By Madison S. Hughes (01.01.2011)
The forfeit of critical thought to religious indoctrination as a moral compass is not only ludicrous, but also unwarranted! Vicarious and empathic acquaintance is sufficient without such surrender.
By Madison S. Hughes (05.21.2011)
Within the distorted noodle of vulgar corporatist thought government appears as a specter; antithetically, the constellations of the erudite progressive mind exposes the corporation as the monolith it is.
By Madison S. Hughes (08.13.2011)
I have wrestled with America’s, especially the Corporatists, cognitive dissonance since the beginning of my intellectual maturity. I still have to remind myself that Americans refuse to allow facts to get in the way of their emotions, and their collective decisions reflect as much.
With much reflection, I have come to believe the major cause of America’s cognitive dissonance stems from the perpetual consumer triad of which they unreflectively find themselves, i.e., desire – acquire – consume. Thirty years of supply-side economics has put the nail in America’s cognitive coffin.
Since America is an embarrassingly anti-intellectual consumeristic society, any attempt to inform them that true happiness is found from within, not from without, I’m afraid would fall on deaf ears. You see, realizing this would require intellectual curiosity, and with a sound-bite attention span they will never get to the desire – acquire – reflect triad of knowledge.
By Madison S. Hughes (08.13.2011)
On innumerable occasions during my twenty-three year career as a U.S. Army Officer I found myself a captive audience member of Staff meetings that began with prayer. While deployed I vividly recall one instance where a Mississippi Redneck Chief of Staff, Colonel Massey, asked before a mandatory Staff meeting if anyone objected to the Chaplain opening the mandatory Staff meeting with a prayer. When I voiced my objection, I was told that I was welcomed to leave the room during the prayer. The U.S. Army, especially the Officer corps, is highly right-wing, and religious. It never ceases to amaze me that I, a lifelong Atheist, was able to serve twenty-three years in such an overtly religious organization.
J. Anderson Thomson, Jr., MD, Staff and Forensic Psychiatrist, Author
Maybe there are only atheists in foxholes. If the faithful truly and fully believe in a protective deity, why would they dive into a foxhole to protect themselves from the bullets whizzing by? A part of their brain knows damn well that if they do not protect themselves, the bullets will hardly discriminate between those who claim faith and those who reject it.
By Madison S. Hughes (08.13.2011)
On innumerable occasions during my twenty-three year career as a U.S. Army Officer I found myself a captive audience member of Staff meetings that began with prayer. While deployed I vividly recall one instance where a Mississippi Redneck Chief of Staff, Colonel Massey, asked before a mandatory Staff meeting if anyone objected to the Chaplain opening the mandatory Staff meeting with a prayer. When I voiced my objection, I was told that I was welcomed to leave the room during the prayer. The U.S. Army, especially the Officer corps, is highly right-wing, and religious. It never ceases to amaze me that I, a lifelong Atheist, was able to serve twenty-three years in such an overtly religious organization.
Truth doesn’t live in the closet. You have to make it clear to everyone, including your children, that there is no god. If you’re not doing that every chance you get, then the other side will win. They’ll win only in the short term; but we only get to live in the short term. You don’t have to fight, but you have to do your part – you have to tell the truth. You have to be honest. You don’t have to force schools to say there’s no god, but you have to say it yourself. You have to say it all the time. No one can relax in a closet.
Arthur Schopenhauer, Ph.D., German Philosopher, Atheist
Consider the agitated strife of man for food, mates, or children; can this be worth reflection? Certainly not; the cause is the half conscious will to live, and to live fully. “Men are only apparently drawn from in front; in reality they are pushed from behind”; they think they are led on by what they see, when in truth they are driven on by what they feel, –by instincts of whose operation they are half the time unconscious. Intellect is merely the minister of foreign affairs; “nature has produced it for the service of the individual will. Therefore it is only designed to know things so far as they afford motives for the will, but not to fathom them or to comprehend their true being.” The will is the only permanent and unchangeable element in the mind; … it is the will which,” through continuity of purpose, “gives unity to consciousness and holds together all its ideas and thoughts, accompanying them like a continuous harmony.” It is the organ-point of thought.
Arthur Schopenhauer, Ph.D., German Philosopher, Atheist
No: it is impossible to solve the metaphysical puzzle, to discover the secret essence of reality, by examining matter first, and then proceeding to examine thought: we must begin with that which we know directly and intimately—ourselves. “We can never arrive at the real nature of things from without. However much we may investigate, we can never reach anything but images and names. We are like a man who goes round a castle seeking in vain for an entrance, and sometimes sketching the facades.” Let us enter within. If we can ferret out the ultimate nature of our own minds we shall perhaps have the key to the external world.
Every time that we say that God is the author of some phenomenon, that signifies that we are ignorant of how such a phenomenon was caused by the forces of nature.
Always Question Authority 