The Unconstitutional State of America

It seems you can fight for your country but only as long as you are Christian.

If you are Atheist, you will apparently be prevented from advancing through the ranks on the grounds that you may not be that good of a leader despite the fact that — in my opinion — a person devoid of any religious prejudice would be in a better position to lead.

The American Constitution was formed and signed by people who agreed that the way forward was to allow individuals the freedom of speech, expression and belief. The text of the First Amendment goes like this:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Apparently in the current global political climate, democracy is once again being allowed to destroy the rights and beliefs of an individual.

Spc. Jeremy Hall was allegedly denied his Constitutional Right to freely discuss Atheism while on duty in Iraq and it appears his promotional prospects have been adversely affected because of his beliefs.

Now, I can understand how this has come about, and how difficult under the circumstances it must be to deal with. Soldiers in combat must do whatever it takes personally in order to justify killing people and they must believe they are right to do so. That must be extremely difficult.

But an attempt to prevent someone from using their own justification and beliefs is commonly called bigotry.

The problem as I see it is not between Jeremy Hall and his superiors. Rather it is in allowing Atheists into that situation. There is a choice to be made:

Either allow and support people with no beliefs as you do people with beliefs;

or

Decide that — as a nation — you are not happy having your society split in this way and extradite all the Atheists. Or Christians. Or Scientologists. Or Muslims. Or Jews. Or Buddhists. Or Rastafarians. Or Hindus. Or Sikhs. Or Zoroastrians. Or Taoists.

I could go on all day, but that's it. That's all you have to do. You really can't have a free and open society on the one hand, when it comes to someone being productive and making money for you and then — in the next breath — tell someone that they don't live in a free and open society and that they must submit to your beliefs and deny them their own.

There. I've said it.

YouTube outage. So..?

Well, YouTube's problems on Sunday seem to me to be one of the symptoms of the times.

Whether politically-based or not, the re-routing of traffic away from YouTube by Pakistani ISPs was a small-minded move in my opinion. The internet is not something you can have bits of. You can't order it like a pizza and pick off the jalapeños. You buy into it or not.

One way of looking at this is a kind of cultural test of your nation's tolerance. If you're not happy being part of the rest of the world, you are going to have problems in the future and as the web becomes ever more prevalent these problems are going to get a lot, lot worse.

I'm not sure what the solution is. If I knew that, I probably wouldn't be sitting here writing this but I do know that this situation cannot be ignored. At some point either the Pakistani authorities must accept the Internet and the global opinions that go with it (blasphemous content and all) or it must cut itself off from it and carry on alone.

However, I'm eager to know how YouTube will deal with this. I'll be a bit disappointed if they lower themselves to the level of people who order a pizza and then complain about the peppers. The only thing they really need to do is strengthen their 'bit' (pardon the pun) of the internet to ensure this doesn't happen again, however that may be achieved. The Pakistani Government — in this case — just need to be managed rather than confronted with threats of legal or other action. A bit of tolerance on both sides here would go a long way towards keeping our global culture stable and constructive.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, this planet has never in its history been in quite the situation it is now. The globalisation of culture may prove to be a dangerous thing.

Policy. Language. Economy. Copyright law. National security. Religion. The fundamentals of life in every country — indeed for each and every individual — need to be taken into consideration and the only way forward is not confrontation, blame or denial; more an opportunity to realistically assess the genuine needs of the individuals, corporations and governments the world over.

The balance of power in the Middle East will be very tightly fought and I think the Internet will be the prime catalyst in forcing the situation to a head. It's not going to be easy. I think there are difficult decisions ahead but I believe that we are living in exciting times and I would not want to live in any other.

On beliefs...

I found an interesting article on Atheist quotes which had gained a respectable number of diggs and discovered a fascinating collection of comments in reponse to the article.

I posted a reply to someone who was having a hard time coming to terms with their belief system as they were contemplating discarding it in favour of a more natural, physical system. I include my reply here:

I was religious for a while. Out of my own choice — not from any form of "education" or pressure — I chose to believe for a short period of my life and I put my trust that the world was a good, moral and constructive place in the hands of the subject of my faith.

After a year or so I started to learn that there was a lot to this place that doesn't need a god or controlling influence. Evolution, or natural selection, can — even to molecular and cosmic extremes — take care of any question you may need to ask.

The universe is endlessly evolving. You are part of it, physically related to the stars you gaze upon at night, the people you love and relate to and the atoms and forces that tie it all together.

Realise your place in amongst all of this and decide for yourself how you want to deal with it.

Read books on chaos theory, quantum mechanics, cosmology, physics, genetics, evolutionary biology or artificial intelligence. You've probably already read your holy book. They're hard to read, but that's because of the language, not the concepts they're communicating. Language can be learned and this is in itself an enlightening process.

Most importantly of all, make a balanced decision. Talk to and listen to people, not to piggyback upon their beliefs, but rather to understand how they arrive at the decisions that shape their lives. Of course, this may or may not help, but at least you'll meet interesting people along the way and become better at communication and understanding. This will all help.

Never forget that people are more important than beliefs. If anyone gets that bit wrong, they're in for a rough ride.

As for Jesus Christ, he may well have existed. However, after two thousand and seven years it is difficult to know who he was or where he came from but the identity of his father is a mystery to me.

Gillian Gibbons — Free

I can't imagine what would have happened if a British child had named a teddy bear (named — don't forget — after Theodore Roosevelt) Jesus.

I know that there are different and lesser issues at stake. This is after all about Christianity vs Muslim.

But why should it have to be about anything vs anything? I think an important step towards a larger community has been taken by Sudan's president today. I just hope this gesture of goodwill isn't forgotten in a hurry.

However, the naming of a teddy bear (as in the context of a child's fluffy comfort toy) should hardly be the subject of international outrage, let alone calls for the poor teacher's execution. I am sure that there were no malicious political or religious motives behind the naming (by the class, don't forget) of the toy and I am more hopeful after hearing news of the pardon that such an incident will not appear as reprehensible to Sudan's future generations.

Here's to a smaller world!