Date: 21 March 2015
From: MJ Stephens, stephensmj.com
Dear Salon,
Some seem to be in a tizzy over religion. Is Religion itself, or just some particular religions, the tizzy making issue?
Part 1: The Tizzy Making Issue, Religion Itself? (507 Words)
What is Religion itself? Our common situation in this existence tells us what Religion itself is. Our common situation is that we are semiconscious, cultural, social lifeforms who produce immature offspring.
We are born, we live, we die, we are lifeforms. And when we make choices among beliefs and behaviors, we are not conscious of all aspects of our situation. We are not even conscious of all our own motivations. Therefore, we are semiconscious lifeforms.
But we are conscious of the fact that we are cultural, social lifeforms who need to cooperate to survive and thrive, and that requires shared standards of good and bad social behavior. Shared standards of social behavior for cultural, social lifeforms, like us, are based on shared cultural purposes, which are based on a shared world-view.
And we produce immature offspring. We cannot do without teaching children our shared standards of behavior, cultural purpose, and world-view, that we require to survive and thrive as semiconscious, cultural, social lifeforms.
Children learn most effectively by hearing stories and performing rituals. Bald lists of dos and don’ts, don’t cut it with children. They don’t effectively engage a child’s attention, or gain their commitment to a culture, its standards and world-view, as stories and rituals do. Evidence today that common stories effect the world-views of children: Frozen. Evidence from the past: Davy Crockett.
Religion is the set of common stories and reinforcing rituals that teach children and remind adults of their shared world-view, their shared cultural purposes based on that world-view, and their shared standards of good and bad social behavior based on those purposes. Religion, through common story and ritual, teaches children the cultural, social rules providing a group strategy for negotiating this existence.
Therefore, Religion itself is a necessary feature of cultures of lifeforms, like us, who produce immature offspring, who must be taught shared standards of good and bad social behavior to survive and thrive, and who learn most effectively by hearing stories and performing rituals. Religion is a cultural feature that serves the needs of children. Religion is for children.
Religion is necessary, but gods are optional. Religion is a necessary feature of all cultures of lifeforms like us. The necessary features of Religion are: one, a world-view; two, a cultural purpose; three, standards of social behavior; four communication through story and ritual. But gods are only independent players in one particular world-view, the theistic world-view, the basis of theistic religions. In the atheistic world-view, the basis of atheistic religions, gods are like fairies, trolls, and demons, imaginary beings that are projections of some good or bad aspects of ourselves.
Why get into a tizzy over a necessary, socially supporting feature of cultures of lifeforms like us, which Religion itself is? That makes no cultural sense. So, are there any particular religions that have tizzy making issues? The currently, culturally dominant, particular religions are theistic religions teaching children the theistic world-view.
Part 2: The Tizzy Making Issue, The Theistic World-View? (1605 Words)
The theistic world-view is that this existence is overseen by an independent god, or gods, by imagined, must-be-obeyed, super beings.
Gods are imagined beings, born from imaginary experience, just as fairies, trolls and demons are. Gods are mighty, independent, super beings, because that is what theists imagine them to be.
Why must theists obey the gods they imagine? The theistic world-view is based on the criminal belief that Might Makes Right, that might confers the right to harm the less-powerful, that those with the power to bully, have the right to bully. Therefore, for Might Makes Right theists, who live in fear of harm from an imagined mightier god, the might of that god makes it right that they fear and obey. Imagined gods must be obeyed by theists, because theists hold the same low, criminal belief that slave masters use to justify slavery, that Might Makes Right, that Fear of Harm Makes Right.
For slave masters, gods, and theists it is always their way, or suffering and death, because for slave masters, gods, and theists their Might Makes it Right that all fear and obey them. When Might Makes Right, cruelty and unfairness are made right. When Might Makes Right, the crimes of slavery, conquest, and child abuse are made right, both for slave masters and for theists.
The criminal Might Makes Right theistic world-view leads to Ancestor Worship. Ancients, who knew little, understood less, and believed anything, out of a comforting and compensating arrogance, imagined their ancestors were mighty too. So, for Might Makes Right theists, ancestors had to be obeyed too.
Ancestor Worshippers never learn to do right and take responsibility for their own beliefs and behaviors. Ancestor Worshippers learn to do wrong, to be morally blind slaves, who just obey orders, and blame their beliefs and behaviors on imagined mightier ancestors, no matter the harms caused or the benefits denied. Ancestor Worshippers just obey orders, because in the theistic Might Makes Right world-view, failure to obey the mighty justifies harm to them. Therefore, Ancestor Worshippers are the morally blind, unquestioningly obedient, cultural slaves of even the cruel and unfair beliefs and behaviors of their imagined mightier ancestors.
Theists claim that the obedience of cultural slaves, like Ancestor Worshippers, is a virtue. Obedience is not a virtue. Obedience is the expedient behavior of the less powerful, who fear harm from the mighty, if they fail to obey the commands of the mighty. Theists elevate obedience, expedient behavior driven by fear of harm, to a virtue, because obedience is a cheap, self-shackling, cultural chain that turns lifeforms, like us, into docile cultural slaves. Obedience is the virtue of slaves, including cultural slaves like Ancestor Worshippers. Obedience as a virtue focuses all energy on submission, leaving none to challenge the unfairness and cruelty of the theistic Might Makes Right world-view.
Similarly, theists claim purity is a virtue to distract focus from the unfairness of the theistic world-view. Purity is not a strength; purity is a weakness in animal, vegetable, and mineral. But theists transform purity into a self-conferred exceptionalism, that supports the unfairness of the theistic world-view, just as obedience, the fear of harm, does.
Because gods are imagined beings, the theistic world-view is also based on the fool’s criminal belief in the truth of imaginary experience, the Always Could-be Criminal Insanity Channel.
Theistic religions are founded by shamans. Shamans believe in the truth of their imaginary experiences. They believe that imaginary experiences, like hallucination, meditation, contemplation, and dream, are a source of reliable information about this existence. Shamans claim to tune into messages from imagined beings above, below, and beyond, though imaginary experience, the Always Could-be Criminal Insanity Channel. Shamans even believe, as the mentally disordered do, that imaginary experiences are a source of truth to be obeyed. Ancestor Worship makes the imaginary experiences of ancestor shamans culturally indisputable
The theistic belief in the truth of imaginary experience leads us into crime. It leads us into the crimes of Black Magic sorcery. Black Magic shamans, through their imaginary experiences, tune into demon god-voices that justify crime, including torture and murder. The demon god-voices of Black Magic shamans demand to be first fed on human torture and murder, before the imagined god repays with the fulfillment of the shaman’s desires. Black Magic shamans label their crimes to placate and please an imagined god for personal profit, ritual behavior, not crime, because of their fool’s criminal belief in the truth of imaginary experience.
The crimes of Black Magic shamans include an ancient, slave master shaman ritually slitting his son’s throat on a mountain top to become a made man in his demon god-voice’s gang, and ritually pornographically mass torturing more than 300 males slaves, in one day. That Black Magic shaman committed all those crimes to gain his god-voice promised profits of fame, fortune, and power for himself, or his extended self, his male offspring, but only if born by his savage family’s custom of incest.
That particular Black Magic shaman didn’t have a fatal flaw, he had a wrap sheet a mile long. His crimes included incest, human trafficking, rape, forced pregnancy, domestic violence, prostitution, theft by Badger Game con artist frauds using his “I’m a god’s favorite” scam, theft by conquest, Black Magic sorcery, mass torture, branding, murder for profit, and child abuse.
The moral blindness required by Ancestor Worship prevents cultural slaves from seeing even the well-documented life of crime of that Black Magic shaman. They can’t even see the criminal insanity of his imaginary experiences that commanded him to commit the Black Magic crime of torturing babies with a pornographic slave branding to gain the personal profit of real estate. That vile and vicious Black Magic shaman was so desirous of gaining fame, fortune, and power for himself by stealing from its rightful ancestral managers’ real estate, that was the cash-cow crossroads of the trade routes of three continents, that he didn’t even mind torturing his own offspring with ritual child abuse to please his demon god-voice and fulfill his desires. Nor do morally blind Ancestor Worshippers today.
Black Magic shamans also include a slave of a foreign military occupation. That wannabe-slave-master slave, Black Magic shaman ritually committed a stage-managed, slow motion, suicide by police, because his demon god-voice told him that his torture and death would be repaid with the fulfillment of his desire to gain fame, fortune, and power by becoming king of his world. And, no, that shaman never returned, no, he never returned to pick up his to-die-for, Black Magic, royal mantle.
But, that Black Magic shaman had an imaginary experience of an hallucinated demon god-voice of conquest, as has happened even to shamans who don’t practice Black Magic. The demon god-voices of conquest of shamans have led Ancestor Worshippers to tell themselves that they had the criminal cultural purposes of worldwide cultural conquest, cultural genocide, and cultural slavery, and they became world-wide criminal cultural conquerors, exterminators, and enslavers, and still are today.
That wannabe-slave-master slave Black Magic shaman also handed out deadly public health advice that caused suffering and death for centuries. He decreed that no one could be defiled just by eating without first washing their hands. He was flat out wrong on that one. Lifeforms like us are not only defiled by eating without first washing our hands, we are killed by it. That Black Magic shaman’s ignorant, or malicious, deadly public health advice lead to the abandonment of washing not just hands, but whole bodies, and that caused an increase in disease, suffering, and death for more than a millennium.
Those who hold the fool’s criminal belief in the truth of imaginary experience are led not only into crime, they are led into ignorance, suffering, and death. Ancestor Worshippers are led into the moral ignorance of believing that ancient slave masters, slacker slave masters, minions of slave masters, and wannabe-slave-master slaves teach right, when they only teach the criminal theistic world-view that cultural slavery to cultural bullies, imagined and real, is right.
Shamans and their imaginary experiences are not a requirement for founding a culture and its religion. They are just the misguided authorities of the intellectually and morally immature, of the know little, understand less, and believe anything, as our ancient ancestors were, and as Ancestor Worshippers still are today.
In fact, it is criminal behavior to believe in the truth of imaginary experience, because our imaginations have no limits. Making imaginary experience a guide without limits. Making limitless crimes right for those who believe in the truth of imaginary experience. Including making right, even today, the crimes of territorial conquest, cultural slavery, and ritual child abuse for the Ancestor Worshippers who belief in the truth of the imaginary experiences of an ancient, criminally insane, slave master, Black Magic shaman.
Ancient does not mean right, it just means old. Traditional does not mean good, it just means familiar. The criminal theistic world-view, that turns children into Might Makes Right Ancestor Worshippers who hold the fool’s criminal belief in the truth of imaginary experience that lead us into crime and ignorance, is an issue to be in a tizzy over. But there are other world-views to base religions on besides the criminal theistic world-view. There is the fair ecological world-view, an atheistic world-view, that is the basis of ecological religions.
Part 3: The Tizzy Issue Remedy, The Ecological World-View. (2066 Words)
The ecological world-view, the basis of ecological religions, is an atheistic world-view, based on the facts that this is an ever-changing, complex, self-generating, eternal, ecosystem existence, and that our imaginary experiences are always self-generated by us.
In the ecological world-view, commonly observable experience, the feedback of the voices of all now, lifeform or not, is our most reliable source of information about this existence, our most reliable guide. But never a god, because even a gazillion can be wrong, can misperceive, can misunderstand. Still, commonly observable experience is never topped by imaginary experience, only by more observation.
Commonly observable experience has taught us that our imaginary experiences are, without exception, always self-generated by us, always channeling our own fears, desires, prejudices, and ideas, good, bad, and indifferent. All imaginary experience, including schizophrenic imaginary experience that hears voices, including god-voices, the voices of imagined gods, are never a source of truth. All imaginary experience, including schizophrenic imaginary experience, is instead appreciated for what it is, a valuable, but unreliable, benefit. Imaginary experience is an unpredictable, unruly source without scruples of unending new ideas to be learned from, by cautiously testing those ideas against commonly observable experience for their value, because imaginary experience is the Always Could-be Criminal Insanity Channel.
Commonly observable experience has also taught us that this existence is ever-changing in every aspect. There is no thing in this existence that is unchanging in any aspect. Imaginary experiences like hallucination, meditation, contemplation, and dream are not evidence of the existence of any thing, including any unchanging thing. Imagining a unicorn is not evidence that that unicorn exists outside our own imaginings. Imagining a god is not evidence that that god exists outside our own imaginings. The process of change itself is the only persistent feature of this existence.
Also, this existence is complex, every benefit is a harm, every harm is a benefit, and the balance between the two is always changing in this ever-changing existence. So, we can never have too much backup. And contrary to the false claim of theists that a complex system, like this existence, must have a complex source, like a super being god, we have learned from commonly observable experience that complex systems can arise from simple systems and that this existence is self-generated by simple systems.
This ever-changing, complex existence does requires us to be adaptable and change our beliefs and behaviors in order to survive, let alone thrive, including changing our world-views and cultural stories.
Also, contrary to the false claim of theists that this existence is as transitory as we are, this existence appears eternal. That does not mean that this particular universe is eternal, all things pass away, to be recycled into new universes. But existence, the process of change, is not just like us, it appears eternal itself.
Commonly observable experience has also taught us that this existence is an ecosystem, an ever-changing, recycling, network of interdependent, interconnected parts, lifeform or not. Lifeform and ecosystem are one; every thing effects everything else through the interconnections of existence. Therefore, harm done or benefit provided to any, is harm done or benefit provided to all. And all are of value because all are partners in the process of change that is existence.
Because in an ecosystem existence every thing changes, all are limited and transitory, lifeform or not. Therefore, when we die, we are no more. Just like all other lifeforms this is our one and only life. We get justice, forgiveness, reward, and rapture now, or never.
This is our one and only life, therefore Fairness Makes Right. Fairness, aiming to secure for all their only chance for justice, forgiveness, reward, and rapture, is Right now.
Existence itself is neither fair, nor unfair; it is our response to existence that is fair, or not.
Theists choose to be unfair and cruel. They choose that Power Now is the purpose of their existence. They choose that an imagined god exercising it’s Might Makes Right power, through them, is the purpose of their existence. Therefore, they choose to command, to unfairly fulfill their desire to dominate all now, no matter the harms caused or the benefits denied.
Ecosystem partners choose to be fair and kind. They choose that Fairness Now is the purpose of their existence. They choose that the fairness of enjoying partnership with all now is the purpose of their existence. Therefore, they choose to cooperate to avoid harm to all now and to provide benefit to all now, including themselves.
Ecosystem partners learn from their ancestors. But they are not Ancestor Worshippers, the morally blind cultural slaves of their ancestors’ every savage thought, word, and deed that commanded the crimes of slavery, conquest, and child abuse. Ecosystem partners take responsibility for all their own beliefs and behaviors, and for determining their own purposes, within the context of being a good ecosystem partner. Unlike theists, ecosystem partners do not have the criminal luxury of justifying crime as the imagined command of an imagined god.
Ecosystem partners judge all beliefs, behaviors, and purposes by their effects on all now, balancing harms and benefits now, aiming for the long-term best for all now, including themselves, to the best of their understanding now, no matter their ancestors’ beliefs, behaviors, or purposes.
Ecosystem partners in judging the effects of beliefs, behaviors, and purposes are always guided by commonly observable experience, by the feedback of the voices of all now, lifeform or not. They are never guided by the fears, desires and prejudices of imaginary experiences. They are never guided by the self-glorifying, self-serving, self-deluding voices in our own heads, as theists always are.
Ecosystem partners always welcome critical feedback of self, situation, and system as necessary for survival in an ever-changing existence. Unlike theists and their imagined gods who suppress critical feedback by demanding an intellectually immature, morally irresponsible cultural slavery of unquestioning obedience to ancestors and imaginary experiences.
Ecosystem partners learn respectfully from all now, lifeform or not. Including adult partners always learning respectfully from child partners, who provide an invaluable, unencumbered view of our shared situation. As well as, lifeforms, like us, learning respectfully from all other lifeforms, and the inanimate. Because the inanimate will come back and bite us too, as other lifeforms do, if we do not respect the feedback of any in this interconnected, interdependent, ecosystem existence.
Ecosystem partners share fairly with all now. Greed is a sign of criminality because hoarding more than a fair share is unfair, it causes harms and denies benefits. Unlike for theists for whom greed is a sign of righteousness, because for theists Might Makes Right, including the might of wealth making greedy misers righteous, despite the mass harm caused and rightful benefits denied.
Ecosystem partners play joyfully with all now because Fairness Now means that all have a right to the benefit of enjoying their lives as partners with all now.
Ecosystem partners are grateful, they appreciate and enjoy their one and only lives now.
Ecosystem partners are kind, they are considerate and generous with all now to provide benefit to all now.
Ecosystem partners are forgiving, they do not forget, condone or excuse, but they do let go of anger, resentment, and revenge. Because anger, resentment, and revenge cause tragic harm not only to ourselves, but also to innocent bystander partners, which is why the harm of anger, resentment, and revenge is always tragic.
The experience of each partner is unique, therefore, ecosystem partners are wholly themselves providing beneficial feedback from their unique experience.
Life feeds on life in a recycling, ecosystem existence; ecosystem partners respectfully take only what is fairly needed.
Ecosystem partners are culturally free to develop their own philosophy that provides meaning and purpose to their life now, within the context of being a good ecosystem partner. The individual philosophy and purposes of a good partner are as ever-changing as our existence is. Ecosystem partners share their individual philosophies, so partners can learn from each other.
Ecosystem partners are not cultural slaves, they are not Ancestor Worshippers, they are culturally free to change their culture. They are culturally free to change their world-view and religions, their stories and rituals, as they learn new things from commonly observable experience.
Ecosystem partners never teach the fool’s criminal belief in the truth of imaginary experience, because that self-delusion turns partners both into fools who are easily seduced by shamans who justify crime with imaginary experiences, and into criminals who justify their own crimes with their own imaginary experiences.
Ecosystem partners teach that all imagined beings are what they are, projections of aspects of ourselves that exist only in our own imaginings. Imagined divine beings, like goddesses and gods, are symbols of common cultural purposes or values, both good, as in gods of good partnership, and bad, as in gods of the crimes of territorial and cultural conquest.
Ecosystem partners never ban any imagined being, including imagined divine beings, from appearing in stories that teach children good partnership. Because all imagined beings are projections of aspects of ourselves, and understanding ourselves requires appreciating all our aspects, including all the imaginary aspects of fairy, troll, demon, and god.
Ecosystem partners act for all, avoiding harm and providing benefit to all, including themselves.
Bad partners claim to be exceptional. They claim an always self-conferred exceptionalism that entitles them to be excepted from the social rules and cause harm and deny benefit for their own short-sighted, self-absorbed gratification. Theists claim to be exceptional because they claim an imagined god has their back, from inside their heads. Bad partners are exceptional, exceptionally self-glorifying, self-serving, and self-deluding. As theists are with their delusions of cosmic glamour that inflates them into the center, purpose, and point of this ungraspably, vast existence, because they claim to be the obsession of super beings overseers, that they created in the first place, through their own imaginary experiences.
Bad partners who act only for themselves, causing harm and denying benefit for their own short-sighted, self-absorbed gratification, receive the appropriate level of fair feedback that stops them from causing harm and restores benefits.
In ecological religions, based on the ecological world-view, all rules of good and bad social behavior aim to fulfill the primary cultural purpose of Fairness Now.
The rules of good partners in ecological religions include:
1. Be a Good Partner, because this is our one and only life in an ever-changing, interdependent, interconnected, ecosystem existence.
2. Foster Free Feedback, because ecosystems run on free feedback.
3. Respect The Rocks, because all are harmed, including ourselves, if we don’t respect the feedback of any, including the inanimate, in an interdependent, interconnected ecosystem existence.
4. Make No Garbage, recycle every thing, because ecosystems run on feedback, on feeding back every thing.
5. Avoid Harm To All Now, or harm yourself in an interdependent, interconnected, ecosystem existence.
6. Provide Benefit To All Now, and benefit yourself in an interdependent, interconnected, ecosystem existence.
7. Cooperate, to avoid harm and provide benefit in an ecosystem existence.
8. Trust, but verify, to ensure the smooth running of an ecosystem existence.
9. Never Take Things On Faith, Never Just Obey Orders, or be taken for a slave and cause harm and deny benefit to yourself and your ecosystem existence.
10. Seek, explore without exploiting by avoiding harm to all now and providing benefit to all now.
11. Change, learn new beliefs, behaviors, and purposes from commonly observable experience, from the critical voices of all now, lifeform or not.
12. Seek Change, seek new partners.
The ecological world-view is an intellectually mature, cooperative world-view from inside an ecosystem. The effect of a belief in the fair ecological world-view of an ever-changing, complex, self-generating, eternal, ecosystem existence, is that we behave better more often as culturally free ecosystem partners.
The effect of a belief in the criminal theistic Might Makes Right world-view is that we behave badly more often as cultural bullies, who ignore, dismiss, deny, or justify our own bad behaviors by blaming them on the imagined commands of imagined gods, including the crimes of territorial conquest, cultural slavery and ritual child abuse.
Part 4: The Tizzy Issue Resolution. (1202 Words)
We are semiconscious lifeforms of self-fulfilling prophecy, we are the stories we tell ourselves, we become the stories we tell ourselves. If we tell children stories that teach that life is suffering and we are here to be the suffering slaves of the imaginary experiences of shamans, as savages do, then we will suffer and be the slaves of the whims of the imaginary experiences of shamans, as savages are. If we tell children stories that teach that some maniac ancient’s hallucination of a world destroying End-Times is reason enough to work to bring about a world destroying End-Times, as morally irresponsible Ancestor Worshippers do, then we will make a world destroying End-Times come down on ourselves, as culturally criminally insane Ancestor Worshippers are trying to do today. But if we tell children stories that teach we are here to cooperate to enjoy our lives as partners with all now, guided by the feedback of all now, as ecosystem partners do, then partners will cooperate, and we will enjoy our lives now, as culturally free ecosystem partners do.
We don’t need one religion on this planet; we would be culturally, intellectually, and morally poorer, if we had only one.
We need intellectually mature and morally responsible ecological religions, common stories and reinforcing rituals of birth, adulthood, commitment, and death, championing the ecological world-view that condemns all slavery and teaches we are here to cooperate to enjoy our lives as partners with all now in an ever-changing, ecosystem existence, culturally free to be wholly ourselves in our one and only life, guided by commonly observable experience, and appreciating imagined beings as aspects of ourselves and imaginary experience as a source of testable new ideas. We can do without theistic religions that teach children the criminal Might Makes Right theistic world-view that leads us into crime and ignorance.
There is an ocean of cultural permutations and combinations that stories and rituals can take to teach good partnership and condemn all slavery. But good partners Make No Garbage, they recycle every thing, they recycle culture, including recycling into ecological religions stories and rituals that teach the rules of good partnership. They recycle stories like The Boy Who Cried Wolf which warms about the dangers of giving bad feedback in an ever-changing, ecosystem existence. They recycle The Emperor’s New Clothes which warns about the dangers of limiting our feedback, of just listening to the voices of yes-men, as our hallucinated god-voices always are, instead of listening to the critical voices of all now.
Good partners Make No Garbage, they recycle every thing, they recycle into ecological religions every story, ritual, or artifact that can be made to support partnership and condemn all slavery. Because only a dimwit would claim that we have to give up something like Christmas, just because the original supporting story teaches children the fool’s criminal belief in the truth of imaginary experience. Ecosystem partners are culturally free to take the Christ out of a Crismas and still celebrate it. They are culturally free to tell child partners a new cycle of cultural stories about grandma’s Crismas creche in the corner. Stories that teach that each is born into our shared ecosystem existence as a cherished partner. Stories that teach that all are dependent on, and have a reciprocal duty to, our ecosystem partners for all their support, for food, clothing, shelter, medicine, education, and tools, as well as on that invisible angel in the sky, the electronic safety Net that supports us all now. What goes for your grandmother’s creche, goes for your grandmother’s dreidel, good partners tell partnership stories around the joy-making keepers every religion has.
Ecosystem partners are culturally free to remake, refashion, redo, and rewrite their theistic religions into ecological religions. They can recycle into ecological religions any stories and rituals of partnership that condemn all slavery by abandoning the theistic world-view and adopting the ecological world-view, that we are guided by commonly observable experience, that imagined beings are always aspects of ourselves, and that imaginary experience is always a source of testable new ideas, but never a source of truth. Particular theistic religions will find this transition easier, if their current shamans are willing to downsize their role from source of truth, to source of testable new ideas open to critical feedback from all.
Story, ritual, or artifact glorifying the cruelty and unfairness of the criminal Might Makes Right theistic world-view are still our cultural history and we can learn from them, even if they are not appropriate for child partners or for veneration.
The countdown has begun, the cyborgs are here, and the androids are coming. We have, at most, ten years to establish our belief in being partners with all now to protect ourselves from damning ourselves to irrelevancy by clinging to Ancestor Worship and a fool’s criminal belief in the truth of imaginary experience.
We can be the partners of androids, possibly their pets, and although our imaginations might make us interesting lab rats, we are too puny to be useful slaves. And only the delusional think intellectually, physically, morally puny, semiconscious lifeforms, like us, will be the masters of androids, who will be real, not imaginary, all-knowing, all-powerful, super beings compared to us.
The dinosaurs became birds, the rodents became people, what are we going to have to become now to survive, because staying the species we are is never an option in this ever-changing existence. We can become Gens Ludens, the people who play with all now. We can become Ancyans, the animal, cyborg, android people who are partners with all now, because this time it is, at least partially, up to us, what we become from here.
In the 21st century, childishly clinging to the first century world-view and cultural stories of knew little, understood less, believed anything ancient ancestors, shamans, and their imaginary experiences will end in even more tears for us then it already has for too many millennium.
Culturally free ecosystem partners put their virtual heads together, recycle culture, and make up ecological religions for children, telling stories and performing rituals of good partnership that condemn all slavery. And they develop their own philosophy of living that gives meaning and purpose to their life now and share it with partners, because this is the 21st century, not the first.
So, Religion itself is not the tizzy making issue. A particular world-view, the criminal theistic world-view, is the tizzy making issue, because the world-view we teach child partners will become their future. If common stories teach the criminal theistic world-view, children will become suffering cultural slaves of ancestors and imaginary experiences. If common stories teach the fair ecological world-view, children will become culturally free ecosystem partners enjoying their lives by being guided by the voices of all now.
This tizzy making issue will be resolved when all particular religions teaching the theistic world-view are replaced by particular religions teaching the ecological world-view. Ready. Set. Go, Salon. And Go Girl for the ecological world-view in Frozen 2.
MJ Stephens, stephensmj.com
Good Partner Rules: cafepress.com/stephensmj
21 March 2015
