It is true that the idea of God, religious values and Christmas build caring communities with gratitude for life. More so than selfish, egotistical people whose aim is always to win against others no matter the cost, crime or how low they have to go. But is there a middle road? Can we be decent, caring moral beings whilst being intellectually honest enough to not pretend we have a fictional God who answers our prayers and is sending is to heaven because we follow a 2000 year outdated book that condoned slavery and child marriage?
Firstly, giving God a gender and being a man is
the first thing wrong about Christianity and Islam. Secondly, in Christianity,
Jesus was not born on Christmas Day, culture made it that way. It was a pagan holiday in dark days because no one really knows the birthday of Jesus. But humans create stories and then believe fictional facts to feel good about themselves. I mean ehy not have xmas every month? A family dinner, gifts of forgiveness and merry making for the sake of together ess?
Centuries ago, when people were suffering and in pain on their
deathbed, what better comfort than to promise an afterlife where all
suffering ceased. Where a benevolent God would welcome them and they would see their loved ones again. There was no science to explain diseases, most were not educated enough to understand suffering, nature’s randomness entropy or even basic hygiene. No anesthesia to perform operations, no central heating, air conditioning, antibiotics or urban sanitation. However, in 2021 knowledge is expansive of all the above.
Knowledge is
power and life is powerful. Handing over life’s causes to an invisible male being is wuite honestly, a lack of wanting to delve deeper. The incredible knowledge of today does not include evidence of an afterlife or
reward or punishment for our deeds. Wanting to live a moral
life is a dignified human endeavour, but substantiating the reason on books written by a handful of men 1500 to 2000 years ago is just plain madness. Such a
powerful being as god would be beyond human trivialities. Do not forget the universe is massive and we are a small dot on that map. How can anyone can claim to know God or have a personal
relationship with him. Based on what? Texts written thousands
of years ago?
Living in a highly
technologically advanced age, humanity should surely be capable of a
more objective outlook? Wars have been fought and violences committed in the name of religion for centuries. When will there be acceptance that no one knows what happens after death because egotistical spiritual
fixation, does not unite humanity. Spirituality
should transcend all material attachments which includes our thoughts and ideas. So this xmas I wish you dear reader, curiosity and
honesty in searching for intellectual truth. My advice. Understand nature.
2019 - ALL I WANT FOR XMAS IS REAL NEWS - TIRED OF MISINFO
Celebrity and fame status has filled our newspapers and magazines for decades and competition between media outlets has meant more and more sensationalized stories which often warp and exaggerate facts to feed the hungry masses. Exploding social media has enabled many ordinary folk to also claim their fame through blogs, websites and pages, some with good intentions, others not. Thus we live in a world with never-ending click bait and out of control competition which has given rise to conspiracy theories, fact-less opinions, and a tsunami of fake news. All geared towards narcissistic attention of the "me, me, me" era.
Caught between good, average and poor media, we live in a media jungle which requires level headed effort and honesty, to find news of authentic value which represents truth, objectivity and plain old common sense. Some swallow stories hook, line and sinker or jump on the bandwagon with loud social media microphones to spout more nonsense about issues they know nothing about. These are dangerous times if one is unable to discern fact from fiction because so many are being played and exploited to feed others' fame status, that basic values such as intellectual honesty and humility are diminishing.
How can we know we're not being deceived by what's fake when so many out there can't be real? Take Alex Jones (who runs Infowars), claiming that the American Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax. https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/941364083730894848 This is how outrageous, insensitive and far some people go to claim their online fame. Yet millions of followers believe his conspiracy theories. But remember in this fake day and age, all your followers can be bought! It's a maze trying to find a relatively truthful view of current affairs somewhere between honest professional journalism and internet fame seekers, who will write anything for attention and vanity.
Have you noticed that anything contrary to Trump's self love of himself, is instantaneously labelled "fake news?" In essence, all this means is "you are lying." It's easy to get your way when you accuse everyone who goes against you as being a liar. This dis-honouring of facts by the POTUS is fuel for conspiracy theorists and fake news outlets to gain further unmerited popularity. But why is it that people believe real news is fake and fake news is real? A recent Sam Harris podcast with Tom Nichols a former USA Senate aid, and Professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College explains it. In his book The Death of Expertise, he describes our current anti-intellectual times and resistance against true experts as the problem, relating it to the psychological Kruger Dunning effect. This is the phenomenon where people who have the least knowledge, expertise or talent, in any given area, even if a professional in another, are the least likely to ever see, introspect or admit that they don't have knowledge, expertise or talent in an area they criticize. So this effect, affects both the educated and non-educated.
We inherit beliefs from family and culture and too often fail to apply broader opinion, or in depth study of facts from experts to truly understand the many topics our world throws at us. Pretending to be knowledgeable in every area of life just because we live in an information era doesn't mean we are knowledgeable. As Tom Nichols said "it's not just a case of copy/pasting or downloading information online onto our own hard drive, expertise takes years and years of experience in a field." While it might make one feel part of something or empowered to click, like and spread in a second, without being aware of the subject depth, such action decreases our media quality and wastes time when we need to separate the fake from the real. In our times of haste, it's as if people just take no moment to breathe a little, run an intellectual honesty check on any sensational story, before immediately reacting to our senses without thinking. If we continue like this, AI will overtake human intelligence in no time. So how can we avoid the trap?
Firstly, if you are easily enraptured by the message you want to believe, bias is going to lead you down the garden path everytime. Second, if you're only concerned with the superficial outside or top layer of character, you won't be interested in a messenger's substance or real intentions, and will take anything at face value. Not a wise choice. News and varying views are valuable but in its current mass availability, millions twist it to meet their own private agendas, to make money, or boost fragile egos. Knowing your source somewhat is essential. Thirdly, reading follower comments will be a good guideline as to the quality of a story. If all you have are people agreeing without any added content, or the opposite with continued crass name calling, then it's likely that the video, news, or message is not of any real value. Everyone wants to be part of a happening but not everyone has a clue about what they're agreeing or disagreeing with.
The moral of the story is: Online in virtual reality lies half truth. To believe everything only because of hype is fooling yourself. There are too many untruthful people out there with hidden agendas and remember, popularity can be paid for. The damage to society is that someone with no expertise in fields they critisize, enables gullible followers to fall prey to artificial news and conspiracy theories. Too many want to excite their lives and be part of a fake revolution, which claims experts and politicians have let us down, we're in control and we know what's going on! They forget how many things go right everyday and what expertise that takes from so many different professions. Professor Tom Nichols wrote that “Narcissism & know-nothingism are not afflictions only among a few disgruntled high-school dropouts, they are also endemic among the educated too, exacerbated over the past half-century by affluence, technology and permanent youth culture.” https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/05/how-we-killed-expertise-215531
It's ironic how Trump now dismisses media news stories as "fake news" after he sowed the seeds of Obama being "illegitmate" and actually is the creator of this conspiracy like story. His bullying won, because he managed to fuel massive bias against Obama and Democrats, winning the election. Instead of Trump supporters enquiring into their leader's merit for such dismissal, they blindly take his message to be true, because this is how fame and hero worship works. "Trust me I'm lying" the title of Ryan Holiday's best seller explains how easily the mob falls for anything they want to be true. As long as the message is "good" people take it as "the messenger is too." It's a reflection of a superficial society that wants immediate satisfaction without the process of effort to get there. Thus our marketer of fake news, Trump is regularly re-tweeted even when "misrepresenting his opponent’s arguments with hyperbole, responding with the least amount of critical thought." What a dumbing down of human intelligence. If this doesn't change then unfortunately, fake news is here to stay because people will believe what they want to believe.
On the other side of the coin, I do believe that some official media centres have long been opportunists in exaggerating stories, so not all are innocent. That doesn't mean though that we can suddenly paint all news and stories with the same brush as Trump does. But it starts with us. If fewer were addicted to the rush of BIGGER, BETTER, BEST, WORST SENSATION DRAMA, we could find some balance and professional journalists might tame their output. Hopefully, the internet mob would follow, because it is really in everyone's best interest to not fall prey to any vague fact-less stories. Perhaps as society we have to understand or at least investigate why so many need a hero or heroine.
Just as you hopefully read and heed the label of foodstuffs you put into your body, we should be just as careful with our minds. Advertising, marketing, catchy titles and flashy labels might look very nice but it's the content and how it got there that matters. Nature is not beautiful because it rushes its processes or changes its story-line to match a hype. It always takes the time it needs and as I believe humans are natural (at this stage anyway), we need to do the same. The mind is a precious thing. Don't be afraid of delving deep past the superficial level of what's served up to you on a pretty looking platter and taking the time to discern facts from fictional sensationalist news. Being a slave to the senses is one thing, being aware of it is another.It's one of the purposes of life.
2018 RISE ABOVE FICTION THIS XMAS
There is essentially good in all people and one does not have to be religious to have moral values. Despite our living in a sometimes chaotic, challenging world with much to be overcome, most of us naturally strive to be decent beings, sharing fruits of success through families, friendships plus working and social networks.
It is healthy and natural to ponder the origins and meaning of life but not so smart to ignore why we believe what we believe, without investigating the cultural beliefs we are born into. Furthermore, although the idea of God and religious beliefs have built communities throughout history, simultaneously, humans also took on fictional facts in blind faith to understand things they did not understand. For example, why God’s cruelty allowed the good, young or innocent to suffer or die early. Why famine, plagues or poverty exist. Or why there was and is so much pain and unfairness around human actions such as slavery, war and all types of crime.
The easy way out is to attribute all to God, his purpose, and Satan, for then you’re done and by saving yourself through Jesus Christ or following Mohammed’s laws you can pretend you’re going to heaven. Giving God a gender is the first thing wrong about religion in any language or culture. The stories were created by biased, wealthier men, and have resulted in long term immense suffering for women as a second class citizen, not able to study, work or vote for centuries. Even today, religion in some countries is holding back women from unraveling their pure potential in societies. The Christians not allowing women to be a poor or priest also for centuries. The falsely perceived and held power by the male sex is what holds back reform of these thousand year old supposed life road maps. While societies have moved on to sending rockets to the moon and Mars, creating robots that talk and debates, science that saves and minimizes suffering, much of the world is still benchmarking themselves by their relationship with a mythical figure who is invisible, yet talks to them. Stories are great but not when they are delusional.
Examining existence through the lens of nature, the human psyche (consciousness) and humanity's scientific truths is a journey far more of should take this Christmas, an old pagan holiday by the way, not Jesus’s birthday. I’m not denying Jesus was a great man. He was an empathetic, political activist who stood up for the weak with a charisma and love all should want to emulate. Which is why Christmas should be a time of forgiveness and gathering around nature, (the tree) , gifts and celebration of togetherness.
But in the search for truth, a far more diverse search, particularly outside limiting religious views, is time well spent. It broadens our narrow scope on the universe big picture and should deal in facts not fiction. Knowledge is power and life, nature and consciousness is the all powerful “god” that gave us life.
Those who live beyond ego know that nature (illness) or random events (accidents and natural disasters) can dispose of any of us, anytime, anywhere. The human race will continue to evolve with or without any of us and there is absolutely no evidence that there is an afterlife. There is always the choice to remain tied up in materialistic ego insist “your” god is the reason of life but taking ancient fictional tales as truth in 2020 may not be the most honest way to live and think.
Wanting to live a moral life is a dignified human endeavour, and for most, a natural common sense way to live. When we do not assign a fictional deity as the cause of life and our being, we assume more responsibility for fixing the world’s troubles and flaws together. Not in ancient tribe style. Honour culture but do not let fiction brainwash you.
It is certainly hard to understand just why we were priviliged enough to be born onto this spinning planet that moves around a ball of fire and it’s a complex universe for us to fully grasp. The only thin we are certain of is that humanity shares the nature of consciousness and this nature of reality does not continue after death, no matter the stories we tell ourselves. What happens we do not know. Just as before we were born from unconsciousness, we knew nothing. Pretending to know is exactly that, pretending.
Humans are born into conditioning by our direct society , tribe and culture, whether that be through political persuasion, the economics of consumerism, or religious values and beliefs. It is easy to fall lazily into the trap of valuing only beliefs from our geographical location with its cultural influences, language and histories but the universe is a much larger playing field. No one culture or religion holds all the answers. So where and what is the soul we all want to feel in our lives?
It is certainly not one ideology of life, as that just ends up in an attachment to the material world of thought and feeling, whereas soulfulness is just contented being without any cause or effect. It takes honesty to realise our perceptions are shaped by our direct environment. It takes courage to know our subjective thoughts and feelings, even if shared by others, are only truths applicable to oneself because no two humans experience the same events of life. Therefore, a religion or ideology of any kind is never a one size fits all.
So, if our subjective truths and/or religions are not true for everyone, where do we place our faith? Firstly, Consciousness. Being aware of Awareness itself is the true humanity that everyone shares. It is not male, out there, built on tales, and only subjective, but here, right now with you and every single human in this moment. (Apart from anyone ill or suffering from an accident.)
If you can let go of your ego and thoughts, you will notice that your Self, you, the ego is a construction of subjective experiences but not the nature of reality itself. Secondly, If you look for who is looking from behind the eyes, what do you find? There is no you!! There is only consciousness. If more people realized this there would be less crime and unnecessary suffering in the world
Wars have been fought over religious beliefs for centuries and this materialistic, non spiritual fixation, on "my God" is right, therefore “I am right/good” is an ego trip, even if it helped bind communities geographically in ancient times. In today’s world with our current knowledge, the truth and way of life directs that humanity and creatures are here only through mechanisms of nature, the core one being consciousness. Therefore, spirituality must come from within and is not as religions say out there in the heavens.
A harmonised awareness balancing body and mind generates natural beingness or soul if you prefer. In that non judgmental awareness of what is we know and accept we will never be free of nature’s will. That is, illness and death. So we are grateful for life and do not selfishly wish to escape death when our time has come. We know instinctively that we are the music and dance, and when the music stops, so does the dance.
On a final note, importing/uploading ancient religious beliefs into a high-tech modern society that is in perpetual evolution does not reconcile us with true reality. Which is that We are all just energy created by one sperm and egg, and nothing we did gave rise to it. Our egos tell us otherwise. But recognise that ego is there just to survive and protect ourselves from dying early. So it is not for some man in the sky for whom you should live but yourself. and fellow beings. And when death comes, will you have lived a life doing good unto yourself and others? Not because someone wrote or told you what to do. But because you were a conscious being that innately knew that rising like the sun, to bring light and warmth to the world was the natural way of things. No fiction needed.
