It’s just what I think… I could be wrong:
My friend Tami sort of got after me for not writing to the blog recently, so here are some random things on my mind as of late.
It is often discussed amongst friends how much tougher we had it as kids and how our parents had it tougher still than us, and their parents tougher than them. This lineage goes back seemingly forever establishing a trend that as we progress, life gets easier. We typically comment during these quintessential conversations how there must come a time in our existence when the next generation has it more difficult than the one prior to it. Is it possible we are witnessing that time? Is it possible that the 30 to 45 year olds of today have experienced the last generation of ease and that what we are presenting our children with is a future of more difficult times and harder decisions with more sacrifice?
Americans are the most spoiled people on the planet. We are killing our children with childhood obesity, laziness, overindulgences, violence on TV is at an epidemic level, the training of attention span a child receives is that if it last for more than 3 to 4 seconds, it takes to long. Our kids have exposure to stimulants and chemicals that weren’t even around when we were kids. On the other hand, we had led paint chips on the front porch railing while they are facing human growth hormones in their processed chicken nuggets and their breakfast cereal, [
Hormones in our food] so who’s to say who the lucky ones were! It may become difficult to argue that the days of a 10 year old building a raft out of scrap wood and floating down a creek were somehow more dangerous and detrimental to a child’s health than parking their asses on a couch in an air-conditioned home, watching Sponge Bob while playing their DS; listing to music in one ear on their MP3 players; IM-ing their friends on their cell phones that they can take a picture with and post directly to the internet… and whining that they don’t have enough to do.
Now, you lay on top of that the things we may or may not be doing to our planet and our global economy by having to live on dollars we haven’t made yet and driving vehicles we can’t, or at least shouldn’t, afford and using products we don’t need… (my loving wife has eleven bottle in our shower, what the hell is that all about?) It’s a wonder our kids aren’t getting pissed at us. Now the news isn’t all bad and I’m not trying to present this glass as half empty. Our children have opportunities to do things that will likely amaze and astonish us in the coming years. [
Amazing Kids] They will have to fix the things we have broken, but I believe in them and think they have the ability to create a global exchange of ideas through open technologies that our parent could have only dreamed about.
It has been interesting to see how interconnected the worlds markets truly are. [
World Economic Forum] In a very sick and strange way, it provides a level of comfort knowing that if one goes down, we will likely all go down. In some ways it mimics the cold war between the former Soviet Union and the USA. Everyone has bombs, so nobody uses them. With the economy, everyone had better spend money and keep credit flowing… or we will all likely starve and be out of work. It seems crazy to me that as long as we keep spending money like there is no tomorrow and producing products as though we can’t live without them… we’ll likely be fine, but if we conserve, save and pull back, we effectively hurt our own economy? That shit’s messed up.
I will try not to get off on a tangent in the next couple of paragraphs, but what about Religion? Popularity of religions in the US is actually on the rise! [
Adherents.com] Logic would tell you that as we become more intelligent and more educated on the science of how things work, the less dependent our society would become on things like religion, superstition and folklore. This is not to say that formalized religion would disappear completely, but that it would become a more realistic, intellectually honest, system of community support and socialization it should be in today’s society. It used to be that everyone sort of kept to themselves with their religion. They did their thing, and kept quiet about it (translation in my terms, respectful of others and whatever they might believe). Now religion is in the news daily, its part of our politics, (which it was never supposed to be) [
Religion and Public Policy] schools are filled with the melting pot of ethnic groups and religions seem to come as a variety pack. There are over 1700 versions of Christianity, 1400 in the US alone, all claiming the others are fundamentally wrong. (Does anyone think that is what a savior named Jesus would have wanted, or do you agree, everyone should admit they may be wrong?) You take those 1400 versions of the one religion, mix in some Islam, Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist, Hinduism, Chinese traditional religions, Buddhism, primal-indigenous, African Traditional & Diasporic, Sikhism, Juche, Spiritism, Judaism, Jainism, Shinto, Cao Dai, Zoroastrianism, Neo-Paganism, Unitarian-Universalism and let’s not forget the Scientologist… and you have to ask yourself, what the fuck? I’m not sure where the rest of you learned right and wrong, but not everyone can be right on this deal, somebody is dead ass wrong and that’s that. Some of the above listed parishioners are praying to a monkey… others to a stature and yet others to a book they just made up, and unlike Christians, Jew and Muslims they admit they made it up! Now for those of you who are my religious friends, don’t get all worked up into a froth, I’m not question “your” faith… and I’m not mocking. I’m merely in question of religion, and that is ok… I could be wrong… can you say that?
I would argue the mixing of religions and ethnic groups in this way is a fantastic aspect and the exposure “should” create an environment of tolerance and better understanding; however, I’m not sure that is the case in our country. Socialization, or the social studies of religions seems to have been effective in many of the European countries, but it has failed to take hold in our own country, why? Why don’t we teach our children about “ALL” the religions of the world. Why don’t we treat them all with equal emphasis? Could it be we are prejudice in favor of our native teachings about religion? Isn’t that the very thing we are upset with Muslims about in the Middle East? Many religious people in our country actually “cling” to their faith and cherish the fact that it is an unknown which is bigger than them and therefore something they “truly believe” in. It just seems crazy to me that carbon date testing is questioned, while un-provable stories written thousands of years ago are taken as “facts”. Even more than that, some, if not most of them are put out there as having been written by the big guy himself. (Credibility is critical to all religious books/doctrine so saying the words were actually written by “the GOD” seems to be the easiest way to clear that up) It would seem to me it should be the other way around, but you know me, I could be wrong. It would seem that in many parts of our country, especially major metropolitan areas it is causing a rift between the various sects of religion. At some point people are going to have to begin accepting the fact that they don’t know the truth. Religion is “all” based on a smattering of factual documents, (some religions are based on some facts, others are completely made up) “all” of which are incredibly old and “all” of which are, at the end of the day, non-provable. No one even argues about that, actually, most embrace the unknown as the part to cling to and call it “faith”. Anyone who would “kill” another human being in the name of defending religion has completely lost me. What creates such indignation, hatred, and desire to be right? Why does any of it matter? If people can be trained to believe in all the craziness that religion presents to people, (people are still searching for an arch in which some guy who lived to be over 600 years old gathered up two of each species on the planet to save them from a flood… are you serious?) why is it so difficult for people to believe that it “might not be so”? Many skeptics, agnostics or atheist would say, if you can believe in heaven or hell, (which by the way, are equally as provable and plausible as the existence of Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy) believing that they may not be true should be a walk in the park.
It’s ok to admit you might be wrong! If every person, pastor, priest, monk, rabbi, cleric and councilor would stand up tomorrow and simply admit they “might” be wrong… the world would be a better, brighter and stronger place. People in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Northern Africa, Jerusalem and Palestine and many, many other countries around the world could set down their guns, spears, bibles and Korans and have a drink together (for those who drinking is against your religion… welcome to the Lutheran/Catholic side of religion!). But for thousands of years, they have been unwilling to admit they might be wrong. These are the lessons we teach our children in Sunday schools and Masks all over this country. We have gotten smarter about it over the years, we disguise it in niceness, kindness and community support. We have adopted acceptable philosophies of guilt and shame which help to fill the coffers of the Church. We have set up rules for the Church that make it tax exempt, secretive and for members only. Your way is the “only” way… it is the “right” way… and everyone else is wrong… What the hell people, wake up and smell the fuse burning. Can’t you see there is some inherent bad coming from all this unfettered belief? It scares me a little I’m not afraid to admit, and it should scare you too.
Ok, sorry, I said I wouldn’t get off on a rant and I obviously did. It would seem that our country has become so comfortable with debt that it simply accepts that it is ok to spend money we haven’t made yet. What example does that set? What precedence does that set? Have we set our children up to be the first generation of children who actually have it worse off than we did? I don’t know for sure, but it has been something on my mind lately. It’s just what I think, I could be wrong. Now go out there and do some good would ya?
Take care,
JC Vestweber
10/21/08
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