A Percentage of me

I suppose I should just jump in an introduce myself. Sorry if this is too long, I tried breaking it up a bit so you can skip whatever.

Early Life

I was born in Mexico City in 1963 to both very atheist parents - American mother and Mexican father. My father, I recently learned, is actually 3rd or more generation atheist (so that makes me 4th atleast ). My mother's father is Dutch Lutheran(?) and my mother's mother was non-denominational Christian (I think). My father's mother was a strict Catholic but my father's father was an open atheist, very courageous to be so in early 20th century Mexico, if I may say so.

My parents soon divorced after five years of marriage. They agreed that me and my sister remain with my mother. She became a typical hippy of the sixties. We traveled all over Europe during 5 years in a battered VW van. I learned and forgot how to speak Dutch, Catalan, French and Italian. Reading and rereading Tintin helped alot in my trasition between languages For some reason my mother separated from her male companion of Europe (also Mexican BTW) and decided to come back to Mexico again.

My experience with religion

My mother having experienced the wild hippy life found a solid spiritual foundation when she met a group of westerners practicing yoga and eastern philosophies in 1972. I was nine years old and was really just following what my mother was doing. Gradually this way of life turned into a religion, a variation of the Sikh religion. First my Mom wouldn't cut my hair, it grew so long I would be mistaken for a girl which was distressing to say the least. Finally when I was 11 years old I would wear a turban much at the same time everyone in our group began adopting the habit of wearing a turban. The first school I attended wearing a turban was a liberal British school in Mexico City. They were pretty tolerant of my weird way of dressing. However in 1975 when I was 12, my sister (a year younger than me) and I were sent to a very closed Sikh community (ashram) in New Mexico. That was my firsthand experience of religious fanatism. To make it worse I was sent to a Christian school as it was the only school that was near which was teaching my grade. The teacher there, an old WASP lady, was obviously intolerant of our eastern religion and I noticed the Christian side of fanatism too as we would pray every morning and have Wednesday singing of biblical songs. This I think was the crucial schism that seperated me from the destiny of my sister who instead went to a public school right across the street of the ashram. She ended having a much less traumatic experience in our trip to New Mexico than I had. The following year we went back to Mexico and my mother had the sufficient wisdom to send us to an open minded and culturally diverse American school, which I think was definitely the best school for us in Mexico at the time considering our weird customs.

For some reason I never really believed in all what was being constantly being pushed into me in the attempts to brainwashed me. Its sort of like I had some kind of teflon in my mind that would not allow any of that bullshit to stick. I remember when I was 16 I thought seriously about what God is supposed to be and concluded simply that it was illogical. God is defined as "One" in Sikhism and I could not help but see the dualism in everything around me. Let me point out that the religion we were practicing wasn't true Sikhism but a variation created by the spiritual leader, an Indian Sikh called Yogi Bhajan who immigrated to the U.S. and started an organization called 3HO ("Happy, Healthy, Holy"). The differences are very subtle but enough to turn the religion into a sect or even a cult for some. For example Sikhism expressly forbids worshiping a human being as if he were a guru but it there was a defacto worshipping of our spiritual leader even though he never claimed to be a guru, he demanded this "respect" constantly. This really turned me off ended up never respecting him at all, but I did fear him as I could see he had a great power on all of us so I tried to avoid his presence as much as possible.

In retrospect I see what happened to my mother clearly: she had a moral and philosophical vacuum due to a liberal American upbringing, not unlike our infamous American Taliban, John Walker. She was literally going crazy not being able to choose for herself what is right or wrong so she had found great existencial relief with the Yogi and his mindless escapism through bizarre religious practices. What it ultimately resulted in though is an escape from deciding what is good or bad individually - our fundamental responsibility as a human being. So it became oh so easy to just letting the Spiritual master decide for everything. He told us what to wear, what to do every hour of the day, who to marry, what were our names, what to eat, what to think even. I later realized that this happens with any other collectivist practices such as communism or patriotism. I guess this is why I am a firm believer of individualism.

About Sikhism

Real Sikhism is relatively quite a noble religion. There is for example complete equality for women in all areas. There can be no restrictions for "priesthood" for women, because in the first place there is no equivalent of priesthood in Sikhism. There is no distinction for those who chose to follow a more spiritual path in the religion and anyone has the same priviledge of conducting the group worshippings. The practice of the religion is fairly simple in its essence since it just involves praising God and feeding the poor. Alas, Sikhism evolved into very ritualistic in practice as it now involves meticulous ways of chanting and praying in groups. One of Sikhism basics is giving food to the needy as it was started this way by Guru Nanak, a very Christlike figure, who tried to help the poor and the outcasts of society in the 15th century. However unlike Jesus, Guru Nanak did not die a martyr and instead just named a succesor of his way of life and teachings to another Guru. This continued until the fifth Guru, about 100 years later and Sikhism more firmly established. This fifth Guru was the first to die as a martyr (being tortured in public, etc), this is when Sikhism really took off. There were 5 more Gurus and by the tenth Guru Sikhism had transformed itself from a simple feed the poor, praise God religion to a heavily militant, Islamic type, and complicated religion. The tenth and final Guru proclaimed that there would be no more living human Guru's and said that the written songs and poetries of the previous Guru's and followers would be the Guru. This was the Siri Guru Granth, a very voluminous (about 3 times as long as the Bible) book. Unlike the Bible though this book has no parables, stories, or testimonies. Its just a very very very long ode to God. Some parts of this book are quite mesmerizing when heard or chanted as it is recited in Gurmukhi a very distinct and beautiful language. Of course this facilitates brainwashing tremendously.

How we exited the madness

In the mid 80's my mother took the task of translating the Sikh "bible", from English to Spanish. It is while she was conscienticiously translating the Siri Guru when she realized by herself how skewed our way of Sikhism was being practiced and in fact very against the intentions of the original gurus. For example the Siri Guru repeats to the point of exhaustion that no matter how many yoga exercises, how many sifuisms, how many fastings, how many rituals you practice, or ways of dressing you will not get closer to God. The only way to get closer to God is to be conscious of "him" as much as posible. God is not represented and has never been represented in human forms (in fact the original gurus, never claimed to have any kind of divinity, they were just teachers, which is the literal translation of "guru"). By having to carefully read the Sikh bible she thankfully snapped out of this ritualistic way of living and left the ashram and then the religion altogether. I quit around the same time in 1989, but for a completely different reason. The family business which we were operating was going bankrupt and since I was no longer attached to my family economically I just decided to shave my beard and take off my turban. It was still very difficult to do as I had grown very used to it. But I found it a very liberating experience to walk in the streets and see I was as normal as anyone and that no one was gawking at me all the time. For my mother it was much more painful as she had commited her conciousness and her self to this way of living and had to give up on many friends and family who refused to talk to her after leaving and had totally brandished her a traitor and an outcast, which is typical reaction in cults. For me it wasn't the same as I had developed friendships and relationships outside this tightly knitted group, for example I married someone who never believed in anything we did (much against the wishes of our spiritual master, hehe). She, like me, would just follow allong the religious customs without any real conviction. For example we would attend the ceremonies, and some of the yoga classes but mostly to blend in. It sounds like hypocrisy, but we were just trying to not be antagonistic. To this day, my sister remains a 3HO Sikh though every year that passes she seems to be more and more removed from the cult aspects of it, thankfully. We have agreed never to talk about religion to remain cordial. Although I admit here I have been secretly trying to find out of a way to talk her out of her theism by finding logical arguments against the existence of God. This is what actually led me to the Secular Web. My mother returned to her original atheism.

Work, capitalism and Ayn Rand

After the fundie family business went bankrupt I tried finding employment for a while but realized I could make more money by working on my own since I didn't have a college degree. I began a comic book retailing business in Mexico City which has flourished modestly. Unbeknowest to me I was already a full fledged capitalist . It was only fairly recently in 2000 that I found out about the Libertarian party and then about Ayn Rand and her objectivism. When I read "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal", "The Virtue of Selfishness" and "Atlas Shrugged" I just found all her philosophy fitted perfectly in place like a jigsaw puzzle and was very agreable to what I already felt was right. I don't consider myself a fundamentalist objectivist as that would be obviously self defeating (here is a clue as to what my nickname means..). For example several things I think she has wrong like the role of emotions and psychology in our personal well being and also an obvious lack of understanding in child education since she never had children herself. Before reading Ayn Rand my ethics had a shaky philosophical base, if at all. I used to simply think, for example, that goodness prevails and evil self destructs. Now I know why goodness prevails and evil self destructs so I am much more sure as to what I have to do in the case of moral dilemmas. Alas, I have found the prevalent moral relativism and fear of absolutism in these boards disturbing to say the least. But I understand how this would be a normal reaction in beliefs after experiencing Christian fundamentalism.

Nationality

I am a Mexican national but as you can see I am heavily influenced by American culture since my mother is American and I went to an American high school. In 1991 we immigrated to the U.S. and have lived there since, travelling back and forth to Mexico to take care of my comic book business. This dual cultural background and constant dual exposure to two different countries has given me what I think is a clear understanding on the fallacies of culturalism and patriotism. I am planing to soon obtain U.S. citizenship if only to dilute the significance of my Mexican nationality and for practical reasons. I don't have much respect for either nationality anyway. What I do like about Mexico's government is that it is much more secular than in the U.S. It has strict separation of church. For example there is no "In God we Trust" in currency and government offices. However Mexico is more socialized and therefore more bureaucratic and corrupt. Think of it as a mini version of communist Russia, which is actually not farfetched since Mexico suffered a revolution at the same time as Russia in 1917 and followed its communist ideals to a certain degree, and which is actually why it is more secular than the U.S.

Miscelaneaous stuff about me

I have always worked with computers since 1981 and consider myself very talented with computers. I love techno music. I used to be an amateur mobile DJ for a while (right after I quit my first job in the fundie family business. I love red wine, particularly Spanish ones. I have two children, actually one is not a child anymore as she is 19 , the other is my ten year old son. I am also a cinema buff, having attempted film making a few years ago with a couple short films. I hope to try film making again, or at least fiction writing. As you can already tell, my writing skills leave much to be desired, so I am planning on maybe going to a couple of college courses next year. I am almost completely deaf from my right ear so I find socializing in loud parties a bit distressful.

What I hope will happen in the world

As I said earlier I strongly believe that goodness prevails and evil self destructs. Human evilness is the result of irrationality, and since theism is irrational, sooner or later religion will disappear from humanity. Religion served its usefulness while we struggled to understand our natural environment and origins but thanks to our ability to reason we have been able to almost achieve a coherent and rational understanding of nature, and not only that, we have recognized that the building of knowledge is an never ending process of our existence as a human race. The internet is a great boon to the the realization and communication of truth and rationality and this is only going to rapidly accelerate the process of world wide secularization.

Originally posted at the Internet Infidels forum

Kudos to the new European currency

I think the new coins and notes that are going to start circulating in Europe are cool! No brainless hero worshipping of historical figures, no cultural icons, no mindless patriotism and best of all - no "In God We Trust" bullshit.

I also like that they chose architecture as the art to portray in the currency, its a great symbol of capitalism.

I wish the Euro the best of luck and hope that the U.S. will soon follow suit in these design guidelines.

Originally posted at the Internet Infidels forum

Bush Sr. vs Bush Jr.

I remember clearly when G. Bush Sr. the economy was in the pits, we were at war with Iraq, unemployment was high, etc.

Then Clinton comes in, supports Greenspan with his monetary policy, relaxes foreign policy, the U.S. economy booms, inflation is low, unemployment is at historic lows, (but we were fighting over stupid moral values of the Lewinsky scandal) etc.

Bush Jr. comes in... We are, SURPRISE!, back at war, back at recession, back at market lows, back at unemployment, back at foreign intervention, back at bombardments at a poor oriental country, back at international spotlight, etc. etc.

In short, does anyone else here find this kind of WEIRD???. I rather we would be debating whether Lewinsky sucked the president's cigar and stained her dressed than debating whether we messed Os-odia bin Laden agenda to destroy western civilization.

Originally posted at the Internet Infidels forum

The Morality of Capitalism

Capitalism is based on individual rights, namely right to individual liberty and right of property. These rights are required in order for individual development and well being.

Man's main difference between other animals is his ability to reason. Man's essence of being is the ability to think, chose, and produce his well being. All other animals are already born with their instinct of survival. Humans must use their reason, to acquire knowledge, learn new knowledge, communicate knowledge with others and to apply this knowledge in a logically perceived environment. Man uses his senses and thinking to know what his environment is and thus be able to change it for its optimal living. Man, when at its most rational state (which is essentially at its most humanly state) is keenly aware of his own existence and wishes to make it as best as possible for himself and those he loves most dearly, principally his own family.

This awareness, knowledge and perception of reality is what makes a person moral.

It makes him foremost as honest as he can with himself and others because the moment he cheats, lies or deceives, he is autodeconstructing a reality of his surroundings. This corrupts his own rationality and his ability to think and therefore his uniqueness as a human being. Man, in order to remain as most human as possible must be truthful of himself and to others because as he gradually lives a world of lies, deceits and cheats he loses his ability to think logically and autodestructs.

Secondly it makes him moral by desiring to be worthy of his own existence since existence is perceived logical and absolute by his own senses (whether he wants to or not, say by believing in God). This need to be worthy is what sometimes makes him altruistic by giving to others, but if he is truly honest with himself, it makes him want to be productive for his own sake. A person who denies his own reason of existence (such as basing it on God), lacks self-esteem, and will tend to be excessively altruistic, sacrificing himself above others, leading to a spiralling self destruction of self. It is when a person actually produces for himself when he becomes proud since he is affirming his reason of being alive. He can produce art, goods and services of value to others which he can trade for anthing he and only he himself considers is good for himself. Since man is rational, he can only feel morally proud by his own production, not by stealing or killing others cold blooded (cynical egoism), since he is would be falsely affirming his own existence by denying the existence of others.

Thirdly it makes him moral by attempting to control his irrationality (which distorts his sense of existence) with actions gone amok by emotions. Uncontrolled anger leading to violence is irrational and completely against the essence of being a human being. He attempts to control his irrational lust for others than his purposeful love. He attempts to control his irrational desires, those that lead him to results that he knows are the ones he doesn't want, such as eating leading to being fat, drinking leading to stupor, laziness leading to lack of productivity, etc.

Of course not everyone is rational all the time, but we naturally detests it when we are irrational by our recognizance. Man is constantly striving to be as humanly human as can be and that is why he develops a morallity for himself. It is when he is at its most objective with reality when he can become as most humanly conscious of himself as possible. But this is not possible all the time of course but should be so at least in what he considers are the most important decisions of his life. Man must not strive to eliminate his own emotions by regarding them as irrational since he himself should know its impossible, but rather to become rational by trying to understand them and use them as tools of perception themselves.

For man to be as able to think and chose what is right for himself and those he loves, he needs, first and foremost, liberty and freedom to do so. Violence, Force or threat of force completely denies this state of freedom to think. Man then is no longer morally obliged with himself and should or might not recognize the situation. If someone threatens his wife to rape her, he can be free for himself to kill the person that is initiating force. Likewise in any situation where force or threat of force invalidates his ability to think.

For man to feel worthy of his own existence he needs to have created his own survival by procuring goods and services for himself by his own physical work, creative thinking or productivity. This is why he should have the right of property, so he can be sure of his own worthiness of individual existence. These are the moral foundations of capitalism.

Originally posted at the Internet Infidels forum

Congress should not bailout airlines.

Congress should not bailout airlines.

By bailing out the airlines, congress is breaking a fundamental rule in capitalism. The state should never intervene in the markets in anyway and for any reason. That includes bailouts and corporate subsidies.

It is obvious the U.S. has relied too much on air travel for its transportation. By NOT bailing out the airlines, congress would send a clear message that the markets should find alternate ways for transportation, maybe high speed trains or some other creative solution.

After all, it was the airline's faults for relaxing on security and for not providing adequate measures to prevent this type of hijacking.

Why does the government "promote" air travel so much in the first place? I think a main factor is its fear of monopolies. Air travel is very flexible, very open, and easy to establish and until recently the safest mode of transportation. A more efficient form of transportation such as bullet trains requires long term investment and tends to become "natural" monopolies. This fear of monopolies has crippled the openness of markets for different modes of transportation and now we only have high fuel consumption modes such as road travelling by cars and trucks and jumbo jets.

Anyway, "true" capitalism forbids the government into bailing out a sector such as how the Mineta is suggesting for the airlines. It is going to hurt the economy in the short run when some of the airlines fail, but in the long run, it will make the economy much stronger by having a much more diverse sector of transportation. We should resist the temptation for short term gains. This is what capitalism is all about.

Originally posted at the Internet Infidels forum

Why the unfounded fear of absolutism?

Since I have join this excellent Secular Web site and discussed many topics with my fellow atheists and agnostics (mostly in the Political Discussions Forum) I have detected a subtle but nonetheless prevalent fear for dogmatism, absolutism and fundamentalism.

I can very well understand why such fear would exist in the first place. After all life and reality has shown us to be vastly complex, knowledge never completely perfect, and always humiliating us whenever we become arrogant in our beliefs. We have learned to be skeptics and to reject religions with their obvious beliefs in the absolutes, such as God.

However I think we need to establish some baselines in our realities or else we become hopelessly confused. I propose we should be able to define well set boundaries of the absolute within the realms of our total relative existence.

Much like the physical laws of Newton can apply to our comparative existence as humans though now completely and provable fallible in the larger cosmological realm of Einstein's theory of relativity, so should we, philosophically speaking, be able to establish fundamental laws of human interaction such as politics and economics without the fear of absolutism.

For example I think Ayn Rand's seemingly dogmatic morality for objectivism has been unjustly discarded on the grounds of absolutism, despite the fact that in the relative human realm, it can very well be true and therefore practically applied.

Originally posted at the Internet Infidels forum

Similarities between environmentalists and Christianity

As I have repeatedly said, there are many similarities between Christianity and radical environmentalism. I admit I hastily made up the following list in a semi-angry mood because of Gurdur's provocation. I hope to refine these points as the debate goes along(that is if anyone cares to debate in the first place).

• 1. Both predict imminent apocalypsis. Christianity believe in the return of Christ and the death of all sinners. Environmentalist believe in the destruction of the Earth by global warming or some other man made catastrophe. For environmentalists the antichrist are the depraved developers, ignorant and selfish consumers.
• 2. Both consider mankind to be fundamental "sinners". Man by needing to destroy his environment in order to live, Christianity by having been born with the "original sin".
• 3. Both believe there was perfect paradise until man by his own actions destroyed it. Christianity has its Garden of Eden, environmentalist have man destroying natural habital which was a perfect eden before.
• 4. Both deny humanity with the pleasures of living, since it would involve commiting the sins they preach against. Radical environmentalists want human beings to live with the pains and hardships of primitivism. Christianity want people to give up the sensuous selfish pleasures with the idea of a higher heaven.
• 5. Both promote an impossible paradise by sacrificing immediate wealth.
• 6. Both use inexact science to support their beliefs.
• 7. Both attempt to control the way we live with precise guidelines. Environmentalist decry any kind of nature tampering whatsoever, from chopping down a tree, to gene altered food.
• 8. Both blame sex for human woes. Environmentalist blame overpopulation due to uneducated sexual practices.
• 9. Both blame selfish indulgance for the problems. Environmentalists blame indulging SUV owners for selfishly polluting the environment at everyone's cost. They blame cheap consumerism for littering our planet. They blame "reckless" use of energy for "useless" entertainment such as television. They would rather have everyone suffering heat instead of us wasting electricity in airconditioners.
• 10. Both resort to endless subjective rhetoric preaching us the dangers of our "sins".
• 11. Both are even willing to kill human beings to prove the point. Environmentalists have eco-terrorists. Christians have abortion doctor killers.
• 11.Both want to impede technology and progress, blaming it for our woes and self destruction

In short: both radical environmentalists and Christians hate humanity.

Originally posted at the Internet Infidels forum

Weaksarus vs Intelligentarus

Suppose you were travelling by yourself in a spaceship. Suddenly you run out of fuel. The onboard computer tells you there are only two planets nearby where you can land:

Planet Weaksarus: All the humans who live here are of much lesser intelligence than yours. If you land on this planet your arrival will be marked as an amazing event. You will be greatly admired by the technology you bring and will probably regarded as a demigod by your superior intelligence and skills. You will very likely not be required to work at all, since you will be treated as a king. Future scholars will record your arrival as a great event in the history of Weaksarus.

Planet Intelligentarus: If you decide to land on this planet your arrival will not be much of an event at all. The humans there, of much higher intelligence than yours, will look with pity at your primitive ship and promptly ignore you. In order to make yourself useful in this planet you will need to find work pronto and it will probably be very mundane for their standards. There will be likely no recording of your arrival at this planet in its history at all.

Once you decide to land on either of these planets you will not be able to leave again, since Weaksarus cannot produce the special fuel needed for you spaceship, and Intelligentarius does not allow its citizens to leave.

Would you really rather live in Weaksarus? Why would Intelligentarus be a better choice?

Originally posted at the Internet Infidels

Is there any point in discussing politics?

I was about to start another topic called "The Fallacies of Socialism" (or something like that), but after a few discussions I am beginning to wonder if it is at all worth discussing politics anymore, here or anywhere else.

Much like religion, we each all seem to have made up our minds beforehand on all the issues. I, for example, have pretty much determined to be a Libertarian, in all issues, political, societal and economic. Others here are die hard anarchists, socialists, even communists, but most others support mixed economic and political models with confused philosophical fundaments. After countless exchanges of posts, I have seen very little if any, of any changes regarding ideological positions from any of us.

I have noticed all kinds of strategic and tactical ways to try to convince the others. Some use long winding rants, like thefugitivesaint, others quick and short to the point posts like DChicken. Some try to use irony like MadMordigan, other only limit themselves to rebuttals like LorenPetchel. Still others like to start a lot of highly contraversial topics like wicket, August Spies or J.M. Everyone presents "evidence" by providing links to news reports, pictures, quotes, books from famous economists, statistics, lessons from atistics, lessons from history etc, but just the same, everyone who opposes what this evidence starkly shows, quickly retorts that it is biased, distorted, antiquated, does not apply to the discussion, etc.

The tactic I find most despicable is to resort to a personal attack sometimes very subtly but most of the times very buntly like saying "what an idiot", "your stupidity is confirmed", etc, with the inevitable rolling eye smilie. Personally whenever I get these ad hominem attacks, I quit the discussion of the topic by telling myself that they have lost the argument and are resorting to desperate tactics. Another cheap tactic, which I confess I use alot, is to portray the opposing ideology as dogmatic, utopic, unrealistic, and religious like.

For me it has been fun learning other's ideas and confirming my capitalistic and libertarian ideologies. I am sure for some others too. Still, I wonder if some of us stubbornly continue to be deluded into trying to convince others to think like one's self.

Maybe there are a lot of lurkers critically thinking each of our positions and modifying their own ideologies maybe even unconsciously. But since they themselves aren't so set in their political thinking I imagine that they aren't so quick to point out their differences, so we will never know if we are actually "convincing" anyone.

I sure miss a lot of the intelligent posters who have suddenly left the board even if they vehemently disagreed with me. I wonder if they reached the same conclusion.

Originally posted at the Internet Infidels