Taupe Hat Systems

If, to those of my friends who do believe, the thought of the divine is the same as that stirring of awe one has when taking in something really remarkable about the world, then I'm cool with that and (aside from a last admonition to remember your history with care), I'll leave you be on the subject. :)

Thanks for reading :)

I've spoken harshly and frequently, and just wanted to be clear about a couple things. I wanted to speak especially to my friends who happen to be religious. I'm not going to engage in name-calling or angry writing here, as that's not what this is about. Far from, I hope.

I'm not going to attempt justify or for that matter apologize for some of the things I've written or said. I have been insensitive at times, probably frequently. It's a measure of (among other things) how strongly I feel about the issue, but it gives me no joy at all to know that I've upset people I do care deeply about in the process.

So my frustration has been evident, and it seemed helpful to try to explain at a personal level why this is the case. My first point is this: I have given a great deal of thought to the subject of religion in general (including varying depths of attention to most of the bigger religions across the world and Christianity in particular), and after much contemplation, none of them really "fit" with my feelings and observations about the world. I've tried, and it just isn't so. In particular, this applies to the primary three monotheistic religions, but I also can't see, for example, the pantheon of the ancient Greeks or the dazzling diversity of deities of Hinduism as anything more than metaphor of varying degrees of entertainment and usefulness. There's just no "there" there in this case, and my personal sense of ethics won't allow me to fake it.

I've tried, and I've tried really hard, and none of it fits. I just lack any desire to place the core of my understanding of the world in the context of a deity (or group thereof) who, for lack of a more accurate description, works magic. I know a great many people who feel exactly the same way.

So that's the first thing, in a nutshell. After that comes a certain feeling of being "not in the club" with regard to religion. This hasn't happened recently, but I've been struck by how many times in the past five years or so that somebody has asked me "What church do you go to?" For those of you close to my income level, that would be similar in a way to being asked "What country club to you belong to?" Oof. Hopefully, that kind of puts it in perspective.

It's a thoughtless insensitivity, no malice whatsoever behind it and I hold no particular person any ill will for asking - the meaning behind it was always (I hope) a friendly gesture just like "Do you like to go fishing?" would be - and the answer is an emphatic yes in this particular case, just for the record. When there's time...

Even so, the assumption rankles every time it becomes evident. Imagine how that kind of thing gets compounded when I observe people sincerely attempting to demand upon me by force of law various behaviors that are being altered for no other reason than their religious belief system - a system which I am not part of and not because I have a competing religious view per se, but that I have nothing but skepticism for the core dogmas of that particular religion or for that matter any of the alternatives.

In other words, it would be like me trying to make my daughter get up in the morning for school but rather than just saying " get up because you need an education to be happier later on" I might tell her, for example, "because if you don't get up within 2 minutes, a giant claw machine is going to reach inside the house and snatch your daddy away forever," and then make the going to school an afterthought completely forgotten about as a result of the trauma earlier in the morning and perhaps not even attended to.

And that's the next thing about religion: it's not that there aren't things about religion that are meritorious, but the thing that is of value, true value that I see in every religious faith I've looked at, gets lost behind the noise of the narrative, of the dogma, and the implicit punishment (related to the afterlife usually) that religions tend to keep at the forefront. My favorite example of this last bit comes from some very sincere and friendly Hare Krishnas, who shared with me a pamphlet which warned among other things that if one is a glutton throughout his life, he will be "reincarnated as a feces-eating pig!!!" (complete with illustrations). Trust me, that was much more entertaining than "you'll burn in hell!!!"

So at a very basic and fairly abstract level, that's the core of my frustrations with religion. What's redeeming? Plenty. I can't help but be impressed with religious architecture even when I feel cynical about the value of that work and the tangible benefit that work could have brought people who needed it. Music, wow. Often. And it is that sense of wonderment that people have often ascribed to their deity that has led to so many works of brilliance and benefit to humanity, from the creation of Algebra to the European Renaissance to the Age of Reason.

And that's where the narrative shifts. Suddenly, we gain the insight into our condition (by way of the written word and the growing understanding of our planet and ability to affectively communicate that understanding) to gain a common sense of doing the right thing in life for no other reason than it's the right thing to do. Does this require any belief in a dogmatic moral code? No - rather it requires the understanding based upon personal and shared experience that life is generally better when more people try to do the right thing, wherever it happens. This shift of consciousness is very threatening to deeply entrenched religious orders and I believe that sense of desire to remain in power is the cause of many centuries of needless atrocity and the destruction of entire civilizations.

So that's really the crux of the thing: we can do just fine by learning as we grow up what is right and wrong (those of the Ten Commandments dealing with direct behavior toward other people are pretty right on where this is concerned) and then acting on that. Does that imply perfection? No, but then again, life really isn't perfect. People will still make bad choices just like people will still drop a glass in the sink while washing dishes, and in both cases will hopefully make an effort to learn how to avoid repeating the experience. But overall, the more people strive for this, the happier everyone is. If you're religious, your moral code almost certainly has a great deal of teachings to this very point, and often in language just as plain.

'Scuse me while I attend to this plank in my eye.

So anyhow, if you're religious, this is what I ask of you, one human to another. Do I deserve it? Eh, well, that's not really the point of asking and nothing I could say here would change your opinion of the answer anyhow. But it's a sincere request.

First off, don't assume that your religious faith is for any reason superior to any other clearly demonstrated set of ethical guidelines. Better to ask if that set of ethical guidelines results in more people enjoying true fulfillment, but even that can be a tough question to really get at. Just pay attention to the ethics of the person or group of people you're dealing with, and assume that for the most part, people are OK. The ones who really aren't will generally take an obvious turn eventually. Pay closer attention to other cars on the freeway. Seriously.

Next, pay attention to where your ideas come from. History has shown over and over again that if something is said often enough, a certain amount of the listening audience will eventually grow to believe what is being said, even in the face of clearly contradictory evidence, sometimes subconsciously. By paying attention to where your ideas come from as much as you pay attention to the content of those ideas, you will hopefully be better able to resist the manipulation of demagogues. Demagogues are bad, mmmkay?

Also, if your faith system is followed by a large majority of the people in your country, don't try to claim that you're being persecuted against for holding that set of religious beliefs. It's not even a coherent argument, and just alienates those who aren't in the country club. Do the right thing, you know?

Resist the temptation to think that someone who doesn't share your religious belief system is lacking anything in his or her life. Speaking personally, I find the world to be an inspirational and amazing place every day, and value the opportunity to be a part of this crazy cockeyed universe as much as anyone else does. Life is deeply fulfilling, despite those gaps we all have in our lives. Overall happiness fills those in nicely.

Finally, maintain your faith in humanity. We are as unique and amazing and different from everything else we truly know about as can be, and have managed to get this far with a fair measure of both warts and beauty spots, made possible by an absurd amount of sheer will. The whole of human history is a rich delight of stories and discovery, and we can do so much more in the future. If I have any one article of faith at all in life, this is it. Humanity will continue to iron over the bumps and figure out what to do, and along the way, we'll find much to experience, discuss, and teach one another. At the end of the day, that's better than any conceptualization of heaven or fortuitous reincarnation I've ever seen.

Well, today I got the final and most annoying roadblock out of the way, and am all set to move in a couple weeks. I've lived in the Rogue Valley for the past ten years and really gave it an honest try, but in the end I just found the culture here to be too monochrome in all ways. There are some really great people here who will be missed, but in the end the move is still worth it (and I hope some of those folks also move south someday).

I'm looking forward happily to being in the company of some old friends and new, to having my daughter in a better school, with a great many opportunities for her that simply don't exist here, to being closer to family, to being where I grew up. It's time.

Honest opinions, probably not very popular, and stated in very strong language resulting from my total frustration and disgust with this situation all around:

• Israel may or may not have been a good idea conceptually, but the execution of her creation was managed horribly, possibly as badly as could have been done. Israel was set up so wrong-footed that one wonders if the brokenness was deliberate. But that was decades ago, and isn't really important anymore.
• Because of the above, nothing will ever resolve the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Nothing.
• Matching war crimes with war crimes leaves everybody's hands bloody, and in the case of these two countries (yes, they are two countries), everybody's hands are indeed very, very bloody.
• The concept that lies behind the creation of Israel could easily be implemented somewhere else, with little or even no strife.
• Regardless of any of the above, there are some people in Israel/Palestine who are determined to fight to the death.
• Despite the above, the vast majority of people in both Israel and Palestine really don't want to fight with anybody, but are much more interested in getting to work on time, having work to go to, making sure their kids get to school on time, making sure their kids' schools aren't blown up somehow, buying their spouses something nice to make them happy, being able to think of their spouses without fearing for their spouses lives, caring for their parents, dodging their inlaws, etc...
• So-called "holy" sites are irrelevant: if you pay the slightest bit of attention to the fairy-tale books that people believe in who purport that such sites are holy, all this bloodshed flies in the face of the edicts contained within those texts. Nobody who is sane thinks all this murder is worth it either.
• No place that fucked up can really be holy. I don't care what your book says.

That said, I have a modest proposal:

1. Put up a wall (virtual and physical) around the whole bloody nation of Israel/Palestine.
2. Embargo all goods to that immured nightmare excepting food and basic medical supplies. This includes electricity, armaments, fuel, data, anything, no exceptions.
3. Allow a decent period for verifiable noncombatants to exit. Since the US is so up on supporting Israel no matter what, all Israeli evacuees shall be offered the option of fleeing to this country. There is little doubt that the neighboring Arab states could be convinced to come up with a workable arrangement for Palestinians. Those of all nationalities who are Christian can find plenty of places to live. I seriously doubt there are a lot of agnostics or atheists who live there, as choosing to live there right now without a workable alternative is a sign of desperation, mental instability, or just plain stupidity, but any such folks who do exist in the proposed immurement boundary can find their way just fine most anywhere.
4. Mandatory evacuation for all children, regardless of any idiotic intent on the part of their parents to remain. Any children without family members outside the immurement zone will be placed with social services agencies according to their nationality.
5. Elderly people can make up their own minds, but should be given clear communication as to what's about to happen.
6. After a clearly-communicated evacuation period ends, all gates are permanently sealed, food and medical aid ends, and the fucking asshole cocksucking idiots who are left can tear each others eyes out and fuck off for all the rest of the world cares. Any aircraft attempting to cross the immurement boundary will be shot down without warning or delay. Anyone attempting to leave by other means will receive the same treatment. They had their chance.
7. That land shall forever then be deemed a place of deepest shame, and thought of with horror if at all.

Yes, it's a horrible, brutal, bloody solution, guaranteed to produce untold amounts of heartache and destruction. But how is that different from the situation we have now? At least this way, those who wish to be responsible for the bloodshed can remain and carry out their idiocy without causing further death and suffering to those who do not feel the same way, and the children of that land will be given the opportunity to escape the religious brainwashing of their fucktard parents.

In the end, I reckon this new Jewish diaspora would do just fine in the US and Europe free of the occasional Hamas rocket hitting their office building, Muslim people who are peaceful types would find similar opportunities to carry on with their lives without constant threat of an IDF bomb going sideways and blowing up their children in their beds, and the fucktards, presumably before they devolved to throwing small rocks back and forth, would manage to completely and utterly demolish all the stupid fucking "holy" sites that are the root cause of all this horror in the first place, so nobody would really have much to say about that patch of un-farmable, dry, hot wasteland any longer.

Really, what kind of fucked-up bullshit set of belief systems could produce this shit in the first place? None of the three sides involved are free of sin here, and all are contributing in equal measures to the current massacres. Tell me your god is a god of peace? Fuck that - read your Old Testament/Koran/Torah again. That shit's irredeemably fucked up and needs to become an embarrassing asterisk in human history.

In the meantime, we need to deal with the present hostilities, and the best way to do that is to clear the non-players from the field and let the remaining idiots have their best shots at each other. Enough of this shit. Let the tough guys duke it out - they're going to make the rest of our lives miserable until they do.

OK, yeah. If only the knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing hick morons here in Gold Hell would quit discharging high-powered firearms into the sky in general... I actually yanked open my front door at about 12:05 and bellowed (at the top of my lungs, naturally), "Happy New Year!!! Stop shooting your guns... assholes!!!"

So my new year's resolution is pretty generic, but for various reasons I reckon I'll do better with it than last year's resolution. I aim to get more organized. It's a wonderful thing in the sense that it's pretty easy to do and set up habits that maintain better organization, but you not only don't have to be obsessive about it, but you shouldn't be obsessive about getting more organized.

It's kind of like database optimization. On the one hand, who wouldn't prefer all databases to be fully normalized? I mean, then you could relate any dataset to any other dataset and voila! Marketable data! On the other hand, if you really, truly, positively obsessed on fifth normal form for every dataset, you'd have to create a 100,000-row table called 'unicode' and then every text entry in any table would simply be a series of references to entries in that table, which would then become some kind of UID in whatever text entry table, etc, etc, etc, and all that you'd accomplish would be to prove to your colleagues that you're completely stark raving mad.

So I resolve to get more organized throughout 2009. I've already started in the process, and aim to continue. On the other hand, if anyone catches me trying to create a table representing every second in a year, or similar, I sincerely hope that person deploys the LART that has the nails sticking out of one end.

Happy New Year, shits!