Abortion
By Bruce J. Cameron
Abortion, just the word alone brings strong images and emotions to most people whether or not they have religious reasons for their viewpoint.
It is a very controversial issue made all the more complicated by the current push by some in Congress to include funding for abortions in the new health legislation. Your view on the issue of abortion notwithstanding, it is clearly not something that should be paid for by taxpayers. So, with that position stated, let’s move on to the reasons that some people consider having an abortion.
Here are some definitions that may be helpful:
Embryo – from conception to 8th week of development
Fetus – a developing human from 2 months to birth.
First, the reasons that are absolutely not valid.
a. To terminate an unwanted pregnancy.
b. To terminate the pregnancy of a child of a certain sex, when that sex has been determined by ultrasound.
Next, the only valid reasons for having an abortion.
1. When the mother’s life is threatened by continuing the pregnancy.
2. When the embryo is not viable.
3. The pregnancy was caused by rape.
4. The pregnancy was caused by incest.
Numbers 3 and 4 are only valid when the pregnancy is in the first trimester. A better alternative
would be an embryo transfer to a woman who desires a child. See page 2 for more information on human embryo transfer.
My friend, James B. Andrews of Cave Creek, AZ commented “If women were born sterile and needed a fertilizing shot to be fertile,
there would be no abortions performed. We do not have an abortion problem; we have an unwanted pregnancy problem, caused by
conflicting education/communication problems. Since this is not possible, then voluntary temporary sterilization (birth control)
must be taught and socially accepted by all. The process starts by having everyone be taught at a young age, at home and in school, and then enforced by society in general, the following statement, “EVERY CHILD BORN MUST BE A WANTED CHILD, WANTED BY BOTH
PARENTS”.
I heartily agree with Jim’s statement and would add that I am “Pro-Choice” and the choice to be made is before sex, not after!
To engage in sex for pleasure, without desiring the result to be the creation of a child, one must actively engage in proven birth
control measures such as condoms, birth control medication or sterilization. To actively engage in sexual activity,
without desiring the result to be the creation of a child, and to consciously not use the inexpensive birth control procedures
mentioned above is, simply, gross personal irresponsibility. If a pregnancy occurs and to then seek an abortion, as opposed to
giving birth or considering an embryo transplant, is grossly immoral and made worse if the individual seeks taxpayer funding for
the abortion. To ask for taxpayer funding for the result of an act that is totally voluntary and absolutely avoidable is
tantamount to theft or extortion.
Revised 04/10/16
History of Human embryo transfers.
The first transfer of an embryo from one human to another resulting in pregnancy was reported in July 1983 and subsequently led to
the announcement of the first human birth February 3, 1984.[16] This procedure was performed at the Harbor UCLA Medical Center
[17] under the direction of Dr. John Buster and the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine.
In the procedure, an embryo that was just beginning to develop was transferred from one woman in whom it had been conceived by
artificial insemination to another woman who gave birth to the infant 38 weeks later. The sperm used in the artificial
insemination came from the husband of the woman who bore the baby.[18][19]
This scientific breakthrough established standards and became an agent of change for women suffering from the afflictions of
infertility and for women who did not want to pass on genetic disorders to their children. Donor embryo transfer has given women
a mechanism to become pregnant and give birth to a child that will contain their husband’s genetic makeup. Although donor
embryo transfer as practiced today has evolved from the original non-surgical method, it now accounts for approximately 5%
of in vitro fertilization recorded births.
Prior to this, thousands of women who were infertile, had adoption as the only path to parenthood. This set the stage to allow open
and candid discussion of embryo donation and transfer. This breakthrough has given way to the donation of human embryos as a
common practice similar to other donations such as blood and major organ donations. At the time of this announcement the event
was captured by major news carriers and fueled healthy debate and discussion on this practice which impacted the future of
reproductive medicine by creating a platform for further advancements in woman's health.
This work established the technical foundation and legal-ethical framework surrounding the clinical use of human oocyte and embryo
donation, a mainstream clinical practice, which has evolved over the past 25 years.[18][19] Building upon this
groundbreaking research and since the initial birth announcement in 1984, well over 47,000 live births resulting from donor
embryo transfer have been and continue to be recorded by the Centers for Disease Control(CDC)[20] in the United States to
infertile women, who otherwise would not have had children by any other existing method.[21][22]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryo_transfer
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Friday, May 3, 2013
The Insanity of Radical Islam
Why would one "good" boy . . . . kill another good boy, 2 others and grievously injure 260 others?
My answer will amaze you and illustrates the dangers to the world from religious extremists. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his 19 year-old brother Dzhokar, built and detonated the two bombs at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013.
Some of the following originally appeared in my earlier 2009 blog entitled "Root Causes".
They had immigrated approximately 10 years ago from an area in Russia near Chechnya and were born Muslim. Friends and others who knew them thought of them as "good" boys. Investigations have found that they had YouTube sites with radical Islamic content and connections with Feiz Mohammed, an Australian Imam who is known as a radical Islamist.
Radical Islamists, as opposed to everyday Islamists, exhort their fellow Islamists to kill all infidels (unbelievers) and to work to establish Shariah Law and a world-wide caliphate. It has been established that the Imams and Mullahs indoctrinate potential terrorists with the promise that if they are martryed in the fight against the infidels they will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven attended by 72 virgins. And what do they promise the virgins?
How do two brothers who have lived the last 10 years in the United States come under the evil spell of this insane vision? It starts with being born a Muslim in a radical culture.
As with the many Christian sects there are many different religious leaders who interpret the Bible in many different ways. Some good, some bad. So it is with Islam. Sadly, many of the Islamic leaders in the Middle East have taken the extreme in their interpretations. Note that although there are thousands of Mosques and millions of people who are members of them here in the United States they do not kill each other or kill Christians, or maim and torture their members for various religious infractions. They do not blow up the Mosques of other sects during prayers. What is the difference? It is simply that some Islamic leaders are rational human beings who practice their religion in a peaceful way and there are some that are not rational and interpret the Koran in a manner that justifies, in their minds, the atrocities that we read about every day occurring in the Islamic countries abroad.
As Ayn Rand has stated "Sadism, dictatorship, any form of evil, is the consequence of a man's evasion of reality."
The major cause of the irrational acts we see being committed by some people of the Islamic faith has little to do with the Koran and much to do with their culture. Many in Islamic countries are not taught to think independently and are discouraged from exercising their critical thinking skills.
They are taught to listen and blindly obey their religious leaders who interpret the Koran to their own ends. I have read the entire Koran¹ and found nothing to support such crimes as "Honor" killings of girls and women, suicide bombings, sexual mutilation of girls, stoning to death of adulteresses, intolerance of other religions and cultures to the point of murder and on and on. None of this is in the Koran. Such barbarity is a relic of the middle ages and is not found in modern non-Islamic societies, other than in the mentally ill. These crimes are an extreme perversion of the teachings of the Koran.
Sharia Law is not found in the Koran but has been developed over the centuries in the interpretations and rulings of generations of religious scholars whose teachings have created a society that is intellectually crippled. It wasn't always this way. Early Islamic society was rich in intellectual achievement.
The immigration of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622 AD, known as the hijra, marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar and, essentially, the Islamic era. Major intellectual achievements by Muslims since then include; the translations of early Greek works in the eighth and ninth centuries, the refinement of Arabic numbers to include the use of zero for the first time in the 10th century, in the 11th and 12th centuries major contributions to algebra, mathematics and medicine, the world's first true astronomical observatory and major works on engineering, technology and pharmacology in the 13th century, and optics in the 14th century².
Since then however, intellectual excellence has given way to emphasis on blind adherence to superstition and today we see the tragic result where neighbor kills neighbor for no reason other than they observe different religious beliefs. Why can't these people live peacefully as does most of the civilized world? In the United States, for example, where freedom of religion is guaranteed by the US Constitution, almost 304 million people³ with over 65 different religions, including almost 2 million Muslims, live together peacefully and practice their religion, or not, as the case may be.
The non-Islamic world has become civilized due to the respect for the rights of individuals as is found in the US Constitution and in other similar legal protections that have spread throughout the modern world.
The root cause for today's unbelievable barbarity in the Middle East is the same cause that plagued the earliest humans, Homo habilis, since they first walked out of the jungle and onto the savannah about 2 million years ago. This continues today with those who refuse to use their minds to analyze the world around them and, instead, persist in blindly following the teachings of those who promote superstition. The root cause is simply the refusal of some humans to exercise their innate critical thinking skills.
All modern humans, Homo sapiens, are born with the same intellectual potential, whether their parents are from an obscure tribe in the remote Amazon jungle of South America or the highlands of New Guinea, or from Paris, France, or Tuba, Senegal, or London, England or New London, Connecticut. Or, even, Gaza. What determines their intellectual actualization is the environment in which they grow and learn of the world around them. A child raised in an environment where superstition is rampant and without an objective education will be unable to function in modern society as a civilized human being.
The intellectually dysfunctional human, which we see in many places in the world, especially the Middle East, is a result of the absence of a rational environment and the promotion of superstition in the madrasas, the religious schools. Here they are taught not to exercise individual critical thinking skills but to memorize and accept the teachings of those who promote their own perverted version of Islam.
This plague of irrationality can be ended by teaching and encouraging all children to use their minds to view the real world as it exists, not as it is taught in the madrasas. Independent thought leads to logical thought processes which lead to rationality and the ultimate rejection of superstition.
To summarize, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokar were intellectually crippled by being indoctrinated at an early age to not use their inherent critical thinking abilities but to listen and believe their imams and mullahs. When the time came and they were encouraged to take radical action they did so believing that they were "doing the right thing" by following Allah's demand that to purify the world by killing infidels, including 8 year-old Martin Richards was a just cause.
They committed this atrocity believing they were doing something that was good!
So, perhaps the beginning of the end of the gross irrationality of today's Islamic extremists, and many other religion's similar irrationalities, is to replace the Shahada, the traditional whispering in the ear of Muslim newborns of testimony that "God is the only God and Muhammad is His messenger", with "A is A", Aristotle's Law of Identity which is the basis of modern Homo Sapien's use of their instinctive critical thinking skills.
1 The Koran, Revised Translation by N.J. Dawood. Penguin Classics, 1999, 435 pages with Index, and an eBook version
The Qur'an or the Koran, translated by E.H. Palmer, that I use with Microsoft Reader. The eBook version is especially
handy when searching for a particular word or phrase.
2 Islam for Dummies, Professor Malcolm Clark, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2003.
3 US Census Bureau, 06/18/08, http://www.census.gov
4 The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, http://religions.pewforum,org/affiliations
5 The Book of Life, Edited by Stephen Jay Gould, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.,2001
Why would one "good" boy . . . . kill another good boy, 2 others and grievously injure 260 others?
My answer will amaze you and illustrates the dangers to the world from religious extremists. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his 19 year-old brother Dzhokar, built and detonated the two bombs at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013.
Some of the following originally appeared in my earlier 2009 blog entitled "Root Causes".
They had immigrated approximately 10 years ago from an area in Russia near Chechnya and were born Muslim. Friends and others who knew them thought of them as "good" boys. Investigations have found that they had YouTube sites with radical Islamic content and connections with Feiz Mohammed, an Australian Imam who is known as a radical Islamist.
Radical Islamists, as opposed to everyday Islamists, exhort their fellow Islamists to kill all infidels (unbelievers) and to work to establish Shariah Law and a world-wide caliphate. It has been established that the Imams and Mullahs indoctrinate potential terrorists with the promise that if they are martryed in the fight against the infidels they will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven attended by 72 virgins. And what do they promise the virgins?
How do two brothers who have lived the last 10 years in the United States come under the evil spell of this insane vision? It starts with being born a Muslim in a radical culture.
As with the many Christian sects there are many different religious leaders who interpret the Bible in many different ways. Some good, some bad. So it is with Islam. Sadly, many of the Islamic leaders in the Middle East have taken the extreme in their interpretations. Note that although there are thousands of Mosques and millions of people who are members of them here in the United States they do not kill each other or kill Christians, or maim and torture their members for various religious infractions. They do not blow up the Mosques of other sects during prayers. What is the difference? It is simply that some Islamic leaders are rational human beings who practice their religion in a peaceful way and there are some that are not rational and interpret the Koran in a manner that justifies, in their minds, the atrocities that we read about every day occurring in the Islamic countries abroad.
As Ayn Rand has stated "Sadism, dictatorship, any form of evil, is the consequence of a man's evasion of reality."
The major cause of the irrational acts we see being committed by some people of the Islamic faith has little to do with the Koran and much to do with their culture. Many in Islamic countries are not taught to think independently and are discouraged from exercising their critical thinking skills.
They are taught to listen and blindly obey their religious leaders who interpret the Koran to their own ends. I have read the entire Koran¹ and found nothing to support such crimes as "Honor" killings of girls and women, suicide bombings, sexual mutilation of girls, stoning to death of adulteresses, intolerance of other religions and cultures to the point of murder and on and on. None of this is in the Koran. Such barbarity is a relic of the middle ages and is not found in modern non-Islamic societies, other than in the mentally ill. These crimes are an extreme perversion of the teachings of the Koran.
Sharia Law is not found in the Koran but has been developed over the centuries in the interpretations and rulings of generations of religious scholars whose teachings have created a society that is intellectually crippled. It wasn't always this way. Early Islamic society was rich in intellectual achievement.
The immigration of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622 AD, known as the hijra, marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar and, essentially, the Islamic era. Major intellectual achievements by Muslims since then include; the translations of early Greek works in the eighth and ninth centuries, the refinement of Arabic numbers to include the use of zero for the first time in the 10th century, in the 11th and 12th centuries major contributions to algebra, mathematics and medicine, the world's first true astronomical observatory and major works on engineering, technology and pharmacology in the 13th century, and optics in the 14th century².
Since then however, intellectual excellence has given way to emphasis on blind adherence to superstition and today we see the tragic result where neighbor kills neighbor for no reason other than they observe different religious beliefs. Why can't these people live peacefully as does most of the civilized world? In the United States, for example, where freedom of religion is guaranteed by the US Constitution, almost 304 million people³ with over 65 different religions, including almost 2 million Muslims, live together peacefully and practice their religion, or not, as the case may be.
The non-Islamic world has become civilized due to the respect for the rights of individuals as is found in the US Constitution and in other similar legal protections that have spread throughout the modern world.
The root cause for today's unbelievable barbarity in the Middle East is the same cause that plagued the earliest humans, Homo habilis, since they first walked out of the jungle and onto the savannah about 2 million years ago. This continues today with those who refuse to use their minds to analyze the world around them and, instead, persist in blindly following the teachings of those who promote superstition. The root cause is simply the refusal of some humans to exercise their innate critical thinking skills.
All modern humans, Homo sapiens, are born with the same intellectual potential, whether their parents are from an obscure tribe in the remote Amazon jungle of South America or the highlands of New Guinea, or from Paris, France, or Tuba, Senegal, or London, England or New London, Connecticut. Or, even, Gaza. What determines their intellectual actualization is the environment in which they grow and learn of the world around them. A child raised in an environment where superstition is rampant and without an objective education will be unable to function in modern society as a civilized human being.
The intellectually dysfunctional human, which we see in many places in the world, especially the Middle East, is a result of the absence of a rational environment and the promotion of superstition in the madrasas, the religious schools. Here they are taught not to exercise individual critical thinking skills but to memorize and accept the teachings of those who promote their own perverted version of Islam.
This plague of irrationality can be ended by teaching and encouraging all children to use their minds to view the real world as it exists, not as it is taught in the madrasas. Independent thought leads to logical thought processes which lead to rationality and the ultimate rejection of superstition.
To summarize, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokar were intellectually crippled by being indoctrinated at an early age to not use their inherent critical thinking abilities but to listen and believe their imams and mullahs. When the time came and they were encouraged to take radical action they did so believing that they were "doing the right thing" by following Allah's demand that to purify the world by killing infidels, including 8 year-old Martin Richards was a just cause.
They committed this atrocity believing they were doing something that was good!
So, perhaps the beginning of the end of the gross irrationality of today's Islamic extremists, and many other religion's similar irrationalities, is to replace the Shahada, the traditional whispering in the ear of Muslim newborns of testimony that "God is the only God and Muhammad is His messenger", with "A is A", Aristotle's Law of Identity which is the basis of modern Homo Sapien's use of their instinctive critical thinking skills.
1 The Koran, Revised Translation by N.J. Dawood. Penguin Classics, 1999, 435 pages with Index, and an eBook version
The Qur'an or the Koran, translated by E.H. Palmer, that I use with Microsoft Reader. The eBook version is especially
handy when searching for a particular word or phrase.
2 Islam for Dummies, Professor Malcolm Clark, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2003.
3 US Census Bureau, 06/18/08, http://www.census.gov
4 The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, http://religions.pewforum,org/affiliations
5 The Book of Life, Edited by Stephen Jay Gould, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.,2001
Saturday, October 13, 2012
2012 Arizona Propositions
Here are Cam's 2012 Arizona Propositions recommendations. Whatever your position is on these and the candidates running in the November 6th, 2012 be sure to VOTE!
114 - YES - Proposed amendment to the constitution by the legislature relating to crime victim protection from liability for damages.
114 - YES - Proposed amendment to the constitution by the legislature relating to crime victim protection from liability for damages.
115 - NO - Proposed amendment to the constitution by the legislature relating to the judicial department.
116 - YES - Proposed amendment to the constitution by the legislature relating to property tax exemptions.117 - YES - Proposed amendment to the constitution by the legislature relating to property tax assessed valuation.
118 - YES - Proposed amendment to the constitution by the legislature relating to the establishment of permanent funds.119 - YES - Proposed amendment to the constitution by the legislature relating to state trust lands.
120 - YES - Proposed amendment to the constitution by the legislature relating to state sovereignty.121 - NO - Proposed amendment to the constitution by the initiative relating to direct primary election law.
204 - NO - Proposed by initiative petition to taxation.
REMEMBER TO VOTE ON TUESDAY NOVEMBER 6th !
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Ignore the Bamyan Atheists
I was a skeptic at 5, an agnostic at 13 and a full-fledged atheist at 18. Being a Libertarian, I never went through the “Bamyan” stage of atheism that seems to be the current rage and a highlight, maybe lowlight, of the Obama years.
For those of you with short memories of such things the Bamyan refers to the Buddhas of Bamyan which were two 6th century monumental statues of standing Buddhas carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan Valley in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan. Built in 507 the statues represented the classic blended style of Gandhara art. ¹
Gandhara art is the distinctive Gandhara style of Buddhist art, which developed out of a merger of Greek, Syrian, Persian, and other Indian artistic influence. This development began during the Parthian period (50 BC – AD 75). Ghandaran style flourished and achieved its peak during the Kushan period, from the 1st to the 5th century. ²
In 2001 the Taliban earned world-wide condemnation for their ignorant and intolerant approach to these works of art.
They were intentionally dynamited and destroyed by the Taliban, on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, after the Taliban government declared that they were “idols” (which are forbidden under Sharia law.) International opinion strongly condemned the destruction of the Buddhas, which was viewed as an example of the intolerance of the Taliban and of Islamism. ³
Today, in the United States, we are experiencing another type of intolerance and ignorance manifesting itself in the form of some atheists, agnostics, non-believers and others of their ilk, many of whom also, ironically, condemned the actions of the Taliban at the time, who insist that all Christian art and reference must be removed from public view especially when they are located on United States property and buildings.
Such actions betray them for the ignorant, small-minded and mean-spirited people that they are.
They will henceforth be known as the Bamyan Atheists.
The United States of America is the result of the intellectual and physical efforts of a Christian-Judeo society that saw individual freedoms as the key to a better life for all. That these early citizens wanted to express their ideas using mostly Christian themes is representative of their culture at the time.
As a freedom loving atheist I see absolutely no harm in these themes and actually find them to be a wonderful part of our early culture, filled with idealism, optimism, and ethics. I like to see “In God We Trust” on our money and inscribed on our buildings, I like to see the Ten Commandments chiseled into government buildings across our great nation.
I enjoy the nativity scenes at the county courthouse and I love singing Christmas carols at Christmastime. Christmas, not Winter Solstice you Bamyans!
These are part of our early history and culture and are not to be disparaged by little minds that somehow think they are intellectually above such things. They are actually intellectually challenged for being unable to see the beauty of our country’s cultural history.
To all of the Bamyan Atheists I urge you to drop this childish pettiness and get to work on the real issues, the loss of personal freedoms and the rampant growth of bureaucracy, that face our country. To waste your time, and ours, with fighting a monument set in the California Mojave desert as a memorial to those who gave their lives for our country in a past war is incomprehensible. A better cause would be to volunteer your time and money to advocating more personal freedoms and less government.
¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamyan
² http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhara
³ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamyan
© 2010 by Bruce J. Cameron
Saturday, September 11, 2010
The Ignorance of Some Religious Leaders
The Ignorance of Some Religious Leaders
It has become painfully clear that some Christian leaders have taken the same route as some of their Islamic brethren.
The Reverend Terry Jones in Florida plans to burn the Koran publicly on the 9th Anniversary of the 911 tragedy to commemorate that atrocity.
How appropriate. A religious leader interprets the Koran in a twisted way to justify the 911 attack and another religious leader interprets the Koran in a twisted way to justify his publicly burning the Koran as retribution for the 911 attack.
I do not know if the Rev. Jones has read the Koran, but I doubt it. After 911, I bought a Koran and read it cover to cover, it is not long, my edition is a little over 400 pages. I bought a second edition to determine if there were any major differences, there were not, and then bought an electronic version to be able to search for words and phrases.
There is nothing in the Koran that justifies the atrocity of the 911 event, nor is there anything in the Koran that justifies the continual atrocities of the Al Queda or the Taliban. Those organizations are following extremist religious leaders who have interpreted the Koran in their own twisted ways for their own selfish reasons.
As with the many Christian sects there are many different religious leaders who interpret the Bible in many different ways. Some good, some bad. So it is with Islam. Sadly, many of the Islamic leaders in the Middle East have taken the extreme in their interpretations. Note that although there are thousands of Mosques and millions of people who are members of them here in the United States they do not kill each other or kill Christians, or maim and torture their members for various religious infractions. They do not blow up the Mosques of other sects during prayers. What is the difference? It is simply that some Islamic leaders are rational human beings who practice their religion in a peaceful way and there are some that are not rational and interpret the Koran in a manner that justifies, in their minds, the atrocities that we read about every day occurring in the Islamic countries abroad.
The Rev. Jones is as ignorant as they are and one who acts on ignorance is stupid for insisting on burning the Koran. It is not the Koran that is at fault, it is those who interpret it for evil purposes. The Rev Jones is just as guilty.
It has become painfully clear that some Christian leaders have taken the same route as some of their Islamic brethren.
The Reverend Terry Jones in Florida plans to burn the Koran publicly on the 9th Anniversary of the 911 tragedy to commemorate that atrocity.
How appropriate. A religious leader interprets the Koran in a twisted way to justify the 911 attack and another religious leader interprets the Koran in a twisted way to justify his publicly burning the Koran as retribution for the 911 attack.
I do not know if the Rev. Jones has read the Koran, but I doubt it. After 911, I bought a Koran and read it cover to cover, it is not long, my edition is a little over 400 pages. I bought a second edition to determine if there were any major differences, there were not, and then bought an electronic version to be able to search for words and phrases.
There is nothing in the Koran that justifies the atrocity of the 911 event, nor is there anything in the Koran that justifies the continual atrocities of the Al Queda or the Taliban. Those organizations are following extremist religious leaders who have interpreted the Koran in their own twisted ways for their own selfish reasons.
As with the many Christian sects there are many different religious leaders who interpret the Bible in many different ways. Some good, some bad. So it is with Islam. Sadly, many of the Islamic leaders in the Middle East have taken the extreme in their interpretations. Note that although there are thousands of Mosques and millions of people who are members of them here in the United States they do not kill each other or kill Christians, or maim and torture their members for various religious infractions. They do not blow up the Mosques of other sects during prayers. What is the difference? It is simply that some Islamic leaders are rational human beings who practice their religion in a peaceful way and there are some that are not rational and interpret the Koran in a manner that justifies, in their minds, the atrocities that we read about every day occurring in the Islamic countries abroad.
The Rev. Jones is as ignorant as they are and one who acts on ignorance is stupid for insisting on burning the Koran. It is not the Koran that is at fault, it is those who interpret it for evil purposes. The Rev Jones is just as guilty.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Root Causes - Part Two
A few days after posting the Root Causes article I received an e-mail from an old friend, and fellow admirer of Ayn Rand, who suggested that I re-read the 1964 Playboy Magazine Interview with Ayn Rand in the context of today’s political turmoil. He did not reference the Root Causes article but it couldn’t have been more timely or more appropriate.
As I re-read the interview, which I had originally read when it was published and had saved that issue of Playboy somewhere, it was clear to me that she has never been more relevant. Her comments and their applicability to today’s unfortunate political situation could have been written yesterday. As my friend commented “she would go through Obama like the c___ through a goose”.
Back to “Root Causes”. In her interview she emphasizes throughout that what is truly evil in this world is that some humans do not use their reasoning powers. Asked to comment on Objectivism, the philosophy that she developed, she replied “It begins with the axiom that existence exists, which means that an objective reality exists independent of any perceiver or of the perceiver's emotions, feelings, wishes, hopes or fears. Objectivism holds that reason is man's only means of perceiving reality and his only guide to action.”
Another quote “Sadism, dictatorship, any form of evil, is the consequence of a man's evasion of reality.”
While I called the lack of critical thinking skills the “Root Cause” she far better describes it as the “consequence of a man's evasion of reality.”
My friend went on to lament that with her gone where do we turn to for an organization that can “Communicate, Educate and Activate” our philosophy”?
There are a number of organizations that provide this and one that comes to mind immediately is the Cato Institute. Below you will find links to the Playboy Interview, more about Ayn Rand and Objectivism and the Cato Institute.
The Ayn Rand Playboy Interview - http://www.ellensplace.net/ar_pboy.html
More about Rand and Objectivism - http://www.ellensplace.net/ar_more.html
The Cato Institute - http://www.cato.org/
As I re-read the interview, which I had originally read when it was published and had saved that issue of Playboy somewhere, it was clear to me that she has never been more relevant. Her comments and their applicability to today’s unfortunate political situation could have been written yesterday. As my friend commented “she would go through Obama like the c___ through a goose”.
Back to “Root Causes”. In her interview she emphasizes throughout that what is truly evil in this world is that some humans do not use their reasoning powers. Asked to comment on Objectivism, the philosophy that she developed, she replied “It begins with the axiom that existence exists, which means that an objective reality exists independent of any perceiver or of the perceiver's emotions, feelings, wishes, hopes or fears. Objectivism holds that reason is man's only means of perceiving reality and his only guide to action.”
Another quote “Sadism, dictatorship, any form of evil, is the consequence of a man's evasion of reality.”
While I called the lack of critical thinking skills the “Root Cause” she far better describes it as the “consequence of a man's evasion of reality.”
My friend went on to lament that with her gone where do we turn to for an organization that can “Communicate, Educate and Activate” our philosophy”?
There are a number of organizations that provide this and one that comes to mind immediately is the Cato Institute. Below you will find links to the Playboy Interview, more about Ayn Rand and Objectivism and the Cato Institute.
The Ayn Rand Playboy Interview - http://www.ellensplace.net/ar_pboy.html
More about Rand and Objectivism - http://www.ellensplace.net/ar_more.html
The Cato Institute - http://www.cato.org/
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Root Causes
Often these days, with regard to the horrors of the wars and terrorism taking place in the Islamic world and elsewhere, you hear reference to a root cause and many claim that it is political or economical in nature. There is a root cause but it is more fundamental than any political or economical philosophy.
The major cause of the irrational acts we see being committed by some people of the Islamic faith has little to do with the Koran and much to do with their culture. Many in Islamic countries are not taught to think independently and are discouraged from exercising their critical thinking skills.
They are taught to listen and blindly obey their religious leaders who interpret the Koran to their own ends. I have read the entire Koran¹ and found nothing to support such crimes as “Honor” killings of girls and women, suicide bombings, sexual mutilation of girls, stoning to death of adulteresses, intolerance of other religions and cultures to the point of murder and on and on. None of this is in the Koran. Such barbarity is a relic of the middle ages and is not found in modern non-Islamic societies, other than in the mentally ill. These crimes are an extreme perversion of the teachings of the Koran.
Sharia Law is not found in the Koran but has been developed over the centuries in the interpretations and rulings of generations of religious scholars whose teachings have created a society that is intellectually crippled. It wasn’t always this way. Early Islamic society was rich in intellectual achievement.
The immigration of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622 AD, known as the hijra, marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar and, essentially, the Islamic era. Major intellectual achievements by Muslims since then include; the translations of early Greek works in the eighth and ninth centuries, the refinement of Arabic numbers to include the use of zero for the first time in the 10th century, in the 11th and 12th centuries major contributions to algebra, mathematics and medicine, the world’s first true astronomical observatory and major works on engineering, technology and pharmacology in the 13th century, and optics in the 14th century².
Since then however, intellectual excellence has given way to emphasis on blind adherence to superstition and today we see the tragic result where neighbor kills neighbor for no reason other than they observe different religious beliefs. Why can’t these people live peacefully as does most of the civilized world? In the United States, for example, where freedom of religion is guaranteed by the US Constitution, almost 304 million people³ with over 65 different religions, including almost 2 million Muslims ⁴ , live together peacefully and practice their religion, or not, as the case may be.
The non-Islamic world has become civilized due to the respect for the rights of individuals as is found in the US Constitution and in other similar legal protections that have spread throughout the modern world.
The root cause for today’s unbelievable barbarity in the Middle East is the same cause that plagued the earliest humans, Homo habilis, since they first walked out of the jungle and onto the savannah about 2 million years ago ⁵ . This continues today with those who refuse to use their minds to analyze the world around them and, instead, persist in blindly following the teachings of those who promote superstition. The root cause is simply the refusal of some humans to exercise their innate critical thinking skills.
All modern humans, Homo sapiens, are born with the same intellectual potential, whether their parents are from an obscure tribe in the remote Amazon jungle of South America or the highlands of New Guinea, or from Paris, France, or Tuba, Senegal, or London, England or New London, Connecticut. Or, even, Gaza. What determines their intellectual actualization is the environment in which they grow and learn of the world around them. A child raised in an environment where superstition is rampant and without an objective education will be unable to function in modern society as a civilized human being.
The intellectually dysfunctional human, which we see in many places in the world, especially the Middle East, is a result of the absence of a rational environment and the promotion of superstition in the madrasas, the religious schools. Here they are taught not to exercise individual critical thinking skills but to memorize and accept the teachings of those who promote their own perverted version of Islam.
This plague of irrationality can be ended by teaching and encouraging all children to use their minds to view the real world as it exists, not as it is taught in the madrasas. Independent thought leads to logical thought processes which lead to rationality and the ultimate rejection of superstition.
So, perhaps the beginning of the end of the gross irrationality of today’s Islamic fundamentalism, and many other religion’s similar irrationalities, is to replace the Shahada, the traditional whispering in the ear of Muslim newborns of testimony that “God is the only God and Muhammad is His messenger”, with “A is A”, Aristotle’s Law of Identity which is the basis of modern Homo sapiens’s use of their instinctive critical thinking skills.
1 The Koran, Revised Translation by N.J. Dawood. Penguin Classics, 1999, 435 pages with Index, and an eBook version The Qur’an or the Koran, translated by E.H. Palmer, that I use with Microsoft Reader. The eBook version is especially handy when searching for a particular word or phrase.
2 Islam for Dummies, Professor Malcolm Clark, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2003.
3 US Census Bureau, 06/18/08, http://www.census.gov
4 The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life,
http://religions.pewforum,org/affiliations
5 The Book of Life, Edited by Stephen Jay Gould, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
2001
The major cause of the irrational acts we see being committed by some people of the Islamic faith has little to do with the Koran and much to do with their culture. Many in Islamic countries are not taught to think independently and are discouraged from exercising their critical thinking skills.
They are taught to listen and blindly obey their religious leaders who interpret the Koran to their own ends. I have read the entire Koran¹ and found nothing to support such crimes as “Honor” killings of girls and women, suicide bombings, sexual mutilation of girls, stoning to death of adulteresses, intolerance of other religions and cultures to the point of murder and on and on. None of this is in the Koran. Such barbarity is a relic of the middle ages and is not found in modern non-Islamic societies, other than in the mentally ill. These crimes are an extreme perversion of the teachings of the Koran.
Sharia Law is not found in the Koran but has been developed over the centuries in the interpretations and rulings of generations of religious scholars whose teachings have created a society that is intellectually crippled. It wasn’t always this way. Early Islamic society was rich in intellectual achievement.
The immigration of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622 AD, known as the hijra, marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar and, essentially, the Islamic era. Major intellectual achievements by Muslims since then include; the translations of early Greek works in the eighth and ninth centuries, the refinement of Arabic numbers to include the use of zero for the first time in the 10th century, in the 11th and 12th centuries major contributions to algebra, mathematics and medicine, the world’s first true astronomical observatory and major works on engineering, technology and pharmacology in the 13th century, and optics in the 14th century².
Since then however, intellectual excellence has given way to emphasis on blind adherence to superstition and today we see the tragic result where neighbor kills neighbor for no reason other than they observe different religious beliefs. Why can’t these people live peacefully as does most of the civilized world? In the United States, for example, where freedom of religion is guaranteed by the US Constitution, almost 304 million people³ with over 65 different religions, including almost 2 million Muslims ⁴ , live together peacefully and practice their religion, or not, as the case may be.
The non-Islamic world has become civilized due to the respect for the rights of individuals as is found in the US Constitution and in other similar legal protections that have spread throughout the modern world.
The root cause for today’s unbelievable barbarity in the Middle East is the same cause that plagued the earliest humans, Homo habilis, since they first walked out of the jungle and onto the savannah about 2 million years ago ⁵ . This continues today with those who refuse to use their minds to analyze the world around them and, instead, persist in blindly following the teachings of those who promote superstition. The root cause is simply the refusal of some humans to exercise their innate critical thinking skills.
All modern humans, Homo sapiens, are born with the same intellectual potential, whether their parents are from an obscure tribe in the remote Amazon jungle of South America or the highlands of New Guinea, or from Paris, France, or Tuba, Senegal, or London, England or New London, Connecticut. Or, even, Gaza. What determines their intellectual actualization is the environment in which they grow and learn of the world around them. A child raised in an environment where superstition is rampant and without an objective education will be unable to function in modern society as a civilized human being.
The intellectually dysfunctional human, which we see in many places in the world, especially the Middle East, is a result of the absence of a rational environment and the promotion of superstition in the madrasas, the religious schools. Here they are taught not to exercise individual critical thinking skills but to memorize and accept the teachings of those who promote their own perverted version of Islam.
This plague of irrationality can be ended by teaching and encouraging all children to use their minds to view the real world as it exists, not as it is taught in the madrasas. Independent thought leads to logical thought processes which lead to rationality and the ultimate rejection of superstition.
So, perhaps the beginning of the end of the gross irrationality of today’s Islamic fundamentalism, and many other religion’s similar irrationalities, is to replace the Shahada, the traditional whispering in the ear of Muslim newborns of testimony that “God is the only God and Muhammad is His messenger”, with “A is A”, Aristotle’s Law of Identity which is the basis of modern Homo sapiens’s use of their instinctive critical thinking skills.
1 The Koran, Revised Translation by N.J. Dawood. Penguin Classics, 1999, 435 pages with Index, and an eBook version The Qur’an or the Koran, translated by E.H. Palmer, that I use with Microsoft Reader. The eBook version is especially handy when searching for a particular word or phrase.
2 Islam for Dummies, Professor Malcolm Clark, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2003.
3 US Census Bureau, 06/18/08, http://www.census.gov
4 The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life,
http://religions.pewforum,org/affiliations
5 The Book of Life, Edited by Stephen Jay Gould, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
2001
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