find holes in your definition. The same goes for words and letters. You may not recognise hieroglyphs as meaningful letters but does that render the Ancient Egyptians a bunch of raving loonies?

The point is not the vague boundaries of teapot identification, but that insanity is merely a state of mind that mainstream society finds illogical. There are many different states of mind to be in, but the minute you wonder beyond the boundaries of mainstream logic you are deemed to be insane. It doesn’t matter that your state of mind is no more logical or illogical than other people, you are still deemed to be raving mad. My hypothetical association of the term teapot with myself is no different in principle to your actual association of the term human with yourself.

I define insanity as ‘A state of mind that does not comply with mainstream logic’. I’m not saying that we should release mental patients, but I do implore you to be more open minded with those people whose ideas seem radical enough to be branded as insane. Many a person ahead of their time has been destroyed by such a label.

Escape from Eden

2007-04-10T23:13:00.000+01:00

As humans our brain does not run at full capacity. The amount of brainpower we use falls well short of our full potential, although we cannot say for sure by how much. What will happen to standard human emotion, perception and ability should we find a way to unlock this potential? Will the world of the truly enlightened be a place of beauty or a place of fear? Is ultimate perception glorious or terrible?

This question brings to mind the story of the Garden of Eden from the book of Genesis. According to this biblical tale the humans of early times were named Adam and Eve. They lived beautiful, worry free lives. Until they ate from the forbidden tree of knowledge and became intelligent. God then cast them out of the garden and they lived lives of toil, hardship and uncertainty.

This story is a metaphor. They were never cast out of the Garden of Eden; they just saw it in a different way. The horror of their new world was present in the garden, but their new found intelligence enabled them to see it.

When animals feel stress it is at a moment of danger, but once the danger has passed, the stress fades. It is fleeting. When a human is up against a situation they can foresee it; they may even exaggerate it in their minds. This causes the stress to last for longer, causing more damage and pain to the person in question. So, what with all our ‘great’ achievements, are we really happier than the birds?

But this cannot be true. On September 10th, 1945, farmer Lloyd Olsen of Fruita, Colorado attempted to kill a chicken for his supper by beheading it. By pure chance the axe missed the jugular and left enough of the brainstem intact for the bird to survive. The bird was dubbed ‘Mike the Headless Chicken’ and the owner made a fortune by taking it to freak shows. It lived for two years before choking to death on a grain of corn dropped into the exposed oesophagus by its owner when feeding. This is a true story. If a bird can survive without a head and act normally (apart from bumping into things) then it is not sentient, it is not conscious, it does not have what we might call a soul. Other animals may have increased awareness, but it still does not count (excluding Dolphins, it has been proved that they can experience fun). So, what good is happiness to a creature that cannot experience it?

Maybe the story of Eden would work better as a prediction, a warning, rather than an account of past events. What if, presently, we are still in the Garden of Eden? We coast the edges of the terrible truth with science and progress. Maybe if we release the extra intelligence we shall come to know the truth; we are alone, pointless and alone, falling, falling through the void on a small rock with nothing to catch us.

People with real, genuine faith in a loving God always seem so happy. They seem at peace with the world. They are in full Eden. Scientists and Atheists live in a fractured Eden, tearing at the seams searching for purpose, hiding behind denial and false promises of glory and purpose. This may not be true. It may turn out that once we reach the other side we can cope; it may not even matter. But it looks like it might.

If you could. If you actually press a button, a big shiny red button that would give you phenomenal intelligence, would you do it? Would you step over the edge, knowing that the way you perceive things would drastically change forever? Could you do it?

If the answer is no, well, that’s your choice. Allow yourself to slip even further into sweet glorious dreamland. I envy you.

If the answer is yes then I suppose it’s a good thing that global warming and the forthcoming dark age will set technology back significantly. Circumstance will save you from yourself.

As for me, I choose limbo. Religion is not for me, but then nor is acceptance of hopelessness. I may one day change my mind. But until then I guess that all I can do is try to have a little fun.

No Such Thing as a Wasted Vote

2007-04-07T22:55:00.000+01:00

The way voting systems stack up it might make you feel like a small needle in an overcrowded haystack. Its always two big cheeses fighting it out, overshadowing any third party. That’s the story in the UK, and the same in the USA. Labour or Conservative. Democrat or Republican. Right or Left Wing. Some say that to vote for anybody else is to waste your vote, as it won’t make a difference. It will still be one or the other.
First of all, that is exactly the kind of attitude that keeps anybody new and fresh from getting into government, so stop it.
Secondly, it’s not true. Just because your vote is not successful, it does not necessarily mean that it does not make an impact. For example, if you feel strongly about green issues then vote for the green party. They probably won’t get in, but that doesn’t matter. Your opinion has been registered. When the big parties wonder how to get extra votes, they will look at the electoral records and see who people have been voting for. If they see that a few people are worried about green issues then they will start to think about green issues in order to win your vote. In fact, your vote makes more of an impact as a political statement then as an asset to a party. Not voting makes absolutely no impact or statement. Who knows, if enough people use this tactic, maybe the green party will actually get in power. People have to start thinking as one. Cooperation is what civilisation is built on.

Lies, Damn Lies and the Electric Car

2007-04-07T21:14:00.000+01:00

There are many conspiracy theories surrounding the electric car, enough to make me smell a rat.
Whilst Oil Companies grow fat and bloated on the profits of oil the world teeters on the edge as global warming draws ever closer. Oil is profit, and that profit can be truly astronomic when sold to the individual and not industry.
So how are they stopping the electric car? Other than slipping GM a few quid, their chief weapon seems to be design. Electric car design seems to be the wackiest in the industry. It was as if the designers wanted them not to be taken seriously. Oh yes they’ve released an electric concept and made it look like they actually care about global warming, but that’s as far as it goes. The exotic and bizarre design subliminally tricks people into thinking that the electric car is a thing of the distant future, along with flying cars and teleportation. They don’t demand hover shoes, so they don’t mind buying good old fashioned gas burners to put under the bonnet.
It’s the same with Fairtrade. Make people think that fair pay is impractical, then they will expect heavy price tags, so fat profits will mostly go to the supermarkets and only marginally improve the lives of third world farmers. This lowering of expectations is a cunning ploy. Don’t fall for it.

Under the Tabloids

2007-02-14T17:00:00.001Z

Tabloids in the UK have far too much power. They threaten our democracy and influence political opinion. But how can we stop them without breaching free speech?

For all those foreigners reading this I should probably explain that Tabloid newspapers have a lot more power here in the UK than other countries. The problem is too many people read them, and some tabloids have cunningly disguised themselves as respectable newspapers for the people. But they are not. A tabloid is a tabloid, which means that it lies, exaggerates and generally distorts information. They seem to thrive on the assumption that they would either be sued or loose credibility if they published rubbish. Sadly this is not the case. Some examples of tabloids include The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Express, The Daily Mirror etc.

But the most dangerous thing they do by far is that they influence the political agenda. One major example of this is immigration. A tabloid newspaper would have you believe that immigration is ‘tearing UK apart’ and that they are all ‘sponging asylum seekers’. The Sun even made up, yes completely made up a story about asylum seekers eating the queens swans. They state that Britain is a ‘soft touch’ when it comes to asylum. Britain actually is twenty second in the world when it comes to taking in asylum seekers. Immigrants only make up a pathetic 2.5% of the British population and contrary to countless images of Asians climbing off the back of lorries, most of them are Australian. And as for ‘sponging’, even after you deduct what they take out, immigrants contribute 10% to the economy. But because of tabloid exaggeration, anti immigration is now something political parties boast about. Three separate political parties have been set up that are purely anti-immigration because of the institutional racism in the tabloids today.

The worst tabloid by far, the bane of my existence, the cause of many a pulsating vein on my rapidly purpling forehead, is the Daily Mail. It is the second best selling newspaper in Britain, the first being the Sun. But it's worse than the Sun. At least the Sun has the decency to have porn in it to show its true quality. The Mail masquerades as a quality newspaper for 'the people'. It is in fact the representation of all that is wrong about society. It is an endorsement of bigotry and racism. I don't honestly understand how someone can feel comfortable admitting they read such a thing. For me, buying the Daily Mail has the same social stigma as voting for Hitler. Someone should seriously tell Mrs. Disgusted-of-Tunbridge-Wells to shut up.

And they lie. An example of this was when then editor of The Mirror Piers Morgan in 2000 made three purchases of Viglen shares on behalf of himself and his wife in amounts totalling £67,000, of which the third cost nearly £20,000. The next day the Daily Mirror's ‘City Slickers’ investment column tipped Viglen shares as a good investment. Coincidence? I think not. Don’t worry though; he was sacked for printing false pictures of torture in Iraq. And Jeremy Clarkson hit him. Nice one, Jezza.

However it is easy to understand how most people simply fail to realise how awful their newspaper is. A newspaper will only report ‘facts’ that support its conclusion; therefore readers are left with the distinct impression that the newspaper has come up with the best conclusion to meet the ‘facts’. Hence why it is very difficult to expose a newspaper without knowing more than the newspaper does about any particular evidence. This problem is also applicable to broadsheets. For your average joe it’s just not practical to stay one step ahead of the papers. It’s only when you occasionally stumble across the actual truth that you realise just how outrageously biased and bigoted most tabloid journalists are.

Don’t think the government isn’t aware of this either. Rupert Murdoch, owner of News of the World, The Sun, The Times and much more besides had meetings with Tony Blair, the UK prime minister. It turned out, ironically because of the Sun’s demonising of so-called ‘scroungers’, that Murdoch owed more than a billion pounds in unpaid tax which the government mysteriously hasn’t made him pay. When the government announced that it was going to start chasing up commercial unpaid tax, everybody said ‘so what about Rupert Murdoch?’ The Government then made up a pathetic excuse about ‘it no being fair to target one person.’ I’m sorry, but this is blatant bribery.

We have to do something about this, but how can we stop them without violating the right to free speech. Well, I have the solution. We put health warnings on cigarettes, so why not tabloids? It’s genuinely unhealthy reading their nonsense, so put a health warning on them. Here’s an example; ‘WARNING: This newspaper is classed as a tabloid. This means that it will lie, exaggerate and distort the truth. Do not take seriously’.

Communism? What Communism?

2007-02-10T19:39:00.000Z

The idea of communism is that everybody is equal in wealth, opportunity and social status. Unfortunately, this political ideal, whilst compatible with human need, is incompatible with human greed. We all want more.

The US government would have you believe that communism does not work, but how would they know? There has NEVER been a proper communist state like the one Karl Marx predicted. Sure, some nations pretend they are communist, like China, North Korea or the old USSR, but that is just not true. What did happen was that a few ruthless bastards saw the desperation of the working class and exploited it, manipulated it. What we ended up with was a group of nasty dictatorships who all used the idea of communism as a justification, but in fact they were no such thing as they spent a large chunk of public money glorifying themselves and keeping everyone under communist rule. What some people don’t understand is that communism and democracy are not mutually exclusive.

I used to think that religion provided an excuse for dictatorships, but it seems that people will always find an excuse. Mind you, that’s no reason to let them get away with it.

There are two reasons why communism scares the US and some other countries. The first is a lack of understanding. You fear what you don’t understand. This irrational fear has been exacerbated by the media and right wing politicians, and magnified by the Red Scare periods in the USA. This fear is largely a result of the second fear; loss of capitalism. Because we live such a decadent lifestyle were everything is bigger and brighter, we live and breathe capitalism, which is why some people fear communism, because deep down they know that their lifestyle is unsustainable; it’s killing the planet as well as sucking the life out of the poorer and more vulnerable countries. This point is backed up by the current US government’s refusal to take global warming seriously, a dangerous move as the US is responsible for 24% of the world total carbon emissions.

An Atheists Tribute to Jesus

2007-01-25T09:53:00.000Z

Jesus Christ was a philosopher who lived from 0 AD to 36 AD. He advised the people of Judea and Galilee on the subject of how best to live their lives and about his views on God. For this reason he was persecuted by the Pharisees of the Jewish Religion, and put to death by the Romans in an attempt to keep the peace.

Many of Jesus’s teachings were revolutionary for their time, which explains in part why some thought of him as the messiah and others as a threat to their authority. To the people of 30 AD Israel, his teachings must have been mind-blowing.

He spoke of a good and noble way of living life and set right many of the rather vicious teachings of the Old Testament. He taught that being generous, forgiving people and not carrying around bitterness, having compassion and pursuing peace in every situation is a better way to live.

He was an immensely clever man way beyond his time. A clever man, but a human, mortal man never the less.

And this is where we atheists come to clash with Christianity. Jesus supposedly took the punishment of our sins, but how exactly is a punishment valid if someone else takes it? The point of a punishment is to learn from it, so what good would it do if the receiver had not committed a crime the punishment was for? Some say there was a punishment debt that had to be paid, so why did God have to sacrifice its son so as to pay it. A true God, creator of heaven and earth, would surely be able to re-write the rules of the cosmos around its will. Sacrifice for a God is unnecessary. If God wants one plus two to equal five then it shall be so. If God wants to eradicate a debt of sin it needn’t send part of itself to hell, it could just change the way the system works.

The Bible tells of the time when Jesus enters the temple and finds people trading. He has what in modern times would be called ‘a hissy fit’. He overturns tables and in general shouts the place down. Anger is a human emotion, and is caused by chemicals being applied to various parts of that lump of fat and meat we like to call the human brain. It has no place in the mind of the celestial watchmaker. Plus, if God made the earth than surely that would be its temple. Not some crude stone building built by the locals. Surely befouling the earth’s carefully balanced eco system with pollution is much worse.

If Jesus was linked to an omnipresent, omnipotent being then he would have the insight to instruct us on matters that are relevant to today, such as pollution and homosexuality. He would have observed the wars over land and might have said ‘Oh, by the way, there’s a huge bit of land that nobodies using at the moment. It’s called America and if you head west and keep going you can’t miss it.’ He would have foreseen the terrible atrocities committed in his name, such as the crusades and the witch burnings etc, and spoke out about them.

But what of the resurrection? There are many different ways in which this could have been staged or made up. But as a rationalist I can be sure that one thing he didn’t do was magically come back from the dead. It just doesn’t happen.

Jesus was a great man who was way ahead of his time, and he will always have a place in my heart. I would have loved to have met him. He was a human, mortal philosopher who we can all learn a lot from. It would be no bad thing to follow his example.

An Investment in Faith

2007-01-13T22:57:00.001Z

Faith is an investment. You have to weigh up the pros and cons, sort fact from fiction and estimate a return. And even after all this you can never be sure.

When you read a book, whether it be anything from an encyclopaedia to the daily newspaper, you can never be sure if the information you are being told to trust is reliable or not. Encyclopaedias have been known to be wrong, and newspapers often make things up and exaggerate stories.

So how do you know what and who to trust? You have to do the same things a business person does when investing. You have to decide whether they have a motive for lying to you, whether the information it give you is realistic, how able the item is at delivering information and whether the information could have been tampered with. And even then you can never be sure. You just have to accept your decision, but always make sure your mind is open to the possibility that the information is wrong.

For example, I have looked at religion, in particular Christianity, and I find most of its business objectives flawed and potentially unhealthy. For example one major flaw is that nobody achieves very much by dieing. Jesus supposedly took the punishment of our sins, so how exactly is a punishment valid if someone else takes it? The point of a punishment is to learn from it, so what good would it do if the receiver had not committed a crime the punishment was for? This flaw is one in many. They have not studied their trade hard enough, but believe they know it. They have a lot to learn. I will not be investing.

However, philosophies are a different matter.
The philosophy of Buddhism is not really a religion as it leaves God open to interpretation. But it can be logically assumed that their practise, through dedication, can lead to happiness as it teaches us to let go and accept those things in life that cause unhappiness. So, if everything goes balls up, I will pack my bags for Tibet.

This is my assumption and I implore you to make your own. But remember, be astute. Just because they say they have the answers does not necessarily mean they do.

Free Will is not Certain

2007-01-02T18:00:00.000Z

As Human Beings we have free will. We can choose to do whatever we want. Some people say that God wanted it this way so that we may choose to follow it and can understand our choice. We have free will.

Or do we? Remember that as humans everything we perceive is governed by our emotions and emotions can distort reality.

Think of a robot. It does not have free will. It is controlled by us and we made it like that. The robot cannot do as chooses, not because we don’t let it but because it is not capable of it. It needs programming to be able to do anything, and if it doesn’t have the programming then it cannot do it. Just like if a person tried to play piano, unless they had been taught they would not be able to do it.
The same can be said of humans. It is my will to fly out the window and do a loop the loop, but I can’t because of an annoying little thing called the laws of physics. I want to be able to go to the nineteenth century and visit Charles Dickens, but I can’t because of the laws of physics.

Also, everything we do is governed by emotions. Any decision you make, any path you choose is ruled by the flow of chemicals around that little ball of fat we call a brain. Many experienced in the ways of life will tell you what a pain in the neck emotions can be.

And anyway, how would we know? If we are governed from birth by a supernatural force, how would we know any different? If someone was locked in a cupboard from birth they would not be able to imagine the outside world as it really is, or know how to turn the key and open the door to freedom.

Free will is an assumption, not fact.

The God Scenario

2006-12-29T01:59:00.000Z

I have thought about, pondered, mused, considered and contemplated the idea of a God. Throughout my life I have been a theist, an agnostic and finally an atheist. I have come to the conclusion that if there is a God the scenario surrounding it would be similar to the following.

If there is a personal God, a God who cares about us, it must use earth and the universe as a sort of crop, cultivating parts of itself within the boundaries of rules it has devised i.e. the laws of physics. We could all be parts of a greater being, and when we die we unite as one and rejoin with God as one spirit. Why? Well, maybe this God wants to achieve meaning or fulfilment or something else to its existence and it can only do this by creating a world with rules, boundaries and ultimately suffering so as to enrich the parts of itself with whatever quality it wishes to attain. Therefore it cannot reveal to us why we are here or our purpose or the process would be spoiled. The painful uncertainty of religion adds to this process.

If God is impersonal, then we are just accidental mould growing on the seemingly random objects that the universe contains, and the universe itself is there for a purpose we could not possibly comprehend. Maybe our level of consciousness is so low we are not worth considering. Think about it. Do you care when you step on a blade of grass? Grass does not have consciousness compared to us, so maybe we do not have consciousness compared to God. Maybe consciousness itself is too advanced for us to comprehend. Albert Einstein himself said he thought the idea of a personal god who cares as ‘naïve’.

I personally favour the latter. I am what is called a de facto atheist. This means I do not deny the possibility of the existence of God, but I think that there probably isn’t one and I live my life as if there isn’t one. But I still live by rules. I recognise that for long term good we have to work together as a society. As Bertrand Russell said ‘The only thing that can redeem mankind is cooperation.’

The theory of conditional limitless potential and Time Travel

2006-12-03T15:17:00.000Z

A certain person by the name of Eric Maskelyne has come to my attention. He stated that to travel in time, one would need all the energy of the current time to get to where you what to go. travelling back then would be easier as you'd be using up the future of the desired time, thus being able to change to course of history...however travelling forward would mean you’d have to destroy the past and that would void your destination, the future.

This contradicts my theory of conditional limitless potential. Or does it?
If you wanted to travel back in time and have all the power in the universe, then all you would need to do is shape the energy into another universe that is an exact copy of your chosen destination time and, hey presto, you would be there. But you could also go forwards. If you had a probability super computer you could predict what course events would take if you did not use up the entire universe time travelling. Then just make that universe. Or, instead of consuming all of the universe for your own travelling needs, why not just do it on a planetary scale and make a previous earth?
Anyway, Maskelyne’s theory is a cop out. There may be other ways other than simply making another previous or later version of time and space.

The theory of conditional limitless potential

2006-11-21T18:52:00.000Z

There is basically one unbreakable rule in this universe; you cannot create or destroy energy. All the other laws of physics are based on this. If you use energy, it is being converted into another type.

So, this means that we can do absolutely anything if we adhere to two conditions;

· Enough energy must be provided
· The energy must be applied in the right form and in the right places

If these conditions are met, then we can do anything, like time travel, teleportation, deep space exploration etc. We could even, if we wanted to, change the universe green. Or orange. Whatever we like.

The universe is a ball of raw energy, just waiting to be shaped by intelligent designers. Some scientists may dispute this, but if you told Isaac Newton that man would, before the next millennium, play golf on the moon, he would have his doubts.

Jews should thank Borat

2006-11-18T14:33:00.000Z

Last weekend I went to see the film Borat. It was extremely funny, but probably immensely offensive for others. Sacha Baron Cohen, the comedian behind the film, plays Borat, a journalist from Kazakhstan. In the film he travels across America, meeting and shocking the people who he meets, all of whom assume that they are being filmed for a genuine documentary and not as a colossal prank. The film really has to be seen to be believed.

Borat and his producer are both very anti-Semitic, and believe 9/11 was committed by the Jews. At the beginning of the film the audience is shown an example of Borat’s work, in which he is reporting at a street festival where two people run down the street wearing giant green heads with horns. These are ‘the Jews.’ Then one of them lays ‘a jew egg’ and children swarm the streets to smash it before it hatches. Later in the film they are staying at a bed and breakfast when they discover it is run by genuine Jews. They are terrified, and run out of the house throwing money to stop them from capturing them.

Some Jews might find this very offensive. But why? What Borat does is stereotype the average anti-Semitic as a backward, disgusting man from a backward ex-communist country in which he lives in a hut and sleeps with his sister. Being anti-Semitic is listed alongside being a racist, misogynist, sexist and backward person who thinks it’s perfectly normal to defecate in a bush at the side of a street. Better not be nasty to the Jews or people might compare you with Borat.

The most effective weapon against political ideologies is mockery. Once an idea has been made fun of sufficiently, people will not take it seriously, crippling it and setting its adherents out as eccentric. This is what the film Borat does to anti Semitism, racism and sexism in its own clever and amusing way.

It gave me a sense of pride when I came out of that cinema to know I had not been offended by anything in that film. Anybody who was offended by such a ridiculous film should re-think their views and their outlook on life.

The True Meaning of Feminism

2006-10-30T13:14:00.000Z

Unfortunately Feminism is sometimes used as an insult. Some women don’t want to be associated with feminism because they are reluctant to accept the negative connotations that some people see in the term; radical, anti-men, protesters and bra burners.

Anyone who agrees with equal rights for women is a feminist. Even a man can be a feminist. I certainly am one. The word only includes the term feminine because of the imbalance of power to the sexes, which favours men more than women, so the focus is on achieving equal rights for women. Who knows, maybe in the future there might be a need for masculinism.

Feminism’s aim is to not only achieve equal rights, but to give women the ability to choose. So, women everywhere, what do you want to be? Housewife or career? Stay-at-home mum or high-flying businesswoman? It’s your choice.

Christians: Don't be Homophobic

2006-10-29T22:51:00.000Z

The persecution of homosexuals by some Christians shows the Nazi tendencies of Evangelical Christians. Who are they to dictate who people can and cannot love? If they do not harm others, how is it societies business what they do with their love?

They should not hate them. According to them, did God not create everything? Then that includes homosexuals.

But I’ve heard the counter argument for this. Some of them say that no-one is born homosexual, and that it is their sin. What rubbish. Many homosexuals are at first in denial of their sexuality. They want to be heterosexual. They don’t want the persecution that comes with homosexuality. But the overwhelming power of their love of the same sex means that should they deny their sexuality they condemn themselves to live a life of emotional torture. This shows that they do not choose to be homosexual. It is forced on them like blindness is forced on blind people.

But also there is the argument that we are meant to ‘pro-create’ and that this cannot take place in a single gender partenership. Since when were all couples under the obligation to have children? Many heterosexual married couples never have children. Do they want to demonise them as well? Anyway, science is moving forward. Soon single sex couples will be able to have children. And what about the millions of orphans in the world? Can’t they adopt one of them? Anyway, the planet is overpopulated, and has 4.5 billion too many inhabitants. Do we really need more people?

Homosexuality is a fast growing evolutionary trend. Around about 1,500 species of animal have been found to have homosexual members. Since when did animals sin? There is evidence to suggest that the increase in homosexuality is due to the increase of oestrogen in the water supply, leaked from women when they take The Pill. But would you bully the victim of an industrial accident? No. You’d make allowances for them and try and find a cure.

Homosexuals should be given equal rights and protected against homophobia just as racial groups are protected against rascism.

Reality is not Certainty

2006-10-29T20:56:00.000Z

As humans we have never known anything above what we perceive as reality, so how can we be sure that what we find ourselves in is actually reality?

Our view of the Universe is unavoidably biased. We have millions of years of evolution behind us which has installed in us many instincts, all of which affect our outlook on reality. On top of that our senses can be changed by illnesses, drugs, gases and a whole host of other things. How can we be sure that we are not under the control of a higher being, not a God but someone or something that would seek to control us? We could not even be real but do not know it because we have never experienced true reality. Think of the film ‘The Matrix.’ Some might call it far fetched, but how would we know if that or something similar was actually happening?

Not even time is definite. The human mind is made up of the accumulation of data. Therefore, it would be impossible for the human mind to perceive time as going in any direction other than forwards.

Not even the basic principles of mathematics are completely certain. 1 + 1 = 2? How do you know? As Albert Einstein said, “Insofar as mathematics is about reality, it is not certain, and insofar as it is certain, it is not about reality.”

This explains my doubt in the factual truth of organised religion. It was written such a long time ago by people who didn’t have anything like the understanding of the universe that we do today or will do in the future. Although we are not even close to understanding the universe, we are a lot closer than those who composed the Bible.

We cannot be certain about our reality, but that does not mean that we should drop what we’re doing and live in holes. Be aware and open to the possibility that actual reality is hidden from us, but don’t dwell on it. To do that would send anybody completely insane.

The Real Challenge Facing us Today

2006-10-29T10:06:00.000Z

Ever since 9/11, George Bush has been stating that the biggest challenge facing us today is global terrorism. Really? Why bother defeating terrorists if soon there will be no-one to terrorise?

What about global warming? What with rising sea levels, fading sunlight, dying forests and Katrina bashing away at the Caribbean coast its a wonder why he thinks these mad beardy people, waving sticks about in some place that ends with 'stan' are that much of a threat in comparison.

The truth is that the terrorism fight is more politically convenient. Think about it;

- The increasing need for oil from the Middle East means it is in America's interest if capitalism is in place.
- There is no denying it. Bush is an evangelical Christian, and with that comes a loathing of Islam. So he wants to tempt Iraq with capitalism, the lifestyle with which Christianity is most compatible.
- Every politician needs an enemy, someone they can battle against to gain popularity. In the cold war it was the Soviets. Today its the Middle East, or more specifically Iran.

Whereas, Global Warming is an extremely difficult and unpleasant thing to tackle for the following reasons.

- Any attempt to curb emissions from cars means an increase in fuel prices, and attempt to curb industrial emissions means an increase in goods pricing, which in value-crazed America means less votes.
- In all those cheesy American action films, it’s always America who saves the day, fighting a visible enemy, whether its a meteorite or an alien spaceship. But Global Warming is a completely different can of fish. If they fight it they are actually fighting themselves and their own greed. It can't be fought by the person with the biggest gun, but with science and cooperation, which is, to be honest, boring.
- If they admit that Global Warming is a threat, they also have to admit that they themselves are the enemy, and that does not bode well with the image of America as the world’s savior.
- And with the reforming of Israel, many of the evangelical disposition will think this is signaling the start of the apocalypse, which means they will ascend to heaven and the rest of us will burn. So Global Warming, as far as they see it, is a part of that process, so why bother to stop it?

There is no point pushing for an even bigger economy if there is no planet for which it can exist. There is no point preserving extravagant lifestyles if there is no planet to live them on.

Keep Politics and Religion Separate.

2006-10-28T23:32:00.000+01:00

For democracy's sake, keep Politics and Religion separate

Take the USA as a case study. In the states, each and every person has the right to hold whatever religious belief they choose. This is fine, as long as none of them are allowed to impose their beliefs on another. But this is happening thanks to the increasingly strong christian evangelical religious right. They believe that stem cell research is a sin. Fine. if they get parkinson's disease, let them rot. That's their decision. But they should not be allowed to impose their beliefs on everybody else. Stem cell reserch is a perfectly rational idea that will contribute to the greater good. But oh no. They have to throw their weight around, use their puppet Bush (what is that idiot doing in the White House?!) and get him to interfere.

The same thing is starting to happen here in the UK, with a lot of places becoming more and more segregated, thanks in part to the encoragement of faith schools.

The problem seems to be a confusion of roles. Religion wants to controll everyone. Politics thinks it has to listen. Religion is for personal moral guidance, Politics is for the practical running of a nation.

Why does there have to be a point?

2006-10-28T20:08:00.000+01:00

When people ask 'what is the meaning of life?' what they are actually asking is what is the point of life.
To assume there is a point is to assume there is a God, and that's not something you want to do if you want to have an unbiased outlook.

Just think about the universe. It’s so random. Just lumps of gas and rock, strewn about the place. Earth is so far out, and of no particularly purposeful positioning in the universe. And just look around us. There are so many desolate lumps of rock floating about, probability has it that at least one point there must be a planet with just the right conditions for all the proteins, amino acids and all those other things that make up the primordial soup to fuse together in the sunlight and create the first basic cells.

Evolution, to a point, can not be rationally disputed. No-one can deny that mutations happen. How else do you explain downs syndrome, Siamese twins etc.? And also, no-one can deny that in a survival situation, some of these mutations can be of an advantage. So if they survive and the others die, there is a chance that they will pass on the gift to their offspring, and so on and so forth.

Of course, it’s a lot more complex than that. But, if it confuses you, just remember that the cleverest people in the world have done a lot of research, and looked at a lot of fossils, and they think it is feasible. But what about religion? Well, remember that those who follow religion base the foundations of their lives on the feasibility of their beliefs, so they cannot just agree. Whereas scientists open their minds to the possibility that they are wrong, and explore different theories. If they do not then they are not proper scientists.

Anyway, there is no evidence to suggest there is a point to the universe.

So what?

If you won the lottery you would not get all depressed just because there is no point to you having won it. You just enjoy what you have got. You go out and you buy a big house and a fast car and enjoy it.

The same goes for life. We have to make a point, and recognize that a balanced society and acceptance of our universe is the way to long term happiness