One must be compassionate and not judge, but one also must not be naive and unwise in thinking everyone out there is good.  Most often the good ones are on the side of right and the evil ones on the side of wrong, and an objective observer has little trouble telling them apart.

More belief mockery

Believers should not get away with putting their beliefs or their faith outside the limits of rational attack by arguing that each person has freedom to believe what they want (or with any other tactic, for that matter).  They don't want to question their beliefs and don't want any one else to bring up things that are uncomfortable to them and raise doubts.  Attacking such beliefs on rational grounds is not a personal insult unless one uses invective.

Faith is one of those things.  The meme called "Christianity" has this teaching -- that God gives you faith.  It is really clever.  If you don't believe, then God has overlooked you, so you believe and attribute it to God while in reality it is a cop-out for believing what you have been indoctrinated with and want to believe.

I've seen the testimonials of people who have "come back" and their testimony of the joy and relief they felt.  Breaking with indoctrination is hard -- one feels guilt and fear -- and giving in and going back to the indoctrination gives you relief from that plus a good dose of serotonin to boot.  Thus most of those who have been indoctrinated into rigid beliefs in childhood either stubbornly stick with them in spite of reason, or they become hostile (sometimes extremely so) to those who "did that to me" and hate their prior religion.  Neither is healthy.  Rational skepticism in the absence of "belief" or faith -- with just reasoned opinions -- is the best.

Belief mockery

That others mock us doesn't mean we need to mock them, and, in fact, we are better off if we don't -- both from a karmic viewpoint and from how the world sees us.  (Karmic viewpoint = how our behavior affects or changes us.)

Mockery, though, is much in the eye of the beholder.  Usually the one handing it out doesn't see it as such, and is insensitive -- or the opposite may be the case and the person who thinks they are being mocked is too eager to assume it.

Criticism is not mockery.  Nor is humor.  Not even both of them together is mockery.  I would make my feeble effort to define mockery as requiring a malicious element in it.

Some rules of English grammar that should be dropped.

1.  Eliminate the insistence on "complete sentences."  Sometimes sentence fragments are just fine and in fact effective.

2.  Stop fussing about correct use of pronoun case.  "Me want a cookie!"  is wonderful.  Of course in that case humor is intended, but a sentence like, "She gave pencils to Mary and I" has the benefit of avoiding the alliteration and is not usually misunderstood, sounds natural, and even if it is a case of being "over-correct," so what.

3.  In that vein, the language should eliminate "whom" except as object of a preposition (where "who" still is distractive).

4.  Ban "shall" from legal documents.

5.  In fact, only allow "shall" in the polite request, "shall we" to keep the distinction between it and the question "will we?"

6.  Stop being so fussy about agreement between subject and verb.  All kinds of subtleties would become possible if the rules weren't so rigid.

7.  Change the punctuation rules at the end of the sentence to be logical by stopping the insistence that closing quotes must be outside the end-of-sentence mark.

8.  Drop the fussing about comma splice and other uses of the comma and make its use optional depending on need for clarity and style.

9.  Agree that a period is optional after common abbreviations such as "Mr".

10. Don't worry about dangling participles.  So what if someone can read it in a ludicrous way -- they won't, and if they do that's their problem (or maybe gain in pleasure). 

11. Allow use of a period rather than a question mark except for sentences intended to be questions but are not grammatical questions.  "Are you happy."  "You are happy?"  Rhetorical questions should also not need a question mark.  (Basically that would mean the question mark would indicate up-tone).

I would lie to someone who demands information I don't want to give and to which they have no right.  Refusing to answer is not a good solution, as then they assume the worst.

Pearly gates

I would much prefer there were pearly gates awaiting me than either rebirth (which I think likely but does not preserve me, only my "life spirit," whatever that might be) or extinction (a distinct possibility).

However I am too proud to let what my intellect tells me be overcome by what I would like.

When there is no note and no sign (depressive behavior is not really a sign -- unless they talk about killing themselves or the hopelessness of life) then one wonders and hopes the police do their job.

I wish the world were wealthy enough that everyone could talk to a mental health specialist at least once a month.  Absent that maybe they should put anti-depressives in the drinking water (of course that is absurd, but I do know people who are not depressive but still take anti-depressives and they are happier).

There are two things I would say to a suicides survivors:  First, do not judge.  They were depressed, and that is a disease condition -- one should not judge them any more than one would judge someone who dies of some other deadly disease.  Second, do not feel guilty -- even if the suicide note blames you.  Again, it is the disease talking.  Sometimes we think, "If only I had done such and so."  No -- we are not supermen and cannot read minds.




Well, at least that is what I've learned from my counselors (fortunately I have insurance that covers that stuff).

If there is a "God" who has a physical form, they you should get rid of the capital "G."

Pills for sleep, constipation

I'm a believer in not suffering if there is a pill available to fix the problem, but I learned the hard way that this approach should be avoided when it comes to sleep and to constipation.

Everyone is much nearer death than they imagine.

Evidence of God

I would like to respond to the argument that atheists would not accept any evidence that God exists short of personal revelation.


It is not correct.  There is evidence I would accept, such as an asterism in the form of the Tetragrammaton.  I would probably accept the clear occurrence of a miracle done under controlled conditions, but religionists have an excuse for why this doesn't work similar to the one psychics use -- it goes away when you control the conditions.

Or, perhaps, the Bible were really the spiritual book people say it is, and the history of religions were not so bloody and hypocritical, or if religion really did have an uplifting effect on its adherents.  This would not be as persuasive as an asterism, but it would be good evidence.

If you want to claim something so important and so extraordinary as God, you have to realize with intellectually mature adults the default is going to be skepticism.

I should stipulate -- theistic religions.

I must say, also, that personal revelation is probably the last thing I would accept.  I don't have so much ego as to think such a thing would be real instead of my own mind.

Science is not just experiments: it is also observation and thought.  Astronomers, for example, rely on mathematics and thought experiments and coming up with scenarios to explain observations (one cannot experiment on black holes, but one can study them).  Ideally one's scenario should go further than just explain observations but also predict things that observers can then go look for.

Daydreaming

I day-dream for at least a half hour every morning after I wake up but before I get up.  It is very pleasurable, and there is to my mind nothing wrong with pleasure taken in moderation.

Of course after I am up the world comes at me in force and mind wandering like that is subject to so many interruptions it becomes impossible.

Causality as karma

I don't think it's necessary to use the possibility that the universe was once a singularity to say the universe breaks "its own rules."  The rule is that of causality, and we know this rule is constantly broken, that causality may be something of an illusion based on probability and the statistical "law of large numbers" rather than something inherent to existence.

It reminds me a little of the Buddhist and Hindu idea of karma -- what you do has consequences.  We know those consequences are not preordained but just made more likely when you behave certain ways.

Putin says he could take Kiev in two weeks.  Probably true but arrogant and, of course, taking it would be only the beginning.  The Ukrainians will not just fold with the fall of a city.

We seem to have a fascist on our hands.  The world, and especially Europe, would do well to pay close attention.  After what Russia has been through, this isn't too surprising, and nationalism is an easy enough way of thinking for those who are so inclined.  I doubt most Russians would buy what is going on if the actually knew the details.

Russian feet in the door

I appreciate the email last night the explained how Russia had promised to honor Ukraine's sovereignty in return for Ukraine handing over its nuclear weapons.

It would seem once the Russians got that danger out of the way they had no intention of keeping their side of it.  They just needed to wait a decent interval and for something to take place that gave them an excuse.  (I also note an unsettling tendency of Russian authorities here and there casually mentioning that Russia still has nuclear weapons -- lots of them).

Russia seems to be in the business of setting up small enclaves out of parts of former USSR republics.  It has done it in Moldova and Georgia and now apparently will in Ukraine.  They find an area where, because of Stalin's brutality, Russian ethnics predominate, and force the creation there of a separate political entity, controlled, however, by Russia.  These are basically criminal regimes run by criminals with no legitimacy or international legality.

There is a temptation to think the locals should be allowed to make the decision, but this cannot be allowed unless the sovereign country agrees to it (as with Czechoslovakia).  Otherwise the world will end up with no end of ethnic groups and sub-groups, majority or not, clamoring for independence.  One can imagine the Navajo setting up their own state in the U.S. Southwest.  A state, once legally constituted, can decide for itself whether it wants to divide itself up or not, but this cannot be imposed from outside and inhabitants who try to do this on their own can and should be suppressed.  (Of course here in the case of Ukraine they were being suppressed -- we have instead a foreign invasion -- come to think of it, that is what happened in Georgia too).

When one either moves or otherwise comes to be a citizen of another country, it is incumbent on that person to give up their loyalty to the mother country and be patriotic, loyal citizens of the new country.  That doesn't require giving up one's culture, at least right away (it usually happens naturally after a few generations).  People who do not do this but stick to loyalty to a foreign state set themselves up to become traitors.

Still, these enclaves present to Russia an excellent foot in the door for eventually gaining back its empire, although of course now it won't be Communist but more Fascist in nature.

East Ukraine

I begin to think Russia will first set up an East Ukraine rather than emulating Hitler and using nationalism to occupy the whole country.  That is good, but of course it means a hostile Ukraine (much more hostile now) will remain on its western border, so we will see.

Still, this East Ukraine, populated mostly by ethnic Russians, will be subservient, and probably quickly invite the presence of full-time Russian soldiers.

That would mean being, legally at least, an independent country, which has the small benefit of giving Russia another vote everywhere, but otherwise means nothing and can be undone any time with a simple annexation vote.  There is a dollop of hypocrisy here -- Putin can pull back and say he didn't invade and didn't annex, while in fact of course he effectively did.

It is, however, now probably the best possible solution, considering the rabid Russian nationalism we are seeing.  It is interesting that similar attitudes in Serbia gained them nothing -- I guess Russia is a bigger country.

Ukraine should have been left to work out its problems on its own, but Putin saw personal political advantage domestically, and went on to prove that he is without scruple or honor.