Bad Ideas
Ideas are the basis for action. Good ideas produce good actions, results. Similarly, bad ideas often generate horrendous outcomes. Some, not all, of history’s bad ideas are:
Might makes Right, Tribalism, Imperialism, Feudalism, Divine Right of Kings, Theocracy, The Inquisition, Dictators, Nationalism, Colonialism, Emperor Worship, Communism, Hitler’s Third Reich, Mobocracy (sham democracies such as Zimbabwe, Egypt, Iran, Venezuela, etc.).
The world in the past has hoped that with the overthrow over time of each these bad ideas along with their oppressive leaders and destructive regimes, that surely peace and good will among all men and nations would follow. After the fall of the Soviet Communism in the early 1990’s, optimism was widespread believing that now democracy could finally have its way for all the world’s people. Whoops!
The ink was barely dry when militant Islamic Jihadism destroyed this hope. The world is back at it again, fighting to survive another nightmare brought on by some very ugly thinking. The current plague is that the world should be ruled by Islam’s god and by his laws known as sharia. Any one opposed to this belief is considered an infidel and needs to be eliminated. Islamic Jihadism with sharia, indeed is another very bad idea in the never-ending stream of bad ideas.
As one examines these bad ideas – all of which have had long runs in history – one central theme is very apparent: it is the ongoing desire of one man or an elite set of people to rule over others with coercion as the enforcement method used. If a person or a people do not cooperate or submit to these reigns of authority, they are dispensed to the wall, to the gallows, to the gulag, to oblivion. Is this not the historical pattern of human existence?
The question arises then, is when – if ever- will mankind overcome its predisposition to allow such a flow of bad ideas to dominate the lives of its many billions of inhabitants. Is it possible to imagine a world that has been finally liberated from the perpetual conflicts that have plagued our existence from the very beginning? What needs to happen for this utopian idea to become a reality? What is the underlying problem that seemingly has no answer? Perhaps Rodney King had the right question, when he asked, “Why can’t we all get along?”
Before a problem can be properly dealt with, there must be a recognition that a problem exists – an admittance that something drastically wrong, causing untold and unnecessary pain to one’s self and others. There is overwhelming evidence that the very nature of man is the core problem, that he is the cause of his own woes. What is this fragment in man’s basic nature that brings havoc and unrelenting despair century after century?
In view of the critical need to finally, once and for all, to give the world the answers it has desperately needed for its own very survival, the many leaders of the religious and secular factions of the world has given this task to The Smedley Philosophy and Theology Think Tank (SPATTT!) Many of the most prominent and influential leaders and their institutions that have turned to SPATTT for the ultimate answers are: The Papacy (No Fish on Friday Synod), The Real Southern No Dancing Baptists, Atheistic Humans of the World, (AH’s), Mufti Ali Baba of the No Sunni Shines, Mufti Ali Bubba of the South Shites, The Wiccan Reformed Assembly, Backsliders United, World Council of Unbelieving Churches, Greek Orthodox, Greek Unorthodox, Confucians, the UnConfusians, Hindus Sacred Cowites, Maharishis Under the Sheets and hundreds more, the only exception being the High Church of England where Raul Smedley was once a Sunday School teacher.
Raul Smedley, the founder of the Think Tank bearing his name, after several months of giving this all a lot of thought, reading every text both sacred and secular, while inhaling a mixture of peyote and pot, issued the final conclusion of the matter: “Man is a selfish S.O.B. who refuses to change and that it would take an Act of God to fix things!”