Free will

I found this one somewhere on the internet.

Dangerous ideas

Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and James Randi have done a good job when they have debunked superstitious beliefs and religious nonsense. However, astrologers, spiritualists, clergymen and New Age nutcases are mostly quite harmless. There are many other, far more dangerous and powerful beliefs in this world to debunk. Dawkins, Harris and Randi are like excited hunting dogs, who are chasing voles instead of tracking down bears.

Here are a few examples of some dangerous and unscientific ideas.

• The idea that global warming is not due to man made carbon dioxide emissions, but because of natural temperature variations. And even if global warming, perchance, would be due to man made carbon dioxide emissions, there is nothing we can do about it.

• The idea that a free unregulated market and technical development will solve all problems, environmental problems, starvation, misery...

• The idea that if the rich gets richer the poor will benefit from the job opportunities the rich are creating. Therefore should the rich not be taxed.

• Rich are rich because they are genetically superior.

• War, greed and exploitation of other people is something innate in human nature. Friendship and helpfulness is just a cultural veneer.

• Banks and financial institutions should not be regulated. They are good for the world economy, much like oil in an engine.

Ideas such as these are not based on reason or scientific evidence.

Theodicy

Do you believe in the karma theory or some kind of divine justice?

Do you believe that mean and selfish people will be punished after death?

Do you believe that you will reap as you sow, in this life?

How do you explain that many people who have become stinking rich

by exploiting poor people in suffocating Asian sweatshops,

don't get any punishments, while many good and honest people
can be sentenced to immense hardships?

Do you believe that the people of the Asian sweatshops

who work twelve hours a day, seven days a week, under horrible conditions

are serving sentences for crimes they have committed in past lives?

Do you believe that children get leukemia and skeletal cancer

because God tests them?

How do you explain that some people have to suffer so much

while others barely have to suffer at all?

Do you believe in a good and just God?

Do you believe in ghosts?

Do you believe in gnomes and fairies?

Do you think that it is possible to live well without superstition,

whitewash, rationalizations, hypocrisy and endless lies?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy

The thinking ape

What if wonder, speculation, rumination, search for meaning,

philosophy, religion and such pursuits

are byproducts of our ability to talk.

Humans are talking apes.

Language has evolved from vocalizations during our evolution in Africa

and it proved to be a useful ability during our hunts.

With language came then all the useless questions

that were mixed with those that were useful.

Where do we come from and where are we heading?

How was the world created?

Has it always existed?

What is right and what is wrong?

How are we to live?

Will we live on somewhere after death?

And with language came also all the answers;

right answers, wrong answers, ridiculous answers,

lies, white lies, speculations,

slander, stories, fairy tales...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandrel_(biology)

Bloodshame

                               1

Adam and Eve had three sons.

They had also daughters, but they are not mentioned in the scriptures.

The sons took their sisters as wives.

Then Cain killed Abel because he was jealous and angry.

Seth was born later.

We are the descendants of a very dysfunctional family.

We are mad, totally mad, all of us, oppressors as well as the oppressed.

We are one great big clan of morons, regardless of class or skin color.

We are all the descendants of Adam and Eve.

We have, for thousands and thousands of years, killed each other,

raped each other, tortured, exploited and oppressed each other.

The European slave traders purchased slaves from African kings

and shipped them to the New World.

The African kings were as heartless as the European kings.

The Europeans, hungry for gold, killed the native Americans

and stole their land, while they spread the good news of Jesus.

And Montezuma was as crazy as the Conquistadors.

He was sacrificing thousands of prisoners to appease the Gods.

His high priests cut the hearts out of living, screaming victims

and held up the pounding lumps of flesh to the skies.

"Look what we are doing for you, oh great Lord."

We are madmen, behind our masks, all of us,

wolves in sheep's clothing.

We follow our crazy leaders, like dogs.

We have no will of our own.

We are born into a gang of gangsters.

You might think that you are civilized, but this is an illusion.

You simply happen to live in a a place, in a time period,

where there currently are no ongoing battles.

But the war is around the corner.

Now it is Syria that is burning.

Completely ordinary, decent men go berserk there now.

                              2

This way of thinking is wrong.

It's totally wrong to say that all people are evil.

There are also many good people here;

warm and genuinely friendly people, human beings.
You can see it this way:

selfish and brutal people that are hungry for power

are perhaps genetically different from friendly people,

much like the incidence of introverts and extroverts in a population.
Some are tall and some are short.
Variation is one of the cornerstones in biology.

The problem is that the aggressive brutes take over the show.

They are so much stronger and so powerful.

                              3

It's not just our genes that defines us.

It's not just our genes that make us what we are.

This is an outdated view.

For example,

our language ability is a result of evolutionary processes with a genetic component,

but this ability to speak requires environmental factors to develop.

If a child does not have close contact with other people in early life,

he or she will never be able to learn how to speak.

Environment is as important as inheritance for us humans.

Although selfishness, aggression and belligerence
may be influenced by genetic factors,

it is the society we live in that makes us more or less
selfish, aggressive and belligerent.

Selfishness, aggressiveness and belligerence are not written in our genes.

                              4

So, where do our political opinions come from?

Where has the idea arisen that greed is good

because it is conducive to development,

in a poor man's mind, in outer space?

And where, do you think, has the idea emerged that without love and kindness,
life would be absolutely meaningless?

Mindfulness meditation will not wake you up

Mindfulness meditation will make you perform better.

Consistent practice will make you happier and more relaxed.

The corporate world uses it: bankers, CEOs, and the military.

Mindfulness meditation is good for stress reduction and it improves your health.

Fewer days of sick leave, more optimism, better sales results.

However, 

mindfulness meditation will not wake you up from your social conditioning.

Mindfulness meditation will not make you question

the mad economic system in which you are living.

Mindfulness meditation will make it easier for you to accept this system

and adjust to it.

You live in a gated community, in a rough world.

You don't know what is going on.

You don't want to know.

You don't care.

You are searching inside yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jnJ9tHIT5KU

The scientific perspective

The heart is just a pump.

The eyes are just small cameras.

The ears are microphones and the mouth is a megaphone.

The mouth is also the place where you fill the fuel.

The brain is a computer and the mind is the software.

Consciousness is just electric and chemical reactions in the neurons.

The nerves are simply electric cables.

Science has explanations for everything.

The universe is just an explosion.

Electrons, protons and neutrons are just forms of energy.

Love is simply a trait that was selected for during mammalian evolution

because it increased the survival of offspring.

A near-death-experience is nothing but a last simultaneous firing
of activating neurons.