the cost of sanity

 'the cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation'. -terence mckenna

what is sane? the problem with abstract ideas or definitions is that they are open to wide and sometimes wildly different interpretations.

to me, sanity requires critical thinking, the questioning of 'authority', and the ultimate rejection of everything that is dogmatic or faith based, which pretty much includes everything pertaining to religion. but does this truly lead to sanity? does such a thing actually exist?

it may not. scientific inquiry has led to some very strange if not mind blowing conclusions, such as quantum theory and entanglement

quantum theory and entanglement - Search

a complex idea that is hard if not impossible to understand, which seems to have little if any practical relevance to life.

maybe there is no purpose or meaning to life or existence. this is the hard (sur)reality that one is faced with when one fully embraces science and rejects religion, or dogmatism, and if there is no ultimate purpose or meaning, can there be such a thing as sanity? i don't know.

i think i've learned to embrace uncertainty, which is the heart and soul of agnosticism, which to me is also the nearest one can get to having a sane or rational philosophy of existence. such a view i think does place one at odds with mainstream society, which does embrace dogmatic beliefs and recoils from the possibility of a godless existence (or worse yet, the possibility of an insane existence with an insane god).

which brings me to my point. i have a bit of a savior complex, but here again, one must be careful in defining the word 'savior', particularly to christians who associate it with christ and the idea that we possess immortal souls which need to be saved by embracing christianity. rather, the salvation i seek is more modest and science based, and has to do with saving our species from self-destruction, from the path we are currently on leading to our own near term extinction, along with the near term extinction of most other species on our planet, which i believe we are bringing about thanks largely to our ignorance and rejection of a rational, scientific worldview in favor of an irrational (but apparently comforting to many) dogmatic religious worldview, which essentially says that what matters most is not mortal life, but the supposed immortal disposition of our 'souls' which of course is dependent upon our supposed 'free will' to either accept or reject  the supposed truth contained in religion.

i lack faith in the possibility that our species is capable of saving itself and much of the rest of life on earth from the destructive path we're currently on, but i must act as if there is such a possibility, which means i must do what i can to try to make humanity more rational and less dogmatic, embracing a science-based worldview more concerned with maximizing the quality and quantity of mortal biological life rather than the theoretical disposition of our theoretical immortal souls. 

u may think i'm being melodramatic in asserting that our faith-based culture is ignorant and racing towards self-destruction, but i think that may be because u've spent too much time studying books like the bible instead of scientific literature, like things i've read pertaining to the phenomena of population overshoot, resource depletion, environmental degradation, ecological destruction, and especially manmade climate disruption. books such as SIX DEGREES by mark lynas published nearly 20 years ago to no great effect, backed by solid scientific studies and facts.

there is a downside to this worldview which is encapsulated in the quote i began this dissertation with. it's an alienation from mainstream society (including many current friends and family) which can make your life less happy, less fulfilling, and more difficult. i can't say what's right for u, i can only embrace what is right for me.

over-privileged malignant narcissists

i'm currently reading a book that's sort of a bio of stephen miller titled HATEMONGER. a couple things strike me in the early going of it. first, his jewish ancestors came to america to flea european persecution and in doing so may have saved themselves from annhilation in the holocaust. they became ardent zionists and in fact his maternal great grandfather became such good friends with the 'father' of israel, david ben gurion, that ben gurion was at his wedding. anyway this makes me speculate that a good part of the ruthlessness that now characterizes the state of israel as well as stephen miller could come from a ruthless desire to survive in a very hostile world.

my second observation applies not only to miller but his benefactor trump and others of trump's inner circle: they're over-privileged malignant narcissists, and as it follows, assholes, who have thrived in america, while their opposition, the so-called radical left, is persecuted (as in the case of a group of largely peaceful anti-ICE protesters who were just sentenced to decades in prison as supposed 'domestic terrorists'). it's appalling and stupefying that this is so. only in dystopia!

70 Years for Protesting? The Prairieland Case Should Terrify Everyone

also been reading a fairly recent xray mike essay making similar observations only backing them up with much documentation including the links below. 

Trump’s Relentless Self-Promotion Fosters an American Cult of Personality - The New York Times

Trump's $1.5 trillion defense budget could be political suicide for Republicans.

having had a day to reflect on the above, there's this disturbing revelation: i too am an over-privileged malignant narcissist. i care much more about my near term well being than about the long term well being of life on earth. this may be mitigated somewhat by knowing i can't change fate, but could well get in a world of shit by trying too hard, as did the martyrs mentioned in this brief video:

WHO WE KILL

i've been wondering about god if it exists. why create a dystopian and doomed world full of flawed, limited, vulnerable, and mortal beings capable of acute pain and suffering? maybe god feeds on pain and torment?

and why is everything transitory?

why consciousness? it's what makes me think there could be a god. it doesn't make sense for it to exist in a godless unconscious universe. it suggests being a miracle.

i won't exist after i die, but will my consciousness go on in some way?

if it exists god seems forlorn to me, or perhaps cruel. not the god i'd choose if i had a choice.

failure to connect

 i just wrote the following in an email to a couple of sheeple.

didn't think i'd write to u again but it seems i have no better options.

i've harbored a passionate hatred for christianity, and by extension all dogmatic puritanical religion, for many years now. decades actually, going back nearly 40 years to my divorce and coming to understand that i'd married under pressure of living in a sexually repressed christian culture where the only way for me to have a steady lover seemed to be to get married, so i did so, but even as i did so, i knew in my heart it was the wrong thing for me to do, and that i was only doing it because i was so desperate to have a lover. when the marriage failed it tore me up badly and i learned a lot from the experience; essentially the necessity of openness and honesty in intimate relationships, beginning with one's self, but ever since i've been unable to connect with anyone, not just sexually, but philosophically. i passionately desire to live in a radically different world, one without dogmatic puritanical religion.

now anything that makes me think of sex (and something makes me think of it many times every day) reminds me of the repressive influence of christianity on my life, reinforcing my virulent hatred of it. and it's not only sex, it's how dogmatism and cruelty are so prevalent in american institutions and culture, which i now always associate with christian faith in a dogmatic puritanical judgmental and infinitely cruel god, belief in 'sin' for which according to the bible we must die (the wages of sin), and then, according to christians who also believe in heaven and hell, consignment for eternity to torture for those who haven't accepted christ as savior. that's one cruel god those christians believe in! in light of such belief it makes perverse sense to make the lives of the worst 'sinners' amongst us hell by making them live in prisons wherein cruelty is a way of life. i think this also relates to a broader cruelty in american society, cruelty towards the less fortunate, the homeless, the poor, the misfits, minorities, lgbtq+ people, etc., the shocking lack of a social safety net and social services, things like childcare, healthcare, etc.. it seems to me that it isn't just coincidence but correlation that the arguably most religious country in the so-called 'developed' world has the most regressive social policies and the greatest economic inequality, the harshest and most punitive laws, and the greatest injustice, corruption, and hypocrisy.

in spite of all this i've benefitted from my association with your church thanks to the limited sense of community i find there. i imagine that's basically the same reason anyone like u would choose to become a minister, to help foster the development and maintenance of such community. unfortunately it seems just about impossible to find this outside of religion, but why is this so, and must it be thus? why can't we have community without connection to holy books, dogmas, and superstitious rituals like holy communion? why can't we live in a world in which critical thinking flourishes, facts are valued more highly than dogmatic faith, and unconventional thought is not suppressed?

now that u've retired or are about to, perhaps u'll feel free-er to address such questions, to question the validity of your own faith, and to engage with me further in this discussion? perhaps it won't turn your life upside down too much to do so? perhaps together, we can try to think of ways to bring about such changes in the lives of others without turning their lives upside down too much, to bring about radical social change without too much social disruption? what do u think?

a scary thought

'having grown up with him, it makes u realize that it isn't the smartest person u went to high school with who's running the country; it's the most shameless' -a former schoolmate of stephen miller -10:32 mark of video link below

"we respect life. therefore, torture's the way to go" -a teenage stephen miller on a crowded school bus back in 2003, regarding how he thinks the u.s. should treat saddam hussein. this was taken from about the 4:20 mark of the ALJAZEERA documentary below, in which various well informed insiders opine that miller's a fascist ideologue who just may be the most powerful unelected official in the trump regime. a scary thought! but in this current dystopia we're living in, a thoroughly plausible one.

one might also ask why such critical reporting on the questionable character of powerful figures like miller and on the abuses of government power he is engineering aren't to be seen in 'western' corporate media, ever, anywhere, but that would be a naive question.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCP4SZo5axE