Thinking Unenslaved

Yes, “unenslaved” is a metaphor.

I have no delusions, illusions, or conclusions that the type of “slavery” I refer to when using this metaphor in any remote way correlates to the various forms of tribal, racial, and societal forms of slavery which have been committed upon people throughout humanity’s inglorious history. By using the word “unenslaved”, my intention is not to demean anyone who is, or has ever been, subjected to the crime we commonly refer to as slavery.

That having been said, I want to apologize for the dearth of posts over the past nine days. for what it’s worth, I was in the hospital with pneumonia from June 11-15, and sick for several days before that. It was the first time—ever—that I have been brought so low, and that’s including being quite sickly as a toddler, shot in combat in Panama, and having sustained back injuries during Desert Storm, along with the relatively typical respiratory issues from the same. At 42 years of age, I’m still young enough to be grossly opposed to feeling helpless. It was not a fun week, and I’m still not at 100% yet.

Now, why my guest bloggers didn’t do anything, I can’t tell you. Lazy bums they are, off with their own domains and such! Bums, I tell you! BUMS!

Anyway, let me take a moment hear to explain what this site is REALLY about.

When I started unenslaved.com, the thoughts in my head revolved around many subjects, ranging from a simple celebration of not being bound by traditionalism, religion, and other forms of social oppression through to wanting to be a resource for people who are in the process of freeing themselves from the various forms of institutionalized social repression (which includes some forms of education, religion and sociological circumstances). Ultimately, I think I’ve settled on the former, with a willingness to help those who want it, in terms of the latter. As well, if something I manage to bust out happens to pique someone’s interest to the point that they begin to at least toy with changing the way they think, then I would be a happy man indeed. This is also why I’ve invited others to post here: more opportunities to get more neurons firing, after all.

You should be aware that I, and my guest-bloggers (at least I believe I can safely speak for them on this level), are all smart-asses, but we are are passionate about the things we have come to know as true. For myself, as a “de-convert” of original Christian upbringing, I often have a difficult time not belittling those whose thinking is woefully clouded by delusion, because my de-conversion was a function of my personal maturation process. While I have every intention of continuing my patented smartassery, I also intend to improve upon not talking like a smarmy asshat, or even internally believing that I’m “better” than someone else who lives under the veil of delusion. I doubt I’ll be perfect at it, but I’ll honestly try.

Anything else, after all, would be me imposing a particularly insidious form of mental slavery on myself: a belief that I am “better” simply because I corrected an error. Such things don’t truly make anyone better, they just make one less gullible. Just as many bad things can happen by virtue of one’s transfixed skepticism as by virtue of one’s gullibility, after all.

So here’s the challenge: I hope that those of us that blog here will continually challenge ourselves and each other to be true to the premise above: We are not inherently better than anyone else. Now, we might be better at some things than certain other people: things like critical thinking, analysis, etc. But we’re not inherently better, or more superior at least I don’t believe we necessarily are. Let us educate without belittlement, and let us communicate without condescension. I realize this is no easy task. The easy stuff isn’t really worth doing, though.

The challenge for those who come here to read these things is to at the very least attempt to be non-judgmental. You are neither expected to nor desired to agree with everything we put out to be read. You are certainly not expected to think like we do, believe what we believe, or frankly to be as self-reliant as we are.

Some are going to read that as a sidelong put-down, but that’s not the intent of that statement. Most people who believe in a deity are actually not quite as self-reliant as they tend to envision themselves. This is precisely where communications tend to get bogged down. The only thing I ask is that we make honest attempts to communicate as opposed to simply vociferating, pontificating, and jumping feet-first into the ad-hominem grab-bag of oneupmanship.

Thanks for your time.

so….

in my previous post, i lamented the fact that my blog participation was sporadic at best. naturally, part of me wants to improve up on that factor. the other part(s) of me are completely aware of the fact that:

• i have a pretty intense job (typically 55-65 hours per week)
• i have two time-intensive extra-curricular activities (martial arts student/instructor, soccer referee)
• i’m a homeowner, spouse, and parent of two wonderful young free-thinkers
• while not addicted to Twitter, it very much fits into my modus operandi

in other words, at least from this broadcasting station, don’t expect “unenslaved” to mean “irresponsible” or “ignorant of the inherent impact of one’s actions on his peers and the world around him.”

so, my posting will be a bit infrequent here as well, but since this is focused on more fundamental personal impetuses, it should be a bit more regular. i have invited a couple of others to post here from time to time to help keep things moving.

to answer a question that hasn’t been directly asked yet: yes, i am walking away from the otherwhirled. the domain name (otherwhirled.com) is cute and all that, but it’s not really me, if that makes any sense. and doing what i’m doing here just wouldn’t be that effective. if anyone wants the domain, i’ll make it cheap. i’ll even be happy to continue to host it. it comes up for renewal on 08/27/2009, along with otherwhirled.net.

fair notice: i am an atheist. on Dawkin’s scale, i am willing to assert that i am functionally a “6″, but intellectually a “7″. i listen to reason, but for the past twenty-odd years, i’ve not heard any theocratic arguments that are actually based in sound reasoning. as an atheist, though, i live in a conservative, religious community in which i participate actively. i live in a world circumscribed by theocratic thinking, and i do so without even thinking of heinous acts to commit against the inherent stupidity. resultingly, much of what i’ll be writing about will concern the need to think, feel, reason, and converse unenslaved by these social interdependencies while living a life that is inherently circumscribed by them.

changing ourselves, and changing our communities and environment will be a life-long process for those of us who are reading this today, the day this entry was written. this kind of change is not a short-term effect. it is really a series of processes that will need to be continually reavaluated, reassessed, audited, and adjusted. what i’m doing here today is not the beginning of that process. i’m just very tired of not doing more myself to help it along.

so let’s hope that i can do so.

there will be an inherent element of “preaching to the choir” in what i (and hopefully “we”) do here. there’s nothing wrong with that at all. conversing on our actions, sharing ideas and experiences, promoting critical thinking….these are all worthy actions to undertake. but of course, that’s not all of it. i honestly hope for the participation and feedback from theists who are genuinely concerned about the future of humanity, and who are willing to question not only their beliefs, but the directions those beliefs carry them, and the impact those beliefs have on their worldviews.

there is actually much more for these types of people to consider, than there is for those of us who are unburdened by theistic oppression, after all.