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Todd Daniel

Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

The Drowning Anabaptist and the Slave

Last week I talked about the first scientists and the Renaissance, which led to the Enlightenment. That was a beautiful time in the 18th century when the great thinkers of the day started to promote reason and individualism over tradition. People began to question the control of the Catholic church and the absolute powers of the monarchy. In fact, people began to question EVERYTHING, which led to good things like the toppling of slavery, free speech, and religious and political tolerance.

You are likely thinking, "Yeah, so what?" Well, the Enlightenment had a major impact on a new nation on the other side of the pond and it greatly influenced the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

People have acted surprised at me for being a liberal and still being patriotic. I love my country because it was founded on idealism and the person I love most is Thomas Jefferson. Yeah, he had his faults but he represents the values and ideals that make me a proud American. I proudly fly a U.S. flag in my front yard, in honor of Jefferson and the other founding fathers.

But what happened to America? The answer is the same old crap that was going on in 17th and 18th century France. The people were poor, the people were taxed, and the aristocrats and Roman Catholic Church paid no taxes, and held all the power. And like in this country now, the church and nobility were in bed together, and as a team they screwed over the peasants. That was at least until the French Revolution began and the guillotine went into action.

In Comes Voltaire

Voltaire is my fourth favorite person in history, after Daniel Quinn, Teddy Roosevelt, and Jesus. If I need a role model it would have to be him. He is the most famous writer of the Age of Enlightenment and he taught me that it's not only okay to stand up against institutionalized religion and the 1 percenters, but it's essential that I do. Voltaire opposed the decaying institutions of his day and for that he was physically beaten, imprisoned, and exiled. I especially love the guy because like me, he loved satire and wit, and those were his primary weapons.

Voltaire also set the standard because he loved science and was a fan of Sir Isaac Newton, and even became sort of like his PR person. You know the story about the apple falling on Newton's head? Yep, Voltaire came up with that. The idea was to present science in a way people could understand. Voltaire was also anti-war.

Candide

The most famous book from the most famous author of the Enlightenment is Candide, a satirical novel that gives European society a hard bitch slap. The book is dark and edgy and in a weird sort of way it describes my life. It starts out with Candide, the main character, living a sheltered life in a castle. He falls for his cousin Cunégonde and is caught kissing her, which leads to his eviction from the castle. He then travels around the world and has a series of adventures, where he sees the dark side of humanity and the apparent indifference of God.

To me, the most chilling scene in the book is when he is in South America and comes across a black sugar plantation slave. He is wondering why the slave has no hand or leg, and the slave replies, "When we work at the sugar-canes, and the mill snatches hold of a finger, they cut off the hand; and when we attempt to run away, they cut off the leg; both cases have happened to me." And that, he said, is the price he must pay so that Europeans can eat sugar.

In today's situation, where the coronavirus has completely shaken our delicate society, I see how the wealthy are doing just fine while millions of working class people are now facing eviction or foreclosure.  Something is terribly wrong.

The main theme of Candide is to challenge the "optimism" movement promoted by Voltaire's contemporaries, most notably Gottfried Wilhem von Leibniz.

In the book, Candide's tutor, Dr. Pangloss, repeatedly says that all is for the best in this "best of all possible worlds." In one section of the book Lisbon is wiped out by a terrible earthquake, which also causes a tsunami and great fire. This event really happened in 1755 and Voltaire put it in his novel. It makes one wonder why God is so indifferent and even cruel to humanity. During the Lisbon disaster, a generous and virtuous Anabaptist man dies, while a wicked sailor, who steals money, gets drunk, and buys a hooker, gets to live. Where is the justice in that?

I would say that the book and the characters were not pessimistic, but in the end they definitely become realists and get a sobering reality check, which is NOT "the best of all possible worlds."

Solutions

One thing that troubles me about my two favorite authors — Daniel Quinn and Voltaire — is that they point out the problems but don't offer solutions. Perhaps the answer is that there is NO solution for society's ills. The only thing I see that works is to create a highly educated citizenry and to encourage young people to think critically, which is what Napoleon actually did. It's strange that we are losing this idea in the United States, but, you see, the wealthy people who are in control WANT a dumbed down population that provides cheap labor and doesn't question.

If there is any hope for our civilization it's in the people who have socially mutated and have decided to break out of the cultural cages that they are placed into at birth. In my personal experience I received all the religious and cultural indoctrination from my parents, church, and influential people in my life. But I realized something was horribly wrong and I began to question.

In reading through Candide I looked for the magic bullet that would solve all the world's ills and maybe Voltaire, in his incredible brilliance, DID put the answer in his book. You see, in the end, Candide marries Cunégonde and, along with his friends, they settle on a small farm and become co-op farmers. So, BOOM, the lightbulb went on in my head today and I believe that's one solution to our broken and sick society. We could live together in small groups, farm together, and lead a more simplistic life. This also ties in with Daniel Quinn's idea of the "Leavers," who are people outside the dominant culture, and who are living sustainably.

I now see this as a dream for myself and the world, where we turn our yards into gardens and focus on relationships and outdoor activities instead of the hell-world that we have created for ourselves. You know, the world that puts us on antidepressants, alcohol, and makes us obese, or even makes us commit suicide. Candide got to see that the world isn't so pretty outside the castle walls.

Religion

So, where was God during the Lisbon earthquake or when the sugar plantation slave was getting his hand and leg chopped off? Voltaire was a deist, who believed that God set the world in motion and then left us to our fate. And despite the Christian Right's efforts to rewrite history, several of our main founding fathers were deists too, including John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin. It's even believed that George Washington was more of a deist than an Anglican, based on his refusal to receive communion during his adult life.

Now, here we are today and the religious leaders can't seem to make up their minds about the coronavirus. I've heard some religious people say it's punishment for pornography and fornication, and another pastor said God is using it to teach us about community. Still other religious folks say that it's "pestilence" and a sign of the Tribulation. If it is a warning sign about the end times, why couldn't God have just called the Pope instead? Rather, he is primarily allowing the elderly to die, and these are some of his biggest supporters. It doesn't make a lick of sense to me and I don't buy the "God works in mysterious ways" crap. The sad thing is that after the "shelter in place" order is lifted, people will return to their churches and continue singing about how wonderful God is.

According to Barna, a research group that studies religious and cultural trends, about 3,500 people in the U.S. leave their church every day, and nine churches close down per day. This doesn't make me happy; it makes me somber. If American churches could reinvent themselves and actually follow the teachings of Christ for once, they could have a future role in our society.

Voltaire did take some serious jabs at Christianity, Islam, and Judaism during his lifetime, but he was a staunch defender of religious tolerance. He also believed that religion was necessary to maintain social order, since many people are incapable of reasoning and incapable of self-knowledge and self-control. So, from this perspective, religion fills the gap for those who are unable to think critically.

I know that Soviet Collectivism didn't go well after the Russian Revolution but maybe there is a better way to do it. Maybe Jesus and his disciples provided the model on how to do it right all along. I hope that during the virus lockdown time we all have time to reflect on how we really want to live because the way we were doing it before Covid 19 was a social and ecological disaster. Maybe it's time for the Second Enlightenment.

Note:
Other key figures in the Enlightenment include Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke. I encourage you to read up on these great thinkers.

Sources:
The Founding Fathers' Religious Wisdom, by Nicholas Rathod, Center for American Progress
The Founding Fathers, Deism, and Christianity, by David L. Holmes, Encyclopedia Britannica
Why People Walk Away From Church, by Dan Foster, Medium.com
Voltaire, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Photo: Dee Kay

I

Two million years ago I was living in the open grasslands of Kenya, making stone tools and eating zebras. Then, the next thing I know I'm a Druid priest living in Wales in 57 AD. and the Romans say they are disgusted by me. Okay, the magic and soothsaying are bad enough, but they are horrified about us sacrificing criminals and war prisoners. Okay, I get it. Our women served in the military, which really freaked the Roman soldiers out as well. We stood there, in the Menai Straits, ready to defend our country, and we were promptly massacred. Yes, I know, bad ending.

At 210 million years ago I was a morganucodon, and most people would insist I was a shrew. Little did I know that one day my ancestors would be humans, and fighting over parking spaces at a mall. My life was good. I just sat around and ate beetles all day, and had no idea that one day they'd be bringing drugs and long hair to America.

Now, the year is 2020 and I've reincarnated again to a 59-year-old American male with a weird sense of humor. The virus has come to reteach us the meaning of life and the Christians scream, "God answers prayers," when people recover. But the people piled high in refrigerated trucks, outside New York hospitals, are the examples of unanswered prayers. For I did pray for them, uttering deep into the night, and all alone.

Who Are You?

I want to poke holes in the bubbles, where everyone lives. I want to tear down the walls that divide us, but I can't. Sooner or later, something has to give. We can't go on like this. There are minds out there that won't open. I'm suppose to talk about life, and all I see is death and strife.

I look into the eyes of people who cannot see and I listen to their cries. But they don't listen to what I have to say. I only ask how we can keep living in a constant state of crises and conflict. If something doesn't change we will crack.

The ignorance betrays the weakness and the pride covers up the sickness. I see a world of zombies who cry into the night. We won't be here forever, and I try to be the voice of reason and I scream, "How can we end this?" But it just goes on and on.

The pride needs to go, and so do the weapons and defenses. We must be humble, like the example set by Jesus. We must learn to listen to see the other side, for once. No one owns "the one right way." We must relearn how we think.

The Transformation

Maybe the "school of hard knocks" is the only way we can learn, but the Spanish Flu and Black Death taught us little, other than to avoid the sick and dying. So, we leave them to die alone, lest we join them.

It all may seen unfair, but life is all about struggle. The idea is to climb Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. But I am stuck at level one and stay in basic survival mode. My greatest concerns are food, shelter, and heat. There was a time when I was near the top of Maslow's pyramid, which is self-actualization. That's the level of enlightened maturity where we have reached our goals, accept ourselves, and are able to self-assess in a realistic and positive way. But life had different things in mind, and I went back to the bottom. But at the bottom I am grateful for every meal I have and I'm thankful every time the furnace turns on because if it breaks I can't afford to fix it.

So, you're telling me I'm suppose to learn something from this? I'm a shrew, an East African plains ape, and a Druid priest, all rolled into one. What am I suppose to learn? I have only learned that we are a part of this world and not above it. I learned that to live a good life is to respect nature, wildlife, and each other. If you save the life of an insect that means far more to me than the value of your car. Those who do harm to this world are my enemies. Trump has rolled back protections on the environment and wildlife so that rich corporations can get richer. He is my greatest enemy of all, and when people say Trump is "anointed by God" I question that. And I question the people who say it.

If there is a "transformation" in my life, I can only say that it's a renewed appreciation for the little things — the taste of food, the smells of nature, flowers, and trees. I won't spend any more time listening to a pastor give their "do more, give more" sermons. I am now free.

I have fallen in love enough times to know that love is vain. It's an illusion because what we love is what we want to love, and not who the other person is. And we mirror who we are and what we want on others, until we become lost in our own delusions.

Humanity should have booted religion when we invented science in the 1450s. But we were too much in love with the things we thought gave us comfort. We went through the Renaissance and then the Enlightenment while still clinging to the imaginary voices in our heads. The great thinkers of the Enlightenment taught us about deism, where God exists, but doesn't actually interact supernaturally with the universe. So what's the point?

When I was doing landscaping yesterday I came across a perfectly smooth and oval rock. Now, if God were to have made the entire world in a day He would have had to consciously plan for that one little rock to be in that one patch of ground, and in that shape. He would have had to think out every rock before doing his famous genie blink. The Real Christians believe that God put the rock there, and for denying that I am an apostate, heretic, and scoffer. But I know that the rock became smooth from hundreds of years of sitting in a creek bed, and years of water running over it, to make it smooth. And how it ended up hundreds of feet from the nearest creek, I do not know. I will guess that some boys found it in the 1930s while playing in the creek, and they dropped it there. And that is it.

What's Next From Here

I wake up every morning in a daze. Am I depressed, scared, or just trying to suppress rage? My insurance company provides free video counseling, and the Indian woman on the screen tells me I'm okay. But the demons inside me disagree, and they constantly obliterate me, disintegrate me, and annihilate me. I want to break down, but there's no one around to care. Falling in love now means falling apart.

So, I get out of bed and join the rat race. Obviously I must change things because there's something I must be missing. I tell everyone I'm "great," because I know no one really cares. It's my last sardonic sarcasm as I pilot my sinking ship. I want to feel pain just so that I can feel again.

You tell me to pray to a God that even you don't believe in because if you did you would actually follow his teachings. You tell me to find truth in the lost and found. And as the bodies pile up I can only ask, where is your God now?

Inspired by the songs "Right Now," from Fire from the Gods, with lyric writers Erik Ron, Richard Markus Wicander, and Akil Jelani Channer; and from the song "Popular Monster," from Falling in Reverse, and lyric writer Ronald Radke.

Source:
The Death of the Druids, Phil Carradice, BBC


  Photo: Jakob Owens

Learning To Love Again

Three years ago I started fostering dogs and have had five wonderful pets live at my house. Some stayed for a night or two and others stayed for a couple of months. I even adopted my first foster, a sweet "brindle" dog named Lucky.  Last fall I got my latest foster dog named Baby. Baby was the runt of a litter of 12, and thus her name "Baby."

In the early part of her life she was sickly and barely survived. And once rescued from the side of a road she spent four months in a shelter, and had to fight other dogs for a piece of bread. She may have suffered abuse in the early part of her life because she was cautious of humans, although she's doing much better now. It took three weeks before I earned her trust, but once I did she has become very loyal and loving.

When I look into her eyes I see a special soul. Animals are far more intelligent than humans give them credit for, and dogs are especially tuned into humans. Their brains are only half the size of ours and they don't have a language module, but they understand sounds, voice tones, and facial expressions. Baby is particularly intelligent and reads my moods and emotions like a book. She's a brilliant animal.

Baby spent four months in a tent.

The thing is, animals have feelings too. Baby not only needs food, warmth, and shelter, but also love, stability, and a sense of security. She is all alone in this world and depends on me and the others who love her, for her survival. For some reason I can really relate to Baby — I'm all alone too. Together, we get through this crazy life, day-by-day.

Somewhere in the insanity of this world, and my divorce, and in all my heartaches and heartbreaks, I forgot how to love. I am thankful that Baby is teaching me to feel again. See, love is about compassion and empathy. It's about understanding another living being and caring for it. It's not about your needs any more, it's about their needs. 

I know I catch a lot of crap for being a freethinker, and just this week I've been called a "jerk" and a "loser." But that's okay, because I'm at the age where I'm ready to take hits for stating what I believe. And I will say this: The harm we've done to the animals in this world is unethical and immoral. We've burnt enough carbon to alter the Earth's atmosphere, causing droughts and wildfires that now kill animals by the billions. We have no right.

Throughout her early life, Baby was always
at the bottom of the pile. I feel the same way.

Baby is a hound mix. Ten thousand years ago people in North Africa bred the hounds from Grey Wolves and used them to help hunt bovines. But then one day someone got an idea and said, "Hey, why don't we just selectively breed the bovines into cows and keep them in herds. That way we don't have to hunt anymore." It was a disastrous idea because we humans got lazy and fat, and the bovines got lazy and fat, and we ate their fat and got fatter.

Of course, if you're a Young Earth Creationist you only believe that the Earth is 6,000 years old, and you think that what I'm saying is poppycock. So, in that case, we can just say that God made "dog" and "cow" on the Sixth Day, and enough of that. Let's move on.

In her early life, Baby required a lot of medical treatment.

Baby loves to chew everything she can, and she doesn't like neighbors very much, so keeping her has been a wild ride. But every day I love and appreciate her more. She fits in well with my other two dogs, but not so well with the cat.

When I call her to come in from the backyard, she curls up on the ground and I have to get her. But when I say "get in the car," she gets super excited and shoots to the back car seat like a rocket, almost knocking me over. That's because she LOVES going to the park, and seeing her mama, Merve.

I know I've gotten jaded and cynical over the years, and I keep fighting that. American politics literally suck the life out of me, and I'm still recovering from losing a job I loved after 26 years. I just go through life as a lost soul. I appreciate Baby giving me some focus and I thank her for allowing me to do some good in this world. Hunger and thirst are horrible pains and it grieves me to think of every stray dog in the world that needs the basics of life, and not to mention protection from so many cruel and heartless human beings. I wish I could help every dog. The empathy and pain I have for them is strong.

We need to spay and neuter our pets, and if you can't adopt a rescue animal, then please donate to an organization that rescues and shelters these wonderful animals. They truly are man and woman's best friend. And for gosh sakes, don't go buying a bred dog when there are so many hundreds of shelter dogs that need homes.

The Meaning of Life

As I was walking through the forest yesterday it suddenly occurred to me why I love being in the wilderness. It's because nature doesn't lie. When we are in civilization we are bombarded with political, economic, and religious lies. So many facts are either twisted or blatantly false. But when I see a creek winding through a pathway of rocks I know it took millions of years for that formation to form. No one can tell me different. When I observe the lichen or smell the fresh soil I know it's truly real. I feel the moistness of the dirt in my hand and when I look closely I see that it's full of both dead and living organic material. As I hold the cold dirt and smell it, and feel it, I know that I'm alive.

Iron

But it wasn't always that way. In the early days following the Big Bang there were only gases, mainly hydrogen and helium. Stars formed and eventually exploded, and in the incredible heat of supernovas the heavy metals formed.

Our solar system is in the Milky Way galaxy, which is part of a cluster called the Local Group that holds 54 galaxies. In turn, our group is part of the Lanaika supercluster, made up of about 100,000 galaxies. There are an estimated 10 million superclusters in the universe. These clusters are like swarms of lightning bugs, twirling around and spinning, and held together by gravity. The supercluster is a big place, measuring about 500 million lightyears across. Just our own local cluster is 10 million lightyears wide.

The point being is that being in this swarm, and in this giant gravitational dance, causes galaxies to pull together and collide. The resulting collision may seem catastrophic, but it's beautiful in that it's one of two ways that new stars are created. During the collision, the interstellar gases mix and are set on fire with the result of new star formations.

As stars explode and reconstitute into new stars their furnaces create the heavier metals on the Periodic Table. Iron is significant because none of us could live without it. It's the hemoglobin in our blood that transports the oxygen in our bodies and allows us to live. And inside the hemoglobin molecule is an iron atom that is able to bind with and carry the oxygen.

Oxygen

And what about the oxygen? At 3 billion years go there was little oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere. We still had the same amount of nitrogen, but most of our atmosphere was made up of carbon dioxide. Hardly anything could live in those days except single celled organisms that mostly existed inside stromatolites. But then came a miracle — an organism formed that could use the energy of the sun to convert CO2 into oxygen. These organisms, called cyanobacteria, figured out photosynthesis and as these lifeforms filled the oceans our atmosphere slowly filled up with oxygen. As the oxygen rose into the upper atmosphere it was hit with radiation from the sun and formed ozone.

The creation of the ozone layer opened the way for higher lifeforms to develop and the geological record shows an explosion of life 600 million years ago, right after the ozone layer formed. Known as the Cambrian Explosion it was during this time that our oceans filled up with a massive array of sea life. What happened to those little cyanobacteria creatures that gave us life? They now live in plants as chloroplasts and contribute to a plant's photosynthesis.

Now think of those little cyanobacterias that faithfully oxygenated our planet. The little fellows were born, put a little O2 in the atmosphere, and then died. They had no idea that they were paving the way for billions of other animals to develop and live after them. They put some true goodness into our world.

Consciousness

One of the greatest mysteries of life is consciousness. No one really understands it, or why we even have it. But we can all agree that it's a great gift, but with it comes great responsibility. We can discern right from wrong and good from bad. It's incumbent upon each of us to use our consciousness for good. We can do this by doing the things that matter, like helping animals, each other, and taking care of the Earth. I assure you, NOTHING ELSE matters.

The capitalists and Ayn Rand tell us that we should give entrepreneurs free rein so that they can create the great inventions and innovations that make our lives better. I saw a video of a young girl, inspired by Ayn Rand's book, who wanted to cure cancer. Yet, entrepreneurs before her invented chemicals that do good things, yet created new types of cancer. This is a personal issue for me because my dad died from a cancer caused by a now outlawed herbicide.

I'm sure the guy who invented asbestos insulation thought he was doing a great thing for humanity, until it was realized that he simply gave thousands of people cancer. And then there was the agricultural revolution where scientists thought they would end world hunger. While their advanced farming techniques, machinery, and chemicals vastly improved farm output all that did was explode the world's population, and we still have 815 million undernourished people in the world.

What we need to do is determine what is real good in the world and and we need to better understand the unintended consequences of our technological contributions. The inventor of the combustion engine made life more convenient, but now we are filling the atmosphere up with CO2, and all the work of those cyanobacteria is going down the drain. Our human population explosion and massive resource consumption has caused a massive species extinction. We are exploding our species at the cost of millions of other species. We've destabilized our weather, which has led to droughts and wildfires, which have murdered billions of other animals. So, again, I say when you do good, do the good that really matters. Don't make starving children in Africa pray before you feed them, damnit, just FEED THEM.

Consciousness is awareness and one of our big advantages as humans is we learn from and benefit from all the people who lived before us and can take what they learned to the next level. In one way that's called the technology explosion, which may not turn out so great. What I'm really talking about is our social and internal growth. We now have laws to protect animals, which is a major step forward. Years ago it was a big step just to have laws that protected women, but we have them now. It's progress.

You have one life to live and when you are doing the real good you may not know who you are influencing or how your actions contribute to the overall good in the world. But while unintended consequences can go terribly bad, they can also result in exceptional good. We all should live a life that adds new songs and new colors to the world. We should provide a stepping stone that allows those after us to move higher up. We will likely never see the results of our good deeds, but in some small way we are moving the flow of our cultural stream in a better direction. You can serve on five committees at your church, you can be rich and have a nice house, but I assure you that the only thing that matters in this life is the selfless good that you contribute to our world. That is the meaning of life.

A thanks to Tom Chi and his TED talk for his inspiration and allowing me to put more of the puzzle together. This blog post is inspired by and dedicated to him, and I borrowed several of his concepts.

Primary Sources:
Everything is Connected — Here's How, by Tom Chi, TedxTaipei
What Sparked the Cambrian Explosion, Douglas Fox, Nature

  Top Photo: Jon Flobrant Bottom Photo: Jake Thacker

Ronald Reagan, Sustainability, and Happiness

Dear Ronald Reagan,

Yeah, what a great job you did. You created a great model for the Republican Party: Cut taxes, cut social programs, beef up the military, and make people feel good about themselves. Once the economy is revved from the tax breaks and deregulation you brag about it and get yourself and other Republicans reelected.

Except that the federal deficit is soaring each month and you're driving your country deeper into debt. And removing regulations harms the environment and the working class. But the deficit is an abstract that most Americans don't understand or care about. What everyone cares about is that they are enjoying prosperity NOW. Thanks, Reagan, for harming our country and setting a bad precedent for future Republican presidents.

I'm not sure why so many highways and airports are named after you, but I guess it's because you made people feel good. And now, 30 years later, I'm still waiting for that trickle-down wealth you talked about to trickle down to me. What really happened is that the 1 percenters kept it to buy more second homes and yachts, while the working class struggles to pay their bills.

Introspection

My epiphany for the week is that facts don't matter (even though they really do). You can bury people in facts but they will still believe what they want to believe because it's comfortable for them.

I'm amazed by the people who believe the Earth is flat. They will go to great lengths to justify their belief and nothing can change their mind. Are they just trying to attract attention? Do they really believe the absurdity?

Religion is no different. There is a website that lists the 1,000 gods invented by men, yet Western Civilization decided to choose some god invented by Middle Eastern goat herders 3,200 years ago. A massive amount of money, time, and resources are wasted on this god at a time when we all could be working on environmental sustainability. Instead of elaborate Christmas Eve musicals, that time and energy could be better spent planting trees.

Roadmap

I'd love to find a web site that teaches us all how to live a better life. Just because you inject "the Lord told me" into every other sentence doesn't impress me at all. What impresses me are the people who recycle, plant urban gardens, and take reusable bags to the grocery store.

Trying to live a sustainable life is difficult for most of us because the economy has been engineered for most of us to exist at the subsistence level. We are just struggling to pay our bills and many of us don't have much time to do volunteer work.

But here's the path I try to follow:

• Recycle, use reusable shopping bags.
• Live a simple lifestyle.
• Minimize driving and meat intake.
• Repair things instead of buying more junk. 

For the people who feel the need to drive luxury cars and horde wealth, screw you all. I have no respect for you. Except if you need the luxury car for your job, like to impress your real estate clients, okay, I grant an exception.

In addition to having good personal habits, I try to help in two other ways:

• Volunteer for good causes that help other people, animals, or the Earth. For instance, I do volunteer work for the Sierra Club, foster dogs, and financially support my three favorite organizations — Sierra Club, Population Connection, and Planned Parenthood. I feel these three organizations do the most good with my limited dollars.
• Engage in advocacy. This is best done by emailing and calling politicians and government agencies on the local, state, and national levels. I subscribe to email lists that let me know when important legislation is coming up and who to contact.

The other thing I try to do is be a good person and a peacemaker. If I am perceived as "meek" or "weak" for doing this, then so be it. I'm not going to change who I am.

Visionaries

My two favorite books are "Ishmael" and "The Story of B," both written by the late Daniel Quinn. One of my favorite quotes from "The Story of B" is: 

"If the world is to be saved, it will be saved by people with changed minds, people with a new vision."

When I see middle aged white men attacking Greta Thunberg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez I know these two visionaries are on the right path. I guarantee you that anything a bunch of old, overweight white men resist has to be good. And if I see anyone attacking these women on social media, I unfollow them immediately. Why? Because big white dudes shouldn't be attacking young women, especially when they are trying to save our earth. So, dudes, go back to your Fox News shows and potato chips, and leave the good people alone. I know you think everything is "just right" in our world, but it is not.

Happiness

Before there were Hebrews there was the city-state of Canaan, and, honestly, I'm telling you, they are the ones who invented your god. So when you sing hymns to Yahweh from your tattered green hymnal book, remember that he doesn't really care because he doesn't exist. You are singing to the legacy of goat herders who spent a lot of time gazing at stars and needed something to worship.

To those of you who worship money, I tell you that it won't buy happiness. Rich people are just as jacked up on antidepressants and drugs as the rest of us. The wealthy folks can just afford the better drugs without having to steal, although they typically steal in different ways.

But, getting to the point, happiness for me comes from doing the right thing and being with the right people. I am told that happiness must come from within, which is partly true. But when I look my grateful foster dog in the eye or when I'm with a woman who completes me and energizes me, then I am truly happy. Happiness really is a warm puppy. And happiness is being at peace with yourself, and being fulfilled and content. Happiness is a form of completion.

Conclusion

Okay, Ronald Reagan, I actually did like you and enjoyed your thoughtful speeches. Even on your worst day you were a trillion times better than the current buffoon we have in office. You had an impressive record of activism and public service before you became U.S. president. You were extremely qualified for the position and even though you financially torpedoed the country you claimed to have loved, and even though you took credit for ending the Cold War (and thus stealing the credit from Mikhail Gorbachev) I still think you were a great leader. You just simply led us in the wrong direction.

  Photo: Nghia Le

Something From Nothing

I find that debating people is hopeless because everyone has their mind made up on their positions and rather than being openminded, people just defend their viewpoint. To save society at this critical time we all need to listen to the other side and use critical thinking skills.

When in a debate I usually don't think of a good response until after the fact, which at least makes me sharper for the next debate. But it's no use because if I get a few "zingers" in that only makes the other person more defensive and angry. PEOPLE DON'T WANT THEIR MINDS CHANGED. They like holding on to their stories, whatever they may be.

So, I don't really know what to do other than to listen and make a few points in the hopes that I am at least putting cracks in their walls. People don't like it when I disagree with them. They are frustrated when I don't swallow the dogma and regurgitate the script of southern white America. Please forgive me when I question, it's just that we are facing so much social and environmental peril right now that I feel like I must stick my neck out a little.

Before the Big Bang

Last week I talked about our evolution leading up to the Big Bang, which cosmologists are now able to date to 13.8 billions years ago. Just a few million years after this event the chemical building blocks of life started to form, which eventually led to us.

Now, to review from my past posts, we are mostly made up of hydrogen, which is the basic element of the Universe. In the super-heated furnaces of dying stars more complex elements are formed and when those stars explode they blast their dust everywhere. So, anything in our body more complex than hydrogen was made by a star. We are, indeed, stardust and no magician made us from a handful of dirt.

Until recently the belief was that before the singularity, where the Big Bang happened, there was simply no time or space. However, newer theories suggest otherwise. A more recent theory states that there is no such thing as nothingness, but rather, between the protons, and even between the quarks, there is open space where particles come and go out of existence. So, there never was nothing and at the time of the Big Bang that "something" apparently just changed form.

The point being is that there is no need for a creator or fairy tales to explain our creation. Physicists and cosmologists are slowly unraveling the mysteries of the Universe. To prove that a God triggered the Big Bang there is no way to create an experiment or apply math. If you really want to prove a mystery, capture some dark matter because no one really has. Getting some in a box would take us to the next level in understanding the Universe.

To learn more on this topic I recommend you study the works of theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss. His book, A Universe From Nothing, goes into more detail about the Big Bang or you can catch some of his lectures on YouTube.

Who Am I

As I try to figure out the mysteries of life and the Universe, I've also been trying to figure myself out more. In the human brain there are places that are similar to the deepest parts of the ocean — they are areas that hold great mysteries and remain unexplored. Even at age 59 I'm still trying to understand myself. For instance, sometimes I think I subconsciously sabotage my romantic relationships and I'm not sure why. The biggest problem I see is that people are unwilling to acknowledge their flaws. Their behaviors are always "right" and it's always the other person who does things "wrong." It would be helpful if we all did some serious introspection and learned to acknowledge the parts of us we don't like. Self-improvement and understanding needs to be an ongoing part of our life journey.

Rouge Leaders

On another topic I can't express enough my loathing and disdain for the current president. The man is a walking train wreck. But then I see the rise of these near-autocrat, right-wing politicians around the world. What's going on?

As I mentioned a few blog posts ago, race has been a main driver in American politics for 150 years. Now, we have immigration, and the fear it creates, to shape politics.

The irony is that there is a perpetual loop in place where citizens in wealthier nations panic when they see all the "different" people flooding their country. That's when they elect extremist leaders who promise to take action against immigrants. These wealthy countries produce more than their fair share of carbon, which affects the weather and causes droughts, famines, and natural disasters. These events, in turn, trigger human emigration as desperate people, who may have lost their farm or home, struggle to survive. It's a really screwed up situation and will only get worse as sea levels rise and more neighborhoods simply go underwater. Evangelicals will scream that God is punishing us for gay marriage and abortion, but the only thing that matters is physics. More carbon in the atmosphere means a greater greenhouse effect. So you can bitch about Al Gore flying around in a private jet but the real problem begins with the millions of American cars that are spewing out CO2 every day. Pray about that all you want.

But, anyway, to quote Mr. Krauss:

Unfortunately, the politics of fear that is promoting the rise of autocratic politicians is producing policies that are likely making [environmental] problems far worse. It is hard to see how this vicious cycle will easily end.  

Over the years I've come to view both religion and metaphysics as not only escapism but a serious danger to the world. In addition to serving as a distraction from the serious problems we face, religion also promotes fantasy thinking in other parts of life as well. The end result is that we have a society disconnected from reality. Where I live in the Atlanta, Georgia suburbs there are churches EVERYWHERE. Now, if people actually followed the teachings of Jesus we'd easily have a sustainable world. Jesus lived a simple lifestyle, spoke against the evils of wealth, and promoted nonviolence. The American Christian is NOTHING like the Jesus presented in the four Gospels. It's all a charade, a sham, and a joke. It's weird that religion and greedy corporations are speeding up the end of humanity, but, if you study cosmology you will find that the Universe is full of weirdness. So, I guess it's no big deal. But it is a big deal because of all the other lifeforms we are killing along with us. If I sound a little angry at religion, well, yeah, I am.


Additional Reading: Nuclear Synthesis (written in easy-to-understand English)

Photo: A. L.