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By Luc Loranhe (2006)
Because life builds on life, there cannot be life without death.
However, Christian European ethic professes to be against destruction. To pursue the goal of eliminating war, disaster, and disease. And through peace perpetuate (and refine) an economic, political, social, and moral order as it exists in the world today.
But this world is not appropriate. This world, and its public morals, are designed to suit those who derive, foolishly, a sense of sense from the assumption that there either is a personified God who will guarantee eternal life to those who praise him and follow a collection of rules presumed to be derived from him.
Or they derive a sense of sense from the idea of an abstract good (sort of a theoretical God) of which they are an eternal part.
Albert Einstein's "Cosmic Religion"
http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ527.HTM
Spinoza - pantheist
http://members.aol.com/Heraklit1/spinoza.htm
A philosophy based on biological understanding offers a radically different perspective. Such a philosophy recognizes that only the fulfillment of biological desires makes life worthwhile.
Pleasure Systems in the Brain
http://wings.buffalo.edu/aru/ARUreport01.htm
The English philosopher Alfred North Whitehead once noted:
The safest general characterization of the European philosophical
tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.
http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/philosophy/footnotes_plato.html
Indeed, Plato wrote intelligently on the role of desires and satisfaction, or the connected term "pleasure".
Stanford University on Plato and pleasure
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pleasure/
Epicure has elaborated more profoundly on the topic.
Epicure – Types of desire
http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/epicur.htm#SH5c
A shortcoming of Epicurus, or of the translation and interpretation of his work, is the lack of emphasis he places on sexual desires and their satisfaction. Possible explanations are that either sexual satisfaction was too self-understood at his times to be a topic, or that the topic was not considered fit for literature and polite discourse (as was the case throughout later history).
Nevertheless, from a modern perspective, the essence of biological desires is sexual. Only sexual arousal, sexual excitement, and sexual satisfaction provide a natural sense of value in life. In principle, everything else is only supportive.
An appropriate social order would be one, in which success pays as sexual gratification. Actually, this is the biological order that is in place for any animal species except humans. Because only humans are intelligent enough to be stupid enough to believe in God, or an abstract eternal good.
***
I have no sympathy for the world social order as it is propagated by the world's ideological lead nation, the United States of America, a country that has been founded and designed by Christian zealots, and that doesn't find it ridiculous to elect Christian zealots as their presidents. I am in favor of a radically different world social order… one that is biologically more adequate.
I am not alone in having no sympathy for the social and moral order for which the United States of America stand, though the motives of the majority of the world's population that hates the US have different origins. They want the United States of America destroyed and its social and moral values dumped not because they would contradict a philosophy based on biological understanding, but because …
Yes, they hate the United States of America because the people in the United States of America are so rich, and they themselves are so poor, that they are rightfully envious. They want the United States of America destroyed because they simply bank on change. If there is turmoil, those who are on the top will be toppled, and a new set will be washed to the top. Maybe, just maybe, this will be of benefit.
While one can encounter such hopes everywhere in the Third World, they are, of course, not realistic. There is nothing in sight that could shake, let alone topple, the global dominance (politically, militarily, economically, socially, and morally) of the United States of America. Which doesn't prevent people to silently or openly cheer Osama Bin Laden (at least he dares).
Mind you: it's not just the populations in Islamic countries where Osama Bin Laden would win any popularity contest against George W. Bush. Which doesn't mean that these people would prefer the kind of social order Osama Bin Laden stands for (the kind that has been practiced in Talibanistan).
Because everybody who understands the most basic rules of arithmetics knows that when two fight, the benefits are usually with the third. Or, if there is destruction all around, and one can personally stay out of harm’s way, then, in a way, one is among those who will profit.
I, like anybody else, do not feel guilty for mental games in which I am not a player. So, consider a scenario in which all of the United States of America, including its people and infrastructure, where destroyed in a huge earthquake. A radically new world would be in place the next morning. Let me assure you that many (and I do mean: many) people in Third World countries would find this most exciting. And why not wipe Europe from the world map at the same time.
It's the allure of such fantasies that draws people to the most radical preachers. They tell their flock that this is going to happen. God will open the earth and the earth shall swallow them. Never mind that thereafter, antibiotics, and even rice, will be in short supply. All of that would not matter in exchange for the opportunity to live in such exciting times.
Because it is inherently benefiting the poor (or those whose concerns are not represented in a status quo) if mischief befalls the rich (or those who represent the status quo) many people, even in the West, or in rich countries of the East, enjoy hearing or reading news of destruction.
I know what I'm talking about. I once worked in a newsroom … an interesting job indeed. And when you judge what arrives over the "ticker" (that was in telex times, more than 25 years ago), then your guideline is that bad news is good news. The worse, the better. Because that's what people want to read or hear about. The yellow press lives of the problems of celebrities (serves them right, why are they so rich and famous!).
And for the news desk, it's war, terrorism, turmoil, and tsunamis. Because in readers and viewers, all of this keeps the flame of hope alive that there once will be the big upheaval that changes it all, and that there will be an end to frustration and boredom, and that for once, one oneself will be among the lucky ones.
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