Religion or “Coercion”?
Seeking clarification.
A bit of history: My high school sweetheart and I left for Canada near the end of the Vietnam War. I dropped out of high school though my grades were good enough and I had some college level training while there, I didn’t pass a required course, Government. I saw it as just so much garbage. After a short time in that class the teachers refused to acknowledge my often-raised hand because I asked questions they could not answer such as “How does a bill of rights assure the rights?” Seems I was on the track of understanding some of Lysander Spooner’s ideas ( http://www.lysanders...rg/bib_poll.htm ). Some three years previous I was on a debate team in Junior High where I argued we needed to stay in Vietnam. I thought I was well prepared; my father who had degrees in political science had helped me. The other side of the debate basically opened my eyes and convinced me that we were in Vietnam under false pretenses, off-shore oil, rubber plantations, military contracts, business reasons were the paramount reason as to why we were killing and being killed there. Only recently did I learn that the Gulf of Tonkin event didn’t happen and was an instance of false-flag propaganda. I couldn’t begin to believe that it was a war of ideologies as communism and capitalism had eluded me as to having any distinct definition.
Due to my being raised in what can be termed a Christian leaning nation, I early on decided I would not read the Bible. I did not read the Koran either as it seemed to be basically an offshoot of Christianity. Instead I read of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and others. I wanted to get a fair understanding and suspected the early Baptist church Sunday school and the predominance of Christian trainings and assumptions presented in the general media had already given me a rudimentary understanding of that ideology. To this day, I still haven’t read the Bible (though I’ve carefully studied other books entitled “Bible” such as numerous editions of Winn L. Rosch’s “Hardware Bible” on personal computers).
Within the last two years my father died of brain cancer. He was 82. At the age of 72 he had fallen off a roof and broke both of his wrists. In the hospital he contracted a multiple drug resistant staph. infection (MRSA) and almost died. Though a staunch humanist and not a Christian for most of his life, while under various almost hypnotic trance inducing drugs in the hospital fighting his infection, my younger sister brought her pastor to his bedside to preach of Christianity. After that he was never the same again. He had been very careful and attentive to his diet and supplements but he lost it then. He adopted Aspartame as his preferred sweetener and I understand he consumed a great deal. If he had done a bit of research he would have uncovered that Donald Rumsfeld was the CEO of the company that developed Aspartame and that he was quite conniving in how he got the FDA to approve it despite the evidence of causing brain cancer, perhaps especially as a synergetic reaction with other substances such as MSG ( http://www.newswithv...exclusive15.htm ). My father was at least convinced that Donald Rumsfeld was a murderous sociopath and if he had been aware of his link to Aspartame, he might still be with us today.
While in a nursing home, I visited with my dad for a last time. His close friend and pastor, who spoke with him while previously in the hospital ten years ago, sat next to me on a small couch. The pastor spoke directly to my father about how he was going to another beautiful place forever more. After his monologue I interjected saying “unless a different cosmology model makes more sense.” My step-mom asked “How?” I told her that dynamic nonlinear cosmologies without beginning or end appeared more likely according to science. The pastor spoke up and said that science did not mean much to him. I wanted to ask him if that meant he was into depending on untrustworthy data but kept silent. It was a delicate situation and it was not time for my dad to have any more confusion than he was experiencing.
After the pastor left I drew some quick diagrams that I shared with my dad, step-mom and younger sister.
Though I stopped doing business with the web site that hosts those photos more than a year ago they keep the whole site intact and available, gratis, which I find nice. One of the first major donations I have received.
My sister pointed at the one I had drawn for Hinduism and said “Kind of loopy, huh?” and we had a chuckle. My sister had excelled in drama classes in high school and college, participating in a number of plays. I could tell when she wasn’t all that serious about something and thought her embracing Christianity for about 20 to 30 years was not something she really believed but did so out of convenience, for her husband, her job, her church friends. Seems it was basically a passion play.
Got to thinking about that word religion. Where in speech do we find it rather incontrovertibly correct? In the sentence, “his conviction was religious” we are not necessarily speaking of any of these things that pass for religion but actually of having a strong belief. “Strong belief” can be taken two ways, a belief that a person came to through numerous experiences of convincing evidence or a belief that has ample force associated with its promulgation. Seems this is reflected in the dichotomous nature of faith, which can be based on knowledge, expectations from evidence, or be without evidence, basically accepting a proposition on the basis of some one’s professing a truth. After my dad died, I learned of a phenomenon called epistemological relativism or epistemic relativism. It is basically the idea that truth is a matter of opinion and that those that are offered with the greatest force actually determine truth. After some thought and research I came to understand that science is actually the opposite, a relative epistemology. Appears to me that is a succinct way to describe the scientific method that brings some light upon what science is, an effort to share and use trustworthy data. Science by its nature emphasizes a moral platform, to inform rather than misinform. Truth in science is always relative and subject to clarification unlike that offered by its opposite which is basically the idea that “might makes right” or that force decides.
In my attempts to sift, weigh and clarify terms and understanding of sociology I have come to understand that the wide-spread tendency of people to try to adopt epistemic relativism as a working platform stems from our ignorance, our alienation, our existentialism. Not one of the social experiments we call nations has spread successfully to embrace all of humanity. In fact, if you look at them, their supposed boundaries are not real. These things do not qualify as distinct systems from even a cursory application of general systems theory. Their very foundation, our trust in them as worthwhile and defensible, is based on force, not reason. In my local chapter of the American Humanist Association an elderly gentlemen gave a presentation of a book he had written on the development of civilization. He stated that the United States was better because it had defeated and supplanted the Native American societies. Myself and perhaps about two other people there out of about twenty found that to be ludicrous. That may have been the beginning of my falling out with the American Humanist Association. I now consider America an unreal nonexistent fallacy so the American Humanist Association entails a contradiction in terms in my eyes. Humanism seems to be the driving force behind science, the attempt to share true understanding in hopes that general understanding can improve. Of course, much of what passes for science now-a-days is just business as usual, seeking to keep people ignorant and force less understanding for the sake of preserving dependent markets. Appears that things that pass themselves off as religion or science are too often actually neither but rather exercises in coercion for the gain of some at the expense of others.
Upon my experiences and understanding I thought it likely I could come to a better understanding of this word “religion.” If someone who professes having a religion is not really believing in the doctrines but actually just reflecting a belief in epistemic relativism and seeking to align themselves with the most forceful, then it is not really strongly held belief but actually strongly promulgated and defended beliefs through force, not reason. That makes these so-called religions something other than actually religious conviction. I wanted a word that would reflect this and be succinct as well as easy to remember. I think the word “coercion” works. What often passes for religion or philosophy is actually a belief in coercion. What surprises me is how many, an obvious majority of humanity, actually consider and attempt to force ideological understandings rather than convey them through sharing of knowledge. It is not just these things that falsely call themselves religions but many cults and philosophical stances that are just similar reflections of this “might makes right” dictum. That seems to be the most common belief and I also think it is mistaken and terminal. You cannot have a high potential information handling entity grow in its abilities without checks and balances. Either through destroying ourselves through lack of appreciating and emphasizing the moral basis of science or seeing the error of our ways and correcting our behavior, finding a viable way to share all most effectively, either way, epistemic relativism is terminal.
As far as I can tell, epistemic relativism is the justification behind propaganda, disseminating it and often, believing it too. It justifies censorship and ostracizing of contradictory opinions and the people who have them. I believe this gives us a better handle on how to pursue coherency in social undertakings where win-win strategies get an emphasis rather than a zero-sum game where for some to win, others have to lose. I do not believe it is wise to make enemies of the most powerful information handling entities in our environment. For the sake of us, for the sake of humanity, I suggest pursuing science as our moral and obligatory responsibility, a restriction to our freedoms that gives us the greatest sustainable freedom.
Still, I seek greater clarification and if any one might suggest a better word than “coercion” that might succinctly describe these passion plays of force over reason, I would be appreciative. I do find that calling them religions or philosophies does not make sense. Appears there are convictions we can hold that are based in science that affirm a spiritual understanding, a moral imperative, a reason to existence, a strongly held belief based on trustworthy evidence, a relatively valid religion. I suspect we need to find these and share them and put them into practice if we are not to destroy ourselves via one or more of a myriad of possible great mistakes.
