Friends, the disappointing mystery of life is revealed towards its end. It is rather a dastardly act I know but it is understandable. If humans knew near the beginning of their lives what they know near the end, then we might’ve ceased to exist long, long ago.

Most forms of life get about the business of living their lives without questioning. Some insects have a few days. Some have a few weeks. Other creatures have months and years. They are born, some reach puberty, then they procreate like crazy, and die. Their progeny then continue the meaningless cycle of life and everything is ordered as nature intended.

But humans, some of whom are endowed with a bit of intelligence and a larger than usual brain, have an expectation of living for three-score years and ten. They have the ability to look at themselves, at their world, at the universe, and, eventually, ask, "Why?"  This capacity is what brings us undone, especially as we age and grim reality of all existence dawns.

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Friends, last night, on an excellent television forum called Insight (SBS), the topic was about religious schools and their relevance. The audience was mainly made up from headmasters and clergy from religious schools and their students. These schools, which, with generous Government financial support, proliferate in my country like weeds in Spring, dot the Australian landscape but predominate in cities.

Excerpts were shown of actual teaching in a few schools (Christian, Judaic, Muslim, etc). One about science caught my eye. It was later echoed by various headmasters. It seems that, in the year 2,008, children are being taught that, not only is there a Divine Creator who made everything in six days but also that we humans were made six thousand years ago. Well, rot my socks!

It was just as well that I was sitting down because, quite a few decades ago, this was the nonsense that I was taught in Sunday School. Foolishly, I imagined that theology had moved on, had embraced some scientific facts, had more or less acknowledged that some things in the holy books were open to interpretation, should not be taken literally. Forget it!  Nothing has changed, only the earnest, deluded faces.

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According to Al Jazeera today, Jimmy Carter has revealed in a speech that: "The US has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons, the [former] Soviet Union has about the same; Great Britain and France have several hundred, and Israel has 150 or more."

Seeing these totals and the names ‘Israel‘ and ‘America‘ makes me scared. Very. Why? Those two countries have more than their fair share of religious fanatics and crazy imperial nationalists.

Of course, to this total we have to add the atomic weapons that China, Pakistan, India, and North Korea  possess (and probably many more nations that have either developed them themselves or been supplied with them by some of the competing major powers). That would make more that 30,000 plus nuclear weapons sitting in missile launch sites or on ships or in bombers. Ominously, they are just waiting there and there are lots of itchy trigger fingers around!

Can you imagine what the world would be like if 30,000 atomic weapons were detonated, or 20,000, or 5,000 or even 1,000? Have a look at photos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where they used Tom Thumb devices and then multiply that horror infinitely.

How have we got to this point? What madness has possessed humans to arm themselves to the stage that any future war can have no winners? Why have we allowed our leaders to move in this direction when clearly they must be deranged?

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Nothing is as sad to me as to witness wars between blogs. They are so counterproductive.

Yesterday, on Watergate Summer (see Links), I read a really vicious comment from someone who has his own blog but was unhappy that Enigma was supporting a certain candidate in the Presidential Circus. So he let rip. Filthy language and dire insults were aplenty! Obviously the comment was soon deleted as it should have been. Unfortunately, it’s aftermath lives on.

Even in Australia, we are not free from such unfortunate and unnecessary wars. I say unfortunate because the internet is the only forum where people can more or less say what they want (as least at this stage although Desert Peace is suggesting that Google is starting to carry out its own sanctioning and banning of certain blogs critical of Israel).

Of course, total freedom of speech is not always a good thing because some people are uncouth, irrational and small-minded and, given free reign because of lax or non-existent moderation, will relentlessly attack anyone who in not part of their mindless herd. I have withdrawn from several such sites because of such morons. It’s not that I lack the courage to fight them but it’s rather pointless. Besides, it’s very possible that some of them are actually paid or unpaid accomplices of the blog management who are planted there to stir.

Some large blogs try to encourage conflict between commenters while guileless onlookers and ankle-biters, with the sniff of blood in their nostrils, applaud. Birds of a feather flock together!

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Friends, it’s become apparent to me that, to create a popular website there are certain things you must do and there are certain things you should never do.

I guess the cardinal rule is to accept that humans are herd animals and they do not like anyone who strays from the herd, who does things differently, who thinks differently, who challenges the status quo. Such a person is seen as a threat, one that must be resisted then, if they persist, driven away or ignored.

The following is a list of dos and don’ts. It is not comprehensive but it will do for starters:

1. You must tell people what they want to hear. This means selecting who you want your target audience to be then making sure that you feed that group a continuous flow of comforting, approving words. For example, if your audience comprises members of Abrahamic religions, saying that God doesn’t exist will win you no brownie points at all and neither will advocating the shooting of all Holy Books or the relocation of Israel!

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The brain is an amazing thing. Unfortunately, how well it functions and the behaviour it elicits is entirely dependent on what information is fed into it. Rubbish in – rubbish out!

Even in the womb, the growing but receptive brain is beginning to process information. Inside the skull of a new born, new sounds, physical sensations, visual stimuli, etc begin to flood into the brain like a tidal wave. Gradually it learns to make sense of these things, to relate them to each other, to categorize them.

At first the processing is fairly elementary. A wet nappy might occasion an unpleasant feeling and the brain may learn to send a message to the body to start crying so that the nappy will be changed. Later, the brain learns to deal with more complex issues like recognizing from facial expressions when it is doing something that a parent approves of and when it’s not.

The first ten years of information and experience that the brain is fed with will, in large part, determine the destiny of the child.

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There has been quite a kerfuffle over the last few days when, in Iraq, an unnamed staff sergeant bravely shot a copy of the Koran and wrote an expletive inside it.

This incident has resulted in an apology from George Bush, the sending home of the sergeant (lucky man) and the replacement of the Koran at American Government expense. The village elders have asked for the soldier to be further punished though they haven’t specified exactly what. Perhaps stoning is in order? I’m not sure that the Koran spells out exactly what to do when someone shoots it because, as with the Bible, in the Dark Ages when it was written, guns didn’t exist.

My feeling is that the sergeant should be praised for his bold action. My strong feeling is that all holy books belonging to every religion should be lined up and shot multiple times! My feeling is that if all holy books were shot the world would be a much better place. My reasons?

- All holy books would benefit from some light entering therein.

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There are few trouble spots in the world that match the current Israel-Palestinian conflict for intensity or for broad, dangerous implications. In this region we have a  simmering local issue, but one that for many reasons seems to pull in much of the rest of the world. Why?

For starters, there is a religious conflict between Jews and Palestinians even though they both share an Abrahamic faith. This conflict has widened into conflict between Jews and Muslim nations in the region who resent what Israel has done and is doing to the Palestinians and, during some wars, to them. Then, these problems have somehow connected with past difficulties between Arabs and the imperialist West which, over centuries, colonized much of the Arab world and still sees it as backward, uncultured and inferior.

Though Jews only make up a handful of the total population of the world, Christians, mistakenly, think they should ally themselves with the Jews because of the Bible. Nothing could be further from the truth as even a cursory examination of the word ‘Christian’ would reveal. Jews do not recognize Christ theologically and their holy book is the Old Testament. Regardless, the Jewish-Christian block is very powerful by virtue of numbers but then, ironically, so is the Muslim block – therein lies a big problem.

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John McCain, during a speech to the National Rifle Association, warned Americans of the dangers of electing Obama or Billary. He said they, being left-wing, would undermine the precious, immutable, fundamental right of right-thinking, peaceable Americans to bear arms.

This warning has sent shock waves all over the Union and led to the frantic cleaning and oiling of rifles and handguns and angry mutterings of, "Just let them dangfool, godless, commo lefties try it!" Gun purchases are expected to double and some manufacturers have already begun to increase production.

Yes, folks, in the U.S, having an arsenal of weapons in your basement alongside the moose heads and the bar is a sacred part of what it means to be an American. Men are judged on the basis of how many weapons they have, how big they are, how many rounds they hold, how many bullets they can release in a minute, what calibre the bullets are and what power the scope is. And if you have night vision glasses as well, then you truly are a man amongst men.

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The following is a true transcript of what George Bush meant to say to the Knesset during celebrations on the anniversary of sixty years of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories.

‘Dear Fellow Imperialists and True Believers,

I’m so glad to be here speaking to you openly behind closed doors about exciting issues like invasion and occupation and nuking Iran, burn Baby, burn, that advance our mutual interests and lofty ambitions, (heh heh). As in poker, it doesn’t pay to show your hand, to reveal your real intentions but here, among friends who understand the finer points of genocide and torture and amassing fortunes, I can speak as if I was at home in my private loo at the White House, the one with all the mirrors that let me see myself in lots of ways. Have you ever noticed…er…

We, who will one day run the world, must be careful never to reveal what we really want. We must say democracy over and over in each sentence as if we were praying to our mutual God, may He be praised and lead us all to the Promised Paradise and the 72 virgins where we shall lay down with lions and giraffes and billionaires…I always fancied a giraf…get Thee from me, Satan!

I mean, democracy and human rights can only go so far. You can’t trust these bloody serfs to run anything. They’re too dumb unlike we who are the masters of the infinite…universal…er, universe.  So we must let them think they run the show while we, the true rulers, ones who were born for riches…er, greatest…greatness get on with the serious business of making lots of money (frantic applause) and making the world a better place which it is when we, who will inherit the earth, make lots of money (enthusiastic stamping of feet).

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