December 30, 2011
December 27, 2011
IT’S A SIN (isn’t it?)
The world can often seem a very frightening place. We look around and we see the harm that people do each other. There is nowhere on this earth where people are not set against other people. It can often seem completely overwhelming and out of our control.
Is there anything that we can do about it?
Yes, I believe that there is.Unfortunately, it requires an opening of the mind of each individual. Therein lies the problem.
I have often said, because I firmly believe it, that if we get the rearing of our children right we will see most of the ills of this world disappear.
Few children are brought up with unconditional love and few are taught how to think. Rather they are taught that they have to be good enough to be loved and have to believe what they are told to believe in order to be accepted.
This sets the child up to be a guilt ridden adult who is unable to think critically and even if they have doubts about the beliefs they have been given guilt and shame will prevent them from thinking for themselves.
One of the most insipid destroyers of critical thinking is religious teaching. The premise that we are but sinful creatures who have to spend our lives atoning for this fact in the hope that we may please a vengeful and fearful God, set people up or failure and shame. Shame-based people will commit all sorts of foul deeds and cause much misery to themselves and to others. They will also be blind and I’m thinking and will see nothing wrong in passing on their belief system to their children. In fact the most affected will feel very strongly that they must “save” their children by making them think and believe the way they have been taught.
It can be difficult to reconcile today’s modern world with everything that we know about people and about science and about history, and primitive religious beliefs and ritual.
Women who wear wigs so as not to show their real hair, people who do not eat certain foods, people who will not work on a given day, people who believe that saying a few prayers will absolve them of all their mistakes and free them from their affects, people who believe that an unbaptised child will never enter the kingdom of heaven, people who believe that dressing a certain way makes them good and people who believe that other people, just by their nature, are deserved of death, people who believe that to worm, de-flea, de-tick a dog is wrong, who believe that not eating meat is the way to heaven. Yes, these are the ridiculous and damaging beliefs that people hold.Just a few of the beliefs of course. the reason for most people believing such unjust and ridiculous ideas is because they were indoctrinated as children. The powers that be in religion know that in order to retain their power they must control the minds of the people and the best way to do this is by teaching children from the earliest opportunity.This way is the most certain route to having unthinking and obedient adults.
It is very much harder to actually try and be a good person, to act unselfishly, to question one’s own motives, to give freely, to love unencumbered by judgement, to listen, to feel compassion, and help another to realise themselves, then it is to follow ritual and the words of a book by rote.
The only hope that we have is to stop abusing our children, to stop being afraid of them, to stop believing that children are born wicked and wild and must be brought under control by their upbringing.instead we must recognise that what we put into children is what comes out when they are adult. Despite religious teaching to the contrary, bringing a child up with unconditional love and encouraging the child to be the best that they can be rather than what we want them to be, will result in adults who value themselves and value other people and are therefore much less likely to harm others. Such people will not be ready to go to war for any old reason, they will not be ready to condemn other people based on their sex, sexuality, or race and most importantly they will not be susceptible to the control freaks and power mongers of religion. This being so they are hardly likely to succumb to religious brainwashing and therefore cannot pass this virulent wickedness onto their own children.
All one has to do is listen to or read people who have succumbed to religious teaching. It is very obvious that their critical mind has been successfully turned off. They cannot see the evil and irrationality inherent in what they are proposing is the Truth. Strangely, their critical thinking ability does not fail them when demolishing a different religious ideology to their own! They can see the flaws and wickedness inherent in other people’s religious beliefs, but not in their own.
There is a well-known British journalist who is Jewish and a supporter of the state of Israel, who writes about other religions and other ideologies and homosexual people in precisely the same manner that Hitler and the Nazis wrote and spoke about Jews which resulted in the Holocaust. To me this woman and her views are abhorrent yet she is paid to expound upon her views on the BBC and is often on a panel questioning people about ethics! This is the sort of thing that happens when people have been taught to believe in a particular way and when people are afraid to criticise another person just because they belong to a particular group and one is afraid that one’s criticism will be construed as racism or anti-Semitism. (Do a Google search for Melanie Phillips and read some of her articles.)
The hardest work of anybody’s life is self examination and being who we are. We will be opposed every step of the way. There will always be other people trying to prevent you realising yourself, trying to control your thoughts and your actions. The most common way for people to do this is through religion and through the admonishment that ‘It’s a Sin’. This control mechanism is very old and very successful. Yet, there would be far less in in this world if we did not try and control others for our own ends.
It is our personal responsibility to deal with our own fears, our own anger, our own thought processes, our own flaws, our own lives. We are not responsible for what other people, adults do and think, but we are responsible for how we react to them. If we give out condemnation, violence, and rejection to those we disagree with WE are at fault.
I believe that all human beings are worthy of love, respect, and care. This I believe regardless of how the human being behaves or thinks. Of course as a human being I find it impossible to feel and act on this 100% of the time. It is unrealistic for me to expect that of myself or of anybody else. However, it is not unrealistic to expect that I do not deliberately harm another and that I do manage.
We treat other people the way that we are inside not because of the way they are outside. It is always down to us as individuals. Blaming the other is a negation of our personal responsibility.
We must of course not by our behaviour and actions condone unacceptable behaviour. Unacceptable behaviour should always be met with intolerance. This does not mean that it is valid to treat people who behaved unacceptably in a hateful and hurtful manner.
If I could take a magic wand and by waving it alter my world, I would wish that every person on the planet would truly love and accept themselves.
FIRST PUBLISHED DECEMBER 2010
December 26, 2011
SOCKS AND CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
This is a pair I am doing named Tipsy. I dyed the yarn using my sw merino/nylon yarn. The colours were chosen by a client for whom I painted yarn in a different shade to these but same colours. I call them Tipsy because the pattern meanders in and out.
I have been reading (why oh why?) what was termed as outpourings of grief and sadness at the death of Christopher Hitchens by various prominent Xian clergy. I am so angry I can’t write or even think clearly so I will have to leave it but for now my blood boils at the evil dressed as piety that I read. There was no such grief or sadness in any of what I read but only the cruel hubris of these wickedly minded people. How can they believe such evil and believe it love? Me, a nobody, can see this. WTF can’t they? Oh, I have spent most of my life believing I must be wrong. Not any more. I have learned my gut lurches and takes to twisting and nausea like it has been kicked bang in the centre because it is confronted by evil and not because I cannot think or I misunderstand. I understand all too well and it sickens me greatly.
December 24, 2011
TO ALL WHO COME BY HERE
I hope that each of you wring as much Joy as is available out of each of your future days. Celebrate your magnificent selves and your possibilities. Cling not to your ideas but open your self to embrace change and the freedom that comes with it.
December 22, 2011
RELIGIOUS SLAUGHTER IS CRUEL
My point in the post Shame Upon You was NOT which method of slaughter is more cruel. My point is that religious ideology ought NOT be enshrined in law. Secular slaughter is different and the religious method is illegal. It it not be legal for anyone, regardless of belief.
Again, we each have the right to believe as we wish. None of us have the right to have our beliefs respected and none of us have the right to force our religious beliefs upon others.
December 21, 2011
SHAME UPON YOU
I am constantly astonished at the seeming lack of shame and lack of education that people display.
There is a woman named Anne Rice who is a famous author. She has her own page on Facebook. On this page she stands up against bigotry and prejudice in all its forms.Yet many of those who post there do so to lambast her for targeting, so they say, specific groups of people!
Like today she published a link to a story regarding a commotion on a bus in Israel because religious men wanted the woman sitting in the front seat on the bus to go to the back of the bus. Yes, I kid you not.
Not only was I appalled at the amount of people that criticise this woman instead of the men, but also those who accuse Anne of being anti-Semite just because she published this link!
It is the same when she publishes stories regarding the horrendous abuse of children by the Roman Catholic church and other groups. More people seem to write in denigrating her for her so-called attacks on religion rather than showing any care at all for the abused children.
People constantly try to shut her up. They lie about her. They write the most vile tripe against her. The worst of these are the religious fundamentalists. No surprises there then.
Her page shows very clearly how it works. How evil does what it can to turn off the light. It is clear that Ms Rice cares very deeply for people, that she discriminates not against people but against behaviours and ideas. People, some deliberately, some because they are too stupid, do not see the difference between ideas and people.
We each have the right to have our beliefs, to believe anything we want. What we do not have the right to respect for it. By that I mean respect for our beliefs. NO WAY! It is wrong to expect other people to behave in accordance with your religious belief. Completely wrong. It is not right to demand that other people observe or even respect your religious beliefs.
Marriage is a social contract that protects the individuals involved. It has nothing to do with religion. I don’t care what your religious beliefs are, you do NOT have the right to have your version of marriage hold sway. This is why in many countries marriage can be between those of the same sex as well as those of the opposite sex. So it should be. It is NOT your business. A person’s religious beliefs should never encroach on equality for all and a person’s liberty.
It is NOT an affront to your liberty or freedom when you are denied the power to impose your religious beliefs upon others. It is a stand for human rights when you are prevented from doing so. It would be an affront to you if you were prevented from having your places of congregation to share in an idea. It would be wrong to discriminate against you in the field of work, or anywhere, but that does NOT mean that your observances must be met. No way. Once again, you cannot demand respect for your ideas. None. So if it is against your belief to work at a particular hour or place, then do not get a job that requires it.
In this country is is illegal to slaughter animals inhumanely unless you are Jewish or Islamic! This makes a complete mockery of the anti cruelty laws! If humanely slaughtered animals mean it would offend your religious ideas to eat the meat, then DON’T! But do not demand the law be broken for your ideas! It is already broken here in the UK, shame on those who allowed it.
Far far too much is being giving to religionists. We are giving away our liberty, our freedom. We see what happens when religion takes precedence-Israel, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iran. Yet look at what is happening in the USA. A slow but sure turn to that type of government. People with the extreme religious views are gaining power. People are falling for it. They are, and this is really the most shameful and unbelievable thing, VOTING for it! Oh right now they just think that it will be us homosexuals who will be got rid of-make no mistake-Perry, Bachmann et al want us dead-but it will soon be YOU they do not like because you don’t observe well enough, or the right way, or your skin is not quite the right shade, or your eyes are the wrong colour, or your accent is not right or because God only loves them not YOU.
And you know what? You will have asked for it. You will have deserved it. Yes, when your liberty has gone, when you can no longer think as you please, when you are controlled by a religious government, told what to think, to say, to eat, to wear, you will have no one to blame but yourselves.
Which side are you going to be on? Yours? Or the enemy’s? Because if you are against me and my kind, or people of different ethnic or religious backgrounds, or different tongues, different skin, think that women should be told what to do with their bodies, think women should be subservient to men as a matter of course, think children are property, then you are on the side that is against YOU! If you think your religious ideas ought to be law, then you are against yourself. It really is that simple. You cannot hate just ‘them’. By so doing, you hate ALL and you will pay the price. No doubt about that.
None at all.
