On Having A Grey Religion

Because I intend to ramble on in my usual fashion about some very serious subjects that have religious implications (abortion and gay marriage, for instance) I thought I should take a moment to discuss my own personal religious views. I am one of those people whose religion doesn't fit into one of those neat little boxes some government forms expect us to check as an end-all to any questions on the matter. My beliefs would best be rendered under that unique format that allows us to "check all that apply."

I once was a Christian but, to say the least, I got fed up with a lot of the hypocrisy and nitpicking that passes for Christianity these days. The Bible contains 613 Major and Minor commandments in the Old Testament that require and prohibit certain behaviors but there are so many Puri-tyrants (puritan + tyrant) that add so much to the list and then try to force others to obey them by the use of the sword of Caesar that life is beyond being enjoyed at all by anyone under the sway of these control freaks. Then when these miscreants decided to encourage Caesar to wage war against the infidels in the "Name of Jesus" following 9/11, I decided to change my religion.

Now I could be called a Deist, much like many of America's early patriots and Founding Fathers, in the sense that I believe in a creator of the Universe but I don't see this force behind nature to be acting in either a benevolent or malignant manner towards Man. I also don't believe this creator interferes or intercedes in the affairs of Man as he has set all the Laws of Nature where everyone can "read" them and Man ignores them at his peril. As Benjamin Franklin said in his Poor Richard's Almanack: "God (the creator) helps those who help themselves" meaning that everything Man needs to survive and flourish, the creator has already provided in nature and all Man needs to do is work it to his benefit. This creative force might not even be self-aware and certainly doesn't fit into any of the molds of supreme beings postulated by the major revealed religions of the world.

I could also be called a Realist in the manner that I believe the reality around me that I and others in their right minds can perceive through our natural senses is the sum total of that which Man should concern himself. I do not believe in an eternal reward or an eternal punishment. I do not believe in angels, demons, spirits, or ghosts (I find it amusing that many Christians claim they don't believe in ghosts when their Lord and Savior clearly did; Luke 24:37-39) and I do not believe in an invisible realm of these beings warring amongst themselves for the souls of men.

I can believe in sorcery so far as it is the use of hallucinogenic and psychotropic pharmaceuticals that alter the biochemical balance of the central nervous system but I go no further than that and the worlds perceived by those under the influence of these drugs are not real. I can believe in wizardry only as it is the creation of machines and contraptions that use the laws of physics to get work done for Man in order to save his labor. I can believe in witchcraft as it is the use of natural herbs and other supplements to correct any imbalances that have developed in a person's body but these practitioners cannot use magic, black or any other color, to defy the laws of nature.

I do agree that superstitious people can be led to believe that magic works and that this belief is just as dangerous in its effects on their behavior as the magic they purport is at work in their lives. As a joke around Halloween I load my primary choice for my concealed handgun with Winchester Silvertips (tm) which are encased with a substance that causes them to appear to be silver bullets. I explain that I carry these in case I come across someone who has totally convinced himself, by a psychological method or malady, that he is a werewolf. Some tell me that since the bullets are not made of real silver they won't work. I reply that since the person is not and cannot be a real werewolf these bullets, which are not real silver, will work just fine to stop him from eating me.

I could also be called a Humanist in that I believe that the top concern amongst humans as they interact with each other is their peaceful coexistence with each other. The word "religion" means at its root to reconnect with something and for most people that something is a god. I find that many people in their dedication to reconnecting with their version of a deity will ignore the plight of their fellow human beings and may go so far as to act in a despicable and criminal fashion towards others and then justify it by their dedication to their deity (Luke 10:31-32). They seem to miss the point which is central to many of the world's religions is the need to reconnect with our neighbors on this little blue and green planet. Supreme beings are good and all on occasion but, when push comes to shove, it will usually be another human that will pull your rear-end out of the fire when you need it most.

Some have argued with me that without the existence of true supreme beings to lay down the "Law" there are no absolutes and everyone is free to act as they see fit. I answer that the creator has set certain limits to what a person can and cannot do (one cannot flap one's arms and fly to the moon) but since all other concepts of deities of the revealed religions are themselves man-made, then those "absolutes" these deities supposedly carved in stone or wrote on the wall are also man-made, and if one examines them very closely, one will find those "absolutes" were written so as to benefit the person or persons who originally wrote them down. It is amazing how far one can go with the question, "Cui bono?"

There is one intangible entity that I believe in and that is the simulated reality which I call the "Facade." It is not quite as complicated as the computer simulation in which the characters in the "Matrix" movies found themselves but it is no less sinister. It is a collection of manufactured societal norms and mores that are disseminated to the adult members of the Earth's population through the mass media, both that intended for information and entertainment purposes, and to the younger generations by indoctrination at the public education systems. It is a means to manipulation of the masses by those who have inherited or purchased the privilege to be at the center of the "spider's web."

The "Facade" uses religion, alters religion to its purposes, works through compliant religious organizations, and sometimes directly engages in combat with the religious faithful, all for the achievement of its nefarious purposes and goals. I consider it my mission, as that of humorous authors and social critics before me, to remove as many bricks from this false wall so that as many as possible can see through it to the truthful reality that it is trying to hide. Knowing the truth will not set you free, as many Christians are want of saying, but it will certainly give you a better idea of who is trying to enslave you.

Though I am quite irreverent at times to what others might revere I do respect the right of a person to the choice of what he will believe in, even to the point of self-delusion, and to practice that religion as he sees fit, even to the point of self-destruction, as long as he does not cause harm or loss to others without their consent. I only ask of others that they would respect my right to do the same in peace and without interference.

I do know that there are some of you out there who have read this and are chomping at the bit to send me a note or two to explain where I have gone wrong in my thinking. Please believe me that I have spent much time in contemplative and introspective meditation to come to the decisions that I have reached and your attempts to persuade me to another belief system will be a waste of time and effort on your part. I would ask that if that strong urge really starts to take control of your life you seek some kind of help. Depending on what jurisdiction you live in, that irresistible impulse might qualify as insanity...

Why E.T. Doesn't Need To Phone Home

At The Daily Bell, a site I like to haunt with some regularity, there has been discussion again about the possibility of a fake Space Alien landing to drive the peoples of the world to form a "more better Union" in the way of a totalitarian one-world government. Last night on the History Channel 2 was the season premier, and transfer from the original History Channel, of the show "Ancient Aliens" which continues the argument that ancient man was too stupid to figure out all the neat things he did so he needed help from the "gods," which to the "Ancient Alien (conspiracy) Theorists" had to be alien beings from outer space (I of course have my own theory that doesn't involve aliens). I am highly incredulous about claims of intelligent creatures from other planets landing here on Earth and I have been asked to explain why.

As the substance of this Universe evolves and coalesces from the simplest of forms into more complex material eventually leading to what we humans call "Life," it always does so in adaptation to the local environment in which it finds itself. Though life can and will probably be found all throughout the known areas of outer space - if it evolved here on Earth then it can be expected to evolve anywhere else - each individual life-form is made for the place where it is found and only those other locations that are very similar in a small window of allowances for fluctuation.

For instance, a fish can be taken from the ocean or a river and placed in an aquarium but the container must be carefully monitored to ensure that the environment contained within maintains a close proximity to that from which the fish came from or it will not survive long. One cannot throw a fish into the air and expect it to become a bird and fly away and if the fish is kept out of the water too long it will soon die. Birds can trace their lineage back to life coming from the sea but that was a slow process that took billions of years and was full of peril for each individual life-form along the way.

Humans and other intelligent beings from other worlds are adapted to their home planets and no other. They can make short excursions outside the atmosphere but interstellar and intergalactic space is full of dangerous radiation that can destroy both the lives of the beings and the structure of the small containers - spacecraft - they are traveling in. There is a limit of how far the technology to make these containers can go regardless of the amount of intelligence a race can muster due to the fact that any materials used in their construction must come from the elements of this Universe.

Then there are the distances that such travelers must cover to go from the area of one star to another. Albert Einstein theorizes that the Universe does have a speed limit that matter, particularly living matter, cannot exceed. This places the time needed to travel outside the life expectancy of Man or any other intelligent creatures that evolved in a fashion similar to Man, and since Man evolved here on Earth under the same Laws of Physics that are found anywhere else in the Universe, then any other intelligent form of life can be expected to have evolved in a similar fashion.

Based on my realistic interpretation of the reality I gather through my senses and that which I gather from the academic works of others in which I place some trust and faith because what they postulate is consistent with that which I have also observed, I cannot see the possibility of Man traveling the far reaches of the Universe and I consider it highly unlikely that any life-form from another planet similar to life-forms here on Earth can make the same journey in our direction. Therefore, I am highly suspect of any claims to such contact from outer space now or at anytime in the past within the history of the human race, or the planet Earth for that matter.

If some creature of higher intelligence presents itself with proof of its existence to me, then I am not against changing my mind since such an entity would have to be considered a God compared to us humans. In that case I do have a "magic wish" I would like it to fulfill. Since my wish involves regressive time-travel, if you never hear from me again, you'll know what happened...

Fighting Terrorism By Boiling Frogs

There is a lot of consternation (here's some and some more and more and more and even more) on the Internet about a new advisory poster being distributed by our benevolent government officials on what suspicious activities some persons might engage in that regular citizens should be on the lookout for in order to help in the "War Against Terrorism". It is surprising how much innocuous activity is no longer to be considered innocent. What is even ironic is how much of these actions were once recommended - like protecting our computers from eavesdroppers or stocking up on food and medical supplies in case of disasters - by those same officials in order to protect us mundanes from becoming the victims of some type of crime or catastrophe. Well, I'm here to tell you that soon all those activities that are currently listed as just "suspicious" will one day be violations of the law.

"But Mr. Wickham," you say, "what legislative body in its right mind (that's a mythical creature) would dare to impose restrictions against individuals doing these things? The people would raise such a protest that something like this would never see the light of day."

And you are right. To get around the legislative process, the executive branch of the several governments of these United States will call upon prosecutors at all levels to come up with new and creative uses of older, established laws that are completely outside any legitimacy these laws may have once held when they were first passed. This is similar to medicine where an old drug is found to have benefits outside of its original use, like aspirin used to prevent heart attacks and strokes.

"But Mr. Wickham," you say again, "no jury of reasonable persons (another mythical creature) in this country would ever convict someone based on a law that clearly doesn't apply."

I'm sorry to tell you that that happens all the time. You have to have a better understanding of how the Criminal Justice Systems really works in this country. It's a lot like a magic act. A good magician works to have you focus only on that which he wants you to see and not pay attention to anything else that might be happening on stage. By providing you with a limited view of all the facts pertaining to the trick he is performing, when it's done you have to draw the conclusion that it must of been "magic." If you saw everything he did, then it would be one giant, ho-hum whoopteedoo.

That jury of your peers are not allowed to know all the facts of any case nor are they allowed to judge the merits of the law as it is being applied in the trial before them. Those decisions have been made by the prosecution and the court (read: trial judge). The jury, just like the audience to the magic act, are only allowed to make their determination of guilt or innocence based only on the limited amount of evidence presented to them.

"But Mr. Wickham," you keep saying over and over, "there has to be some rational person in authority over the Criminal Justice Systems (you're really chalking up on the mythical creatures today) who would consider this action by the prosecutors to be ludicrous and a miscarriage of justice."

Okay, maybe some mythical creatures really do have a basis in truth and someone steps up and says this case will go no further. What have our benevolent government officials gained by the police conducting what is essentially a "false arrest?" They've got:

Your full legal name and citizenship status.

Your Social Security account number.

Your Driver's License or government-issued Identification number.

The address of your residence and a phone number.

The full legal name of your spouse and and his/her citizenship status.

The full legal names of other family members that reside with you and their citizenship status.

The full legal name of your parents and their citizenship status.

Your date of birth.

The place of your birth

Your age.

Your height.

Your weight.

Your hair color.

Your eye color.

A listing of all your scars, missing limbs or digits, and any tattoos.

A listing of all your chronic illnesses and the medications you take to treat them.

Your treating physician's name, office address, and phone number.

Your place of employment, its address, its phone number, and your supervisor's name.

Your spouse's place of employment, its address, and its phone number.

Your photograph (possibly now taken 3-dimensionally).

Your fingerprints.

And even a sample of your blood to test to see if you are HIV positive from which your DNA can be obtained.

All this information will be duly and digitally recorded and stored away in a government database in order to protect your privacy and will be accessible to absolutely no one except for every government employee in the world who has some connection to the world-wide "War Against Terrorism," which essentially is every government employee anywhere at any time. Though they have not earned as much money from you as they would have with a conviction, they will certainly obtain nearly as much power over you, and over those you know, just the same.

"But Mr. Wickham," there you go saying that again, "freedom-loving people (now that's an endangered species) all across this country will not stand for this. It can't happen here. This is America; the "Land of the Free!"

That objection I will just put in that file I have titled, "They can make 'em put safety belts in our cars but they can't make us wear 'em!" This is the process of evolution - one small change at one small interval of time always Progressing farther and farther until, just like the tortoise in the race with the hare, someone gets what they want by wearing down the resistance.

The pot is starting to boil. Frog soup anyone?

Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes

In the comments section of my column "The 'Great Correction,' The 'Great Recession,' The 'Greater Depression' and Coming Soon: 'The Great Disruption'," Anonymous wrote:

"Very concise and informative, thanks. Scary but exactly what I've come to see as inevitable. Will you write an article on exactly how the collapse of the Euro will affect the average American?"

Now there is evidence aplenty (here's more and more and more and etc.) that things are going pretty bad for our cousins across the pond. It could be said that Europe is suffering through another "Great Depression" due to the excesses of the socialistic policies of many of the governments throughout the continent; policies that ran up a lot of debt that is supposed to be paid back with "other people's money."

In my honest opinion, and that of a few others, the European Union, at least the government part of it and its fiat currency the Euro, will not collapse but like a caterpillar to a butterfly will go through a certain metamorphosis. The peoples of Europe will clamor for relief from this government imposed depression and demand that somebody do something and somebody, as if on cue, will. There will be greater concentration of all political power in a central government that will become more totalitarian and oppressive of individual liberty. This will be similar to what Lincoln did to America with his war against the Southern States when they tried to secure their independence.

The peoples of Europe will be led through hell just to arrive at a worse destination. Many Americans are concerned, and rightly so, how their lives will be impacted by the problems the Europeans are suffering over there. Time for another one of those thought experiments I like to drag you all through.

Imagine that you are a baker who owns his own little bakery shop. Since you've been at it awhile you've had time to pay off all your start-up debt so that you own your building, with your home in an apartment on the upper floor, and your tools of the trade out right. You do a pretty steady business with a familiar group of loyal clientele who return time after time for all of their bakery goods. Business has become so routine that you know exactly how much perishables (flour, milk, eggs, etc.) you need to order so as to restock your supplies and keep things running smoothly. You may never become a millionaire but you earn your and your family's daily bread (that was a pathetic pun).

Suddenly your customers, and a lot of their friends and relatives, are showing up and placing orders for large lavish cakes and pastries along with more of their usual amount of baked goods. They tell you that they intend to start throwing a lot of big parties and festive banquets. You going to need a lot of supplies to fill these orders so you get a loan from the banker by putting your shop up as collateral so as to buy twice as much as you normally do.

With the assistance of some employees you have to hire you fill those orders and everybody has a great time. You're even invited to a few of those parties. To keep your employees busy (and get the your money's worth out of them) you have them double up on the loaves, cookies, and doughnuts that you put out for sale everyday.

Then, just as suddenly, your usual bunch of customers stop buying all those extra goods. They even cut back on the normal amount they purchased before the rush. You ask one why he doesn't buy as much as before and he tells you that now he has to make his payments on the loan he got to buy the goodies he needed to throw the party he had. He barely makes enough to cover the payment per month and hardly has any left over to buy bread.

Now your business begins to suffer. With everyone cutting back you no longer need your employees and let them go. With less money yourself you have trouble buying anything else for your family to eat other than the bread you bake and man (and women and child) cannot live on bread or cake or doughnuts alone. You even start to have trouble making your own loan payments.

With everyone spending less and less with each other and sending all their money to the banker to pay off their loans pretty soon commerce comes to a standstill. Then the banker decides to foreclose on your shop and evicts you and your family from it. You find yourself penniless, destitute, and homeless.

This how a depression can spread from one part of the globe to another like a bad head cold. And how governments and central bankers can cause a misallocation of assets by passing out too much easy money, usually taken from other people. As commerce slows in Europe due to a depression over there the economic interaction between them and the U.S. will slow down. As commerce slows down in the U.S. then a temporary setback begins to take on some permanence as things enter a vicious whirlpool of people trying to earn a living at the same time carrying way too much debt. It's only a matter of time before problems over there become a problem over here and then they start circling the planet. Things are going to get pretty rough here in America and there are three factors I have noted that I am pretty sure are going make things downright crazy.

The first factor is the reduced value of human life in this country. In discussions (usually quite passionate on the other side's part) that I have with persons who believe they have the God-given authority to interfere with a woman's right to choose to have an abortion say that they must protest because, "Abortion cheapens life!" I have to explain to them that they are confusing cause and effect.

The value of human life, like that of any other commodity, is affected by the economic law of supply and demand; when supply exceeds, or appears to exceed, demand then the value attributed to that object is reduced. The more life of other humans that a person comes across in one's daily adventures the less value that life has to them. This is one of the reasons that "city folks" can be more callous towards others than their "country cousins." Abortion, or more correctly, society's ready acceptance of it is a symptom of the disease and not the underlying infectious agent.

When people begin to perceive that a certain commodity is detrimental to their continued existence, like all the other humans they must compete with to obtain all the necessities of modern living which some government propaganda might lead them to believe is becoming scarce, then that commodity begins to take on a negative value. When a commodity has a negative value people will expend energy, time, and resources to make it go away.

The second factor is the reduced amount of life-altering guilt in this country. In other discussions, sometimes with the same people as before, I am told that violent video games "cheapen life!" Again I have to point out that though they have picked up on the right process, they have unfortunately come to the wrong conclusion. The only thing that cheapens life is too much of it. What engaging in killing repeatedly over and over again, whether in a virtual world or reality, does is to reduce the guilt that individuals might feel from engaging in that activity.

Criminologists and psychologists who have studied people who have killed another human being have determined that, except for a true sociopath, most of us are very reluctant to take another person's life. The guilt one feels afterward can be overwhelming even if the killing was a justifiable act of self-defense. But if one happens to kill again, then the guilt over that death will be only half as much as the first and the guilt will decrease exponentially with each new killing until there is hardly any worth noticing.

We have youngsters in this country now that kill 50 or more people in a virtual world every evening after completing their homework and another large group that have been doing so in the real world for some time with government approval. Some of these folks might have reached the point that they will kill for a "twinkie" (tm).

The last factor that I have noticed is the growing perception amongst an alarming number of people that life is just inherently unfair in this country, regardless of the reality of that situation for the majority of Americans. Nature has done a fine job on its own in the planting the seeds of discontent and resentment through the disparity of blessings and curses that it has imposed on different peoples throughout the history of human civilization. What is unfortunate is that President Obama, who recently suggested that Jesus would approve of stealing, and other political pundits and civic leaders have been doing an exceedingly extensive job of watering and fertilizing those young plants so that they can grow to become strong and invasive weeds of possibly violent contention between the different races and socioeconomic classes of America.

These three factors alone and individually could be dealt with and handled by any mature individual, working alone or in partnership with others, but coming together during these desperate times will lead many to lose all degrees of composure and begin to suffer from xenophobia. It will quickly become a recipe for disaster. At this point I am reminded of something that one of my police counterparts from the island country of Japan had once told me.

He had noticed that when we American police officers came across a fight (not an assault but a true mutually agreed upon duel of unarmed combat) in progress, we would, as the macho fools we were, rush in and try to break it up. This would result in more injuries for the combatants and officers alike and more charges would have to be filed to justify police intervention in the whole affair.

He explained that where he worked, if he and his fellow officers came across two persons fighting they would cordon off the area to protect any onlookers and let the couple of imbeciles slug it out. After the two combatants were finished and exhausted then officers would step in and make the necessary arrests for a disturbance of the public peace with very little fuss or muss or injuries to the officers.

Sometimes I have to wonder (occasionally even out loud) if Americans are not being steered to slug it out amongst themselves until everyone is exhausted and then someone can step in take over and start to run everything as they see fit. There is the old adage, "United we stand, divided we fall." Certainly there is the possibility that while everyone's attention is diverted elsewhere, somebody with evil intentions might be sneaking up from behind. They could want us to enter into "Bellum omnium contra omnes" so as to "divide and conquer."

The phrase, "Bellum omnium contra omnes," ("the war of all against all") was coined by the English political philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, to describe what he considered to be the natural state of man without civil society, or what others might call Anarchy. Hobbes considered the institution of government to be legitimate in that it should intercede to prevent this war from happening. Anarchists, such as myself, would suggest that Man can form a good social order through voluntary interactions and exchanges through a free and open market without the intervention of government since the overseers of government are themselves mere, fallible humans and not angels shepherding the Lord's flock.

"The war of all against all" will not be a "just war" and it might just be another "war to end all wars." How ironic that such a war should not be averted by government as Hobbes had hoped but instead foisted upon America by government and those who run it. The basics always bear repeating:

"Si vis pacem, parabellum."

"If you want peace, (be) prepare(d) for war."

Buckle your belt and gird your loins. It's going to be one hell of a ride...