Thoughts on the effect of religious thought on politics.

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The Muslim Mind

The current mind, if there can be said to be one, is hobbled by all faiths; most created thousands of years ago in a time when illiteracy was the norm, when people rarely thought about or moved to foreign venues because they had only their feet with which to travel, when magic explained diseases, and catastrophes were attributed to angry gods. Logic was given a devastating blow for what would be all the years since their birth, to the present for those who cling to them and accept the confines to logic all religions present.

Trump's worst verbal transgressions occurred when he was asked provocative questions by reporters, to which he gave off-the-cuff answers, none of which he seems to have given heavy thought, if any. There is a knee-jerk tendency on the Left to discount Trump's opinions, when if analyzed many of them make a good deal of sense.

1. (Primary debates) "George Bush lied about Iraq and got us into one of the worst political moves in our history!" (The entire panel simply froze, there was no response. He may have been the first on the Right to say it.)

2. If there is a law against abortion, certainly the mother should be punished. (Begs the question of making the law at all.)

3. (nuclear attacks?) "If not, then why are we making them? (Good question!)

4. Our intelligence agencies: "These are the people who gave us Iraq!" (Again, he has a point.)

5. And last but not least: If there is a "fatwa" on the part of Muslims against America (regardless of our culpability in inciting this response, and there is much culpability) then "Banning all Muslims from entering" would seem a logical approach, if simple-minded.

   Islam is a faith that confines women to the home unless accompanied by a male. This is a faith that advocates killing any Muslim who rejects it. This is undeniable. The offended Congresswoman is clearly defying her faith by being out alone, while she advertises it with her head garb. She is asking a country freed by its constitution from adhering to any faith, (one of its more brilliant edicts) to accept a faith she seems only partly adherent to herself. In the US, our more pig-headed citizens condemn lifestyles like homosexuality as dispensable because of the Biblical condemnation of it; originally probably as much for the diseases it spread as its departure from the norm. Most of the limitations of behavior in the Bible can be traced to health problems associated with the behaviors it condemns. Remember, there was no recourse to disease in that world without medicine, or medicine that made sense in any event.

We live in an age of thought and intelligent discourse, which is impossible when discussing religion. It is up to us to understand the restriction of thought that existed when they were created; to appreciate the problems that were dealt with as best they could be, to take the valuable and applicable tenets and leave the rest to history. We have remarked on the absurd recriminations in the Bible, and the Muslims must do the same with the Koran; liberate their women, and declare the absurd in their own "faiths", so that we can all live in peace and harmony.

One way to do that is to recognize America's own 'sins' and rectify those that continue to hold sway. Keeping thousands of nuclear weapons at the ready is one. Giving God credit for our successes, when they amount to the abuse of other cultures, is another. Otherwise, we are no better than those who cling to outmoded thought patterns and impose them on others with a threat of death if they do not adhere.

Catholics attribute 'miracles' to the lives of people they sanctify; when the real miracle here is Life itself, having been spawned by a sparkling mindless Universe that apparently doesn't give a rat's ass if it survives or not.

We might as well be living thousands of years ago, when nobody could read and magic prevailed in the place of logical thought. We must liberate ourselves first, and hope the rest of the world does the same.

Authors Bio:
Born in Long Island public school year in Sweden as exchange student, went to Harvard one year, Cooper Union in NYC as Art student. Have two children, one of whom is rock mogul, the other has three daughters, one of whom has two daughters, making me a great grandmother at 68, very proud. For twenty years I operated a private primary school, Orchard School, in Santa Cruz CA. Still going strong but I'm retired and write much of the time. Strong believer in the space program and our subconscious quest as a species to prevent celestial onslaughts of one kind and another, for which it is my conviction that we have developed nuclear power, though we've had to use false wars to do so; in the end I believe we'll redeem ourselves in this way, which is why I find the abandonment of the shuttle program so sad. The Russians will do the honors with the next menace from Heaven, or have said that they will. In any case, nothing matters much if we don't, not the debt ceiling, pollution, nothing. All moot.