May 7th, 2009
Believable or trustworthy
Information is not all believable or trustworthy. Some has been verified and some hasn’t. There is information that is in the midst of the verification process, information that is correct, and information that has been proven incorrect. There is information that we can all agree on. Then there is information that only applies to a few groups. For example, a few years back I took a trip to Katmandu in Nepal and saw fattened cows walking the streets freely and people stepping out of their way. This is a country with an infant mortality rate higher than fifty percent. There were babies starving to death and crippled beggars on the streets with their limbs purposely mutilated to attract pity, yet the cows couldn’t be touched because they were considered sacred by the particular sect of Buddhism that populated the land. As I observed this scene, I realized anew how much control a set of information called “religion” exercises over human behavior.
In the Christian Bible Prof Lee writes, the serpent is an embodiment of evil for having seduced Eve into eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Therefore, in the West, the snake is considered evil and is subjected to stoning, spearing, and all other sorts of lethal abuse. In the East, on the other hand, the snake is reputed to be good for sexual stamina. A captured snake is eviscerated and its innards taken out and preserved to be sold on the market at outrageous prices.