Groundhog day and Religious Tradition
Groundhog Day !!! What is “Groundhog Day”? Each February 2, on Groundhog Day, the members of the "Punxsutawney Groundhog Club" make the pilgrimage to Gobbler’s Knob – Phil’s official home. Who is Phil? Phil is the name of a groundhog. This Groundhog has a mission every year. The aforementioned group waits for Phil every year, to leave his burrow and (legend has it) if he sees his shadow, six more weeks of winter are on the way. If he doesn’t, an early spring arrives. On average, Phil’s prognostications have hit the mark just under 40% of the time since 2013, according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.
The question is, why do people still follow such inaccurate traditions? The simple answer is that people are complicated. Some people like the “assurance” claiming “Well 40% is better than nothing, without taking into account that a 60% failure rate is just that, FAILURE !! It doesn't work! Yet somehow, “tradition” seems more important than validity, or accuracy. Many people still make bets on this.
I am going to go out on a limb, and claim that we (people) are no better than hamsters, if we find an intermittent reward, we are more likely to go back to the well than not. This is the specific place where our vulnerability shows up. Most studies have shown that an intermittent or sporadic reward is stronger than a constant reward. In this fashion, if you give a hamster a treat for doing a specific action, and you do not always reward him, it is most likely, that the behavior will stick, almost as good as any drug addiction. Which is teh same thing that happens with humans.
We as human beings are supposed to ignore and get over irrational behavior and thinking. However, our history shows we as a society need to be more capable of doing this. We need to be told and proven over and over and over that a tradition does not work, to be weaned off of it. Take as an example Physical punishment and torture. Psychology has proven IT DOES NOT WORK, but we keep trying it. Very often we respond to attempts at removing failed traditions, as if an enemy was invading us. Why is that? Well, it has a lot to do with how endorphins and other chemicals work in our body.
I will now point to a group of organizations that take full advantage of our human nature, and our animal instincts. It is Religion, it seems to be the easiest way to focus our efforts as a society. Different societies throughout the ages have developed different explanations for the world around us. When we don't have sufficient scientific knowledge, we replace it with religion. We as a society, come up with religious explanations. When these religious explanations are proven to be true sporadically enough, they then turn into “traditions”. Take any form of prayer or worship, in your religion. Is it 100% effective? Is ti 80% effective? It is usually less than 30% effective, yet it is touted as a “tradition”. Then it becomes “Traditions” and then becomes part of teh “unquestionable” or “necessary” infrastructure of that religion before it permeates into our society as if it were a cultural value..
We must look back into history and understand that religions, Greek mythology for example, at one time were not “mythology” but believed it to be a fact upon itself, just like Christians, Jewish, and Muslims seem to be certain right now. Would it surprise us to know that “Greek Gods” were in charge of the world for about 2700 years? People used to be just as zealous about their Gods as today people are about Jesus Christ, Allah, and Yahweh.
Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have been in charge for an average of a little over 2000 years. Are we close to outgrowing them? Possibly. What are we going to replace it with? It would seem that throughout history, Men need a central point of belief and a center to focus their efforts for the common good, that focus point has been religion, though imperfect as it is, for it all seems to be man-made, and thus full of observable flaws. The question stands, what are we going to replace it with?
There seem to be many options, available to us. One possibility is, that we follow the story of the “tower of Babel”; for those not familiar with this story, it is in Genesis 11:1-9, where it says that men had become so powerful that, God realized that people would be able to do virtually anything, potentially giving them too much power over a world that was meant to be ruled by God. Before the tower was completed, God made everyone speak different languages. No longer able to understand each other. Thus the project was abandoned and men went on to different tasks. The typical religious interpretation of this story is that “we should let God rule the universe and not interfere” in his work”. My interpretation is that we need to make sure we always have a way to communicate, and a common objective to reach unfathomable heights.
Everything in the bible or “holy books”, has been interpreted by religious people, who want “God” to remain relevant, so they can be the “influencers” of their time. GOD is the main tradition, that most men seem to be afraid of turning away from. I think this is mostly because of “early childhood grooming”. Which, at this point in our history, should now be considered more “child abuse” than anything else. If you find a family that “grooms” their children into being “children of Zeus” would you not consider it “child abuse”? If you find a family “grooming” their children to commit suicide for a religious cause; do you not consider it child abuse? However, to prepare your children to serve YOUR GOD is just fine and normal. What if the religious leaders change their minds and turn it into a violent sect? It has happened. Remember it was Catholic priests who started the Mexican Revolution, it was also them who declared Mexico a secular state. Having said that.
What will we do? Once we learn that, we are in control of our world, to a slightly smaller extent than Gods, yet we are victims to our animal limitations, sometimes less than ants, yet it is within our reach to change that. What will we do?
We already have a glimpse of our cowardly and cruel nature. We have the latest rulings on abortion and LGBTQIA rights. We seem to have proven, that many of us, would rather enslave some and deny the existence of others “in teh name of god” than question our traditions; especially if it exposes the hypocrisy of our own morality, “Tradition must win”. Tradition is such a known weakness that, the largest Christian denominations, argue that “tradition and faith” must be defended at all costs. Knowing full well that humans tend to defend “traditions” and then, include “faith” in the package, as all good politicians do. Tradition has flaws because it is created by humans, faith has the same flaws, faith is based on human writings, translations, and interpretations and somehow people miss these important details. Thus blindly and unjustifiably they call it “the word of God”.
We have been taught to be so afraid of a “Creator” that supposedly speaks his will, through the interpretations of people who are convinced, that only they know what God wants. Will we turn back to such old and different religions that we are unable to cooperate anymore? or will be smart enough to understand that the only tool we have is our brain, and our ability to understand that, science or curiosity, is what got us out of the caves, and into this wonderful world of discovery. We need to stop fearing our one talent and start embracing it, letting, our curiosity and ethics, free of “spiritual fearmongering”, it lead us into the future.
I feel I have spoken strongly against religion and tradition. This is true, I have done so, because these are man-made and avoid logic , or any true ethical or logical challenge, like a deadly virus. Both religion and tradition continuously limit man's advance, by improperly and abusively using the marketing of FEAR by the few, the wealthy and the powerful. Because CHANGE always challenges authority and power, this is not a strange attitude from them. What is strange is that the people who would benefit the most, are many times on the side of the powerful, believing that they have a common goal. They do not, the lower socioeconomic strata are typically misled, and misinformed, about the validity of the arguments while the Powerful, are just figuring out a way to stay in control. The powerful, and wealthy always stop progress until they can figure out how to stay on top; how it is going to affect them, and how to manage the masses during any transition. Because in any shift there is a possibility that they might lose power.
Whatever the answer to that question is, I'm not denying the existence of a Supreme being, force, entity, or commune. What I am challenging based on HISTORY, not stories, is that NONE OF THE HOLLY BOOKS have been written assisted, or inspired by any Supreme being or commune of Gods. They have all been written by men, who truly enough seem they have been honestly searching for a "god" answer, it was not dictated nor inspired by God, it might have been inspired by thinking about god, but it was not inspired by God. If there is a life after death or an alterative reality it would make more sense that we would wake up on the “other side” like we did here, and develop our attributes as we grow on the other side.
We need to acknowledge and “wake up” to the fact that ALL HOLY BOOKS” were written by men, no more inspired by God than any philosopher. Admittedly their purpose might not have been what these books are being used for today. They were looking for answers from the perspective of; “what if there was one uniting all-powerful intelligent force, just like me, but better”. I can understand that, however, the power to dominate others based on “what if”, loses a lot of strength. However It becomes unmoveable when you claim that “It was God who inspired the author to write this”, follow it with a few “stories” about how you were witness to magnificent events, but non-provable because...... GOD. You then have the typical formula for an authority that SHOULD NOT EVER BE CHALLENGED, lest the pain of death, damnation, etc.
Figuratively speaking; The fact that we have discovered the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain does not mean we can't get to Kansas, it just means, we have to do it on our own. We are responsible for each other's success and failure our morality and or lack thereof. It just means that all the “magic” we thought of is just science we don't yet understand.....but we can get to understand it and control some of it if we embrace our science, our logic, and our ethics and stop our fearmongering of others. We have a responsibility to make this world a better and happier place for ALL, not just the FEW. I'm my brother's keeper and am responsible for him/her. Let the world of spirits, and life take care of itself, I'm sure if it exists it has rules and regulations that have not been communicated to us. Why would they? We need to show we can take care of what is in front of us, there is no sense in dwelling in the afterlife, any more than dwelling on LSD hallucinations, If we can't even manage this life successfully. Maybe this is the reason why Jesus said “The last shall be first” presenting an afterlife where things could be backward. We have no way of knowing that, but we do have a way of knowing when we oppress and commit genocide on those we do not agree with. We have teh power in our hands to be loving merciful and tolerant towards each other, moving aside hurtful and useless traditions. Look to the future with confidence, love, responsibility, and a smile, everything is going to be fine.
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