Subversion!

"When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer,
Superstition ain't the way". Stevie Wonder.


The better weather has allowed for healthier outdoor pursuits, and that usually marries for me with some deeper thinking and reading.
I picked up Sci-Fi master Robert Heinlein's 'To Sail Towards the Sunset' this week, and was interested in pondering the key character's re-vamping of the Ten Commandments. What was especially intriguing was the thinking behind this, given by the character's father:
"The first five are solely for the benefit of the priests and the powers that be".
As someone who has spent many years of my Christian life facing "turbulence" with 'the powers that be' (church doctrines and leadership), there's certainly a truth here (with regards to mis-applying the Law), but I quickly realized that, especially in this moment, there is equally a wider application.

There are 'new' commandments, heard everyday on my local radio station, and woe betide the transgressor who questions or slights one of these rules...

1.You shall not doubt the doctrine of anthropocentric (man-originated) climate change.
The fact the CO 2 increases follow temperature changes shall not be spoken!

2.You shall advocate anthropocentric schemes to revert these changes, whoever, wherever and whatever their origin (and however hair-brained they may be - I'm staggered at just what is getting funding).

3.You shall always talk up 'sustainability' (even if the 'facts' to support what you've placed under that banner are flaky at best, and may be costing us a heck of a lot more, in both the short and the long term).

4.You will ensure ALL 'sensible' input on these subjects, be it social, scientific, political or artistic, speak with the same common voice (as per commandment 1). Dissent of any kind is mis-placed and 'primitive' (even when presented by experts in their fields!).

5. You will IGNORE all data to the contrary - and if it is raised, it will be ridiculed as mistaken.

These rules took a couple of minutes to assemble after listening to a week of local radio 'entertainment' on "Green" issues and the celebration of Naturalism here (the Darwin 200th anniversary dramatizations, arts festival, and discussions). There were moments when I wanted to switch off the radio for good, as I realized that any other view on such issues is already totally marginalized.

The call to stand fast in our liberty has never been so pertinent!
We're close to a time when almost everything you do will be under the scrutiny of the powers that be, and not for good reason - but because of a fiction that WE determine the nature of things, and can therefore control our world. History is replete with examples of moments when we have thought that way - it has always ended in horrible tragedy.

Watch the signs, listen to the 'thought' dictation occurring, and discern the darkness, so sweetly wrapped in the opium of common sense!