The communication which prompted all this (to which this was a reply)

The "guts" of morality aspects begin here (basically "other matters" precede this, more or less, in the original E-Mail)

"Godless" "Heathens", and what Christians did to them

DNA: Dumb but so complex, it's prone to "error". Error prone = Evolution!!!

Unconscious trees evolve just like us

Cosmology: Science & the Universe

Stepinac: Patron Saint of Genocide, as an example of the opposite of cherishing each other

The two benchmarks of Atheist Morality

Spare the Child or the Adult?

Spare the Younger Or the Older Child?

Abortion

"Pro"-Lifers Iraq Hypocrisy

Death

Shit Happens
(Evil requires conscious intent, eg: natural disasters are bad, not Evil)

Sex

The Present Pope: Papa Ratzi or Papa NAZI?

Alone In Universe quote

Okay,

Here's my reply to John’s reply to me. I recently forwarded the latter to the mail list in the E-Mail from me that had prompted John to reply - I have the idea that John sometimes hits the 'Reply' button in mistake instead of the 'Reply All' button, so I'm guessing it only came to me - hence the forward. As he'd modified the subject line to "A Response to D Revell", however, it seems clear he intended wider distribution (because I already know who I am ;-). You'll have to dig back further in your "archives" if any more context is required. . It's a bit long, and I think some other stuff I was doing got mixed up with it. If some of it seems disjointed, don't blame me, I can't remember what's in it. ;-)

For context, John's complete reply is given at the end. Here beginneth my reply to this:

Firstly I choose not to respond in detail to the Walter Wink analysis concerning Christian soldiers killing other Christian soldiers ostensibly in the name of the same God, but according to Wink's "analysis", really different Gods. Except to say that, as explained, if it helped the Dutch Reform Church to stop supporting Apartheid, then it is another example of the sometimes efficacy of the White Lie (sic).

Nevertheless, during John's further explanation of Wink's analysis I spotted at least a couple of examples, intentional or not, I don't know, of the "How long has he been beating his wife?" technique, that do relate to the rest of the reply but not related to Wink's analysis. That is, the slipping in of alleged facts or ideas in a way that conveys that they must be matter of fact common knowledge, or "givens". - as in, just for example, that most egregious canard, common elsewhere: "Everyone knows that overall the U.S. is a force for good in the World". I'll look at these first (I won't bother taking further issue with not exactly unexpected but dubious statements such as: " ... the revealed ?truths? of the religions ... ".)

John says:

The main implication that bothers me here being that without acceptance of one of those "cultural" traditions, all of them religious, and may be some he missed out (" ... such cultural traditions as ... ") that internal conflict on killing other human beings would be absent. I absolutely refute that. Although when such ideas become ingrained as "givens" they may not sound too bad, in fact they are malicious and dangerous; more so than the implication in the question: "How long has he been beating his wife?". I've just noticed that John also slips in a couple more of these later.

Atheists of course, don't just not believe in Christianity, they don't believe in any religion, even the polytheistic ones. Nevertheless, in defence of polytheists the statement that they killed without conscience outside their identity group is: A) Generalised in the extreme (which polytheists? An example?) B) Impossible to prove (unless you can get a medium to "communicate" with a polytheist of yore to confirm that he killed outside his group without experiencing internal conflict (as lots of US Jackboots, aka "Our" Troops, seem able to do in Iraq), and C) Very possibly part of the European mindset, of assigning their own acquisitive (read: thieving), exploitative motives onto people they actually know very little about. This is also a propaganda technique - "If they could act like the complete bastards we act(ed) like, they would" - with no evidence at all, or invented evidence - in fact, there is evidence to the contrary - possibly depending on which polytheists, such as the survival of early European visitors to North America enabled by the misplaced (as it turned out) hospitality of the Native Americans.

I include Americans in this European mindset, in fact even much more so than very many present day inhabitants of Europe - as Americans are predominantly Europeans, especially the ones calling the shots (sic) - the real Old Europe - the one that was hardly ever not at war; the one that carved out worldwide colonies for itself; the one that could hardly understand the distant peoples that it met not wanting to "own" the Earth; who regarded themselves as parts of it, not masters over it (extremely logical, in my view). And so it killed them. Usually as "Godless heathens" and in the name of Christianity. In reality to acquire (read: steal) the land and its resources - and wreck it in the process.

Insofar as rationality and religion can have anything to do with each other, which isn't much, polytheisms of some sorts make far more sense. Worshippers of Earth, Water, Sun, and Moon, or 'Spirits' thereof, can see and feel the effects of their venerations. If the Sun 'disappeared' or extinguished tomorrow, all life on Earth would begin to end 8 minutes later. The disappearance of the Moon's effects would most likely cause equally dire consequences, though may be over a longer term.

Hinduism was a notable omission from John's list of polytheisms. Hindus, immensely numerous, were/are arguably the most peaceful of either old time or present time polytheists, they don't even partake of meat (well, aren't supposed to, but the Mumbai McDonald's isn't helping).

Morality is, in terms which I suppose are scientific, an Observable, INDEPENDENT of religion, or, indeed, it's opposite: atheism. A normal 5 or 6 year old, secure in its environment, and too young to have been inculcated with any religious propaganda, atheist "propaganda", if you prefer, or any propaganda, (think about the latter two) seeing a dead animal on the path will look at it wistfully, and might ask some awkward questions about it: "Can we make it better?", "Why did it have to die?". Of course, that part of the reason for this being that this makes the child for the first time think of its own possible mortality - seen as a bad thing - might be revealed by subsequent questions such as: "Will I die too?" . Nevertheless, the first expression is concern for the animal: "Fix it mommy!". Empathy. Sympathy.

I exclude from this Sociopaths, and little "early starter" 6 year olds from Bible-Belt Texas about whom their fathers proudly declare that they can shoot out the eye of a squirrel from 50 feet.

You might hear the same child (still too young to be afflicted by "philosophy" of any kind) at a boisterous kids' party exclaim: "That's not fair!", and in most cases that would be absolutely agreed upon by the majority of the human race - religionists and atheists alike (may be some scallywag pulled her hair).

W. H. Auden in his poem "September 1, 1939" said:

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do Evil in return.

(Apparently something politicians, most of whom are the scum of the Earth, don't know, or pretend they don't). BTW, the title of this poem marks British and French entry into WW II. I mention this for the historically challenged (America, having arrived late for both World Wars of the last century, has since been exceedingly over eager to arrive early for subsequent wars).

So where does this morality, that I contend is totally independent of religion, albeit various religions have "coincidentally" codified parts of it (which code they have violated, it seems without exception), come from? Well, I don't really know. And I don't have to know.

And what is its purpose? Well, I don't really know (I'm not even sure the question has meaning). Again I don't have to know. It's an Observable. Of course, I'm sure there are many ideas about this, the non-religious ones knocking the socks off the religious ones. For example, it's likely that there wouldn't be many of us around if the DNA, genetics, whatever, caused all of us with great ease to take blocks of wood to each others' heads - a world full of psychopaths would be sparsely populated indeed. I'm not using the phraseology (good or bad) "survival strategy" in relation to DNA here, as DNA is a molecule; as such knows no more of the World, or consciousness, or the concept of survival than a molecule of carbon dioxide, or a piece of iron, does. The only entities that can be concerned about survival are conscious entities that can usually, if not always, feel pain. When they are defending themselves from attack, they're not thinking "I must defend my DNA, so that I can pass it on", they're concerned with the immediate issues of avoiding injury, and the pain that goes with it.

From the perspective of consciousness life divides into two: unconscious like trees, conscious (self aware) like mammals. So what interest does an unconscious tree have in surviving and perpetuating its DNA? It doesn't. Suppose DNA, whatever, causes a tree to carry succulent looking tasty berries but just happens to insert a drop of cyanide into each berry; and that same tree rewards creatures that tear at its bark (which will kill it in short order) with tasty nutritious sap. This would be called a mutation. It's obvious why we don't find any trees like that - it's a one generation wonder: acting "psychopathically" to birds that would spread its seed - which would probably be put off the tree's fruit even before it became extinct by the sight of all the dead birds lying around it. Similarly trees which do the opposite survive - though in neither case does the tree have any concept of survival.

That concept comes with consciousness - self awareness. Similarly I don't know "where" that comes from - again I don't have to. Both atheists and religious people probably agree that is also an Observable. However, from research on neural networks, computer programs, AI and the like, it does seem entirely plausible that it may result from highly complex and dense networks of interconnected mutually controlling "switches" - hardly a "side effect", as John asserts the "Materialists" must ascribe it. It seems exceedingly reasonable that Awareness of some concept we call Survival resulting from the Observable we call Consciousness is itself conducive to that Survival. Neither "psychopathic" nor non-"psychopathic" trees have this, nor care. Conscious entities, including human beings, and house cats do. Moreover some computer programs operating on very simple paradigms are known to produce surprisingly complicated and unpredictable outputs (any particular output can be back-tracked, and that particular output explained, but can not be predicted a priori). Each of these "switches" (neurons) is itself very simple.

John says:

This kills the ridiculous argument used by some theists in argument for a "divine intervention" in the occurrence of sentient life that entropy (disorder) in the Universe always increases. This is true only on the scale of the Universe, or even on a smaller scale, such as galactically. It appears to be true overall, but there is no requirement that it is true locally. So, the undense planetary combination above does not contravene the Observation that NET entropy increases. Indeed "our" own entropy is going to increase to life extinguishing levels in less time than the 5 billion years it will take for the Sun to become a Red Giant and swallow up the Earth, although with the current (man-made) state of things, that can be no more than of academic interest. Moreover, such a (potentially) life supporting combination of parameters is no rarer than any similarly constricted specific combination, such as a planet very similar to earth, even with a small surface temperature range the same as "our" own, but with lower limit of 1,000 °F, that would not be supportive of life - the existence of complex molecules being precluded. An only slightly less ridiculous argument I've seen used is that a life sustaining combination of parameters is so mind blowingly unlikely (true) that only "divine intervention" could have caused it, and moreover that it must therefore be unique in the Universe. The probability that even most such theists accept, however, is less than the number of galaxies in the Universe, let alone the almost incomprehensibly large "average" size of a galaxy in terms of the number of stars contained (around 10 billion?).

John says:

Again, I don't know whether or not this is what religionists want others to think that these materialists of whom you speak, and feel you have reason to ascribe such philosophy to me, really believe, or if they really do believe it. Perhaps some do, and others don't. I don't. I can't be bothered "Googling" on it. If I wanted to ascribe an "ism" to myself it would be rationalism with its correlate of "socialism" insofar as the implementation of the Declaration of Human Rights goes: the rights to sustenance, shelter, education and health care - all completely ignored by the US. Instead the latter concentrates exclusively on those aspects of the Declaration that those without any or all of: sustenance, shelter, education and health care are completely unable to appreciate or even care about - in fact I've come to the conclusion that the US works deliberately and with malice aforethought to deny these to much of the human race (as I've indicated to this list before). Even then only the US's versions of "democracy", "free speech" and "human rights" are acceptable, all in the service of, and cover for, brutal fascistic hegemonistic US foreign policy.

Again free will is an Observable. Indisputably. On a small level, I can choose to feed the cat now, or wait an hour. A cat can decide that it's been six months or so since it crapped on the carpet, and just to show its human possession that it can, and should not be taken for granted, do it all over again - or surprise the human and wait for a whole year, at which time the human could choose not to feed the cat for a whole day. I could have chosen not to reply to your response which - in fact, I actually did decide not to reply, until I decided I would ... following John Kerry. Niggles from your post turned out to be more persistent than I would have wished, but it also occurred to me that I haven't written this stuff down before, and it'll probably help me sort my own thoughts out, as in: "just what do I believe?". Anyway, free will in conscious self aware entities is as real as anything can be considered.

Now, I marvel at the existence of consciousness/self awareness, free will, the earth, the universe, and all that stuff at least as much as religionists do. More so actually, in my opinion. The latter say "Oh, it's God". I say I don't know what it is, but again I don't have to know. I do know that one thing some theists use as an argument is that science doesn't know all the answers - which is true, and may well always turn out to be true - so far continued fundamental probing of nature has resulted in science finding more "Russian dolls" inside more "Russian dolls"- and I don't think an end to that is guaranteed, though there may be an end. Whatever turns out to be the case it's an interesting journey. I emphasise that word: as Slarty Bartfast in the immensely humourous (NB: NOT the movie, which is an abomination) sci-fi spoof "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" says: "I think the chances of finding out what is really going on [in life/the Universe] are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is say, ‘Hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied.’ ... "

It may even be the case that the human brain simple isn't big enough to figure it all out - limited as it is in size by the uterine opening and thereby, according to the persuasive neural network argument, as well as observation (it seems smaller brains are more limited in capability) also in intelligence, - and the latter limited also by political (and religious) indoctrination (most especially of the GOP variety) - which act as delimiters of free will - essentially abrogating responsibility for independent critical thinking to others: "Xspurts". Even if, and I don't suggest I'm comfortable with this, the objection to the outer limits of experimentation on humans is overcome, and we create super "humans" in vitro with massive brains (so overcoming the uterine opening size limitation), I don't see that as any guarantee that such super "humans" would be able to figure it all out. Nevertheless, impressive "progress" has been made: humans have figured out their own genome sequence - what the DNA molecule looks like, and largely, how it behaves; theoretical physicists have been able to come up with a consistent story of the Universe, accounting, in mathematically precise detail, all the way back to an almost unimaginably small fraction of a second from the postulated Big Bang. 'Postulated' is probably too strong an adjective here - the Big Bang is an inescapable prediction (or whatever the word is for something that may have already happened, but which wasn't directly observed by a conscious entity - post-diction?) of not immediately obviously related physics - the General Theory of Relativity (GR). Then a bunch of engineers were getting really pissed that they couldn't get rid of some "interference" in an early microwave communications system they were working on - serendipitously a bunch of physicists looking for another pre(post?) diction of GR, Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), a necessary consequence of the Big Bang (if there was one), heard of this - and the annoying "interference" turned out to fit known required CMBR characteristics. Hubble discovered that all sizeable visible entities in the Universe were all receding from each other - another prediction of GR/Big Bang.

Is it the point that the noting of these later Observables proved the correctness of GR/Big Bang? Absolutely not. It would be scientific folly to state categorically that contradictory Observables will never be noted. This is what happened to "classical" Newtonian theory, which amongst the less thoughtful, used to be thought of as the theory of everything; observed contradictions to it led to Quantum Mechanics (QM), Relativity (in the scientific sense, which has absolutely nothing to do with relativism in other senses, such as moral relativism), and later theories (String, M-Theory: basically attempts to unify what is known about QM and Relativity - theories with completely different bases, though not incompatible - in the sense that a pre(post?)dicted Observable of one has never contradicted a pre(post?)dicted Observable of the other, but they are theories that are very resistant to unification to a "common base"). An amazing thing (to me anyway) is that if two fairly well known already exceedingly small quantities, so called "Universal Constants", were actually zero, that is Plank's Constant: h, and the time light in a vacuum takes to travel 1 meter: 1/c (or any distance;-), then both QM and Relativity both reduce 'back down' to Newtonian mechanics exactly. Russian dolls within Russian dolls. The point with these ' later Observables ' is that they were consistent with GR/Big Bang, they didn't disprove it. So far the history of science is that we have always been in a state of having a "So Far Best Story".

John says:

This is evidently something like the logic of a set of declared committed, if not fundamentalist, Christians in the US Government. I'm sure some of them genuinely consider themselves, and this is not a compliment, devout Christians, whereas others considered to be more "intellectual" and "thoughtful", such as Wolfowitz, probably aren't - it seems likely he's a Straussian Atheist - regarding himself as one of a group of elite God-like entities. As Robert Oppenheimer is reputed to have quoted a Hindu deity at the first successful atomic bomb test, though with worry and dread, rather than Wolfowitzian glee: "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of Worlds". That aside the "logic" you describe is not the logic of a group of people declaring themselves to be atheists, and certainly in public anyway, not declaring it to be about group survival: but at the end of a long stream of changing reasons: "democracy" for the Iraqis. (puke)

Further, defence of territory on which one is born (no free will there) and relies on for a living is a wholly different matter than globe trotting to murder tens or hundreds of thousands of strangers to gain access to a resource which is going to run out anyway - especially when Iraq, as was, was perfectly prepared to sell the US as much of the filthy black stuff as it wanted anyway - it was already selling some to US oil companies in violation of the sanctions. The former is justified, and so the Native American, with the hindsight we have now, would have been entirely justified, if not to say wise, to have slaughtered every European on sight - thus possibly preventing the most successful genocide in the history of the planet - so "good", in fact, that Adolph Hitler, a Roman Catholic, referred to it in glowing terms in Mein Kampf.

Europeans (including especially Americans, as before) ably backed up by their "representatives" of a Christian "God" did this, and they are still doing it:

Such genocide continues to this day on a smaller scale in South America: by the US (= Old Europe) backed up by destructive Evangelists, who seem to have mainly replaced Roman Catholic proselytisers in this role. Smaller scale because there just aren't many indians living the indigenous lifestyle left. In fact the Christian Evangelists tend to go in first to soften them up; closely followed by the Oil/Mineral/Timber/Whatever Company; then, if this still doesn't do the trick, by military detachments of whichever government "friendly to US interests" (ie: Stooge) happens to apply. The once naturally sustaining land is wrecked, the natives displaced, and given Bibles, whisky and tee-shirts. They are told, of course, that only now have they been "saved", and to be good ghetto dwellers - or else.

It may also be argued that the complete gargantuan obese greed of the US lifestyle, unhealthy even for very many Americans, is stretching the term "biological interest", that John uses, to breaking point. The term is nonsensical anyway, given that Americans and Iraqis are perfectly capable of interbreeding, albeit America seems to prefer fucking people in an entirely different sense. Whereas, contrary to the Euro-American imputation of their "values" (puke) on indigenous and some other peoples, although there were/are certainly spats (OK: violence) there, these were more often than not sorted out by unbroken treaties (Custer/Jefferson, you old bastards, take note) and interbreeding via arranged marriages. Even the ever war-like old royalist Europe often chose to avoid war via judicious intermarriage amongst their inbred monarchies (WW I was a notable exception to this). As well, the term "biological interest" seems to imply, to me anyway, stuff about the propagation of DNA strains. Really the American people are so mixed up now in ethnic origin (although it's still the European Americans holding the reins) that going out and killing thousands of distant strangers to extract their resources to protect strains of DNA doesn't make the slightest sense. Where is an Iraqi-American to stand in all this? Of course, we know that there aren't many Native Americans to stand anywhere on all of this.

Recall my points above about DNA being a completely dumb (ie: unconscious) molecule - incapable of giving a damn about anything.

It seems to me that you bring up here a larger instance of the point I made before: there wouldn't be that many of us around if the "attribute" to take wooden clubs to the heads of others we met was a naturally easy one - of course, such artificial attributes can be inculcated, brainwashed, as in the military - to the benefit of a manipulative few, who do so by abusing the several thousand year old invention of language, and to the ultimate disadvantage of ALL. Simply: casual resort on your part to that kind of behaviour would not encourage your victim, his relatives, his fellow group members, or even observant complete strangers, to entertain beneficial intentions towards your head.

The Iraqi Resistance are responding, as disadvantaged as they are, exactly according to this prescription. Damned brave if you ask me (even braver were they all atheists). Civilians they kill? Collateral damage, as Tommy "the tank" Franks would say. When, if ever, preferably as a result of an unlikely victory, the Resistance is interviewed, and such interview widely reported in the West (even more unlikely) and asked about the innocent bystanders they have killed, they will be perfectly entitled to reply, following Franks: "We don't do body counts". It's quite clear they prefer to target the interlopers, given the difficulty of doing that, will settle for those that will work for them: collaborators, or traitors/quislings as the French Resistance called French people who cooperated with the NAZIs during WW II. Possibly Al-Zarqawi and his merry band of erstwhile? US proxies, with their more indiscriminate actions, should be excluded from being grouped among the Iraqi Resistance: Convenient as it was that their appearances roughly coincide with bad news PR-wise for the aggressors, and periods of maximum unity between Shia and Sunni against the US-UK aggression and occupation. It smacks suspiciously of the old Colonialist "Divide and (mis) Rule" paradigm.

So, from the point of view of survival, invading Iraq for its oil (obviously, and I think you accept that), is extremely risky - 1700+ dead US soldiers already - what are they? ANTS? Protecting some queens with identical genes in Washington? Although unlikely to happen, because of precautions that have been taken, I for one would find it difficult to argue on a moral level against some "terrrist" act committed in the US by a rightfully outraged Iraqi who had his family blown away, their heads perhaps severed by American cluster bombs (they'll take your head off faster than a Jihadist's sword), perhaps other relations raped and humiliated or even killed in an American Concentration Camp. And remember, Iraqis are educated - more so than Americans. Disgruntled educated people ... hmmmph ... watch out.

It seems to me that you are confusing nationalism, and in your allusion the most rabid nationalism currently on the face of the Earth, that of the US, with genetics, or at least in your words: "biological necessity". The former is definitely not an inevitable consequence of the latter. Neither did the Germans, nor the Japanese in an earlier time find rabid nationalism ultimately conducive to "biological necessity". I hope the US is also ultimately forced to that same conclusion, albeit unfortunately it has learned and applied much from the mistakes of those former rabid nationalisms. You're swinging dangerously close to the completely pseudo philosophy, or ascribing that inappropriately to others, of "Social Darwinism" - which is the bedrock of fascism (as it is of Thatcherism/RayGunism - not too surprising, as there's hardly a razor-blade's distance between them and fascism).

Historically it has been theists, Christian theists at that, at least that's what they claimed, who have been the most strident "Social Darwinists", and nationalists, tending to lead to fascism. Atheists, on the other hand, have tended predominantly the other way, and sometimes quite violently so, I'm pleased to say.

Whassisname, who keeps asking people if they have a car, also appears to be at least on the verge of subscribing to the view: "let's go get their oil (and how can anyone with a car object to that?)". Someone else argues also that there's no alternative to the oil economy. Well let me just answer the first whassisname that yes, I do have a car: not a gas guzzler, and I'm pretty sure I do less miles in it than 95%, probably more, of other car owners. To the second, sure, Euro-Americans are trapped in the oil economy. Completely unsustainable in the long run - a long run that is getting shorter at accelerating speed, "Peak Oil" is upon us - I'm an optimist: I give it 70 years. Plus it's filthy. It's not, however, as though wiser heads have not tried to prevail. Decades ago, a document was produced called "Limits to Growth". Warning bells, crescendoing to wailing blaring sirens have been sounding ever since. Something the very much alleged democracy in the US seems to have been unable to accommodate. Hardly surprising, I suppose, when Corporate entities like General Motors have owned the playing field virtually from the get-go - corresponding closely to Mussolini's definition of fascism as the merger of Corporate and State power.

As Russell Means said, in the very first hyperlink here, such behaviour is species suicide. That is the case whether longer term or shorter term - and so not very 'survival oriented' at all. I, and many others, came to the same conclusion as Means quite a while ago, though from an entirely different background and mindset - in fact to quite a large extent from the rationalist "European" mindset that Means disapproves of. In science, when the same deduction is reached from unrelated origins, that is taken (and experience shows) to be highly confirmatory.

Well, firstly, having come across Russell Means speech some time ago, I withdrew a little from the idea that there has to be an answer to everything - that's a very European viewpoint, materialistic if you like - indeed who was more materialistic, perhaps in a more straight-forward way than you mean, than the European hordes who pillaged and plundered the Americas, Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and their peoples, accompanied by their proselytising priests - very often Catholic - as cover, so to speak?

Notwithstanding, I'll answer as best I can. I see it as being pretty simple, really. Firstly, however, I'll draw attention to another example of "how long has he been beating his wife" implied in what you say. Partly in your own words: given the historical performance of those societies in our world that proclaim themselves to be "theistic," what possible evidence can there be that they have any higher tendency to "cherish each other", or have higher appreciation of, for example, a particularly glorious sunset, than atheists? You're claiming that atheists beat their wives, in that they, according to your view, which I find a bit propagandist, should find difficulty in assigning meaning to such phrases as "cherish each other", or "potentially glorious". Theists have no copyright on those concepts - yet.

It's simple. Say you're an "intelligence" officer in Abu Ghraib, and you start to pull fingernails. Would an atheist be less likely to ask you to stop doing that than a theist? I doubt it. I'm sure, all things being equal, that the atheist is going to scream just as loudly as the theist. Of course, what I've described is a stark example of the opposite of cherishing each other. Once you've described the opposite of something, you've described the thing itself.

A better example, in a Catholic forum, might be to imagine you were the clerical-fascist Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac, the "Patron Saint of Genocide", (whom the last Pope beatified), visiting Jasenovac Concentration Camp, to bless their "work", again. Would an atheist Serb be less likely than a theist to implore you, the Croatian Catholic Church's boss, to request the Franciscan monk (they did this work in Croatian Concentration Camps) who was just about to cut the Serb's throat from ear to ear to not do it? Or just accept it as the way of the Universe? As I've intimated at some length before, the desire, in this instance not to have your throat cut, having nothing to do with "DNA survival", but individual survival and avoidance of pain at such stark moments. Why does the individual survival matter to the atheist at that point? Presumably because, notwithstanding present unfortunate circumstances, the Serb has had some much better experiences in his one and only once open window on the Universe, called "life"; such as, perhaps, witnessing the occasional glorious sunset, here and there. As such, he has more reason than a theist for not wanting his window to close prematurely - not being deluded that another one will open.

And what's good for the goose is good for the gander: An atheist wishing to keep his window open for the maximum amount of time, within the limits, of course, dictated by physics and biology, had better not casually entertain behaviours towards others' throats that close their windows prematurely. Moreover, as far as the atheist is concerned, keeping his window open for the maximum amount of time is paramount, or at least nearly so, as there's nothing else (actually most Christians behave this way too). This does not preclude risk taking in defence of others, or risk taking generally - think Niemoller's famous areligious quote - which basically boils down to strength in numbers. I guess it could be argued that (the Biblical): "live by the sword, die by the sword" is another Observable. Although that may appear to be in doubt, if, albeit on shaky ground, an attempt is made to extend that idea from the individual level to the nationalistic level (which extension I've argued against above) as the US, the most gung-ho nationalistic country in the World, endeavours very hard to try to ensure it has all the swords. Nevertheless, many individual Americans have died by the sword they have insisted on living by.

So, "good" and "bad"? You want to increase the apparent intensity of the Sun's rays by smiling broadly at me: Good. Or help me out with fare if I've been mugged: Good. You want to cut my throat (assuming I haven't tried or conspired to cut yours first): Bad. You were the guy that mugged me: Bad. You beat up and ward off a mugger (risking physical injury): Good. Why would you risk physical injury to protect a stranger? Because by walloping the mugger, you prevent him from gaining the extra confidence boost that another easy "success" confers. An extra confidence that may lead him, or one of his ilk, to mug, or even kill you, or one of your weaker relatives one day.

So if I were to try to encapsulate atheistic "good" and "bad", or "evil", or what atheistic morality means, I would say they boil down to measures of conscious intentions and/or actions, or lack of, concerning the aspects "window size" (life/death) and "comfort level" (aka pain) of others. Of course, the dentist who gives me a root canal with my consent, or even does it to a child against his consent, isn't evil, albeit he temporarily considerably reduces comfort level - just moderate intellect tells you that this will guarantee a much increased continued future comfort level - and when the child is old enough to understand this, he bears no malice.

This gives a non-theistic rationale as to why it is generally regarded as somehow worse to kill a child than an adult (mercy killing excluded) - as that boils down to curtailing of a window (aka lifespan) that has hardly begun, which normally would have had longer to remain open - so the child misses more of the mystery - for want of a better word, and for brevity ;-). For that same reason, according to this, the tendency would be, presented with a stark either/or choice, to save a younger than an older child, the former also having greater potential for a larger window size.

This also relates to attitudes to abortion: what you never had you never miss. A fetus has no concept whatever of what awaits on the other side of the uterine opening, as such, according to the measures (of "good/evil") given, its demise, even deliberately caused by conscious others is much less evil than would be that of the already very much aware child with the root canal, and is even less evil than the demise of the adult. If to save the life of the mother, or unintended, (or come to think of it in most cases, even if intended) although its demise will evoke sadness (if it didn't, again, there wouldn't be, from the anthropic point of view, many of us around to discuss this) then it isn't evil at all. Misfortune not caused by the conscious will/actions of others isn't evil - any more than a 65 million year asteroid is evil, or a hugely destructive natural earthquake or tsunami. Shit happens.

So the only thing left with attitude to abortion from this point of view is comfort level (pain) of the fetus, which relates (serendipitously?) to just what is the acceptable stage of fetal development to perform, and I apologise, but for want of a better word, recreational abortion (ie: not cases where continuation of pregnancy puts the mother at risk)? I think it's generally accepted that ability to feel pain is related to the nervous system/brain, and it seems likely by degree to the latter's state of development. If no recognisable nervous system/brain has yet developed, then there is no problem; the stage in pregnancy where experts (as long as they're not paid by vested interests, as with so many XSpurts these days) agree that pain is likely would likely give somewhat an agreement between this atheistic viewpoint and all but the most whacko theistic anti-abortionists, who insist on the propaganda that the single cell created immediately after fertilisation, or the undifferentiated cell clump that develops in short order from that, is a "human being". Come to think of it, it doesn't matter what you call it, whether a "human being", "pre-human", embryo, whatever. Call it a brick - which it is about as insensible as. The measure is comfort level (pain).

That said, a human being about whom there is uncontroversial agreement that they have at least begun to experience their window, and at least had the thought: "Hell, this is interesting, I wonder what it's all about?", (or perhaps the equivalent pre-language development sentiment), and whom we are damned certain can feel pain, is intrinsically less "disposable" than the fetus that isn't even aware that there is a window, has never seen the World; even if that fetus can feel pain. This is why I get hot under the collar regarding the relative unconcern among some anti-abortionists for the thousands of proven viable already born Iraqi infants that have been killed (murdered), as well as their mothers/fathers/other relations compared with their concern for Iraqi unborn infants - who will be born into a US created wasteland anyway.

Of course, if it can be proven that an anaesthetising narcotic, I'm thinking something with rather pleasant effects, perhaps akin to those of sodium pentathol, can be administered to a fetus, then the comfort level (pain) objection to later term abortions is overcome, according to this argument. That's OK by me.

That type of full anaesthetic that hospitals administer for what would otherwise be unbearably painful surgical procedures, also, as far as I'm concerned, gives an insight into what death is "like". It's like nothing. Whilst I personally have only undergone routine procedures deemed not to be life-threatening (excepting the usual caveats that go with full anaesthesia), my experience in all cases has been: pre-med. (during which time I've tended to ask all the nurses to marry me, or tell them if they could sell that pre-med. stuff on the streets they'd make a fortune), followed by something else (sodium pentathol?), then instantly groggy with a dry mouth. Between the pentathol and the dry mouth may have been 2, 4, or however many hours the procedure and the heavily sedating effects of the drugs lasted. But to me? No time passed: complete void.

Of course, I've heard stories of others under full anaesthesia having "out of body" experiences. Well, that's not been my experience, but then I've been so far lucky enough not to have had to have any procedures that I was worried about, or "touch and go". So whilst I think some of these others' experiences were probably theistic propaganda, perhaps even innocently embellished by patients in the retelling with prodding from the patients' religious "advisors" (priests), I do accept that part of the brain of a seriously ill patient, with some awareness of fairly likely impending demise, may well dream an out of body experience. The brain, whatever its origins, is remarkable. After all, it produces for each of us a picture of the Universe, or indeed the Universe itself, if you like. This, for most of us, is a pretty complicated picture, albeit the typical GOPer, (and most Democrats, for that matter) apparently likes to see things in black and white, good/evil, them or us terms, and to paraphrase Einstein's comments on the military man: " ... has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice".

What this two-pronged definition of morality (conscious malice or absence thereof concerning the "window size" (longevity) of others, and the quality of that longevity - "comfort level") does not address directly is so-called sexual morality. And that's fine. According to this view morality as so defined only impinges insofar as particular sexual behaviours adversely affects one or other of those two prongs. Of course, Government and most especially religious authorities have long sought to limit sexual behaviour, which I put down to how difficult that makes it for elite groups to make tons of money and stuff off the backs of people who are having a good time having lots of sex. Religion especially has most outrageously done this by brainwashing people almost from birth with intense guilt feelings concerning natural sexual urges. In relation to this, the Roman Catholic Church is especially culpable in opposing birth control, in adding to the huge overpopulation problems of the World, not to mention the contribution that makes to the dirt poor poverty (poor "comfort level") of much of its flock (baa! baa!) all to make more Catholics, though rich Catholics in America and elsewhere get an effective nod and a wink in this area. On the other hand, wayward Roman Catholic priests have demonstrated themselves the strength of sexual urges, albeit in a much distorted and twisted environment: against the unconsenting weak and defenceless. Of course, a hypocritical RC establishment has routinely sought to cover up this appalling, nay, criminal behaviour, such cover ups themselves being criminal.

As to what I mean by "I", although your use of it here seems a bit Clintonian (as in "it depends what the meaning of 'is' is."), I can't think of more to say than just reply: I think, therefore I am.

I assume your reference here is to Communist and former Communist countries of the USSR. It's hard to know where to start (or regrettably, finish) with this. Well, I'll start somewhere: I swallowed the line, along with most others, I think, that Stalin was "lucky" that Hitler was contemporaneous, otherwise he would have deserved to go down as the big baddie of the 20th century (of course many Americans think that Stalin was worse than Hitler, as the Vatican did, until it saw the tide turning in WW II, the European component of which the Soviets and the Yugoslavs won virtually single-handedly). There is no doubt that the Vatican was fascist then, as witnessed by acquiescence with the Croatian Catholic Church's policy towards Orthodox Serbs, which was to (forcibly) convert one third, expel one third and to liquidate one third. The fact that the last Pope beatified Stepinac, with a bit of whitewashing of history here and there, proves to me that the Vatican is still inherently Fascist. This also relates to a matter that has arisen as to whether Papa Ratzi, former Hitler Jugende member, is or is not also a Papa NAZI. I believe he is. Sure, he can give platitudes about his father being against Hitler - easy to say, and what else would he say? He'd have to be a PR idiot to say otherwise. Where's the proof? Reading between the lines indicates that this would be exceedingly unlikely: Lets see: Very authoritarian Pope who was very upset by the "revolutions" of 1968; presumably he got his authoritarianism, and his insistence on respect therefor, from his authoritarian father. Hitler was extremely authoritarian, and also a Roman Catholic which he remained to his death, both like Ratzi's father. Ratzi's father anti-Hitler? I don't buy it. Like most Germans, especially most German Roman Catholics, he most likely thought the Sun shone out of Hitler's derriere.

I also used to think until quite recently, actually, that the propaganda to-and-froing between Capitalism and Communism pretty much started following WW II - as part of the Cold War - not that there was much of that from the Soviet Communists, who, like the Serbs, are terrible at PR. It turns out that, apart from the failed military invasion of Russia by 14 Western nations following the Bolshevik Revolution (and you; wonder why Stalin might have been paranoic?), the Western propaganda campaign started out red hot, and never relented, well except for the little annoyance caused by the set-to with Hitler, a guy "like us", really, just gone astray a bit. In effect, there were two Cold Wars: pre WW II, and post WW II. Much of the Cold War I propaganda was NAZI inspired - to soften up World opinion for an eventual German invasion of the USSR - and repeated uncritically by NAZI sympathisers in the West, such as William Randolph Hearst, who actually met Hitler, and used to publish articles widely in the organs of his media empire by such notable authors as Hermann Goering. Hearst promoted the NAZI propaganda that the Ukrainian famine 1932 - 1933 was Stalin's deliberate intention, and therefore a "genocide"; although later, when "useful" during the Ronald RayGun years, anti-Soviet propagandists managed to stretch this "deliberate" period of famine into 1938, which is complete nonsense. The fact is that Kulaks burned their own crops in the barns rather than submit to Stalin's 5 year plans, and rather than send some of it to the cities (where people also have to eat, and there's a higher density of them). The 5 year plans of those times were key in converting the USSR from a feudal economy to an industrial one to match any in the West. I have myself, only recently, found out this alternative account: "Fraud, Famine and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard", the thoroughness of which makes it ring true. This is contrary to the continuation of NAZI propaganda provided by Ukrainian Fascists and indeed, in some cases, Ukrainian War Criminals, who made it to the West following WW II, to spout their nonsense, albeit to ever willing anti-Soviet Western ears. This conversion was, in the event, only just in the nick of time, as otherwise the USSR (with the sterling help of Yugoslavia - primarily Serbs), would have had no chance whatever to defeat Hitler, essentially single-handedly, as it turned out.

Of course, Communist regimes made huge mistakes, not surprising though given the limited amount of time they thought they had to work to "modernise" to stand any chance of survival, in what was a very hostile World (that included the Vatican). Stalin once said something like if we don't modernise they will destroy us. He was right. In the event though, through a complicated series of events, which were largely engineered in the West, the Soviet Union went with a whimper, and not a bang.

The least excusable of these huge mistakes was China's "Great Leap Forward" under Mao, intended, like the USSR's 1930's 5 year plans to speed up agricultural and industrial development (although it's got a close contender, I think, in Stalin's irrational support for Lysenko "genetics"). In agreement with this person, however, I also doubt that Chairman Mao dreamed up the Great Leap Forward after he said one day, "I want to snuff out several million Chinese". Moreover, people (the Gang of Four?) were tried and executed for this gross criminal incompetence. Perhaps Mao should have been too, but, hey, we can all see that's not a fate often reserved for the top echelons anywhere, is it? In the event, Mao did apologise, and I figure you're going to have to wait a long time for Henry Kissinger, a whole (unbroken) string of US Presidents, Tony Blair, the IMF, the World Bank, and yes, the Vatican ... a long list ... to do the same for the millions of people they have killed by intentional direct violence, or association therewith, not to mention the slower death rate they caused by intentional or entirely predictable deprivation. As well, apparently Mao became a mere figurehead following the Great Leap Forward.

WW II over, this propaganda continued unabated - Cold War II began, this time aided by unrepentant NAZI war criminals, "rescued" by the US and via the Vatican "Ratline". Some of these, when their continued presence in Europe became "embarrassing", were whisked off to South America, where they could resume their more familiar EinsatzGruppen type work, perfected in WW II, in the CIA's (and Vatican's) Latin American Dirty Wars. Notable among these were Klaus Barbie (the Butcher of Lyon) and Otto Skorzeny (Hitler's favourite JackBoot, and rescuer of Mussolini). Others, such as those Ukrainians that ran NAZI Concentration Camps and EinsatzGruppen in the Ukraine, ended up in Canada, where they continued pushing their anti-Soviet propaganda - eagerly gobbled up, as ever, by the West, and presented as fact.

The most outlandish of this propaganda is the myth, promoted in the largely ridiculous "Black Book of Communism", that Communism killed 100 million people. This has more holes in it than the Bush/Blair "reasons" given for invading Iraq. Still, "To the Victors, the Lies", eh?

I can only figure that no one's seriously attempted (as far as I know) a "Black Book of Capitalism", a "Black Book of Religion", or a "Black Book of Roman Catholicism", because they wouldn't know where to start it. And they sure as hell wouldn't know where to end it. In its present "incarnation" as a truly global entity, Capitalism is set up fairly obviously to send off several billion people prematurely to the "hereafter" (with appropriate cover stories from today's equivalent of Hearst's mainstream media). Already around 10,000,000 children die every year from hunger and preventable diseases, in non-Communist countries (not that there are hardly any left). This kind of puts the 1940's "One True Holocaust" in perspective. All of these more modern victims will presumable have to be counted in any "Black Book of Capitalism", if such is ever written. So what's that figure over the last ten years? What will it be over the next ten? Of course, these victims are in vast preponderance not White European in origin.

As ever.

No doubt some here will immediately dismiss this note as the blathering of a "Commie Atheist ", which is only 50% true (or 67% if you insist on the blathering part), albeit I'm gaining more sympathy with the former as time goes on. It would be just as hard to explain to a typical European the visceral virtually murderous reaction that the word "Commie" has on very many Americans, as I guess it would be to explain to those Americans the typical European absence of such, a more laid-back attitude, so to speak, towards Communism.

In the sense that I've not read "Das Kapital", I suppose I don't know what Communism is in detail. But then my eyes don't begin to narrow and turn red, and my mouth salivate in Pavlov dog reaction to the word, which is the reaction conditioned in many if not most Americans (and I'm sure, given many Papal pronouncements, many Roman Catholics, even non American ones) since the Bolshevik Revolution. I therefore don't feel that obliged to know what it is "in detail", as the word doesn't make me want to immediately go out and kill those who profess Communism (but they - my eyes - do, however, I admit, start to flicker in boredom when encountering words such as "bourgeoisie" and "proletariat", lousy PR as alluded to before). But I do know what the American Hierarchy defined Communism as, which is as benign as definition as you can get; but which is undoubtedly the reason behind that "Pavlov dog" conditioning in the US over the decades, and which is, to quote a 1950 US State Dept. briefing: "the idea that the government has direct responsibility for the welfare of the people".

And I've only come to realise relatively recently that that concern is still because if people are busily happy using their own stuff, it's difficult for America and its Corporations to go and rip it off. Here's the full quote:

"A major concern of American foreign policy must be "the protection of our (SIC) raw materials." To protect our (SIC) resources we must combat a dangerous heresy which, as US intelligence noted, had been spreading through Latin America: "the wide acceptance of the idea that the government has direct responsibility for the welfare of the people" - which is called "Communism."

So that was the definition of Communism among the ones "in the know" in Washington. Evil, eh? It certainly wasn't the definition pushed by the McCarthyites, and ever since, nor by the Vatican, was it?

In addition US propagandists have been "blessed" (and much of the rest of the World cursed) by the US being cocooned by two huge oceans. The propagandist dumbing down of America is truly one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern Age. Some people put this more diplomatically: such ideas as I've expressed here being described as producing "cognitive dissonance". This is code for truths that sadly most Americans can't, don't or won't see ... how can they when believing that will destroy all the lies and distortions that they have been unrelentingly fed since childhood?

Noah opines that "P" is a GOP Bullet-point reader. This seems on the evidence to be a reasonable statement. It might, however, mask the larger depressing scenario - as intimated above in some detail - that US media has overall pretty much always served as the propaganda arm of whichever Administration - at least as far back as the beginning of the last century, when William Randolph Hearst told his correspondent in Cuba, who wanted to return because nothing was happening, and he was getting bored: "Stay there. You provide the pictures, I'll provide the war". One of the founding fathers (can't remember who) said something like that without an informed public, democracy is meaningless. As American "democracy" is. Much of the rest of the World recognise this, even if most Americans don't.

The fact is that any curious kid with Internet access can figure all this out. And I don't mean just, or indeed, at all, from "radical" sources or websites. FOIA requests over very many decades, and even much more current documents, such as PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses", as well as a whole lot of other stuff at the PNAC website, reveal that US foreign policy excesses aren't simply "mistakes", or as Clinton said "?some? bad things we did", but coordinated intentional and very often brutal policy. Depressingly, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that most Americans don't want to do this figuring because they don't want their bubbles popped - I guess then they'd figure it's something they ought to do something about - to take responsibility for. So Americans will carry on dying in trickles, whilst murdering distant otherwise harmless foreigners in droves.

Of course, the best propaganda doesn't "look like" propaganda at all, and it's best to mix it up with straightforward true irrelevancies, like whacko Jacko's strange lifestyle. The outstanding efficacy of it though, complete success, is best seen when its targets decide to self-censor, as the military fella on this "list" (which it really isn't) in Colombia (who's most probably helping the Colombian Govt. stuff it to the average Colombian, even if he doesn't know it), and others here have done. This they have done by blocking E-Mails from those they deem to be sending the "wrong" message. The military fella's got the better idea though, as I suspect he's just blocked individual E-Mail addresses (David M's and mine I know about for sure), whereas others have blocked the whole "list"; kind of throwing the baby out with the bath water. Others ask to be removed from the "list". It's really so easy to block individual addresses, usually just a single mouse-click on an icon, that I can't figure why they just don't do this.

Anyway, John, sorry for the delayed response and the brevity ;-) of the reply. You know, things to see, people to do, ideologies to destroy, and all that. Yea, right.

Joking aside, I may make a webpage out of this. Seems a bit too much of an effort for just a very limited mailing list, about which there's even some doubt that some of the recipients actually want to get the stuff anyway. If I do, I'll modify it, clean/tidy it up, and so on - it's the old case of I didn't have the time to be brief - so I pretty much typed it as I thought it. I'll suppress any real names I've used (John's comes to mind), unless for some bizarre reason such persons actually express a wish to be named.

1. Hence, I hold firmly to:

Although I don't hold out great hopes that such will come to pass any time soon. I believe I have given enough rationalisation for it here. It works for me, anyway.

Of course, sure and certain knowledge of no "resurrection" would also tend to dent a hole in one of the nationalists' arguments for military recruitment: "Well, hope you come back safe, but even if you don't you'll be in paradise with Jesus". Of course, such an argument is completely lost on an atheist, whose likely response would be: "Yea, right, you first".

2. These two prongs of atheist good/evil/morality that I've proposed, (I'm not necessarily suggesting novelty here - I don't have the particular habit of perusing atheist web-sites or philosophy - I already know what I think - well, mostly) seems to be naturally extendable to the organisational/institutional level. As such, the following institutions rank high in the evil category:

3. If you want to know what morality is, ask a 5 year old (preferably one who hasn't been to Church or Sunday School, at least yet, and who's dad doesn't brag how he can shoot out the eye of a squirrel from 50 feet) some unloaded questions.

Here endeth the Sermon.

Dennis Revell.

P.S. ... Some questions ...

1. Is it fair that a fellow I knew who slipped and fell into a ladle carrying 100 tons of molten steel, or, more hypothetically, a geologist who slips into a lava flow, and neither of whom, say, had been "saved" by Jesus, should be thrown into a "lake of fire" AGAIN, and that that should last forever? Wouldn't that, and the whole general concept of a second death anyway, indicate some kind of sick f**k of a God?

No one saw the first fellow fall, btw; he just disappeared, and the carbon content of a particular batch of steel was found to be too high - by just the right amount.

2. On a lighter note, who did Cain marry? Presumably it must have been an ?unmentioned? sister? Or his mother, Eve, when his dad lost his ooompph!? If so, I guess he was mimicking the marital behaviour and experience of the stereotype of the typical Southern redneck, with the exception that he wasn't a victim of an alien abduction (I saw somewhere that 20% of Americans believe in alien abductions - I'm not suggesting I necessarily believe that). Wouldn't that have broken a Biblical proscription against sleeping with your sister/mother/etc?

3. If man was made in the image of God (man, not woman, note, albeit not being of David's "persuasion", I could go for the latter more easily), anyway, if man was made in the image of God (of course, atheists maintain that man, in a fit of arrogance to make a politician blush, made God in the image of man), anyway, if man was made in the image of God, what was/is/will be God's dick for? Is there a "Mrs. God", which would contravene one of the Ten Commandments, or was it just for the one night stand with the "virgin" Mary? Of course, future use in the postulated Second Coming, if you'll pardon the expression, must be envisaged.

4. If God is perfect as well as all powerful, how come he made such a huge cock up with his wayward angel <whoever>, who became the Devil? If that was the result of giving free will to all the angels, but he's still all powerful, why didn't God just nix (kill, neutralise, whatever) the Devil from the get-go? He's going to nix him in the end, anyway, so why put others of his alleged creation (us) through all the aggravation, agony and pain of being involved in the free will gone wrong of a creation and erstwhile agent of God? Related to this: we're supposed to believe that a mortal Pope is infallible? As the hardly closet atheist, Albert Einstein said:

5. Even for those theists who don' t have a problem with evolution, given that, for example, chimpanzee DNA is said to be remarkably similar to human DNA, and even if it's not, given that all DNA seems to comprise a simple linear sequence (though a very long one) of the same 4 "bases", why the appearance of this apparent developmental experiment? Wouldn't an all knowing perfect God already know the desired target result? Why all the "messing around" in between? Wasn't He sure what end point He wanted?

6. Why did God make tapeworms? Or Ebola?

____________________

John's original reply: