I would like to re-post something I today posted in my "Does God Exist" thread.
I woke up this morning and it was an epiphany regarding DNA memory such that I think is apropos to this discussion.
I wrote in Does God Exist:
It is most likely that some "scientific barbarity" (evil atheists) stems from some form of religious barbarity. Hitler's science comes to mind. Yet today Germany is nearly all solar powered (scientifically adept) but still struggles with "skinhead racism".
Humans evolved from barbarity, to religious barbarity and then to science.
Some humans still maintain the memories of these past barbarities while some were, even in the earlier of barbarities, able to escape the norm and rise above it towards a more civilized existence.
We see ancient cultures who were warlike, cannibals and highly superstitious, while at the same times other cultures were more peaceful less superstitious and industrious. These characteristics are carried on though generational DNA memory to the present day...
This is not to say one culture is bad and other's are better but to say even within cultures some "individuals" are favored and avoid barbarity while some do not.
This is why an atheist can be barbaric, not because of atheism but because of past barbarity retained from religion or even earlier that is a kick back through DNA memory.
My new comment for this thread:
Why are so many American's running around with guns shooting themselves and each other?
Science recently has found that mice retain the "DNA memories" going back at least four generations.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fearful-memories-passed-down (I couldn't get this link to load but I think it is the article I read a few days ago.)
Well if this carries over to humans, what were American's (both black and white) doing four generations ago? Well Indians (indigenous people to America and European colonists) and the white man were shooting each other to death with guns.
In this conflict we had gun manufacturers to make the guns and doctors to mend the wounds while states people tried to make sense of the entire mess with words like "reason and justice"...
These conflicts still rage from the past DNA of people. Just as millennia before society was divided up by shaman and apostle, rabbi and follower, teacher students, hunter and family.
All with the law of survival itself weeding out the weak.
So let's move a head some to the Civil War (though not very civilized).
Some humans had DNA memory that racism was right. They were unable to get past the tribal thing due also to past memories of warlike prejudice. The offspring of slave traders became slave owners.
Something in their DNA made them feel this bigotry was right while for its victims (Black people), distrust was typically reinforced in their DNA.
So generations ago we have gun makers and their skill-sets... The great grand children of gun manufacturers are still promoting their guns today while babbling on about "the second amendment". They are forceably persuaded by their past DNA and not the actual efficacy and moral fortitude of equality laws.
Why are Americans obese? A generation ago we had a great depression where our grandparents existed on less than what is required for daily sustenance. This did not produce a more frugal people but a people paranoid about running out of food and over eating to extinguish this fear.
The Civil War did not produce a less paranoid peaceful society but a society more in fear of not being armed enough.
So how did I become so anti gun? I recently found that my great great grandfather (my mother's great grandfather on her father's side) was a civil war physician from New York State. As cavalry he traversed the battlefield tending to the wounded. I avoided this gun rage because he set a generational example for me.
My great grandfather, John R. Charlesworth (my mother's grandfather on her father's side), was the editor for the Kentucky Blue Grass Blade.
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86069867/
He became the second editor about half way thought the paper's history.
This newspaper was one of the first liberal news papers in the country that had a nationwide reader base. He was self admittedly not a communist but some had their suspicions. My great grandfather John R. was also one of the key founders of "The Rationalist Society of America".
http://rs-a.org/ (I think this is them) He traveled around the country giving lectures and reading essays about how many things in the Bible did not meet the rationalist's litmus test.
His wife Isis Blanch Martin was the first librarian at the Wichita Kansas library. Isis was written up in the local paper as the first woman to ride through an American town to work on her bicycle dressed in her bloomers and not a dress! She also inspired woman in the feminist movement to eventually start wearing pants and is especially revered by some for that reason.... Hillary Clinton and her pant suits come to mind. This is probably why I strongly and outspokenly champion woman's rights.
Isis could not drink her morning coffee without the news paper, and at the local paper they were made well aware of this fact by Isis herself.
Though John was scorned at the time by the religious elite and by some he was probably labeled a heretic, his ideas about religion are now mainstream to most Americans (especially the left wing of our political system). He was also a federal judge.
Then there are the various musicians in my family which is also my own lot in life.
There are my devout catholic grandmother and grandfather on my mom's side who were from Slovakia. My mom's mother's Slovakian father was a cigar salesman This explains my infatuation with cigars... I sensibly don't smoke them due to health reasons but I REALLY wish I could.
My great grandfather on my father's side was a school teacher in Norway.
My father and mother's father were both sea captains in the merchant marines.
Before my mother's father was in the merchant marines he was in the US Navy where his vessel in a supply convoy to England was shot down and sunk by a German U-boat. He was stranded in water in the Atlantic ocean where he was picked up by an Irish fishing boat. Later he was dropped off on the shores of Dunkirk.
My song: "Dreams of Water"
http://www.reverbnation.com/rexredmusicartist/song/16067140-dreams-of-water
My father came over on Ellis Island at age 17 from Norway around 1920 he sailed in the merchant marines from that time until he retired at 63.
This is probably why I write songs about water and have deep rooted concerns about oceanic conservation.
My mother a was a home body house wife and mother of 7 children and volunteer ambulance attendant and volunteered for every social club and event she could.
My mother was a worthy matron in the Easter Star and my father a Shriner. My father was once a Lutheran but lost interest and my mother a soloist in the local Congregational church choir. She was an active member of the Ladies Aid and she also volunteered for the 4H and local County Extension, Cub Scout den mother, organizer of Fourth of July parades. etc... My mother took Hammond organ playing lesson while I was in her womb. This is probably why I use Hammond organs in nearly all of my songs...
We embody these memories though unconsciously they are with us.
I don't really see any guns my family history other than, my father owned a 12 gauge shotgun and I remember sneaking in with my brother and playing with it.
My father used the gun for hunting and he took me out with him a few times and I totally loathed the experience. This perhaps was a great wedge between my father's past and my own although I had great respect for the man.
There is a saying that "the best way to judge the future is by the past.".
It seems this is not more evident than today where we seek Americans struggling to overcome centuries of war and violence towards others and doing poorly at it.
Every day there is the threat of more war and the fear that future generations will be hell bent on proving they are civilized by the use of violence to rationalize their existence...
