After 75 plus years of life
learning on this planet we call Earth the last 40 or so with a
computer of one kind or another on my desk, almost 20 of those with
the ability to share my thoughts on that newfangled thing call the
'internet', I thought it was time to take stock of my life. I suspect
that given the necessary reduction of interaction with others outside
of close family over the last year or more during the Covid thing
that many folks much younger than I are rethinking their place in
this world.
Some
folks who have deeply religious or political convictions may have
retreated into those polarizing beliefs, certainly many of our
neighbors south of the border seem to be heading in that direction
and demonstrating the danger of not thinking for ones self and
following the heard. Personally I have never had strong political or
religious beliefs except to think that perhaps a blind belief in
either one (or both) may do more harm than good. This is not to say
that we do not need a stable governing system and our democratic one
is IMO about the best, but when it becomes too polarised and
confrontational it defeats its purpose.
Much
the same can be said of religion, although I can hardly speak
authoritatively about it only recently having found that there is a
definition of my 'beliefs' (or lack thereof), not that I am much for
'labels' the following sums up my thoughts fairly accurately
Humanists believe that human experience and
rational thinking provide the only source of both knowledge and a
moral code to live by, they reject the idea of knowledge 'revealed'
to human beings by gods.
Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance,
which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to
give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building
of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other
natural values in the spirit of reason and free inquiry through human
capabilities.
Most humanists would agree with the ideas below:
There are no
supernatural beings.
The material
universe is the only thing that exists.
Science
provides the only reliable source of knowledge about this universe.
We only live this
life - there is no after-life, and no such thing as reincarnation.
Human beings can
live ethical and fulfilling lives without religious beliefs.
Human beings derive their moral code from the
lessons of history, personal experience, and thought.
Humanists
reject the idea or belief in a supernatural being such as God.
This means that humanists
class themselves as agnostic or atheist. Humanists
have no belief in an afterlife, and so they focus on seeking
happiness in this life.
Apparently I may be an
atheist but not an agnostic (damn labels again eh).......
An atheist
doesn't believe in a
god or divine being. ... However, an agnostic
neither believes nor disbelieves in a
god or religious doctrine. Agnostics
assert that it's impossible for human beings to know anything about
how the universe was created and whether or not divine beings exist.
I am not sure about that
last bit for we learn more and more about the universe around us as
our scientific and technical ability evolves, will we ever know all
there is to know ...not a chance, but lets keep looking and sharing
our finds with all of mankind. I don't know about 'divine beings'
whatever the definition of those are, but I am totally convinced that
other intelligent beings exist in the universe both less evolved than
us and much greater. The question remains whether we manage to
evolve much more before we destroy the ability of our world to
support the life that developed from space dust over millions of
years. Intelligent human beings, there are days when I start to
wonder!
What may you ask brought
on this introspective, my small handful of regular readers will know
I have had very little to say on these pages in the past year or so,
its not that I have nothing to say, for even if our situation
federally is reasonably stable (for just a short while longer by the
look of things) there is more than enough disasters building
provincially in various governments across our country to comment
upon. Its more that as I gradually move into my dotage I find that my
mind outruns my ability to get my thoughts down on paper (actually on
computer, my expressions are as old as my body) before have forgotten
what I was going to say. I suspect this happens to most 'old' folks
sooner or later and we know that for some folk it deteriorates into a
total loss of memory and thinking skills, I sure hope I am not headed
there and don't think I am but am acutely aware that I am not as
'sharp' as I was 5 years ago. I am sure my major stroke back then,
from which I had 'a miraculous recovery' over the following year, has
quite a bit to do with both my current thinking and what I view as my
gradual inability to 'find' the right words at times.
I will leave you with this
thought which sums things up quite nicely......
There are known
knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are
known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do
not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t
know we don’t know.
Donald
Rumsfeld:
