After traveling across the country and reading all sorts of silly admonitions on posted signs about how belief is the answer to eternal life and the threat of eternal regret and pain if you reject the warning will be your eternal destiny, I got to thinking why the Muslim religion is growing. If a threat of eternal damnation is effective in gaining a following, think how much more effective a threat on your life will enhance that threat. It has been a con of the ages to tell people they will suffer eternally if they don’t believe a certain way and since there was no way to show the claim was bogus many succumbed to the threat and spend most of their lives in a state of fear of the coming death and judgement. Instead of questioning this claim of eternal damnation they simply fell for the con and didn’t want to take a chance that indeed it might be true. The fact is it could never be true and there are many reasons that can verify this.
The first proof is that it is not necessary to prove that which is only contended. This is why pink elephants or elves need no refutation. Furthermore, who ever came up with the idea that belief is sufficient to make something occur? You can believe whatever you want to but that doesn’t make your belief a reality. Your mind is not an adjustor of reality but an identifier of what is. Reading or listening to someone else tell you what you must think is only a second hand way of trying to understand what is. Yet there are millions who fall for this con game every day and often live by it their whole lives. Because of this propensity to believe the dictatorial fanatics the game continues and the logical extension is the utilization of both eternal and day to day terror threats. This is why Islam is a force in today’s world. The Islamic fanatics are posing a threat not only in the invented afterlife but in the real world on a daily basis. It is not enough for the Muslim fanatics to simply claim Allah will punish you but also they claim you will lose your life if you do not succumb to their dictates. This nonsense will not go away as long as intimidation is successful. When the students and thinkers within the Muslim world question the role of faith and reject it as a way of understanding the world this foolishness will cease. As long as the promoters of faith keep the upper hand through intimidation the trend can only continue and get worse.
The religionists who have relied mainly on the threat of a punishment in the afterlife do not reach opponents who discount the afterlife as a myth. A threat to your life here and now has another more powerful element of intimidation. Either way you will suffer if you do not believe as required by the intimidating fanatics. The road to rejection of living under intimidation is to recognize the issue for what it is and denounce the fallacy of claiming belief is required as described by some deranged dictator. This war on terrorism is only being fought in a stalemate fashion as the real enemy is not identified and victory is not defined.
The enemy is the advocate of faith. As long as something can be promoted because of belief, anything goes. Since power over others is the wish of many this method has proven to be effective and is now being exploited to the extreme. Yet those who are posing as champions and defenders succumb to faith to obtain their followers, the most consistent manipulators of the method triumph. You do not win battles or a war if you grant the enemy the benefit of the doubt. Too long we have fought and died for the right of another culture to somehow transform itself into some modified culture that is at once a mirror of us but retains the identity and customs and religionism of the past. The example of the change in Japan where victory was our goal and intolerance of their previous actions and beliefs stands in sharp contrast to the attempts at stability and dignified withdrawal we have experienced in Korea and Vietnam and Iraq.
The way to turn this around is to begin with a fundamental change in our approach. This requires a rejection of faith in all of its many ramifications beginning with the pulpit and the political soap box where faith is extolled as it was in the last Presidential election. The campaign of President Obama was one big call for faith. There were outlandish claims that were ignored such as making changes to America that were ill defined and emotional. People acted on faith that Obama knew what he was talking about. They trusted him. Now they know how their support was interpreted and how ineffective and bumbling the new administration has turned out to be.
There is a steady recognition that America under Obama is a declining nation. Our foreign policy is worse than weak, our domestic economy is crumbling and the trend is forecastable and bleak. This was not because a master planner calculated how to destroy America but the illusion that if power is obtained all else will follow. This was projected during the campaign and was bought into. Now it is either time to recognize the mistake and correct it or continue down the path to demagoguery, corruption and ineptitude. The way to turn this around is to reject the method of faith. Demand reasonable answers and plans. Reject intimidation and threats with a sound policy of instant and tough retaliation. Sitting quietly and submissive in a pew listening to a rant of unproven mythical stale porridge will change nothing. It is the road to further deterioration and ultimate submission to those who are the most brutal and power hungry. It is an invitation to the thugs to take over.
The thug knows those who stand up to them and will not put up with their attempts to intimidate and control cannot be counted on as loyal followers. The thug fears this whether in the pulpit or the podium. The recognition that “you lie” is a chord that strikes fear in the liar that thinks the faithful dare not question. We are seeing a barrage of thugs emerging and no one is standing up to these monsters as they emerge from the domestic and foreign scene with greater and greater aplomb.
There is a discernible trend that is not the result of a master plan but the decline that has preceded the fall of every nation. A group of pretenders posing as philosopher kings cajole the populace to believe in them and together they harmoniously destroy all that was built. The barbaric hoards win through pure ruthlessness as the formerly civilized politely succumb after centuries of becoming subservient, compliant and trusting. This was not the America that was envisioned nor the one that is being pursued. As the land of individuals and individual rights this recognition is sorely needed. It will do no good to simply believe it can be resurrected. It will take a plan based on reason and a rejection of that destroyer of thought, “Faith:
Tags: Faith religion
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