Evolving Religions

THE EXACT NUMBER of religions in the world is difficult and evidently impossible to determine. Estimates vary widely, depending on the source of information. Nearly everyone seems to agree, however, that there are thousands,; estimates range from a mere four thousand to as many as eleven thousand. You might think we could figure it out exactly, but evidently cannot. Part of the difficulty consists in defining and identifying what a religion is. All of the world's major religions is highly fragmented into thousands of local units, all of which have their own unique set of behaviors, observances, beliefs. Is each one a different religion? Every religion in the world has adherents who proudly proclaim that theirs is the one and only "true" religion, and that all the others are false. That they all might be true seems difficult to believe, that one and only of them might be true seems dubious at best, that all of them are false, mere fantasies of the human mind seems to fit all the available evidence. The United States of America, that cradle of cultural creativity, has given the world several made in America versions of Christianity: Mormonism, Pentecostalism, Christian Science, Jehovah's witnesses, Scientology, among others. Religions are being born constantly, and old ones are dying, just like individuals, societies, species, planets, and ultimately, universes. Although traditional Christianity generally rejects to natural process of evolution as false, the Christian religion is, and have always been, evolving, right before our very eyes. Much scholarship has been and still is devoted to studying human religions and religiosity, and science has given us a few conclusions. There is no evidence that religion makes people better people, or that religion makes countries better countries, or that religion is a positive force for civilization. In fact, quite the opposite. In the United States, the most religious parts of the country tend to have the highest crime and poverty rate, the lowest educational achievement rate, and the least religious parts of the countries have the edge in quality of living, across the board. There is no law of nature which says that systems of morality or moral behavior must be based on religion. Morality, ethical philosophy, is an entirely separate domain from religion. Religion is generally considered by academics to have been humanity's way of dealing with the emotional and intellectual challenges of life in primitive times, while the human species was in a state of ignorance. It may be that religion, as humankind advances in its knowledge of nature through science, will become obsolete and fade away, and be replaced by a reverence for nature based on scientific fact, rather than mythology and superstition. Considering how detrimental organized religion has been historically to human progress, and remains to this day, the sooner, the better.

Inventing God

RATHER LATE IN HER LIFE my mother said that she had no trouble comprehending how old she was, but that she was freaked out by how old her children had become. She died as 93, and would now be ninety nine. More than ever, I now understand what she meant. although I don't have any kids, and am admittedly at times freaked out by my own age, sixty four, what really freaks me out is how old the children of my peers, friends, and high school classmates are. Many of them are middle aged, sliver haired. Here I am, long since old enough to be a grandfather, nearly old enough to be a great grand father. Yes, I am now a senior citizen, resisting the idea of surrendering my illusion of still being young. A few days ago one of my best friends' children died suddenly in his late thirties, and for me the shock may take awhile to wear off. I have known this kid since he was in kindergarten, and now hear he is, in the middle of middle age, and dead. what a complete nightmare, this is. I want to go into denial. it may be that this kind of situation is why I believe in God, why I began believing in god when I was about twenty eight, or so. Not any anthropomorphic deity associated with any of the world's religions, but rather, my own personal sense of intelligent design in the universe. Believing in God comforts me. it also inspires me. whenever I make any sort of reference to God in a conversation with others, I also make it a point to mention that I am not a religious person, merely one who believes in God. That seems to confuse a lot of people, strangely. It would seem to be s simple enough situation to understand, for anyone of reasonable intelligence and open mindedness. Often people will share some very bad news with me, and I will respond by mentioning that my belief in God helps me endure tragic situations, and I don't even mention anything about religion in particular. Goethe said: "When I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent mine". That is exactly what I did. As a young child, I realized that religions exists, and learned about Christianity, including the fact that everyone seemed to be one. But I believed from the beginning that the choice was mine, and for that I thank my parents, for respecting my freedom. I find it amazing and horrifying that so many people consider it virtuous or desirable or absolutely necessary to raise their children to share their parent's religious faith. WE should all be free to invent our own religions, our own God, and the wonderful truth is, we are, if only we realize it.

Trump, Trying To Do Good?

WHEN I FIRST HEARD that Trump had cancelled a top secret meeting at Camp David with the Taliban, I quite naturally assumed that the president was, as usual, lying. Why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't anybody? After all, dude has lied close to twelve thousand times since he took office, all twelve thousand of them extremely well documented, on video, audio, paper, you name it, in front of thousands of witnesses. Nearly twelve thousand outright blatant lies, an average of about twenty two a day, or so. What's makes Trump's behavior so incredibly pathological is not merely the frequency of his lies, but rather, their gaudy, outrageous tendency, and the ease with which they are identified as lies, as if Trump simply doesn't care about being caught lying. As if he somehow, strangely, inexplicably wants to be caught lying. The most bizarre current example is Trump's continued insistence that hurricane Dorian might well have hit Alabama, despite the National weather Services's strong denial to the contrary. Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, an on again off again Trump front man, claims that Trump knows exactly what he's doing, and ks deliberately encouraging his opponents to focus on the Alabama hurricane gaffe, distracting from the other major issues which are hurting Trump, such as his refusal to address or acknowledge climate change, and his chaotic border and foreign policy. obviously, this is all nonsense. In no way does the president know what he's doing, because laughing in amazement about Trump's incredible lies, and his defense of them, does no prevent anyone from criticizing his horrible policies, and condemning his indecent behavior. Trump's horrific talk and disastrous policies will continue to garner more than enough attention from the media, and the voters. But apparently, for the first time in history, Trump was telling the truth, and there indeed had been scheduled a secret meeting with the Taliban, which Trump cancelled because of the death of an American soldier in Afghanistan. You just never know. Most diplomacy and foreign policy experts believe that inviting the Taliban to America to negotiate was a stupid idea, because it would legitimize the terrorist group. On the other hand, give old dishonest don some credit for creativity. At least he's trying, or seems to be, to end an endless, idiotic war. I have nothing against conventional wisdom and thinking, but at the same time, I am a firm believer in "thinking outside the box", as Trump obviously did on this occasion. Sometimes progress and results require it.

Racist to the Core

PEOPLE ARE FLOORED, but pretend not to be, when I tell them that racism, contrary to being ancient and inherent in human nature, is actually a fairly modern invention, there having been no mention of it prior to the middle of the fifteenth century. A new and modern way of thinking, this racist business. Americans are also floored, and usually don't bother to try to pretend otherwise, when I further assert that our beloved United States of America is and long has been the most racist nation on the planet. Americans don't like hearing that. Americans don't like hearing a lot, all of it true. We prefer our fantasies in America, of which we have many. Among them, that ours is a "Christian nation", that racism is a thing of teh past, and that government regulation impedes business. In America, we have many fantasies and misconceptions. When the greedy immoral vultures who landed at Jamestown in 1607 finally realized by 1619 that they were not going to be able to turn native Americans into slaves, kill them, nor steal their allegedly huge stockpiles of gold and silver, they decided to purchase slaves. So much for America's founding on Christian values, until you remember that the Bible, including Jesus, condones slavery. Just a week or two ago we "celebrated" the four hundredth anniversary of slavery in America, and which it can be argued still exists; we are all slaves to our American cultural racism. Slavery was from the beginning justified by Christians as reflecting Christian values, which indeed it does. In 1790, mere months after the United States in its current incarnation came into being, congress passed ans George Washington signed into law a bill which required all naturalized American citizens to be white. The law was finally repealed in 1954. That, one must admit, is pure cultural racism, full blown. In other words, a core cultural value, a core American value. our constitution actually defines black people as three fifths of a human being. Now, that's racist. In my entire life I have never heard an American suggest that this part of the constitution should be removed. By luring, intentionally or otherwise, the white supremacist community put into the open, Trump has, if inadvertently, fully exposed the fact of enduring, pervasive racism in America, and its alarming extent, even while Trump and his supporters foolishly deny it. Racists, of course, always deny being racist. The right wing racist community is but one of Trump's core constituencies. Among others are Christian nationalists, white people who want to turn the United States into a Christian government, mostly conservative evangelical republicans, who are every bit as dangerous as the white supremacists, fascists, confederate flaggers. What they have in common, other than Trump's disease, is that they must all, for the good of the nation and the world, be voted out of power.

Seeking Equality

AMONG THE MANY infuriating proclivities of American conservatives is their tendency to utter banal platitudes in support of lame arguments, then convince themselves and behave as if they have in fact brilliantly articulated some eternal verity. Stuff like: "guns don't kill people, People kill people". One of them once took great joy in reminding me that during the civil rights struggles of the nineteen fifties and sixties, it was often as not democrats, not republicans, who got in the way of achieving legislated civil rights by voting against civil right legislation. And, it was the republican party which was founded as the anti-slavery party, in opposition to the democrats, in 1860. What they fail to mention is that all that was a very long time ago, things have changed, and now, the democratic party, not the republican, is the progressive party, although teh republicans began as a progressive movement, but rapidly got sidetracked by money. you can always anticipate some historically proficient republican to point out that the democrat party was in antebellum times the party of slavery. And so on, blah blah blah. what are they trying to prove, that our modern 1019 version of the republican party is more supportive of cultural diversity and social equality than their democratic opponents? Really? Somehow, I just do not see the MAGA Trump movement, which appears for all the world like a white Christian nationalist mob, being on board with LGBTQ equality, racial, gender, and religious equality, and multiculturalism, anywhere near the extent of the democrats if at all. More to the point, the people who supported rather than oppose slavery, the people who supported rather than oppose civil rights and racial equality, these people were, and still are, the liberals, and the pro slavery anti civil right people were, and still are, the conservatives. The issue is liberal conservative, not republican democrat. Human begin by nature are not inclined to create societies based on equality, or, for that matter, families, groups of friends, or organizations based on equality. Humans by nature are a lot of hierarchical little critters. To created a society, a nation, or a civilization with social equality, which includes economic and political equality, requires social convulsions sufficiently powerful to overthrow the status quo, which in every case is a pyramid, a hierarchy. That's the essence of liberalism, or, as we say nowadays, "progressivism"; the desire to change society by instituting cooperative planning. Conservative prefer tradition, liberals, change. Beyond dispute, the world is forever going to change, one way or another.

Comparing Hitler and You Know Who

ON THIS, the eightieth anniversary of Hitler's invasion of Poland, the event which directly precipitated world War Two, it seems relevant to make a few remarks about Hitler's relevance to our current situation. History does not repeat itself, but it sometimes rhymes, if only roughly, and the past is the most valuable instruction and guidance we have for the present. If Donald Trump doesn't stop mouthing an incessant torrent of nonsense, including vicious attacks on anyone who fails to kiss his ass, a steady stream of what socio-psycho-politically have come to be called "big lies", and a veritable torrential outpouring of small ones - if he's not careful, people are going to start comparing him, his administration, his rise to power, and his supporters to Hitler and the NAZIs of the nineteen thirties through World War Two. If they haven't already begun. He (Trump) fell into the part naturally, from the very beginning of his presidential campaign in his anti-immigrant "they're sending criminals, rapists, drug dealers" rant, what with his openly arrogant defiant attitude, based on anger at the supposed "establishment" over some imagined grievance. The crowds gathered at Trump's rallies, and were seduced, America's angry right wing, just as Hitler entranced Germany's angry extreme right wing into his NAZI movement. This whole business of picking out, isolating, and hammering some alleged "enemy of the people", such as foreigners, the media, or liberals. Trump does it just the way Hitler did. Using the anger towards and fear of these imaginary enemies to rally support and justify dictatorial behavior, at which Trump is just as good as Hitler. Trump's frequent vague references to his remaining president beyond two terms, at the demand of his followers, is alarmingly similar to Hitler's similar suggestions concerning his own perpetuation of power. Many of Trump's followers are now claiming that not only has America been made great again, as a result of Trump's presidency, but that now it is necessary to keep it great, by extending Trump's rule and power. Frightening. From ten very beginning of Trump's presidency many of his opponents, who tend to be just as ardent as Trump's followers, and more numerous, began referring to Trump as "another Hitler". I have always been very reluctant to do this, because I know well that history does not repeat itself, and its tendency to thyme has limitations as well. but the longer the Trump administration continues, and the more i witness his behavior and the behavior of those who support him, the more I am inclined to agree with the Hitler comparisons. Trump's followers are simply way too willing to ignore or lie about the truth to support Trump. They deny climate change, as does their leader, and they ignore Trump's outrageous lies and attacks on others, only because they see Trump as their best hope to turn america into a White nationalist Christian theocracy, in which minorities, such as people of color, transgenders and gays, are relegated to second class status. Trump and his supporters will ultimately be denied their malign agenda, but only because in the United States, unlike nineteen thirties Germany, we have a sufficiently strong democratic structure to root out the kind of malignancy posed by people like Hitler, Trump, and their misguided supporters.

Inventing Reality

MOST REPUBLICANS and conservatives don't believe in climate change, or say they don't. Maybe deep down some of them understand that climate change is real, but don't want to admit it. Most of them are absolutely certain that climate change is a hoax. Some of them accept the fact of global warming, but insist that it has nothing to do with human activity. Those who so insist are remarkable in that not only do they know for certain that human activity has nothing to do with climate change, they also happen to know exactly what is causing it. Its utterly amazing that these people know all this, because none of them has an education in science, and many of them have no education beyond high school, if that. And yet, they know more about science and reality than all the scientists in the world, and all the professors of science at all the world's great universities, nearly all of whom tell us, emphatically, that climate change is real, is caused by human activity, and that we must act now to reverse it, or die. climate change deniers conveniently ignore basic science in favor of their personal fantasy, a fantasy in which humans have nothing to do with climate change, and in which there is nothing humans can do about it. An amazing level of arrogance and ignorance is exhibited by climate change deniers. Their most common refrain is that even if the climate is changing, its merely a natural occurrence, since the climate on Earth is constantly changing, and always has been. What they omit is that even though this is true, there is nothing in this fact preventing humans from influencing the climate, by changing the chemical content of the Earth's atmosphere, which is exactly what is happening. Some of the more creative deniers claim that the sun is changing, fluctuating in its power energy output, and that this is causing climate change, and that climate change is occurring on every other planet in the solar system as a result. This, of course, is pure bullshit. These imaginative climate deniers ignore the fact that there are thousands of scientists who study the sun constantly, and measure everything about it, and would tell us is the sun's output were fluctuating. Solar scientists assure us that it is in fact not. As you probably already know, this fact doesn't faze ardent climate change deniers, who much prefer their own little fantasy world, over which they have complete control, to the real one, over which they have no control. We reject the truth, said Goethe, only because we fear we might perish if we accepted it. Climate change deniers, always the conservatives, are terrified of what might happen if they admitted the truth about climate change: that the liberals were right all along, and that a massive and fundamental set of changes must be made, immediately, to our economic and industrial systems. For conservatives, change is blasphemy, and so too, therefore, is climate change.

Falling

AT MY LOCAL SENIOR CENTER I volunteer in the kitchen, four hours a day or so, five days a week. Its hard work, but very rewarding. Each day right before we eat lunch I stand at the front of the room, leading the pledge of allegiance. Then, we pray, then we eat. I choose someone to pray each day, then, during the prayer, I rush back to the kitchen to take my place at the serving window, passing out blue trays full of delicious nutritious food, one at a time. Some days I say the prayer, then rush super fast back to the kitchen. Today just as i got to my window, I slipped on a wet spot and fell, suddenly, hard. I was on my stomach on the ground before I knew what happened. However, I bounced right back up, and took my place at the window, my right knee throbbing. Everybody was shocked, at how hard I fell and how quickly I got back up, seemingly unhurt, and paying much attention to me, I reassured everyone that I was all right. I started handing out trays like nothing happened. About an hour later, I wet home after work, my right knee hurt a little bit, I took an Advil, and the pain was soon gone, for good. No other part of my body was hurt, or bruised, or anything. It was as if the fall never happened. except, it did. And, as hard as it was, it should have killed or seriously injured me. the floor is solid concrete, with a thin layer of linoleum. I should have hit my head, and died. Starting with sprained, severely sprained, or fractured ankles and moving up, there are dozens of injuries I should have had, but did not. A sixty four year old man, falling hard on his face onto concrete, without being injured. To me its a miracle, and I'm the one to whom it happened. It was such a blur, but it happened in a slight second, and, again, it happened way too fast for me to react at all. And yet, I must have reacted. I must have gotten my hands out in front of me, and caught myself before hitting my head, without spraining anything in my arms, wrists, or hands, which I find hard to believe. Causation is the key question concerning comprehension of the cosmos. Its what all science, all religion, all human endeavor is directed towards learning. What caused all this? Possible explanations are limitless; measuring specific, tangible forces of nature and ascertaining their relationship to each other through observation and reason seems to be the best way, so far. But we seem to agree that things, all things , happen for a reason. Humans, noticing causal connections in nature, have been seeking a more complete understanding of natural processes for millennia, and the various explanations have mostly been wholly inadequate, primitive, factually wrong, barbaric, and religious. My current proclivity is to attribute my miraculous salvation to an omnipotent supreme being, "God", if you will. And, in that spirit, I wish to hereby declare my gratitude and love of this supreme being for saving me from my fall. Nary a scratch, bruise, bump, nor sore, after a hard fall, on concrete. Another possibility, of course, is that I was saved by one or more invisible aliens lurking in the kitchen. I, however, prefer the simplest explanation, that which has been termed "Murphy's Law", which in this case would seem to either be incredible athletic ability and good luck on my part, or God, intervening, saving me.

Atrocities Speak Louder Than Absurdities

VOLTAIRE is one of those people from whom one is incessantly tempted to borrow a pithy and profound quote, seeing as how he was the consummate wordsmith. He said: "Those who can be convinced to believe absurdities can be convinced to perform atrocities." I almost wish he had made it more direct, something like: "Those who believe absurdities commit atrocities." Voltaire never fails to make you think, and I started thinking, about what seems to me to be an alarming number of people, almost everyone, it sometimes seems, who seem to harbor at least one, and usually more than one, ridiculous belief. Amid all our modern science, we somehow seem to be living in an age of belief in the unsubstantiated incredible. It seems that nowadays anybody is likely to believe almost anything. And then there are the atrocities, which follow, even as the wheel follows the hoof of the draft ox, to quote the Dhammapada. The most glaring example is of course climate change, and the fact that, despite absolute scientific proof concerning what's happening and what causes it, half the people in the United States refuse to believe it. A hundred million Americans, like frightened ostriches, head in sand. The atrocity which follows this absurd belief (lack of belief) is the failure of the United States, despite being a primary cause of climate change, to allow its government to take action to reverse it. Every month the planet warms, America does nothing, under Trump. An obvious atrocity. Examples, of absurd beliefs triggering atrocities, abound in modern America. We currently have a measles epidemic due to people refusing to believe that vaccinations work. What an atrocity. Nobody should have measles. White supremacy, the absurd to the point of being insane albeit tragically common belief among conservative Americans particularly among conservative Christian Americans, that people with lightly pigmented skin are actually in some way, shape, or manner "superior" to darkly pigmented people is so widespread that it infects every nook and cranny of American society and culture, and, tragically, determines much government policy, foreign and domestic, and has since our nation's inception. The entire history of the United States of America, including the present, is a racist atrocity, deriving directly from the nearly ubiquitous presence of the utterly absurd, insane concept of "racism", and "white supremacy". Absurd beliefs engender atrocious behavior, to paraphrase Voltaire. Again, the list is nearly endless. One might have hoped that by the year 2020, in which everybody has a computer in one's pocket and access to nearly unlimited information, that absurd beliefs would be far less common, or at the very least, not widespread to the point of including nearly everyone. But alas, in our information age we seem as capable of abusing information, of twisting it into fantastic unreal shape of our own choosing, as utilizing it to achieve wisdom and know truth. Let's just hope that the good folks who believe that highly advanced alien beings are living among us, disguised as human beings, gradually taking over the world, don't get a notion to do something about it, organize, and arm themselves with easily obtainable fully automatic assault rifles, and go out hunting aliens in disguise, disguised.

Knowing

IN AN ARGUMENT, the first thin most Americans are likely to do is to become, instantaneously, an accomplished historian, with an encyclopedic knowledge of historical facts. It truly an astonishing transformation. it happens from eighth grade dropouts to the especially erudite business degree recipient. Perhaps not so astonishing, when you consider how often, which is almost always substantive disagreements of any kind eventuate as historical scenarios presented to justify or prove assertions about the present or future. History underlies everything filed of knowledge, and behind every winnable argument is historical fact, ready to be taken from the shelf and opened for all to scrutinize. Americans, arrogantly and temperamentally unsuited to losing arguments of any kind with grace or dignity, seldom, therefore do. Often, and always in the bible belt, the very buckle of which I tenuously reside within, historical knowledge is especially strong concerning the United States, the Christian faith, and that most dreaded of all combinations, the two, together. Invariably the combination of strident political conservatism and devout christian faith in a single human mind produces dangerous volatility of varying types, fueled by the ability of the person so encased to become a world class historian ad the first hint of a disagreement. I finally decided what to do when one of these right wing evangelicals says something like: "America was founded on Christian values", or, worse: "America is a Christian country". I mumble, audibly: "u....not really", or, "maybe in some ways, but not in others". i give them just enough to clearly reveal my confident disagreement, but make them decide if they want to hear the whole truth. I really do, after all, have an advanced degree in history, which means only that I know enough history to know that I know hardly any of it. I explain to people that there is one tangible way in which the United States is a "Christian country"; in the percentage of its citizens who identify themselves as Christian. The other part, the part about whether the government, the legal, and the political system of the United States was founded on "Christian values", I dismiss with a single sentence. "The founders wanted a completely non religious government, so they gave us freedom of religion and freedom from religion. God is purposely not mentioned int eh constitution." If necessary, I throw in a few facts about Madison, Jefferson, deism, Thomas Paine, enlightenment values, and so on. sometimes I even throw out the title "Natures's God" The Heretical Origins of the American Republic" by Mathew Stewart. Regrettably, none of this even remotely fazes your average American die hard rock solid right wing evangelical Trump support Christian, but, hell, why should I expect anything else from these people? Their minds were made up before they ever opened an American history book by anyone. And besides, every damned time, the zealous religious patriot always miraculously turns out to be a renowned historical scholar.

Trump, Spewing Trash

OF ALL THE RIDICULOUS, reprehensible, laughable things our president has said and done, among the most reprehensible is his constant vilification of the news media. Trump has also repeatedly and incessantly criticized the court system, the intelligence gathering community, and law enforcement and investigative agencies like the FBI. This does good for American society, and much harm, by encouraging doubt and mistrust for America's most important institutions. The strategy is remindful of a petty dictator, trying to seize power. Despite the constant clamor to the contrary being prevaricated by America's right wing, the American news media tends to report the truth, fairly accurately, and for a liar like Trump to be reported accurately in the media is to him the worst possible situation. The mainstream America news media is corporate, with a corporate point view, which is basically conservative. Pathological liars do not like to have their most outrageous, blatant lies refuted, which is what the American news media tends to do, tends to hold elected officials accountable, much to its credit. Trump's hatred laced lies are becoming more outrageous, and o more frequent, raising questions about his mental state. When his absurd suggestion that the United States purchase Greenland from Denmark was called "absurd" by the Danish prime minister, who happens to be a woman, Trump called her"nasty" and canceled a trip to Denmark for good measure. The president has called dozens of women "nasty", ranging from Hilary Clinton to Elizabeth Warren, among many others. He never calls men nasty. You can scarcely conceive of the ludicrous irony of Trump, perhaps the nastiest person on the planet, feigning offense because a strong intelligent woman called one of his absurd ideas "absurd" A few days ago he told the howling mob at one of his bizarre campaign rallies that unless you want your 401K to vanish, you must vote for him, whether you love him or hate him. The rhetoric is getting worse, more vicious, more dishonest, more delusional and nasty. The big bully Trump tuns out to be a delicate, easily offended snowflake, not some tough guy, after all. The overweening question of exactly how his supporters can not only put up with all this, but can either completely ignore it, or accept, or, most frighteningly of all, approve of it and admire it, remains largely unanswered, although it appears to be a combination of moral compromise and denial. How can anybody possible respect, or pretend to respect, somebody who acts like Donald Trump?

Fighting Facebook

ATTRACTING READERS has never been the first priority of this website. The purpose here has always been writing for the sake of writing, for the enjoyment of it. Being published, indeed being able to self publish is a great and rare privilege of the twenty first century, of the computer age, for people lucky enough to have lived long enough to remember typing on an old Underwood manual. Being able to push a button and have my essays published online, and thus all over the world, is a great opportunity I must honestly admit I never dreamed I would have, until about twenty years ago. Like a dog licking its won genitals, I write and publish essays because, well, I can. its fun to keep track of teh readership, which is worldwide, and to wonder what might or might not attract people. The Truthless Reconciler is quite popular in some countries, not so much in others. Several months ago I got a Facebook account, mainly out of curiosity. I was skeptical about whether I would like Facebook, based on what I had heard about it. I ended up liking it, gradually. for me Facebook became a way of spreading left wing political propaganda and anti-Trump messages, and to promote this website. Eventually I started putting a link to it on the Facebook posts so interested people could simply slick on the link, and go straight to The Truthless Reconciler. The plan didn't last very long. One day I tried to post a link, and got a message saying: "Facebook cannot post this link because it goes against community standards. If you think it does not go against community standards, let us know". Exactly that. Well, although I have not yet let Facebook know that this website most certainly does not go against community standards, but I can assure you I fully intend to, and will, very soon. I can only speculate that at least one person found one of or several of the essays offensive, in that they made disparaging remarks about conservative, or conservative Christians, or conservative evangelical Christian Trump supporters. Most of the disparaging remarks made here are against Trump supporters, and will continue to be. In a sense, this is a great honor, to be tagged by Facebook as unacceptably offensive. Rather like having one's books burned by Hitler. Facebook, of all people. Maybe Facebook should focus on its own internal corruption, and leave my poor little old website alone. Free speech, freedom of the press, against the big, all powerful, dehumanizing corporate power structure. You gotta love it.

The Rich Leading the Poor

THE UTTER INEXPLICABILITY of anyone, let alone millions of people voting for ans supporting Donald trump has been written about, studied, researched ad nauseam, yet remains unresolved. These studies have often revolved around the curious fact which stands out above all others: that Trump, who is notoriously immoral in his behavior, words, and attitudes, enjoys as his strongest basis of support the American Christian evangelical community. Incompatible as Trump and fundamentalist Christians may seem, most researchers conclude that by promising to pursue policies which reflect widespread fundamentalist beliefs, the Christian conservative community is willing to overlook Trump's un Christian behavior, considering him preferable to a liberal democrat. Evidently America's evangelical Christian community, eighty percent of which supports Trump, are either not overly concerned about Trump's racism, his pathological dishonesty and narcissism, his denial of climate change, and all his other seemingly unacceptable behaviors, or, those behaviors reflect the true, largely hidden values of America's evangelical community. Less often mentioned is the apparent contradiction in which Trump, a billionaire whose policies are distinctly favorable to the wealthy at the expense of the poor, enjoys the support of millions of America's working poor. This may be the greatest paradox of all. There is, for instance, no reason for anyone who is not a millionaire or billionaire corporate owner to support the fourteen percent tax cut for the wealthy which Trump and the Republicans successfully rammed down America's throat. Only the very wealthy benefit from this, and yet, from the non wealthy, we hear not a peep, except from liberal socialist types. If America's tens of millions of poor people decided to actually vote in an educate, informed manner in favor of their own personal best interests, they would all vote for Bernie Sanders, or some other tax and spend bleeding heart liberal Democrat, from which there are dozens to choose, all running for president. A close examination of every policy of the Trump administration, a close examination of every piece of legislation supported by and passed into law by republicans is favorable to the wealthy, and harmful to the working class, and the poor. In america, the wealthy elite have the teeming poor masses duped and brainwashed, mainly through mass media, which is of course owned by billionaires and corporations. If the poor working class in America, which consists of about two thirds of the population at lest, ever decides to start voting in its own interests, a revolution will take place, and corporate billionaire control of America will be ended. But, from the looks of things, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Going Downhill, Fast

LIKE MANY PEOPLE OPPOSED TO TRUMP, I cringe whenever I hear of see him speak. I have come to associate his voice and face with perpetual prevarication. It seems to me, and to many others, that during his presidency his mental state has deteriorated significantly, and that his anger, delusion, paranoia and narcissism have all worsened. The number of lies has now exceeded twelve thousand, with no end in sight. I don't watch much television, and don't see Trump much on TV, but whenever I do, I am amazed at the arrogance and anger he exudes, and even more amazed at the obvious anger, arrogance, and ignorance of the mob which can always be seen in the background. The screen is always full of MAGA hats and screeching, grimacing, sneering faces. The anger and arrogance of Trump's assembled mobs is always palpable. Trump was elected because of right wing anger at a society increasingly moving towards progressive values, such as acceptance of gay and transgender people, acceptance of immigrants, and embrace of cultural diversity and religious diversity. Diversity is that last thing the Trump movement wants, in its desperate ill fated attempted coup to restor America to the nineteen fifties, culturally. I saw Trump screaming that whether you love or hate him, you have to vote for him, to save America, to save your 401K, which otherwise will "go down the tubes" as he put it. He sounds increasingly like some petty tyrant, like a little Hitler, spouting lies about his own greatness and his indispensable value to the country. Increasingly, as I observe Trump's behavior and the behavior of those who support him, I realize that America is as vulnerable as any other country to devolving into a tyranny, with the far right wing conservative christian evangelical mob, which forms Trump's most solid support because, imposing its twisted religious values upon the rest of us. It increasingly clear that the primary threat to America is not Trump, but rather, the people who voted for him and who still support him. Trump has already reneged on is promise to take action against gun violence, and his gun wielding evangelical gang are once again appeased. It might require a few dozen more mass murders committed by Trump followers to once again precipitate a serious conversation about gun control, something more than monitoring mental health and reducing video games. Conservatives, the Jesus, guns, and money crowd, will blame our American mass murders on anything other than assault weapons misuse. They love their precious guns too dearly. And Trump will continue to blame the media, the liberals, and immigrants for all of America's ills, while his supporters screech and shout his name adoringly, apparently totally unaware or unwilling to admit that most of our problems, including climate change denial and mass murder, originate with them.

Cars Don't Kill People

IT IS WIDELY UNDERSTOOD by people who know what's going on that within a few years, all automobiles will be driven by computers, and that therefore the number of people killed in automobile accidents will decrease precipitously, form the current staggering, unbelievable one million per year, approximately, to none. You got that right. Zero. Zilch. The reason, of course, is that computers don't make mistakes, and while people make more mistakes per second while driving than the number of atoms in the universe, causing the annual global vehicular slaughter, computers, make none. Zero, Zilch. Just program them properly, and keep them running, smoothly sure, there will be the occasional computer driven automotive accident, band perhaps a fatality or tow, but it will be demonstrably attributable to human error, not computer error. computer driven cars will save a million lives a year, so, its gonna happen. too many people insist on it. first, computer control will be optional, then, it will become mandatory, for obvious reasons. Cars don't kill people. People kill people, sometimes, in fact all too often, while driving cars. In a way, people and cars work together to kill people, the people supplying the brains, and cars, the muscle. There really isn't much we can do about people, other than to encourage them to drive safely, so we have to do what we can with cars. We make them safer, and, after decades of trying, we are on the verge of making cars so safe as to be harmless, or rather, so as to prevent people from harming themselves using cars. Much the same is true about guns; they don't kill people, people kill people, using guns. And, there is only so much we can do to improve people. Background checks, mental health programs, will only go so far in preventing gun violence. We are reduced, like it or not, to trying to do what we can with guns, just like cars, to make them safer. We are stuck with people using guns, wrongly, and we must not blame the guns. But we can control guns much more than we can control people, correct? Agreed? So. let's do what we can do. Let's ban assault weapons, and institute universal background checks, immediately. and also, let's take a look at countries, like England and Australia, which suddenly got rid of guns, and greatly reduced gun violence. We might want to imitate them, to save lives. Even if it means giving up our precious guns. The awful truth is, we human beings simply are not capable of operating machines like cars or guns properly, without inflicting carnage upon each other. The only question is: How do we prevent the carnage? And the answer, obviously, is, by doing whatever is required.