Random thoughts on the blue highways.
You never know what you will find on the blue highways. Particularly when the choice at an intersection is controlled by the roll of a die. About the only rule is that highway onramps don't count as an intersection. You don't even have to roll the die. If one road looks interesting, go for it.
Don't look for me much on the big news sites, I skim through them, but rarely find much that is worth commenting on. As a young son once said "We don't watch TV news, dad won't let us watch violence programs." I still don't.
Interests are religion, marketing theory (that is not an oxymoron,) Advertizing, digital photography, APOD, and historically, rocket science.
e-mail: jcarlinbl@gmail.com
The literary version is found at Thinking On the Blue Roads
The raw data for which can be found on The Blue Roads of Thinking.
“When you’re ready to wake up, you’re going to wake up, and if you’re not ready you’re going to stay pretending that you’re just a ‘poor little me.’ And since you’re all here and engaged in this sort of inquiry and listening to this sort of lecture, I assume you’re all in the process of waking up. " Alan Watts
I was born awake and never was put to sleep by dogma. I never had that rude awakening to find out that God, the divine and everything else was just a story. Stories to help me learn how to be a better person and contribute to my chosen society but stories nonetheless with some truth and lots of garbage.
My society is relatively demanding, one must think rationally and independently, one must constantly be aware of the mores of the society and comply with them intelligently rather than dogmatically, and problems must be resolved reasonably for all involved. The stories are there to help, even the religious ones, but none of them can tell me what is right or even what to do.
beliefnet I think you are confusing morality with social justice.
Morality
at least for those of us that don't get it from some deity, is a way of
policing one's own thinking. I think that is what Jesus was getting at
with the message about mental adultery. If you are thinking about
adultery/rape rather than simply enjoying the scenery, assuming that
adultery/rape is a defined problem for you, then I would suggest you
have a moral issue you need to deal with.
Occasionally
there will be moral conflicts that need to be resolved, but if you are
truly responsible for your behavior you need to resolve those conflicts
at the mental level before any action is taken. Jesus or a surrogate
isn't going to pat you on the head, tell you to say three Hail Mary's,
and don't do it again. A responsible person must insure that it can't
happen.
Like
music is the result of the various interactions of the instruments of
an orchestra, the mind is the result of the interactions of the various
parts of the brain.
And since a brain (as in the actual brain
matter) is as different from one person to another as a face is, each
mind plays to its own tune. Truman47
OK as far as it goes. But if each mind plays to its own tune as we see
currently in the US "Cultures decay and life's end is death." Robinson
JeffersThe Purse-Seine1937!
Most of us are familiar with this picture. Captured in Times Square
on V-J Day, 1945, it has become one of the most iconic photographs of
American history, symbolizing the jubilation and exuberance felt
throughout the country at the end of World War II.
http://cratesandribbons.com/2012/09/30/the-kissing-sailor-or-the-selective-blindness-of-rape-culture-vj-day-times-square/
Retroactively trying to change a culture or even using a past culture to criticize a current culture is a fool's errand. I grew up in that culture and never imagined that the sailor asked for prior informed consent of the nurse. Sailors at liberty from an all male environment were expected to be aggressively promiscuous as were most single men at the time.
It was in fact a male aggressive culture, a reflection of the dominant religious culture of female submissiveness. Ask any cheerleader at the time about the victory parties. Or the loss parties for that matter. It was an article of manliness dogma that if you could get a woman in a compromising position good for you! The then current excuse for the man was if the woman didn't want to be molested she should have stayed home. Directly related to the current Muslim attitude to women. It isn't the man's fault if the woman is alone and improperly dressed.
Better to focus on examples of current non-consensual sexual contact which have a better chance of changing current culture than bitching about the past.
Lets fight about this shit:
http://unwinona.tumblr.com/post/30861660109/i-debated-whether-or-not-to-share-this-story
excerpt:
I often ride the Metro when I commute from North Hollywood to Long
Beach in order to save money. I bring a book, pointedly wear a ring on
my ring finger to imply I’m married (I’m not) and keep to myself.
Without fail, I am aggressively approached by men on at least half of
these commutes. The most common approach is to walk up to where I am
sitting with body language that practically screams LEAVE ME ALONE and
sit down next to me or as close to me as possible, when the train is not
crowded and there are many empty rows. Sometimes an overly friendly
arm is draped over the railing behind me, or they attempt to lean in
close to talk to me as if we are old friends. Without fail, the man or
boy in question will lean to close and ask me What are you reading? Is that a good book? What’s that book about?
post-"Enlightenment" (supposedly) Autnomous "Modern" Humans, who value The Individual SELF above almost anyone or anything else -- even including "God" ...
teilhard
Post-enlightenment humans are generally well integrated into the interconnected and interdependent web of all humans and are well aware that the individual is a small but important part of the larger society. But for post enlightenment humans it is that society and their place in it that is important. Gods have no place in it.
In a modern working society there is no single source of wisdom. All profound thinkers have been examined by peers and then the profound thoughts are further winnowed by thoughtful people who are the intellectual leaders of the society. The result is a society which integrates the wisdom of all and benefits not only those who choose to be a part of it, but the larger society of which it is a part.
I don't see how a patriarchal, high maternal and infant mortality rate society can have any stories, myths or Gods that are relevant to a modern technological society where one conception equals one economically productive and reproductive adult of either gender.
Added to that is the problem for faith based religions that information is essentially a free good in today's society. Even the most repressed, burkaed, housebound female can access the internet to see how the rest of the world lives. It won't change many lives but it will change enough to create social networks that will change their world. Maybe even ours.
Yeah, McCarthyism worked by destroying the cultural diversity that made America Great. It worked by denying some of the nations best and brightest a living by a Christian witch hunt for 'godless communists.' It worked by destroying an educational system that was the envy of the world by making students and teachers no matter what their beliefs or lack thereof, pledge allegiance to God instead of 'One nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all' no matter what religious beliefs they held or did not hold. Instead of 'E Pluribus Unum,' out of many, one we get 'In God We Trust' fuck everybody else.
The entire decline of the United States can be traced to the fight against 'Godless Communism.' Korea, Viet Nam, the cold war, the Bamboo Curtain, a resource suck that took many of our finest men and either killed them or turned them into PTS dysfunctionals. I can justifiably add Iraq I and II to the list, as Communism was just a modifier to Godless. And you can be sure that the God in question was the Christian God.
Yeah, it worked. Maybe we can get Jesusland to secede and let the rest of us who do not trust in God try to rebuild the USA with the original E Pluribus Unum motto.
Electrical brainstorms busted as source of ghosts: Doubt cast on theory that magnetic fields spark religious feelings.
http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041206/full/news041206-10.html
Although I suspect that there is a God/ghost hole in many people's mind/brain I was never impressed with Persingers experiment and even less with the pop sci reports of it. My theory is that there is a genetic predisposition for some maybe a majority of people to believe uncritically in a leader, usually that little vuvuzela in the fancy dress in the over decorated balcony, but perhaps a political/organizational leader. Ultimately God/ghosts come from control stories and myths parents use to socialize children again a critical function of nurturing a social animal. The God myths are typically maintained throughout life. Hopefully the ghost myths are shed with maturity but one does wonder given the popularity of astrology, psychics, etc.
Fortunately there is a genetic predisposition for some usually in adolescence to examine that God/ghost/leader belief predisposition, and figure out ways to express their disbelief. If done intelligently this can be way the societies grow and become more useful to members. If not done intelligently the rebellion is either suppressed or the person becomes a socially dysfunctional member of the society. One of the intelligent ways to express the disbelief is to become a little vuvuzela in the fancy dress in the over decorated balcony and change the belief system from within. This is not risk free, push too hard and a heretic's fate awaits. In today's society that may not be a bad thing, find a new age publisher, and see if it sticks to the wall.
"The tension between good and plenty, God and mammon, became the central tension in American life, propelling ferocious energies and explaining why the U.S. is at once so religious and so materialist. Americans are moral materialists, spiritualists working on matter.
Platt is in the tradition of those who don’t believe these two spheres can be reconciled. The material world is too soul-destroying. “The American dream radically differs from the call of Jesus and the essence of the Gospel,” he argues. The American dream emphasizes self-development and personal growth. Our own abilities are our greatest assets."
These two spheres cannot be reconciled because the American dream requires intelligence and reasoning to achieve the self-development and personal growth. Religion requires conceding self-development to the church, that is, the little vuvuzelas (tinhorns are archaic) in the fancy dresses in the overdecorated balconies like David Platt.
