Month: May 2008

Two weeks ago a deadly cyclone hit Southern Burma, devastating the region. Around the same time, in the worst tornado season for umpteen years, whole towns in the mid-western United States were destroyed with little or no warning. This week, a horrendous earthquake has flattened much of central China and killed upward of 15,000 people. Now we learn of yet another cyclone spinning to a potential frenzy somewhere off the Burmese coast.

Today, George W Bush began his visit to the Middle East. Is there any connection?

Probably not, though it may seem to those with a fertile imagination that God, or the planet, or both, are a bit upset right now with the dominant species on earth. After all, presidential nominee McCain’s ally, Pastor John Hagee, said of Hurricane Katrina that it was God’s punishment for an immoral and corrupt New Orleans.

The city had a “……level of sin that was offensive to God.”

Is this indicative of wickedness throughout China and Burma? Surely, not in those mid-western US towns hammered by record tornadoes recently? After all, they’re plum in the middle of the American Bible Belt, and isn’t it pure coincidence Tornado Alley just happens to run through the same area?

Of course, we all realize John Hagee is just a loud-mouthed religious egomaniac with a control fetish, but what of George W Bush’s attempts to bring peace to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict? Could this, in some way, be offending the Divinity?

It’s possible. If only because God realizes George W Bush is a liar.

His much publicized trip to the Middle East was purported to move the peace process forward, yet Bush is not intending to even set foot on Palestinian land.^[1] He went directly to Israel where he will take part in celebrations to commemorate sixty years of Israeli statehood. During speeches, Israeli prime minister Olmert and the American president fawned over each other’s camaraderie and alliances. Bush said:

“We consider the Holy Land a very special place and the Israeli people our close friends.
I look forward to discussing how I believe our two nations can continue to advance our ideals and approach our next 60 years of partnership with confidence and with hope.”

No mention of any friendship or partnership with the Palestinians. In fact, as Bush was speaking, four Palestinians were dying at the hands of Israeli troops, once again footloose and trigger-happy in the Gaza Strip.

It’s obvious Bush’s so-called attempts at a “peace process” are no more than a shallow move to bolster his historical legacy, already doomed by eight years of failed policies.

Bush is in Israel to show US support for the Jewish state, on behalf of his Jewish friends and colleagues in Washington. His actions raise a finger in derision at Palestinians who watch forlornly, like concentration camp victims hopelessly clinging to the wire, while their captors celebrate outside.

If I were God, it would make me angry. That this man had used my name to create death, suffering, and black-hearted mayhem throughout the planet I had created, would make me furious. I’d have no trouble whipping up a few tornadoes, cyclones, and earthquakes to illustrate my feelings.

The only difference would be, if I were God I’d make sure I took better aim.

Of course, all these meteorological disturbances may have nothing at all to do with Divine wrath. While the weather men still deny global warming, preferring instead to blame that much abused Latino couple, El Nino and La Nina, the steady rise in US tornado activity over the last five years, coupled with more frequent tectonic activity, is surely indicative of what we may expect as global temperatures increase.

On the other hand, it may simply be that God is just another frustrated Hillary Clinton supporter.

^{[1] ” Bush begins tour of Middle East”, BBC, May 14th 2008}

Filed under: Global catastrophes

The leader of Britain’s Roman Catholics, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor has appealed to his flock to treat atheists and agnostics with “deep esteem”, according to a recent BBC report.^[1] He then goes on to accuse believers of being:

“…partly responsible for the decline in faith by losing sense of the mystery and treating God as a ‘fact in the world’.”

I think, for once, I’m in agreement with him.

Asked to comment on the Cardinal’s assertions, that other high priest Richard Dawkins, who is to Atheism as O’Connor is to Christianity, responded:

“There’s absolutely no reason to take seriously someone who says, ‘I believe it because I believe it.’ God either exists or he doesn’t. It’s a matter of the truth.”

Strangely, I’m in agreement with Dawkins also.

Where both these fine gentlemen go astray is in assuming an intransigence towards their beliefs that forces others to take sides. Dawkins talks of “truth”, but neither he nor O’Connor have the intellect, wisdom, or knowledge to make any decision on whether that known colloquially as “GOD” is a reality or not, and it’s the egotistical opinions of both that form the driving force of their opposing arguments.

The core of any religion is its belief in the existence of a supernatural entity, or entities. Given the vastness of the Universe, our total ignorance of its conception or what may lie beyond it, and the unlikelihood of us ever being in a position to find out due to the mind-boggling distances and time-spans involved, to deny the possibility of some divine intelligence is as patently stupid as insisting one exists. In fact, both stances are so crazy that only the human ego could ever conceive of such a reality.

A wise person would accept that the humble human brain, coupled to a mere five basic senses, is incapable of considering, let alone answering, questions surrounding the reality of a God-presence. Neither O’Connor nor Dawkins has anymore ability to form such a conclusion than a daisy growing in a meadow, or a cow about to eat the daisy. In fact, both bovine and compositae are probably better off for not contemplating the matter. After all, neither cows nor daisies slaughter their own kind en masse in the pursuit of persuading others to adopt their ideals.

At this point, Dawkins may well jump from his chair and accuse the religious of fostering wars, but neither Stalin nor Hitler were men of God. It is Homo sapiens who wages war, and whether he chooses to call it ‘Holy’, or not, war is one of the more irreligious and unholy of man’s activities, even when waged under the convenience of a God-banner.

It would seem that Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor wishes to retain the ‘sense of mystery’ surrounding God, rather than accepting the Being as a fact of life. One has to wonder, given this admission, how someone of such stature within his church can continue to dredge the bowels of humanity in search of converts to his faith? If he prefers God as a mystery, rather than a ‘fact of life’, perhaps his faith is less firm than he would have us believe?

Of itself, that’s not a problem. Neither would it be a criticism, were he to contain his beliefs within the confines of his own thoughts. It becomes a problem when his office dictates how others should live their lives; employing itself as the foundation-layer of our universal morality.

Similarly so with Richard Dawkins. The media have set him up as a scientific cult figure, a position he seems happy to occupy, arrogantly denouncing the religious and holy as stupid and simplistic.

Dawkins is entitled to his opinions, as is O’Connor. Neither has the right to force their beliefs into the social framework of our societies.

To suggest we should all conform to an atheistic ideal on the basis that it is right, is no more excusable than the suggestion that non-belief in a God will result in an eternity of damnation.

Each may have its place. After all, as thinking beings, albeit of a primitive and unevolved form, we are right to ponder the unanswerable.

But, to unerringly believe we’ve discovered the answer is simply to defer to our own egotistical crassitude.

^{[1] ” ‘Respect atheists’, says cardinal”, BBC, May 9th 2008}

Filed under: Belief systems

“Up and down like a whore’s knickers” could be the phrase used to describe the British government’s pathetic attempts to regulate cannabis use, or ‘abuse’, as some prefer to call it.

Originally a “Class B” drug, in 2004 the government of Tony Blair downgraded it to “Class C”, at the behest of most experts and senior police officers, meaning less severe penalties for possession.

Now, prime minister Gordon Brown has decided to up it again to “Class B”, presumably as the only means open to him of proving he can think for himself and not just mirror Tony Blair’s old policies.

There are numerous ways he may have achieved that goal – pulling all British troops out of Iraq, is the most obvious to come to mind – but this is undoubtedly one of the most stupid. Flip-flopping over the question of illegal recreational drugs merely proves the government doesn’t know its own mind and succumbs to the whim of whichever pressure group shouts the loudest.

The excuse for this back-tracking hangs around the potency of “skunk”, a hybrid marijuana plant bred for its superior quality. Critics say it’s much stronger than “ordinary” pot, intensifying the possible ill-effects that are rumored to occur from consistently smoking twenty or more joints a day.

Investigation of the spin surrounding cannabis use reveals a hotch-potch of pressure groups from the Christian Mother’s Union to DrugScope, the UK’s leading independent center of expertise on drugs, whose chief executive Martin Barnes said recently:

“There is no evidence that reclassifying cannabis to Class B will reduce levels of use, levels of harm or the availability of the drug.”

Which begs the question, why then are they doing it?

The sudden political panic over skunk marijuana merely focuses on the ineptitude of the politicians expressing alarm about it. Skunk has been around for years and is widely used throughout Europe (and probably the US). It’s been available in Amsterdam coffee shops for nigh on twenty years, to my knowledge.

Britain’s home secretary, Jacqui Smith – a woman I find particularly unappealing in every way, not least because she bears the same maiden name as my second wife – says she’s not prepared to risk the future health of young people because of “uncertainty” over its impact on mental health.^[1]

Or, to put it another way: as there’s no evidence of any impact on mental health, except possibly to those already sufficiently gullible and retarded as to consider smoking twenty or more cannabis joints every day perfectly acceptable, we, the government, are prepared to imprison normal adult people for five years for daring to partake of a substance certainly no more dangerous than nicotine, a freely available drug from which we, the government, make millions of pounds in taxation every year.

Recently, Gordon Brown commissioned an Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs’ review to assess this very issue. The review advised keeping marijuana classified “C”, stating that there was a “probable, but weak, causal link between psychotic illness, including schizophrenia, and cannabis use”, but in the population as a whole it played only a “modest role” in the development of these conditions.

One reason it’s so difficult to ascertain any ill-effects from cannabis use is because no-one admits to using it. It took years before scientists firmly established the ill-effects of nicotine, a freely available substance. How can they possibly determine the consequences of using an illegal substance that no-one dare admit to? The only studies are on already psychologically disturbed individuals usually hauled before the courts for petty crime and found to be users. Just how scientific is that? Yet, it’s apparently perfectly acceptable to our political leaders, looking for an excuse to bolster their flagging popularity.

How sensible it would be to decriminalize all drugs, fund research into the true benefits and drawbacks, then apply sensible logic to dealing with any problems encountered.

In this instance, “sensible logic” does not include incarcerating people for exercising the right to do what they wish in the privacy of their own home.

Of course, no government anywhere has ever been held in esteem for its ability to display sensible logic.

Truly, nothing’s really changed since 1936:

^{[1] “Cannabis laws to be strengthened”, BBC, May 7th 2008}

Filed under: Drug the government