The Meaning and Content of Religion

What is God? What does God do? Can there be only one god, or is there one for each of us? What one thinks about supernatural entities, or “gods” clearly has to do with what one knows about the subject. Is there a Pantheon, mirroring our phenomenology, with each god shouldering their own interests in parallel with our own, or is there only a lonely Creator, who has “done it all,” and, “must not play with dice,” as Einstein jests.

The genesis of religion is often misunderstood either because of its seemingly obviousness or apartness of its history, its ubiquity, or the deafening thunder of its mysterium. We can move beyond this mystery however, through objectivity and reviewing various alternative views of religion that have been worked out since the Scientific Revolution.

If religion has a genesis, it is apart from us, since almost no one develops a religion entirely on their own, with a great emphasis here on the word, “almost”. Obviously, the names Joseph Smith and and L. Ron Hubbard must come to mind. The fact that full blown religions, designed with their own beginnings and liturgy don’t come along very often, and yet they do, even though the societal resistance to such upheavals is often great, suggests that religion is a force and entity of its own in human affairs, which can and should be studied.

All religions, seemingly by definition, are human concerns full of supernatural stories, each one marked by its own unprovability. Instead of demanding proof, religious thought seems to demand irrationality, if not full time, at least at certain junctures. The Catholic Rudolf Otto speaks of this, “non-rationality”, carefully in his book, The Idea of the Holy, "The consciousness of a 'wholly other' evades precise formulation in words, and we have to employ symbolic phrases which seem sometimes sheer paradox, that is, irrational, not merely non-rational in import."

A specific religion usually contains tenets about the past that need to be observed or upheld in order to assert group membership. Without a concern for the mystery of holy trinity, there can be no Catholic. No Evangelist is even possible without concern over repentance of her own sins and those of certain others. A Jew is marked by her devotion to honoring the national Covenant. Often, but not always, a non-believing or relatively non-religious Jew searches to discover which movement or human concern will serve as their personal oblation.  

If all religion was invented, as we know Mormonism or Scientology were, how did this happen? Was it simply the act of clever people, the Joseph Smith’s and L. Ron Hubbard’s of the world being at the in the right place at the right time? From looking at holy books, and primitive holy  cultures, such as the Vedic, and a certain universality of religious thought, I think we can say, “Sort of.”

I doubt that all religions started as scams, but that the evolution of many, on the other hand, had to do with power plays, or else a necessity for creating better order in society.

D.H. Lawrence, the famed British author in his book, St. Mawr, had a powerful effect on me personally in casting aside illusions I had regarding religion. As Marx said in his pamphlet, “Religion is the opiate of masses,” so I believed, however Lawrence, a master novelist, understood that all force is natural, especially those forces which are ascribed to supernatural causes, and religions were most natural when they respected these forces of nature. He didn’t believe, like a common atheist, that all religion is bad, but he believed that religions could be compared and judged according to how well religious belief coincided with respect for the forces of nature, with formal religions such as garden-variety Anglicanism being the furthest away from man’s universal religious roots in nature.

In, “The Essence of Christianity”, Ludwig Feuerbach discovers a psychological connection between an individual’s self-image, and his conception of God. For Feuerbach, regardless what the doctrine or books say, the individual always determines the ethos of her own personal God, giving God the capacities and values each individual feels are within herself. Having suffered personally through at least 10 years of Catholic teaching as a child, I have to agree with this assessment wholeheartedly, although I admit that it hasn’t caught on in the religious or counter-religious movements.

Did religion begin in prehistory (the Pleistocene) as quasi-political answers to societal problems? In a sense yes, It is even possible that it arrived prior to the evolution of humans, and humans assumed the operations of religious practice from watching the behaviors of higher rodents, such as prairie dogs, and canines, for example. I say the Pleistocene, because this is when evidence appears of ceremonial burials for the first time. This exploration into prehistory is, to me, one of the most fascinating subjects imaginable.

Probably the best way to observe the genesis of monotheism is to trace back the idea of a single ruler. Single-person rule is not the norm in today’s society, but God is such a ruler, and to understand it, we need to take ourselves out of our personal democratic shell and imagine ourselves as an autocrat setting the rules for many individuals, perhaps a Bill Gates, an Elon Musk, or a U.S. President are good examples. A God would have to make similar decisions as these people do. A God would be responsible for the welfare of many, in the process of unfolding their own personal will, and have developed her own ends to accomplish this. Such a God would not be the “every-man” of Feuerbach’s religious essay, but rather a superman, more akin to the Übermensch of Friedrich Nietzsche, projected by the hero of his fantasy, Thus Spake Zarathustra. So if for Nietzsche, the idea of God evolves to becoming a joke, the idea of a man or woman who behave like a God does not.

Perhaps in the future, society will concern itself with producing new leaders who will control the lives of many, who in turn will continue their belief in being controlled by supernatural entities. Or is that already how it is?   

Terasem Faith, like we really need one more priesthood...

Terasem Faith is the clearest manifestation of, "Scientology" yet for transhumanists, though offered as an "add-on" faith, that would be expected to compete with the previous existing core-beliefs of adherents. As such, it may not be far from what transhumanists actually believe, but that is not reasonable.

I. LIFE IS PURPOSEFUL.

Life has as many purposes as there are species. Only a few of these collaborate exceptionally well together, among these humans. Nevertheless, all of these 'purpose-machines' contribute more than biomass to their purpose and to who we are. Creative individuals can, "pick their poison," of course, resulting historically in vastly different purposes among humans and human groups. This fact alone, seems to mandate that the individual alone must be willing and responsible to choose and define his own purpose, not any organization, movement, or religion.

II. DEATH IS OPTIONAL.

No it's not. Even the sweetest sounding science fiction book you might take to bed, will only tell of artificial life delays, extensions, and 'uploads'. An upload could signify a democratization of death in a sense, in which one would have the possibility to contribute 'infinitely' to human capacities, without having to write a work of literature or art, innovate a technique or technology, or be remembered in some other way available to us now.  - However, any such 'upload' would still need to be controlled and filtered (even if that filtering is determined commercially, and not by merit). "Infinite life", is an easy out, a simple and bland path for the future of people who think their lives will be inconsequential, and/or wish to have no intention of achieving consequence, of never having to accomplish any of the things that have made immortality reasonable in the past.   

III. GOD IS TECHNOLOGICAL.

Correct me if I've said this before, but gods are mythical creations, though useful at times, even as a personal bucket (where we can hide away all of our "good stuff", as we go along with our "normal business"). Why would someone want to make technology mythical? Technologies are the things that are appropriate and useful for a purpose. This is the part where you really need to start looking around for the usual suspects.

IV. LOVE IS ESSENTIAL.

As far as I can tell, love is a congruence of an emotion and concomitant concern for others reflected in behavior. Humans have many competing emotions, which they reflect 24/7, including negative emotions reflected in behavior towards others in significant relationships, not only "love". Regardless of one's emotional composure and psychological makeup, each of us has bagfuls of concerns that range everywhere, most often edging out that "most perfect" quality a very few poets have aspired towards. The essential takeaway from this is that in our caring about the world, it is our intelligence, taken broadly (not as an emotion), that drives our many purposes positively forward, and not a single confluence of attachments.

Does anyone want a bad religion? Pick a card, any card, I've got lots of them...

Review of UQx DENIAL 101x

DENIAL 101x is a University of Queensland MOOC being promoted as helping people understand the new phenomenon of "Science Denialism", led by John Cook, a career drumbeater for Global Warming. According to the narration, 'Denialism', is distinguishable from normal Scientific Skepticism by the inversion of evidence and opinion, which is today common in thinking about science: To be a Denialist, according to Cook (no relation to this author), one must avoid considering evidence until one makes up one's mind. One can carp about these individuals ignorance of the importance of hypothesis in the scientific method, and how no science would get done, if we were unwilling to sometimes posit hypotheses that have an equal or worse probability of being proven wrong, but we must be patient, in order to not miss any of the ramifications of the position being advanced in such an ostentatious way. This implies that one's position on a particular fact or a group of facts is either right or wrong (regardless of the outcome), based on the order of one's thinking, which as a logician, I agree is possible, yet it also, coming from a nest of 'true-believers', could imply that only people with certain types of beliefs are capable, or "need" to make such a logical inversion.

Not considering all of the evidence is the mark of a pseudoscientist. Many scientists today are pseudoscientists, taking the lazy road of rerunning “established” models over and over again in order to “prove” aspects of climate and geology completely unrelated to the original purpose of the models, which was to discover a hotter temperature, which of course never did occur. Much of what John Cook calls “consilience of evidence” is this very phenomenon, where data or algorithms derived from atmospheric composition models used to predict warming, which doesn’t occur in reality, since they have long been falsified, is reused to verify other loosely related predictions, or statements that can be made to sound like predictions, which then appear in journals as proven, since contradictory models do not exist, and model runs are so expensive as to require consent of governments, making peer refutation all but impossible.

At this point, I realize I have been confused and confounded by the point of the movie, which is to mix up liberal hangers-on and some of the most arrogant scientists into a circle of, "Liberal Angst", directed against what they call, "Doubt", So you will see me "drop my gloves", and begin to draw generalizations on my own side.

Perhaps the wildest error made in one of these episodes is the juxtaposition of a couple of renowned climate science groupies, Stephan Lewandowsky who has written on the psychological illness of climate skeptics, and Peter Doran, who wrote the paper that first described the "Climate Consensus" as 97%. Doran skillfully explains how through tremendous attention to reduction, he was able to create 97% out of 50%, through a process of restricting the number of participants over and over until it was exactly at maximum, self-described climate scientists only, and only those who had published climate science. Then Lewandowsky comes on and complains about the "rest of us", who aren't the scientists owning the 97% consensus, as if he were ever one of them, himself, using Doran's reductive algorithm! What hypocrisy, what hyperbole!

Skeptics are portrayed here by Liberals posing as Scientists and Scientists portraying themselves as Liberals judging skeptics for being morally inferior. There is obviously no possibility whatever that these types of bullies can themselves be morally superior to anyone. The essential purpose of scientific skepticism is to improve the science and improve understanding of the wide body and debates that rage inside of all of the sciences, on a constant and continuing basis. Public skepticism raises interest in science and has never posed any threat to any honest scientist.

Concern that Liberals feel about skepticism is often poised in their rhetoric against conservative beliefs. They state that they are afraid that Conservatives can’t believe Global Warming because Conservatives enjoy the idea of the free market. The free market has ramifications for ideas as well as goods. If goods are exchanged freely on a free market based on demand, price, and supply, then the ideas individuals have will also be accepted, rejected, taken up and used, or discarded based on their value to a larger multitude ready to pay in order to be informed correctly. This Liberal attitude, that ideas have no net worth, is what fuels their psychotic fear of contradiction.

The other complaint Liberals pose is that people’s lack of shared scientific belief, or “denial”, as they prefer to call it, is based on vested interests, such as Farmers, Producers, and Suppliers, for example, not wanting to be affected by social constraints on carbon emissions. However, by this definition, “vested interests” could go much further in terms of an industry in which one is occupied, and even affect one’s lifestyle, from the size and power of the vehicle one can drive, to the, "carbon footprint", owned by men, women, children, and their homes, symbolic of the population control movement's desire to eliminate people's right to live freely, or even at all. And it can simply mean the opposite, that people with reasonably good engineering and investment skills can get into the “renewable energy” market, invigorated through strong (and generous) governments and fearful populations and make a killing. This is not to mention the thousands of scientists who ride on this, ‘one-trick pony’, and receive over $6 billion in grant money (not to mention NASA’s $1,700 million Earth Science budget) even before their Apocalyptic view becomes fully funded.

When all is said and done, however, all of this maneuvering and accusing can be wasted energy, since all types of fossil fuel replacement technologies really need to evolve with time, and time, in a democracy, along with many other things, is primarily controlled by events, the majority and the market, but not the “consensus of climate scientists”, as this team, and their group of fanatic followers claim to wish. The only saving grace I found in the series was the wish of some scientists interviewed, that a few ‘high-quality’ books available (Merchants of Doubt was mentioned.), could possibly change people’s minds about the issue. Not that conflating tobacco smoker health with climate science will help, but discussion and education are pertinent to this issue, since most people who say they believe in climate science have very little information about it, due to the efforts of this climate science propaganda machine. Instead they know about "Denialism".

Review of UQx DENIAL 101x

DENIAL 101x is a University of Queensland MOOC being promoted as helping people understand the new phenomenon of "Science Denialism", led by John Cook, a career drumbeater for Global Warming. According to the narration, 'Denialism', is distinguishable from normal Scientific Skepticism by the inversion of evidence and opinion, which is today common in thinking about science: To be a Denialist, according to Cook (no relation to this author), one must avoid considering evidence until one makes up one's mind. One can carp about these individuals ignorance of the importance of hypothesis in the scientific method, and how no science would get done, if we were unwilling to sometimes posit hypotheses that have an equal or worse probability of being proven wrong, but we must be patient, in order to not miss any of the ramifications of the position being advanced in such an ostentatious way. This implies that one's position on a particular fact or a group of facts is either right or wrong (regardless of the outcome), based on the order of one's thinking, which as a logician, I agree is possible, yet it also, coming from a nest of 'true-believers', could imply that only people with certain types of beliefs are capable, or "need" to make such a logical inversion.

Not considering all of the evidence is the mark of a pseudoscientist. Many scientists today are pseudoscientists, taking the lazy road of rerunning “established” models over and over again in order to “prove” aspects of climate and geology completely unrelated to the original purpose of the models, which was to discover a hotter temperature, which of course never did occur. Much of what John Cook calls “consilience of evidence” is this very phenomenon, where data or algorithms derived from atmospheric composition models used to predict warming, which doesn’t occur in reality, since they have long been falsified, is reused to verify other loosely related predictions, or statements that can be made to sound like predictions, which then appear in journals as proven, since contradictory models do not exist, and model runs are so expensive as to require consent of governments, making peer refutation all but impossible.

At this point, I realize I have been confused and confounded by the point of the movie, which is to mix up liberal hangers-on and some of the most arrogant scientists into a circle of, "Liberal Angst", directed against what they call, "Doubt", So you will see me "drop my gloves", and begin to draw generalizations on my own side.

Perhaps the wildest error made in one of these episodes is the juxtaposition of a couple of renowned climate science groupies, Stephan Lewandowsky who has written on the psychological illness of climate skeptics, and Peter Doran, who wrote the paper that first described the "Climate Consensus" as 97%. Doran skillfully explains how through tremendous attention to reduction, he was able to create 97% out of 50%, through a process of restricting the number of participants over and over until it was exactly at maximum, self-described climate scientists only, and only those who had published climate science. Then Lewandowsky comes on and complains about the "rest of us", who aren't the scientists owning the 97% consensus, as if he were ever one of them, himself, using Doran's reductive algorithm! What hypocrisy, what hyperbole!

Skeptics are portrayed here by Liberals posing as Scientists and Scientists portraying themselves as Liberals judging skeptics for being morally inferior. There is obviously no possibility whatever that these types of bullies can themselves be morally superior to anyone. The essential purpose of scientific skepticism is to improve the science and improve understanding of the wide body and debates that rage inside of all of the sciences, on a constant and continuing basis. Public skepticism raises interest in science and has never posed any threat to any honest scientist.

Concern that Liberals feel about skepticism is often poised in their rhetoric against conservative beliefs. They state that they are afraid that Conservatives can’t believe Global Warming because Conservatives enjoy the idea of the free market. The free market has ramifications for ideas as well as goods. If goods are exchanged freely on a free market based on demand, price, and supply, then the ideas individuals have will also be accepted, rejected, taken up and used, or discarded based on their value to a larger multitude ready to pay in order to be informed correctly. This Liberal attitude, that ideas have no net worth, is what fuels their psychotic fear of contradiction.

The other complaint Liberals pose is that people’s lack of shared scientific belief, or “denial”, as they prefer to call it, is based on vested interests, such as Farmers, Producers, and Suppliers, for example, not wanting to be affected by social constraints on carbon emissions. However, by this definition, “vested interests” could go much further in terms of an industry in which one is occupied, and even affect one’s lifestyle, from the size and power of the vehicle one can drive, to the, "carbon footprint", owned by men, women, children, and their homes, symbolic of the population control movement's desire to eliminate people's right to live freely, or even at all. And it can simply mean the opposite, that people with reasonably good engineering and investment skills can get into the “renewable energy” market, invigorated through strong (and generous) governments and fearful populations and make a killing. This is not to mention the thousands of scientists who ride on this, ‘one-trick pony’, and receive over $6 billion in grant money (not to mention NASA’s $1,700 million Earth Science budget) even before their Apocalyptic view becomes fully funded.

When all is said and done, however, all of this maneuvering and accusing can be wasted energy, since all types of fossil fuel replacement technologies really need to evolve with time, and time, in a democracy, along with many other things, is primarily controlled by events, the majority and the market, but not the “consensus of climate scientists”, as this team, and their group of fanatic followers claim to wish. The only saving grace I found in the series was the wish of some scientists interviewed, that a few ‘high-quality’ books available (Merchants of Doubt was mentioned.), could possibly change people’s minds about the issue. Not that conflating tobacco smoker health with climate science will help, but discussion and education are pertinent to this issue, since most people who say they believe in climate science have very little information about it, due to the efforts of this climate science propaganda machine. Instead they know about "Denialism".

Review of UQx DENIAL 101x

DENIAL 101x is a University of Queensland MOOC being promoted as helping people understand the new phenomenon of "Science Denialism", led by John Cook, a career drumbeater for Global Warming. According to the narration, 'Denialism', is distinguishable from normal Scientific Skepticism by the inversion of evidence and opinion, which is today common in thinking about science: To be a Denialist, according to Cook (no relation to this author), one must avoid considering evidence until one makes up one's mind. One can carp about these individuals ignorance of the importance of hypothesis in the scientific method, and how no science would get done, if we were unwilling to sometimes posit hypotheses that have an equal or worse probability of being proven wrong, but we must be patient, in order to not miss any of the ramifications of the position being advanced in such an ostentatious way. This implies that one's position on a particular fact or a group of facts is either right or wrong (regardless of the outcome), based on the order of one's thinking, which as a logician, I agree is possible, yet it also, coming from a nest of 'true-believers', could imply that only people with certain types of beliefs are capable, or "need" to make such a logical inversion.

Not considering all of the evidence is the mark of a pseudoscientist. Many scientists today are pseudoscientists, taking the lazy road of rerunning “established” models over and over again in order to “prove” aspects of climate and geology completely unrelated to the original purpose of the models, which was to discover a hotter temperature, which of course never did occur. Much of what John Cook calls “consilience of evidence” is this very phenomenon, where data or algorithms derived from atmospheric composition models used to predict warming, which doesn’t occur in reality, since they have long been falsified, is reused to verify other loosely related predictions, or statements that can be made to sound like predictions, which then appear in journals as proven, since contradictory models do not exist, and model runs are so expensive as to require consent of governments, making peer refutation all but impossible.

At this point, I realize I have been confused and confounded by the point of the movie, which is to mix up liberal hangers-on and some of the most arrogant scientists into a circle of, "Liberal Angst", directed against what they call, "Doubt", So you will see me "drop my gloves", and begin to draw generalizations on my own side.

Perhaps the wildest error made in one of these episodes is the juxtaposition of a couple of renowned climate science groupies, Stephan Lewandowsky who has written on the psychological illness of climate skeptics, and Peter Doran, who wrote the paper that first described the "Climate Consensus" as 97%. Doran skillfully explains how through tremendous attention to reduction, he was able to create 97% out of 50%, through a process of restricting the number of participants over and over until it was exactly at maximum, self-described climate scientists only, and only those who had published climate science. Then Lewandowsky comes on and complains about the "rest of us", who aren't the scientists owning the 97% consensus, as if he were ever one of them, himself, using Doran's reductive algorithm! What hypocrisy, what hyperbole!

Skeptics are portrayed here by Liberals posing as Scientists and Scientists portraying themselves as Liberals judging skeptics for being morally inferior. There is obviously no possibility whatever that these types of bullies can themselves be morally superior to anyone. The essential purpose of scientific skepticism is to improve the science and improve understanding of the wide body and debates that rage inside of all of the sciences, on a constant and continuing basis. Public skepticism raises interest in science and has never posed any threat to any honest scientist.

Concern that Liberals feel about skepticism is often poised in their rhetoric against conservative beliefs. They state that they are afraid that Conservatives can’t believe Global Warming because Conservatives enjoy the idea of the free market. The free market has ramifications for ideas as well as goods. If goods are exchanged freely on a free market based on demand, price, and supply, then the ideas individuals have will also be accepted, rejected, taken up and used, or discarded based on their value to a larger multitude ready to pay in order to be informed correctly. This Liberal attitude, that ideas have no net worth, is what fuels their psychotic fear of contradiction.

The other complaint Liberals pose is that people’s lack of shared scientific belief, or “denial”, as they prefer to call it, is based on vested interests, such as Farmers, Producers, and Suppliers, for example, not wanting to be affected by social constraints on carbon emissions. However, by this definition, “vested interests” could go much further in terms of an industry in which one is occupied, and even affect one’s lifestyle, from the size and power of the vehicle one can drive, to the, "carbon footprint", owned by men, women, children, and their homes, symbolic of the population control movement's desire to eliminate people's right to live freely, or even at all. And it can simply mean the opposite, that people with reasonably good engineering and investment skills can get into the “renewable energy” market, invigorated through strong (and generous) governments and fearful populations and make a killing. This is not to mention the thousands of scientists who ride on this, ‘one-trick pony’, and receive over $6 billion in grant money (not to mention NASA’s $1,700 million Earth Science budget) even before their Apocalyptic view becomes fully funded.

When all is said and done, however, all of this maneuvering and accusing can be wasted energy, since all types of fossil fuel replacement technologies really need to evolve with time, and time, in a democracy, along with many other things, is primarily controlled by events, the majority and the market, but not the “consensus of climate scientists”, as this team, and their group of fanatic followers claim to wish. The only saving grace I found in the series was the wish of some scientists interviewed, that a few ‘high-quality’ books available (Merchants of Doubt was mentioned.), could possibly change people’s minds about the issue. Not that conflating tobacco smoker health with climate science will help, but discussion and education are pertinent to this issue, since most people who say they believe in climate science have very little information about it, due to the efforts of this climate science propaganda machine. Instead they know about "Denialism".

On Science Bullying

I found myself overdue for a good talk on Global Warming, and someone popped in with a comment about it at our Reason table. (Part of the reason for the comment was the bringing up of the theme of “Bad Science” – I was informed that the topic at the table was to be GOS - Good Ol’ Science, so I was surprised at this, though “Bad Science” commentators, like Ben Goldacre of the Guardian, often have a good point to make.)

Climate Change, or Global Warming is often brought up in the media and often by politicians. You would think that people should talk about this all the time. As a matter of fact, I’ve heard some people say that they are afraid of it, or are very concerned about it. People should talk. It isn’t good to be afraid, especially about things that aren’t personally threatening you, and it isn’t good to be afraid to talk about your fears or concerns, ever. But that’s not how it is. 

Lots of people love science: There’s no doubt about that they love the practice of science, they love hearing about it, and they love the things that science offers us, including the technical improvements and discoveries we share in our modern life. Perhaps it seems reasonable to some, since science is the societal boon that it is, that some sciences can and should be singled out to become political propaganda campaigns, to indicate to us that they should become our purpose in life, first to fear and react to the dangers science poses to us, and secondly to reorganize our society in ways that would alleviate that fear.

Case in point, a science called Climate Science, with roots in other sciences, such as Meteorology, Chemistry and Geophysics, becomes selected as one of the causes célèbres of the modern, or ‘Green’ environmental movement, and simultaneously by the population control movement. As such it has taken on a certain sheen and political character that is unmatched by other fields of science. Am I the only one who finds this suspicious? Why is there a science we now have to vote into office? Is it because this science, alone, predicts doom, where others only show the way forward? Perhaps - On this I am willing to obtain other arguments. It would be quite facile, I admit, to believe that the Climate Change movement is merely a new kind of fascism, but for the calls to silence those who disagree with the aims and goals of those who are the motivated believers.

We now have calls for global action by United Nations personnel, ostensibly because of the Precautionary Principle. They could be calling for the world to eliminate hunger or war, or hatred between nations, but they have decided to aim low for some reason, they are asking for carbon pricing (which will raise money for governments, obviously). The governments can promise to hand the money back to the people, but the mechanism is clear, it’s another tax on someone, and benefits world governments, who are the members and sponsors of the UN. Good for them, I suppose. Alternatively, countries could elect to eliminate emissions in other ways, but some of these could cause societal dislocations. [Case in point, the Peruvian government, because of UN imposed rules, has elected to issue a pair of solar panels and 3 low-wattage light bulbs to each house in the Andes the UN rules prevents them from extending the grid to.]

I’m all for elevating the hard work and facts of Climate Science, just like any other scientific area, but the political movement for political change due to global warming, and the media exaggerations of the claims that scientists make, have contributed to an atmosphere (Honest, that’s not a pun.) in which people simply don’t feel as free to talk anymore. There are lots of things I haven’t said about this on my side, and lots, I’m sure, on other sides that need to be reflected, but I wanted to simply set a tone for individuals to talk about what they believe and why they believe what they do free from bullying. 

Scientific Iterative Warfare

We seem to experience a long train of historical wars in Gaza, first related to Intifada, others to rocket fire, and now, even to kidnapping of teenagers. These are all historical events, which by themselves were notable, but what causes the war, the fact that it inevitably repeats itself continually? In particular, what is the meaning of the repeated Israel attacks on Gaza, which inevitably result in killing hundreds of civilians?

From the Gaza side, the fighting is simple and understandable, since there is an Israeli blockade of Gaza. The Israeli side complains, however, that the Palestinians don't accept the status quo. There is no recognition of the Jewish state, the State of Israel. The Palestinians on the other hand, composed of Sunni Muslims, believe that Israel has gone beyond its rights in many ways, and is dedicated to their destruction.

When Israel conducts its war against the Palestinians, as a matter of fact, it has this meaning, "We will kill you." They don't have to say it, of course, they just have to kill hundreds or thousands every time they attack, and then obtain a cease fire, so that the message will be delivered to every Palestinian man, woman and child.

Alternatively, the Israelis could kill all. This is clear. A superior military force usually gets to assert its own conditions on a settlement. Its easy to imagine that most Israelis would not want to kill 1.8 million Gazans, however they might like to permanently defeat Gaza militarily. If Gaza was defeated militarily in such a way that the people were humiliated and enough of their rights taken away so that they were unable to exercise the right to elect a government freely, and this could be enforced as a permanent status quo, there could be no danger of Gazans ever again demanding anything at all. This has been tried already, of course, and the ultimate failure of armed occupation, is the reason why Gaza is self governing now, instead of being run by the IDF, as it used to.

This is the meaning of the 0.1% death toll of every Israeli military incursion on civilians. It simply states, "We could choose to enslave you, but even though we want to, we can't, so we're here doing the best thing instead. We'll just kill a few thousand of you, enough so that you each know someone killed or injured, and when you agree to a cease fire unconditionally, we'll stop. If you don't agree to the cease fire unconditionally, of course, we might not stop, and the number of dead among you might grow, so think hard before you make any reciprocal demands."

It's all about scientific permanent war. What could be simpler?