Technology is a
wonderful and amazing thing. It could lift the world from poverty,
move food and other goods at the blink of an eye from where there is
excess to those that need them. It could speed curing diseases to
unimaginable short times just by allowing scientists to communicate
with each other and share ideas and experiments. It could allow us to
take a tour of a far off and exotic place on our lunch break without
leaving our chair or stepper. I might be more inclined to get on my
treadmill if I was taking a walking tour of the Great Pyramid. Just
imagine for a moment a world without boundaries, friends all over the
world talking to you via the Internet, instant translations of any
document you want to read, plenty of food, wearing a Sari from India,
boots from Italy, Jewelry from Nepal and a burka to protect you from
the sun to work without anyone thinking any the less of you while you
stop to pickup lunch at a Mexican Taco Stand and get back on clean
public transportation to make it to your job that you love going to
because you have that midnight conference with China and Australian
on how to save the bees and transport healing honey from New Zealand
to Finland to make Mead that is a health drink without a single
thought that includes FEAR or HATE.
Yes, technology
could have created that world, right now, in your backyard but it
didn't. You see, technology can't really create anything. It is a
tool in the hands of those with the power and unfortunately some
people are easy to manipulate into doing the dirty work for others.
Let me explain how
we arrived where we are today, mourning the loss of good people who
just wanted to live their lives in peace and enjoyment at the hands
of a few mentally ill and, yes, deficient men. It started a long time
ago with a psychopath named Abraham. He was a greedy, lazy bastard
who wanted a place in history like the great men who had come before
him and asked only that the tenets of their method of enlightenment
be remembered providing they continued to work and be of value.
You see, prior to
that moment if you wanted to be a spiritual, enlightened person
leading a happy life with friends and family and food and shelter,
you worked your little ass off learning, practicing and mucking
around in the dirt to grow food and at the end of the day, you came
home to loving group of people and enjoyed the fruits of your and
everyone's labor and study over a good meal and great conversation.
You looked forward to visitors with new information to help you find
peace and happiness by working, meditating and building your home.
You shared with your neighbors no matter who they were or where they
came from because you knew we were all in this together and that
whether you succeeded or failed was YOUR personal mission and
responsibility.
Ah, but Abraham
decided some God had chosen him and his relatives and if they just
made everyone else obey their rules or he would have them killed in
the name of God, he could have EVERYTHING that he could see or from
horizon to horizon, and everyone else would get their reward for
helping him as soon as they died. Now, mind you, their living
relatives wouldn't be sharing in 13 virgins because rewards were only
delivered to the DEAD. But it was an easy path to take. There was no
more meditating, learning, or standing in odd positions. Heck, you
didn't even have to be able to read. The Priests would read the HOLY
BOOK to you and tell you what to do, all you had to do was pray to
Abraham, I mean his God and give up your hard earned food and
anything else God needed. Now if Abraham, I mean his God, deemed you
worthy, you would get what you prayed for and of course, had
delivered the proper amount of sacrifice for to the Priest. If you
didn't get what you prayed for, well, YOU and your animal nature were
the problem. YOU didn't pray right. YOU didn't tithe enough. YOU
weren't holy enough, pure enough, good enough BUT we can fix that.
All you have to do is deliver more and more of your worldly goods to
the Priests that represent Abraham, I mean God. Hey, everyone needs
some accountants and inventory people to keep track of the food and
gold and minerals and chairs and tables and God needs those
accountants, I mean Priests, because apparently omnipotence doesn't
extend to knowing how much you put in the collection plate, just that
errant thought you had after too much beer that your same sex cousin
was looking kind of attractive and now you are going to Hell.
Yes, it is just that
silly when you take a step back and look at it. What is Judaism,
Christianity and Islam killing each over for centuries? Boiled down
into one sentence it is whether you are judged by GOD before or after
you die. Yup, it is that simple. And who is profiting from this? That
would be the people who interpret the religious texts, sell the
religious trinkets and make the weapons to kill each other with
better and better.
And then came
technology. I know you thought it would be money. Hey, money is the
devil's lucre. Lucre, Lucifer, do you see the origin of the word? No,
that is not the problem.
The problem is
people are innately good. Yes, you read that right. People are
innately good. They just want enough to eat, shelter, a few toys,
something to do they really like doing and someone to love and share
their life with. That's all. That's the problem. No one ever managed
to build a crystal cathedral or buy a new jet with a bunch of happy
people sitting around a good meal having an intelligent conversation.
All these mega-churches at the beck and call of a single man or woman
couldn't exist unless they had a whole army of priests, who tended to
be rebellious little critters, to gather money from the peasants and
bring it back to the Vatican.
Now mind you, I
don't begrudge them managing to create a better system of fleecing
the peasants. It beats waiting for someone to get sick or fall in
love with the wrong person to get dinner delivered as payment but
that system did keep us thin and healthy and far more than that, we,
the local shaman, witch, healer, wise one actually had to produce
results rather than leaving it up to a capricious God who couldn't
lose or fail. It made us and our successors a bit better at what we
did with each generation.
However, it was
technology that created the monster we now fear as it was used to
create the Mega-churches. Now the insane message of one man.... and
CAN anyone out there who is reasonable debate the fact that people
like Robertson are insane... I mean demonic cooties from thrift store
clothing?? …. please.... can reach not the village idiot but
millions of idiots all over the world.
There are people who
do not want responsibility for even picking out their clothes in the
morning because they are LAZY. So hey, some guy who says you don't
have to worry about your hair, your figure or anything because you
can now cover it from head to toe with black looking like a waddling
penis to satisfy the homosexual urges of a bunch of men who will tell
you based on the opinion of one man, I mean God, what and how to fix
dinner, where you can walk and when you can speak and that's just the
Catholic Church. Surprise! Bet you didn't see that one coming! Now
that I have inserted that image in your brain, it won't leave because
once again, they are all descended from the greedy ambition of one
man who convinced a lot of people to kill for him and his family so
they could live in luxury and of course, have all the women and young
boys, and YOU could get your reward as soon as you died for them, I
mean God.
The problem of
technology is this greedy, hateful and murderous lifestyle is
available to anyone who can construct a web page or open an account
on the social media and get a thousand or more people to click to
follow them. Yea technology! If you have the insane hatred of
pencils, you can find a bunch more people in the entire world that
agree with you and will sell everything they own to travel to your
little Holy piece of desert to kill everyone who uses an eraser,
destroy all pencils and then move on to the rest of the world to
cleanse it of graphite so that only the Holy Dip Pens can exist with
their harem of virgins or young boys. You can't spend all your time
sharpening pencils. The village idiot is now able to create entire
countries of idiots like them and WE are bleeding because of it.
The problem is NOT
refugees. The problem is HATE, GREED and FAME. Yes, fame. We all
can't be beautiful people because we aren't in charge of what
beautiful is. We have that told to us. And those who can't be those
beautiful people that others worship, want their NAME in the history
books. They don't particularly want their deeds to be written down
but they want you to remember their names and for that they are
willing to kill any number of people or at least, get a bunch of
village idiots to do it for them while they relax in their safe
little hovels bent over a keyboard eating their favorite food quoting
God. Meanwhile, good people bleed and die for nothing but someone to
get a footnote in history.
We don't remember
Confucius for how many Taoists he killed (because he didn't kill any)
and the way he said to dress (because he didn't come up fashion
statements) but for what he said and the practical ideas that allowed
people to live better. We don't remember Buddha for a Holy War but
for the ways he came up with to speed our enlightenment and bring
peace. We don't remember the poetry of Rumi for his infinite praise
of an invisible friend but for his love of life and a woman. But we
remember Abraham, David, Solomon, Muhammad, John the Baptist, the
Popes, the Puritans, the insert names, for the number of people
killed and oppressed and, civilizations, works of art, cities
destroyed in the name of GOD.
Friends, it is time
to take back our planet. We are the stewards of this place. We are
responsible for our lives and the lives of other beings on this
planet. We deserve to eat, have a roof over our heads, love and enjoy
our lives. We do not deserve to die so another person can have more,
more and more power and hate and money and toys. It is time for a
revolution. It is time to love. It is time to enjoy not infinite
boring sameness but to celebrate the differences in each other. It is
time to learn in peace. It is time to progress and cease to allow
others to tell us someone has to suffer and die so their name can go
down in history as a great representative of an invisible God. It is
time to take back responsibility for our lives, our souls and our
creativity. It is time to stop bleeding and dying for ideas and
insane people. It is time to be proud of ourselves not our title to
some religion. It is time to say not I am a Jew, Christian, Muslim,
Pagan but I am Joe or Amy, not a color or a lifestyle, but a person
and that is good enough. It is time to isolate the insane hateful
people and get them some treatment. We really do have pills for this
illness. No one is born hating the baby in the next crib. That is
something that has to be taught through pain and suffering.
There is a site with
the pictures of 18 what they consider to be evil men, as adults and
as children. I disagree with several of their choices but the ones I
think we can all agree upon, you will see a child whose spirit is
already broken, no smile, eyes blank or downcast. You will see
resignation to do whatever they have to in order to avoid the next
beating whether it is physical or mental and a resolve to take
revenge on someone for their current state. THIS HAS TO STOP.
My uncle had a farm
and 18 children not so much from desire but because there was no
birth control and he loved his wife more than you can probably
imagine. From the day each child was capable of understanding what
was happening, they found a way to make themselves useful not because
of some God because of the innate human desire to be helpful to
others. The kid who was a whiz at repairing engines and farm
equipment wasn't valued over the one that plowed a straight line or
planted an evenly spaced row of corn and ironed shirts best. Each
person had a talent that was needed, even the handicapped son that
painted the house and buildings in pretty designs because that was
all he really could do. He was mourned equally when he died at 16.
They didn't hate their more prosperous neighbors and when something
happened like the barn roof collapsing, they helped their neighbors
rebuild it not because of God telling them to but because it was the
thing to do in a community where everyone depended on each other.
They didn't hate anyone.
My aunt and most of
her children have never left the little area of the country they were
born and grew up in. Imagine my surprise when I found my letters
about the, to me, mundane things of living in different places and
countries were read over and over as entertainment and wonder. They
wanted me to visit so I could tell them about these other people and
places. They didn't hate them. In fact they would have been beside
themselves if I could bring a Mexican with me so they could meet one.
Now they have the Internet.
Unfortunately, so
does the fearful, beaten down Nazi down the street. I would say to go
give him a hug but he has too many guns and explosives for it be
safe. And then I would ask you, who does him having that arsenal
profit? You and I didn't get a single thing from it, so who did? Who
is really winning, friends? It isn't us. We are the ones bleeding,
dying, suffering, watching our babies and parents waste away from a
curable diseases. We aren't winning. We aren't even surviving. We
deserve more, not because some God tells us or we serve his
representatives, but because we are living, breathing, intelligent
creatures that are capable of infinite love and we are each BEAUTIFUL
in very, very different ways.
Take back the
planet! Please.