Being Human, July 2010 (7 Essays)

8/9/2019 Being Human, July 2010 (7 Essays)

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Table of ContentsBeing Human................ ............................................................................... ........................................................1

Why is it so eas y to believe?.......................................................................................... .....................................2Feedback for Po st "Why is it so easy to believe?"...................................................................................5

Why were Chri stians persecuted in the Roman Empire, after all?..................................... ..........................6Feedback for Post "Why were Christians persecuted in the Roman Empire, after all?".......................11

Is there already a ratio nal alternative for the modern theistic religions?............................ .......................12

Why Christian s did finally turn against slavery?........ ..................................................................................17Feedback for Po st "Why Christians did finally turn against slavery?".......... ........................................21

Was Albert Ein stein a religious man?............................................................... ..............................................23Feedback for Po st "Was Albert Einstein a religious man?"............................................................ ......27

Is there a unho ly alliance opposing the population contr ol?........................................................................28Feedback for Po st "Is there a unholy alliance opposing the population control? "................................32

Is a completely rational society possible?.......................................................................................................33Feedback for Post "Is a completely rational society possible?"............................................................37

Author's friends................................................................................................................................................38

About the author...............................................................................................................................................39

Pageviews...........................................................................................................................................................40

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Being Human
http://fix.blog.de/


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Why is it so easy to believe?"How widespread an idea becomes outside the world of science does not usually depend on the truth value of the idea, but on its usefulness to somebody. These are mostly two quite different things."

This blog was born out a need to explain at first to myself why people are so eager to believe things that arenot based on any real evidence.

I wanted to find out why some beliefs do persist even if they have time after time been shown to be eitheroutright wrong or just unsubstantiated by any real evidence.

I wanted also to explore why it is so hard to accept people who think or live differently than oneself for so bigpart of the human kind.In this blog there are now 239 little essays that have been commented 683 times and they have been seen by315 021 visitors after the founding of this blog at December of 2007.

This blog is not a traditional web-diary at all, as no entry has any connections to my own daily life or the daily

news or happening in the world at large.This blog is just a personal journey into world of beliefs, that I have been observing as a outsider ever sincemy early childhood.

This collection of little essays is a tentative attempt to answer the question I presented in the beginning of thispiece.I know that this may sound quite preposterous, but I think I have also succeeded in finding at least some goodand even very possible answers to these questions.

These are however generally not my own answers, but the essence of ideas presented in this blog come fromEpicurus, Marcus Aurelius, Voltaire, Thomas Paine, Robert G. Ingersoll, Mark Twain, Charles Darwin,Bertrand Russell, George Orwell, Karl Popper, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, DanielDennett, Kurt Vonnegut, Andy Thompson, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Michel Onfray, Pascal Boyer, Scott Atran, BillBryson, Alain De Botton, A.C. Grayling, Jared Diamond, Colin Renfrew, Benedict Anderson, StevenWeinberg, Nicholas Humphrey, Amy Chua, Carl Sagan, Christopher Tyerman, Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy,Lewis Wolpert, Victor J. Stenger and many others, whose work have been a source of inspiration for most of these essays in some way or another.

These essays are not science as such, even if they are always based on the facts that are known to me, as thereare no references and no sources.They are a free amalgam of the ideas of the all the books, essays, video-appearances, speeches and lectures onthis issue that I have gone through during my 52 years on the surface of this little blue planet of ours.

My lifelong passion and love-affair with world history hopefully shines through in these essays, and Ipersonally see as my strongest point just the ability to set different belief-systems in their real historicalcontext.I may sound preposterous again, but I see that these 239 little essays form a honest effort to explain whatscience knows now about the origins, development and nature of some of the most important world-religions.

I know that I have pushed the limits in some essays and presented some strong opinions, that are mostly basedon my personal vision on the history of mankind.However I think that new ideas need to be explored as they just might throw new light on issues that havebeen looked at from a certain often restricted viewpoint for some time.
http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/03/why-is-it-so-easy-to-believe-8907691/


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by jaskaw @ 03.07.2010 - 23:52:43

http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/03/why-is-it-so-easy-to-believe-8907691/
http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/03/why-is-it-so-easy-to-believe-8907691/http://blog.de/user/jaskaw/


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Feedback for Post "Why is it so easy to believe?"

Carol [Visitor]

04.07.2010 @ 03:50I wonder this myself, so often. For years and years I tried to conform and believe what church taught me. The

pieces just didn't fit. I very seldom discuss religion or my lack of with people. I do not like confrontations. ButI don't understand how people can say they have a personal relationship with someone that has been dead over2000 years. I recently read another blog I subscribe to and this every issue was discussed. It was veryenlightening:

"It is unlikely that Jesus ever existed as a historical person as described in the Christian bible. But even if there was compelling evidence to support the historicity of Jesus, he would have died over 2,000 years ago.There is only one way an individual can meaningfully be said to have a personal relationship with a deceasedperson.The "personal relationship" you have is fundamentally a relationship you have with yourself.

It is curious that people follow religion and to me it seems nothing more than a cult manfested by ridculousfables and stories that could not really have happened. I just don't get what makes people believe all this andsay they know it is true when there is literally no supportive evidence.

The human being is an strange journey.

Eoin [Visitor]

04.07.2010 @ 1 2:34A very worthy project - keep it up!
http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/03/why-is-it-so-easy-to-believe-8907691/#c13466587http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/03/why-is-it-so-easy-to-believe-8907691/#c13466587http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/03/why-is-it-so-easy-to-believe-8907691/#c13465250http://fix.blog.de/


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Why were Christians persecuted in the RomanEmpire, after all?"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even tothose who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of theintolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." Karl Popper in "The Open Society

and Its Enemies" (1945)

Karl Popper was of course talking about the Nazis and Communists in this quote, but there is a much earliercase where this quote just might have been applicable also.As paradoxical as it may sound, but I think that the Romans who fought against the rising tide of Christianitywere quite possibly not acting out of intolerance but they were out to defend tolerance. I admit that claim of this magnitude needs a little further explanation.

The basic thing is that Christianity was the first modern world-religion to claim to be the holder of TheUniversal and Only Possible Truth, and its followers consider it to offer the only righteous way to live forevery human being on the planet.Later there have been others that have followed suit, but Christianity definitely started this fashion.Up to that point religions had the very practical purpose of binding together a certain tribe or later a politicalentity like the Roman Empire. They also gave a common reference point on what would be the preferred andallowed mode of behavior in the tribe or society at question.

Until the rise of Christianity most people understood that the neighboring tribe or people just had a differentreligion, but that was not better or worse than one's own, it was just theirs. They also often had a differentlanguage that was not better or worse than one's own language; it just was strange and unintelligible.The religion of the neighbors was of course normally seen as inferior, as all the things one's own tribe do arenormally seen as superior, but there was generally no need to make others worship your own gods even if youachieved political dominion over them.The Persians allowed all of the people they conquered to continue worshiping their own old gods if they did

not challenge their over-lordship of the empire.
http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/05/why-were-christians-persecuted-in-the-roman-empire-after-all-8920249/http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/05/why-were-christians-persecuted-in-the-roman-empire-after-all-8920249/


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The Romans had a very similar policy of tolerance as a central tenet and policy of their empire-building.In that sense the Persian and Roman (and later Parthian) empires were very modern.

There was a definite freedom of religion and belief as long as the religions or beliefs of the subjects did nothurt the best interests of the empire.Christianity was born out of Judaism, which was a basically just a tribal religion without any evangelicalambitions. Jews of course considered their religion to be superior than the others, but they did not see the needto convert their neighbors.

More so as according to their holy book the right way to deal with unbelieving neighbors was simply to killthem and plunder their possessions.

However, even in that religion there were embedded the seeds for the coming trouble, as Jews did alreadymake a claim that their religion contained the Only Possible Truth about everything and it was just not Jewishversion of the truth, but the Only Truth.However, they were just not interested in the fate of other people than their own tribe, as their religion wasstill a tribal affair and would remain as such to this very day.

The idea of being the carrier of The Only Possible Truth was taken over from Judaism to Christianity, but thedangerous thing was that the Christianity was soon pulled out of the original Jewish tribal roots.

In the extremely multicultural environment of the Rome the brand new cult of Christianity was developed intoa universal system of belief that was not tied to any particular nationality or tribe.It must be remembered at this stage that only the existence of the Roman Empire made the spread of this newnon-tribal religion possible in the first place in a manner that did really happen.

The act of creation of this empire had broken the national and tribal borders that would have made verydifficult to spread a universal belief-system like Christianity before the rise of the Roman Empire.Even more important was of course the religious tolerance of that empire, which made possible to spread thisbrand new cult in the first place.

This new model of universality in Christianity was largely derived from the mystical cults like the cult of Mithra and Isis that were very widespread in Roman empire the time of launching of the new cult that was tobe a new religion later.The amalgam of ideas of The Only Possible Truth and universality produced finally a religion that loudlypronounced that it could not live side by side with any other religion.By doing this Christianity introduced a quite new class of religious intolerance into to that point a religiouslyvery tolerant society.

This is a point where a person familiar with only the traditional Christian narrative asks; how can you claimthat Rome was tolerant when Christians were persecuted for hundreds of years?The point is that Rome was tolerant towards only those who were tolerant themselves, as only tolerant ideasthat can live side by side with other religions can really live in a society built on the idea of tolerance.Of course the thing that triggered most of the persecutions was that early Christianity was seen as a realdanger to the empire, as Christians refused to acknowledge the ultimate overlordship of the Roman emperoron religious grounds.In the end the power of Emperor was the only thing that did hold the Empire together at that point. Thisobstacle was removed at last by the conversion of the emperor to Christianity.

Romans destroyed mercilessly all those who stood up to their political power and for example the politicalentities of the Jews were utterly destroyed after they had challenged the Roman rule with their uprisings.However, even after their failures Jews were however allowed to continue their old worship, even if the futurepolitical uprisings were made impossible by the physical dispersion of the members of the physical Jewishnation, that ceased to exist.

If you really think about it, it is not surprising that a new ideology that was seen as a direct physical threat to


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the idea of Empire was a subject to persecution.The persecutors of the Christians quite correctly saw that they were defending their own religion and eventheir whole way of life from a new kind of ideological threat.I must beg for forgiveness in forehand for the following figure of speech, but there is definite vision in mymind of leukocytes or white blood cells in the immune system fighting a bad case of severe mental infection;a infection that takes over completely the mind of its victims and makes them believe that no other idea hasany worth anymore.

The element of intolerance towards all other religions was very easy to see in Christianity from early on. Itwas very easy to see at a very early point that given enough power Christianity would not simply let any otherreligion live.This is also just what also happened when Christianity could eventually wrestle the ultimate power in Romanempire through succeeding in locking a ruling emperor to its fold.

All other religions were soon enough completely rooted out from the whole length of the vast Roman Empire.The job was so thorough that in the end not a single village or even a single living person was left that wouldhave been able to worship the old gods of the Romans after a century of persecutions, relentless officialindoctrination and forced conversions.

All this was possible also because the original end-of-day cult of misfits and slaves was in the same timetransformed into a tool for governing empires. This incredible transformation was carried out under thewatchful eyes of the newly converted Roman emperors.Emperor Constantine took personally part in the big church meeting in Nicea at 325 that took the bigdecisions that transformed Christianity beyond recognition.These decisions made it possible to turn this religion of the poor and downtrodden to be the true and trustedfriend of the mighty and powerful, but still retain an illusion of being also still the former also.

However, I must hasten to add at this point that one must not read this as an endorsement of physicalpersecution of even of the most intolerant people.What Romans did to Christians was simply humanly wrong and I personally never could accept a policy likethis to be applied to followers of any ideology, tolerant or intolerant.On old problem is to see that understanding the reasons for actions is not the same thing as accepting orendorsing them.

Rome was a cruel and barbaric military empire, that was build with cruel and barbaric military campaigns. Allenemies of the empire were treated mercilessly and cruelly.As long as Christians were seen as enemies of the Empire and of the established order they were treated asmercilessly and cruelly as any other threat to the Empire and to the established order.

It is good to remember that after Christianity had become the chosen religion of the rulers of the Empire,Christian themselves started the persecution of their own to destroy all the other religions, which they alsoswiftly accomplished and there ensued nearly two millennium of a extraordinary intolerance and uniformity of thinking.

This strong embedded tradition of extreme intolerance in Christianity was broken only by the advent of thesecularist humanist ideas in the beginning of the 18th century.Slowly also the Christian churches were forced to lose their traditional system of extreme intolerance, associeties around them became more and more secular.The real turning point came after force of the Catholic Church was eventually broken by the Reformation. Inits aftermath the new national versions of Christianity started adapting in earnest to the tremendous changesthat were happening around them that were largely brought about by the advanced in science.

This happened also because some of the religious leaders of the time were seeing the light of the message of

western humanism. This development brought about also the renaissance of the religious tolerance.


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The modern mainstream Christian churches are generally quite tolerant forces in society in stark contrast totheir Roman and medieval predecessors.This tolerance had by then been missing for millennium and half after the Romans had lost the battle to theforces of intolerance.

PS. The quote by Karl Popper in the beginning of this piece continues like this:

"In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant

philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion,suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by

force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it isdeceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim,in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement

preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or tothe revival of the slave trade, as criminal."

PPS. Many ideas c oncerni ng the tolerant empires presented in this little essay come originally from AmyChua, see: http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/01/03/can-intolerance-make-empires-fail-7687330/

by jaskaw @ 05.07.2010 - 23:19:18

http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/05/why-were-christians-persecuted-in-the-roman-empire-after-all-8920249/
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Feedback for Post "Why were Christians persecuted in theRoman Empire, after all?"

Mark Hall [Visitor]

06.07.2010 @ 08:06For another element, you might take a look at Stephen Benko's "Pagan Rome and the Early Christians". Hemakes some interesting parallels between early Christian practice and the Cataline conspiracy (and other suchanti-government conspiracies), pointing to their practice of getting together before dawn (i.e. in the dark) andsinging prayers (i.e. chanting spells) as being rather threatening.
http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/05/why-were-christians-persecuted-in-the-roman-empire-after-all-8920249/#c13480777http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/05/why-were-christians-persecuted-in-the-roman-empire-after-all-8920249/#c13480777http://fix.blog.de/http://fix.blog.de/


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Is there already a rational alternative for themodern theistic religions?It is seemingly for many a very difficult task to see the huge difference in saying that something is the bestpossible answer and something is the only possible answer.This is of course the main difference between science and religion, but this divider is extremely important in

matters concerning ideologies too.

I do honestly think that to lead a happy and fulfilling life a human must have goals that are even a tiny littlebit larger than life.I think that these goals can very well be unreachable in practice, but the very act of striving towards themcould lead to improvement in any area of the human enterprise.This normally requires commitment to some ideas and ideals that humans have developed when they havebeen thinking on how our societies could be improved and developed further.

For example, I do personally think that the weak and defenseless will always need special attention andsupport from the society, as the mentally and physically strong will always survive without special support.I also see employed need defenses against the danger of absolute rule of the employers, as employers have allthe good cards in the game. To even this field there must be a counter-force to prevent somebody wielding a
http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/10/is-there-a-already-a-rational-alternative-on-offer-for-the-modern-theistic-religions-8950770/http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/10/is-there-a-already-a-rational-alternative-on-offer-for-the-modern-theistic-religions-8950770/


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absolute power.

I want to fight for a society where are humans are treated as equally as possible, even if true equality is reallyunattainable in practice.These all are all just human ideas invented by ordinary humans, but I do personally think that they arenecessary ingredients in building just and well-working societies.However one needs not to rely just on beliefs on these issues, but one can quite rationally study how differentkinds of real-world societies have succeeded or failed while taking into account or ignoring these basic ideas.

I do not however think that all people should think as I do. I really do think that also the strong and well-to-domust have their fair say in making the decisions that are made in a good society.I do think that all interest groups must have a say in how a society is run for it to be successful. I do not wantthat people who share my ideological goals should ever wield absolute power in the society.

I think that all members of the society should be able to accept at least at some level the basic ideas on whicha society is built on for it to work properly.This is of course the Scandinavian model and it has been a real success-story. Of course it is not the onlypossible model for a good society, but one does not need to be a believer to see its full merits, as they can beobserved in the real world.

In the same vein I do think that this idea of real ideological pluralism should be applied in religious matterstoo.I do think that for example Christianity has never been able to cater for spiritual needs of all kinds of people,that do think that they need and want a source of spiritual guidance in form of a formal religion. I also believethat this group of basically dissatisfied customers of Christianity have been growing fast during the last fewdecades.

There will without doubt always be a big market for religious ideas, but I do also think that one could wellalso introduce also a more rational systems of thought to compete with the existing religions, that are stillquite universally based on irrational claims of 'divine' origins of their central dogmas.

The ancient Rome was a magnificent example of an well-working open marketplace for religious ideas. Verydifferent religious ideas competed fiercely for audiences until the rise to power of the extremely intolerantChristianity did finally put on end to this intellectual freedom.In the Western world we have had of course a very similar open marketplace for a while, after all forms of Christianity were finally slowly and painfully forced to accept a certain level of religious freedom.Of course it has had the force of tradition and in many nations also the schooling system to prop it up and giveit a major and solid advantage in its quest for souls.

In the Roman world one size did not really fit all in religious matters. There were different kinds of religionsof offer for different kinds of people and Epicureanism was the preferred choice for more rational and logicalpeople in this supermarket of religious ideas of Rome.Epicureanism is in the end not a real religion at all in the modern sense.It is basically just a tightly knit and comprehensive philosophical system of thought, that does not claim anykind of divine inspiration as its source.However it also offers a very clear-cut set of ethical and moral rules that many people seem to be looking forin religions.

Epicureanism is basically just a practical philosophical solution to the problem of achieving greater mentalstability and even happiness in a society where securing the basic needs of life did not require much effortanymore and where people could finally afford the luxuries of weltschmertz and angst.Epicureanism was the 'religion' of choice for the many of the more educated in the ancient Greece and Rome.Pronouncing oneself to be a Epicurean gave one a religious identity in a society where such labels were

expected from all.


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However followers of Epicureanism did never aim at converting the whole of population, as it was clearlyseen that one needs to personally really want to start a search for greater peace of mind to become aEpicurean.In the religious freedom of Rome those drawn to tradition could choose to worship the old Roman gods, thosemore inclined to mysticism could choose Mithra or cult of Isis and the more logical and rational onesEpicureanism or also its old adversary Stoicism.Btw. Stoicism did introduce a taste of deistic way of thinking to the Epicurean base, when Epicureanists

managed well without any kind of ideas of supernatural entities.

I do think that there are a lot of people who are searching some ideas and basic rules to guide their lives.I do think that rational and logical Epicureanism would and could still be a very usable answer to many if it

just could be brought out again to compete in the modern open marketplace of religious ideas.

The important point for a modern man is that Epicureanism really can produce real world results in the formof increase in peace of mind and even in general happiness and satisfaction with life.Of course if these results fail to materialize, as inevitably will for some (as one size does not really fit all), it isin an open society very easy to discard it and try something else.

Also Epicureanism is of course just a human invention among many similar inventions, but I see that it offersa rather convincing and very helpful system of seeing and understanding the very basic things that are reallyimportant in human life.However, I do not think at all that Epicureanism would ever be the ONLY possible answer and not at all thateven that it would suit all people.It seems that some level of life-experience and even some familiarity with philosophical thinking seems to bea requirement for person really to be able to appreciate the Epicurean way of thinking.

In any case, I do not think that Epicureanism should be taught as the only possible way to think to infants oreven to young people in schools, even if I do think that giving all people at least a taster of Epicurean idealscould not be a bad thing at all.However the central ideas of Epicureanism also could well be presented of the grand tour of all great humanideas, that should be part of curriculum of every school in the world, but is so sadly lacking in most.

I do also ultimately think that it could well be possible to revigorate the rational Epicurean school of thoughtto really compete it out with the modern theistic religions.Epicureanism was of course once defeated and utterly destroyed by Christianity. However this defeat was notinflicted on the fair battlegrounds of the original open marketplace of ideas.It happened only after Christianity finally achieved the status of ideological monopoly and the force of statebehind it after the dictatorial rulers of Rome did finally choose it as their preferred religion.

In a modern open society the clearly defined but basically very rational system of thought offered byEpicureanism could just be the real thing for many people that do find the theistic systems of though asunsatisfactory and seek for other sources of moral and ethical guidance.

I do not however know how this revigoration of Epicureanism could be achieved in real world, but I do knowthat there already is a solid base of individual Epicureans all over the world.They have often have found this rational system of thought through individual explorations to history of philosophy. The very existence of this quite spontaneously born community speaks volumes of the value of Epicurean system of thought for also a modern person.

I have presented and tried also to explain (according to my limited abilities, of course) the basic ideas of Epicureanism also in this blog, see:http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/tags/epicurus/


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More info on Epicurus and Epicureanism at:http://www.facebook.com/pages/Epicurus/79493658728http://www.epicurus.net/

by jaskaw @ 11.07.2010 - 01:47:19

http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/10/is-there-a-already-a-rational-alternative-on-offer-for-the-modern-theistic-religi
http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/10/is-there-a-already-a-rational-alternative-on-offer-for-the-modern-theistic-religions-8950770/http://blog.de/user/jaskaw/


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Why Christians did finally turn against slavery?Why there is no British Empire anymore? Not because the subjects of the empire would have revolted anddestroyed it by force, but because it suddenly was seen that it is not appropriate for a democracy to subdueother people against their will.The British Empire imploded, it did not explode. In the case of demise of the British Empire it was the peoplewho were in charge of running the empire that lost faith in it.

I claim that this was a example of zeitgeist or The spirit of the age at work at its purest. The universalperception of what is good and permissible behavior had simply changed in Great Britain.After the mental change there was just rear-guard actions to make the change possible in real world.There were of course people in Britain who did not see any need to change the existing order, but they were

just overrun be the incredible force of the zeitgeist in this case.

Of course the changes in zeitgeist do follow and mostly are direct results of real social and economical

changes in societies.When for example the new class of wealthy bourgeoisie emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries, thisemergence caused a major change in zeitgeist of the time.Ultimately even the legitimacy of the god-given order of feudalism was questioned when this new social andeconomical force wanted to have a say in running affairs of the society.

I would even go as far as to say that many or even most of the true big permanent changes in human historyhave in fact been caused by changes in prevailing zeitgeist.The rising zeitgeist often gets often a practical implementation in some new form of formal ideology.However ideologies do change societies much more subtly than just recruiting followers and gaining power,as the reactions towards a new ideology can have more even important consequences than the ideology itself would ever produce.
http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/12/why-christians-did-finally-turn-against-slavery-8961607/


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The role of zeitgeist has of course been greatly intensified by the advent of the mass media, but it has alwaysplayed a great role, as just a few book could change the way the elite perceived the world. In the world beforeadvent of democracy a surprisingly small group of educated humans governed and guided whole societies andtheir development.A major change in their thinking could change the way how the society was run quite instantly.

Many scholars think that the American revolution and war for independence were finally triggered bypublication of a handful of treaties and books by Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson and other future leaders of

the revolution.Of course there were deeper economical, psychological and social reasons for the revolution, but in the endthe new breed of writers changed the prevailing zeitgeist in America to such extent that rising against thegod-given order of things finally did became mentally possible.

How would the revolutionary movement of the "Mad Year" of 1848 have affected in a few months countriesall over Europe, if the emerging zeitgeist would not have been preferring revolution?However, the year 1848 is a good example of how changes in zeitgeist does not always immediately lead topermanent changes in societies, as in the end these revolutionary movements were destroyed with the use of brute force in the year 1848.Changes in zeitgeist do not often affect those in positions of power and raw physical power is often the thing

that really counts in the end.Similarly the rapidly spreading revolutionary zeitgeist of the year 1968 was crushed under the Soviet tanks inPrague in the spring of 1968 and in the street-fighting in Paris.

The changes in zeitgeist can be sudden and unpredictable. For example suddenly it was on lips of everythinking person that it is a really a evil thing to own slaves, even if a thinking person like Mark Twain sawnothing wrong with it in is his childhood as late as in the 1840 s.

This incredible force of zeitgeist is in my mind also the force behind the incredible transformation of themodern Christianity. It is all too easy to forget how incredibly dictatorial, closed-minded, change-resistant,bigoted, ultra-conservative and anti-intellectual the Christian world was just 300-400 short years ago.

Of course there are strains of Christianity that are still all that, but overwhelming majority of the modernChristians do not look at world though their religion at all or religion has very little real influence on theirthinking in practical matters of running a society at least.If religion is observed at all besides the traditions in use at the holidays it does not dictate or even guide in anyway their views on matters with real importance.

There has happened an incredible transformation from the quite recent times when in Christian lands one wasbound to see in fact all issues through the distorting lens of religion. Religion ultimately dictated the wholemental outlook of most Western societies as late in as in the 19th century.

The rise of humanism in Renaissance and the re-discovery of the great humanistic philosophers of theAntiquity started a road to change.The rise of science and finally the Reformation did help to foster produce a incredible change in the zeitgeistof the western world that did in the end change also the modern Christian churches in a way that was neverseen before.

At first dozens, then hundreds and finally thousands of books, pamphlets and treatises did show that one can just quite forget the teachings of the Church altogether and use reason to find out new things.The final blow for the earthly power of the Christian churches was the secularization of the state that wascarefully tried out first in emerging United States, but started in earnest in the revolutionary France in 1789and continued to spread even if force of that revolution itself was spent.

The most important single thing was of course the simple observation that secular science works and it can


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bring real world benefits with it.This simple observation did slowly eat away at earlier times so solid and closed Christian world-view. It wasslowly and laboriously replaced with a more open zeitgeist in which religion played a smaller and smallerpart.

In this process also the Christian churches were often changed beyond recognition when they accepted valuesthat had earlier been propagated by secular humanists.The core values of most of the Western Churches were turned into a radically more human and humanistic

direction.

This change in zeitgeist of the age is the main reason why so many Christians were in the end prominentlyinvolved in the abolition of slavery, even if the Christian doctrine had always blessed and sanctioned slaveryand serfdom and the very core texts of that religion still do openly approve and bless that evil institution.This process is of course the reason why so many religious leaders are so impatient in debates where they arereminded of the original "divine" articles and dogmas of their faith.They know quite well that the practical policies of their religious movements are just man-made constructionsthat are in a constant state of evolution.They know very well that the original articles of faith are something that are just paraded at big feats to pleasethe crowds and amuse the slow ones.

For example they know quite well that their sacred texts do tell that slavery is a god-given thing, but they donot think that their god had it right.They know also that if they would admit this publicly, the "divine" base of their religion would fall off, asthen they would admit that their religion is just a man-made thing that men do constantly alter.

The claims for divine origins are however the only things that do differentiate religions from other ideologiesand no religion wants to be treated like a normal ideology it really is.The more so as they have fought long and bitter campaigns to secure special privileges to any ideology, if it

just claims to be a religion.

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

by jaskaw @ 13.07.2010 - 01:55:13

http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/12/why-christians-did-finally-turn-against-slavery-8961607/
http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/12/why-christians-did-finally-turn-against-slavery-8961607/http://blog.de/user/jaskaw/


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14.07.2010 @ 23:01Ideas belong to no one, or they belong to everyone. They are like olg chewing gum passed from person toperson, and ever yone chews on it happily, thinking it is theirs. Lots of people talked about this, until Dawkinsgave a scientific structure to it with the memes meme. I found this idea first in Milan Kundera.
http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/12/why-christians-did-finally-turn-against-slavery-8961607/#c13546808http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/12/why-christians-did-finally-turn-against-slavery-8961607/#c13546808


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Was Albert Einstein a religious man?"... The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible acollection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation nomatter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according totheir nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong

and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from theworst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them." - Albert Einstein in aletter to Eric Gutkind (1954) - Translated from the German by Joan Stambaugh.

This letter came to limelight just a couple of years ago and it did bring new light to the troubled relationshipAlbert Einstein did have with religions, which has been a subject of considerable debate throughout decades.As you see he uses expressions that are very hard to see as any kind of support for organized religion.Einstein did expressly gave up all notions of Jews as some kind of 'chosen people'.Einstein did send this in reply letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind, who had first sent him his book 'ChooseLife: The Biblical Call to Revolt'. Einstein's letter ended up in private hands where it did stay until it surfacedagain a couple of years ago.
http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/17/was-albert-einstein-a-religious-man-8993838/


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Einstein was born into a Jewish family, but he did go to a Catholic school, where he experienced a wakeningto Judaism, but gave up even that religion at the tender age of 12, when he started to doubt the truth value of the biblical stories.His parent were in practice very secular and very attached to general German culture. Einstein did oncedescribe his parents as 'non-religious'.Later Einstein did describe his giving up of faith like this in his book Autobiographical Notes:

"Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the

Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with theimpression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression.

Mistrust of every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions that were alive in any specific social environment an attitude that has never again left me, even though, later on,it has been tempered by a better insight into the causal connections."

However in his later years he sometimes used expressions like 'cosmic religious feelings' and his earning tofeel 'the universe as a cosmic entity'. Famous is also his expression that 'God does not play dice' when hespoke about the quantum theory.The Christian are fond to show that Einstein did value many Jewish and Christian traditions and he really didthink that religions are vehicles for transferring cultural values.

However he discarded in strong words the very idea of any kind afterlife and the idea of a personal god.

In the book "The World As I See It" (1935) he wrote:

"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that weexperience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physicaldeath; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts.

I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelousstructure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny,of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

However in an interview he gave at the year 1929 he denied being an atheist, but on the other hand thoughtthat the label of pantheist was too restricting for him.On the other hand in the same year of 1929 he did send the famous telegram to rabbi Herbert Goldstein, wherehe said he believed in the 'God of Spinoza' this is to say in pantheistic god that in practice is the entity of theUniverse.

He wrote:"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God whoconcerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings."

It is good to remember at this point that philosopher Baruch Spinoza was driven out of the Jewish communityfor presenting just these ideas and he was condemned in a rare state of cherem, where no Jew was allowed tohave any contact with him.Of the contemporaries of Einstein the Cardinal of Boston William Henry O Connell rejected the Einsteinianreligious thinking with strong words and thought that his ideas were just a "authentic atheism, even if camouflaged as cosmic pantheism."

It is easy to see why William Henry O Connell would have said what he did, as in reality any personalrelationship with the idea of god has no real value for Christianity if this god is not The God of their religionand nothing else.A pantheistic idea of god is of no value at all for Christianity, as it does not lead to accepting Christianity asthe only source of truth.From the viewpoint of Christianity Einstein was a pagan, as he did not believe on their version of god at all.


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Einstein probably was not a true atheist, but he was not a true theist either. The older he got, the less he couldstomach the religions and religious organizations of his day.However, he generally avoided public row and was often very gentle in his public criticism, but as the privateletter in the beginning of this piece show, he did harbor even very strong negative sentiments about religions.

He did never have any kind of personal connections with any kind of organized religion and his visions of apantheistic universal idea behind the existence of nature were not compatible with the very basic ideas of Christianity of Judaism at all.

In this quote is finally the answer to the question in the headline:

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at thecradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, isas good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion.

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reasonand the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is thisknowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeplyreligious man...

I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

Albert Einstein in " The Wo rld As I See It"

by jaskaw @ 17.07.2010 - 23:21:43

http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/17/was-albert-einstein-a-religious-man-8993838/
http://blog.de/user/jaskaw/http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/17/was-albert-einstein-a-religious-man-8993838/http://blog.de/user/jaskaw/


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Feedback for Post "Was Albert Einstein a religious man?"

Bruce [Visitor]

18.07.2010 @ 2 2:49Einstein did an excellent job of confusing everybody and providing ammunition to all sides.
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Is there a unholy alliance opposing the populationcontrol ?I claim that we have quite enough food in the world; we just have too many humans. Population researcherHans Rosling is famous in stating that what we need is a rise in living standards in developing world to stopthe rise in population.

He has shown that a rise in living standards will bring with a drop in number of children families are having,as history shows that number of children per family has always dropped hand in hand with a rise in the livingstandards.

I however think that the thing works even more the other way around; living standards tend to rise when thenumber of children per family does actually drop.I don't say that Hans Rosling would have it wrong; I'm just suggesting that the thing works both ways and theother is a necessary and vital component of the other and it is very difficult to have the other without the othertoo.

Admittedly everyday logic is not always the best tool in economy, but here it works in a quite straightforwardway. The more people there is to share of the accumulated wealth of a nation, the less a single individual will
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Roslinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Roslinghttp://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/20/is-there-a-unholy-alliance-opposing-population-control-i-claim-9009275/http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/20/is-there-a-unholy-alliance-opposing-population-control-i-claim-9009275/


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get.Of course the accumulated wealth is just a small part of the equation, as the important thing in modern growtheconomy is producing new wealth. One can well suggest that the more there are consumers, the more theywill produce and buy and make the economy go around faster.However things are not so easy at all in economics. One very important thing is that the more there are newchildren, the more resources must be used to educate them. In fact the share of a individual will be the smallerthe more there of them are to share the limited resources.So the more children are born, the less education they will get individually and the less useful they will in

general be for the economy.

Even bigger thing is that in a situation where the number of available work-force greatly outnumbers theavailable openings in the workplace, the price of work will not rise.The average income of the workers in western world has risen for a great deal during the last century largelybecause there has been scarcity of labor.

Employers have simply had to pay more to attract workers. This is largely because the rise of easy to use andsafe methods of population control kicked in and greatly diminished the flow of new workers to the markets.Modern western mass-markets were born when the scarcity of labor and of course also the major work doneby labor-movements did cause a rise in the pay of the workers to such a level that they could finally start

consuming.

The great paradox of capitalism is that in the end it needs workers that have a enough money to create amarket for the very goods capitalism produces, but single capitalists are never willing to pay for their ownemployees more than they are forced to do.A single enterprise looks at only after its own narrow interest and pays just as much as it is forced to do by thecurrent circumstances to be able to give as much money as possible to its owners, as it simply exists for thesole purpose of creating short-term profit for its owners.

A very important factor in this situation of course is the impact of trade unions and also of leftist politicalmovements. Unions are however also in a major disadvantage in situations where there is a oversupply of workers available, as is currently the case in the developing world.I would go as far as to say that that the rapidly expanding population in third world countries is in fact one of the greatest obstacles in achieving any kind of economic, social and political progress in these countries.

Economy is of course a immensely complex thing and population is only one factor. It however affects somany other moving parts of the economy that it may be one of the most wildly underestimated and universallynot-openly-spoken of factors of economy.There are many different reasons for this rejection. One important thing is that it does not fit into politicalagenda of the anti-imperialist movement.Considering over-population as a factor would seemingly in their mind diminish the importance of theirideological agenda of imperialism and colonialism as the major or even sole cause for underdevelopment inthe Third World.They seem to fear that taking local factors into account would undermine their overriding single Great Idea.

The sad fact is that have all too often wielded an unholy alliance with the major religions.A sad fact of life is that do all too often even wholly oppose population control, as the Catholic Church is orare so interested in growing their support-base that they do in practice oppose population control as is the casewith Islam and more or less with Hinduism, even if no real doctrinal reasons for this opposition do not exist.

This highly unholy alliance has produced a situation where even discussing population control as a remedy forthe economic ills of Third World seems to be all too much for many.When ideologies like religions come to play the very simple and practical matters become all too oftencomplicated and impractical.

The rise of China after the madness of strict Maoism was possible largely because of the one-child policy, that


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was the cornerstone on which the current rise of China is built.

I would suggest that real, fast and extremely concrete investments in population control would produce resultsthat would outshine soon the results of all of the current aid to developing world.The developing countries simply would soon have more to invest to every child that is born and their way torespectful and full life would soon be made much easier than it is now.

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html

by jaskaw @ 21.07.2010 - 00:42:08

http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/20/is-there-a-unholy-alliance-opposing-population-control-i-claim-9009275/
http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/20/is-there-a-unholy-alliance-opposing-population-control-i-claim-9009275/http://blog.de/user/jaskaw/


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Feedback for Post "Is there a unholy alliance opposing thepopulation control?"

1minion [Visitor]http://1minionsopinion.wordpress.com21.07.2010 @ 16:53I've snagged the link to this post for a post I'm dropping on my own blog later today. This is very interesting.Thanks for writing it up.

Bruce [Visitor]

27.07.2010 @ 1 7:01I love the way Rosling presents things and his sense of humour...
http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/20/is-there-a-unholy-alliance-opposing-population-control-i-claim-9009275/#c13596793http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/20/is-there-a-unholy-alliance-opposing-population-control-i-claim-9009275/#c13642543http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/20/is-there-a-unholy-alliance-opposing-population-control-i-claim-9009275/#c13642543http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/20/is-there-a-unholy-alliance-opposing-population-control-i-claim-9009275/#c13596793http://1minionsopinion.wordpress.com/http://fix.blog.de/http://fix.blog.de/


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Is a completely rational society possible?We often see Greece of Antiquity presented as the pillar of rational thought, but philosopher Bertrand Russellreminds in his magnificent 'The History of Western Philosophy' that Greece was also home of many importantcults and mysteries. Rational thought had to fight for breathing space with the believers of supernatural andmystical even there.This fight for supremacy between the rational side and the mystical side of human nature has of course being

going on in all societies at all times, but the big thing was that in Greece rational though at last had the upperhand at times or at least it was well respected and allowed to flourish.

When Christianity took over in Europe, the mystical and supernatural got the definite upper hand, but the bigdifference was that Christianity did not respect the rational side of humans and it was totally suppressed for along time.There were of course thinkers who tried to make Christianity more rational, as the rationally inclined peopledid not disappear even during its heyday in the medieval times, they just had to try to adjust Christianity tosuit also their needs, for which it was sorely ill equipped.However, as the mystical side of humanity had a clear and unchallenged supremacy in the early medievaltimes, the majority of the naturally more rationally inclined part of the population just had to bide their time.

The new resurgence of rationality was however luckily not far away, as Renaissance and most of all the Age
http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/25/is-rational-humanism-the-only-possible-answer-to-the-ills-of-humanity-9037446/


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of Enlightenment were just signs of the return of rationality to societies.In the end rationality got the upper hand again in Western Europe and the modern western nations can well bedescribed as societies that are based on central ideas of rationality.

I do not however think that a completely rational society is ever possible. There is a unavoidable irrationalelement in all of us. In some people it is always more marked than in others.Even if I do claim that the best, most workable and just societies have been those where rationality has had theupper hand and it has been the primary guiding voice in society, but in where also the mystical side of human

thinking has been allowed to flourish.

The misery of medieval Europe did show how the unchallenged superiority of the mystical will lead society toa terrible dead end. On the other hand the example of Soviet Union did also show where a totallyunchallenged belief in the absolute superiority of purely human ideas can lead.In the end the core problem in Soviet Union was of course the irrational and very religion-like belief in theabsolute superiority of certain human ideas.I have said in this blog before that I do think that in s successful society all interest groups in the society musthave a say in how the common affairs of a society are run and most of all parties of society do respect therights of others.

Similarly I do think that both the rational and the mystical side of human nature must be respected in asuccessful society for it to achieve a true state of flourishing, even if I think that the basic guiding principlesof the society must be based on rationality.The most successful and most of all enduring societies in human history have been those where ideas havebeen free to flow. The mixing and matching of ideas does produce new ideas and new ideas are the real fuel of human progress.

Even if I am an atheist, my goal is not a society where there would be only atheists, also because I do fear thatit is simply impossible to achieve. There has always been people who are ultimately drawn to the mystical andthere are no indications that this tendency would be disappearing in the future either.Even if I accept this, I can however fight for a society where social, political and economical decisions aremade on the base of analysis of reality as much as possible and not based on any religious dogma in my ownsociety and in all societies of the world.

This does not mean at all that I would be striving for rooting out of all religions, but I am fighting for thediminishing of their role as a basis for decision making on the level of society.I do think that a human society does need all kinds of ideas and (even bad ones) to really flourish, as the battleof the ideas is a major thing in producing new social, political and cultural innovations.

However, not all mystical and supernatural ideas are equal; some are more limiting and demanding of theirfollowers than others.I think a true free-thinker does not need think of all supernatural ideas as one big lump, but need to see thatsome of them offer a markedly better base for human flourishing than others.For example the modern protestant state churches of the Western Europe represent a wholly different kind of world view and practical guidelines to life than their predecessors a few hundred years ago or the Pentecostalor other revivalist movements of today, that have made life and politics especially in the United States sodifficult for more rational people.

The modern western Protestant state churches have evolved so that they can exist respecting and operatingwithin the framework of the modern pluralistic, free and open societies, when Islam for one is still waiting forthis development to happen. This applies to a lesser degree to the extremely conservative mainstream CatholicChurch also.All this does not mean that I would not think that rational humanism is the best medicine for the main ills of humanity, but that I just think that the irrational, mystical side of humanity needs to be allowed to be find

expressions also, if we want to create workable and most of all stable societies.


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I'm saying that even though I do think that rational humanism is the overwhelmingly superior answer; but Ithink it can never be the only or absolute truth.If I would ever mak e a clai m like that, I would not be any better than those who believe in the 'absolute truths'so eagerly still offered by the religions.

by jaskaw @ 25.07.2010 - 22:29:45

http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/25/is-rational-humanism-the-only-possible-answer-to-the-ills-of-humanity-903744
http://blog.de/user/jaskaw/http://beinghuman.blogs.fi/2010/07/25/is-rational-humanism-the-only-possible-answer-to-the-ills-of-humanity-9037446/http://blog.de/user/jaskaw/


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Bruce [Visitor]

27.07.2010 @ 16:50Although I agree with your conclusions, I fear that the world we prefer is not where the world is currentlyheading. Looking at what is going on everywhere except Eastern Asia, I see the retreat of rational humanismfrom an ever more aggressive and dogmatic religious onslaught. I fear that we are heading into an Age of Disenlightenment.

To a great extent we are ourselves to blame for this reversal. The Age of Enlightenment gave us the triumphof reason over belief. We thought that God was dead and buried, but we underestimated the tenacity of religious dogma, perfected over millennia of refinement, and, more importantly, we hopelesslyunderestimated the incredible impact of our own technological success. By applying logic and reason to ourdealings with the world, rather than submitting hopelessly to every catastrophe as being the will of God, wewere able to defeat Gods purpose. We reduced and almost exterminated famine, pestilence and many of the

other evils perpetrated by that non-existent Supreme Being. The result was an incredible population explosion,from 1 to 7 billion people in 200 years, an incredible increase in the average standard of living and abiosphere stressed to breaking point.

The rational hav e responded by curbing their birth rates, but the main religions are still bent on maximisingthe production of canno n fodder for t he battle they think is to come.

atheistbruce [Member]29.07.2010 @ 19:07

OK, it seems I got it right...
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About the author jaskaw (Jaakko Wallenius), male, 52 years old, Lohja, , speaks Finnish (FI)

(English version at bottom) Uusi ja yllttv tieto on minulle ylivoimaisesti parasta viihdett. Rakkaushistoriaan syttyi jo kansankouluaikana, mutta viime vuosina melkoisesti aikaa on vienyt mystietotekniikkaan syventyminen. Opiskelin aikoinaan historiaa, sosiologiaa ja valtio-oppia, mutta lyhyeksi

jnyt poliittinen ura vei miehen pian mukanaan. Jo 17 vuotta sitten alkoi nykyinen taloustoimittajan ura.Asun pieness omakotitalossa pieness kaupungissa vaimon, kahden koiran, kahden lapsen ja viime laskunmukaan 14 kalan kanssa. Korjailen toimittajan ptyni ohella sivutoimisena yrittjn hyvienkaupunkilaisten tietokoneita. Olen mys kotitoimitukseni pluottamusmies. New information is always thebest entertainment for me. My everlasting love of histor started at the elementary school at tender age of nine, when I read The 600 pages of Pocket World History, admittedly skipping the dull parts about culture... Ihave studied history, political history, political science and journalism in universities of Turku and Tampere,but have never graduated from neither. A brief but tempestuous political career blew the man premately to towide world from the comforting womb of university. A more steady career in journalism followed and I havebeen a professional writer and journalist for the past 20 years. At present I live in a small town in a smallhouse with a wife, two not so small teenagers, two middle-sized dogs and 14 fish of various sizes. By day I

work as a journalist writing about local economy in our local newspaper. Its a job i have held for the past 17years. In the evenings and week-ends I repair the computers of the good citizens of our little town as a privateentrepreneur.

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bittitohtori.blogs .fiuskoitseesi.blog s.fihsvahti.blogs.fibeinghuman.blo gs.fiatheistnews.blog s.fithelittlebook.blogs.fiikkunat.blogs.fidayofreason.blogs.fi

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