The Planet - October 20, 2013

A CULTURE OF RARITY

Ali gave me this thought, and it's been wading through the swamp of my brain since. The thought rests on the premise that refugees have been accepted by many in the Middle East because life survives there by helping others. That because of the environment, you need to be generous to survive. If famine effects part of the region, other parts will help; and vice versa.

Such an interesting thought.

I'm sure it's in the quran as it is in the bible, that "help your neighbor" philosophy. We see it in America from all our high profile religious politicians.

Not.

All we have to do is look at the right's desire to defund safety nets, and we understand that their motives are not based on a sound set of morals. The bible contradicts itself with every other passage, so to be religious goes against the evolutionary set of morals that we survive by.

The U.S. spreads a lot of wealth around the world, but do we do so because of a moral view on life? Usually not. We need to build some factories, we need some resources. We need an empire because only with an empire does our type of economy exist. For someone to acquire wealth, somewhere else down the line someone suffers. Biblical morality says that's good, the chosen people are meant to do well.

The bible corrupts.

God's people look forward to a dead world, to a time of revelation, to a time of death and torture for most of humankind. Every decade of every century since christianity has had the upper hand, his people have looked forward to a second coming. Many of us have stated many times that theists live for death; how can these views be seen any other way?

We know that even rats will help their kind by not causing them pain, which is seemingly the bases of evolved morality for life. How can life exist without cooperation, even if only among its own species?

Humans do not sacrifice their children to a jealous god. Humans do not readily kill children in warfare, yet god has not that problem. Humans do not slay the children of those who have led lives that conflict with societal standards, yet again, god will. God will rip open the bellies of women bearing children, god thinks a good old fashioned holocaust is the perfect way of dealing with those that piss him off; god's men lie, cheat, steal and kill to get their way; moral humans would not.

Some have said that religion of some sort has been needed for man to survive. I do not think so. To control, yes, but control is not always altruistic, especially when that control is derived from a holy book. If we used the bible as our only guide to living a moral life, man would, or could, not exist.