I've reached out to some internet acquaintances, some scientists and communicators, telling them about my new blogging effort ConfrontingScienceContrarians, trying to get a little feedback. Nothing much by way of response, these are busy people with bigger concerns filling their days, plus they come from a more establishment background. And me, what am I, a terrified spectator, low on anyone's priority list. Plus most simply don't understand what I'm trying do, which I shouldn't be surprised at. In many ways they can't understand me any better than I can understand them. Still, I try, so along with a couple other posts, I shared my list of 14 Observations regarding communication failures.
One response I did receive:
"Your section 12 Faith-Based Thinking makes absolutely no sense to me."
On reread the text it seemed straightforward enough, so I figured the main problem was with my convoluted title and I made it more concise;
12) Faith-based Thinking - God or EGO?
Possessing the hubris to fancy that we petty, jealous, fearful, prideful humans can access and understand the real God of Light and Time, Life and Love, leads to a profound disconnect from our planet’s physical reality, and an immoral absolutism.
It's one thing to believe in an unknowable god, quite another to mistake one’s own hyper-inflated EGO for God.
Unhinged from reality is not too harsh a descriptive.
I shared my change and added some explanation.
The right-wing and evangelical faithful tell us to our faces that they are in direct communication with God Almighty of Time and Light, Creation and Life. They tell us they are doing God's duty. For instance, it's God demanding that Government interfer with a woman's right to self-determination and to self-defense when it comes to having a child, or not - though it matters not one bit to the State what any woman does with herself.
It's God telling people that Evolution is Satan's plan and that liberals are enemies who are going to hell. They really and truly believe and broadcast it. It's God telling them scientists are liars.
That is something Children of the Intellectual Enlightenment really ought to start facing up front - it demands a new sort of language and questions and open rejection of such nonsense.
He was unimpressed:
The text of your retitled Section, 12) Faith-based Thinking - God or EGO? is still incomprehensible. On the other hand, the text of your comment explaining that text is comprehensible.
I'm glad he understood my explanation, though rereading #12 I still can't think of what to change, since its the nature of bullet points to keep them as concise as possible. I'm sure every time I look at #12 I'll be thinking of how to improve it. Anyone have any suggestions?
For now I figure it's worth adding a little more detail to what this item is all about:
It tries to politely point out that believing you have a direct relationship with God; that you understand God; that you are God's appointed Servant, that such notions comes from getting lost in one's own hyper-inflated EGO. It is nothing less than crazy thinking.
God and faith in God is something personal, to display by the dignity with which we live our personal lives, not in pretending we are god's warrier wielding bludgeons against a world of damnable infidels.
God is Beyond Human Understanding, the Bible says as much, as do the other holy books.
Anyone who say's they are doing God's Duty is deluded, unhinged from reality. Plain and simple. Liberals should stop giving that delusion a free ride, as they have been for decades.
Our human minds are not equipped for comprehending God - a Being that would need to be over fifteen billion years old and encompasses infinity on every level, if he's truly real.
Think about it. Look at how much of the Republican agenda is built around acting as though they are God's Appointed Agent with all the Absolutism and Totalitarian tendencies that come with it.
But they are all about forcing Their Own Personal Agendas! Has nothing to do with "God" or morality or ethics, if anything their "faith" is based on hatred of others and their ways. A hatred of all American pluralism (also see Paul Galloway's "Founding Fathers more Pluralistic than Christian")
Think of how much of the TeaParty movement and neoRepublicanism is rooted in a faith that they are better and they are God's blessed children doing God's Will for the world, while the rest of us and our concerns should go to hell.
Why not start calling out such destructive thinking?
2 comments:
Abortion is the killing of a young human being.
This is a scientific as well as religious truth.
Would you defend a mother's right to kill her child at any age?
If not, then you are arbitrarily drawing a line at the child's age and physical location.
Abortion is killing a fetus, a life, a potential human, NOT a child!
It takes more than being conceived to be able to take on the mantel of childhood,
not everyone makes it, such are the ways of life.
What about a woman's right to sovereignty over her own body and life?
What a woman's right to self-determination - or a woman's right to self-defense?
Do those mean nothing to you ? ? ?
If you are concerned about children.
How outraged are you at woman not being able to get proper health care and nutrition because of political games?
Have you ever read "http://citizenschallenge.blogspot.com/2014/10/abortion-right-and-wrong.html" By Rachel Richardson Smith? (1985 and still the most thoughtful piece written on the topic)
You and everyone with an opinion on thisabortion ought to read it and then spend a little time really thinking on it.
What about all these innocent children our bombs kill, maim
and the innocent neighborhoods and families we've destroyed?
And continue to!
Why don't Americans seem to care about those child killings? Can you explain that?
Where's that "consistency" ?
But interfere with a woman already dealing with a personal crises,
the GOP and folks like Thomas want to play the hero and invade her life and force her, against Her Will
to the demands of Your Egomaniacal Demand- while ignoring all the rest of the story,
as though it's all simple as a cartoon.
Hideous dude. Where, how, do you assume such presumptuous moral superiority?
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Further reading,
Where Is Outcry Over Children Killed by U.S.-Led Forces?
There can be no justification for the killing of children by U.S.-
led forces in Syria, Iraq and other war zones since 9/11.
By John Horgan on September 10, 2015
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/where-is-outcry-over-children-killed-by-u-s-led-forces/
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Casualty Figures after 10 Years
of the “War on Terror” - Iraq Afghanistan Pakistan
First international edition (March 2015)
http://www.psr.org/assets/pdfs/body-count.pdf
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