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Again and again we hear defenders of religion state, that religion is the source of values and hence ethics. A result of blind faith in authorities. Unfortunately too often accepted by default, without any critical thought. The ability of rational thought is supposedly the distinguishing difference between humans and other animals, then why is it so commonly lacking?

Ethical behaviour is not the result of religious indoctrination and power wielding, but an effect of human emotions, specifically their nature. We tend to rationalize our behaviour after our actions. Research into this phenomenon has even resulted in serious doubts in regards to the concept of free will. People whom have experienced religious indoctrination tend to believe, that when ever they act in an ethical manner, it is due to the effect of their religious upbringing, and hence argue for its necessity. Completely ignoring those of a bright upbringing, whom display the same kind of ethical behaviour in absence of supposed religious motivation. Religion therefore can not be the source of ethics, and one will have to accept the argument of religion as the only valid basis for human society for what it is - a false presumption based on post-rationalization of behaviour patterns.

The only source of values can be found within a living creature. Yes, other animals also have values too. It is not a product of humans or some teapot floating in outerspace, but a product of nature and living existence.

Photo by t_a_i_s.

The human race is slowly reaching total domination of this planet, as there is a difference between domination and total domination. While we already cover a few patches of this planet, there still seems to be too much nature around. And what has nature done for us, besides ensuring pain and suffering? Suggested by our apparent behaviour, and illustrated by the decisions we make in regards to development.

A proposal to build a tunnel from Russia to Alaska, will mean a far more radical change to the environment of Alaska, than most can currently envision. And I'm not only referring to the destruction of natural habitat. Having a direct link connecting the two continents, will radically change the economic significance of Alaska from a relative unimportant state to a power house.

Image of some nice art work
by Zhan Wang.
A creative depiction of Bejing.

Environmental concerns are going to be drowned by the calls for jobs, energy, and development. And I'm certain, that lessons learnt from past mistakes will surely be forgotten and repressed, as cost reduction is what drives profits, and profits drive social change.

Further drilling for oil in Alaska might have been stopped by the US Senate in 2005, but as all involved knew and know, that wasn't the last we were going to hear of such an enterprise. Too tempting are the siren calls of profit. Sustainable development takes time. More than elected officials have to ensure re-election. With the majority of us humans solely concerned with survival, especially at a comfort level regarded as common in the collective, the electorate will rather follow the "we need jobs and economic prosperity" argument. "We need to live in harmony with our environment" is just not sufficiently compelling, leaving an impression of putting nature before humans. And as a species we are determined to ensure our short term existence only. The future will be taken care of by adaptation and developmental progress. Which is not a belief, nor knowledge gained through experience, but our primal instinct.

Current concern for the environment, is nothing but a "global warming fashion". It will pass by, just as every other guilt driven polit-fashion has.

Be Very, Very Scared - They Disguise As Human Beings

The latest news headline reads - "Terrorists Use Toilets!". They take a shit and piss, can you believe it? Human beings with distorted world views, sick ambitions, acting in a manner most don't agree with, actually act in many ways like "normal" human beings. What a surprise! This news is earth shattering. Well, not quite, but these kind of reports, repeated over and over again, will scare your average Joanna into helplessness and irrational thought, which can ultimately lead to only one reaction - where's my saviour? Toni, Jesus, Georgie, Joseph, Mohamed or Adolph, they are just names that enable future human beings to mark time periods of organized hatred. It will always be up to those humans of the future to decide, "will we learn from past mistakes, or just continue acting dumb, stupid, and blind?" Or more accurately and less polemically formulated - should we be progressive or conservative?

What is going on in journalists minds, when they publish stories such as the one spreading military propaganda, which after "the world is a different one" pseudo-event seems to have become the norm. People, get it into your heads, just because two buildings were maliciously blown up, changed nothing about this planet. Every day buildings are being blown up, not every single one maliciously, but sufficiently to make cry oneself into hopelessness. And every day thousands of people die unwillingly. Most are murdered, others ravaged by disease, and some because their end just came. What has changed, is solemnly the willingness of people, folks like you and me, to accept hatred as a basis of human interaction. We decide how to interact with each other. Which in term will decide how they will treat us. Yes there are assholes, but how often do you act inappropriately? How often have you been greedy? How often were you willing to bend the truth to your benefit? When faced in utter honesty, these kind of question hurt, don't they?

Forget curiosity, forget inquiry, forget knowledge, especially be ignorant of meaningful facts, all that counts is blind hatred. This is the message of mainstream organized journalism. And we are the ones paying for their salaries! We the consumers of news media. If we don't consume, there will be no income, and the news media will go bust. Hmm, in a perfect world maybe. We can already see the results of some of the market having withdrawn their funds - more porn, more violence, more animal instinct feeding. There goes the magic of free markets out of the window. So what can we do? Think, reason, communicate!

We may all be kids at heart, but the mature rational mind has a substantial chance discovering the Boogie Man within our own thoughts. None of us is perfect, and with this in mind, we can manage and semi-control our emotional reactions, directing them towards constructive ideas and endeavours. Petitioning a government to act in revenge, is not constructive. Asking them to change their ways is. Courts are not perfect, and they will never be, but they are our only chance to ever come close to the ideal we like to believe having already achieved - civilization.

Today Slashdot had a post on the Chicago Tribune article titled In the sky! A bird? A plane? A ... UFO?. Now, I have to admit, I would love to hear of a validated encounter with aliens. This is why I keep on reading any "reports" and "news" on subject. Well, besides the fact that they make for good entertainment, and heartfelt laughter. It has been my personal past experiences, which have turned me into an avid sceptic. I've witnessed walls moving, chairs speaking to me, trucks smashing into my workplace, and all kinds of weird stuff, which I knew were nothing but the result of a fantastic and creative mind.

"I believe that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational efforts of terrestrial intelligence rather than the unknown irrational efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence"
The opinion of Richard Feynman on subject.

If people believe, their desire to "see" develops a strong mind-momentum, allowing for anything to happen in the visual field. Just think Maria apparitions, Jesus on a potato chip, and Allah appearing in tomatoes. It's the power of coincidence that creates "miracles". Only the mind dead fall for their auto-deceptions. Just take a look at this nice collection of cloud space ships captured on film.

One shouldn't be surprised to see something published as "news" 2 months after the event, in a time when news publishers are having a tough time finding anything that could be sold as news. Though one should be surprised, that although O'Hare International Airport is one of the busiest airports in the world, and Chicago having close to 3 million inhabitants (metropolitan area counts over 9 million), only a handful of people witnessed this incident.

"To fly 7 million light years to O'Hare and then have to turn around and go home because your gate was occupied is simply unacceptable," said O'Hare controller and union official Craig Burzych.
The reaction of a pro.

The relationship between religious belief and "we-have-visitors" belief, can also be seen in the classical mass-psychology-tool of propaganda, and what George Orwell called Newspeak. Christian fundamentalist introduced ID, UFOlogists now talk of UAP - Unidentified Areal Phenomenon. UFOs or UAPs indeed exist, only that they are as related to outer space aliens, as intelligence to the great tea pot in the sky, some call God. Only because we can't identify something in an instant, doesn't account for its extraterrestrial or supernatural origin. Optical illusions are by definition deceptive.

If your French skills are in better shape than mine (I'm talking here linguistics), you might be interested in checking out Centre National D'Etuides Spatiales. They've just released all UFO sighting reports. Isn't it strange that so many sketches of witness reports are drawn on napkins? Could it be that they are just handy, because psycho pharmaca causes dribbling? Just speculating here

Personal Report On An Alien Encounter

Back in 1996 while living in Costa Rica, most of the people I was surrounded by (there were a few exceptions) would classify as new age hippies - religious fanatics with an unquestioned distorted worldview. All lovely people in a humanitarian sense, don't get me wrong, but logic dominated thought, consistency, and a basic grasp of science weren't their strengths. One night with clear skies, one of them came rushing up and announced to a susceptible crowd "There's a UFO in the sky!" - I believe it was that night that the last remnants of intellectual respect dissipated.

We all rushed out into an open space and stared with fanatical amazement into the sky. And a wild discussion broke out, with a battle ensuing to who would be the one allowed to join them. If invited of course, as it was understood, that aliens wouldn't just invite any idiot to join them. This UFO was static and then moving franticly - supposedly, as all I could see was a bunch of stars in close proximity flickering through atmospheric distortion. My fist conscious witnessing of mob-delusion in full effect.