Voluntary Ignorance

When I die I want to be cremated and then have my ashes put into an ice ball. The next time a comet gets near Earth, I want to be shot into it...

Last Sunday I attended a "country" Baptist church in Alabama. I left the church with the feeling that humanity is doomed. Without going into detail, I want to say that I don't understand how people can be so willfully ignorant at such an extreme level.

This is a quote from a Canadian girl named Laura, who operates the popular YouTube channel Facts vs. Religion. She is responding to this question: Would you be more tolerant of religion if it had never caused any harm or interference with science?

I don't think I would have felt compelled to rippel water, so to speak, if the religious community on the whole had been Janists. I think it was when I realized religious nut jobs were trying to get stem cell research banned is when I relized how dangerous religion was. If it hadn't been for stem cell research, the reaction with the Mohammad cartoon, and the Catholic church trying to ban condoms, I don't think I would have been so moved to respond. I would probably have seen religion as being simply pitiable rather than actually dangerous.

It's the fact that the fundamentalist religious person is so fervently, avently, and belligerently ignorant and wants to stay that way. That's actually dangerous. If they have to do it, it's their right to believe what they want. But I think it's actually dangerous for the people around them, especially if these people are having lots of kids. To be brought up in that kind of surrounding would certainly be akin to child abuse. You're going to be severely fucked up mentally.

I do thank my mom for occasionally beating me over the head with her cross because I don't conform to her religious beliefs. She uses a combination of guilt and manipulation to tear me down and to make me feel like I'm a rotten person. Anything bad that happens in my marriage, or any problem related to my children, is because I didn't have my untanned fanny glued to a pew. And now I'm paying the price by having a messed up family, or something like that. She continues to pound me even when I cite statistics. For instance, the divorce rate between couples who attend church and those who don't is virtually the same, so talking about magic Christian "powers" is a mute point. But if you ever get a good zinger on my mom, she simply refutes it without attribution or ignores what I said, and continues on with her sanctimonious sermon. Again, to be so willfully and hopelessly ignorant is dangerous, VERY DANGEROUS, for society.

Conspireligion, Part 2

I am sympathetic to those lost in the religious world because I lived in their culture for most of my life. When something is drilled into your head starting from early childhood, for the most part you don't even THINK to question.

In 1994 I got involved in a quest to start a church. I was 33 years old and for me, personally, this was my last ditch effort to MAKE myself believe. What I learned is that church planting is hard work, and 5-6 days a week I was typically doing SOMETHING related to the church. At the same time, I made myself read the Bible, in the hopes that I would find some sort of "proof" that would MAKE me believe. But I never could.

During the first years of starting the church there was an interesting fellow member named Dan. Now, I recently heard a statistic that only 10 percent of Christians actually read the Bible, and Dan was one of the 10 percenters who DID read his Bible.

In Dan's world, everything that happened in his life was supernatural. When he got a traffic ticket he knew that "God was testing him." When he announced to the church he was tithing, he said that an offer to get $50 for participating in a focus group was "God blessing him." When a lawn care company treated his yard by mistake, he said that "God was taking care of him."

Dan was also a Sunday School teacher. How crazy it was, I thought, to wake up early, get my kids dressed, and waste a beautiful morning listening to Dan's boring crap. On one particular Sunday he was talking about how God threw Satan and a third of the angels out of heaven, and the Earth was destroyed in a battle and had to be re-created. Or something like that — heck, it was 15 years ago.

The point is that some people sink so deep into this stuff that their "spiritual world" is what becomes their reality. The danger of this fantasizing is that it plays out in their behavior, and sometimes in a destructive way. Or, at the very least, it causes people to become indifferent toward very real problems. This is my number one problem with religion. This is why I think religion causes far more harm than good.

The Escape

In 1997, after 4-1/2 years of church planting, I left that church. However, I continued to attend church for another 8 years, but mentally I had checked out completely. I attended because my oldest daughter enjoyed the social experience and because of the relentless hounding from my mother.

My great concern is that our country is full of people like Dan — many of them are wonderful people but they have little interest in temporal Earth. They don't care if an animal species goes extinct, they don't care about the impact of coal-fired power plants, they don't care about the impacts of limitless population growth. They just don't care because the Second Coming is near, and Dan and his friends will all be whisked away, leaving the wild-eyed heathens like me to run amok in the streets, killing and cannibalizing. But at least we'll have the Anti-Christ to maintain order. Oh, and the latest I heard is that the Anti-Christ is some politician in Europe. I guess it's not Obama after all.

In the mean time, Mother Earth follows the course of Easter Island ... ahhh .... errrr ... what is Easter Island? Is that where the Easter Bunny lives?

Conspireligion

I am fascinated by the recent videos of two of my favorite YouTubers — AronRa and Thunderf00t. In their videos, AronRa discusses the futility of debating creationists, and Thunderf00t talks about the pointlessness of debating conspiracy theorists. In fact, Thunderf00t goes a step further by suggesting a similar thought process exists among conspiracy believers and religionists.

These videos have had me thinking all week about the hopelessness of debating ANY religious person, and that anyone who easily buys into conspiracy theories is also likely religious. And, perhaps, religion is the mother of ALL conspiracy theories.

Thunderf00t makes his point by focusing on one point — how 9/11 Truthers claim that Building No. 7 was a "controlled demolition." Truthers also make claims that the second jet never hit the tower, and instead was flown to a secret base. And, of course, Muslims say 9/11 was orchestrated by the Jews.

Reality Invention

The sad thing is that people invent their own reality and they get so lost in it, that they actually believe it's real, no matter how nuts it is.

Drawing from the experiences of the last two churches I attended, I can say that many religionists are deep in their own little world. A typical Christian evangelical believes that humans are simply proxies in a great spiritual war between Satan and God. I remember during church services "prayer warriors" were stationed behind the stage during the sermon to ward of demons. At the time, I really didn't have an opinion about that either way, but now that I look back I realize how totally silly that was. I mean, why must you have several people praying constantly during a church service asking God to keep evil spirits away. Why doesn't God just do it?

Going back to 7 World Trade Center, the 9/11 Truthers talk about the time the building took to collapse, how the fires were "too small" to destroy the building, etc... In an effort to build their case, people who support the conspiracy bend and manipulate facts and video footage to make their case. And once you become a Truther, no rational debate will sway you.

Evolution Debate

I am more familiar with the evolution debate. First, the evidence for evolution is massive and overwhelming. But if you are a creationist, evidence means nothing. For one thing, most people don't know enough about evolution to truly understand it. And, secondly, a lot of other people hold on to either old information, partial information, or downright false information that they heard from their religious leaders. Even if you present a creationist with solid facts, they'll simply dismiss it. So, no, you won't EVER catch me having a rational debate with a religious person because, first of all, you CAN'T BE religious and rational at the same time.

Let's talk about the Holocaust deniers. How do I know the Holocaust existed? Because of the many things I've read all my life, and I even met a survivor once. But suddenly, a handful of people say the Holocaust never existed — as a way to attack Jews — and suddenly many people believe it. They will believe their own lies because, hey, can you prove otherwise?

If someone asks me to prove there is NOT a God, I'll ask them to prove that my cat is NOT an alien space probe. After all, I really can't do it. Sure, my cat poops, eats, and occasionally vomits on the carpet, so I really think it's a cat. But what if the aliens were REALLY GOOD at making space probes mimic cats? I mean, I dunno.

Is Reality Even Real?

So, it's really hard to say what is reality and what is not. I find the best solution on any issue is to get your information from a variety of sources and make your own decision based on the "preponderance of the evidence." I mean, there really is no one truth. For one thing, you can't trust the media at all. As a former journalist I know how easy it is to put a slant on a story by engineering what you do say, what you don't say, and how you say it. Sometimes I'll watch Fox News to see just how they skillfully add their right-wing spin, while still being factual.

I really have no idea what reality is, but I THINK that I do. I do know that the evidence for evolution is vast. At the same time, the evidence for God, Jesus, King David, and Moses is scant to none. Maybe each of those figures were legends and/or symbols? Maybe Paul Bunyen was real? Maybe Santa Claus is real? Okay, we know that he is sort of based on a real person.

The problem with all this made up reality is that people are so detached from the REAL WORLD that they can't respond to its needs or solve its problems. For example, a typical conservative Christian wouldn't care less about recycling or global warming. In their fantasy, the Earth is temporal and the real living begins after they die (does that sound weird to you?). These same folks are also typically pumped with political propaganda, and those "family values" politicians they vote for tell them that global warming is a CONSPIRACY!!! Chalk one up for the oil companies.

Fantasy Is Easier Than Caring

But what may REALLY be the bottom line is that people just don't care much about ANYTHING — just like I didn't care when those prayer warriors were begging God for a "hedge of protection" around the Church — you know, angels with flame swords who would whack the shit out of any demon who dared cross the line. And in the meantime, the pastor was shaking us down for cash using the most subtle guilt techniques. So, I really didn't care. I was just there because my parents and wife's grandparents hounded me to attend church. I was there because it made me a "good person." I was there because I was told I needed to be a "strong Christian example" for my children. And as I'm sitting in church I'm not picturing an angel's flame sword cutting off a demon's pointed ears. Actually, I'm thinking about lunch. And, really, I JUST DON'T CARE. So why would I expect a Christian to care about saving the environment. I mean, really...

Collapse

This excerpt is from my favorite blog, ClubOrlov, which is written by Dmitry Orlov. It's as if Dmitry has taken the words from my own heart. You can read the complete entry, titled, "Collapse Competitively."

We are heading toward economic, political and social collapse, and every day that passes brings it closer. But we just don't know when to stop, do we? Which part of "the harder we try, the harder we fail" can't we understand? Why can't we understand that each additional dollar of debt will drive us into national bankruptcy faster, harder and deeper? Why can't we grasp the concept that each additional dollar of military spending further undermines our security? Is there some sort of cognitive impairment that prevents us from understanding that each additional dollar sunk into the medical industry will only make us sicker? Why can't we see that each incremental child we bear into this untenable situation will make life harder for all children? In short, what on earth is our problem?

Why can't we stop? We can blame evolution, which has produced in us instincts that compel us to gorge ourselves when food is abundant, to build up fat reserves for the lean months. These instincts are not helpful to us when there is an all-you-can-eat buffet nearby that's open year-round. These instincts are not even specifically ours: other animals don't know when to stop either. Butterflies will feast on fermented fruit until they are too drunk to fly. Pigs will eat acorns until they are too fat to stand up and have to resort to crawling about on their bellies in order to, yes of course, eat more acorns. Americans who are too fat to walk are considered disabled and the government issues them with little motorized scooters so that they don't have to suffer the indignity of crawling to the all-you-can-eat buffet on their bellies. This is considered progress.

Bravo, Dmitry, bravo!

Crazy Cavemen In Suits

It took me seven years as an environmental activist to realize the real problem with our movement — we are competing against 5 million years of human evolution. Human behavior is hard-wired and there's little we can do to change it, but there's some things we can do to manipulate it. In fact, the most successful people are the ones who understand human animal behavior, and can exploit a person's weaknesses for their benefit.

To understand a human you must first understand that we've only been "civilized" in our little farming communities for about 10,000 years. But for 4,990,000 years we were ape men, and once we got the hang of fire, about 100,000 years ago, we started becoming cavemen.

So, if you want to motivate people to move in a certain direction, don't just think about the folks living in cozy farm villages, but rather think about your ancestors who were living millions of years without fire. Imagine those dark, cold nights, living in constant fear of what might eat you.

Just like with an iceberg, don't focus on the small part sticking above the water, but think of the 90% of the ice that is under the dark water — that's the part that wrecks ships.

A fellow activist once told me I could learn a lot by first studying my pets, and that has become a regular pastime. In some ways my two dogs and cat are remarkably smart, but in other ways they are amazingly dumb. The same holds true for humans.

The 10K Loop
To cover the pros and cons of human animals would take a book. I'll just cover one right now — our brains have a real problem thinking long-term. For we environmentalists, this is a huge problem because our most important work is long-term. In fact, the majority of environmentalists prefer to work on short-term projects like cleaning streams and planting trees, and those who work on big picture issues like climate change and population are a special breed, indeed.

Let me give an example of where this short-term thinking will lead us. In the near future either the United States or China will collapse. It doesn't matter which one because when one falls the other will fall. There will be extreme violence, cannibalism, and other unpleasant things. In the end, we'll learn that the only way to survive is to create local economic units that do not rely on global commerce. These units will be like, yeah, like the small farming communities we started out with 10,000 years ago. So, it's as if our short-term thinking keeps us on a short-term cycle.

Hopefully, we won't radiate the world with a global nuke exchange, and hopefully we won't ruin our climate too badly before the cheap oil runs out. If we somehow survive those two challenges then we have a chance of creating a perpetually sustainable society — one that will provide a quieter and more simple life.

So ....
Our current world economy is the manifestation of all that is wrong with humanity. Soon, it will collapse, and I'm hoping the new economy will reflect all that is right with humanity.

Sincerely,

The Goose