not again
For the creationist nearest you:Fetus' Feet Show Fish, Reptile Vestiges
Or if they don't like reading things other than the bible, maybe they'd like to compare embryos with one another and see if they can tell which pollywog is which:
embryo-compare
I woke up thinking about war, which was what my dream was about. Not the "glorious" kind you get to read about in the paper, but the "shitty" kind that blows stuff up down the block from your house. I was thinking, why is it that so many religious people I know, Muslims and Christians alike, are resigned to an omnicidal apocalypse scenario. They shrug, and say that the end of the world and god's wrath and armies and death is written in some book, so what can you do.
I don't believe that god exists, that god likes me, that there's a special reward after you die, or that being itself is anything but transitory. I do believe the search for spiritual meaning is doomed and useless, because I do not believe there's no such thing as a spirit to begin with. Anyone reading this blog for more than a week knows this about me, and I would like to offer my deepest apologies that the world is such a completely stupid place that I feel the need to remind myself of what makes sense so frequently. It's my reaction to the religious right in America, guys. I need provide no examples.
I think religious belief all around is a copout, a way to meet one's personal needs, such as
1) to feel superior, esp. morally
2) to have someone/thing to blame (evil, satan, porn, whatever)
3) to feel existentially meaningful
If you are a religious person, imagine what a world with no god would be like for you. Then see what kind of bad feelings you get from it. Examine those feelings and you should have a pretty good idea of what your emotional needs are, and you can take steps to address those in therapy, and without having to give your money to a church. Bonus: it's a more permanent solution.
The problem that will end the world is not religion. No, religion is not the problem (though it does push back the frontiers of intelligence), but a mask for it, a symptom of badly managed worldviews.
The world doesn't revolve around the believer and isn't supposed to make any sense. By removing your needs for it to, your life becomes your own in ways you couldn't otherwise grasp. Religion tells you life can make sense, then when it doesn't, blames you for not understanding. Example: it sucks when children die of cancer, and god has nothing to do with that or anything else. God's simply not there to blame, or ask, or thank. And no world-ending series of righteous hydrogen bomb explosions will make him/her/it show up and start taking credit.
Any real wars from here on out will just make everybody die, which believers love, because only "everybody dies" will once and for all level the playing field of the modern world, in which people investigate cause and effect and god's never, ever it. They're getting tired of their beliefs retreating every time they have to think critically, and the best defense is a good offense, which is why the Christian right in America loves the war on terror. They know it's a -wink- war on Islam, and it brings it all back to the prophecy, which is where it belongs.
The most important war left on earth is the war between the sentient (me) and the walking undead, the believers that the next life is more important than this one.
There was a series called I believe on NPR at one point in the recent past, and this could be mine:
I believe that the world we do live in would be a better place, if all who think the world we don't live in is important, would hurry up and get themselves out of this one and leave the rest of us alone.
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