On April 22nd, Earth Day, many individuals across the world marched in support of science and technology. While their efforts did not go unnoticed they will sadly not have much of an effect on the general public who do not already understand the importance of science and technology. Most of those individuals who do not trust science will not be persuaded by a few thousand individuals marching through the capital. The reason being is that most of these individuals are from a religious faith that has groomed them since childhood to shut their ears and eyes when anyone even mentions an idea that does not relate or bolster to their individual faith. In short millions of Americans and many others across the world including the middle east have been effectively brainwashed into believing a simple world view that has been around almost two thousand years, excluding of course the Mormons and Scientologist who have only arisen in the past two hundred years. This world view was created by people many years ago that could easily be described as barbarians during their time. Those who lived to rape, pillage, and conquer the world in the name of their world belief. Ancient tribal leadership and law governed these groups of people during that time which would breed a multitude of faiths ranging from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and more.

Despite the effort of those secular individuals who know what the future holds for us with science as our guide, many are focused on moving backward and away from progressive values and ideologies that will dramatically change the world for the better. To be frank, most of these non-secular individuals are afraid. They have known only one thing since birth, that has been reinforced by every other member in either their family, church or community, and that is to befriend and love unconditionally a magical man in the sky that has never been seen by anyone in that said community. Also to praise the deity despite not being able to prove its existence scientifically let alone physically. Obviously, the Scientologist do no quite fall under this category as they believe in aliens but the fact is that they have not been proven to exist either, but the premise is more or less the same. An individual convinces himself that their god or goddess or alien is a higher power in the universe than any one individual despite the lack of physical proof and create a community that shuns and punishes those who question the reality of such of a divine entity. This allows the community to grow and the chance that any non-believers would form inside the group. A great yet depressing example of this tribal world view is the recent murder of a Pakistani student named Mashal Khan who was killed by a group of students at his university for sharing views that go against the teachings of Islam. Beaten and hanged, he died because students around him had been force fed and ideology that says to kill or maim those who simply do not agree that their god exists. Unbelievable that in the modern day, where we have rockets, lasers, pocket phones, and satellites in space that people could be killing each other over a god that no one else can prove physically exists. If this had been a secular community this young man would still be alive today and allowed to have the basic human right of freedom of speech to share new ideas. Sadly because of the community they have created in Pakistan and across the middle east all they have is a body to bury.

This piece is in memory of Mashal Khan