Well, it sounds like its from some cliché movie or crappy self help book; but seriously, have you ever stopped and asked yourself who you would be if you stripped off all that social conditioning, all those things your parents have told you to be, and people have said you are.. Hell, while you’re at it, who would you be if you looked different, or you lived in a different time?

Stop and think about it for a moment, where did your last thought come from? And the one before that? Was it original, or did you think it before.. Maybe when you think deeper still, who came up with that thought before you? How was the seed sowed?

Have you noticed how you tend to think certain thoughts when your in different places, maybe you go to a certain room in the house and bam, you realise your thinking the same thing you were last time you were in that same room.

If you had grown up 200 years ago, would you have owned a slave? Would you fight to free that slave or would you fight to keep 'it'? And if you had lived in Nazi Germany during the war, would you have thought Hitler, fled the country or stood patriotically behind your countries ruler and all mighty protector?

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

Sometimes I wonder whether we're simply some semi intelligent post ape species, marching inexhaustibly towards our own destruction, too fuelled by the evolutionary forces that brought us there, too stupid to see it coming and all together too clever to survive our own tools of destruction.

It’s like humanity is half way between two points, like holding a giant target in the no mans land between two warring armies; we either need to be a lot smarter or a lot more stupid, because as we are now, we’re smart enough to be able to kill everything and stupid enough to be willing to do it.

"I don't know what kind of weapons will be used in the third world war, assuming there will be a third world war. But I can tell you what the fourth world war will be fought with -- stone clubs."-- Albert Einstein

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.~ George Bernard Shaw

You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do.~ [Usenet]

All great truths begin as blasphemies.~ George Bernard Shaw

So the question remains, who are you really? Are you in charge of your own mind or are you simply a product of your past, just the result of millions of iterations of an evolution guided gene mixing process; enabling you to recognise patterns and repeat them more efficiently than earlier models till that day where you too, like those that shaped the environment you lived in; expire, reduced to nothing more than the fading memory of those still alive.

Could you be something more than the flesh others see; a soul that has never lived before, has never died before but will be judged by your actions; a judgement that will propel it to the heights of eternal bliss, of infinite rewards and the best of everything.. or.. doom you to the fiery pits of a place so terrible its worth staying celibate just to avoid.

A binary choice between the blackest of black and the lightest of light, an infinite reward or punishment, forever repeated as a consequence of a finite set of actions in a varying world.

A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.~ Albert Einstein

Or maybe this life is simply one in a series of many, the only purpose to continue to improve upon the previous life; doomed to repeat your mistakes until you learn to change them and graced to have the opportunity to do so.

Do you believe any of these doctrines? Is it even possible ‘believe’ anything while remaining ‘yourself’? And can you accept that ultimately nothing can ever be true, including this statement; just like you can never stand in the same spot in a river twice..

It’s pretty obvious things change, fashions come and go, empires rise and fall, economies boom and bust, conquerors conquer and in turn are conquered; yet is it obvious that like everything before now, that which exists now will be looked back on like we now look back on slavery, black and white TV’s and disco.

We all look back at Hitler disgusted, like we think of those Germans that were too blind with patriotism and fear to oppose him with an air of superiority; knowing that we would never do that ourselves, just like we shake our head at how bad the ‘great recession’ was.. but do you look at these things and ask yourself how will history look at what you did? And how long before it repeats itself, as it always tends to do.

God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. […] -- George W Bush

I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work. ~ Adolf Hitler

Oh gee, now I’m taking quotes from Bush and Hitler to make Bush look like Hitler… But, I’m sorry to disappoint, as I won’t be putting on the tinfoil hat and screaming conspiracy, besides, there are enough differences between the two to make such comparisons absurd. Think about it, Hitler killed millions of Jews, and was a relatively intelligent asshole.

No, I’m asking you if you’ve thought how you will look back at yourself in 20 years time, the way you thought and acted now, and whether you believe your immune to the current layer of propaganda… Remember, Iraq Iran really has weapons of mass destruction and it’s crazy and capable enough to use them on the whole world, guaranteeing its total eradication from the map in a suicidal act of jealous rage if America doesn’t step in and save us all from this terrible, albeit avoidable calamity. Honest to God, a friend of a friend of mine said he saw it on fox news.

No, the whole purpose of this lengthy post is to rattle a few feathers, to make you stop and ask yourself whether you’re wearing a mental veil, to question who you are and why, if for any reason you’re here.

Just as a picture is drawn by an artist, surroundings are created by the activities of the mind. ~ Buddha

Do you believe in good and bad? Who is good, who is bad in your eyes? Well, heres a little more food for thought, its interesting when you hear what people have really said, isn’t it?

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith ... we need believing people. ~ Adolf Hitler

I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God. ~ President George Bush, August 27, 1988

If I could find a way to get [Saddam Hussein] out of there, even putting a contract out on him, … ahh … if the CIA still did that sort of thing, . . . ahh . . . assuming it ever did . . . . . . . I would be for it. ~ Richard Nixon

I would have made a good pope. ~ Richard Nixon

Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity? ~ Arthur C. Clarke

I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. ~ Mohandas Gandhi

The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine. ~ George Washington Administration Treaty

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? It is because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind. ~ J. Krishnamurthi

When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, ‘Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?’ ~ Quentin Crisp

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. ~ Stephen Roberts

I’ll leave you with a couple of quotes that seemed too good to leave out..

A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism. ~ Carl Sagan

I ain't got no quarrel with the Vietcong ... No Vietcong ever called me nigger. ~ Muhammad Ali, stripped of boxing title, convicted of a felony for refusing to serve during the Vietnam War

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. ~ Noam Chomsky

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. ~ John Maynard Keynes

We need a common enemy to unite us. ~ Condoleezza Rice, March 2000

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer. ~ Henry Kissinger (Former US Secretary of State)

If there has to be a blood bath, let's get it over with. ~Ronald Reagan, Vietnam

I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes. The moral effect should be good and it would spread a lively terror. ~ Winston Churchill commenting on the British use of poison gas against the Iraqis after World War I

Shit, I almost posted a blog post without including a YouTube video.. Well, these are good food for thought.. the first contends that we're all monkeys, good for a laugh and makes you think a little, as long as you don't find its contention interlectually insulting.

Click on image to view.

This one is the intro from idiocracy, and I highly recommend watching it, and the whole movie as well (for its underlying political message), this clip just makes fun of american hilbillies, and does so very elegantly, scary thing is, if you add another 50 years of fox news it just might end up becoming true sooner than we think.

Click on image to view.

These last two are just thrown in for good measure, the first being a cartoon of humans acting like a virus, and the second being agent smiths synopsis of humans from the matrix; can you see humanity behaving in this way? can you see yourself behaving in this way?

Click on image to view.

Click on image to view.