03/28/2010
RELIGION AND REALITY
I was sitting next to Dr. Parkash, the subject the peace in the middle East. As you know
I am very skeptical of the whole thing, the charade, the farce, whatever you call it. I thus stated that we need to re write the book, yes "THE BOOK". The idea is not new with me, I have thought about all of it for a long long time, and I have written my opinion in the matter. Here is a poem I wrote in 2002, it is included in my book.
- SIGNS
Come back around, we keep going in circles
one more time, take a different look
can you see that, we could be getting along
can you see that, we don't need the book
Don't you know, don't you want to know?
do you feel the desire, do you feel that pride
slopes of life are steep, 'tis easy to stumble
no need to fear, what you are feeling inside
bouncing along, we bump into each other
highways of life, strange this meeting place
life is ups and downs, life is straights and narrows
can you feel that power?, do you find it base
there is no fate, there are no karmas
there are no heavens in the outer space
there are no miracles, there are no signs
all that you hope for is, to die with grace
02/11/2002
(M.N.R.)
As it is , I have discussed the role of morality (or lack there of) in every thing, from our education system to family finances, to health care to mortgage foreclosures and pollution and global trade, including human trafficking elsewhere in this blog for years. And it is the so called "religious" organizations, administrations and regimes who end up being the worst culprits. We do bad when we say we are doing good, we hide behind the religious "hijabs", when we are the worst offenders of human rights and global pollution.If we get away from the religious cover and stay with the facts we can easily see.
(CNN) -- For the world to tackle truly important problems, people have to stop looking to religion to guide their moral compasses, the philosopher Sam Harris told CNN.
"We should be talking about real problems, like nuclear proliferation and genocide and poverty and the crisis in education," Harris said in a recent interview at the
TED Conference in Long Beach, California. TED is a nonprofit group dedicated to "ideas worth spreading."
"These are issues which tremendous swings in human well-being depend on. And it's not at the center of our moral concern."
Religion causes people to fixate on issues of less moral importance, said Harris, a well-known secularist, philosopher and neuroscientist who is the author of the books "The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation."
"Religion has convinced us that there's something else entirely other than concerns about suffering. There's concerns about what God wants, there's concerns about what's going to happen in the afterlife," he said.
"And, therefore, we talk about things like gay marriage as if it's the greatest problem of the 21st century. We even have a liberal president who ostensibly is against gay marriage because his faith tells him it's an abomination.
"It's completely insane."
Watch Harris' talk at the TED Conference
Harris also said people should not be afraid to declare that certain acts are right and others are wrong. A person who would spill battery acid on a girl for trying to learn to read, for instance, he said, is objectively wrong by scientific standards.
"It's not our job to not judge it and say, 'Well, to each his own. Everyone has to work out their own strategy for human fulfillment.' That's just not true," he said.
"There's people who are wrong about human fulfillment."
Harris placed no faith in the idea that Muslims and Christians will be able to put their differences aside and cooperate on global issues.
"There's no way to reconcile Islam with Christianity," he said. "This difference of opinion admits of compromise as much as a coin toss does."
LIFE IS A GAME OF CONNECT THE DOTS, IF YOU DON'T CONNECT ALL THE DOTS OR DON'T CONNECT THEM IN THE RIGHT ORDER YOU NEVER GET THE PICTURE
