Bats in the Belfry

More and more I realize just how fragile--and unreliable--is human reason, my own included.

Is anything true?

I know that I have two trees in the yard--one a maple, the other a Japanese crab.  But what good is knowing THAT?

I don't know how to fix the economy, how to bring peace to Afghanistan, how to stop global warming.

Did Paul ignore the historical Jesus and fabricate Christianity out of his own mystery-cult-obsessed imagination?

Did Allah speak to Mohammed and through him dictate the Koran?

Should adulterers be stoned?  If a woman tries to defend her husband by poking another man in the balls, should she have her hand cut off (Deuteronomy 25)?

Would lowering taxes make big corporations employ more people?

Is affordable health care a "right" for everyone or merely a privilege for those who are more important in society?

Freedom.  Freedom.  Freedom.

I don't know what "freedom" means.  I worry that it has become a loaded word, full of emotion but detached from any definite referent in the real world.

Or, isn't it possible that freedom means simply being "disconnected"?

Do you want to go to war all around the world in order to disconnect everybody from everything?

My head spins.  I suppose I should turn off the television:  in the silence of my room, I would have to confront only my OWN idiocy--not the lunatic ravings of millions of others.

"No mosque at Ground Zero because Muslims don't believe that Jesus is Lord."  "God kills American soldiers because America tolerates fags." "Save America from Mexicans:  repeal the 14th Amendment."

Bats in the belfry.  Bats are blind, like my ideas.  They go bump in the dark.  My life is a tale told by an idiot. And then?...