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A Victory for the Whalers, a Defeat for Humanity
The IWC's decision to retain its ban on whaling does not mean that the killings will stop. Quite the reverse
My generation has witnessed a vast change in the way we see whales. When I was born, in 1958, Britain was still a whaling nation. Ships would arrive in my hometown of Southampton laden with processed whale oil and meat, destined for margarine, plant fertiliser and pet food.
As I grew up, in the 1960s, attitudes changed. Our eyes were opened to the slaughter of cetaceans in the Southern Ocean and elsewhere. At its peak, this cull far surpassed that of the 19th-century industry commemorated by Herman Melville in Moby Dick. In one season alone, 1960-61, more whales died than in 150 years of Yankee whaling: 74,365 animals, one tenth of the total death toll for the 20th century. The blue whale, the fin whale, the grey whale, the right whale and the humpback - the largest creatures that have ever lived on our planet -- all came to within a hair's breadth of extinction.
Out of that horror came a new voice -- the whale's. More than anything else, it was Roger Payne's 1967 recording of the mating calls of the humpback -- a fluting, sonorous threnody for its species -- that sensitised the world to what was happening. Payne is perhaps the one person who most directly affected the fate of the whale. The album, The Song of the Humpback Whale, made the charts, and in the process became the emotive soundtrack to the Save the Whale campaign of the 1970s.
Save the Whale. It's a phrase which became hackneyed with overuse, a pejorative shorthand for liberal consciences. How appalling, then, that in the year 2010, it should be pressed into service again, to fight the whaling nations: Norway and Iceland, who exempted themselves from the 1986 moratorium instituted by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), and Japan, which hunts whales under the guise of "scientific research".
I am completely torn by this week's events in Morocco, where talks broke down. In my heart, I agree with those who have embraced the news that this year's negotiations of the IWC have broken up, and that the moratorium would not be lifted (as the US proposed in a desperate attempt to break the impasse). Yet reason says something else. If we do not exert some kind of new control, the whalers will be able to go on with their slaughter unrestrained. Membership of the IWC is voluntary, and the ban was only ever intended to be temporary. Japan, which has been assiduously buying the votes of nations with no interest in whaling (only in the aid Japan offers in turn), will continue to press its case, having invested millions of dollars in its campaign. Geoffrey Palmer, New Zealand's Commissioner at the IWC, has proposed a year-long cooling off period. In the meantime, more whales will die.
We stand at a crossroads for cetaceans. We see the fragile existence of these animals as a barometer of ecological threat. As symbols of an endangered world, they evoke, and provoke, anthropomorphism on a scale equal to their size and supposed intelligence. To some this is so much New Age mush.
But if you have been confronted, as I was, with a gigantic female sperm whale in the waters off the Azores, her sonar clicks scanning my body as I hung there in the ocean, you might believe otherwise. What do you say when a creature that big (and possessed of the largest brain of any animal alive) comes close enough to touch, then turns to look you directly in the eye? It is a gaze suffused with sentience. Scientists such as Hal Whitehead, of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia -- who has worked on sperm whales for three decades -- now believe that these animals create complex social structures, using those brains whose highly developed neocortices indicate the capability for communication, tool use and even abstract thought.
During that encounter -- as in many others I have had with whales over the past 10 years -- I was vividly reminded of what we have done to them, and their world. From the humpback feeding grounds of Cape Cod to the deep waters of Kaikoura, where even bigger male sperm whales gather, I've seen whales faced with new and insidious threats. These animals live in a world of sound yet are assailed by the sheer noise we make in the water: from commercial shipping to military sonar. Their food sources are being affected by global warming and acidifying oceans. Smaller cetaceans such as dolphins and porpoises perish as "bycatch" in fish nets.
Larger whales die, caught in fishing gear. Fifty per cent of North Atlantic right whales -- the most endangered of all large whales, with a population of fewer than 400 -- show signs of such entanglements. And in one of the most shocking of the latest scientific findings, it has been suggested that sperm whales are inhaling heavy metals from coastal chemical plants they pass on their migrations. Like the cetaceans being washed up dead in the Gulf of Mexico, they are victims of pollution.
Conservationists and scientists do all they can to draw attention to and ameliorate such effects. But this week in Morocco, their combined wisdom, and that of the 88 nations which subscribe to the IWC, had an even more onerous duty: to decide the fate of the 1,500 whales that die purposefully at the hands of human beings each year.
Norway, Iceland and Japan argue that their critics are subject to sentiment and hypocrisy. There is no difference, they say, between eating whales and consuming pigs or cows. But there is a difference, one that they conveniently ignore, and which is summed up in three innocuous-seeming letters: TTD.
They stand for Time To Death - the amount of time a hunted whale takes to die. An explosive grenade is shot into the animal's cranium, supposedly killing it outright. Yet in practice, this does not always happen. You cannot guarantee the humane slaughter of a whale on the high seas. Some have to be finished off with gunshots. Others are dragged backwards to drown them. They may take hours to die, in what we can only imagine must be extreme agony.
If domestic animals were to be slaughtered in this way, we would simply not countenance it. Yet thousands of highly evolved and sentient creatures die painful deaths each year -- not only in the remote waters of the Southern Ocean (a declared whale sanctuary) but also in our own backyard, the North Sea.
We cannot condone such actions; that much is clear. Yet I would agree that the failure of the IWC to reach an agreement this week is actually a disaster for whales. It is a Pyrrhic victory for those who lobbied so vocally, and with such good intentions, for the ban to be maintained. We are back to square one. Back to the Japanese and their "scientific research", back to the trade in whale meat, back to the slaughter.
It is one of the worst quandaries any conservationist has had to face. Must some whales die in order that the greater number be saved? It is a cetacean judgement of Solomon, and the delegates of the IWC have avoided it. Their indecision has consequences.
Human politics ensure that today, and tomorrow, and for years to come, people will still be killing whales. And like the violence and torture visited on human beings by human beings, it seems that is the intolerable predicament in which we are all complicit. Unless, that is, we start to listen to that plaintive song, echoing through the oceans of the world.
- Posted in
37 Comments so far
Show All"If domestic animals were to be slaughtered in this way, we would simply not countenance it."
I had to laugh at that one (though it's not funny at all, is it?). Yeah, we countenance it, all right. I've seen plenty of videos showing factory farmed animals dying a slow and torturous death, sometimes taking hours to die.
Sorry. I hate to agree with the murderous whalers, since I despise them with every fiber of my being. But there is indeed a hypocrisy at work here. Bottom line: There is no nice way to kill. So here's the solution - stop slaughtering ALL these sentient beings. Period.
Now all you vegan haters, vegetarian haters, proud carnivores, etc. can start your vegan-hating tirade. Knock yourself out.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Hell yeah anne faith.
Represent.
My grandma used to say about hard times, "we were laughing when we should have been crying." A good way to live into your 90's, I think.
By the way, if anyone reading this thinks small farmers send meat animals to their death with a sweet kiss, I have personally witnessed them field slaughtering a number of times, and sometimes cows thrash around on the ground for up to 10 minutes after being shot (while the other cows watch). I asked my vet if they were conscious, since I thought someone should report it to the police, but he refused to answer me directly, and left me understanding this is cruel, but considered normal by farmers and acceptable by authorities, and vets don't want to get involved. There is no good way to kill.
That's it: "THERE IS NO GOOD WAY TO KILL"
Once again, the latest research on chemical pollutants, admittedly on toothed whales and not on baleen whales, indicates high levels of toxic pollutants. Admittedly, as well, this is definitely not good for the whales, but also not for the human creatures that eat them.
What goes around, comes around and, in another example of Mother Nature's ecological justice, the creatures responsible for killing them will be poisoned in the eating ....
Homo sapiens: a lethal parasite on the whole planet.
Note to everyone on Commmon Dreams. Do =not= go any further through life without having read "Sounding" by Hank Searles. This book first appeared in 1982, and has been reprinted a few times.
As the book opens, the bachelor protagonist & story narrator is cruising the Arctic Ocean - for he is an aged, male, sperm whale. He has reached a decision to start swimming south to reconnect with his old herd, thousands of miles away. Sounding is an emotional book that readers can hardly put down, no person ever forgets reading, and often shares the experience with others. I have made a gift of it to family and special friends. Now its your turn. Have fun with the cachelots and all cetaceans.
Trylon
Every time humans are given a chance to do the right thing, money gets in the way.
Every time humans are given a chance to do the right thing, money gets in the way.
INDIAN DJ
"Man is a God in ruins." (Emerson?)
This present society is not going to survive, it doesn't deserve to survive. It doesn't deserve whales and dolphins, and elephants and tigers, and wolves and dragonflies, and all the other marvelous creatures that live on this planet. Man has fallen, and he doesn't know how to get up. We are in the last throes of a dying system, and we must prepare ourselves for the new world that is to come. The transition will not be easy, but it definitely will be interesting. And exhilarating. Those who have courage will find happiness, those who don't will be left in the dark.
The only suggestion I can think of is a full out boycott of Norway, Iceland and Japan. Let's do as much as we can to bring home to them that as long as they're killing whales the rest of their economy, goods and services, tourism, is going to be hard hit.
Yes, I'm vegan too, and find the slaughter of all animals atrocious. But there is one difference: pigs and cows and chickens are not in immediate danger of extinction (unless we manage to destroy the earth entirely) and whales most definitely are. That's why we need a complete boycott.
There has never been a "ban" on whaling. It was only ever a moratorium which by definition is temporary and due to come to an end.
Whale hunts today are among the best managed harvests on the planet.
There is NO CONSERVATION CONCERN with current whale harvests and folks who eat whales and other cetaceans deserve to be left in peace.
Whales are NOT magical and super intelligent. Sorry, it just ain't true and most of the "evidence" for this comes in the form of old hippies dropping acid and jumping in pools with dolphins. Anyone remember th crazy Dr Lilly? Course you do; he's the tin foil hat loony the whale "savers" quote endlessly.
The real environmental issue here that you'll never hear about is that the world is in the middle of a food diversity crisis with most of the world's food now coming from a mere dozen plants and fourteen animal species.
This is a huge problem but not one the commercial animal rights agenda can use to rake in money and masquerade as "environmentalism". In fact it is nothing of the sort.
Too many organizations have made too much money from demonizing and vilifying whale eaters to turn back now. It would kill the value of their brand name.
It's time the so called "Save the whales" fundraising scam was dumped for the 70s old media left over it undeniably is.
Leave the world's minority food cultures & sustainable whale eaters in peace.
A whale doesn't suffer any more or is any more "special" than a halibut and manipulating middle class prejudice and bigotry os NOTHING TO DO WITH ENVIRONMENTALISM nor for that matter do its "Progressive" credentials stand up to the slightest scrutiny.
Anything else is commoditized and manipulated bigotry :http://bit.ly/bZOGMT
Kick a food fascist today and relax. The whales are fine and the whale eaters love the whales just as much as your sanctimonious middle class ass does.
Exhale ...
Well, it is certainly true that most humans fit your description. It is also pretty clear that you have never interacted with any of these cetaceans, or you would know better than make that comment. It is definitely NOT true that whales do not suffer agonies when being killed, as it is not true for any meat critter in a slaughter house - even marginally sentient cows. Try working in a slaughterhouse for a while. You will probably embrace vegetarianism. There is NO reason to kill cetaceans for food unless you are a very rich person who can afford to buy such meats. There has already been exceptions made for people like Inuit or Makah. The Norwegians don't need one. Most of your argument here is pretty silly, actually. I laughed at it.
"There is NO CONSERVATION CONCERN with current whale harvests and folks who eat whales and other cetaceans deserve to be left in peace."
Why should you be left in peace?
"The real environmental issue here that you'll never hear about is that the world is in the middle of a food diversity crisis with most of the world's food now coming from a mere dozen plants and fourteen animal species."
How is this an environmental issue?
"Too many organizations have made too much money from demonizing and vilifying whale eaters to turn back now. It would kill the value of their brand name."
And too many whale eaters are addicted to their drug.
"It's time the so called "Save the whales" fundraising scam was dumped for the 70s old media left over it undeniably is."
No.
"This is a huge problem but not one the commercial animal rights agenda can use to rake in money and masquerade as "environmentalism". In fact it is nothing of the sort."
In fact it is.
"Kick a food fascist today and relax. The whales are fine and the whale eaters love the whales just as much as your sanctimonious middle class ass does."
Hilarious. The people eating whales are all sanctimonious middle class assholes, whining about their "culture".
Radical,
Well, let's see, 400 North Atlantic right whales...
How many other whale species on the verge of extinction? No conservation concern? hmm... If killing some species brings it to, and very soon beyond, the brink of nonexistence maybe that's not the best management policy. Certainly there are other reasons but some of the species still hunted are in danger.(A dead whale is just as dead whether it was killed legally or not). Climate catastrophe, ocean acidification, other pollution, collisions, sonar, and by-catch are largely uncontrollable in the short term, some are going to get worse, and every whale killed by hunting is one whale closer to extinction, even of the species who don't, at the moment, seem threatened. The truth is we are all in danger of extinction and whaling is hurting our chance of surviving as well as theirs.
You sound angry. To take it out on progressives with harsh words is better than taking it out on whales but in the end the solution to both problems is to deal with the anger, not cheer on the killing of animals or fulminate at those who protect them.
So where should we draw the line, RO? How about killing and eating chimpanzees? Lowland Gorillas? African pygmies? How about self righteous American omnivores--certainly no shortage of them? Sounds like just so long as it's not you, it's probably ok.
It must be fun to be an observer and to play with diverse life forms. It is more than a bit ugly to discriminate against indigenous groups and cultures with long history of use of animal products under the guize of opposing corporate interests or pushing supposed "anti-animal cruelty" measures. Real life is what it is. Suffering for humans and animals does happen. Had you worked in the medical field and witnessed myriad human deaths, perhaps you'd have a different viewpoint.
If you are referring to human starvation in general, it well known that the best way to maximize food availability for all people is to stop eating meat of all kinds. If you are referring to the right of local populations like Inuit or Makah to hunt whales as a cultural tradition, then that exception has already been made.
If Inuits can hunt whales as "A cultural tradition" than they should hunt whales in umiaks with "traditional" hand made equipment...
Instead they use the latest technology, including high powered rifles , state of the art power boats and probably gps and other electronic devices.
I was born and raised in Alaska and have A deep respect for these people but this hipocracy only goes so far for me.
AS far as the Scandi's and Japs hunting these whales my hat goes off for Captain Watson and the Sea Shepherd's..These people truly walk the talk....I only wish I had A submarine with some torpedoes to assist them in their righteous endeavors...I would scuttle every whaler I came accross with "extreme prejudice" and "wreckless abandon"..
Too many people, too small of A planet...The hour is late...
Yes Stubones; I support your opinion and Paul Watson 100%.
Suffering happens you say? Fine. Then make the Norwegians, Japanese, and Icelandic people suffer for whaling.
Suffering happens? In that case, all suffering is fine then? Real life after all.
And your last sentence is a completely idiotic non-sequitur.
New rules won't matter if there is no enforcement, which we don't have now.
I can clearly see the incidences of eco-militant actions rising because when all else fails and nobody plays by any rules for the betterment of anything, then why should people sit back and tolerate it?
And it'll be quite predictable how such actions will be portrayed in any media.
Wholesale wanton killing of untold people and creatures apparently is okay, but sabotaging anything that might result in financial loss apparently is a heinous action that surely would receive a lethal response.....
Who's priorities and social humanity is twisted there?
That's the same rationale that sends a man to jail for stealing a loaf of bread at Wal Mart but protects the CEOs who steal billions from the men who have to steal a loaf of bread from Wal Mart in order to feed their families after the CEOs have taken it all from them.
Here ya go.....recent news....
** Greenland given go-ahead to hunt whales **
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/26/2937703.htm
and there also.....
** Sea Shepherd's Watson on Interpol's most wanted **
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/26/2937694.htm
(somewhat of a misleading title but Japan has got Interpol to keep tabs of "Paul Watson's whereabouts and activities"....
Also in that report it states:
"Fewer than 5 per cent of Japanese admit to even eating whale meat."
The new motto for humanity should be "A Victory for [the Whalers, the Bankers, the Oilsters, the Pharmas, the Wal Marts, the generic Big Business], a Defeat for Humanity" - All we would need to do is pick one from the list and fill in the blank with the industry that "wins" the victory du jour.
Why are humans so much in love with torture and murder??? WHY has it become so popular to be faithless?
I agree with all the posts that feel for higher sentient beings that have brain structures to "gaze curiously at a little human", as the writer says, without harming him by making a conscious decision to turn around it's gigantic body carefully without harm to the writer.
What I have not yet learnt from the article nor the comments is the logic to support the slaughter. Why do Japan and Norway, two of the richest countries in the world with no shortage food and other materials that can replace each and every part of a whale that is used for any human purpose, have the "need" to hunt and kill whales?
Take, for example, Norway. It is one of the most humane, Scandinavian countries in the world contributing far greater amounts to anti-poverty and other humane programs than it's size. It a has future generation and savings fund from North Sea Oil of about $300 billion. Let us suppose that Norway kills about 300 whales (Japan is the biggest killer, and since 1500 whales are killed, I've taken a reasoned guess). Let us suppose that each whale carcass is worth, net of costs, $100,000 on the commercial market. Then the total net income from whale killing for Norway at 300 whales is about $30 million. That is about 1/10,000 of its $300 billion fund, or about 0.01% of it. Assuming that the fund is invested to earn at least 2% per annum, then setting aside 1/200th part of the fund income to compensate the whalers would have absolutely no effect on Norway's future and current economy, but it would let 300 whales live.
I am not sure that a country where Niels Bohr, the physicist who invented Quantum Mechanics nearly 100 years ago, does not have large numbers of huans who cannot do the above simple calculation and democratically bring killing whales to a stop.
The same reasoning applies to Japan. As far as Iceland is concerned, it comes from the same area as Scandinavia. Despite its current bankrupt status, killing whales is not going to save its economy nor does it contribute anything but a minute, easily replacable, fraction of it's economy.
So my question is: Who benefits from killing whales, if the killing of them has no economic rationale whatsoever for the three main countries involved? And how is it that a country that suffered a nuclear holocaust (Japan) just 60 years ago in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nearly 500,000 people were wantonly killed for no military reasons that I know of, today show disdain for high sentient life of such precious,near extinction kind such a whales?
As my name implies, I believe in reason as religion, and I find no human reasoning for the wanton slaughter of whales. Now I do not want to get sidetracked into the slaughter of other animals that humans consume for food, beacuse there we have to sort through a whole host of economic and other issues that are not as easily dealt with as I have dealt with those for whales. This is not to say I condone the cruel slaughter of any animals, but there is no widespread wanton, cruel slaughter of them that I know of. Some comments provide anecdotes, but that is not evidence of wide-spread, wholly unncessary wantonness as is in the case of whales.
Since I do not find any rhyme or reason in killing of whales, and since the percentage of Norwegians and Japanese and Icelanders consuming whale meat is 5% or less, it is incredible that their governments are representing these subhumans at the Whaling Commission rather than educating them and weaning them off the habit.
Any suggestions as to where my reasoning is mistaken? I really would like to learn from some of the commenters who have written callous posts in favour of the killing.
" Why do Japan and Norway, two of the richest countries in the world with no shortage food and other materials that can replace each and every part of a whale that is used for any human purpose, have the "need" to hunt and kill whales?"
Why do Americans go out every Fall to shoot deer? Most of them do not need the meat, and many of them do not even eat what they kill. They just like the idea of shooting another animal. They reject any attempt to change this ritual.
Sheepherder:
Your answer is quite condescending given that you missed my points entirely. Unfortunately you don't have critical reading skills and we are not in a debate on stupid retorts. And you must be an old white Amurkan given all these flaws
First, you missed the main point that whales, unlike deer and elk, are an endangered species. And the world has imposed a ban on shooting, for example, the bald eagle, grizzly bears and cougars, to name a few animal species, because everyone agrees they are near extinction. That is why people who kill banned game are considered criminals.
Second, the highly educated countries such as Japan and Norway who consider thmeselves "civilized" and better in living standards than the blacks in Kenya who kill elephants for ivory because they have no other economic alternatives, and who tut tut at Africans for killing elephants, then cannot turn around and defend killing whales AS GOVERNMENTS. If individuals give all sorts of arguments such as "this is our way of life and our great Nordic ancestors also killed whales and lived off their fat and meat", one can dismiss them as individual idiosyncracies. I would do as much for Sarah Palin or any other tea- party white redneck taking a gun to kill deer and elk. But I draw the line at "civilized" governments such as Norway and Japan, part of the so called "international community" defending the indefensible, at a cost to the entire world when to change their own people's habits would cost them nickles and dimes. That is why I made all those calculations, not to show off my arithmetic skills. GET IT!
Damn. You ruined my day. You may have discouraged other people from reading my post and getting the points that I made themselves and taking action on them, especially if they are in Norway. Many Amurkan liberals like you who inhabit CD are so dull in their analytical skills, and are so intent in getting in that "jazzy" soundbite comment synopsis, that I am not surprised they find themselves in the soup when it comes to any bit of deeper analytical reasoning, which is what all the main problems facing humankind require.
I hate shallow people like you who seem to prolierate among liberal ranks. You are the cause of why the MSM in Amurka is so shallow, damn it.
I was a faculty member at a university for many years so I am used to dealing with pretentious asses such as you. You clearly did not get the point I was trying to make the first time, so there seems to be no reason to go over it again. When you can peer out from behind your ego, read it again.
By the way, Bohr did not invent quantum mechanics: Planck and Einstein laid the groundwork. Bohr modified the nuclear model developed by Rutherford to accomodate their work. Just because it is called the Bohr model does not mean he created the field.
If you had the critical reading skills to understand the history of science you would not have made that mistake.
Somewhere on the "books" is a law requiring the government to slap large tariffs on goods from nations that violate the IWC's rules about whaling. A few decades ago some lawsuits were filed to require the tariffs be imposed on Japanese imports - cars, electronics, everything. Needless to say, it was not done, then, and it does not seem likely that it will done this time.
The commotion about the Gulf Oil Spill's effects on wildlife seems to present an opportunity to reinvigorate the consensus about whaling, at least in this country. If the law were to be tweaked in such a way that tariffs could be imposed on any country that engaged in whaling, regardless of the motivation, that might have an effect.
But does anyone think Congress will do such a thing?
I'm not an environmentalist. Period. After all, it's the "human environment" the environmentalists are really concerned about. Never mind that Earth is more than human, and always has been for at least 3.9 billion years. The birds of the sky, the beasts of the land, the fishes of the seas --it's THEIR world, too. They, and their world, are not "free goods" devoid of value, waiting to be "harvested" for the benefit of the consumer species.
Life has existed on this (now) human-infested planet for about 3.9 billion years. Not sure when the civilized kind of humans emerged from the indigenous kind of humans, but ever since then all humans conjured up the idea that all humans, and only humans, possess an inherent right-to-life. 3.9 billion years of evolving life-forms, and countless sentient beings awakening to consciousness and the richness of being alive! -- all for nothing. Yes. The "morally superior" species really excels at really morally inferior behavior toward the other animal beings. Everything humans do, takes the lives of other animal beings.
If you think about it deeply enough, it is during the agrarian period of the last 10,000 years that humans started considering themselves superior to other life forms. And this belief was codified as the foundation of "civilization" by the rise of agrarian, superstitious religion that anthropomorhised god and gods, so that the human was made in "god's own image". He was ordered to go forth and multiply, subjugate women, and take whatever he wanted from all life forms on Earth by brute force.
Some people say "money is the root of all evil." I say, it is agrarian, superstitious religion that has got not a single truth of Nature in it. For example do you find in the scriptures and spiritual literature of humans over the last 3000 years, for example, the fact of the bacterial and viral basis of much human and animal and plant disease? Agrarian religion with its primitive cosmology of "seven planets and spheres" in the whole Universe and primitive understanding of Nature as "earth, fire, water and air" alienates humankind from Nature. It says that the humans will face a reckoning, not on Earth,but after death in some supernatural other "spiritual" world that has no connection with the world of "matter". It is "spiritual' where the laws of Nature are suspended by the huge Anthropomorphos called god. All spirituality, even Budhist, is thus misguided becuase all their savants and saints having meditated and got infinitely enlightened, did not come back an with a single truth of Nature that helped humankind understand Nature and, say, cure leprosy, or produce eyeglasses for failing eyesight, or better farming methods to elimiate poverty and feudalism, to name just a few examples of what reason and science have provided.
Have we ever seen organized Christianity, Islam, Hinduism tell the billions of people who still listen to them to start mass action on the streets to save the Earth from the almost guaranteed Climate and Environmental disaster humankind is facing today. Were the Pope or the Dalai Lama leading any marches in Copenhagen last December?
By the way, I used to believe in this type of religion. But I gradually stopped believing in all of of its mumbo jumbo after wide and deep reading of its literature over 50 years, and then realising by epiphany that there is not a single truth of Nature in any of it.
Reasion IS religion; otherwise humankind is doomed.
reasonisreligion:
Interesting perspective...There must hve been A time and place for religion, when man came out of the stone age and discovered "fear of death"...Religion must have been A persuasive social force for those isolated, that wanted to belong... Wild animals lurking about in packs,both man and beast, safety in numbers with religion being the sinew that held them together..Almost like joining A biker gang today as an outcast of priveleged society...
It is just A pure shame that religion crippled science for so long with it's barbaric tirade on those that would "question the word" or dare to dispute its myths... I once read that we may well of had A man on the moon by the time of the civil war had it not been for the sacking of Ancient Alexandria, whose library held the lions share of man's knowlege up to that time..Precious, esoteric Written Knowlege as that of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates and the like..The library was completly destroyed, barbarians alike the Jesuit influenced Spaniards that destroyed the Ancient Mayan writings with reckless abandon...What distant planet would we have reached by that time had it not been for relions boot heal suppressing the Great thinkers of the repressed age of enlightenment???
and we too are soon to be a failed species, undeserving of the wonders, miraculous sustainance and beauty of this planet. Where in the evolution of humans did we lose the gratitude of our existence and take for granted the shear amazing fact that we are here, with all the diversity and support needed for stepping into higher planes of oneness with the universe? I keep hoping for that trigger that will propel all of us to an evolutionary leap, before it is all gone, and argue that it doesn't need to be this way, with the thinking that is currently in control, hurtling us to our demise along with the rest of creation.