I have never really been able to understand the concept of heaven and hell. If heaven granted all my wishes would a person who wishes the complete opposite of what I want, be living in a different heaven? If lying was a reason to go to hell would my friends who tell me I’m handsome go to hell? If I somehow wound up in heaven would all the honest people tell me, I’m ugly when I meet them? Who are the keepers of the gate to heaven that have to process 8, 000 humans alone each hour? Who is supposed to count and assess our sins and good deeds? Would we be able to learn how bureaucracy in heaven is so efficient?
Modern followers of religion would accuse me of not understanding metaphors and state that heaven is just a peaceful land with abundance of resources or an advance civilization of aliens living beyond in the cosmos. Yet instead of creating this heaven here on earth many acolytes of faith are hell bound not only to seek it after death but to force others to follow them to their grave, in their search.
No matter what religion we follow (or not) we all believe in salvation in our own “twisted” ways. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote on her publication “A Vindication of the Rights of Men” that:
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If you really think about it, a thief might be having the good intention of feeding his family or himself, a drug or alcoholic addict just trying to escape the cruel reality and a murderer trying to defend his beliefs or express his scared childhood, a monk preaching superiority of a race in the intention of boosting ego of people, who would otherwise feel useless and unwanted, too has good intentions.
It makes us wonder if we could all really be having good (righteous) intentions. My righteous intentions of this article is not to be a judge or jury, but to discuss how good intentions (seeking heaven) might end up in not so good outcomes.
Lernaean Hydra is a mythical serpentine creature that believed to have lived in a lake and had multiple heads that could not be killed by ordinary swords, according to Greek mythology. In modern day version of the story, whenever you cut one of its heads it regenerates two heads, making this beast impossible to kill. So instead of using a simple sword, Hercules finally had to use a sword made of flame to defeat it.
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Of course, in reality, we do not have a Hydra nor do we have gods to grant us swords made by flame. But when battling modern forms of Hydra (drug epidemics, depression, suicide, poaching, extremism and terrorism) we do face similar problems and require weapons (solutions) that we do not currently possess.
Let me take for example animal poaching. In Africa rhinos have been poached for ages due to the value of their horns. It is illegal to poach them and in most countries you could get severe punishment for even dealing in rhino horns, even if you have not killed it. In Africa both wild life officials and animal activist keep hunting for poaches, there are new initiatives that have placed cameras in the jungle, drone surveillance and some countries even have tried adding toxins in to living rhinos to make people who kill and consume the horns to fall sick.
Even after all these efforts, poaches still manage to kill rhinos and steal their horns sell and profit and do it all over again. Recently a startup company Rhinoceros Horn LLC has started to manufacture rhino horns, using 3D printers and selling them. Market research conducted in Vietnam has shown that 50% people who buy rhino horns would prefer to buy this blood free version. It would reduce the price of rhino horns significantly making poaching no longer profitable to risk life and limb for.
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So the flaming sword we need to defeat our hydras might even be a simpler and economically viable solution than an ordinary sword.
In Egyptian mythology, Bastet is the goddess of war, protection, motherhood and fertility. Thanks to her, cats of ancient Egypt were treated like the modern day cows in India (that is if you Ignore the fact that India is the largest beef exporter in the world). Cats were gods preferred creatures, worshiped by millions of people, given a special place in society and even mummified along with the pharos. Punishment for harming cats was severe, one could get death penalty for killing a cat.
Today we share much more modest attitude towards our feline friends. We still love them, give them the coziest places to sleep, have lovely snacks made just for them, give them full body massages when they demand it, but we do have animal control programs and if you were for some reason harm a cat, you might not really find yourself facing the wrath of Bastet (Then again who am I to say, she doesn’t exist).
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Recent social movements (with good intent) have made animal control a little problematic. Pet cats sometimes run away or get lost and become feral. Normally (in most parts of the world) cats have been bred to live with us, eating food that we provide. However, when they start living in the wild, either they would not become part of the ecosystem nor would they be controlled naturally by being hunted as prey.
Somewhere down the line, due to a mix of animal rights and poor funding, we have millions of feral cats hunting and killing other wildlife. Unlike with humans, you can’t teach cats not to kill nor do we have resources to build a cat police and cat judicial system and even if we do, can we afford to cage them all? Cats have in the recent years been responsible for the extinction of 33 species of animals. I wonder what Bastet would do with such a conundrum being goddess of fertility and motherhood. Maybe it is her good intention, making a cat heaven on earth by killing off all other animals.
Century (a period of time where people believed poor women who did not abide by norms of society were witches). In a small town, called Salem, there lived two women who suffered from epilepsy. Cotton Mather, a well-educated and a very revered man arrived in Salem to investigate. He was convinced that these women were witches, sent to create hell on earth. He, with the help of few others, tortured a woman for 10 days, until she confessed that she was a witch indeed. She further confessed there were many more amongst them in Salem. Now with proof to back up his claim and other poor women showing signs of seizures (Later found out to be due to a fungus) the town started to burn the “witches” to save our world from hell. A total of 20 women burned in just one year.
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Recent years the Philippines had a rising concern on rapid spread of HIV due to Drug use. So in 2016 the president in Philippines Rodrigo Duterte started a war on drugs that killed more than 12, 000 suspected drug users and dealers. It didn’t take much time for many of my trigger happy acquaintance to praise his actions, his braveness in taking action to stop this demonic plague.
Classical inaccurate education and art (movies) on drugs have left many people believing in a drug user stereotype “A poor, useless, selfish, manic person who is ready to steal, rape and murder to get his next high” and a Drug dealer stereotype “rich, deviant, sneaky person who is in a gang, responsible for half of the crime in the world”. In other words, it lead us to treat them as people who are nothing like us “normal” humans.
As violence progressed journalists, human right activists, family members of drug users and political enemies were also killed “with the intention of stopping drugs”. Now my law abiding friends would argue that any war has collateral damage, so, as long as it is not them dying, there is nothing one needs to do.
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The biggest problem I see in this solution of fighting drugs is there is no evaluation. There is no evidence that this has stopped drug use. It has not stopped the spread of HIV which is mostly due to contaminated needles used by poor drug addicts. So now more than 20, 000 people might have died simply for “good intentions” of some delusional people. Is there a difference between the witch hunt of 17
In 2001, Portugal was facing the same problem. Instead of killing the people who were suffering from drug abuse, authorities took a bold step of decriminalizing drugs. They initiated a needle exchange program, where addicts could receive free/cheap needles and condoms. They opened rehabilitation centers for those who needed help. They opened support centers where drug users could find jobs and be a part of the community. Fines for Drug possession (large quantities) among people who were poor was reduced, while for the
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