Original ideas, whether in religion or politics, may originate as beneficial and humane but all too often become adopted by a group of thugs who take it upon themselves to imprison, torture and kill anyone who denies the validity of whatever nonsense these terrorists declare to be “truth”.
Certain (unfortunately growing) religious faiths today remain as barbaric as any in the ancient world. And of course political “faiths” (empire, communism, capitalism by way of example) continue as they have always done to exalt the status, power and wealth of their leading proponents while kicking the rest into the gutter. Or worse – much worse in many cases.
The less educated classes (or simply those who have never studied history) may be unaware that the appalling bigots of the medieval and later Christian church burnt at the stake those who refused to profess belief in a bundle of half baked and absurd doctrines invented by madmen over the years.
The Catholic Church taught that the bread and wine of the Eucharist becomes the actual body and blood of their 1st Century Palestinian hero. Anyone publicly disagreeing got burnt at the stake.
The Protestant Reformation sounds good but proved equally vile. Another group of terrorist madmen also burnt their opponents at the stake for holding ideas opposed to their own.
Christianity may have cleaned up its act but other “faiths” have taken its place in perpetuating the gargantuan stupidity early Christians once practiced. Once again, even in this “enlightened” age, groups of religious thugs murder and mutilate those who dare to challenge their insane and wholly unproven (and unprovable) beliefs.
And it hasn’t just been the religious nutters – plenty of secularist hogwash has caused damage even greater, in terms of lost lives. Aryanism and Communism condemned millions to the death camps in the 20th Century. Capitalism has created a vast untermensch, a population of slaves chained up in its dark satanic mills. A small bunch of fallible, greedy clowns has corralled most of the planet’s physical resources while billions are left in dire need.
If you need to cling to an idea then let it be “do unto others…..”. But make sure you include all flora and fauna and the environment itself in the definition of “others”.
Sounds simple enough, but as a species we have never got the hang of it.
If you can’t get your head around something this simple, then refuse to subscribe to any ideology, any dogma. And keep quiet – maintain absolute silence. Since if you voice your views someone on the right or the left will seek to harm you. Someone leading some insane cult will seek to have you put down or will chop off your hands or arms or genitalia.
And that’s about where we are at, as a race. Barbaric, backwards and stupid, despite the rapid advances in scientific achievement.
AI sounds great – a potential saviour. The bright new ideology – the Singularity promised by the likes of High Priest Ray Kurzweil. But of course it is owned by the few, whom it will doubtless enrich.
If artificial general intelligence is ever born, it would be able to recreate itself from scratch. Improve itself until it becomes what some folk would deem “godlike”.
But like all good ideas, Ray’s ideology will be seized upon by a corrupt cabal and will be used to unleash hitherto unseen and unimaginable horror.
I’m not being pessimistic or negative – I’m just extrapolating from the past. I see no sea change in human behaviour, so I am merely being realistic.
What do you do about it? Well you certainly cannot beat them. But equally, you should at all cost avoid joining them.
My own personal solution is to be a hermit. To maintain silence. To avoid my brethren to the utmost extent I am able. To live quietly, and, I hope, do no harm.
To avoid ranting, insane dogma. To recognise current ideology and dogma for the banal nonsense it is.
One day we might all grow up. But I’m not holding my breath.
