Poetry – What Would You die for?

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What Would You die for?

What would you die for?

What is worth your Life?

It’s your testimony.

Is it love or is it greed?

Is it the truth?

Or just baloney?

Is there a cause that is worthy?

That does not rust in the wind and rain?

Is there a praiseworthy belief

That charismatic leaders won’t flush down the drain?

Opher 22.3.2021

The deepest and most sincere beliefs are twisted out of shape by men with ulterior motives, who seek to use it to gain power, influence and wealth.

What dream is ever pure?

What philosophy can one base a life on that is not debased and sullied by grubby hands.

How much violence, fear and tyranny have been unleashed in the search for a better world?

How much blood is spilt by the well-meaning?

Whatever it is you believe, no matter how pure and beautiful, there is always someone who will twist it and use it against you to create something sullied, sordid and grotesque for their own ends.

Poetry – Conspiracies and beliefs

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Conspiracies and beliefs

I’m a patriot and I am free

Nobody’s gonna take my gun off me.

I’m riding along on the very crest

Because I know America’s best.

Ain’t nobody need to convince me

I know socialism’s really tyranny.

I believe in the devils and his ghouls

Evolution is just for fools!

To make it clear for a starter;

God placed fossils in the rock strata.

At risk of seeming very bold

I know the world’s six thousand years old.

Though I may sound like a loon

I know we never landed on the moon.

Personally I’d put a really bad curse on

Those who thinks a fertilised egg’s not a person.

I’ve thought about this for hours:

It was the CIA who blew up the twin towers.

We should rally everyone through the nation

Because the UN is after world domination.

I’d bet my house and my last hat

That the world is really flat.

Regardless of what the Jews all feel

The holocaust was never real.

Ain’t nobody going to inoculate me

With microchips in their chemistry.

Though you might think that I’ve got rabies:

We’re ruled by alien lizards who eat babies.

The immigrants pouring across our border

Are all rapists, terrorists intent on murder.

We’re being controlled by the ‘Deep State’

Only Trump can save us from that fate.

I don’t believe in the news that they feed ya

I get my facts from social media.

As sure as a tree’s a tree

I know god cares about me.

And none of that’s conspiracy!

Opher – 10.11.2020

We unloaded all our religious fundamentalists and extremists by shipping them off to America. They set up their version of utopia.

The reverberation of that religious zeal, along with all its guilt, can still be seen in American society today. They’d rather believe the bible to any text book.

They don’t believe in science and experts and everything is fake news. Education is brainwashing and the TV evangelist multimillionaires are purveyors of truth.

My Beliefs – Quantum Physics – weird and wonderful.

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My Beliefs – Quantum Physics

We stand on solid ground.

That’s not true.

In effect we are standing on a force-field that our force-field, our the force-field of our solid body, cannot penetrate. There is relatively more ‘space’ between atoms that there is between the stars. If it wasn’t for the force-fields holding things in place the atoms would simply slide past each other without a single one touching.

That’s weird. You think of solid things hitting something solid but there is no solid thing to hit.

But that is as nothing to the world of Quantum Physics.

This is a world where nothing makes sense. Things can be in two places at once. This is a world explained by mathematical theories. It is the world of energy, atoms, subatomic particles and atomic forces. It does not behave like the universe we inhabit.

I believe the universe we live in is an illusion.

I believe we only see it partially.

I believe we are living in a sandwich of ‘reality’. The macrocosm, full of quasars, black holes and dark matter, full of galaxies, neutron stars and astronomical size, is a universe of incomprehension of Newtonian Physics, Einstein’s magic and String Theory. The microcosm with its neutrinos, Higgs-bosun, quarks and particles that go back in time, is another world that you couldn’t make up.

I believe the reality we live, suspended between the two, is much more peculiar than even we can imagine. We don’t know half of it.

I don’t understand it but I am fascinated by it.

I believe the human mind is amazing. We have invented maths and we have invented tools that enable us to learn and understand to levels that are stupendous.

We stand on the backs of giants.

Our knowledge and understanding expand beyond all comprehension (except for a few).

I believe our understanding of Quantum Physics makes the religious fundamentalists, like ISIS, look like primitive savages. They would have us chuck aside all of our knowledge for the sake of a medieval book of dubious ramblings.

The next time I hear one of the ignorant fools tell me that evolution is not true I will think on the minds that worked out the mysteries of the microcosm and macrocosm and feel sorry for them.

I know we are far from understanding it. But we do know that the earth is billions of years old and that the ark was never a reality.

Beliefs – Human consciousness

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brain

Human consciousness

I think therefore I am.

Inside my skull there is a gelatinous mass that is bull of billions of neurons with trillions of dendritic connections. It functions like a supercomputer providing me with self-awareness, a sense of identity and consciousness.

That is spectacular. But even more remarkable is the fact of most of what it does happens below the radar. My body and the world is constantly monitored and responded to, my subconscious sorts, stores and responds.

I have awareness of this amazing universe.

I am conscious.

I believe that this consciousness is the result of all that biology. That does not reduce the wonder of it for me. It leaves me with a multitude of questions.

What would the universe appear like to me if I had more senses to detect magnetism, infra-red, X-ray and the entire myriad other sources of energy? We are so poorly equipped.

Do other people have the same consciousness as me?

Do animals and even plants have a similar consciousness?

Is it possible that we can build computers who are really conscious?

Can I improve my level of consciousness?

Will science ever fully understand how a group of cells can, through chemical and electrical forces, create the mystery of consciousness?

My beliefs – Big Business

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Photo credit: The Breakthrough Institute.

My beliefs – Big Business

I believe that capitalism and big business operate in the interests of a tiny minority of rich or powerful people and against the interests of the majority of the people.

I believe that the greed and selfishness created by this system is responsible for the destruction of the environment, stripping of assets and impoverishment of most of humanity.

I believe that the multinationals are a law unto themselves. They are so powerful that thy bribe and lobby to get their own way.

I believe the multinationals use their position to avoid paying taxes and to get around labour laws and laws governing pollution and health and safety.

I believe they are unscrupulous.

I do not know whether there is a cabal of multibillionaires who buy off politicians, control money markets, control commerce, control the media, or seek to maintain ‘the establishment’ so that it works in their favour, or whether this system operates as a loose association of behind doors conniving and ad hoc behavior by a group of people with shared interests – feathering their own nests. The end result is the same. Political systems, laws, the media, and commercial enterprises are all bought and sold. They are controlled.

I believe the answer is to put all multinationals under national control, prohibit the size of any one of them exceeding a certain proscribed wealth (reducing their power) and make them subject to globally imposed laws on taxation, labour and pollution.

I believe that if we do not find a way of controlling capitalism the greed and selfishness will destroy everything on the planet and us with it.

My beliefs – Religion

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AppleMark

My beliefs – Religion

I am an antitheist. I believe religion has been created by man. I believe the holy books were written by men. I believe that religion is used by certain people to gain power over others.

Any institution where the leaders are exulted into positions of power I believe is corrupt. Any religion that has leaders dressed in gaudy uniform, with pageantry and elaborate ritual, extravagant buildings and dogma, is setting out to impress and gain power.

I do not believe in heaven, paradise, hell or fifty three virgins. They are manifestly ploys to frighten or control adherents.

I do not believe in any personal god who is interested in human beings, let alone one who created the whole universe just for us. That is egocentric to say the least. Any casual look at cultures around the world shows the worse the conditions the more devout the people. If god responded to prayer the poor would have been elevated long ago. I do not believe in prayer.

As to whether there is a god or not. I do not know. If there is then that force, for me, is more akin to the energy in the atoms than a conscious person.

I think that any literal interpretation of the holy books is dangerous. They were written thousands of years ago and it shows. The Abrahamic tradition (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) originates from a tiny corner of the Middle East and a group of nomadic tribes who roamed around in that region. The writings are full of their creation myths, wisdom, misogyny, power seeking, control and power, cruelty and limited view of the world and religion. Some of the stories are great. Many of them contain beautiful words and phrases that have adorned our culture. There is much to be admired. But even a cursory glance shows the hypocrisy, ambiguity, inconsistency and different authors and views. The god described varies enormously from a caring god of love to a vengeful creature of immense cruelty and vindictiveness. One can select the texts to create a vision of love, peace and forgiveness or select others to justify war, unimaginable cruelty and intolerance. We only have to look at the way they have been deployed (and are being deployed) to justify the hideous torture and burning of witches, pogroms, inquisitions, crusades, jihads, gruesome genocides and murders and pillaging and rape. ISIS are only the latest in a long line.

As an antitheist I would like to see all religion done away with. It is not the cozy Sunday at church or prayer at the synagogue, temple or mosque, the comforting words or helping hand that it purports; all religions are power structures of intolerance, hatred and creators of war and conflict.

As a tolerant person I believe that religion should be a personal choice for consenting adults, and people should have the right to believe in whatever they wish.

Now spirituality, the afterlife, and mysticism – that’s something else.

Beliefs – religion, awe and wonder – Big Bangs, world trade, spirituality, creativity and art, Quakers and Buddhism, philosophy, politics, science, creation of life, consciousness, quantum physics.

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Beliefs – religion, awe and wonder – Big Bangs, world trade, spirituality, creativity and art, Quakers and Buddhism, philosophy, politics, science, creation of life, consciousness, quantum physics.

 

What is it that we know for certain?

Very little.

I know I exist. As for the rest it is largely a collection of beliefs.

 

I thought I might explore my beliefs in a series of posts based upon the subjects above. This is a useful exercise for me to review what it is I do believe in. That is always a good thing to do.

Views and beliefs change. Mine have. Perhaps they will again?

After all, there is very little to be certain of. Our information is limited. We are manipulated and indoctrinated from birth. It is hard to know what or why we do or think the thoughts we do.

A lot of what we accept is true is a tribal response to allegiances we make to various groups or ideologies. How much is unadulterated us?

I find many of these things absolutely fascinating.

We’ll see if you do too.