Dear US-Americans, being from a different cultural background I have some problems grasping how you roll. Let’s check some things to make sure you know what I’m talking about:

Starting with the election where Bush ‘won’ over Al Gore in 2000…

- It’s okay to let the supreme court stop a legal recount and appoint a president.
- It’s also okay to let lobbyists influence and write laws. For example when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.
- A covert CIA operative got outed? Not a problem.
- The passing of the USA PATRIOT Act 2001, a partial unconstitutional document which confines the American citizenship, was not a reason to get mad.
- Illegally invading a country that posed no threat to the US? – Hey, you did it a few times in the past and you still can do it, so why not again, eh?
- Oops, this illegal war costs more than 600 billion Dollar? Well, you have to break some eggs for an omelet, I guess.
- The Abu Grahib photos weren’t a reason to get mad either. Nor was the US torturing and water-boarding people.
- Not even the illegally wiretapping of Americans by the Government was enough to make you angry.
- The neglect scandal and the revealed horrible conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center only made you stir for a brief moment.
- The catastrophic crisis management of the New Orleans drowning – only a minor inconvenience.
- The deficit hitting the trillion dollar mark. Oh well, sigh, that’s economics. You can’t get mad at some numbers and stuff.

So all in all it seemed safe to assume that you won’t get mad no matter what happens. The thing that really surprised me and left me at a loss for words is that you finally got mad when … *drumrolls* … when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick.

What? Illegal wars, lies, corruption, lobbying, torture, wasting and stealing tax money to make the poor poorer and the rich richer, is completely okay. But helping other people, even other Americans. Not at any time? It feels as if most of your country has lost their fucking minds. How can the majority of  a big nation be so selfish, greedy, narcissistic and, of course, stupid?

And now you voted Republican to punish Obama for his failings (and being a Muslim Socialist of course…)? Haven’t you checked a single fact? Don’t you remember what Bush & Co did in the past? Is your memory really that short?

Every time I read a headline like this one: ‘The planet won’t be destroyed by global warming because God promised Noah’ (said by John Shimkus, a Republican congressman hoping to chair the powerful House Energy Committee) or this one: ‘Gays in military: Supreme Court ends bid to block ban’ it makes my skin crawl.

You really leave me speechless and worrying about our future. If two men are standing waist-deep in gasoline and the one has three matches and the other five, you’d assume they won’t be crazy enough to light them and throw them at each other. But if the matches are nuclear weapons and one of the two men is a madman… you know what I’m implying here. And it doesn’t matter at all if the men are Russian and American or Christian and Muslim or something else…

I added some pictures to underline what I just said.

America is a great country, so fucking start to act like one and not like an insecure and violent schoolyard bully.

Sincerely,
Xiagan

Why should it be only one creator?
And if it is only one (or one split in three [father, son, holy ghost] with a lot of lesser gods [saints]), why the one that appeared 2000-3000 years ago in the Middle East?
What about all the other people round the world who never heard about this regional god and were/are worshiping another god/other gods with their own holy books, or scrolls, or stones? If every holy book states its sole and ultimate truth and disposes all the others, how can you know that your holy book is the true one? Well, you can’t. But you believe that it is so. But why? Certainly not because you read all the others and this was the most convincing one. It’s more likely that you only read (or got teached about) this one and ignored all the others, starting in a time where you weren’t able or used to question what your parents or teachers or preachers say.
Besides from what  people think, and every religion has it’s signs and wonders, its miraculous healings and physics-defying occurrences (walking on water, coming back from the dead, …), the likeliness for them to be true is the same. And if all can be true it’s more likely that all are wrong.

So even if Creationism is right, the Creator(s) apparently never contacted us. There wouldn’t be so many different ultimate truths otherwise and people killing each other for them. And if he/she/it/they don’t care and/or don’t intervene, there is no need for worshiping him/her/it/them.

To live a good and fulfilling moral life with tolerance to others, we don’t need the idea of a god who will punish us otherwise. Kant’s Categorical Imperative: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.“; or more simplified: “Treat others as you would like to be treated.” (known as the Golden Rule, which appears in nearly every religion) should be enough.

I created this Blog to talk about the misery in our world, how our actions contribute to it and what, in my opinion, is our responsibility towards it and its inhabitants.

I don’t think that Satan is the source of all evil in the world, simply for the fact, that he doesn’t exist. On contrary, a lot of harm and suffering is caused by people who don’t want to or have never learned to think for themselves, think they are superior (to what- or whomever) and are self-righteous. These traits seem to be boosted (or created) through religious brainwash in the childhood. You may call it religious instruction or upbringing but that is, as far as I’m concerned, an euphemism.

The Bible (or the Koran, not much difference there) with its talking about HIS people, a holy people, chosen before all the others can only be called racist and the duty to obey (parents, kings, god) and the extreme violence you meet in the Old Testament may not exactly be the right thing to raise responsible and open-minded citizens (see my other blog post about the ‘Religion of Peace‘). If the Islamic world and not the western/Christian was the dominating one, it’s out of question that there would’ve been Christian fundamentalist terror organizations.

But I’m wandering from the subject I wanted to talk about. Quotes about God. As you can see above, I have a great dislike for religion, so over time I collected some quotes about it and about God I liked. Here they are. No special order. I hope they are enjoyable and/or thought-provoking.

~~~

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 HENRY ROBERTS

Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without
having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of
it too?
—DOUGLAS ADAMS

The biblical account of Noah’s Ark and the Flood is perhaps
the most implausible story for fundamentalists to
defend. Where, for example, while loading his ark, did
Noah find penguins and polar bears in Palestine?
—JUDITH HAYES

I am convinced now that children should not be subjected
to the Rightfulness of the Christian religion….
If the concept of a father who plots to have his own son
put to death is presented to children as beautiful and as
worthy of society’s admiration, what types of human behavior
can be presented to them as reprehensible?
—RUTH HURMENCE GREEN

Somewhere, and I can’t find where, I read about an
Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest,
“If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell? “
“No,” said the priest, “not if you did not know.” “Then
why,” asked the Eskimo earnestly, “did you tell me?”
—ANNIE DILLARD

The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be
the hijacking of morality by religion.
—ARTHUR C. CLARKE

God is an invention of Man. So the nature of God is only a shallow mystery. The deep mystery is the nature of man.
-NANREI KOBORI

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for
atheism ever conceived.
—ISAAC ASIMOV

You believe in a book which has talking animals, wizards,
witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, food falling
from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of
magical, absurd, and primitive stories; and you say that I
am the one who is mentally ill?
—DAN BARKER

I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.
-DOUGLAS ADAMS

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the
need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in
spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.
—RICHARD DAWKINS

Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of
science or a dose of common sense.
—CHAPMAN COHEN

Religion provides the solace for the turmoil that it creates.
—BYRON DANELIUS

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever…. This is a somewhat
new kind of religion.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN

If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to
fear him? If he is infinitely wise, why should we have
doubts concerning our future? If he knows all, why warn
him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he
is everywhere, why erect temples to him?
—PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

It is an insult to God to believe in God. For on the one
hand it is to suppose that he has perpetrated acts of incalculable
cruelty. On the other hand, it is to suppose
that he has perversely given his human creatures an instrument—
their intellect—which must inevitably lead
them, if they are dispassionate and honest, to deny his
existence. It is tempting to conclude that if he exists, it
is the atheists and agnostics that he loves best, among
those with any pretensions to education. For they are the
ones who have taken him most seriously.
—GALEN STRAWSON

The Way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.
—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Science .. . has opened our eyes to the vastness of the
universe and given us light, truth and freedom from
fear where once was darkness, ignorance and superstition.
—LUTHER BURBANK

None of the miracles with which ancient histories are
filled, occurred under scientific conditions. Observation
never once contradicted, teaches us that miracles occur
only in periods and countries in which they are believed
in and before persons disposed to believe in them.
—ERNEST RENAN

One of the most frightening things in the Western world,
and this country in particular, is the number of people
who believe in things that are scientifically false. If
someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years
old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.
—FRANCIS CRICK

Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble,
is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives,
will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses,
blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags,
nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the
only fact we have.
—JAMES BALDWIN

I would believe any religion that could prove it had
existed since the beginning of the world. But when I see
Socrates, Plato, Moses, and Mohammed I do not think
there is such a one. All religions owe their origin to
man.
—NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

Those who take refuge behind theological barbed wire
fences, quite often wish they could have more freedom
of thought, but fear the change to the great ocean of scientific
truth as they would a cold bath plunge.
—LUTHER BURBANK

Faith is believing things by definition, which are not jus -
tified by reason. If it were justified by reason, it wouldn’t
be faith.
—COLIN MCGINN

I recall the story of the philosopher and the theologian.
The two were engaged in disputation and the theologian
used the old quip about a philosopher being like a blind
man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat—which
wasn’t there. “That may be,” said the philosopher; “but
a theologian would have found it.”
—JULIAN HUXLEY

The existence of a world without God seems to me less
absurd than the presence of a God, existing in all his
perfection, creating an imperfect man in order to make
him run the risk of Hell.
—AHMAND SALACROU

You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief
is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep-seated
need to believe.
—CARL SAGAN

There’s never been anything, however absurd, that
myriads of people weren’t prepared to believe, often so
passionately that they’d fight to the death rather than
abandon their illusions. To me, that’s a good operational
definition of insanity.
—ARTHUR C. CLARKE

The most formidable weapon against errors of every
kind is Reason. I have never used any other, and I trust
I never shall.
—THOMAS PAINE

If this is your God, he’s not very impressive. He has so
many psychological problems; he’s so insecure. He demands
worship every seven days. He goes out and creates
faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes.
He’s a pretty poor excuse for a Supreme Being.
—GENE RODDENBERRY

An atheist… is a man who destroys chimeras harmful
to the human race, in order to lead men back to nature,
to experience, and to reason.
—BARON D’HOLBACH

I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across
this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a
moral person, I must believe in “A,” “B,” “C,” and “D.”
Just who do they think they are? And from where do they
presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to
me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must
endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it
has some God-granted right to control my every roll call
in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them
every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions
to all Americans in the name of “conservatism.”
—BARRY GOLDWATER

The need for religion will end when man becomes sensible
enough to govern himself.
—FRANCISCO FERRER GUARDIA

Question with boldness even the existence of a god;
because, if there be one, he must more approve of the
homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
—THOMAS JEFFERSON

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no
more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is
happier than a sober one.
—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Gullibility and credulity are considered undesirable
qualities in every department of human life—except
religion…. Why are we praised by godly men for surrendering
our “godly gift” of reason when we cross their
mental thresholds?
—CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

This story of the redemption will not stand examination.
That man should redeem himself from the sin of eating
an apple, by committing a murder on Jesus Christ, is the
strangest system of religion ever set up.
—THOMAS PAINE

FAITH: The effort to believe that which your commonsense
tells you is not true.
—ELBERT HUBBARD

[Religious thought is] an attempt to find an out where
there is no door.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN

The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession.
—ABRAHAM LINCOLN

May it not suffice for me to say .. . that, of course, like
every other man of intelligence and education, I do
believe in organic evolution. It surprises me that at this
late date such questions should be raised.
—WOODROW WILSON (1922)

The world is my country; to do good my religion.
—THOMAS PAINE

I want nothing to do with any religion concerned with
keeping the masses satisfied to live in hunger, filth and
ignorance. I want nothing to do with any order, religious
or otherwise, which does not teach people that they are
capable of becoming happier and more civilized, on this
earth, capable of becoming true man, master of his fate
and captain of his soul.
—JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

Atheists are often charged with blasphemy, but it is a crime
they cannot commit…. When the Atheist examines,
denounces, or satirizes the gods, he is not dealing with
persons but with ideas. He is incapable of insulting God,
for he does not admit the existence of any such being.
—G. W. FOOTE

Man is, and always has been, a maker of gods.
—JOHN BURROUGHS

The universe runs itself, and the eternal laws inherent in
Nature suffice, without any first cause or prime mover.
—MARQUIS DE SADE

If I were personally to define religion I would say that
it is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul
made bloody by circumstance.
—THEODORE DREISER

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when
they do it from religious conviction.
—BLAISE PASCAL

The religions of mankind must be classed among the
mass-delusions of this kind. No one, needless to say,
who shares a delusion ever recognizes it as such.
—SIGMUND FREUD

Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can
be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are
all wrong.
—CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Epicurus’ old questions are yet unanswered. Is [God]
willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent.
Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is
he both able and willing? whence then is evil?
—DAVID HUME

The world would be astonished if it knew how
great a proportion of its brightest ornaments—
of those most distinguished even in popular
estimation for wisdom and virtue—are complete
skeptics in religion.
—JOHN STUART MILL

The reason there are so many opinions is that no
one knows the Truth.
—JOAN KONNER

We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar
fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial
creatures; because the earth never froze entirely
during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species,
arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has
managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We
may yearn for a “higher” answer—but none exists.
—STEPHEN JAY GOULD

As for me, I’ve long resolved not to think whether man
created God or God man.
—FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Geology shows that fossils are of different ages. Paleontology
shows a fossil sequence, the list of species
representing changes through time. Taxonomy shows
biological relationships among species. Evolution is the
explanation that threads it all together. Creationism is
the practice of squeezing one’s eyes shut and wailing
“Does not!”
—ANONYMOUS

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious
convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated.
I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied
this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in
me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded
admiration for the structure of the world so far as our
science can reveal it.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the
objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after
our own—a God, in short, who is but a reflection of
human frailty.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is
that it is comprehensible.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN

And certainly we should take care not to make the intellect
our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no
personality.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN

It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an
anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously.
I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside
the human sphere.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN

Morality is of the highest importance—but for us, not for
God.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN

Science . . . has been accused of undermining morals—
but wrongly. The ethical behavior of man is better based
on sympathy, education and social relationships, and
requires no support from religion. Man’s plight would,
indeed, be sad if he had to be kept in order through fear
of punishment and hope of rewards after death.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It
is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of
true art and true science.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN

There is much in the Bible against which every instinct of
my being rebels, so much that I regret the necessity which
has compelled me to read it through from beginning
to end. I do not think that the knowledge which I have
gained of its history and sources compensates me for the
unpleasant details it has forced upon my attention.
—HELEN KELLER

The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism,
agnosticism, disbelief—call it what you will—than any
book ever written; it has emptied more churches than
all the counterattractions of cinema, motor bicycle and
golf course.
—A. A. MILNE

“The Good Book”—one of the most remarkable euphemisms
ever coined.
—ASHLEY MONTAGU

Examine the religious principles which have, in fact,
prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded
that they are any thing but sick men’s dreams.
—DAVID HUME

Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and
bloody religion that has ever infected the world.
—VOLTAIRE

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by
the philosophers as false, and by the rulers as useful.
—SENECA THE YOUNGER

Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day; give him
a religion, and he’ll starve to death while praying for a
fish.
—ANONYMOUS

The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of
the next.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Praying is like a rocking chair—it’ll give you something
to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.
—GYPSY ROSE LEE

Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped
in prayer.
—ANONYMOUS

Atheism, and the related conviction that we have just
one life to live, is the only sure way to regard all our fellow
creatures as brothers and sisters.
—CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

“The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this,” he wrote in the letter written on January 3, 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, cited by The Guardian newspaper. in it, the renowned scientist, who declined an invitation to become Israel’s second president, rejected the idea that the Jews are God’s chosen people. “For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions,”
-ALBERT EINSTEIN

A post about space pirates fighting female vampire ninjas while covering friend-zoning, conspiracy theories and Chinese horoscopes too would certainly attract more attention and would be a lot more entertaining to read – sure. But I’m a hopeless idealist and still trying to make the world a better place, which is not going to happen by posting about the above mentioned things.Sorry, folks.

So I still don’t know where I’m trying to go with this blog. What do you want to see here?

malnutrition (imagesource: web.mit.edu)

Want to guess how many people are underfed and how many suffer supernutrition?

13% of the world population (~880 Mio.) are malnurished, whereas 20% are supernurished (means: fat or obese). This supernutrition causes costs beyond belief. In Germany (e.g.) were in the year 2001 51,3 Billion Euro (76,75 Billion USD) spent for wrong alimentation and its sequela.

I guess you all have heard the term “disease of civilization”. It’s a group of sicknesses which are mostly caused through our “western diet”. That’s roughly two points: too much food from animals (meat, sausages, eggs, …) and too much industrial processed food (candy, convenience food, products from superfine flour). Stress, Alcohol, Tobacco and sitting a lot (in front of a computer) are causes too, but I’m focusing on food here.

Typical diseases of civilization are diabetes mellitus, cavities, high blood pressure, neurodermatitis, allergies, gout and, of course, overweight. Fighting those diseases through eating more vegetables and less processed food has a lot of advantages: Your health, your purse, the national budget, the climate (110 Mio. Tons out of the annually 260 Mio. Tons of CO2 emmisons in Germnay are caused by livestock breeding and the production of food from those animals) and better conditions for the underfed people in developing countries and farmed animals all over the world.

Especially the intensive mass animal farming in our countries has a direct relation to their hunger.

factory farming (imagesource: greenpeace.de)

In our times of NGOs and international auxiliaries are droughts, floods or other natural disasters not the capital causes for famines anymore. Wars, failed economic policy, armed conflicts and absolute rulers in combination with the unjust institutional world order I wrote about in my last blog entry are the main reasons. What makes it worse are the shortcomings in health care. Weakened from hunger with no access to clean water and only insufficient hygiene possibilities are those people prone for sicknesses.

Usually there is enough farmland in those countries to provide everybody with food, and even if not, they may have some raw materials they could sell to buy food. But because of wars, their starting position in our world economy or the countries elites, nearly all of them are heavily in debt and need to sell animal feed to us only to pay off the accruing interests.

There’s a competition of acreage between Food for the natives or animal feed for our animal farming. It doesn’t pay out to give the grain to the poor – they can’t pay for it, so 38% of world’s grain harvest goes into factory farming (in Germany 53%), which is a pretty ineffective way to use it: You need 12 units of wheat for 1 unit fowl, 10 units wheat for 1 unit beef, 3 units wheat for 1 unit pork but if you eat the wheat directly, it’s of course 1:1 (4:1 for eggs and 5:1 for milk).

You have next to no influence on world economic politics, but reducing your meat consumption (to one or two times a week) may have a bigger impact than you may think!

Every one of you knows, that there is an astonishing amount of severe poor and malnourished people in our world. You may get a short moment of bad conscience if I tell you that worldwide 38.000 children under the age of 5 die every day because they are underfed, don’t have clean water or no medicaments (in fact, every 5^th newborn has the fate of an early childhood death) but alas, this moment won’t (presumably) last long: It’s easier to feel sympathy for your neighbors than for somebody on the other side of the world.

You may think something along the lines, ‘well, it’s not my fault that they live in such severe circumstances so I don’t have to help them’, which isn’t very nice but people should accept your stance, since you have enough problems yourself, not enough money, etc…

Is that right? There are lots of philosophers who’d ask you if there really is a difference between a boy drowning in a pond next to you (you didn’t throw him in) and another dying of hunger in Burkina Faso (you didn’t steal his food). Nobody would challenge that you have the positive duty to help the boy in the pond if that doesn’t endangers your own life.

Now what about the other boy? In our networked world distance shouldn’t have much importance concerning moral questions. It’s really easy to send some money or other kinds of help to the poor, so if in both cases it is possible to help those in need with little cost to themselves – where is the difference? You may say that you can’t help all the undernourished children, whereas you can help that one drowning boy but that really is a bad excuse. I mean, you aren’t helping anyone because you can’t help everybody? If that’s a common approach our world is doomed. We had two world wars and a great many of other wars in the 20th century, but the deaths caused by poverty in the years between 1990 and 2005 (15 years) are more than the deaths of all the wars from that century together. And it’s not getting better.

There may be valid reasons for not fulfilling our positive duties towards the world poor, but I’m skipping this discussion to come to the main, and more obliging, point I wanted to talk about. This point are our negative duties towards them. Negative duties? Many of you might have heard about the golden rule: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”, also known as ethic of reciprocity or, slightly alternated, Kant’s categorical imperative. You can find it in nearly every religious book, if that means something to you.

The negative duties are more about the silver rule: “Do not do to others as you would not have them do to you.” Now Thomas Pogge, one of the most important philosophers concerning global justice is convincingly stating in his book “World poverty and human rights” that we all, living in western cultures, are violating the silver rule towards the global poor. Which means that our lifestyle is harming them and brings actively pain and death to them.

If that’s true, we all are committing crimes against humanity and the human rights.

Yep, that’s close to the knuckle. And a very discomforting thought if true. But is it true? How does Pogge arrive at this conclusion? One thing beforehand: I can’t go deeply into his argumentation in the borders of this blog, so if I fail to convince you or you are really interested, I can wholeheartedly recommend the above mentioned book.

Thomas Pogge: World Poverty and Human rights

Another thing I want to put clear: I don’t want this article to be an accusing forefinger: You aren’t only letting people starve, you even participate in starving them! This wouldn’t lead to anything. I know how inconvenient a truth like that is and that most people would react with indignation and/or hostility to it – which stops them from thinking it through. Okay, back to the subject.

Can a world order, in which the top seventh has 180 times more of the global product than the bottom half be just? Of course not.

Well, the unjust world order we actually have has its origins in the fifteenth century and the conquest and colonialism. That’s not our fault, of course, and we can’t be hold responsible for stuff some long dead ancestors did. But we CAN be hold responsible for still imposing this unjust design on the world poor and foreseeable subjecting them to avoidable poverty while enjoying the good life this global institutional order enables us to have.

I’m not talking about substantially lowering our own standards. It would be enough if the richest seventh (yes, you most likely belong to it, even if you don’t feel like you did) “only” takes 80% of the global product instead of 81%.

It’s more or less habit that we debrief them this necessary one percent and we don’t think much about it, because as far as we are concerned, it was always like that.

You can say that there are two “groups” which harm the poor: The affluent countries with their privileged world order (including a WTO which treats them superior and gives them exemptions and privileges, the poor countries don’t get) and the elites in the poor countries, who finances their excessive lifestyle and their wars (inter alia) with the poor countries resources. International Arms trade (located in our countries of course), for example, sold in the years 1996-2003 weapons for 167 billion dollars to the developing world [If you haven't seen it already, I recommend the Movie Lord of War with Nicolas Cage to you].

There are endless examples of how the current institutional world order harms the poor while we profit from it. The above mentioned arms trade, the protectionism, the low wages and child labor in developing countries, the present global rules for incentivizing pharmaceutical research, the actual dispensation of development aid – only mentioning a few – they all help our economies and allows us to maintain our standard of living.

Let’s look deeper into one of those facts: At the moment, the inventors of new drugs get a 20-year monopoly, so even lifesaving drugs have high (monopoly) prizes the poor can’t afford, because other producers aren’t allowed to produce and sell them cheaply. Another consequence is, that the pharmaceutical concerns put their research to the place, where the money is. Pogge states, that “90 percent of the global disease burden receive only 10 percent of all medical research worldwide. Of the 1,393 new drugs approved between 1975 and 1999, only 13 were specifically indicated for tropical diseases, and 5 out of these 13 actually emerged from veterinary research” (Pogge, Thomas (2005), in: Ethics & International Affairs. 19 (1) 2005, 77) . His reform proposal, called the Health Impact Fund, would reward research according to its impact on the global disease burden. You can read more about it on their homepage: http://www.healthimpactfund.org/ a short summary can be found here: http://www.yale.edu/macmillan/igh/files/HIFshort.pdf.

There are incredible amounts of unnecessary and avoidable suffering and agony in our world, so, what to do?

Alas, I‘m not idealist enough to say that we live in democratic countries and politicians do what we ask them for. But if enough of us stresses these issues and put them on the political agenda, we may achieve something. I can’t promise that our efforts have any effects, but we should nevertheless do something.

In 1789 11,000 people from Manchester signed a petition against slavery. Their own poverty, powerlessness and the low odds of success didn’t stop them. They would’ve had more excuses than we have, but they didn’t want to be counted out. They knew and thus had to make an attempt for a better world to live in.

Pogge says: “I am not writing against you, to make you feel guilty or to present you with an itemized bill for wrongful damages done. I am writing for you, to suggest that we can lead much better, happier lives in a much better country if we are willing to do without that bit of extra affluence now purchased for us with rivers of blood, sweat, and tears of the global poor” (ibid.).

So I’m concluding this essay (which got longer than intended, sorry for that) with a quote from the late cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

]]> http://xiagan.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/our-responsibility/feed/ 0 xiagan Thomas Pogge: World Poverty and Human rights http://xiagan.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/religion-of-peace/ http://xiagan.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/religion-of-peace/#comments Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:07:39 +0000 xiagan http://xiagan.wordpress.com/?p=7 ]]> Inspired by the “No God – No peace/Know God – Know Peace” trending topics on twitter I do want to know how any half educated human being can think that these equations are working. History tells us pretty much on every page in its book a completely different story.

I don’t want to say that people who consider religion important are dumb (even if there is some data which tells us exactly that):

Religion and IQ are strongly negatively correlated (-.886). See: http://w-uh.com/posts/031226a-religion_vs_IQ.html

Some of my best friends are people of faith and I wouldn’t consider them unintelligent. It just seems as if religion is successfully blocking some ideas. Maybe religion has to be narrow minded up to a special point to work properly – who knows?

One of those ideas is, to return to the beginning of my statement, the one about it being quite possible to lead an ethical and moral life without believing in a greater being and its holy words.

I mean, come on! You can’t refrain from murder, rape and stealing if there is no almighty entity which will torture you for eternity if you do it? How pitiful and wretched is that? Doesn’t sounds like I want to have you as my neighbor. Especially if, as in most holy books, the commandments are only valid inside the own fold (see the Old Testament for example. So much bloodshed…).

We all got raised and educated inside a society where we learned quite early that some things are not okay. Of course you may say that our western society is largely affected by Christian ethics and our values are easily retractable to the ten commandments but since most people all over the world have similar norms and rules (yeah, sure, some are allowed to marry more than one partner at the same time, others have to steal a cattle to become a man, but the bigger stuff, like don’t kill one of us, don’t steal from your neighbor, don’t lie to your family, etc is nearly everywhere valid) I think it is more plausible to say that religion adapted working systems (no society is working if everybody is allowed to take what he wants – in fact that’d be the natural state of Hobbes and Locke where the strongest prevails). Humans are social beings and to survive we need a set of rules.

Yes, there are murderers, rapists, thieves, robbers, frauds, etc out there but not even an advocate of religion would have the heart to say that all the black sheep are solely atheists (if that’d be the case there would be no sense in confessing sins, since you either don’t believe in them or don’t do them).

It would be an interesting study to investigate if stuff like believing in the original sin and the possibility to confess sins makes people more prone to committing sins/doing crimes, because they believe in being tainted from the start and have a possibility to get away with clean hands nevertheless (maybe not in this life, if they get caught by the wrong people, e.g. secular authorities or the ones they harmed, but certainly in the next). Protestants may not be able to confess sins like the catholic, but as far as I know they can confide in Jesus who already died for their sins. Works like a Get out of jail free card in Monopoly.

I’m quite sure that a lot of wars, conflicts and persecutions originated from different belief systems clashing (or a belief system clashing with an unbelief system [2, 3]). Just think on the Christian Crusades against the Muslims, the (Spanish) Inquisition, the burning of witches, the persecution of the Huguenots by the Catholics, the persecution of Jews every now and then (and last in the Third Reich), the treatment of the Armenians by Muslims, leading in a genocide, 9/11 if it wasn’t an inside job …

The sad story of people hating and killing each other (for not believing in their god[s]) goes on and on and surprisingly Norway, a country with an atheist rate of over 70%, is not taking part.

I don’t want everybody to stop believing in higher entities (okay, to be honest, that’s a lie), but I do want everybody to think a bit for themselves and to not accept and do everything a rhetorical experienced fanatic (or the religious brainwash they got as children) told them to. Because we should know and fear whereto that leads.

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1   See http://w-uh.com/posts/031226a-religion_vs_IQ.html

2   Check out the sad but funny hate mail here: http://www.venganza.org/category/hate-mail

3   More hate concerning the No God trending topic on twitter: http://attemptsatrationalbehavior.blogspot.com/2009/10/no-god-inspires-some-good-christian.html

Here a small image gallery underlining my statements:

More to follow soon, stay tuned!