DIETS

There are many different kinds of diets. There are religious-based diets. Hindu diets, Muslim diets, and Jews have their kosher diet.

And then there are all the modern diet gurus. All of them are at odds with each other, accusing each other of quackery.

The environmentalists refuse to eat meat because producing it causes too much CO2 emissions while Joe Average sticks to his hamburgers and pizzas.

If you don't follow my diet plan you are an idiot. My guru is the best. He is the way and the truth and the life.

So, you have to stick to your group of people who have the same food preferences, you have to stick to your tribe or your team. Muslims hang out with other Muslims and Hindus hang out with other Hindus. Vegetarians prefer to hang out with vegetarians and keto people prefer to hang out with other keto people. About 690 million people are at this moment hungry and malnourished.

MINDSET

I don't believe that gnomes, trolls, and ghosts exist, except in the fantasy world. I don't believe in gods, angels, demons, and witches.

Einstein said: "God does not play dice with the universe." By that, he didn't mean that there is a God somewhere who did not play dice. Einstein was not religious. He used the word God metaphorically. In the same way, we can use words like angels and demons metaphorically.

I don't believe that the earth is flat and I don't believe that the sun is revolving around it.

I believe that Jesus existed but I don't believe that he could walk on water and I don't believe that he rose from death.

I don't believe that extraterrestrials are visiting us.

For some reason, I believe that there is some kind of meaning or purpose with all the suffering in life. This is not a rational belief, but I nevertheless cling to it. How else could I keep on keeping on? The belief that all forms of suffering are meaningless is a horrible belief. 

I don't believe that I have a true self somewhere inside of me. I believe that I have changed over the years. I believe that the self, the observer, or the soul, is in flux. When beliefs change, also the observer change. Very stubborn and rigid people can also change. It is difficult to change but it is possible. Those who have had a near-death experience, for example, will often, what I understand, change their outlook on life completely. Fanatically religious people can become atheists, right-wingers can become left-wingers and left-wingers can become right-wingers. Alcoholics can stop drinking and leave their drinking buddies.

I don't believe that evolution has a direction. I don't believe that we are heading anywhere. We have no destination.

I believe that the end days are here now. I believe that climate change and environmental pollution will make the earth uninhabitable for human beings. 

I believe that change is possible, to some extent, for an individual human being, but as a species, we are doomed. In large groups, we become like a herd of bison or a troop of baboons.

I believe that synchronicities and telepathy are real phenomena and that they are not just products of a vivid imagination. I think of matter and energy as magic stuff.

I am aware that these beliefs of mine are just beliefs, mental constructions. I am not proud of them. I wish I had other, more optimistic beliefs.

INTERPRETATIONS AND THE INTERPRETED

 A dream is a dream, a fantastic night show. The interpretation of the dream is an interpretation. A work of art is a work of art. The review of the artwork is a review. For example, a strange experience, a synchronicity, for instance, is a strange experience. The explanation of the experience, what synchronicity really is, is an explanation. Is it an illusion, a natural abnormality, or a mystic message? 

The thinking part of the brain has all the answers. This know-it-all part of the brain can find clever explanations and interpretations for everything. Explanations, interpretations, criticism, and analysis make up a fantasy world of sorts. It can be airy-fairy, unicorns and rainbows, or sensible, dreary, high-brow, or low-brow. Dreams, art, mystical experiences, and life take place in another dimension.

HYPOCRITES

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them

         You cannot serve both God and money.

           Matthew 6

 

Censorship

Many different opinions and perspectives are banned in mainstream media. They only publish things that have been approved and considered appropriate. If you can't or don't want to dance to their music, you will have to make do with your blog or an online chat forum. Mainstream media is only for the chosen few, those who know how to behave themselves and do not disturb the order.

But it is not just racists, anti-vaxxers, and conspiracy theorists who are being censored. Many others are also denied admission by the unwavering doormen. Maybe it's just as good, what do we have in there to do?

Anyway, here are two examples of opinions and perspectives that cannot be discussed in mainstream media.

1.

We are quite a few now, who no longer believe that greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced. We are not able to do what we have to do to stop climate change. It is already causing serious problems in many parts of the world, but there is no indication that we intend to change our way of living. Both rich and poor crave more and more stuff. Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, despite all the alarm reports and climate conferences.

Do an experiment, ask your friends and acquaintances if they sincerely believe that we will be able to keep the earth's average temperature rise under two degrees, ask if they feel hopeful about the future. You will then discover that it's not only doomsday preppers, nihilists, and depressed neurotics who have lost faith in the future.

The idea that our global civilization and all of humanity will perish is not far-fetched or morbidly pessimistic. All previous civilizations have perished. There are only ruins left of them. And 99% of all species that have existed here on earth no longer exist. Evolution works like this. There will be other species taking over after us, flies perhaps or cockroaches.

Mainstream media promotes mainstream views, endless discussions, and proposals about what we have to do in order to solve the climate change problem, how we can implement the Paris Agreement, what can replace oil and carbon. The environmentalists demand more radical measures. None of them can see that we will disappear, that our days are numbered.

2.

Religions cause an enormous amount of misery in the world, yet it is unthinkable to criticize them, we are instead expected to respect them. Terrorism, jihadism, and destructive sectarianism can be criticized, but not the religions themselves.  

However, the social systems in Saudi Arabia and Iran are appalling, and they are based on conventional and generally accepted Islam.

Sunni and Shia Muslims hate each other. They disagree on which faith is the right one and they kill each other in the most bestial ways, like Catholics and protestants used to do. 

In Yemen, Saudi Arabia supports the Sunni Muslims and Iran supports the Shiite Huthi rebels. In addition, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Iran have for many years provided extensive support to various Muslim extremists and jihadists around the world.

About 25% of the Americans describe themselves as evangelicals. In 2000, they voted for George W. Bush. In 2003 God ordered him to invade Iraq. In 2016, Donald Trump came to power thanks to these evangelicals. In Brazil, they voted for Bolsonaro.

No sensible person can call himself a communist today after all the horrors that have taken place in the name of communism, but how is it that Christians still can call themselves Christians without being ashamed? Christianity also has a horrible history: the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the witch hunts, the oppression of women and children, the steadfast support to war-mad emperors, kings, and presidents.

During the Enlightenment, slavery and the slave trade began to be questioned. Many Christians were also affected by the new ideas. A new Christian ethic slowly emerged. What is right or wrong is not carved in stone.

But it takes time to change established ideas. When the London parliament voted to abolish slavery in the British colonies, the bishops in the upper house voted against the proposal. In 2006, the Church of England apologized for the fact that their priests had owned slave plantations in the Caribbean.

Religious identity has always been important to people, but it is nevertheless possible to abandon it. There are many examples of people who have left their religious cult or congregation without joining another one. It is also possible to leave a political party, a criminal gang, or a bunch of drinking buddies. It is possible to jump off the bandwagon. It is possible to simply be a human being, without any religious or political affiliation.

https://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gaa_slavery.htm

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/feb/09/religion.world

THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS

Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain and he showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence and he said to him, “All these I shall give to you if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.

Matthew 4

The devil could promise Jesus all the kingdoms of the world because they were his property.

REVERSE ALCHEMY

A painting consists of a large number of molecules. But you can not send it to a chemical laboratory and expect to get it fully analyzed. The chemists will miss important aspects of it. It is the same thing with you; you are something different from the chemicals you are made of.

You are also an animal, subject to biological laws. But you are not just a kind of crazy ape and you are not controlled solely by your genes and your upbringing. The discoveries by Darwin and later biologists can only partially explain what makes you tick.

Concepts such as spirituality, conscience, and evil are irrelevant in particle physics in the same way that quarks and electrons have nothing much to do with you.

Biologists look at the world through a biological filter and everything they see gets biological explanations. Physicists have physical filters and psychologists have their psychological middle-class filters. They are all like religious fundamentalists, they see only what they want to see.

Well, we are all, more or less, like religious fundamentalists, aren't we? We see what we want to see, and hear want we want to hear.




If you have a degree in biology, you can explain how biological evolution works, but you have no idea of how it got started. How did life begin here on earth? Religious people can not present any evidence for their grand fantasies, but neither can you.




The eyes are just small action cameras, nerves are just electric cords, the brain is just a computer and the heart is just a regular pump. The universe is just a universe. Modern science has taught us the art of turning gold into lead.