You probably think that life is valuable; but is it?
As a human I believe myself to have a better concept of
death than, for example, a chicken does. Unfortunately being able to
conceptualise death can cause a lot of pain when people do die. And for whatever reason, it is safe to say
that the living suffer when their loved ones are lost.
Does this ability to suffer loss mean that our lives have
value? Does it mean that the lives of animals that aren’t capable of
conceptualising death like us aren’t as valuable?
I don’t see a difference in value between the life of a
human and that of a chicken; ideologically for me they are both valued at level
zero. And so for example I don’t have a problem with eating meat (I am omnivorous
after all).
I don’t want to kill another person but that does not
mean that I value their life over that of a chicken. I wouldn’t want to cause
any suffering to a person's loved ones; and I definitely would not want to cause
suffering to myself by murdering a them.
If you look at the damage the humans have done to the
planet, would you really choose to save the life of a human over that of a
chicken? We have perverted the natural order and it has to stop.
Wake up to the facts, the world would be a much better
place if the human race were to go extinct; and if that isn’t a wake-up call
then I don’t know what is!
Do you ever wonder why you weren’t born into a different
body at a different time?
Children are natural dualists: they feel there is a body
and a mind and that the two are separate, which is a difficult habit to break.
I have now come to realise that we are our bodies and that there isn’t a ‘spirit’
that transcends our physical form.
I like this idea because it makes sense to me. It is
impossible that I could be someone else because I am a bunch organic material pieced
together by genes. I am unique because the sex cells that became me contained
unique combinations of instructions and the environment I matured in whilst
gestating, and then the environment I grew up in once born were and are both
unique too.
The point is that without every tiny bit of history that
led up to me being conceived (and that led my nurturing), I would not be here
as I am now. And this is where Hitler comes into it; without him (and all other
people throughout history for that matter) I would not exist and I find that
amazing.
“Are you such a dreamer to put the world to rights?”
They say you’re not a fully paid up member of the Schizo
club until you’ve been Jesus. Why on earth do I feel a sense of achievement
that I can say I have been? For a long time I believed I were the reincarnation
and the second coming.
I did try and argue; for instance I thought “hey, I have
no special powers and no angel has come to tell me I am to be crucified to save
the souls of man”. But a voice somewhere inside me immediately sprung up; “there’s
no evidence Jesus had any powers either, people must have made that up to keep
things interesting and as for angels, well, men are living longer nowadays so
the angel probably thinks he has time before he need appear to you, right?”
Any way I looked at it there was always a comeback. I
should stress that this back and forth was almost subconscious. I was aware of
it as I would be a conversation going on at another table in a busy restaurant;
sometimes I’d catch a few words but I wouldn’t always be aware that people were
talking.
You could blame that particular delusion on my religious
upbringing – although it is probably seriously blasphemous to have such a
belief. I’ve been hearing a lot recently on how it cannot be psychosis to
believe in a creator - and all of the dogma attached - so long as there are
many beside you who also believe; safety in numbers.
I grew out of the belief that I was the Christian son of
god, back after 2000 years as Chris de Burgh sung. I like to think that I don’t
believe in anything supernatural and I feel comfortable in that Universe.
I based my entire belief system on this lecture above by
Lawrence Krauss. Although it mostly went over my head I did make out was that
there everything can come from nothing. This changed my whole sense of life
overnight. I suddenly discovered a world that I could conceptualise, where
morality was essentially evolutionary and where I didn’t need a meaning beyond
nature.
Judging by what I have seen, heard and read the vast
majority of people don’t have the impulse to desire that knowledge. They are
quite happy to get on with their lives, dealing with whatever is thrown their
way. That is exactly how nature intended it. Evolution by natural selection
takes a long time but unfortunately the evolution of society doesn’t. We live
in a modern society and yet have primeval brains.
(For example our brains are designed to deal with scarcity.
That is why when food is abundant you have the problem of obesity because the
instinct says “eat eat eat, who knows where the next meal will be!”)
And yet I find myself aware of desiring that knowledge.
My initial reaction was that there had to be a natural explanation for this. A
complicated concoction of genes and environment – maybe even the head injury I
had experienced when I was younger had caused lesions in my brain. But then a
voice somewhere inside said “hey, what if you are special? What if you are
destined to make a difference? What if you are the one who will start a new
religion of knowledge and lead the world out of the darkness? What if?
It feels like a very naïve idea when I write it down like
that. Of course I watch the news and see the situation in the Middle East and
North Korea and the overriding worries of Climate Change. I was told you should
never base anything on divine revelation and this certainly has that aroma
about it. But what if we stopped valuing and wasting money on material things?
Religion seems to glue communities together but they have
a dark side as well. But what is there in place of religion? I see young people
leading hedonistic lives and it makes me feel sick inside. Is knowledge the way
forward? Will it get better if people are made aware of their place in the
Universe and realise that there is nothing beyond nature and causality? There
need be nothing else because that in itself is so incredibly humbling.
