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.
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