O.C.A. Volume 2

Organism of the Day

Pleurotus ostreatus or the common oyster mushroom. Very delicious with white wine and in stir fry and also recently being researched for use in the cleaning up of oil spills. Using them in "Mycoremediation" could be a new step in cleaning up some of the skrewed up shit we do to the earth. Go fungus.

What God Allowed to Happen Today:

Bon Jovi will be going on tour "The Circle Tour" to support they're new album "The Circle. Despite the fact that this already horrible band has gone godly did we really need more of this noise pollution?

Organization of the Day

American Atheists. Now in its fourth decade, American Atheists is dedicated to working for the civil rights of Atheists, promoting separation of state and church, and providing information about Atheism.

http://www.atheists.org/

Atheist Quote of the Day:

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
[Thomas Jefferson]

My Thoughts:

I've been thinking a lot about the propagation and replication of ideas in a biological sense, or that religion itself is a biological agent much like the gene for fur on mammals or the behavior of fluffing feathers to attract a mate. Just like the expressed features of the replicating genetic code manifest in the phenotype of organisms and a species so do the ideas of religion and faith based belief systems. The religions that survive time are the ones that are best at replicating themselves. Mistakes in the replication/interpretation of ideas/beliefs can account for all the diversity of religion that we see today (just as the mutations in the genetic code can account for the diversity of life on earth). The most successful replicating ideas/beliefs are ones that persist because of the human slavery to replicating duality ideas (separating our souls from our body). Some false ideas that seemed to survive and replicate in many diverse forms of religion and people's beliefs are:

You will survive past your death (when you don't, your mind is part of your body and you just die)
Believing in God is a Virtue (but why isn't not believing)
Faith is a virtue and the more you have the more virtuous you are (I think reason is a virtue too)
Everyone must respect virtue (except that the virtue has nothing to do with good)
We aren't meant to understand things (upon investigation we can)
Beauty is the result of religion and religious ideas (rather than simply being beautiful)

Its because of persisting dualistic ideas such as these that we continue to be afflicted as a species with the false sense that being religious is good, right and correct and any opposition to this is evil and amoral.

If you can realize that these kinds of ideas and beliefs are not actually true or even a good thing but rather the result of their own replicating biological vector then maybe you can start to evolve your own mind past such falsehoods.

Evolve Beyond Belief.