Friday, December 7, 2012

Religion, Transferrence and Projection

The adoption of atheism occurs naturally from gaining knowledge about the universe, some of the most potent knowledge is not only through the study of evolutionary biology and anthropology, but also through studies relating to human behavior, such as neurology, psychology, psychiatry, etc.

When we become too old or too large to be carried and coddled by our parents like we were when we were infants and toddlers, an emotional deficit is created in our brains, and we habitually find a solution that will stimulate an appropriate amount of dopamine to make up the difference. It's easy to create fictional parents and convince ourselves that these fictional parents will always love and protect us forever and ever, in the absence or simply the small distance of our real parents.

Institutions long ago, I mean thousands of years ago, figured out how to capitalize on Transferrence. They organized a strategy that would cause you to transfer to their care, the rituals and symbols necessary to trigger your infantile emotional responses, thus making you dependent upon them for emotional well-being.

These institutions also capitalized on the human tendency for Projection. The use of projection is instrumental to the vilification of anyone not a close-knit member to your group. One example is the War on Christmas. Christians claim it's their holiday, when in fact, the holiday is really the celebration of the coming longer days that precede Spring, "Dies Natalis Solis Invicti," meaning "the birthday of the unconquered sun." The Christians took over the holiday and called it Christmas. They claimed that Christ was born around that time, which they can't prove definitively happened at that time, if at all.

It's the same situation with Easter which marks the Spring Equinox. Most Christian holidays simply coincide on important seasonal changes that affect everyone else too, but they have co-opted the holidays and continue to attempt to socially exclude others by placing their nativity scenes on government property, and complaining about shopping centers that won't decorate with Christian symbols and phrases like "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays."


Wednesday, December 5, 2012

The Lazy Brain

Qualifications for atheism are going to get much more strict, because there are too many self-proclaimed atheists out there who have not gained control over their own operant conditioning. Atheism requires a complete adoption of the scientific method of inquiry. You must question your own first impressions of everything around you. Learn the fallacies of argumentation and the effects of groupthink.

The denial of a deity is only the first step. You must cleanse your mind of lazy brain habits associated with countless generations of religious cultural influence. Question everything, not just the supernatural because everything we understand today has been developed in the presence of religion, even if it appears to be secular.

The lazy brain slips under the spell of culturally conditioned assumptions, foregone conclusions, first impressions, the false impression of being correct because one is among many like-minded individuals, and many commercially engineered cognitive dysfunctions.

There is a phase of transition to atheism where we discuss how our feelings changed from belief to non-belief. There are some of us who never really believed at all, like myself who lacks the brain chemistry to feel anything "spiritual" because of chronic anxiety.

There are many people who are susceptible to high levels of dopamine in their brains which trigger "spirituality." I call it euphoria. If the feeling is attributed to an icon, a statue, a prayer, or some other ritual, the feeling becomes inexorably linked with the imagery. This is the basics of operant conditioning and is called superstition.

Any stimulus associated with a specific thing or situation can trigger your brain to jump to conclusions. Welcome to the world of mass marketing.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Cultural Seperatists

Human beings are all genetically one species, yet some seek to distinguish themselves as a separate group from other humans. They prefer to segment themselves into something called a "culture," a term that is altered in sound and meaning into "cult" when the separation becomes extreme isolation through fear and contempt for other humans.

Most cultures are separated by geography which altered the path of language development, as well as outward appearance which was likely altered by exposure to direct sunlight at various latitudes on the Earth's surface.

A culture has Groupthink. A tendency like a firing squad, to believe that responsibility for a decision rests on someone else, a sense of entitlement so extreme as to grant license for dishonesty toward others deemed outsiders, referring to them as "Infidels," "Heathen," "Gentiles," "Ghoyim," and numerous other terms intended to widen the emotional distance between one's own culture and others.

Within cultures, subculture of humanity develop who are alienated, disenfranchised, and ostracized from the dominant subculture because they are unable to or unwilling to meet arbitrary expectations set by the leadership of the prevailing subculture. Religion is born. Calling themselves orthodox, moderate, progressive, evangelical, born-again, or following some ancient rebel or philosopher, to distinguish themselves from the rest of humanity.

Herein lies the difference between Judaism and Religion. Judaism is a culture that can be genetically traced all the way back to an actual ancient tribe, religion is a subculture. Christians, Unitarians and even some Atheists believe that Judaism is a religion, just like most religious people believe that Atheism is a religions instead of a philosophy grounded in pure evidence-based scientific reasoning.

Problems arise when cultures and subcultures operate to distinguish themselves further from the rest of humanity, seeking actual physical borders and resources they wish to share only with their own members. They compete by reproducing at unsustainable rates, ethnically cleansing their neighbors, lobbing explosives, keeping certain people from getting jobs or attending schools, and maintaining a threatening environment that reinforces the aforementioned methods of competition. A vicious cycle.

Whether or not a culture is grounded in history is irrelevant because culture is completely irrelevant. The secular path of atheism is a clean break from the mental and physical anguish of cultural and sub-cultural differences.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Politics in Atheism and The Machiavellianists

It seems that a lot of national secular organizations are feeling growth pains. Some bloggers are feeling jilted for losing their positions "above the fold" on some national secular websites; others are shocked that certain people were appointed to boards of directors who have a checkered blogging past because they were affiliated with extreme liberal or conservative political organizations.

The religious love this because they get to claim there is a "schism" developing in the atheist movement. There are certain groups that will attempt to distinguish themselves from the rest of us non-believers and still proclaim themselves as non-believers too, but this is really about the money. Ever since the beginning of tribal competition over resources, members become charismatic competitors with the original leaders of the group and decide to split off because they want to make their own money.

Pure atheism is simply the rejection of mysticism. Since the beginning of time, human behavior has been influenced by the presence of an invisible audience to such a degree that it seems to have become genetically ingrained and inherited, even in multiple generations of non-believers. I won't back up this statement with any evidence because my record of having my statements eventually come true through later discoveries is quite good, plus I really don't have the time right now to look into it. I'm confident the neuroscience is there.

It is the goal of atheism to rewire the brain to its maximum potential by eliminating false psycho-social controls and replace them with real-life reasoning. Here are such false psycho-social controls:

"Fait accompli" is the belief that your current existence is your "lot" in life, or that "this is the hand you were dealt, so wallow in the mire of your unsatisfactory existence." You must reject anyone who tells you "this is your lot in life so accept it." Never put the brakes on improving yourself.

"Karma:" You believe that someone who wronged you will get their "comeuppance" eventually or "what goes around-comes around." Someone told you not to actively seek justice because it will take care of itself. This is not true. You must seek justice immediately to condition or at least teach, those who wronged you from repeating the bad behavior.

"Spirits: The Invisible Audience:" You grew up with the idea that Santa Claus keeps a list of who is naughty or nice, angels abound overhead, and you are watched over by an omnipresent deity, but that idea doesn't last very long, so the idea of a "Hell" as a consequence for your actions motivates or demotivates your decisions throughout life. The Imaginary Audience is a psychological condition that may have been programmed by endless generations of religious indoctrination.

What is the political color of atheism? Science tells us that human behavior is purely selfish in nature. Ayn Rand who was an atheist, made the idea of Objectivism popular and this idea became the motivation behind the type of "Free market capitalism" we have today. Capitalists use Machiavellianism as a method of camouflage for their objectivist capitalist methods. Machiavellianism is evident by people who proclaim themselves to be obedient members of a religion, yet do not practice in their daily lives according to their religious teachings.

To be an atheist, one must be honest about scientific findings regarding human behavior, and not be lulled into a false sense of security by following the belief that everyone else fears Hell, because the Machiavellianists are apparently so religious and yet, so fearless of Hell that they will tell a crowd anything to gain favor.

In the old days of snail-mail and limited broadcast media, the Machiavellianists reigned supreme because they could go from town to town and tell separate crowds anything they wanted to hear, and adjust their messages for maximum votes, but not anymore. Unfortunately for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, There are too many fact-checkers.

Atheists can start out as Republicans or Democrats and can be fiscally conservative or liberal as far as science can carry their arguments. Eventually those labels will be shed and replaced by pragmatism. Social mores in atheism are only limited by the negative impacts on health or well-being of individuals or society.

You can be free to do what ever you want; use any substance you want; be free to not wear your motorcycle helmet or seat belt, only as long as you don't have the same insurance as me, or go to the same hospital I do, hurt anyone else, or involve anyone else in any activity without their fully informed consent or the consent of their guardians.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Blasphemy and Social Engineering

Are you offended by something I said? Well, I'm not the manager of your feelings. You own your feelings. If you are like most people, you choose how you react to any situation based on how you were taught to react, you are not inescapably destined to be offended by what anyone says. If someone could literally force you to feel a certain way against your will, they would be able to inflict physical pain by whispering in your ear.

There are rare cases where people have neuronal connections in their brains that allow them to physically feel visual stimulation, but not the pain of staring into the sun or listening up close to a jet engine. Some people experience physical sensations from seeing certain colors. But this topic is about how you learned to behave in response to the behavior of other people.

If you find any message, symbol, sign, emblem, adornment, etc., offensive enough to drive you and your group into a frenzy of protests and effigy burning, you should question why you feel that way about it. More importantly, you should ask yourself who taught you to feel that way and what is the real purpose behind making you feel offended by something that is completely harmless?

Then there is real hate speech. Hate speech is defined as any communication that targets individuals or groups for unwarranted social status degradation. First we must define what is warranted social status degradation. The only individual or group that deserves social degradation are those that willfully harm individuals, groups, cultures or the ecosystems wherein they reside, through the commission of deception, cruelty, or deprivation of resources.

Take Chic-fil-A and the Boy Scouts of America, for example. Chic-fil-A is against gay marriage and the Boy Scouts refuses membership to anyone gay. Their decisions are based on the belief that homosexuality is a choice. Both organizations endorse targeting gays for social status degradation by virtue of the methods by which they draw their conclusions.  The idea that homosexuality is a choice comes purely from conclusions based on misguided conjecture without any effort at scientific inquiry. Organizations that base their conclusions on conjecture and choose to discriminate based on those conclusions have no place in civilized society and must be removed.

All beliefs arrived at without supporting evidence or facts require faith. Faith is a word that denotes conjecture, therefore faith is for fools.

Monday, July 30, 2012

The website is being remodeled and a rant about public education

Yes, the website is being remodeled. I finally have the time to work on it. The main thing is to get you connected to other atheist organizations and to let you know that you are not alone in non-belief.

Just to say one is a skeptic if religion is probably worse than political partisanship. If you are a member of a political party, you may as well consider yourself a cult member unless you have made yourself aware of Groupthink and trained your mind to avoid its pitfalls. Any more there is no doubt as to the lack of proof of God. Opening any religious document to engage in debate with believers is a distraction from the real cause behind the mental state that sets up belief systems: History.

 As the Atheist Insurgency grows it becomes clear that religion is grounded in unverifiable history and our efforts must target all historical claims and not just those of the supernatural. There are also several questions gradually developing:

1. How does teaching history affect the way people behave towards one-another?
2. Does learning history make you feel inferior to other people?
3. Does learning how poorly your ancestors were treated cause you to be distracted by emotions that interfere with your education and social advancement?
4. Can you apply anything you learned from history, or was most of the history you learned just hero worship that summarized the achievements of other people?
5. Were the achievements of historical figures portrayed as too extraordinary to be attempted by you, or did you learn exactly how things got done in those periods?

Do you see the pattern? Is history education modeled after religious teachings? It's clear that economic theory is religious in nature because you cannot apply most economic theories to real life with Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. I tried but that's another conversation.

I'm outta here before I digress further.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Atheism and Unitarian spies.

I received a complaint from an atheist who occasionally visited the Abraham Lincoln Unitarian Universalist Congragation (ALUUC) in Springfield, Illinois. They were invited to a monthly meeting to what they apparently believed was an organization that was inclusive of all beliefs, but when they voiced their opinions about certain topics they were berated and criticized by ALUUC members.

It is a common misconception that atheists think they could be welcomed into a Unitarian Congregation because Unitarians promote themselves as being accepting of all faiths. The problem with atheism is that it has nothing to do with faith what-so-ever. One must have beliefs that are supported purely by faith and not facts or science to be accepted by any group that claims that it welcomes all religions or that claims to be tolerant of all religion.

Being an atheist means renouncing any claim or belief that is supported by faith alone. An atheist must hold beliefs that are supported only by facts and pure scientific inquiry. Unitarians are busily competing with Bahai to attract believers who are mostly on-the-fence about which faith to pursue. Note to believers: You should probably go to the church where the most powerful political members of your community attend, and it won't be either Unitarian or Bahai, it will most likely be Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist or whatever.

There has recently been Unitarian infiltration of atheist groups. The Unitarians are still religious folks, they are just not as fearful of atheists as the more fundamentally religious, but they are much more dangerous as they have connections to the fundamentalists. Get them out of your groups. They are spies.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Awkward silence or boring stories

After several minutes of sitting quietly with someone at work yesterday, he commented that he didn't say much because he was shy and would rather listen that talk. He said "My father told me I wouldn't learn anything new if I talked more than I listened."

It wasn't until this afternoon that I realized that I really wasn't shy, I just have no tolerance for useless information. But the trick is deciding what information is useless. I often find myself listening to long detailed stories about how someone almost hit a deer on the highway, or how a storm tossed around the plastic furniture on their back patio. I cannot imagine what expression those people saw crawling over my face. I'm sure if they knew how I felt, they would probably never speak to me again.

I must remind myself why they are telling me their stories. It has nothing to do with the subject at hand and everything to do with sharing the emotional experience. An exchange is taking place in the expression and feedback that culminates in an pseudo-shared experience that creates a feeling of affiliation and validation.

These are some of the key tools of bonding that take place in groups. If main-stream religion mastered this we would all be worshiping something, but it's no different than regularly repeating ritual Initiations in fraternities, sororities, gangs, clubs, religions, or other group types. The compulsion toward worship is rewarded by feeling a little less lonely for a while. The brilliance of religion is that they mask this emotional outcome under the guise of "feeling the spirit of the Lord."

Very lonely people tend to tell very boring stories. I'm very lonely here in the Midwest where there are very few atheists, and there are very few people here who want to talk about real, serious issues. They are content to create drama among their tiny social circles, all the while being robbed and enslaved by those at the top.



Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Natural selection, medicine and predators

The Death of Socrates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Socrates 
Some humans claim to believe in an afterlife yet they pursue extreme measures to prevent access to what they claim is an eternally blissful existence after death. Some humans believe that government should be smaller and shouldn't interfere in the private decisions of individuals or their families. There are humans who are against big government, but at the same time want government to interfere with the private health related decisions of individuals and families.

There are some humans who believe that preventing pregnancy through contraception is unnatural, but at the same time pursue the artificial preservation of the appearance of life in a human who is unable to independently move, speak or contribute to one's own survival.(1)

Nature has nothing what-so-ever to do with medicine. Medicine is inherently unnatural because nature relies on continuous trial and error through genetic mutation, to determine the most effective and efficient form of life to reach the top of the food chain.

Life without death is unnatural. Death is alleged by some humans to be a transformational passage to another existence, but the only evidence of contribution after death left behind by a corpse is the return to the earth of accumulated nutrients, and the collected messages communicated to the remaining living who can still act upon the recorded wishes of the deceased.

The energy expended by the pursuit of medical cures for diseases and methods of correcting deformities is considered a grand pursuit within a herd of animals that slows down for its weakest members, leaving the entire herd, including the strongest members, vulnerable to attack by other predators, in this case other humans.

The "grand pursuit" is the creation and preservation of life at all costs. In the short term of a single generation, this appears to be the respectable thing to do, after all, people don't usually bother to consider their environment beyond their living children and grandchildren. Your great grandchildren will have no fuel to sustain their lives because there will be far too many of them, and not enough resources.

The human predators know this, so they are using economic models to enrich themselves. They don't follow the rules they make for you, they only need for you to believe they do. They can hide from you in their gated communities.

The human predators are those who promote overpopulation of humans by denying access to birth control. Human predators claim to be against big government, but when elected, create laws that allow the government to interfere in private health care decisions. Human predators deregulate food safety inspections so more people become sick and are left with medical bills that cannot be paid off in one lifetime. Human predators demand that people on life-support be kept sustained, perhaps in agony, however partially, by machines until the most money possible can be drained away.

No one wants to die, but no one wants to wither away in agonizing pain, immobilized in a pool of their own waste, developing painful bed sores, slowly drowning as their lungs fill with fluid, watching as their life-long hard-earned savings disappears overnight, and their children lose everything and go into debt taking care of them.

So why do the human predators deny birth control and physician assisted suicide? (2) Because there's too much damn money to be made! Praise the Lord!"