Science

One subject that I find truly inspires me is the cosmos, the universe and our place in it. When it comes to physics, astronomy, cosmology, I find these subjects truly intriguing. But more than just the physical laws and boundaries we are discovering, is the philosophical questions that come with it. Society used to be completely dominated by the church. The presence of God made all other questions not worth asking, for God simply did as He did, and God is mysterious. With advances in science however, we cannot simply fall back on the answers of scriptures and long held beliefs about what holy books tell us about who or what we are. Perhaps science cannot answer those questions either, but we certainly can gain a new perspective and understanding through science about the world and universe that we live in. I feel that we are at a turning point, if viewed historically, in human culture and awareness. While I respect those who may be religious, I however favor science and philosophy, science which favors evidence and facts and philosophy which favor open mindedness and rational argument. 

Since the fall of church control that has bound us for hundreds of years, current society has an engrained cynical view of any truths we are told to believe, which to me is why scientific method has become so popular. It does not require belief, since its predictions can be tested and proven, in laboratories, and in nature. Science is also open to falsification, if new evidence if presented. We are a civilization coming to grips with the fact that we have been mostly lied to, and that we know precious nothing about what is really going on around us. For the first time, we have the tools at our disposal to change the face of our understanding of the world around us, the history of the planet, our solar system, and the universe itself. We might even discover fundamental concepts about why life began here on earth, and where it might exist elsewhere in the cosmos. Advances in particle and quantum physics can show us a new picture of the underlying forces that hold the world together, the forces that ultimately created and shape the universe as we know it, giving rise to new ideas such as the multiverse, time travel, extra dimensions, and worm holes.

More than ever, people are reaching out for understanding, and becoming aware of how little we do in fact know about what makes life exist in the first place. Even on our own planet, we have made startling discoveries about nature, the formation of landmasses, the timescale of our planet and how it formed in our solar system, and how long organisms have likely been around and where they else they might exist. Life on earth is a very precious thing, in terms of our understanding of the universe. But we truly know so little. Through science, even theories as ground breaking and accepted as the big bang can one day be disproven, or proven, through observation, measurement, and analysis. Science does not ask us to believe blindly in anything, but does theorize based on observations and calculations made from data collected through various sources, such as experiments, telescopes, radio wave dishes, satellites, and the study of particle physics and the interactions of physical forces. What was once accepted as truth may one day be cast aside as new truths are revealed. I am excited to be alive at a time when these questions about where and what we are have come to the forefront of human consciousness, and more and more likeminded people are joining in on the search for real answers.

Religion

  Now, when I try to think about God, I cannot imagine the God of scriptures or the bible, I simply cannot bring myself to believe in burning bushes and parting oceans or that those books were written by anyone but men, who had vivid imaginations and a desire to control others.  While I don’t believe all aspects of religion to be bad, it is true that more people have died in the name of religion than perhaps any other tragedy, ever.  Listening to religious debates and dogma it becomes even more clear that each religion is totally bias, each seeking to save only a select few, who happened to be born in the proper part of the world, each religion claims that all the others are wrong, that that particular religion is the one and only right one and to believe otherwise or question this is to spend eternity in hellfire.  Yet you will hear them speak of how God is loving and God saves.  It becomes clear that this is merely a desperate act to cling onto a dying system of control that more and more people are becoming aware of.  

Religion is a form of mass control, it is a system to keep people from asking questions through fear of eternal damnation, to keep us all as ‘sheep’ while those in power make the decisions that shape or lives.  Systems of control and obedient slavery still exist, through capitalism and government, but for many centuries and still to this day religion has a powerful grip on the minds of men and women all over the world.  To try and discuss logically with some of these people is an exercise in futility.  Having a conversation with a friend who was a devote Christian, the subject of dinosaurs came up.  I mentioned that the dinosaurs were extinct before mankind existed.  He immediately recited a verse (I don’t know which) in which the beasts tail was as large as a river, therefore  dinosaurs must have existed at the same time as man. And that was literally as far as he was willing to go with that discussion.  There were no if’s ands or buts.  Because he had read that in the bible, or wherever he did indeed read that, it was the truth and the only truth he cared to believe.  It was at that point that I felt sorry for him, because he was by no means a stupid person, but I was truly baffled that someone could be so ignorant and shut their eyes to the facts that science and archeology presented to us.  Like so many others, he was not even curious to know anything different, certainly not to question the scriptures or the bible, for surely that would mean an eternity in hellfire.  Needless to say, I dropped the conversation and never brought up anything remotely scientific around him again.  The sad part is, he is by no means alone in this ignorance.  Wherever I go on the web, I see comments on scientific videos or lectures about how none of that is true, that we are infidels and non believers who shall all burn in hell for our sins.   Now,  I know religion is supposed to teach ‘love thy neighbor’ but honestly all the religion I see seems to be ‘love thy neighbor, unless he doesn’t believe exactly the same thing you do’  which quite frankly puts me into conflict with these ideals.  I won’t call myself an atheist or agnostic, but I am certainly not of the belief that enforcing my beliefs on others with threats of eternity in hell is the right way to love humankind and be open minded.  All my life I have listened to others and seen how many different views can help shape society, but none is more alarming then the narrow minded views of such individuals who preach about scriptures in such a way that renders all logical or free thought obsolete.  These people are truly blind and worse yet they condemn all those who don’t follow them in blindness.   

I don’t want to mock anyone’s beliefs; it is fine to believe in things, even if they can’t necessarily be proven.  What I do have a problem with is people killing or threatening people over the lack of such beliefs, or different beliefs altogether from their own.  This shows the power of the system of control that the church has had on us for centuries.   To this day, even given all the advances in technology and new understanding of the cosmos, understandings that are clearly in conflict with the primitive concepts taught in the bible, people are still unwilling to turn the page and accept a new reality.  If religion chose to believe in unicorns but nobody had ever died for it, there wouldn’t be a real issue over it.  The fact is, religion has killed hundreds of thousands of people throughout the ages, not just one religion but many, all with the same blind faith, faith in something that cannot be proven, need not be proven, all preached by churchmen who themselves are men, human beings like the rest of us.   If in 2 thousand years we preached that the LHC particle accelerator in Switzerland was built by God himself, should they believe us?  If we wrote books on science and claimed that the words they contained were gleaned through meditation with a higher, invisible being who was omnipotent, would they all us crazy? Probably.  Now if we went further and killed anyone who disagreed with our statements, and threatened certain eternal suffering for anyone who strayed from these beliefs, what would that be called?  I would call that insanity. 

People with power

  They say power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.   Truer words have not been spoken.  If you have ever had the opportunity, or rather, the misfortune, of trying to be a leader and then finding out that you were merely a puppet for people who were working behind the scenes, you will know what I mean.  I was once promoted to director of a large group of individuals, after a succession of leaders, and directors, all of whom stepped down for various reasons.   I had the best of intentions and ideas, the truest values to bring to the table.  

But as the months went on, it became clear that none of this mattered in the slightest, because the former leaders and directors were still running the show.  They along with others that never actually held titles but never the less were rich powerful people whose influence were valued by the former leadership, were in the true seat of power.  All the real decisions were made by this select elite group, and I and the current leader were nothing but puppets, just icons of power that really held no power at all.  The truth was that the former leaders and directors wanted total power and control but without having to do the menial task of governance.  This task, along with the paperwork and dealing with issues that arose and of course the blame for anything that went wrong, was placed squarely upon our shoulders.   Secret meetings were commonly held without our knowledge, making agreements and arrangements with special interest groups to forward ideas that put into motion events that were cleverly spun in order to increase their own hold on power while at the same time employing a form of propaganda to ensure that these ideas were considered the best course of action for the whole group, and the leader and myself had no choice but to go with the consensus of the majority. In the eyes of the group, these were our decisions, and the elite group were free to wipe their hands and be content that should anything go wrong with their plans, the fault would fall on those they had chosen to be the new leader and director.  

The hypocrisy of these elitists was unimaginable, with words used to gain trust and confidence, spoken to ease troubles,  then my words given in trust and confidence later used against me in slander, used as weapons and twisted to portray to all how terrible of a director I was.  The elitists, pretending to be the voices of concerned individuals within the group, incited rebellion and distrust of authority while secretly they smiled, knowing that at the end of the day, they would not be the ones viewed as the bad guys.  Eventually, with defeat in my heart, and powerless to stop anything that happened, despite any of my efforts, I resigned.  To some this was a joyous moment, for I was now surely hated by most whom had formerly been my friends.  All of the failures the group had endured had surely come from my ineptitude as a director, or so they were led to believe.  And without the wealth and influence to rival the elitists, even telling the truth would have been pointless and likely turned around and twisted to expose some weakness or flaw I had.  

This experience has taught me a powerful lesson; people given enough power and control see themselves truly on a higher level than everyone else, and hurting or manipulating others does not factor into any sense of morality.   Belittling or ruining someone’s career means nothing to these individuals if it means retaining that control and history has shown us that these types of people, given enough power and control, will stop at absolutely nothing to maintain that control, even if it leads to the deaths of thousands of innocent people.  And when you look at the people in power around you, ask yourself, are they just puppets? Perhaps they too had good values and good intentions, at the start.  Then some perhaps fell into the role and accepted their fate as puppets, better to serve with some pretense of power then to be just one of the flock. .  I preferred neither.  Eventually I left the group altogether.