Don't opportunistically chose your studies...

I was just at the mall, in an elevator full of people. This older white woman, she must have been late 70's or something says to a random Indian guy, "Are you related to Ghandi?" It was the craziest thing I think I've heard for years. She's almost 80, and yet she still can't seem to understand that there's hundreds of millions of people in India, the very high improbability this random Indian guy is related to Ghandi. Also she has exhibited ignorance, racism. She must have been sheltered for years, and on top of that only studied hen pecked subjects that supported her view. My guess is she is your standard Fox news automaton. A part of me was kind of sad, because she represents the America my grandmother grew up in. That sort of protectionist, white loving, ignorant, narcissistic America where racism was cute and it was normal to call gays "fag". All this stuff ran through my mind in just a minute in the elevator. As the moment passed, I felt glad those ideas would pass when people of her generation passed on too. Or maybe she was just a little old lady with a degenerative brain disease...you decided....lol

Leave.....

And we shouldn't be afraid to say it out loud if we really understand universal ethical behavior....

I don't want to remember....

There's nothing more humbling than reading your old essays. I make myself sick...lol. I'm putting together a book using Amazon Createspace that will be available soon. Please don't buy it......lol

Get a hold of yourself....

I read an older humanist essay last night on Google Scholar, and basically this "humanist" was worried about the lack of emotion in humanist rational thinking. His idea was that somehow religion has captured this but humanism has not.
Emotion is something that you have, whether you want it or not. It is determined by the chemicals, and ordering of your body. What he is talking about, without actually identifying it, is contrived emotion. There's a certain masturbatory aspect of religion that finds delight in believing things that are highly highly improbable. I compare it to the way a gang jumps in its members. It basically says, "Hey, if you can believe these things really happened, even if all aspects of life tell you it is highly improbable, then you can be one of us!" It's the jump in aspect of SOME religions. Reality demands respect. Reality just IS. To defy it is masturbatory opportunism. The emotion this "humanist" claims is missing from the rationalist's life is contrived, imaginary emotion. It does add another dimension to life, but a dimension not unlike a drug high. Instead of thinking we are losing this imaginary emotion, we should think that it was never real life to begin with. You want to be certain about your life? At your center, allow reality to be, don't tell it how to look for you. That is the height of arrogance.

The essence of ethics....

It's an exhibition of incapability. So, you can't BE a good person? There has to be a credible threat to force you to be one? People like this are just lost. A person is quantified as one. We know we are part of a system larger than ourselves. We know taking the life of another is an arrogant breach of the expectations of men, and a choice to end something we didn't create, yet are a part of. Ethics stems from this, and it is determined. All over the world, every culture, and language and society in history has felt around this imposition. It's not created by religion, but is the essence of humanism.

Vatican clawing..

Pope Francis criticism stuns Vatican http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30577368

It seems no one escapes the corporate race to the bottom.

Objectivity, not optimism....

Yes, I worry consistently about it. I think "worry" is the right word, caused by a concerned awareness. In the corporate world we live in, it's far too easy to sell optimism when we should be objective...