Once again, I read an incredibly interesting article recently.

I have some questions. First of all, what exactly is psychological violence? I tried to track down a transcript of the speech referenced, but my Google-fu was not strong enough. As this is a policy that will eventually go into effect and not specifically drafted legislation at the moment, I can’t get the definition they’re using. So, I threw “psychological violence” into Google and returned a website from the Montreal Police Department (apparently the Canadians already have such laws) which had this definition: Psychological violence is an action or set of actions that directly impairs the victim’s psychological integrity.

I love broad definitions. They’re all kinds of fun. According to this, nearly all of us are responsible for psychological violence at some point in time. Certainly none would argue that pushing someone to fits of anger impairs their psychological integrity, but any strong emotion would do the same. If you’ve ever caused someone to love you, you’ve changed the balance of their psychological integrity, which may be perfectly fine for now but if it ever ends up in a situation where they would have been better of without you, that’s now an impairment.

This opens up a whole new world of crimes for me to commit. Say I don’t like one of my coworkers for whatever reason, and decide to use my position to make things more difficult for them. If it “impairs” them psychologically, I’ve now committed a crime. That’s absolutely wonderful. France is now looking into legislation to force serenity. I suppose we should just be glad that France is focusing only on psychological violence between couples, though. So, the only way you’d get arrested is if, in the middle of a fight with your significant other, you do something just to piss them off.

Sometimes, I’m glad I don’t live anywhere else.

Recently, I decided to start making use of one of Google’s services that I’d signed up for but hadn’t really used much — the Reader service, which is an RSS-feed collecting gadget. For those not hip to the jive-talk of the internet, RSS is a simple tool used for snagging tidbits of regularly-updated material, such as news feeds, blog postings, and that sort of thing. An RSS feed collecting gadget lets you “subscribe” to these feeds, so that you get alerts there when the site(s) you’re interested in post new content — a pretty handy little thing, if you find yourself checking up on a bunch of different things, as I do. One of the sites I subscribed to is this one right here (check the upper right corner for a feed link [Edit: The feed button up top shoots you a bunch of junk. If you take the URL from there, though, you can paste it into an RSS reader -- either standalone app or something web-based like Google Reader -- to subscribe.]), so that I can keep myself updated on anything going on here that’s not my doing.

Now comes the part where Google Reader is interesting. Their service has a ‘Suggested Feeds’ sideline, where blogs and the like are recommended to you based on … well, whatever magic Google uses in their algorithm, but mostly it appears to be based on the assumed content abstracted from the feeds that you subscribe to — they’re hoping that, by basing it off of procedural content analysis, they can find other things that you’d actually be interested in by way of their relating to things that you’ve told them you’re interested in. In my case, most of my subscriptions are pretty straightforward categorically — ‘linguistics’ and ‘hockey’ leading the charge, and often recommended to me as a result. I noticed, though, that as I accepted or declined those subscriptions at my whim, there was another developing trend — blogs about, or promoting, atheism.

This struck me as odd, to say the least. As far as I know, I don’t have any history spending time reading atheist blogs, or browsing pro-atheist websites. I certainly didn’t have any subscriptions to such — or so I thought. After some time thinking about it and seeing what kind of things these “atheist blogs” use as talking points, I found the culprit: Elitist Idiots. Apparently, a regular retinue of social commentary and pseudo-philosophical ramblings is indicative of a strong atheist agenda and belief system. Who knew?

Google certainly knew, and now I do, too. And in consideration, I can definitely see where the two lines might cross; especially after glancing over some of the recommended feeds, I’ve realised that it’s not so much the pushing of an agenda, it’s the discussion of topics being made relevant to that agenda. On that front, we’re nearly a dead ringer for one of these blogs — except, we’re not (intentionally) pushing any sort of religious dogma on anyone. Elitist Idiots has always, in my mind, been dedicated to spouting off our opinions and worldviews, often with the intent to make our arguments, but with a strict policy of open-mindedness and discussion on the topic if people disagree with how we see things. A more focused niche, as these were, tends to attract only those people who either strongly approve or strongly disapprove of the prevailing agenda — and in our case, I think, the agenda is flexible enough that I’m hard-pressed to think of any time we’ve so flatly denied such a huge segment of society.

I tried thinking of other things that could have caused the link between us and these more strongly opinionated media. Perhaps atheists are more prone to identifying themselves as elitists (or as idiots?), but that seems unlikely. Perhaps they’re the group that most closely follows the same ideological meanderings that we do – but, if it was based on that, wouldn’t I see more politically-minded blogs being recommended? Surely someone else out there is promoting a similar social stance without being a dedicated atheist — but I haven’t seen that come up in my recommendations. I’ve also not seen any specifically religious blogs come up; the only religion promoted by similar blogs to this one, as per the Almighty Google, is atheism.

Of course, I did recently make a post about how strongly I disagree with organized religion — but in that same post, I made it my goal to emphasize that I have no problem with those who are religious. It’s not my place to tell other people what, or how, to believe. I’m not in the business of selling my philosophy; that one post, though, seems to have been sufficient evidence of my non-religious fervor, marking me as someone uninterested in reading posts about religion or with a religious undertone.

I suppose this boils down to my reading too much into an automated, computer-controlled suggestion serviced based on what the “robots” can discern from scouring our texts for relevant similar content. Still, I find it both amusing and disheartening that we seem to be so closely associated with a group that, for all their proclamations of reason and logic, refute and intentionally alienate the majority of the planet. I’m certainly not interested in playing party to a hate-fest directed at people simply for their religious beliefs; rather, I’d much prefer we could have an open forum here, where folks from all creeds could feel welcome to participate (well, okay, Amish and the like may not be the best target audience for a web-based community…) — and yet, we’re separated from that by something as simple as a suggestion service that might otherwise draw in potentially interested readers, contributors, or lurkers.

What do you all think? Have we been pushing an atheist-heavy agenda, or are Google’s ‘bots simply missing the mark? What could we change to adapt that demographic to be wider?

I’ve been given a lot of suggestions for what to write about in this space. I’ve been told I should offer my take on the health care initiatives sitting before our nation right now. I’ve been told I should try to keep to philosophical musings, that I should write something profound or interesting in that regard. I’ve been told that I should write poetry, about being a father, about my views on the global political arena, the global economic rollercoaster, the latest trends in technology, my recent stories from work — the list goes on. The problem I keep having with all these suggestions, though, is that they’re laid bare, without any framework, without any question to get the mind going; I find that I need more fuel than that to truly get my motor running and post something that I feel is relevant to anything.

Then, it hit me.

Why would I write about things that are relevant? Why would I focus on the issues that others have a passion for? Shouldn’t I be writing for myself, for my own interests and ends? Why would I write about health care reform, when my faith in the system’s ability to self-adjust is so diminutive that I honestly cannot drum up the ability to care what the lawmakers decide one way or another? There are tons of blogs, newspapers, e-magazines, and forums that focus on these so-called relevant topics — am I to be just another voice in the crowd, echoing the same lack of original thought that goes into each of those dry analyses? Why would I write my philosophy, when anyone interested in such things can search the internet, their local libraries or schools, and find their own path through the twisted maze of life? I’m neither profound nor possessed of a particularly keen mind for piercing the veil of human confusion in the light of such weighty subjects. I’m just another faceless internet entity here to spout my own refuse for the world to see, on the off chance that my trash is someone else’s treasure.

So, what’s left to write? In a world where vast, nearly limitless amounts of information are so readily available at the fingertips of any who would go searching, what, of merit or value, can I add to the unending din, the white noise that is the Blogosphere? I’d like to think that some of my previous posts have had some meaning, but I can’t be sure. When I go back and read them myself, all I can do is wonder who wrote these things, and what inspired them. I feel disconnected from my own words. There is something lacking, which I cannot identify, much less seek to remedy. I’ve heard of writer’s block, but that doesn’t seem to encapsulate the separation of my own mind from the words it poured out through my fingers, from the statements of that which I believe and the truths to which I hold. It does not explain why I cannot reconcile myself against the things I’ve said before.

I suppose the gist of it is this: I spend the majority of my waking hours attached, by some fashion or another, to this screaming endless tube of information, like a coma patient attached to life support; the opinions of others, the information on the latest news stories — these are my lifeblood, perhaps moreso than the red liquid surging through my veins. If that is my vitality, my sustenance, then to write here is, in a manner, a self-mutilation, a contribution of my own plasma to the aetheric systems of support feeding the masses that exist, as I do, as shadows of themselves within a digital frame. I become something upon which creatures like myself feed, a sort of auto-cannibalistic cycle of information flooding in and out with the ebb and flow of global tides and times. We are a self-sustaining ecosystem that breeds not like rabbits, but like a virus, ever changing and adapting to a climate that is unable to cease its flux.

So, for all my lack of forethought, for all my self-doubt which tells me I have nothing of value to contribute, I press on, suspecting that somewhere, the words I say reach someone who, in their reading of them, finds some meaning which I could not have imagined to imbue. It is my contribution to the systemic health care of the internet; it is my Communist dogma in prose form — from each, according to his ability, to each, according to his need. It is my catharsis and my motivation and my weakness.  It is my passion, my dream, and my failure to achieve that dream; for if my dream is played out across this medium, and distributed for free, then how can I stand to gain anything from accomplishing the goal I set for myself every time I write?

I really do think that I think too much.

I get the sense that this may be one of my more ire-inspiring posts to date, so please, allow me to preface it with some backstory. I was raised in a religious family, going to church every Sunday — as well as other events, classes, and goings-on throughout the week — and with consistent religious tones throughout the breadth of my youth. My family were (and are) kind, relatively open-minded, and loving. I feel that the foundation laid in this religious upbringing was to my benefit, and I think that I can see a lot of potential for good in the structure and moral-compass alignment that such a rearing offers to children. I think that there’s a lot of ways that this can be used to help nurture a strong sense of justice, of good, and of representing oneself to the world in a way that is righteous and beneficial. I believe that this basis of morality can set an excellent precedent, not only for how to behave in society, but why. All told, there’s a ton of good things that I can say about it, and I think that, properly used, having a religious backbone present can help lay the foundation for a good life that is well lived.

Now.

All that said, I will seem to contradict myself: I hate religion. I abhor it. I believe that the institutions of religion are a plague upon our land. For all the potential for good that exists, there exists an equal (if not greater) opportunity for evil, and I believe that this evil is the more prominently practiced. I believe that, within the same scope as imbuing a good morality in the next generation, there’s also an obvious and exploited means of controlling that generation — and that, I think, is what happens more often than not. Now, I’m not going to decry any particular religion here. In fact, I’m not even going to assault any religion. I don’t have any problems, on the surface, with the purported beliefs of Christianity, of Islam, of Hinduism. Maybe some moralistic leanings against certain Shamanistic practices which include human sacrifice, but hey, if they’re sacrificing other members of their religion, then maybe even that could fall into the realm of the acceptable. That’s not the point, however.

Faith, in and of itself, is one of the greatest tools that man has ever devised. The ability to stare into the bleak void of space and still feel important, to feel as if something/one out there is watching over our planet, our people, our existence. Biblical scripture states, “Faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains,” and I absolutely agree. Humans, as a whole, seem to be capable of nearly anything that they set their mind to. I’ve never been a man of strong faith, even when I considered myself religious; there’s too much doubt in my mind for me to accept such things at face value. Logic dictates that I examine the evidence, while faith relies on the absence of evidence. None of my attempts to reconcile this within myself have netted any success; I envy the convictions of the atheist.

The fact of the matter is, any man is capable of acting in a way that is corrupted by their own needs and desires. Any group of men, then, is capable of manipulating events to their own ends, similarly corrupted by the needs and desires of the group. No organization of man exists without this potential for corruption, and no organization of a great number of men can be expected to exist without some of that corruption occurring — it’s statistically unlikely to the point of being nearly guaranteed. So, rather than organizations which, bound by faith, come together in celebration of that which we share as humans, we seem to produce organizations that wield faith like a weapon — used not to bolster the faithful, but to admonish the faithless, the questioning, those with different beliefs. Through this demonization of “the others,” a society that is afraid of that which it does not know is born, and fostered across generations, until we end up with entities like the Westboro Baptist Church decrying the evils of all manner of things.

From this, we spawn a whole new class of societal norms. Those so affected by the xenophobic leanings of their religious leaders are certain to pass those traits to their children, so as to protect them from the evil of the world; after all, anything less would be bad parenting! So it grows into an entity where families turn into neighborhoods turn into cities turn into countries of people all holding fast to the belief that their way of life is the only One True Path; in this, we begin to see an obscuring of basic tenets. Thou shalt not kill, except for the heathens, because they don’t count — a prevalent, yet clearly deviant, viewpoint. Otherwise intelligent, rational Christian men who would never condone murder regard religious war as a “necessary evil” — that we must cleanse, with fire, the stain of these others from the history books, so that all humans have the opportunity to grow up in a world filled with only the righteous believers of the one true faith.

And there’s the real rub. See, I may disagree on a point with some aspects of many faiths, I may think that some of the things that people believe are downright silly. However, I fully believe in the freedom to believe whatever we want — so long as we do not interfere with the ability of others to believe whatever they want. And that’s all that religion does, I think; it brings like-minded people together under a single banner by which they begin to identify themselves as separate from all the other religions, and this breeds an innate sense of superiority — a superiority, I might add, that is specifically cautioned against in most of the religions I’ve studied. Hubris breeds contempt, and contempt breeds a fissure between otherwise entirely agreeable sects of humanity; that, however, all gets pushed to the back when it comes up against cries for unity, for strength of conviction, for all those things upon which mass faith relies.

So I guess, all told, my problem isn’t with faith, or even with religion. It’s with religious institutions who use their position of power — because, let’s face it, religious leaders carry an incredible amount of power, real or implied — to prey on other people who are only honestly seeking out ways to better themselves. It’s with the priests who hit headlines for their dealings with the altar-boys, the cult of money built around so many televangelists’ call to arms, the snake-oil faith healers who’s fast-talking and planted “victims” bring out the faithful in droves to donate. It’s with the extremist sectarians who use their God as a justification for murder, for rape, for genocide. But, most of all, I think it is with the prominent leaders of each religion, who refuse to come to terms with one another, who refuse to allow the unification of humanity under the banner of simply being human.

After all, no matter what your religion, we’re all humans stuck on the vessel Earth together, aren’t we?