Jewish Atheist

How many died in the Holocaust, in every pogrom and act of mayhem over the centuries, because rabbis kept telling Jews to leave it in God’s hands?

Winston Churchill advised reading books of quotes. Emerson hated quotes: “Tell me want you know.” Well, sometimes what we know can come from the benefit of other people’s observations or experience.

I hope Justice-elect Kagan appreciates how, like Palin plucked from deserved obscurity, she’s in the right place at the right time. That she has not shown the humility to recuse herself on Day One implies an arrogance and/or an ignorance that I don’t want to see in a Supreme Court justice.

It’s not money that’s the root of all evil. The root of all evil is the human mind and the horrendous behavioral decisions it’s capable of making. The fertilizer for that evil is bullshit: the invitation to turn off your thinking mind and let someone else decide how you should live.

Bullshit is the music of mindless conformity. Without bullshit, we would not have governments of psychotics taking over countries and leading them to ruin. Without bullshit, we would not have centuries of religious atrocities, which continue to this day. Without bullshit, we would not have our frantic hyper-consumptive (and probably unsustainable) culture.

Replace the pronoun with another word which is appropriate in context; recast the sentence with the plural or with I, you, or we; enough already with she and smug, self-conscious political correctness. Your pronoun usage is not a sign of your enlightenment. Be a little creative and avoid the problem.

The magician is only a little more clever than you; schools don’t do enough to teach critical thinking; too many are afraid to confront the Bible as fantasy; and too few students get a physics teacher who urges them to examine the evidence before they conclude that a house is haunted.

Perhaps New Age sewage is an innocuous, de-fanged, relentlessly ecumenical (you believe my BS and I’ll believe yours) yet non-violent alternative to the barbaric Abrahamic faiths, perhaps a stepping stone to the eventual marginalization or abandonment of religion. Or maybe it’s a crutch. Religious beliefs get retained for particular reasons. Reincarnation is a powerful antidote to fear of death. As for memories, if the mind retains them, why not the body?

Dumbth has progressed since 1989. There’s creeping dumbth as well: an ever-fresh supply of new conspiracy theories, Obama’s a Muslim, aliens, etc. And there’s a thick foundation level of Basic Dumbth (ignorance cultivated in the soil of religion, militarism, politics, and advertising).

There’s no answer as to how best to spend your life. For now, I invite you to examine your use of the phrase ”waste time.” You probably use it every day. What does your usage tell you about how you think you should spend your life? Each day, each moment wasted…can never be regained. Maybe some changes are in order. Maybe you’re living someone else’s version of your life.

Soon many Jews will be condemned to the tedious, rigidly ritualistic Seders commemorating events that didn’t happen, engineered by a deity that’s nothing but a bully with superpowers. They will be expected to pretend that they respect this nonsense, even participate in it (I always passed on the reading).