How Civilized Are We? -- Religion

Man the self-deceiver

It may truly be amazing to some that in these days and age modern man still seems to believe in such imaginary beings as God, gods, angels, devils, demons, ghosts, souls, etc. -- all conjured up by primitive man during the infancy of the human race.

The truth, however, is that no one who is sane and sensible really believes in his heart of hearts such abject nonsense. It is just a hypocrisy or at worst a self-deception. Their behavior in the serious matters of life and death shows they are just paying lip service and acting it out while sticking to the dictates of reality in practice.

Religions are mostly primitive cultures and a way of life based on the belief in the existence and involvement of so-called supernatural beings -- spooks in common parlance -- in our everyday life. Religions are cultural, emotional, social and psychological affairs, generally cobbled together by lying and deceiving gurus who claim familiarity with these spooks. 

The most important thing to note about religions is that they have nothing whatsoever to do with reality, facts, truth and reason. Also, the common denominator of all religions is the virtual worship of a guru who is really the maker, mentor, minder and "spokesman" of spooks in the first place.

The so-called believers are living a lie. Besides the three international pop religions, there are thousands of other religions out there keeping a low profile. Each religion considers itself to be the "one true religion" and sometimes goes to war against other religions to prove their superiority. 

Now, how can one consider a society or a nation based on a culture of lies, make-believe, myths, self-deception and primitive customs as being civilized -- even if it's all pretended?

If truth, knowledge, worldly wisdom, maturity and sophistication of thought are some of the principal components of true civilization then we have failed miserably since truth implies conformity with reality and facts while religions are notorious for their emphasis on blind faith and unquestioning beliefs.

So can we abolish religion? Yes, if we can abolish human nature and superstition!

*

Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.
-- Mark Twain.

There is nothing more important than appearing to be religious.
― Niccolò Machiavelli

The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.
-- Walter Bagehot

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.
-- H.L. Mencken, as quoted in James A. Haught's 2000 Years of Disbelief

Religion is all bunk.
-- Thomas Edison

"The world holds two classes of men -- intelligent men
 without religion, and religious men without intelligence."
-- Abu'l-Ala-Al-Ma'arri (Syrian poet, 973-1057)

Religion is a weapon of mass delusion. (Me)

The origin and purpose of religion arose from mankind's attempt to understand himself and the mysterious and terrifying world around him.-- (Me)

Religion is the spiritual grog of the masses. (Me)

How Civilized Are We? -- Animal Slaughter

The slaughter of the innocents

Animals are born losers.They are willing to do almost anything for us in exchange for whatever (cheap stuff) we give them to eat. But we are hardly content with using them for labor. We want to kill them and eat their dead bodies also. So much for human gratitude! 

Dogs, cats, rats, horses, snakes, tigers, insects -- you name it, we eat them all. Some of them for health, some for human ailments, and some for rip-roaring sex. We even used to eat fellow humans in our cannibal past, and still do -- as in war, famine or as a cultic practice -- in some places around the world.

We make animals carry us around, go to war with us, plow our field and do menial work for us. We put them in cages in zoos, rob them of their milk meant for their young, eggs to hatch their babies, and finally slaughter them and feast on their flesh.

We rob them of their habitat in order to make golf courses, hotels and resorts. We even decorate our drawing rooms with animal heads and tusks.

Some religions add salt to the wound by claiming their boogeymen created animals for us to use and eat. Other religions say it's a sin to kill any kind of life but then nonchalantly look the other way to the slaughter of animals in their own backyards. Doctors chime in with the pronouncement that we need animal protein to be healthy, never mind the millions of vegetarians who get on well without meat. .

Whatever the feelings, there's certainly no way to justify the slaughter and slavery of helpless fellow beings. It's just that we are hooked on meat since we were raised that way from childhood -- an addiction just like getting hooked on a particular kind of food, language, music, race, country -- in addition to alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and religion. For all we care, meat grows on trees! As a kid, ever been told to shut up and finish your pork chop?

The meat industry is a multi-billion dollar business and a country's cash cow -- just like prostitution which attracts sex tours. And it's not just the meat but also animal products -- shoes and handbags for instance -- that rakes in millions.

Even if we stop slaughtering them for food, where do we set them free? In an ever-decreasing habitat full of predators? And we still have to control their numbers by culling. A lose-lose situation for them.

It is encouraging that meat substitutes are on the horizon, but they are expensive and made in insufficient amounts for mass consumption. In fact, they were created to supplement the meat industry. So animal slaughter is here to stay no matter what. No pious lip service to civilized or humane behavior will ever likely put an end to it.

Sure, we get occasional pangs of conscience but we get used to brushing them off each time.

An old colleague once said he only ate chicken from outside his home -- not from his own garden since he regards them as something like family members.
(Nice way to still your conscience!)

A cook at a night market sea-food eatery once told me: "I beg forgiveness from the crabs for doing my job."
(Nothing personal, eh?)

Nice excuses, but a blot on our civilization nevertheless.

***

Most people would probably go without meat if they have to kill their prospective meals with their own hands.
 -- (Exact words and author forgotten.)

Any animal friendly to man usually ends up on his dinner plate.
-- (Exact words and author forgotten.)

 Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
-- Thomas Edison

Most people see a documentary about the meat industry and then they become a vegetarian for a week.
-- Jason Reitman, Canadian-American film director, screenwriter, and producer

Man takes pretty good care of his animal charges -- until it's dinner time.
-- (Me)

If slaughterhouses had glass walls, we would all be vegetarian.
— Paul McCartney

How Civilized Are We? -- War

War -- the bane of civilization

Man can neither live with nor without each other. We are our best friends and worst enemies. And we can never live together in peace and harmony for long. It's got to be cycles of war and peace, peace and war. Always. It's in our blood, our DNA, in our animal instincts and in our savage impulses. And we can hardly do much about it.

We learn to be two-faced. We engage in wars while at the same time praising peace. We sing hosannas on the incalculable value of life and then march off our youth to war. We set aside big war chests with tax-payers' money, denying much-needed funds for the welfare of the people.

We keep thousands -- and even over a million -- of men and women under arms and teach them how to kill people. We make bigger, better and deadlier weapons, especially those of mass destruction, to kill and maim the greatest number of our enemies and lay waste to their lands.

We show off our spanking new and shiny weapons to impress our friends and intimidate our prospective foes, and even make a money-spinning business out of it. And we talk of using robot armies in the not too distant future.

We drop bombs from thousands of feet up in the sky, we launch missiles from distant seas, and we send killer drones from the safety and comfort of our war rooms hundreds or thousands of miles away from ground zero.

Like unconscionable vandals, we turn cities and homes -- even schools and hospitals -- into rubble and skeletons, rain bombs and bullets not only on armed enemies but also on innocent civilians. Most shocking and heartrending of all, we kill, maim, inflict pain and suffering upon innocent little children.  

Overnight, wives turn into widows, children become orphans, and families join lines of  homeless refugees. People get so used to burying the mangled bodies of the dead almost every day that they suffer from dry eyes and numbness even to the loss of their loved ones. Even peace comes at a price -- the peace of a cemetery.

Amidst all the lightning and thunder of war, a cool, silent and impersonal spectator with an insatiable appetite for dead bodies keeps busy, doing its dirty job as the toll mounts higher and higher. Finally, it's peace again -- the peace of the cemetery.

So can we stop wars? Dream on!

*

He who joyfully marches to music rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once.
-- Albert Einstein

Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.
-- John F. Kennedy

One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.
-- Joseph Stalin

One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic. Joseph Stalin
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/joseph_stalin.html

One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic. Joseph Stalin
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/joseph_stalin.html

You can nuke people, but you can't nuke wars! (Me)

Is war an interrupted peace, or is peace an interrupted war? (Me)

The path to peace is often lined with dead bodies. (Me)

Truth is the first casualty in war -- just as in politics and religion.

How Civilized Are We? -- Civilization

(Three Reasons That Burst Our Bubble)

We, of course, like to fancy ourselves as civilized creatures, flaunting our scientific and technological achievements and our perceived humanism, sophistication, worldly wisdom and our wonderful sense of morality. We blithely assert that to be human is to do all the good things humans do or are capable of doing. We stress our angelic part.

At the same time we tend to downplay the other inseparable part of our makeup: the ugly side, the devil in us, our destructive nature. And we have come up with a a good excuse for all the bad things we do, we say "I'm only human," "To err is human," "I just couldn't help it."

They say the meaning of civilization changes with the times and also depends upon whom you ask. So let's not waste our time buttonholing people and asking questions which they themselves may not be quite sure of the right answer.

Instead, we shall use this word in its most general and commonly employed sense, that is, to mean "not savage, not barbaric, not an animal, not superstitious." etc. Civilization is a moving goalpost or an ideal towards which we strive but never fully attain. This is because our human nature, genetically fused to our savage past, gets in the way.

Human nature is what causes wars and the slaughter of our fellow creatures the animals. It's what make us believe in religions and other kinds of superstitions. Human nature is the source of greed, ambitions, murder, rape, theft, lying, vengefulness, discord and destruction. In fact, human nature is the driving force of our behavior -- both for the good and bad.

Civilization is the product of what man has learned during his long march from primitivism to modernity. Civilization promotes worldly wisdom, sophistication and maturity of thought. It gives rise to a humanistic outlook, and it is the engine of our creativity.

One of the main goals of civilization is to tame or rein in the undesirable aspects of human nature and make our world a peaceful, happy and livable place. This is the most important factor in determining how civilized we are.

One last characteristic of civilization: It is achieved in stages and is not evenly distributed throughout the world. Different nations reach different stages of civilization or cultures inviting a violent clash of cultures.

Some people take an easy way out by claiming that since there is no consensus about what civilization, including morality, amounts to, everything is really up in the air. But I beg to differ. 

There are sane and sensible ways to tackle this problem by the use of knowledge, worldly wisdom and a sophisticated, mature and rational way of thinking that could point to better ideas and yardsticks of a civilized way of life. 

Unfortunately, our history and human nature tell us that our quest will likely be just a goal and a dream as long as we remain human beings. 

Here are three important and glaring examples of our irrational and anti-social behavior that man has always been guilty of:

1. War
2. Animal slaughter
3. Religion

***

Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor.
-- Arnold Toynbee

If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships - the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Civilization is a moving goalpost towards which we advance but never fully attain. (Me)