August 24, 2007
How will we know the ancients in the future?
In the future, we will be able to eat bacon, buttered toast and fried rice without guilt.
As long as we exhibit sufficient conformance we can be drip-fed hapiness.
The biggest joke that they sell us is that happiness comes from others.
Laugh at yourself - you are fuckin' hilarious - you just don't know it yet.
In the future you will speak a different language - you will use the same words, but the meanings will have consequences. Grab a sword and fight for your skin - or not. Whatever.
You are not your past, your future or even your present - you are only now.
Teach me.
Posted by dottie at 11:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 17, 2007
A bit of perspective
28 Mar 2007 : 273 dead - various incidents (170 killed in the largest) - virtually no news coverage
16 April 2007 : 33 dead - a single incident - front page world wide coverage
Can you guess the difference?
My condolences to all those involved in the tragedies whether loved ones, family or emergency/medical personnel.
Posted by dottie at 10:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 6, 2007
Where does it all lead?
Where does a lack of faith lead for society?
I am beginning to believe that a lack of religious faith is in essence a 'gateway thought' that leads ultimately to true democracy.
In my mind the truest form of democracy is what I understand as Anarchy (dictionary definition that I refer to - 'a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society' - there are other defiinitions which in this context do not apply, so says I).
I think anarchy's best examples are exemplified by small-hold farmers and their communities (probably better examples existed in the pre-Victorian or even pre-Georgian era, possibly even the middle ages but todays exemplars are pretty good examples to give you the idea...), the kibbutz's of the very early days in Israel and the society that sprung up in Christiania.
The bugbear of modern society, to my mind, is the lack of social contract / civic pride / accountability. Each of those terms fall short of what I mean but express some aspect of what I am trying to define - social cohesion, individual accountability, altruism, mutually beneficial competition - basically the idea that everyone has their own needs and demand respect for those but at the same time everyone is in the same boat and one person falling to his knees can bring the rest of the society to its needs. This should be a two-edged sword though - slackers cannot be tolerated!
Many of todays ills stem from the fact that there is no social cohesion - many people dont know their neighbours - and this anonimity can lead to a feeling that the individual is not accountable.
Getting back to the point. People often argue that religion lends social cohesion to society. My mother has a great phrase that sums up my reaction that - 'they bite chunks off the altar rail on Sunday only to turn around and bite chunks off each other the rest of the week'.
That is a partisan point of view, but then I don't agree that religion is a valid, socially cohesive glue. It works to an extent but to my mind its faults outwiegh its benefits.
Religion is a caste system at heart. It is aparthied - us and them - the faithful and the heathen.
Any society that is based on a caste system is top-heavy and oppressive. Any merit system is open to abuse and regardless of its origin it will be subverted to create a caste system. We must remember that the U.S. constitution was formed by atheists or at best deists (see the Wikipedia article regarding Deism).
We must also remember that Thomas Jefferson spoke of the constitution they were forming as almost temporary in nature. He claimed that the framers of the constitution had no right to tell the future inhabitants of the U.S. how they should live their lives - the constitution was formed by the people of that time for the people of that time with a view to guidelines on how people should act to avoid the perils of imperialism - which was the greatest monster to them at the time. I think that Thomas Jefferson was an anarchist! :)
So, back to the original question again - where does a lack of faith lead?
The ideal would be open-mindedness.
Posted by dottie at 3:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack