On The Good and Bad Side of Religion

You don't need the bible to learn morality or ethics. Having said that, my mom remains a very religious person, and she is one of the kindest, most community-oriented persons I have ever known. I still wouldn't want to get into a religious argument with her -- she believes what she believes -- but she is not a religious hypocrite. She lives her Protestant religion -- and reaches out to practically everyone to make them feel welcome and to make them feel better. The ultimate community person. The closest person I have met to Mother Teresa.

My dad has the same religious spirit as my mother but he needs more personal, individual space than my mom. He was -- and still is a visionary, idealistic person, expressed politically, economically, and business-wise through his political, economic, and business ideals as well as romantically through his much more recent 21st Century Romantic Poetry.

Me, I need my boundaries, need my freedom, need my individual space...I can be sociable enough with people I like and feel comfortable with but, at the same time, can be practically non-existant towards people who I basically don't want to talk with. I have my dad's visionary idealism expressed in my own way through my philosophy-psychology, I have some of my mother's caring, loyalty, and community spirit, but I am much more introverted, self-oriented, and narcissistic than my mother. I play the 'alienated, underground, stranger' role much easier than the 'community or political activist' role.

Religion has its good side. Caring about other people. Helping other people in a world where there is not really enough of this around anymore as people basically isolate themselves behind closed doors, or worse, in desolate mountain caves, planning who they can blow up next. (Or is that because of religion gone bad because of the nature of the perceiver and interpreter?)

To be sure, you don't need religion to care about people...but still...will there ever be another Mother Teresa? One without a driving internal religion to motivate him or her to do the type of work that Mother Teresa did, even if not to that extreme? There are not many people who can live this type of lifestyle -- with seemingly almost unlimited 'giving'. Still, I have the highest regard and respect for those who can. They are our unsung heroes. I work alone on my computer doing my thing. I hope that my work is good for people, has meaning for people. But there is nothing to beat the type of work these community workers do in the 'trenches of humanity'.

But the bad side of religion can be horrific. Righteous intolerance, refusing to see another point of view...Torturing, killing, and/or alienating non-believers or alternative believers...authoritarianism, restrictive lifestyles that are just way too restrictive...

-- dgb, April 2nd, 2009.

The Main Characteristic of Religion -- and All Good Organizations -- Caring About People

The main characteristic of religion should not be how 'righteous' you are but rather how much you care about people -- of every colour, nationality, culture, both sexes, and age. In this regard, religion as I have defined it here is completely compatible with 'humanism' regardless of how you choose to believe in 'God' or even whether you choose to believe in 'God'. Personally, I like my own view of 'DGB Democratic-Dialectic, Humanistic-Existential Pantheism' -- the idea that 'God, Creation, and Nature is in everything, and that all living things -- and people should be treated with equality, dignity, integrity, and mutual respect. That does not preclude the fact that we still generally need to 'grow and pick our food' -- and/or 'kill it' in order to eat and continue to survive. For better for worse, life and death, living and dying, will always contain a mixture of 'co-operation and trust' in the one hand vs. 'competition and rivalry' in the other -- thrown into the same 'bag of life'.

This we have to deal with because that is how the world was made and how it continues to evolve, regress, and decay.

However, that does not justify us in terms of living our life like we are in 'Lord of The Flies'. Conquer or be conquered. Kill or be killed. Victimize or be victimized. Only the strong shall survive -- a crass ('neo-Nazi') interpretation of Charles Darwin.

Character matters. Integrity matters. Dignity matters. Equality matters. Helping others matters. Respect matters. Caring matters. Passion matters. Romance matters. Reason matters. Truth matters. Empathy matters. Accountability matters. Responsibility matters. Dialogue -- dialectic exchange between free and equal people -- matters. Freedom of speech matter. Freedom of religion matters. Freedom of the press matters. Family matters. Community matters. Friends matter. Love matters.
And how can I not say that sex matters.


Unfortunately, every day I go to work, I feel like I am walking into a 'Lord of The Flies' existence.

When I go to work, Schopenhauer rules.

And it makes me sick to my stomach.

Two people get fired right beside me.

And I am supposed to carry on like everything is okay.

When computers and corporate profits become more important than people,

More important than people caring about people,

It is time to start looking for a new job.

If I don't get pushed out first.

Obviously, corporations cannot survive without money.

But I find that it is often the corporations who,

Do not treat people with respect,

And caring,

And good dialectic-democratic dialogue,

Who end up crashing and self-destructing,

From the top down,

And the bottom up,

Once people start to lose their caring for their job,

And their caring about other people in their organization,

Who they have to work with,

As a 'team' -- a 'real team'; not a 'fake team',

In order to properly perform all necessary functions,

Of the organization,

It is probably 'lights out' anyway,

The only thing left is the funeral.

Death of the people in the organization,

Death of the organization.

Profits over people.

But without any people,

Motivated people with good skill, good will, and character,

Without any employees, customers, suppliers...

There can be no organization,

No corporation,

No profits,

Death of a corporation,

That doesn't believe in,

People.


-- DGBN, Feb. 3rd, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism,

-- People Before Profits,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...are still in process

What are Gods?

Gods are metaphysical, mythological ideals, probably projected, or mainly projected, possibly not entirely, that are capable of being used for happy, healthy purposes, and/or abused for extremist, righteous, pathological purposes. Indeed, 'Gods' can be used for as many different abstract and/or concrete purposes as there are people out there who believe in them because every person is different, every person's abstract and concrete interpetation of 'God' is different, and every person's motivation, intent, and purpose is different, and can be woven around his or her ideal of God -- and/or visa versa -- to be used narcissistically and/or altruistically, constructively and/or destructively, healthily and/or pathologically, just as anything and everything else within man's field of awareness, epistemology, and ethics.

-- DGBN, Jan. 2nd, 2008.

-- David Gordon Bain