Adam’s Peace

I’m interrupting my regularly scheduled post to say a few things about religion.

Don’t worry, I’ll be posting the article about Virtue 4: Responsibility tomorrow, followed by the conclusion the next day. This is an extra post, not a replacement.

I’m having a crisis of faith.

Well, it’s not really a crisis. There’s no danger or fear… No suffering will come from any choices I make; at least, none that I can see.

You see, I’m coming to terms with my past, slowly and steadily. Part of my past was a deep search for meaning in religion, and I invested a lot of time, energy, and emotion into that search.

I thought that I had come back empty-handed, but after writing a comment on Scott’s blog (which I never submitted), I found that I was reacting very bitterly. I was attacking religion like an old man yelling at kids who are having fun, because he can no longer jump and play.

I wasn’t just attacking Christianity, which seems to be the obvious target… I was attacking paganism as well, and any organized religious structure that I could wrap my mind around.

When I was done attacking, I asked myself why I had written that. More words poured out, this time apologizing, saying that I was simply venting my bitterness and begging the readers not to take my words personally. More apologies flowed out to Scott, asking forgiveness for cluttering up his comments with my inane ramblings, and finally I had a struggle with my ego. Rather, three sections of my ego fought with each other. One side wanted to hit the “submit” button, to say “Look at how honest and humble I am.” Another side wanted to simply navigate away from the page, to hide the shame of writing such spiteful words. Still a third section of my ego wanted to defeat the part of my ego that wanted to navigate away and hide the post, so that I could claim that I defeated my ego.

Well, the fourth section of my ego won… I’m in a damned if I do, damned if I don’t situation, and I’m likely to be here for quite a while. I no longer have plans to publish that comment, but I haven’t navigated away from that page yet, either. I can’t simply do nothing, ignoring my ego, because then my ego will have won. I can’t take action, whether to avoid posting or to actively post it, because again, my ego will have won.

At least this struggle has led me to recognize that I have a crisis of faith.

Now, I have faith. My faith is just as plain as my ego… If I fight my faith, then I build up faith in other areas. If I submit to my faith, then of course I’m simply building it up. I can’t exist without faith… Or rather, my ego can not exist without faith. Just as struggling to defeat the ego only makes it stronger, my faith gets stronger with each scrap of faith that I shed.

I feel as though I’m only going through the motions now… I’ve hit a point where I can’t climb any higher without climbing back down and plotting a new course. I have a new perspective now… The Peaceful Virtues series is a testament to this new perspective. It’s the map to get to the summit of this new mountain. Yet, as I stand atop this one, I am looking around and I see new mountains to climb, each higher than the last, with more rewards for reaching their summits, each one making my accomplishments so far seem insignificant.

Religion, faith, and the ego seem to be the keys to moving on towards the next summit… yet I have a problem with taking things on faith alone… Indeed, I credit my need for objective answers to be one of the keys for getting me to where I am now.

I don’t feel that this lack of faith is unreasonable, either. I have certainly tried different religions with an open mind and an open heart… yet none so far have delivered in what they promise: peace.

Should I rally against God, though, because I have not felt peace? Perhaps Odin is personally responsible, with His love of knowledge and warfare, for destroying my hip as I worked in His service… Maybe the Crone has adopted me early, giving me the lessons that would be easier to understand coming from the Maiden… Just this once, perhaps Jesus wants me to accomplish things that no man is capable of doing.

I know that these archetypes simply don’t behave this way… (And yes, I mixed different mythologies on purpose.)

Perhaps that is my problem… I’m seeing them as archetypes. Yet, somehow, that just doesn’t feel right. They aren’t models “in here” to me, any more than my wife exists only in my head.

At the same time, though, I’m disconnected from them. They don’t enter into my daily life, nor help form my opinions about the world at large.

A Sudden Change

Today, I’ve been experiencing a quick change in viewpoints.

This morning, I woke up, and instead of taking my shower immediately to wake up, I wandered over to my computer. At the top of my RSS feeds was a post written by Jeff Lilly on his site Druid Journal, talking about his sudden conversation with Odin. With my head spinning, I went and took my shower.

In the shower, I reached out with the long forgotten “muscles” that I used to use when talking with spiritual beings, and caught hold of Odin. He seemed quite… unconcerned with me. It was as though he were just noticing me for the first time, and was wondering if he should bother spending time with me.

After a brief exchange, he told me that I was out of practice, that he could only see the barest hint of me. Then he described me as “slow,” more of a description of my spiritual abilities than of mental abilities. I had to put everything into words… I had to construct everything, rather than simply trusting the symbols I was given and reacting to them immediately.

Then, almost immediately, my thoughts turned to a picture of Ragnarök. It was a raw emotion at first, thrust immediately upon me. Looking back, it seems that Odin had decided something, and wanted to show me what he decided.

I saw before me a great battlefield, and a walled city nestled in the mountains. The mountains were impassible; the only approach to the city was through a valley and through a heavily fortified wall.

In front of that wall were tents… modern military tents, lined up in rows by the thousands. In front of those tents were legions upon legions of soldiers dressed in ancient armor carrying strong swords. Each one had their eyes on the horizon and one thought in their heads… I’ll get to that thought in a bit.

I gravitated towards the tents… Inside was modern equipment, full of computers that had various maps of the battlefield, showing different pieces of information, and I found one that was comfortably familiar. There were generals inside, as well as other low-ranking soldiers sitting at the consoles letting the generals know the progress of the enemies. Each soldier and each general had swords at their sides, and the ones informing the generals each had daggers and flowers. They each watched the swarming tide beyond the horizon, and they all had one thought in their heads.

Behind the tents, there were people on the walls… Again, they all had swords in their hands, and these ones had bows and arrows as well. Behind the walls, there were people preparing to hide themselves in dark alleys and the sewers, to spring out and fight against the enemies in surprise… the last line of defense.

And, the one thought that each one had was to be allowed to give the people standing behind them just five more minutes than they might have had before. Each line knew that they would be overrun, in the end… This was the nature of Ragnarök; a battle that can not be won, but which must be fought. Each person knew that they would have to use their swords, and their experience from the wars they fought while they were alive… If only to give the last people, those who were defenseless, just five more minutes than they had before… than they might have had if that one soldier had fled.

That thought, of giving the people behind me five more minutes, swept over me, and I wept.

I wept, not for my own sake, but because I knew that I could not hold back the tides of the enemies forever… That there would come a time when I would have to stop shouting updates to the generals and start running out from my tent towards the masses… And some time after, the enemies would be at the gates, and there would be nothing that I could do beyond that, except know that I gave everybody behind me five more minutes.

Odin gave me this, knowing that I’m a man of peace…

But more importantly, knowing that I would sit in that chair, watching the battle unfold, and that I would indeed lift my sword in that last minute.

Oh, I hope that the Valkyries make themselves known as they visit that veterans cemetery where I’m to be buried. Let the world know that, though the bones of those around me are turning to dust, that we’re each being called to defend the world one last time, and that we’re proud to stand, looking towards the horizon, with our thoughts on those behind us. Oh, that the Valkyries would let them know that I’m proud to walk among the other soldiers, regardless of what uniform they wore when they fought.

But, as the day wore on, the freshness of the vision faded, as all visions do. On my drive to work, I watched for cars that had a headlight burned out, but I didn’t see any. At work, my thoughts turned to databases and programming…

Then, as I re-read Scott’s post about why he is an atheist, and as I read over eighty comments that he received from it, I thought to reply, and my reply turned to anger and bitterness. Gone, already, was the camaraderie of standing in front of the gates at Ragnarök. Which, of course, leads me back to the beginning of this post.

More Musings

So, it seems that the question is… Why am I bitter about religion?

Why am I bitter at all?

After all, I’ve been training myself to recognize my emotions… to deal with them so that I’m neither ignoring them or repressing them, nor am I letting them get out of control. How could I have had such a deep emotion hiding within myself?

And, how does Odin’s appearance fit into this? It is definitely unlike me to walk to the computer before taking a shower… I need to wake myself up before I can do anything else, or I end up slipping back into bed. Yet, there seemed to have been a message waiting for me that I had to hear in the shower, and I wouldn’t have thought to search for that message if I hadn’t have been on the computer first.

I’m afraid that if I study this logically too much, that I’ll lose something. Yet, logic is one of my foundations.

Odin says that I think too much… that I must act quickly and decisively, then adjust accordingly. It’s advice that I’ve given out before, but I didn’t expect to be called slow.

So, who am I to be?

Am I to be a soldier, even after I have left the military?

Or, am I to sit back, and be the hermit, giving information only to those who come to me?

Jeff’s Inner Landscapes Meditation

This leads me back to a meditation that I had asked Jeff to do for me a while back.

In it, Jeff was shown an image of who I’m supposed to be… At least, who the earth sprites say I should be. They showed him an image of a shaman… half man and half beast. Not quite one, and not quite the other.

Another image that Jeff saw, which caught him by surprise, was machines of war left frozen on the peaks of mountains…

This is, out of necessity, an incomplete view of Jeff’s meditation… Perhaps more will come later… but it seems that I have some work to do, the least of which being to understand what is at the peak of those mountains, and understand why those machines of war are left out there.

In Jeff’s talk with Odin, he is reminded that war does not only happen physically. I’m not equipped to wage war physically… Indeed, I can’t. Instead, I need to keep climbing my mountains, and discover the nature of these weapons of war.

Next Steps

I suppose my next steps are to try things… To be active. Ragnarök will come in its own time, and it will be with my spirit that I’m fighting, rather than with my body… It isn’t something to worry about now, Odin has already said that he’ll be proud to hear my words calling out to update the generals. Whether the Valkyries pick me up or not… Even if my spirit has to walk the entire distance, I’ll be at that battle defending those who can’t defend themselves… just to give the people behind me five more minutes.

Until then, I’ll continue to learn about myself… And, I’ll be more open spiritually.

moar funny pictures

A picture is worth a thousand words.

It is not the troops on the ground who make a war. Indeed, most would want nothing more than to find a sunbeam that a cat has already claimed, and simply exist in peace.

If there is any question, chances are extremely high that this soldier has live ammunition in his magazine… Small hints at him having loaded rounds are the duct-tape around his magazine (which is almost always used to attach two magazines together; if one magazine is emptied, it is much faster to get to a full one without having to dig through pockets), the distinct lack of ironing creases on his uniform, and the unpolished boots.

Except for the uniform being a couple decades too old to be modern US, he looks exactly like a soldier I knew while I was serving.

Politics is complex, but fortunately, not complicated. My personal political stance is the same… complex but uncomplicated.

Capitol Punnishment

Probably the most complicated of my views is on the death penalty. I am strictly against it, yet I am completely supportive of the use of deadly force.

The key distinction in this stance is whether someone is in immediate danger or not. A policeman in a firefight should have every right to shoot to kill, though I would hope they could find non-lethal methods… The goal should be to preserve lives, even at the expense of a life. A person on the street should be able to defend themselves appropriately… If they truly feel that their life is in danger, then they should be justified in using whatever means necessary to defend themselves.

The problem with the death penalty is that, while a convicted criminal is in jail, they are not an immediate threat to anybody. Killing that person becomes an act in cold blood… nobody’s life is being defended, except perhaps hypothetical future victims. If we functioned on hypothetical situations, then hypothetically, everybody is capable of murder, so everybody should be put to death… At least, that’s my view on things.

I do believe that some people should spend life in prison without a chance for parole. As I said, if someone is in prison, they are not an immediate threat, and there is no reason to kill them.

This view extends to everybody… If I had a chance to judge Adolf Hitler, I would choose to inprison him rather than kill him. If he had a gun pointed at me, I would shoot at him… but if he were captured (rather than commiting suicide as he did), then I could not find any justifiable reason to end his life. Even the worst of monsters can do some good.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

Socialism v. Capitalism

My financial beliefs are simple: Be both a capitalist and a socialist. I’m not talking about forms of government here… I am not a Communist, because as a form of government, it simply doesn’t work. On a small scale, Socialism works miracles. On a large scale, Socialism breaks down horribly. The opposite is true with Capitalism: On a large scale, Capitalism works miracles, yet is a force of destruction on the small scale.

Nobody can deny that we live in a global economy. The keyboard that I am typing on was made in China, and the microprocessor that sends the pieces of information to the various parts of my computer was probably fabricated in India. All of the parts were assembled in Malaysia, then shipped to the United States. If this weren’t the case, then a computer like the one I’m writing with would probably cost ten times as much. In this case, Capitalism is great, because it distributes the work to the areas that are best equipped to perform that work. Capitalism relies on the fact that not all men are created equal, and through specialization, it ensures that the inequalities remain, even if the individuals within the economy change their specializations. For instance, South Korea used to be the cheapest place to manufacture and distribute clothes, but because of the inflow of money, they were able to graduate to become the leading manufacturer of cars, beating out Japan in recent decades. Now, South Korea is a terrible place to run a clothing plant, and in the next couple of decades, the same will happen to their automobile industry. Eventually, the United States will become the cheapest place to manufacture goods, but with American Pride being what it is, it might be another century before we see the production levels we had in the 1950’s.

On the other hand, Socialism is an economic plan that can even out the short, euphoric peaks of Capitalism and fill in the long valleys between each culture’s golden age. A certain level of Socialism ensures that there will always be highly trained specialists working in the most important areas of our communities. Policemen and Firefighters work for the State, are well paid, highly trained, and highly effective. The same could be done for other important services, such as medical care. I am not saying that we should socialize all business. Commodities and luxuries should all rely on the competition that Capitalism provides, but when it comes to providing basic necessities to life, such as access to medical treatment, ensuring public safety, sanitation, education, and nutrition, we would find that our economy will steady out and experience perpetual growth.

Debt

This isn’t something that the current candidates are talking about very much, but I am very strongly opposed to debt in most cases. It is my belief that luxuries should be paid with money that is already earned. Buying cars and houses on credit is a gray area, because people need transportation and shelter, and a person who has neither would be a very ineffective worker. I completely support student loans, because it is a true investment into the nation’s future on the part of the banks who give these loans.

I personally have six months left to pay on my car, and rather than using the extra money per month to buy a new car, I plan on putting all of that money into savings. When I bought it, my car cost $13,000 (US). By the time July comes around, I will have paid $21,900, paying almost an extra $9,000 for the privilege to drive off the lot without having any money. Now that I have a reliable car, though, and with my plan to put the majority of the money into savings, I’ll be able to buy another brand new car in three and a half years. If my current car breaks down in a year, I’ll have the money to fix it, or to buy a used car to replace it. Besides my student loans, that is the only debt that I have, and I feel free to do whatever I wish to do with my life.

I still have monthly bills, of course, and I am planning on buying a house next year… But, I can shut down the services that I’m being billed for without having to worry about collection agencies hounding me, and it is easy to sell a house (despite what some market “experts” are saying about the housing market) and get the money you invested into it back into cold hard cash. I just have to make certain that I can easily cover my mortgage payments… and since I’m not paying interest on other debt, it is easy to keep myself from being buried.

I think that debt should be a major political issue… that people should also be taught basic money management skills in school (like what an asset is… hint: houses are not assets.)… that it should be far more appealing in people’s minds to actually own what they’re buying, rather than having a credit company own them.

The way I see it, is if I would be uncomfortable going to my father to borrow money for an item, then I should be uncomfortable going to a credit company as well.

War

In case anyone has forgotten, I’m a veteran of the U.S. Army. I raised my right hand, spoke a solemn oath, and signed a contract that said that my life was committed to defending the U.S. Constitution and the nation it represents.

With that being said, I think the most appropriate analogy to war is to see it as a hot poker. In an emergency, a hot poker can be used to stop a wound from bleeding and save a life… but it is completely inappropriate to just go around poking people with a hot poker.

You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.
Friedrich Nietzsche

The question is, what makes a good war? I say, it is the history books, and history is always written by the survivors. In today’s world, it is politically impossible to win an absolute victory… There will always be survivors who sympathize with the opposing side, and so, there will always be people who write histories that speak of the brutality of war.

I say, to have a good war, you must not use weapons… any weapons. This includes anything that causes suffering. The goal of a good war would be to achieve victory, not to defeat an enemy. If we can separate the two in the minds of the public, because they are indeed separate, then we can begin to have good wars. Until that point, every war will be evil… thoroughly and indisputably evil.

Let me explore that a bit in the context of a war on an idea… the famed War on Terror. (Again, beware when fighting monsters, lest you become one yourself.) When fighting an extreme idea such as terrorism, the goal shouldn’t be to bring terror upon the terrorists. The goal should be to first understand why they are setting roadside bombs. For the vast majority of cases, it is a simple recipe: Terrorism is a combination of a lack of education mixed together with nationalism/fascism, liberally covered in poverty and oppression. In some cases, a small dash of religion is thrown in to make it more palatable, just as a dash of salt makes a grapefruit taste sweeter.

So, to fight the war on terror, we simply need to remove the ingredients. Promote education (which often takes care of the fascism and oppression) and set up industries in the area. The religion really isn’t a problem, just as salt certainly isn’t sweet. In fact, the most terrorist-ridden religion, Christianity, is also one of the most prolific in providing charities around the world, and it really isn’t wise to remove a finger to get rid of a splinter. Having a war against a religion would only create more terrorist anyways. While we’re setting up capitalism, we should also set up socialism, such as public education, public police, public firefighters and rescue workers, public health care, and public sanitation. We shouldn’t have too much socialism, of course, because we want these areas to be able to stand on their own as their infrastructure grows, but providing social services can go a very long way towards helping them directly and increasing our public image.

Gay Marriage

It’s a public contract. Either allow everybody to get married, or require those who are currently married to get “civil unions” and let the churches keep the word “marriage.” Quit being bigoted, kick the church out of government, and give everybody equal rights. (We already learned that “separate but equal” is never equal.)

Internet Neutrality

It’s simple… If your business is providing other people access to the internet, then you have no right to limit what they do (and should have no responsibility either). If your business includes having a link to the internet, then it is your responsibility to make certain that link is secure. If you have a home connection, do a few hours of homework and make your computer secure. (You can ask me… I have a few recommendations… but there are so many different scenarios that I can’t cover all of them right now.)

There are already laws in place that can and should prevent people from hacking. If you’re a black hat hacker, get a life. Seriously, what are you going to prove by “pwning” a windows box? If you’re using a script to do your attacks, you’re not only unimaginative, but you’re stupid and you will be caught. If you’re using a proxy, well, at least you RTFM’d, and it would take a court order to catch you… but is it worth it? When was the last time a hacker actually got any amount of money?

As for gray hats… be careful out there. You’re doing a good thing, but not everybody thinks the same way. Contact your target first and ask permission… especially if they’re a corporation.

Oh, and please stop calling yourselves hackers, no matter what color hat you wear. You aren’t refactoring sloppy code to fit into a 64K mainframe core, so you aren’t hacking… The hackers disappeared long ago.

Religion

For the safety of religion, keep it out of politics. For the safety of politics, keep it out of religion.

Environment

Even ignoring objective, well documented evidence, I support conservation in some respects… I also support mass-utilization in other respects.

The key question, for me, is whether we can grow something within twenty years. If we can, then use more of it. If we can’t, then use less of it and recycle it every chance possible.

The Earth is a closed ecosystem. That is, every gram of waste stays on the Earth (with some minor, extreme exceptions). Fortunately, there is more than one way to recycle, and not all of them require large pollution belching plants.

No matter how hard we try, we can’t grow any more aluminum… We have to wait for it to literally fall out of the sky, one fleck of space dust at a time. Aluminum is a perfect material to recycle. In fact, recycling aluminum creates less pollution than mining it and processing its ore.

On the other hand, we can grow new paper. In fact, it is far better for the environment to use new paper than it is to recycle it. Besides the environmental cost of collecting it, sorting it out of all of the other recyclable materials, and grinding it down into a pulp, it also takes more chemicals to clean up recycled paper than it takes to clean up new paper.

Plus, most people who insist on stopping the loggers forget one important factor: supply and demand. The more demand that there is for wood products, the more forests get planted so that, in the future, there can be more harvested wood. By planting new forests and using the wood, we take out extra CO₂ from the atmosphere, and we safely store it in our filing cabinets and build our walls out of it.

Also, one more thing to consider: It costs more <em>money</em> to recycle paper than to make new paper. For the most part, recycled paper and new paper sell for about the same price… so where does the extra money come from? Well, it’s hidden in your taxes. That’s right… whether you use recycled paper or not, you’re still paying for it.

See, even with all of my socialism talk earlier, I’m not completely pink… I just believe that we should spend our tax money on what matters, not what looks like it might make us feel good.

As for the alternative way to recycle… Compost does wonders. I say, we bury our trash for a few decades, dig it back up, separate the toxic materials out (and either use them or find a way to make them non-toxic), recycle the metals, and use the non-toxic materials as fertilizer for the forests. In a way, landfills are a great idea… It keeps the trash from piling up in our back yards (and making us sick) and provides a storage place for future recycling projects. If we could just get more cities to adopt the idea that landfills can be used to collect methane for power plants (which burns more cleanly than natural gas and coal), then we can completely isolate our trash and turn it into a renewable resource.

On a final note about the environment: The Amazon rain forest isn’t being clear-cut by loggers… It’s being clear-cut by farmers.