Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Bill Maher's Blog


I've been a long time fan of Bill Maher going back to his days hosting Politically Incorrect. Recently, I've checked out his blog. It's full of funny comments and takes, mostly on politics and he usually gets straight to the point.


Check it out: http://www.real-time-with-bill-maher-blog.com/real-time-with-bill-maher-blog/category/bills-blog

Understanding Zen and its Practical Applications Part 3

I would be perfectly fine with never having to work another day in an office, performing work that I cared nothing for. To me, the idea of spending 40 years sitting in an office, is like hell. Sure there are office jobs that I could see myself working in, where the job wasn't that stressful and overbearing, and the people I worked with were decent and we got along. But ultimately, I think that my personality type, is simply not meant to exist for long periods of time within the confines of a florescent-lite cubical.

That being said, where do I belong? I'm actually not quite sure. I know where I feel comfortable. I know that there are three basic conditions to be met that make me content. They are: doing what I like, with people I like, at a place that I like. This is of course assuming that the physiological needs for me to be content are already met, such as having good health, a place to live and food. When it comes to work, I prefer to have a job working for an organization that does good to the world in accordance with my personal morals. Any job where I have to aide giant corporations in their destruction of the Earth for money, is not something that I can take lightly. I have done that in the past and I am not proud of myself for it.

Discovering Zen Buddhism through the teachings of Alan Watts has helped me to see the world from a new perspective. Zen has this mystery to it. Many of the experiences associated with it cannot be put into words adequately, which for me is a part of its appeal. I think that though Zen I have journeyed a bit closer to where I am supposed to be. I don't consider myself a Buddhist but what I aim to take from Buddhism is its practical philosophical aspects, and incorporate them into my existing belief system, that is grounded in atheism and Western philosophy. I would like to keep a foot in both worlds so to speak.

This all being said, I still honestly feel lost as to where I am in this world or where I belong in terms of my profession. I feel almost as if I simply just exist, without a greater purpose being actively implemented by me. I know where I stand in terms of my philosophy and morals, but translating this to an action plan that can support me financially has been an utter failure. Now I am of the mindset, that we each make our own purpose. We each have within us, inherent talents and desires, and from them we can each find the path that  feels right for us. A few years ago, when I started to get very serious about my passion for atheism and humanism I felt as if a light had just gone on. Unfortunately, this light seems to have gone off a bit too late - I was already in college paying thousands of dollars towards a degree in the IT industry just as my interest in it was waning.  This set of events has left me angry, but I don't blame anyone or anything for it, it just happened. I am glad to have found something I am passionate about at all. I do still wish that I could turn the clock back 5 years or so and have gotten my degree in political theory, philosophy, or one of the sciences.

In Zen you don't dwell in the past, because it doesn't exist. The past doesn't determine the present because the present is all that exists. My past miscalculations should not affect my desire and strive for doing something I am really passionate about. But all to often I become controlled by my past, as many of us do, whereby we allow events that have happened to limit our abilities in the present. This is not only harmful to one's potential, it is harmful to one's being. For to dwell too strongly into the past prevents the self from expressing who it truly is, and I struggle greatly with this.

What Zen philosophy means that my past experiences do not determine my potential in the present. Haven't we all succeeded in an assignment when we had no past experience to gauge whether we would be successful? It is shocking sometimes when you realize what you can achieve in certain situations, even when there has been failure in the past. All I can say is that my potential now to achieve what I am passionate for has is not bound with the chains created by past events.


Tuesday, October 2, 2012

A Different Kind of Cool

I remember being a teenager and spending hours looking at myself in the mirror, obsessing over how I looked, obsessing over my hair and skin and nose and how I looked from the side and behind, constantly comparing myself to others. It's all part of being a self-conscious adolescent in a culture obsessed with image. As I've grown older, my interest in how I look has waned a bit, but recently, there has seen a slight resurgence, I think, primarily due to the fact that I am getting older and I fear that I will lose touch with what is cool and trendy.

When I say "cool and trendy" I don't mean the stupid shit that teenagers care about today - I couldn't care less about most of that shit. I mean having a sense of coolness in the aesthetic and intellectual sense. I mean "cool" like my literary hero Christopher Hitchens, who'd sip a cocktail at all hours of the day with a cigarette in the other hand, quoting writers and philosophers from memory and telling anecdotes about humorous encounters with various public figures. The "trendy" aspect means taking care of my appearance in the sense that it will be apparent from someone looking at me that I've taken some consideration into how I look. It's not that I have to be the most stylish trend-setter in the room, but I don't want to be seen as some loser douche-bag who looks like he stepped right out of the 90s.

There's a different kind of cool that I like. It's the kind of cool that requires intellectual discourse with like minded people, over drinks at a dinner party or lounge. It's the kind of cool Sinatra had. What I want to help grow is a public understanding of the important issues in politics, and to let people know that it is cool to be well informed and have an opinion about things. There aren't enough "cool" youngish people in the media deeply concerned with politics, although it seems to be increasing. Since Barack Obama, there has been an uptick in interest in politics, but the American people are largely ignorant of the issues at stake today and are even more ignorant of the history behind them.

As I get older I care less and less about the pop culture world and what goes on in it and I care more and more about the realm of politics and science. These two areas have long been associated by those in the pop culture world as being lame, boring or generally uncool. And sure you have popular comedians like Bill Maher, John Stewart, and Steven Colbert making politics and the issues fun, but their fans fill a small niche that is not exactly by mainstream standards, "cool". There are high profile scientists that have become in a way, niche celebrities in a sense, but their message rarely penetrates the bubble they live in.

Maybe I'm getting in over my head here. Perhaps the number of people into politics and science will always be limited, just like the number of people into Death Metal or Swing Dancing will be. Perhaps that's just the way it is, or perhaps it should be that way. Because if stupid, ill-informed, pop culture drones start "engaging" in civil debate about politics, we might be awash with Sarah Palins and Herman Cain types.

..And that wouldn't be too good.

Monday, October 1, 2012

The Threat from Corporate Greed


My blog is almost entirely devoted towards my atheism and dissent of religion, but it recently occurred to me that although threats from religious zealots do pose a real problem for a free, open and democratic society, perhaps the larger threat is the one posed by the seemingly unstoppable greed of corporations. It is my contention, that corporations for decades have had far too much power and influence in governments, and that they've used this influence to better themselves too often at the expense of people, animals and the environment. It is from corporate greed that we get millions in the third world exploited daily for their cheap labor. It is from corporate greed that we get various toxic elements polluting our environment. It is from corporate greed that we do not have labels on our food indicating their country of origin in the U.S. Corporations will always care more about their bottom line than they will anything else, and this lack of the most basic ethical considerations leads to so much unnecessary harm.

In other words, from an ethical standpoint, corporate entities put profit over people, profit over the environment, profit over everything. Many modern day corporations will stop at absolutely nothing to increase their bottom line, regardless of the long term impacts that they may be causing. It seems to me that the greed driven, no holds-barred approach to capitalism, is like a mild form of insanity. Are we really willing as a society to let our future become jeopardized from the unquenchable greed of the corporatists? Are we willing to let corporate interests dictate government policy from the inside? Are we willing to let energy corporations continue to pollute our Earth so that the polar ice caps melt from global warming? Are we willing to let wage and labor standards diminish in the face of the downward pressure imposed by corporate greed? Are we willing to really sit back and let this happen while a small group of people gets rich off of it? I wonder, how we can call our great nation a democracy anymore when corporations have most if not all of our politicians in their back pocket.

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"From an ethical standpoint, corporate entities put profit over people, profit over the environment, profit over everything."
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From the point of view of ethics, it seems to me that a small group of very rich people who run corporations, who care only for their own selfish interests, and who continually want more and more and are never satisfied, are deplorable in character. This brings up the whole collectivism versus individualism debate I wrote about. The corporatist is certainly not a utilitarian, nor is he a deontologist. He instead is subscribing to Ayn Rand's objectivism of rational self interest. It is individualism gone crazy. The irony here with my objections to corporate greed, is that many religious leaders in the Catholic church and within Islam, are on the same page as I am. Although my blog is a non-stop rant against religion, that doesn't mean that I disagree entirely with what all religions say. I agree with Islam's prohibition on usury, and Catholic doctrines against excessive self interest, from which greed is a result. I would certainly be willing to work with religious leaders to help put an end to the corporate domination of our entire world.

The current existence of the world's economy is completely unsustainable. We are using up the Earth's finite resources at an alarming rate and producing as a result, ever increasing levels of waste. The sanctity of humanity and the environment is literally at stake here and billions of people either don't care or don't know of the severity of this situation. This is primarily because most people are either working too hard in order to survive, so they can extend their wretched existence a little longer, or they are wrapped up in their own bubbles of pop culture and mindless self indulgence to be bothered. To know and care about this 800 pound gorilla in the room, requires one to think. I can imagine a world in the not too distant future, where giant corporations run the world through shadow governments whom they use to create wars on behalf of their corporate self interests, where they send brainwashed masses to die, who control the media to influence public opinion through a scripted, pseudo reality, and where every stream, drop of water, glaciated tundra and deciduous forest, cannot escape the suffocating ugly hands of a corporation, looking to own and privatize it. Oh wait, that's today.

We need nothing less than a revolution in how we live. If public opinion can sway in my favor, if enough consumers were educated we could bring about the type of change we need to get back on a sustainable future. It will be going up against man's natural tendency for short term happiness and greed, and this is no easy task. I don't have kids, so after I die, I have no personal vested interests in the fate of humanity centuries from now. But many of the corporatists in charge of the rape and pillage of the Earth's finite resources and the abuse of the labor used to turn them into products do have kids, and I wonder where or what they think they will do when the shit hits the fan and we deplete what the Earth can provide us because we hesitated making realistic steps towards renewable resources. Will they use their wealth to build lavish underground bunkers or floating cities while the rest of us turn to savagery on what little habitable land is left? Who knows.

Our entire monetary system is a gigantic ponzi scheme, perhaps the largest ever created. Our money is printed out of thin air by the private Federal Reserve and loaned to the U.S. Government, to be payed back with interest. Since the U.S. Government can't make its own money, this means that the only way the U.S. can pay down this debt is by borrowing more money from the Federal Reserve. And so our entire economy is built upon and endless cycle of debt that is completely unsustainable. The abolishment of the Federal Reserve is paramount to the first step towards a sustainable economy.

Campaign finance reform, though much talked about, is the only way to get most of the money from corporate special interests out of Washington. We also need real ethics in practice in the business world. There was a time when many more corporations were known for treating and paying their workers fairly with decent livable salaries and benefits. This grew and nurtured our middle class. Over the decades this has gone by the wayside as greed lead many corporations to reduce or freeze worker's wages and benefits, or move jobs overseas to cheap labor markets. There was a time when CEOs cared about their workers because they knew they were all part of an extended family. This kept many communities alive for generations. We must put an end to the exploitation of cheap labor because it is abusive and unethical.

The only thing that can truly be done is if enough leaders in the corporate world come to their senses, realize the detriment their enterprises are having on the world, and care enough about it to sacrifice some of their increasing wealth to turn the tide back. CEOs must turn profit for the corporations they run or else they will be removed by the board of directors. This means that the whole system must be changed. Society at large must have a mindset free of the extremes of greed through the a deeper moral understanding of its consequences and its motives. Critical thinking and ethics should be taught in every public school, as well as a solid financial education. But greedy corporations running Washington will never allow it. This influence must be broken.


Friday, September 21, 2012

Will the Origin of the Universe Elude us Forever?

What are the limits of human knowledge? Will we, mankind, one day have in our possession, all the knowledge of our universe? Or, are there some things that man will never understand? And if there is knowledge man can never understand, will this be due to the limitations of our instruments to obtain this knowledge, or is there some knowledge that itself is so complex, that the human mind will never be able to process, similar to how a software program today cannot run on a Windows 95 PC? Is the origin of the universe within the realm of this theorized limit to knowledge, along with the existence of god?

Some of the objections that atheists like me have with religions is that they misrepresent the origin and age of the cosmos, the origin and diversification of life, human nature and sexuality, and finally many of the most popular religions implant a false human-centered perspective of the universe, leading to among other things, an impediment of scientific understanding and research. To say that something is unknowable is to confess ignorance, but not at all in the negative sense. It is more ignorant to assert divinity into what is not known than to plead ignorance.

We do not know currently what, if any, limitations to human knowledge there are. If one claims that god lies outside of the scope of knowledge mankind can posses, it is in a way like pushing god out of the light of scrutiny when we momentarily have our backs turned. It is precisely because god and the supernatural rest comfortably outside the scrutiny of the scientific domain that atheists like me are not willing for god's existence to be seriously considered. The atheist incorporates into their belief system that which can be known empirically, as well as that which can be known theoretically through the window of scientific understanding, and god doesn't make the cut.

It has long been said that science answers the "how" question, and religion answers the "why" question. But as Dr. Lawrence Krauss iterates, the why questions presupposes a creator, it presupposes intention from some intelligence. What if life happens and we know how, and it happens for reasons absent of an intelligent designer, much how evolution works? And what if universes happen absent of a creator? In these cases, the "why" question becomes irrelevant. But by asking the "why" question, theists are creating for themselves, their justification for the need to have a deity.

I do not know myself what man's limitations are in his search for knowledge. It seems that in recent years we have made some significant strides towards a great deal of understanding about our universe, but they have as a consequence, allowed us to know just how much more there is that we do not yet know. In other words, we now know that we know a great deal less than we previously thought we knew as result of recent discoveries. That means that we have a great wealth of knowledge ahead of us yet to be obtained and we should look at this as an opportunity. Not knowing, is exactly what makes science so interesting.

I have the persuasion, that one day, perhaps long after I'm dead, our scientific knowledge will encompass all there is to know about the universe, including its origins. Science will eventually destroy religion, it's only a matter of time. That is not to say that there won't be millions that cling to religious faith; I never suspect religion dying out altogether. I imagine science having the clear upper-hand making the case for all the mysteries that remain in our universe, not unlike how it does with evolution today, but with a much larger consensus in its favor. As more people adopt scientific knowledge and reasoning through education, they tend to be less and less inclined to insert religion and faith as an explanation to that which they did not previously know, and this can't happen too soon.



Monday, September 17, 2012

Is Atheism a Religion?

Atheists are often accused by theists that we are just as religious in our disbelief in the supernatural as theists are to their belief in the supernatural. I've always countered that atheism is precisely not a religion; it is just the negation of the supernatural. Atheism's relationship to evolution and science is by no means dogmatic. We do not worship any one philosophical or political creed. The job of science is to discover objective facts, and once it has, atheists along with many theists will believe it as such. But belief in the truth of an objective, empirical fact, is not a dogma. Therefore an atheist's reverence for Darwin, or Einstein, or strict belief in evolution is not our replacement for the religions we reject.

The problem is that religious people have such a hard time imagining a world view free from dogma that they assume that anyone who is without religion in their life, must dogmatically follow whatever beliefs that fills the void made by the rejection of religion. So the theist thinks that the atheist's religion is Darwinism and that Charles Darwin is seen as a god to the atheist, secretly worshiped at dark and dingy makeshift shrines. But au contraire, I don't know of any atheist ever, who has worshiped any historical figure as a god or any philosophy or political view as a religion. The "atheists" in North Korea for example, who are worshiping their Dear Leader as a god are brainwashed by a state religion, and you can say that North Korea is the most religious country in the world. It is true however, that some people that have left traditional religions have worshiped rocks, or trees, or fallen into some type of "spiritual" nonsense, but in a sense they are religious.

Religion is defined as "The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods." So however dogmatic an atheist follows Communism or Darwinism or String Theory, there is no supernatural figurehead(s) to be worshiped. But the definition of religion is actually not that clear cut. What about a group of people who believe in reincarnation with out any god or gods overseeing the process? Would it be a religion? I'd say yes, if you can stretch religion's definition to include any belief in an intervening supernatural process. In this case, the deist would not be religious because their god never intervenes or needs worship.

If one strictly adheres to a philosophical creed, such as utilitarianism, you could say that he or she is behaving religiously, if you use the term very loosely. An extreme sports fanatic might be said to religiously follow and worship their favorite team. All uses of the words religion or religious here are not being used in their definitive sense, but are instead stretched to mean what they do not define. So when theists accuse atheists of being religious in some sense, they are not using the term correctly, and therefore atheism is not a religion.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Understanding Zen and its Practical Applications Part 2


Where there is peace, there is happiness. Inner peace of the mind, distilled in tranquility, is perhaps the greatest source of happiness. When I am tense, and anxiety ridden, it is often because I lack inner peace of the mind. There is a blockage somewhere preventing me from the calm and ease I yearn for. Zen is the art of unblocking that tension, through a sort of mind-based training. Meditation is one of its key exercises, designed to distill the mind of what Buddhists call "mara".

Is it not true that happiness comes from within? But what is inner happiness worth if there is nothing but difficulty elsewhere? What I mean is, let's say someone's life is by all objective opinions, depressing. Let's say for example, that someone with no home, no loved ones, declining health, and no foreseeable way to improve this in the future, has mastered the art of meditation and finds himself experiencing an inner bliss that no amounts of fortune or fame could reproduce. I ask myself seriously, if I would trade places with him. I have to be honest and say "no", I wouldn't. For all my problems, and lack of happiness that the blissful man had found, I do not think I would want the problems he must eventually face.

The inner peace he experiences through meditation is only a temporary experience in his presence. He will eventually have to face the reality of his situation like a drunk who sobered up in a jail cell. So I guess what I am saying, is that inner bliss through the practice of meditation, as good as it is, is not the only bliss that I want. I want the kind of inner peace that comes from knowing my life is something tolerable, and that it is populated with things in it that give me happiness in and of itself. I want to be living the life that gives me happiness, and not have to meditate in order to escape any kind of hell I find myself in.

If one can find inner happiness irrespective of the condition of their life, then couldn't that also prevent that person from improving their situation since they are content with having less than optimal conditions?

Deeper than meditation is the zen way of looking at things so that in the long run, a dire situation can be perceived in a new light. Therefore what bothers the mind can be soothed not just momentarily. I am no Zen master that is for sure. My realistic understanding of Zen is only months old and surely I have a lot to learn. I just thought I'd mention this inner conflict I have with some of the practical applications of Zen.

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