Thursday, June 29, 2006

The Next Dark Age?


2300 years ago a man named Eratosthenes proved the Earth was a sphere and calculated its size to a high degree of accuracy. He did this in an age of zero technology using only sunlight and a brain unfettered by mysticism or religion. If you had strolled into the Great Library of Alexandria a few years later and asked the scholars therein if the Earth was flat, they would likely have patted you on the head and explained kindly that their buddy Eratosthenes had proved otherwise.

Now fast forward 1500 years and imagine trying to explain your findings to people in any European city, most likely you would have been forcefully told that everyone knows the Earth is flat. In addition, you would have been reported to the local religious leaders as a heretic and tortured into accepting their dogma on pain of death and eternal damnation. Such was the power that religion held over us at that time. Only a few hundred years after Eratosthenes, the mystics and religites destroyed the Great Library and burned the scrolls, almost nothing remains of what once was the greatest repository of knowledge in the world. They also murdered the female librarian Hypatia, who may have been the world’s first feminist – the Dark Ages had begun.

It seems clear then, that mysticism and religious dogma held us back and suppressed knowledge for more than 1500 years before the changes made during the Age of Enlightenment became accepted. Imagine where we would be now had the Great Library of Alexandria flourished and spread its knowledge and thirst for learning throughout the world, perhaps poverty, famine, ill-health, wars and illiteracy would be but dim memories or may have never even existed.

There is no doubt that some religious bodies in recent times have tried and succeeded in doing good, unfortunately, it’s also true that in general, religion has been the scourge of humankind and has slaughtered millions of us for no sane reason whatever.

As a matter of interest, if you’re a religious person, ask your local minister/pastor/priest or whatever to explain how Eratosthenes did his feat. If you get the answer then it’s likely that they have read about it and should therefore be ashamed of themselves, if not, then I’d bet they wouldn’t know how to do it.

In this world of charlatans, woo-woo’s, astrologers, spiritualists, religious lunatics and sundry assholes, it’s beginning to look as if The Next Dark Age is approaching and I’m reminded of Carl Sagan’s words.

“…the candle flame gutters, the demons are stirring.”

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Time

For me, time is the most precious commodity in life. I say this because like everyone else, I don’t know how much of it I have left; I do know that the older I get, the more precious time becomes. I’m at the stage now where wasted time annoys me more than at any other point in my life; I try my best to plan living in a way that maximizes what I get out of time spent. I allocate and value time like a miser would allocate financial resources, as far as I’m concerned the old saying that “time is money” means nothing, time is immeasurably more valuable than money.

Please don’t misunderstand; some of my time is spent in ways that others may think of as wasteful – spending five minutes studying clouds, for example. I have what I call “time value yardsticks”, I use these to gauge how much time I should allocate to any activity or even inactivity, such as sleeping. The yardsticks are broadly based and have several sub-sections within each category, as follows:

  • Learning: this is my most important category that contains yardsticks of time slices for all that interests me. It occupies most of my time and is very well spent; it gives me boundless satisfaction.

  • Computing: sometimes this activity overlaps and merges with learning but not always, blogging for example, is not learning whilst programming sometimes is.

  • People: I try to give time to people and personal interaction, sometimes it’s time well spent and rewarding, sometimes it’s not.

  • Entertainment: most of this comes from involvement with the other categories and I enjoy the occasional movie, but TV is so silly and crappy these days that I seldom watch it. I’m careful and selective about what I watch and strictly allocate only the minimum time required, idly watching TV is a serious waste of time. Having said that, I never miss “The Simpsons” but would not insult myself by watching people demean themselves on “Big Brother”.

  • Observing and dreaming: I find I’m able to trigger certain types of dream by thinking about things I’ve observed. Just before going to sleep I conjure up mental hypotheses about observations I’ve made; it often leads to excellent dreams.

I had early retirement forced upon me but I can’t say I’m sorry, the increased time available to spend on doing what I want to rather than what I have to, is a huge compensation.

I’m acutely aware that this life is my one and only shot, I won’t get another one so I’m trying my best to get the most out of it before nature recycles me. I know I will never come back but the knowledge that the atoms I’m made of might in the fullness of time form part of some worthwhile structure in the Universe, gives me comfort enough.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Darwin's Champions

Richard Dawkins is probably the world’s best known champion of Darwinism; not because he’s a fine scholar – although he is – but because he always has to defend Darwin against fundamentalist detractors. Most of these opponents refrain from attacking Darwin directly, but a few do. One of the worst web sites I’ve come across that makes a venomous attack upon both Dawkins and Darwin, is the Goodschools pages (see my links). This site calls both these men bad scientists and trashes Darwin on racist grounds, which is of course, completely irrelevant as far as Darwinism is concerned. Would a cure for cancer be rejected if discovered by a racist? Only a fool and perhaps the author of Goodschools would answer that question affirmatively. This man simply ignores the huge amount of evidence supporting Darwinian evolution, highlighting the fact that his knowledge of science or even what it is, amounts to zero.

The other day however, I was uplifted by the excellent Charlie Rose video interview that Google is currently showing for free. The program features two of the world’s most eminent scientists, Professor E. O. Wilson of Harvard and Dr. Jim Watson, co-discoverer (with Francis Crick) of the structure of DNA. The video was made about a year ago just after both men had published individual anthologies of Darwin.

At the start of the program Watson states his opinion that Darwin was the most important person who ever lived on Earth – Wilson agreed. Important not just because he was the first to get it right, but because he showed that no Creator was needed.

Watson’s statement that we are now able to see evolution at work within the DNA of persons living in different climatic conditions, is a crushing blow to the weak argument - often put forward by Creationists - that evolution cannot be seen.

Best of all however, was the attitude of Watson and Wilson towards anti-Darwinists, they behaved I thought, like kindly grandfathers mildly admonishing unruly children for talking nonsense through ignorance. If you’re not a closed-minded bigot then I highly recommend you watch this video, you’ll gain an insight in to the minds of real scientists who produce real results that benefit humankind in this world.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Dumb Democracy

Political leaders in the so-called free world seem to be making more and more decisions that make less and less sense. I’m sure there are many reasons for it, but one of them seems to be the general “dumbing-down” of Western populations coupled with the rise in fundamentalism taking place. Politicians will always pander to the voters, when voters are largely made up of people who believe in an invisible man who lives in the sky, how can we expect rational political decisions?

The problem with democracy is that it allows almost anyone to vote, no test of intelligence or sanity is applied, only an age restriction, why is that? Age is no guarantee of fitness to vote. Some would argue that nothing needs changed because voters with extreme views would be outweighed by the majority well-balanced view. I say bollocks! It’s akin to the faulty premise of twelve individuals in a jury reaching the right decision, it’s well known that juries can easily be bullied by just one or two determined jurors who consciously or not, are aware of the human tendency to follow leaders and use that fact for their own ends. Politicians and religious leaders understand this lemming or sheep-like characteristic also and manipulate their flock accordingly.

When religious idiots like Falwell call upon American parents to get their children baptized and get them registered to vote, is it any wonder that war-mongering regimes like the Bush dictatorship rise to power and threaten the lives of all of us? I’m amazed that young people in the USA don’t seem to realize they’re being manipulated and filled with a load of religious and patriotic fervour by those who seem to consider them only as cannon fodder in the war to control Middle Eastern resources.

If you doubt that, take a look at current events, young service-persons are sent to Iraq conned into believing they’re fighting terrorists. They’re trained to kill, but when they do so they get punished, when the enemy kills them, well…that’s tough. Has the death of any British or American soldier in Iraq reduced terrorism in the slightest? Of course not, rather terrorism has increased as all thinking people knew it would before the whole deadly fiasco began.

It’s not very long ago that we considered women to be unsuitable voters but thankfully we’ve rid ourselves of that ridiculous situation so I see no reason why a further radical change in the system should not take place. How about restricting voting to those who are not religious? After all, politics concerns life in the real world not in some imaginary place. Yes, I know people would lie but we could monitor their behaviour, this is perfectly in line with the current privacy invasion we tolerate right now! Islamic extremists would love this because they already believe that voting shouldn’t happen at all, only the laws of Allah have any meaning, politics mean nothing to them.

Imagine a world where governments are elected by voters who have demonstrated an ability to make sane rational choices based upon reasoned argument that benefit all, or at least the majority of people. It would I’m sure, be a more fair and peaceful world than the ‘bullshit-the-majority-please-the-privileged-few’ world, we have right now.

In short, our present so-called democratic system is laden with shortcomings that need serious overhaul or perhaps complete replacement.


Tuesday, June 20, 2006

The Illusion of Freedom


Shortly after 9-11, Noam Chomsky predicted that many governments would use the so-called “War on Terror” as an excuse to apply stringent restrictions on their populations. What he said has largely come to pass already and further measures are underway to impose even stronger control over us. Nothing to do with terrorism of course, just the power mongers tightening their grip and adhering to the dictum that a frightened, tightly controlled public is more easily fooled and less likely to ask probing questions.

If you live in the UK or the USA, you probably think you live in a free country but you don’t – you never have; it’s just that your freedom is quite a bit less than it used to be. Having lived in both these countries, I see that Britain is less free than America and its people more easily suckered by their government, just look at the coming identity card nonsense; they will make all of us carry one and make us pay for them! If that happens you can kiss even the illusion of freedom goodbye; you’ll be living in a police state.

He was wrong about the date, but Orwell had it right. The unseen power mongers own the media and pull the strings of their political puppets but are wise enough to keep themselves out of the limelight, they use the media to feed us bullshit designed to make us think the way they want us to. We’re led to think we live in a democracy but since democracy is government for the people by the people, then it’s clear we don’t! When was the last time you saw the British or American governments doing what the majority of their populations want? It almost never happens.

I can think of many examples but let me ask a question about something that been going on for a long time now. What do you think the majority would say if the people were asked if their private mobile phone calls should be monitored? I think most would be against this but it’s happening right now and we never even got consulted on it! Some readers may not believe this but you don’t have to be a genius to devise a test phone call!

The warlike, control-the-world-under-Jesus policy that Bush’s controllers are trying to implement is already eroding the freedom of American citizens and is set to apply many more restrictions on them, all in the name of anti-terrorism of course. I think it was Thomas Jefferson, one of America’s best presidents who said:

“Those who are willing to give up a little freedom for a little security, deserve neither freedom nor security”

I think he was right.


Monday, June 19, 2006

Patriotism


Contrary to popular belief, I consider patriotism to be undesirable and dangerous to world peace. Yes, I know we all like that feeling of national pride, that surge of emotion felt when our national anthem is sung or our national team plays sport. But I think we should be suppressing, not indulging in that emotion; it stems from our tribal past and is not appropriate in the modern age.

Politicians encourage patriotism but it’s clearly more in their interests than ours. By standing apart and looking in as it were, I see that nations displaying a high degree of patriotism also display the most warlike tendencies; the USA, Israel and to a lesser extent, the UK, are good examples. At the personal level, I notice that the most patriotic persons are often religious and of limited reasoning capacity.

I know some will feel insulted by what I’ve just said but I can’t help that, it’s just the way things are, those prepared to cast off their tribal dress and take a dispassionate look, may see the same thing.

In the days when one tribe clashed with another, the primitive weapons were capable of causing a few deaths but posed no danger to the species as a whole. Nowadays, our weapons are easily capable of destroying humanity entirely and many of us are obviously still largely driven by primitive, tribal instincts; that’s why patriotism is dangerous.

Since tribal days we have made huge technological advances but very little progress in learning to live with each other has been made. Actually, all we have really done is to increase the size of our tribes and call them nations.

We must change our behaviour before the notions of nationality and patriotism cause us to eradicate ourselves.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

America's Hume


America, who and where is, your Hume?

The current state of the USA, awash in fundamentalist religious fervour coupled with bad political leadership, strongly reminds me of Scotland as it was three hundred years ago, just prior to the age of enlightenment.

David Hume was one of the many Scottish intellectuals that came to prominence in the 1700’s and was the first to loosen the iron grip the church or “kirk” - as it’s called in Scotland – had on the country at that time. He did it with rationality and the conviction that man controls his own destiny; he wisely stated that only when man is prepared to admit he may be wrong, does the path to wisdom open. Church leaders – correctly – saw this as an attack upon their authority and tried to prosecute Hume as a bad Christian; a mistake, since Hume merely said he wasn’t a Christian at all!

Hume was probably the first atheist to show that you can be a good and wise person without being influenced by any kind of deity, indeed, Adam Smith, his friend, said that Hume was as good and virtuous a man as it’s possible to be, given the frailties of the human condition.

By the mid 1700’s the influence of Hume, Smith and many others, had made Scotland the best educated country in the world at that time, the enlightenment was in full-swing. In the same period the great geologist James Hutton showed without doubt that the earth was much older than people thought, another severe blow for the kirk.

The influence of these men was the catalyst that caused Scots in the fields of mathematics, science, medicine, literature and engineering to rise to world-wide prominence. The number of scientific discoveries and inventions made during the Scottish enlightenment far outstrips that which may be expected from a nation with such a small population. To this day, Edinburgh is a world centre of medicine and biology.

Toward the end of his life, David Hume strongly supported the American rebels and originated the system of a federation of states with an elected president; exactly the system in use today.

So America, Hume initiated your governmental system and Adam Smith showed you how commerce works, you got a good start but you seem to have slipped somewhat. You’re allowing religious fanatics to infiltrate and subvert your constitution in furtherance of their deluded aims, you need a new home-grown Hume to stand up and show you the way to enlightenment once more.

I say you need to do this with some urgency; America is rapidly becoming a laughable but dangerous bully in the eyes of the rest of the world, somewhat like an unruly teenager who’s just found his dad’s gun. The other day, I saw a TV program featuring an American preacher who advocated execution for adulterers and homosexuals; this madman was serious.

How long will it be before rational, thinking persons in the USA – I know they exist, I’ve met many - put a stop to this dangerous trend? Your politicians are weak and must pander to the God-fanatics to obtain votes, it seems only a matter of time before the war mongering religites control your country and have their fingers on the nuclear trigger.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Mugabe Madness


I see Zimbabwe is sinking at an increasing rate, supermarket shelves full of food that no-one can afford e.g. a chicken costs 1 million of their dollars! Millions of people were made homeless after the country’s despotic dictator Mugabe ordered the bulldozing of their homes.

We in the West did nothing even though we have known of the plight of these people for a long time. Mugabe is at least as bad a dictator as Saddam Hussein was, we “helped” the Iraqi’s, why don’t we help the Zimbabweans? The reason seems clear; they don’t meet the criteria we demand before we give aid, i.e. they have no oil or anything else that we want to steal or control.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Religion's Red Giant


An editorial in the publication “Science & Theology News” - strange bedfellows title; I think – slates Richard Dawkins for his recent TV program that highlighted a few of the evil deeds perpetrated these days in the name of religion. The writer seems to think that educated men like Dawkins should be more respectful to the faithful and their faith and refrain from treating them with ridicule. He also seems to agree with Ted Haggard (the maniacal-looking religious fanatic) that Dawkins was being arrogant.

Arrogant! What could be more arrogant than a fairy tale-believing religite who looks down upon those not of his delusion, and has the audacity to expect to be respected for his madness? For sheer arrogance beyond all measure, religious maniacs are without comparison!

I once had a girlfriend who tried to get me to study theology, five minutes later she was no longer my girlfriend. I asked her what use I could put theology to, what was there to learn? Apart from knowing the content of one book, how can the student be tested? How do you write a theological thesis? Theology, I said, was a nonsensical subject, if subject at all!

I agree entirely with Richard Dawkins; religion is not worthy of the respect some of us still give it. Ridiculing it – in my opinion – is perhaps not the right approach but it’s a lot more appropriate than respecting it!

Religion, and its’ current state, reminds me of the life of a star; a star in its red giant phase. Religion seems to be swelling as does a star in its final death throes before exploding and eventually shrinking to become a cold dead rock.

Let’s hope we can get through the red giant phase as quickly as possible.