Its The End Of The World As We Know It and I Feel Fine.

There's been a whole lot of talk recently about the end of the world. Whether it comes from religious zealots preaching about revelation and the "second coming" or from 2012 enthusiasts fearing that the galactic alignment of the sun and the center of the universe will somehow magically cause the apocalypse, it's difficult to escape the fear. Well, I'm here to offer a little respite from all the hubbub. When I hear someone say they feel like they are living in the "End Times" I have to keep from laughing because people have ALWAYS felt that way throughout all of recorded history. There have been countless prophets and soothsayers throughout every civilization that work their believers into a frenzy by claiming the End is Near. There is an obvious motivation for claiming this. People are much easier to control if they are in fear. What bigger fear can there be than the fear of total annihilation? So when you see some movement or cult or preacher proclaiming the end of the world you can be sure that they are probably looking to recruit you by scaring you. Don't buy into the fear. It doesn't get us anywhere.

The truth is one day something will happen that will make this planet a lot less habitable for human beings. It's important that we face this fact without fear and look for solutions by acting rationally. If people are really worried about the end of the human race than the only thing we could do to forestall such an event would be to spread our species to another planet. That way if we were to lose this planet our species would still exist elsewhere. We need to work together as a species and put a united world economy towards the task of exploration and colonization of other planets. But until then don't be scared, just be rational.

Afghanistan - Hell on earth for women

Christopher Hitchens was right. Religion poisons everything, especially government. In Afghanistan they just passed a bill that makes it perfectly legal for a husband to rape his wife. This law was passed and signed into law by Afghan President Hamid Karzai effectively sentencing Shiite women in the country to a life of servitude to their husbands. This law is entirely based on a strict interpretation of the Koran.

Here in the U.S. people are shocked and appalled that such a law could ever be passed. But is it really all that surprising? Things like this are bound to happen in a theocracy, especially a theocracy based on a fundamentalist literal reading of scripture. It just goes to show the kind of things that happen when religion gets into government.

"But" you might say, "this is an Islamic theocracy, not Christian. If we had more of a Christian presence in our government we'd all be much better off." Well I heard a great quote recently, although I can't remember the source. The quote was, "There was a time when the Church was in charge, we called that era The Dark Ages." It's times like this when we need to fight to protect our first amendment rights and keep religion out of office, not the other way around.