Have you taken the time lately to look around and marvel at all the miracles there is? I'm not saying that these miracles are god-created.
Our planet Earth is the biggest miracle of all. That it's here and is the way it is is a miracle. All of the events of nature that caused it be as it is today is a miracle. But we don't react to it or treat it as a miracle. Our world is fragile and so delicately balanced and yet we continue to interfere with the way it works. Each time we do, there are devastating results--either immediately or later. We have nowhere else to go and still we trash this miracle we live on. True, the Earth can repair itself...eventually. Whatever devastation or catastrophe it experiences, it can in most cases repair itself. The thing is, it can take hundreds or thousands or even millions of years for the reparation, depending on the level of destruction to its environments. Humans don't have the luxury to wait until the reparation is completed. Our lifespan is so very, very short. Our constitution will not premit us weather utter devastation to the planet.
When will we begin to see and appreciate this miracle planet? When will we begin to treat it with the respect it deserves in order to maintain what we need to survive?
Another miracle is life. Again, we don't treat it with the respect it deserves. Life is precious in that it's all we have. We don't get a 2nd chance. There is no more life once we lose this one. Why do we squander it? Why do we try to take it away from others who think or look differently than we do? Isn't there something else more beneficial to our own lives that we can do rather squander even a moment on trying to diminish or destroy the lives of others.
We are here today in our present condition strictly through chance--billions of circumstances over billions of years. And yet, we take some of the precious time we have and we use it to make someone else's life miserable when we should be using all of our precious time enjoying the time we have. Using our time to make someone else's time and life more pleasurable and nicer would be a more intelligent thing to do. Any time we spend trying to prove that someone else is not as worthy of quality life as we are is most certainly time wasted.
Why can't we all learn to share this planet and all its good things with everyone else?
The miracles of this planet and life were not created by god. It is the miracle of random circumstances--a very long chain of them. We are here by chance. We've evolved into a world that is a paradise for life as we know it. It's like winning the biggest lottery ever! Our time here and the relative peacefulness of our planet today is fleeting. We should not waste it.
On Pollution: Brita water filters TV commercial begins with a peaceful mountain stream devoid of people. The voice-over begins to say that "if everyone lived here" they wouldn't need the Brita filter. Then the scene changes to an urban area and says "but we don't" therefore we need the Brita filter. Such folderol! If "everyone lived" where the mountain stream is, we would still need Brita filters because we will have polluted that mountain stream as well and very quickly. Everywhere there are humans, the water is polluted...and the air...and the ground. We have develop technology so that we can survive amongst our pollution which grows as the human pollution grows.
We are even polluting the space around our planet with hundreds (thousands?) of satellites and space junk leftover from all space missions. We don't know yet what the negative ramifications of all of this stuff will be. We haven't given it any thought. We just do things because we can. We don't use the brains we have to ensure what we do today will not irrevocably harm us in the future. Instant gratification and huge profits are all humankind seems to be interested in. Today, we are all so utterly dependent on electronics and technology that we have made ourselves absolutely vulnerable should our technology be made inoperable. Nearly everything on the planet, every country's infrastructure, all financial, medical, communication, government, entertainment, and social systems could be destroyed--come to a total standstill and create utter worldwide chaos--in one catastrophic incident either natural or manmade. We have put all of our eggs in one basket and provided no protection whatsoever to safeguard the basket. But we'll go down happy with all of our cell phones, credit cards, computers, vehicles, and all the trappings of the modern good life to keep us happy...for now. So Enjoy while you can.
On Climate Change: There are still millions of "unbelievers" out there; people who say that humans have no effect on climate change. After all, they say, the planet has gone through periods of global warming and climate changes throughout the eons. Of course it has. The only difference is that, with the exceptions of the Siberian volcanic and the asteroid extinction events, the planet's climate changes have been gradual in human terms--taking hundreds or thousands of years. The unbelievers further say that human pollution and activities are "far less" or negligibal when compared to the pollutants put out volcanoes for instance. What they don't realize or won't admit is that the human contribution is considerable and ADDS to the natural greenhouse gases making climate changes happen faster than it would if the human element is removed. Climate change is happening faster every decade. It won't take thousands of years this time; it won't even take hundreds of years. It will take decades and we can already see it. On the weather news today in the USA: The East is warmer than usual; the West is colder than usual. How many times have you heard these phrases in the weather news? Hotter, Colder, Wetter, Dryer, Worst, etc. That's due to climate changes. How about the disappearing forests and food production of the world due to weather changes? The Amazon is drying up in some areas, desert areas are expanding, food production around the world is in deep s--t, the Greenland ice sheet and Antarctic ice sheets and glaciers are melting faster than many scientists predicted 10 years ago! There are places in Greenland that are turning green again for the first time in thousands of years. Greenland plays a very important part in climate change--it can stop the ocean conveyor belt in the Atlantic. This feature impacts the entire world's weather systems. Hurricanes, tornadoes, sea level rises, droughts, monsoons--will all worsen and become more catastrophic events happening more frequently. Today's older generation may not live to see it come to fruition but our children will and our grandchildren are the ones who will have to fight for survival in the world we leave them. But the unbelievers don't care. They want to continue driving their hummers and SUVs constantly and needlessly, connect all of their electronic toys and gadgets 24/7, light up their homes like xmas trees. They see nothing wrong in continuing to pollute the waters and air and creating unacceptable amounts of greenhouse gases. They'll just go on "living the good life" as is and leave an unlivable world for their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. These are people who profess to love their families but will not sacrifice or cut down on their current luxuries and wastefulness for their families. After all, they won't be here to live it, will they?
On the Catholic Church: I was raised to be a "good" catholic; to take the church's word at face value. And I did...until I began to read and study their history. The catholic church has one of the bloodiest histories in civilization: the Inquisition, the Crusades, their missionaries to newly discovered lands in the days of exploration. They murdered millions of people (including children) in the name of their beneficient and loving and forgiving god. They pillaged and stole from everyone with the excuse that the victims were heretics and enemies of the church. They began their to amass their incredible wealth during their deadly campaigns as warriors of god. Today, they owe alligence to no one/no country, they pay no taxes anywhere, they continue to rake in untold wealth from christians around the world. Much of this wealth is from people who can ill afford it. They give nothing back to any of the communities in which they have setup shop. Their churches are merely centers for funds gathering and contributions. Their priests are the fund raisers for the church. With all their wealth (they own properties and lands in many countries world-wide), when a parish needs a new church or a new school, it's the priest's job to organize his parishoners to raise the funds to build it. The church has more than enough to build thousands of churches, schools, and hospitals but they never use it. The parishoners pay for the building which then belongs to the church. The pope and the church today are strictly political. They preach godliness only enough to keep the money going to the vatican. The priests pay lip service to the welfare of the people's souls as per vatican edicts. No, I no longer believe in the church, specifically the catholic church. I see no evidence of their love for anyone outside the church. The catholic church today is the wealthiest entity the world has ever had or ever will have and they accept the least responsibility for the people they're supposed to care for. After all, they're only responsible for the safekeeping of the people's souls, not their worldly bodies. And what is the soul? Who discovered it? I think the men of god created the idea of a soul as a means to control the masses of people who are deathly afraid of the idea that there is no life after death. These men of god, past and present, are the supreme con artists of all time. All the other religions have jumped on the bandwagon. They know a good thing when they see it and why should the catholics have all the wealth? They rule on the promise of threats--in particular, the threat that your "soul" will die and you will not live again in the kingdom of god if you don't acquiesce to their teachings and edicts. You'll go to hell. How loving and forgiving and beneficent is that?
On Wars: In war, there are no Good nor Bad guys. Everyone who participates in a war is Bad if they have to be anything. Wars are meant to kill people--as many and as quickly as possible. There should be no rules. This is not a game. Maybe if wars are fought without rules, there would be fewer or no wars and more talks and compromises. Rules of war enable wars. Politicans play at war as though it were a game they can win. No one wins in a war. Everyone loses. But, hey, how else could we have heroes? How else could large corporations amass wealth faster? How else could politicians line their and their pork buddies' pockets under the guise of "patriotism" and "national security" all the while having the people cheer them on? Wars are notorious events for the greedy to obtain wealth and power. Else why would so many world leaders support wars? They just have to be sure they declare war in a way that their countries would approve. Humans have been killing each other since their inception. When they developed brains, the first thing they did was to devise ways to kill more efficiently to ensure they get a larger piece of the pie if not the whole pie. We still do that today. Governments are always so proud of their new super weapons. They'll spend more on that than they would even consider to feed the hungry or heal the sick. The politicians will spend more time, money, effort on military might than they would to the quality of life for the average citizens of their respective countries. After all, providing health care to poor families won't make you rich or a hero like bombing half a country and killing thousands of people would. All you have to do to garner their support is First to scare the shit out of them. Then they'll willingly give up their children's health so that the country can wage war and kill thousands of people to keep them safe. Where are the priorities? Whatever happened to the concept of compassion and compromise beyond the token efforts that are designed to fail to ensure we can go to war against each other? Of what use is the brain we're so proud of having when we don't even use it to live peacefully with everyone? The only "enemy" of humans is us, the humans on this planet. We cause and always have caused more harm and damage to ourselves and every other lifeform than any natural cause ever could or has or will. Our only reasons for this are twofold: Fear of dying (kill or be killed) and Greed for more of everything.
Conclusion for this post: I used to be a pollyanna, an optimist. I believed the church and the politicians and the heroes. Through personal observations, reading history and the news, I no longer am optimistic about mankind. We're like a cancer--rampantly destroying everything good and healthy that we need to survive. We show no compassion for each other if our skin color is wrong, or we're from a different country, or our god has a different name, or our language is different, or...too tall...too fat...too homely...and every other filter we can imagine to distance and separate and elevate ourselves from and over those around us. We're constantly thinking of reasons to go to war, to harm, to kill, to subjugate other humans.
Bush's Boast & Threat re Terrorism: On 9-11, Bush boastingly "put all terrorists on notice that he will be going after them" and "will stop terrorism worldwide." He's totally failed in his boast. He's done nothing! Just look at today's news...or any day's news. He made TWO boasts and threats on 9-11. He was going to get Osama Bin Laden and he would stop terrorism wherever it existed. What a laugh! After his first few months of failure to do either, he started the war in Iraq to distract the americans and the world from his dismal failure. I don't know if anyone else has noticed: He no longer mentions either Bin Laden nor the terrorism still running rampant. He thinks no one notices his utter failure to make good on his threats. He's just a damn jerk politician like his father.
So, no, I no longer have faith in humankind. We don't, have never, learned from our mistakes. We've only learned to make better, more efficient killing weapons and to follow men who are willing to use them at the drop of a hat for their own political agendas.
Why do so many people--religious leaders, anthropologists, archaeologists, etc.--spend their lives trying to prove the bible is real? There is no way they or anyone can ever do that. So what if they find ancient cities mentioned in the bible? That doesn't make the stories real at all. It would be as the fictional novels of today that mention cities, countries, buildings, landmarks, and events that are easily recognizable to most of us. Just because there is a New York or London or Big Ben or a 9-11, does that make the fictional novel a real story of real people? Of course not. It remains a work of fiction. That is what the bible is. The bible is a collection of stories written by man, edited and censored by man, published by man. It is a book whose purpose is to influence people to live in a certain manner that would make them more manageable. Stating that it is the work of god (an idea which is another of man's ingenious creations) is a way to give it credibility and to influence masses of people to live a particular lifestyle "if they want to go to heaven." This promise is given on fear of eternal damnation for the unbelievers. They offer no proof of anything; instead they came up with another ingenious idea--anything that can't be proven MUST be taken on faith. They intimate that to question the existence of a god is tantamount to blasphemy. Many religions preach that god is a benevolent and loving and forgiving god. If that were true and he could truly create life, why would he create life that is dependent on such violence? That in order for lifeforms to survive, they must kill other lifeforms. Wouldn't you think that an omnipotent and loving being would create life to be loving for all--humans and animals alike? The life "he" has given us, if there is a "he", is a life that will never know peace. Just read of any time in history or the news of today, any day, we will always be as we were, as we are. Humans are too afraid of each other to ever have peace. For Peace to ever happen, each and every person needs to accept that every other person on this planet is our equal and should be treated with as much respect as we treat ourselves. Each and every person needs to care about all life and not hold humans more deserving of life than the other animals who live here with us. That's the kind of world a real god would have created; not the kind of world we have.
Now on to the Santa myth...
I don't believe that telling children the story of Santa and perpetuating the myth of Santa is a good thing. Children are told that Santa keeps 2 lists of children: the Naughty and the Nice lists. They are further told that Santa will bring a gift to Nice and Good children. For the children who are in families that can afford to support the Santa myth, it may look like a good thing...on the surface. But the children quickly learn that they DON'T need to be nice to get gifts. They learn that all they need to do is ask for things; they don't need to be good. They develop wrong values. As for the children who do not have families that can provide them with a Santa; they learn very quickly that being nice doesn't get them anything. Therefore, they must not be nice; they must be bad and unworthy because Santa brings them nothing. So, how can the Santa story be a good thing? I see no benefit from it.
Most toddlers are afraid when they are taken to see and sit on the lap of a shopping mall santa. I know my son, nieces, and nephews were. And I've seen other little children cry at the thought of going up to him. They did, however, like santa from afar. These santas are generally big men who are loud and oftentimes smell badly. I believe that if malls want to have a santa, they should have a little person in the role of santa and more little people to play the elves. Little children can relate better to little people than to a giant santa. And, yet, I've never seen a single department store or shopping mall or hospital santa who wasn't a big man with a loud voice. Of course, this is only if you really need to have a santa in the first place.
Why not teach the children about family and love during the holidays and take the focus away from santa and gifts? My son, nieces, and nephews actually liked our family gatherings while they were growing up. As parents and adults today, they still do. When my son was a teenager, friends and strangers would ask me how I got my son to go anywhere with me so often. Their own teenagers preferred going with their friends and had to be dragged to family gatherings. I asked my son why he came to our family get togethers instead of going out with his friends. His answer? "I can always go out with my friends but I want to see my cousins and my aunts and uncles." He had many friends but he preferred to spend the holidays and birthdays and general family gatherings with me and the family. Today, when I talk with my nieces and nephews on the phone, they always end it with "I love you, Aunty." They all grew up knowing it was Mom and Dad who got the presents, not santa. In the years when money was scarce, not having gifts was no big deal. They still enjoyed the company and love of their cousins, aunts and uncles and had fun singing and playing games together. When I was a kid, adults stayed separate from the kids at family gatherings. In my generation, adults and children stayed together and did nearly everything together. Children could have their own time together...whenever they wanted and not because they had to. Being with the adults was their choice more often than not. It was better, much better. Today, they're raising their children the same way...with a strong love of family.
I do not believe in an omnipotent god but I do indeed believe in love and family. I don't believe in life after death; I believe in the here and now. I don't believe in the occult as fact as most humans do. Gods, spirits, angels, witches, magic, reincarnation, luck...those are all stuff of the occult and superstitions created by man. I believe in people and human nature, the good and the bad of people. I believe each person makes his own choice as to which path his life will take. Each person creates his own heaven or hell by his choices. It isn't the "mysterious ways of a god" that decides a person's fate. As parents, it is our ultimate responsibility to teach our children to have the utmost respect for themselves and for every other person they encounter throughout their lives, to have a healthy respect for ALL life and not just to certain people we like and choose. To do less is to fail our children and create problem adults who will, in turn, have problem children. Though many disagree, parents ARE responsible for how they children turn out. Many young people today mistakenly equate Fear with Respect as though the two actions are interchangeable. They think that if someone is afraid of them, then that someone is showing respect. Where in the hell did they learn that cockamamie idea? True respect is wanting for the other person the same things you want for yourself. Simple as that.
As long as there is life...wherever there is life...there will never be peace. If Peace is defined as a "lack of violence," there can never be peace. Life itself is inextricably tied now and forever with extreme violence. Extreme violence defined as death and killing.
Life cannot exist without violence. All life is food for all other life. In order to survive, all life must kill and devour other life.
I include all things in the known Universe as life--planets, stars, galaxies, all we can see and cannot see. Even these must face violence in order to survive. Violence IS Life! Nothing can survive without violence.
Humans may tell themselves they are the epitome of life; but we are not. We are not exempt from the Laws of Life. Violence is an innate part of each of us. As a species, we are no different than any other species. We say we are because "we are aware of ourselves." But who's to say that other lifeforms are not aware of themselves? Who's to say they have no language, no feelings? All life has the strongest of all traits--self-preservation. We are no exception.
There is No Purpose to Life other than to Just Be. It doesn't matter whether or not one lifeform can think. All lifeforms give way, sooner or later, to other more dominant lifeforms. It's a fact of life. It's the way life is. It isn't the way we would like life to be, but it is the way life is.
I don't believe in a god...a supreme being. Why? Because if there was a god and he is onmipotent, he is also flawed. He is not the beneficent and loving being many want to believe him to be. If he is, why would he create life to be so violent? Does it give him pleasure to see so much life being destroyed endlessly and infinitely? Must life suffer so violently in order to "earn" his "love?" What sort of being does that?
Our species are also very superstitious...in all things. Even those people who deny they are, are. We believe in spirits, gods, ghosts, demons, angels, the hereafter, heaven, hell, luck, all things supernatural. All those things are superstitions created by us. Why? To control the masses, to manipulate the masses...and to avoid admitting to ourselves that we are no different than the ground we walk on. We fear death so much that we grasp at any straw to convince ourselves that "when our bodies die," our "souls" do not. Death is merely a cessation of conciousness. We will all cease. There is nothing that can be done about it.
I'm not afraid of dying, I just want to cease without pain.
However, I have to admit that humans Are an Anomoly; we don't contribute anything beneficial to life other than our own. We are not a part of the food chain. We take from the food chain but we don't reciprocate as all other lifeforms do. Instead, we are more like the cancer cells that invade a body with humans as the cancer and the Earth as the body. Our only purpose seems to be to proliferate uncontrollably and indiscriminately and, in doing so, destroy all the healthy cells of the body. We are also the AIDS virus, destroying the Earth's ability to heal itself.
Our world, which encompasses the entire cosmos, is self-perpetuating. Everything we see, hear, smell, touch, or feel (and everything we can't) is recyclable material. Everything is being recycled over and over again ad infinitum. In that sense, I guess you could say we do live forever, that there is life after death. We just aren't recycled back into this particular lifeform.
There is a finite amount of material in the entire cosmos. In order for new forms to be created, older forms must be destroyed so their material can be re-used.
Someday, without a doubt, there will be no more humans on Earth. Humankind will end. Whether from without or within, I don't know. But it will end in order for other new life matter to be created. This is the Fate of everything, both animate and inanimate.
I guess the only thing to do is to enjoy your life while you're here and don't expect anything more. Because when you're recycled, chances are, you won't remember anything of this life. Our current conciousness is only temporary; it's only for the moment. It doesn't continue after our bodies and brains die. There is no need for it to continue.
All I have said is neither good nor bad...it just is.
The most that any of us can hope for is for our own end to be peaceful. On that thought, I hope that everyone I know and love and care for will die peacefully in their sleep when their time comes.
Why do so many people go bananas when it comes to the holidays? Why do they max out their credit and add to it? Have they forgotten what the holidays are supposed to be about?
The holidays should be a time for Love and Family; not material goods.
What's wrong with buying gifts throughout the year for everyone on your list whenever you feel they deserve it or to show that you care? Why wait for the holidays, then go broke trying to BUY something for everyone just to be buying something?
Contrary to what most people would like to admit, the holidays are NOT the happiest time of the year. People, especially children, become almost greedy. Rather than learning that this time of year is to celebrate love and family, they see it as a time to get all the material goods they can possibly get from their parents and family. That's what they've been taught to expect. They don't have to earn anything; just ask for it at this time of year.
Many people are very depressed by the holidays. Suicide rates go up. More people go to the emergency room during the holidays than at other times of the year because of more stress, overeating, and drinking too much alcohol.
Why not give them gifts throughout the year whenever you want to show them you appreciate what they're doing and how they're doing? Gift-giving and -receiving will be appreciated more. And you won't go broke buying gifts that aren't appreciated nearly as much as when they receive a gift for no special occasion.
So why not begin a New Tradition? Show your appreciation of your family and friends throughout the year and keep the holidays for strengthening family love and friendship? Instead of picking the name of a "homeless" or less fortunate child off a tree at the mall and buying them a toy or other thoughtless gift, why not invite a homeless family home to share a good dinner? After all, you don't know the child you're buying for. You don't know what they would want or need. You don't know anything about them except that they have a lot less than you do. Maybe they would rather have a warm bed in a safe place and food to eat than some useless toy. Maybe they would rather be a part of a happy family even for a little while, singing carols around a tree and having dessert. Ever think of that?
What does "No Pollyana" mean? Well, it seems that just about all blogs are "pollyana" blogs--they just publish things and ideas the bloggers think blog readers would like. All of the goody-goody, "fun" topics that do not portray what the bloggers are really like or what they really feel. I found myself succumbing to that train of thought, too. In fact, I have a couple of blogs where I do just that--I write only about the nice things in my life that I believe would not offend anyone or make anyone "think" badly of me.
It seems that everyone wants to portray the life they wish they had or to embellish their lives to make it more interesting to strangers. No one admits to or wants to talk about character failings, human failings, in our world today. Maybe most people feel that if they don't acknowledge it, it really isn't there.
Here, in this one blog, I'll say what I feel about the negative things in life and my thoughts about them. These are things I feel many people also feel but don't voice them for fear of offending someone or making someone angry or think badly of them. These are the sort of thoughts that most people usually keep to themselves. I don't say them to hurt or offend anyone. These are simply how I see certain things about life, things I believe in or don't believe in, things I feel, my perspective of things I see, hear, or read about. This is my Journal of what some may call my dark thoughts. Everyone has them. I don't care who you are or what you do, you have dark thoughts...thoughts you don't feel you can voice to anyone you know...because they may take it "personally."
I'm 65 years old now. I've observed human nature throughout the years. I've lived through rough times and good times. My life has been pretty much the same as most other people. But, I've seen the disintegration of character and morals in people in all walks of life, at every age, all over the country. I've seen the dark side of human nature and, like most of you, I've tried to ignore it as inconsequential. But it isn't...inconsequential. It's very significant. It permeates all of us in every area of our lives and we're destroying ourselves. All the while, we tell ourselves that the quality of life is getting better, that we have a bright future, that "things will work out"...even if we do nothing about it. "Somebody" will solve all the problems we ourselves create as individuals, groups, nations.
No Pollyana...
I used to be a pollyana personality. I believed in the goodness of man, in hope for the future. How naive I was for most of my life.
to be continued...
