Archive for the 'Religion' Category

Atheists Of The World Unite

Published on March 22, 2007 in ..The Dude, Religion and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

Statistically speaking there are allot of non-believers out there. People who just can not surrender their minds to irrationality. People who want to believe in something because it’s true. Not because it makes them feel good. And yet to not believe, to suggest it in mixed company, is one of the few taboos left. So we walk in silence amongst believers afraid to voice our opinion. Or we walk amongst each other without knowing it because it’s a truth that dare not speak its name.

But there are more of us than come out about it and it’s time we organized and started speaking up.

It’s really crazy how you can challenge people about their political beliefs and affiliations, their stands on economics or abortion, or their favorite Baseball team, but to criticize their religion is considered in poor taste. It’s the one thing we’re still supposed to show the utmost respect for. But why? Why should it be sacrosanct?

When you look at it we live in a world where the figments of peoples imaginations are accorded more respect than not only facts, but more than real people. If you decide the idea of an intelligent corn stalk that is sown and reaped in everlasting cycles with each new kernel representing a new soul is an organizing principle in your life, is indeed the driving motivation and inspiration in your life it then becomes socially unacceptable for me to criticize that aspect of your life. If you decide you want to remove your mother from life support it’s ok for me to open this up for debate. In other words the unspoken rationalizations existing purely in the mind are considered more important and unassailable than real life or death.

The religious can go after anything about the rest of us on national t.v. but if someone were to challenge their religious belief which is often at the core of many of their opinions there would be fucking hell to pay. Can you imagine a politician campaigning who is an admitted atheist or agnostic? Polling indicates that the amount of people who would vote for a qualified woman or black person to have grown up to over 90% in recent years. Even homosexuals who are considered qualified poll at roughly 60% or more which is up considerably from years ago. Those that would vote for a qualified atheist are less than 50% and have had the least growth.

There is not one politician who had admitted to not believing though statistically speaking some of them must be. But they know it’s the one thing they can’t speak of. Even gay politicians have come out. But if you think the religious are full of shit that is a closet you have to keep nailed shut or you’re done. This is even worse than in the days of our founding fathers. They were a mix of deists and atheists. And deists were basically the atheists of today. And even in their cases, personal writings and correspondences reveal that Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Madison and many other key figures were much closer to being atheists and had a complete and utter disdain for Christianity and its myths and tenets.

But now we have not only the right-wing and their cynical use of religion that depends on the inherent gullibility of its believers but we even have a Jewish Democrat in Senator Joseph Lieberman saying we shouldn’t deceive ourselves into thinking that our constitutional “freedom of religion” means “freedom from religion,” or “indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion,”

Bush Sr, the apparently semi lucid and sane member of the family is reported to have said atheists shouldn’t be considered citizens or patriots because we are one nation under god.

We see all these revelatory e mails these guys write and manage to let sit around and become exculpatory evidence but I dare say not one of these guys would take the chance of admitting to not believing in some version of the American god. It’s too dangerous. Too volatile. And apparently too threatening to people.

Why is it considered fair game to criticize or even make fun of someone’s choices in any area but this one? Even good natured ribbing is mostly off limits. When do you see a stand up comedian take on religious beliefs? This is a topic which has cloaked itself in layers and layers of smoke and mystery for so long, has self applied so much ponderous self importance and hysterical emotion, has won the loyalties of so many practical powers who find motivation to play along, that privacy has become sanctity and fear of being exposed has hidden behind self righteous indignation. This has all combined to give themselves an off limits status.

It reminds me of an abusive family who hordes its secrets and develops rules against sharing with strangers and patterns of behavior that do not and can not ever allow for honest discussion and introspection.

And for those that say this is only what some do with religion and not religions fault I can make the same equation. It’s like saying the abused child who was himself abused should not lay any of the blame on his own father. Or that alcohol has nothing to do with drunk driving.

And any excuses still do not deal with the inherent poverty of anything approaching proof or rational argument than can be offered in the name of whatever version of god people happen to find comfortable. In fact the ever changing and shape shifting the whole concept of god has taken on seems an exercise in psychological self manipulation and coping skills. When you look at the various versions of Jesus, even just the non deity ones it is very apparent you have a chameleon shape shifting to fit the biases of different times and people. Whether its philosopher Jesus, hippie Jesus, political radical Jesus, rebel Jesus, rocks tar Jesus, buff Jesus, shaman Jesus, etc etc, it’s pretty clear he’s a siphon for whatever people want to pour their mix of credulity and comfort into.

And yet even non Christians will defend their version with a religious fervor.

So goes the effects of religion on even those who think they are free from it and its brainwashing.

And even to that secular batch who glomm onto new agey versions of the Christian man-god, attacks on him, and the idea of contradicting some version of godliness sitting atop or within the universe is anathema. If you contradict most people of any persuasion you are liable to get one of two types of reaction. Either contempt or pity. The first is born of their own lack of security and feeling that you are somehow less than trustworthy. They look upon you as a moral leper with no social or ethical grounding as if their ilk have some history of greater conduct than those of us who refuse to submit to the grand illusion.

And when you receive pity it is in part a consequence of their feeling that you must be so sad and pathetic going through life without grounding. Or worse, headed for hell as a consequence.

Meanwhile there is a vast amount of evidence including actual studies that have shown religious people are no more moral or well behaved than atheists. They may actually report being a bit happier. But saying it and feeling it are two different things just as the amount of people who report they go to church has been discredited. And of course ignorance is bliss sometimes. And there again there are actually clinical studies and psychological evidence that happier people tend to be less realistic and more misguided in their judgments than skeptics.

You have to prove yourself in almost every other area of life but in an area that is essentially dealing with make believe, and area that is responsible for so much decision making and peoples actions, an area that may be the most important, there is no questioning on a personal level. We may not agree but we have to respect that one part of a persons life. The colossal arrogance of this astounds me. This free pass must end. Their beliefs are hoisted on us and effect our lives and yet to contradict them or target the never proven assertions these people cling so closely to is in poor taste?

Atheism is more humble despite the defensive rap of arrogance it and science get. Religion has been cloaking arrogance in humility for ages. But there is nothing humble about it except some of its less hypocritical adherents. There rest make the boldest assertions of all and can not be called on to prove themselves. Instead they must be proven wrong rather than having to prove themselves right. And while proving them wrong has mostly been done to any reasonable expectation as far as any idea of a conventional or intelligent creator god goes, it is of course impossible to prove a negative completely. We may as well call god the Logical Fallacy. This is a very convenient relationship to have with your delusion if part of you knows its not real and does not want to deal with that.

This is not to say some non believers can’t get hysterical too. Or that anyone wants to take away the supports of those that cling to meaning to make it through their lives. While I find this as sad as they must find those that have no supernatural faith to buoy them, I understand it. I sympathize and enact versions of that need myself in my more abstract and science fiction based forays into the search for a reasonable support for the idea of soul and spirit.

Heck i don’t want to die anymore than they do.

And arguing with these people is pointless.

And there are even some it does some good for. Not most but some. I find that sad as well but that’s the reality of this time and place. What I am concerned with are two things. One that that time and place in the future not be as limited. I feel it is in the best interest of humanity to get past all this. We’ve evolved more and more to a secular reality and in large part because of secular, humanistic enlightenment values. I want to see that continue. I don’t want to hurt anyone who needs to believe even if I could. But I’m sick and tired of the less decent among them hurting me and this world.

I don’t think there is any argument as to how much they have in the past and present.

The second thing is that those of us who are not on their wavelength, those who indeed feel theirs is a deluded wavelength, are not alone. And I’m tired of feeling like I am.

We’re supposed to tread lightly on believers beliefs but in some ways we are the ones who need a soft touch. What with being all up close and personal with our probable obsolescence. It’s not easy. And that’s why I call on more of us to commune and communicate. To stand up and be counted and to have someone to talk to who understands.

And there are many of us. Estimates are that we (atheists, agnostics, or that good old polling category,”other”) outnumber Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Unitarians put together. There are of course many organizations and websites out there that do some of this work. I’m just starting to find some of them. If any of you are out there and read this let me know of any you know of. Here’s a few:
godlessgeeks.com
fsgp.org which among things keeps track of discrimination against atheists which does really exist.
atheistalliance.org
secular.org

RichardDawkins.net

Of course there are tons of secular media, movies, television. scientists, websites etc out there who are winkingly non believers. But its not as much of their sole stated purpose as the above. And they are not as admittedly out there about themselves. Or they are the agnostic bordering on new agey types that I’d guess make up most of our entertainment and culture that doesn’t come from strict atheists. Ironic since most of the religious watch the movies and tv shows, listen to the voices, occasionally even vote for, and buy the products made with the technology of people who at the very least don’t take those religious consumers devoutest beliefs seriously.

So if you’re around NY and know where atheists and agnostics can find support and respite from the irrational drop me a line because though we are many not many will admit it even fully to themselves. And despite living in a mostly secular enlightened age, it ain’t easy for a pimp out here and even those without a personal god need somebody to talk to about what it’s going to be like in hell.

Monkey Morality

Published on March 20, 2007 in ..The Dude, Life, Religion and Science/Nature. 0 Comments

[image:238:l] In yet another strike against those who like to think humans are especially unique or answering some higher moral imperative due to our connection to god, we now have more evidence that primates also evolved the early makings of a moral system of checks and balances.

Quotes come from the NY Times:

This is not exactly a new idea. But more evidence is in and many of the groups who opposed the idea of sociobiological roots to our behavior and morality, such as moral philosophers and some psychologists who claimed this area as their own province along with religion, are admitting there is something to it.

While it’s always been apparent to anyone bothering to notice that monkey’s and apes exhibit some of our worst tendencies only writ less subtly, there are necessary conclusions to be drawn from the idea that they also possess the capacity of our best traits as well.

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Chimpanzees have drowned trying to save other chimps, rhesus monkeys have refrained from pulling a chain that will get them food after realizing that pulling it shocks another monkey. Instead they have chosen to starve. Chimps will share more food with those who have taken time to groom them or share with them. They show displeasure at being treated unfairly or disproportionately in comparison to other monkeys. They also have systems of punishment and reward. Apes have shown the ability to empathize and console.

As with our primate cousins more evidence points to all us primates developing a moral sense and reason from very real necessity rooted in our environment and need to survive. The developing reciprocity we share, though far more advanced for homo sapiens probably came out of a need for defense against other tribes or groups of not so cute chimps-early hominids and the study linked in this article indicates it came long before any religious ideas came about to justify them. [image:239:l]

Religion can be seen as another special ingredient of human societies, though one that emerged thousands of years after morality, in Dr. de Waal’s view. There are clear precursors of morality in nonhuman primates, but no precursors of religion. So it seems reasonable to assume that as humans evolved away from chimps, morality emerged first, followed by religion. “I look at religions as recent additions,” he said. “Their function may have to do with social life, and enforcement of rules and giving a narrative to them, which is what religions really do.”

As Dr. de Waal sees it, human morality may be severely limited by having evolved as a way of banding together against adversaries, with moral restraints being observed only toward the in group, not toward outsiders. “The profound irony is that our noblest achievement — morality — has evolutionary ties to our basest behavior — warfare,” he writes. “The sense of community required by the former was provided by the latter.”

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That last part gets back to what I mentioned about reciprocity and the ability to cooperate. We still see this in that capacity we have to only band together when we have a common enemy. Red staters hated New Yorkers until 9-11. Than they loved us when there was someone more threatening to band together to hate. Once that wears off they don’t like us again because were politically different tribes and vice versa. This and many other monkey traits still persist in us. This is why i have such a hard time doing some things I’ve always believed and sensed came out of a very primal place. Whether it’s not taking sides just because its geographically convenient or I’m dating the person I think is wrong, following the group, disliking someone who is a threat on a molecular-biological level, targeting the weak link at work as people often do just as they did at school, waving a flag, or many of the other examples we mostly don’t like to view in such an unglamorous light. I don’t know about you but I attain for a bit more than acting like a chimp. Cousins or not. Gorillas kill their offspring for sympathy or kill others babies to attract attention back to their baby. That’s something I expect to remember if I ever have a kid and am tempted to think mine is cuter than any others.

Think about that when you’re making decisions and I find it really casts things in an interesting way.

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Of course all of this is hard to reconcile with a god who gave us our moral sense as the religious like to believe. Or those who claim animals have no souls for that matter. One of both of these people are wrong and considering its often the same people we can chalk up another contradiction of the faithful.

Philosophers have been no less happy about the implications of this but they’re starting to get on board while still reserving room for a unique human consciousness the singularity of the human capacity to reason and do allot more with those moral building blocks all primates seemed to have evolved a long time ago.

But biologists like Dr. de Waal believe reason is generally brought to bear only after a moral decision has been reached. They argue that morality evolved at a time when people lived in small foraging societies and often had to make instant life-or-death decisions, with no time for conscious evaluation of moral choices. The reasoning came afterward as a post hoc justification. “Human behavior derives above all from fast, automated, emotional judgments, and only secondarily from slower conscious processes,” Dr. de Waal writes.

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He basically says that the emotional moral decision is made and formed a bit in the David Hume sense rather than the Kantian sense of reasoned morality, and then we make up religious justifications and rationalizations to feel good about it.

Yet another reason taking our own desires out the equation is a good idea and in my estimation an attribute of a more highly evolved way of thinking and behaving. It’s very easy to arrive at a philosophy or opinion that fits our lifestyle, economic level, sexual predilections, wants, fetishes, or past choices. Even monkeys can do that. Or at least share the rudiments for that tendency with our early hominid ancestors who speciatied off of them. It’s another to look at the greater good and judge things on the evidence. These are qualities that separate us a bit more substantially from other primates.

So the next time you’re feeling all moral remember that is not in itself enough to make you human. We should all remember we have to kick it up a notch lest our morality and good intentions be the stuff of hardwired necessity and convenience rather than something worthy of considering ourselves evolved or spiritual beings.

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And Lo Jesus Sayeth: He Returns!

Published on March 10, 2007 in ..The Dude and Religion. 1 Comment

[image:224:l] My conversations with Christ continue.

Praise unto us both.

To recap from my first posted conversation with the surprisingly talkative Jew:

Recently I found Jesus. You hear all about the brilliance of such a moment from the many whom I had previously derided as mindless zealots. And then it happened to me in crystal clear brilliance and I’m forever changed. I say I found him but in reality he found me. For so many this has involved a feeling or reaction to some momentous serendipity that for whatever reasons they had connected to Christ. But being someone who demands more Jesus reached out to me in the language I could understand just as I now see he reached out to all those others through their respective mediums of chance coincidence, cultural browbeating, or hitting rock bottom.

So Jesus found me and he did it empirically so I could be among the many to testify on his behalf. And he did it corporeally. That’s right! He appeared to me my brothers and sisters. And he spoke.

Jesus spoke to me!

Last year I relayed his thoughts in the first post of this title. Jesus promised me he would be back for more and I promised you I would convey whatever he says to the masses. As he wished. Here are some more of the things Christ has on his mind.

And Lo Jesus Sayeth Am not I so mucheth into the birthday thing anymore. All mustard seeds must mature and remember that age-ith is justeth a numbereth. So forget Christmas is what he’s basically saying. Pluseth, Am not I a Sagittarius. Born in April waseth I.

Jesus has been watching Star Wars allot recently.

Here’s more of what he had to say to me praise be him.

And Lo Jesus Sayeth that the whip cream of his latte grande mocca from Starbucks last Wednesday was in the form of the Virgin Mary. Said he-ith, It really looked nothing like her. That waseth the most remarkable thing.

And Lo Jesuth Sayeth that ideology bringeth forth ruin. He who is wedded to an idea is doomed to divorce himselfith from all reality. Whenith one stickith to a point in time and space they can but only exist in circles that bringith them back to that point.

Jesus added that we should stop fucking around in Iraq and that he called the whole thing 5 years ago.

I asked Jesus if Iraq was like a mustard seed. He said he got it, and that he would try to find more pertinent modern metaphors from now on. He added that Iraq was more like an iceberg. And America the Titanic.

And that Bush’s brain is like the Californian’s wireless the night the Titanic went down.

My mustard seed comment must have triggered something or touched on a sore spot because then jesus’ next proclamation was as follows:

And Lo Jeses Sayeth myest metaphors have beenith updateth for as time passes must we groweth. Much like a…uh, a tumor or something. Except goodith. A benign tumor.

He added he would work on it.

And Lo Jesuth Sayeth you can’t always getteth what you wanteth. But if you tryeth sometimes, you mightest find, yout getteth what you needeth.

He claims he said it first.

And Lo Jesus Sayeth that pissing upright is next to godliness and akin to the planting of an iceberg.

And Lo Jesus Sayeth he feeleth safer knowing Jack is back. Eveneth though his family is moreso screwed uppiteth than mine own.

And Lo Jesus Sayeth Babel is this years Crash. Botheth are liberal twaddle pretendingith to offer fresh insighteths. Jesus than spit at the floor. Looketh at my expectorant! Is it not lovely and full of insighteths? This is Crash and Babel’s audienceths.

In the folly of my own arrogance I tried arguing the relative merits of both films with Jesus. Having just seen Babel I brought up how though its observations about the small mis-communications being tied to larger ones, though not new, were legitimately enacted and with enough dramatic pull to create investiture on the viewers part. “Perhaps it’s a point worth re-characterizing no matter how banal it is,” said I.

Jesus then stopped talking to me for an hour and I got the point.

And Lo Jesuth Sayeth he called the connection between Strom Thurmond and Al Sharpton and that we should not be fooled by the apparent reversal of fortunes. Slavery still breatheth and he who seeith not the justice of reperations is a poopoo head.

And Lo Jesuth Sayeth brown M&M’s are liketh unto the voice of the devil. We donteth want it or them and yetteth there it is in every bag so plentiful we canotteth help partaketh.

Jesus blamed corporations for inundating us with both.

And Lo Jesus Sayeth Human-ith Growth Hormone is indeed cheating but ifith I had the chancith to make that kind of money playing a game I’d shoot-ith cocaine laced diarrhea into my veins. Ith.

He added that kids shouldn’t cheat.

And Lo Jesuth Sayeth I kneweth America would voteth in the icky pretty Indian boy over Sundance on Idol. The Sundance man be-ith too squat like, a….an iceberg tree. Onceth he sung Pearl Jammeth he was gonneth, for Americans are deaf to the real rocketh and its rolling-ith.

Amen Jesus.

Amen.

Later I fired off some rapid fire topics in the tone of a question to get Jesus take on recent events:

The Bush administration’s censoring of scientists mentioning Polar Bears or melting ice?

!Bush should be mangled by such a bear and trapped under the ice for all eternity.

He then started to riff on Metallica’s Trapped Under Ice. When he finished I asked about what Cheney’s punishment for this and more should be?

!He grew fearful. Mentioned something about legions and said the most he could do against him was a blood clot in his leg.

On the right wing conspiracy to fire 6 lawyers who were investigating corruption and the hearings currently ongoing to investigate this?

!He spit on the floor again.

On who has had more sex, Wilt Chamberlain or Gene Simmons.

!No doubt the rocker. The tongue put him over the top. Jesus said the ladies love a little tongue action. Throw in a guitar and wham!

And Simmons is hung like a Jew.

He should know.

On Libby conviction?

!Iceberg tip.

On the Walter Reed hospital scandal?

!What? You mean they trumpet the troops to shield themselves from criticism and brainwash them to be targets but don’t really care about them?

!Yeah, real shocker there.

!Again with the spitting.

Recent movies?

!Disappointed with Zodiac. Loved 300. That’s why he loved the Greeks so much. Wants to kick some Middle Eastern ass now and doesn’t care whose it is.

!And who would have thought hatch crapper guy from Lost could be cool.

On The Departed as Best Picture?

!Was ok. Prefers watching allot of people killed by swords by guys in sandals than by guns with guys in suits.

!That’s just him though.

On Forrest Whitaker as Best Actor?

!He laughed for about 5 minutes and could only get out the name Spicolli.

On Ann Coulter calling John Edwards a faggot?

!She finally got something right.

Really I asked, a bit shocked?

!Seriously he’s got no sword skills at all.

On my comparison of Starbuck’s Galactica death to Tasha Yar’s on The Next Generation?

!Entirely apt.

Entirely?

!Entirely.

The J.C. Trinity

Published on February 26, 2007 in ..The Dude, Politics, Religion and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

J.C. as in James Cameron, and Jesus Christ. Cameron claims to have found Jesus tomb along with those of his family and son. The other J.C.? John Connor, as in can he go back in time to stop Cameron before killing his career or destroying Christianity?

James Cameron is making a documentary reporting to offer evidence that tombs uncovered near Jerusalem in 1980 are indeed those of Jesus and his family. They include a son’s casket supposedly reading “Judah Son of Jesus,” along with the two Mary’s of note, the cuckold Joseph, and more.

Not sure how I feel about this. Cameron is taking alot of heat from both Christians and non-Christians. Alot of people seem to be collectively cringing over this as if Cameron has the C word in front of someone whose awaiting biopsy results.

For me I guess it depends on what his overall point is and what kind of proof he offers. On the surface this would seem to be an attempt at the debunking of Christian myth such as that dealing with the resurrection and Jesus’s lack of fornicating with mere humans. I’m all on board for that kind of thing. Debunking all that crap I mean. Not fornicating with humans. Humans are dirty and squirt fluids. I prefer to fornicate with cherubim.

Anyway alot of people are already getting their cossacks into a bunch because of Cameron’s temerity and hubris but that plays into the whole problem with religion for me. OK not the whole problem. Religion has many problems. But one of them is that they are the ones of great temerity and hubris, not to mention terrible and wanton arrogance. But they’ve been at it so long and have been in a position of power and privilege for so long it is considered hubris to oppose them and they keep getting away with calling those of us who call them on their fantastical ravings arrogant. It is no different than any other entrenched institution lashing back no matter how right or wrong they are. It’s not far off the whole right wing approach to debate. Just call the enemy what you yourself practice so you steal truth and deligitimize the criticism.

No wonder Christianity and this generation of Republicans have been so intertwined and made such perfectly matched bedfellows despite all the pragmatic reasons for them not to be. Neither party is pragmatic. Pragmatism is one of the founding principles this country was built on. Probably more so than on religion. But both neo-cons and the religious are about passions and truthiness. It’s ego gratification to put their passions and loose associations with truth and facts on a higher ground. Build it and they will come. And once they’re there they’ll look up to you and play along because you’re making it easy on them.

Taking on religion has been blasphemous for a long, long time. It is sacrosanct and it does not deserve to be merely because so many people believe it. I’m not of the mind that people deserve respect no matter what. We go around trying so hard to respect people’s beliefs as if their beliefs were cancer. That or some hard won, battled for, spilled blood for, amazing achievement of human intelligence, fortitude, and courage.

It is none of those things. It is the well-worn path. The one most taken. And its tenets and dogma require only slightly more effort to encompass than the automatic respectability and honor it affords. People deserve respect for what they do not for what they believe. It absolutely floors me when I see the media bend over backwards to cater to people for what they believe while nothing else is sacred to them. The priorities are out of whack. If what someone believes can’t stand some scrutiny it should be the least respected thing about that person. Respect their humanity, their rights, their job, even their pets. But what people believe needs to be out there with a big red target and may the beliefs that stand up to scrutiny win.

But I doubt this Cameron Jesus tomb thing is going to accomplish any of that. What DNA testing can really prove something like this? Without DNA from known living relatives to compare it to I’m not sure how Cameron can make a real argument. i know there is more that will be used from other disciplines including archeology but without the forensics this is just going to create alot of anger and nastiness. And there are many noted scientists and archeologists already debunking Cameron’s proofs. The translation of the Jesus tomb has been called into question as has other information. And this is the only kind of thing that should matter in the debate. The only thing that the media should look. But of course it will be mostly about the bible stories as if that and the numerous people who believe it constitute proof unto themselves.

So now due to the limited ability of media and masses to hold to contrary thoughts in their heads at once or recognize that just because A isn’t equal to B or C that doesn’t mean that A isn’t equal to C, once Cameron is blown out of the water (Titanic reference), this will somehow be twisted into furthering the cause and claims of Christianity.

So if that’s waht Cameron wants he’s going to do the opposite.

And if what he wants is to show that Jesus was real (since I don’t believe there are remains they could still claim a resurrection I guess), he’s adding nothing to the discourse.

And odds are he’s going to take alot more heat if this thing gets more publicity. Much of it will be political and cut across the already deep divides separating many of us from each other. And with all the anger and protectiveness religion imbues its followers with Cameron could get himself hurt.

On the other hand if he has something I’m the first to back the truth no matter who it offends or upsets. Some say that it’s not worth trying to take faith from people as if faith is a thing itself. I don’t see it that way. Faith is a word used to cover ones ignorance. It has been a tool used to pry open doors to atrocities and to hide behind. But the early indicators is that Cameron and his team are stretching things to get Jesus and his family out of the evidence at hand. If so then Cameron should just let a sleeping dog lie and not be yet another to give time and energy to an unworthy focus thereby making more of a man than he was and thusly elevating him yet further above the failure he and his followers really were and are.

Where’s John Connor and his Terminator when we need them.

Left Behind The Right

Published on December 12, 2006 in ..The Dude, Religion, Technology and The Ill-Literates. 2 Comments

There’s a video game out there based on the Christian Left Behind series. You know the series so stupid it took 2 guys to write? The one that’s sold 60 million copies. This game is reportedly a pretty big seller too. And there’s some seriously twisted shit going on in it. Of course it’s been endorsed by many Christian groups like Focus On The Family. But these same groups who would probably lament the decline of civilization on view in games like Grand Theft Auto are pushing this Left Behind: Eternal Forces game, whose basic lessons to kids is convert infidels or kill them.

Like the books the game takes place after Evil Jesus returns under the guise of a Messiah and takes all the compliant drones with him to heaven leaving behind all others to work their shit out or get with the antichrist who Jesus apparently didn’t have the balls to take on head to head himself.

The game is a perfect example of how the right wing and fundamentalists have combined forces to brainwash kids into becoming tools for in a culture war that uses morality as it’s operating premise, or cassus belli, in the way they used WMD’s and false connections to 9-11 for another war. It’s also a nice summation of the Christian right mentality and how they feel about themselves and all the rest of us.

In the game players have to either convert or kill non-believers. Left Behind Games’ president, Jeffrey Frichner, says this is actually teaching pacifism “because players lose ‘spirit points,’ every time they gun down nonbelievers rather than convert them.”

Of course in true born again tradition those sinners who have murdered can earn spirit points back, or get right with god, by simply having their character take time in the game and pray.

Man if that doesn’t summarize alot of the allure and mentality of this whole Jesus fetish then Priests just don’t like little boys.

Of course there are other elements like the false sense of entitlement and superiority that otherwise disenfranshised and inferior people get from adopting the consecrated and sanctified veneer of the holy. But I can’t remember how many times I’ve seen this easy forgiveness thing played out. Committ a sin, do something wrong, act selfishly, whatever. It’s all ok if you accept Jesus as your personal savior and go through some of the easier motions of faith and devotion.

And just to illustrate the ties to the culutre war and politics the game is set in post apocalyptic NY City and the Antichrist is secretary-general of the United Nations and a People magazine “Sexiest Man Alive.”

The game is also as fixed as their elections. Players can choose to join either side. But of course only one side can win. And the kinds of people fighting on the antichrist’s side are rock stars and guys with Muslim names. “The righteous include gospel singers, missionaries, healers and medics.”

When asked about the Arab and Muslim-sounding names, Frichner said the game does not endorse prejudice. But “Muslims are not believers in Jesus Christ” — and thus can’t be on Christ’s side in the game.

“That is so obvious,” he said.

Do you mean childishly simplistic and propagandizing obvious Captain Prejudice?

You can actually lose spirit points in this game just by being too near rock musicians. Not too subtle there as far as what message they’re trying to convey to kids. Resist all things blue states like and breed or you will go to hell.

Plugged In, a publication of Focus on the Family, said this about the game: It’s “the kind of game that Mom and Dad can actually play with Junior — and use to raise some interesting questions along the way.”

More like get them to stop asking questions. And who but someone in the anachronistic religious communitty longing for the safe Leave It To Beaver facade America safely hid behind at one time, would refer to the family unit as mom, dad, and junior?

Some of the cooler, or at least saner, Christian groups such as The Campaign to Defend the Constitution and the Christian Alliance for Progress, are protesting the game and trying to get retailers, particularly Wal-Mart for some reason, to take the game off the shelves. I’m not so sure I can support this though I appreciate their motives. I have no love for the Grand Theft Auto type games either. But I’d feel like a hypocrite trying to get them banned. Any kind of censorship or forced limiting of distribution is hard to support even in a good cause. It’s just lamentable that we live in such a country where both kinds of games are popular and appealing to some kind of sickness in our culture and weakness in our minds.

I have changed my opinion over the years about the negative effects of movies and games on kids. I never thought they had much effect. I still don’t think they have a huge one. Stupid kids will drift to stupid games or movies. Suicidal kids will drift to dark music or movies. Unpopular kids will drift to Star Trek. It’s not James T Kirk making them unpopular. Ozzy didn’t make any kids kill themselves. He just provided a soundtrack to those who would have gone without one. And nobody should die without a musical score in this day and age. i think I’d like to go to that Wagner piece they used in Platoon. Or maybe Rocky for the irony.

But there is more and more evidence that this stuff does have some influence. I think it does perpetuate itself. You don’t have riots at Pixar movies but you do get tham at some hip-hop films. All the clean easy killing in the Tours Of Duty of the world can’t be helping the cause of humanitarianism. For most it probably has little effect good or bad. But for some it’s going to make them want more. Escalation could be inevitable for these people. If nothing else maybe they’ll join the Marines and die for nothing but some rich white guy who doesn’t want his name read out loud or funeral seen on TV.

I don’t think either kind of game is good for kids. But I can’t start up that slippery slope of choosing what’s right and wrong and should or should not be allowed to be seen, read, heard, or played. In the end it’s a parents job to raise their kids in a way that keeps them from forming an interest in that stuff or that make them healthy enough to not take a Grand Theft Auto seriously. Which is why the Left Behind thing is probably worse and far more dangerous. Parents are actually participating and encouraging their kids to not only play but to see the games viewpoint as a viable reality. One that is part of a wholesome biblical upbringing.

These kids are going to be alot more dangerous than the chop shop pimps being bred by GTA. Left Behind is a game full of hate and intolerance for all kinds of lifestyles and differences. It’s a game that want’s kids to be ignorant of facts and pledged to the narrow ideas and viewpoint that has been a stagnating force for thousands of years. It’s a game the people who got Bush elected like James Dobson suppport. Like it’s founding religion it’s a game that teaches vice and sin as long as you say a prayer to a made up Jew who died 2000 years ago.

And like I said it’s just annoying to see that mentality so clearly brandished and trumpeted in a game. It’s not enough they infect the rest of us with thier hypocrisy and wretched psuedo morals, but to advertise them so blatantly in a video game is both revealing and scary. like overweight trailer trash wearing form fitting pants, revealing and scary.

SF Chronicle

Judas Iscariot: Unsung Hero Of Christianity.

Published on October 25, 2006 in ..The Dude, Religion and The Ill-Literates. 4 Comments

This guy gets a bad rap.

The bad part of the whole Judas thing is that it provided rationale for Jew hating. Never mind that all the apostles were Jewish. Hell Jesus was Jewish and proud of it. Committed to it. Willing to die for it perhaps. But for idiots in later centuries looking for examples of Jewish avarice and duplicity, Judas made for a nice leaping off point. Eating babies, controlling global finances, tasteless cousine, all of it may have started in the Judas thing.

Just look at DaVinci’s The Last Supper. All the other Jews look pretty cool, healthy, even heroic. Bunch of nice looking chaps. Yes John looks quite the bit feminine, but whether that’s a code and its Magdalene, or John was just rumored to be taking the staff of life from Jesus in a quite literal way is debatable.

Take a close look. John or Mary you know after a few glasses of wine you’d hit that.

But what is not debatable is that Judas looks like the quintessential nasty stereotype of the fictionalized and demonized Jew. He has a ridiculously hooked nose, and upturned chin that almost meets it, and a dark swarthy, ethnic look none of the others have.

Some of this may have been Davinci’s fault. But apparently not all. Later decades and centuries added to and altered Lenny’s original masterpiece. The original was done on a wall that was badly situated for preservation and the thing decayed pretty fast. So every now and again someone added layers and in doing so made changes. Over the years Judas became more and more sisnister looking while everyone stayed as biblically cool as anyone on a crumbling wall could look.

But if it weren’t for Judas, known to some fans of 1st Century bibilical fantasy world as “the other J Man”, Jesus wouldn’t have been martyred. We see in paintings like The Last Supper where Jesus has this look of great sadness because he knows he is about to be betrayed and what it will lead to. This is based on the bible (I don’t capatilize it because I don’t consider it a real book title and barely a real book).

But if he’s all about dying for the sin of man and making this extreme act of courage and selflessness that has saved our kind, he kind of needed Judas to set things in motion. Judas made Jesus great. Call him the Vader or Palpatine of the bible if you will (and there is a Star Wars Last Supper painting out there somewhere with Luke in the center seat), but Jesus needed Judas the way a nuerosurgeon needs someone with a hole in the head.

Knock him though they will Christians need him. If there is any remote basis in reality to events that occurred around the year 33 C.E. there would either be no Christianity or they’d be devoted to one of the many other guys running around the Middle East pretending to be prophets and the living culmination of old testement prophecy.

Jesus owes everything he later became to Judas just as much as to Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul after having a seizure or guilt attack on the road to Damascus, and who soon after realized there was a living to be made off of bringing the wretchedly oppressed of the cities a symbol of consummate failure and wretchedness from the desert to rally behind and provide a much needed sense of esteem and hope.

And if some of those events really did go down around 1,973 years ago Jesus carrer wasgoing to be fizzling out soon if nothing big happened and he knew it. So even if he had an inclination Judas would turn on him he needed the publicity. Every good tragedy has some betrayal and Judas played his part. You might say he was abandoning a sinking ship like a rat, a ship that became a mighty vessel, but would it have become a seagoing luxury liner as Christianity is now without Judas’s actions?

And if Jesus knew he was about to be betrayed, as well as denied 3 times, why not say something?

Why not head things off at the pass?

What is he a martyr?

Never mind the fact that the bible is all hearsay and gobbldegook completely discredited as an historical source. Let’s play the game and pretend Jesus really did know what was coming.

If so he wanted it to play out that way. Maybe even orchestrated things to give himself a leg up over all the rest of the desert prophets with messianic complexes. It was a dog eat dog business and one needed to distinguish oneself. Have a really memorable act.

And Judas only played the part Jesus wanted him to play.

So stop hating on the Judas people. Jesus would have died a nameless no one without him. Or he would have had to cause even more of a ruckus to get himself killed and then Christians wouldn’t have had a horrible Jew to blame for turning on Jesus for money. And then we may not have had Shylock or Fagin or any of the fictional rich Jewish stereotypes to provide motivation for atrocities, inquisitions and turning blind eyes to Holocausts.

Nervous about dying he may have been but there is reason to believe Jesus knew exactly what he was doing, and was deliberately provoking messianic imagery that could only culminate with his crucifixion. So don’t believe the tears of betrayal. Jesus may be just allright to you but in all probability Judas was just allright to him.

So let’s hear it for Judas!

Stop The World I Want To Get Off

Published on August 21, 2006 in ..The Dude, Politics, Religion and The Ill-Literates. 2 Comments

Just a couple of things that make me want to cry or just disappear. Seriously people I can’t take much more of this crazy-arse ignorant shite before I get a boat and try to find an island to live alone on.

Network and cable news have been awash with serious conversations debating whether we are facing the End Of Days. This has been going on for some time now and though not a new phenemenon owes some of its recent airtime to the Bush administration fostering an atmosphere conducive to fantasy and living the big lie. Some of the major news outlets have just recently done serious segments about the topic with titles like the above biblical referent, as well as Apocalypse Now?, Is The End Of The World Coming?, Armegeddon? and more similarly hysterical labels with nattily captioned graphics to lure in the sheep.

And there are “experts” from all walks of life to discuss this. I see these news hosts that are supposed to be serious journalists taking this crap seriously and it really, really, makes me want to scream and cry. Seeing Paula Braun, uh, I mean Zahn, with a serious look on her face as she
consults the Rapture Index from some Christian website is enough to make a sane person bash their heads against their t.v. screens in the hopes of doing enough damage to themselves so that the disgust and shame over the state of their country won’t hurt so much anymore.

FOX of course consulted a Priest and had a serious discussion about possible dates for the end while ABC’s Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts sympathized with some fundamentalist nut job about the need to get right with the J man in times like these.

Of course all these discussions have gone on for millenia. And yet people take it seriously as if this time there might really be something to it. The ego that brings many people to religion in the first place has always been attracted to the idea that they and their time are the be all, and most especially, the end all, of humanity. There’s clearly a psychological mechanism of a particlular type at play. But it’s really pathetic when supposed news people play the game and cater to this mentality. They did it during Y2K though, they did it after 9-11, and I can even remember them doing it in the 80′s over some meteor or something that Nostradamus supposedly predicted. And good old Nostradamus, the boogey man of paranoid Earth hating nuerotics, is being pulled out again as supposedly predicting a new end date that happens to now be THIS VERY MONTH!

There are seriouos issues involved here but the imminent end of the world is not one of them. The bigger issues are in reference to the decayed state of our media and dumbing down of the public and it’s discourse. Sometimes I really want to get the hell away from these people. I’m really embarrassed by this country in particular. To see and hear our mainstream news people carry on like this and feed into that growing fundamentalist minority for ratings is just so fucking obscene. These people may as well be on t.v. sodomizing their children. It’s no less of an atrocity and I find maybe just a tad less abhorent.

I really think alot of people won’t be happy until this all becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Apparently this really is just such a horrible and miserable world that a good portion of the planet can’t wait to destroy it. I don’t know whether these hate filled and self loathing souls will get what they want or not. . . Actually I do know. They won’t. They’ve always been wrong and they always will be wrong. Even if they blow up, the bastards finally do it, and blow it all up, life will go on. In some form or another.

But the will to live is much stronger than the will to god. Or of god. At least the biblical version.
_________

While visiting a friend in the hospital the other day I saw commercial for a commemorative coin depicting the twin towers. They were touted in solemn and glorious tones for their special spiritual and patriotic value as if not owning one makes you less then sympathetic to those 3000+ people who died.

This tacky little piece of morbid kitshck actually features steel from ground zero comprising the towers, which can actually be raised from the coin. That’s right: pop-up coinage.

And they are selling these limited edition abominations for $30.

Ironically it’s a safe bet that practically no one actually effected by 9-11 will buy these things. This is all for red staters in Dabuke who have been hijacking this tragedy for their own twisted pursuits for 5 years. Just like they hijacked religion. It’s probable that many of those digging on the above mentioned apocalypse will be the ones doing what they can to continue to make the coin of the realm a little cheaper everyday. 9-11 was a cipher for their anger, hate, and inadequacy. Qualities which make the end of the world so appealing and horrid little souvenirs of a tragedy they parasitically feed off of, money in the pocket to get them through the pearly gates.
___________

Honestly I sometimes really weep for us all. Sometimes I want to get so far away from the madding crowd that they can’t touch me with their breathtaking and wanton ignorance. Point me to that island and come with me if you’re of a like mind. I’m not so sure there’s a place for us here anymore.

And Lo Jesus Sayeth

Published on July 20, 2006 in ..The Dude, Religion and The Ill-Literates. 1 Comment

My conversations with Christ.

Recently I found Jesus. You hear all about the brilliance of such a moment from the many whom I had previously derided as mindless zealots. And then it happened to me in crystal clear brilliance and I’m forever changed. I say I found him but in reality he found me. For so many this has involved a feeling or reaction to some momentous serendipity that for whatever reasons they had connected to Christ. But being someone who demands more Jesus reached out to me in the language I could understand just as I now see he reached out to all those others through their respective mediums of chance coincidence, cultural browbeating, or hitting rock bottom.

So Jesus found me and he did it empirically so I could be among the many to testify on his behalf. And he did it corporeally. That’s right! He appeared to me my brothers and sisters. And he spoke.

Jesus spoke to me!

And he wanted me to convey his messeges to all of you. Here are some of the things Christ has on his mind.

*And lo Jesus sayeth that the roots of middle Eastern conflict are within the minds of its inhabitants. The Lord believeth that without conflict they would be as a fish without water, a Lion without prey, and a porn star without nether parts.

*And lo Jesus sayeth that no competition of global import shall be decided by penalty kicks. The Lord likens this to an extra inning Baseball game being stopped for a home run derby contest to decide the winner, thus rewarding those who juice for themselves and not for Jesus.

*And lo Jesus sayeth that VH1′s World Series of Pop Culture is just such a competition of global importance.

*And lo Jesus sayeth that Rock And Roll is nothing without laser shows. Bringeth back the laser shows for without thee a concert is like a Mustard Seed.

*And lo Jesus sayeth Al Gore should be President of your United States. All should unite and spin the world back 8 years as if Superman saving Lois, and thusly let Gore lead as the heaven’s warrant he was destined.

*And lo Jesus sayeth Def Leppard’s Pyromania still holds up.

*And lo Jesus sayeth the biggest problem with The X Files was not it’s unsatisfying conclusions but that Fox Mulder was not paranoid enough.

*And lo Jesus sayeth that if the scientists say fossil fuels will be are undoing and that the Earth is warming then it is true for they know more of such things than I.

*And lo Jesus sayeth Scarlett Johanssen’s voice alone is hot like a spicy Mustard Seed.

*And lo Jesus sayeth George Bush knew about the outing of the one called Valerie Plame and that he whose own secrets are as dark as that mans should tell of no one elses.

*And lo jesus sayeth all who oppose unions are like spears who oppose shields for they seek unchecked penetration of the unprotected.

*And lo Jesus sayeth that corporate welfare is like a rancid Mustard Seed. The rich men who taketh handouts from the state and its citizens while those citizens pay again for the service, are the greatest blight.

*And lo Jesus sayeth he forgiveth Wynona and blameth any boyfriend who would not buyeth such a fine thing anything she should want.

*And lo Jesus sayeth his expectations for Arenofsky’s The Fountain are high. Too high. Like a Mustard Tree.

*And lo Jesus sayeth the gospel of the age is preached with humor and by the only flames of truth on cable newsie shows, the twin prophets Stewart and Colbert.

*And lo Jesus sayeth the one called Lieberman has denied us thrice and will soon go over to the other side.

*And lo Jesus sayeth the nations regulators are Pharisees protecting no one but their greedy masters from whom they issue to accumulate more power and possessions. And lo they are like big fish consuming all the rest in the tank. Big stupid poopy headed fish.

I also got to ask Jesus some stream of consciousness questions to which he responded more casually. Here’s what he had to say about the following:

Jamie Fox? He didn’t see it coming either.

World Series pick? He likes the White Sox to repeat but with an eye out for those Tigers and His Bosox.

Favorite movie this year? Omen remake.

Political party of choice? Communist.

All time favorite band? Stryper…Just kidding. He actually said that. Just kidding. Then he said it was Van Halen. “Eddie is god.”

Boxers or briefs? Neither.

More evil: Dick Cheney or Halliburton? He caught the trick question and compared the analogy to that of a Mustard Seed.

Best super hero movie? Batman Begins without hesitation. All who believe otherwise he condemns.

Hottest actress? Audrey Tautou. “Is that too creepy?”

Yankees payroll? Obscene.

Like a Mustard Tree? “Yes. Good comparison”.

Will the Cubs ever break their curse? How should he know.

Iraq? Liberals were right. They usually are.

Sadam Hussein? Small potatoes.

North Korea? Mustard Seed.

FOX News? Rupert Murdoch is the reincarnation of Joseph Goebells.

Actually? Shrugs.

Reincarnation? As likely as anything else.

How likely is that? Not very.

Superman as Christ figure? We should have fun with it. He does.

I must add the Jesus prefaced his sayings by telling me that he usually doesn’t speak to Gentiles. He trusts no one completely, or on faith only, but Jews, wishes others would stop talking about him so much, and that he made an exception for me because I have Jewish friends. It’s also why he doesn’t mind me making Jewish jokes.

He also asked that I report that he will have more to say to me in the near future. I will tell you all my brothers and sisters.

Love your fellow, humble, faithful servant,

The Dude

Abortion And The Mets

Published on May 10, 2006 in ..The Dude, Politics, Religion, Sports and The Ill-Literates. 5 Comments

[image:128:l] How rooting for the Mets can save a baby.

[image:130:l] The Mets are geting screwed. On Sunday a noted atrocity of an umpire named Angel Hernandez not only made a bad call at the plate but told Mets catcher Paul LoDuca before the game that his pitcher Jose Lima is not going to get as big a strike zone as the Braves John Smoltz. Now it’s always been an unspoken truth that umpires cheat. Their strike zones are not consistent and they favor some players over others. Some think there is nothing wrong with them doing it to a rookie. You know, make him pay his dues and learn the ropes while cagey veterans get the close calls.

Problem with this thinking is that it’s lying. And cheating. A strike is a strike.

So LoDuca called him out after the game and told the media Hernandez said what he did. He blew the whistle.

So what happens? Does an umpire many in the league have complained about for years due to his incompetence and unprofessionalism, including those Braves, get investigated by MLB? No. The Mets get fined. Speak out and you pay. In America it is the whistleblower who pays. That’s the American way and Baseball has always been a good bellweather and microcosm for our country.

On to tonight. I asked the question on a Mets board related to Sunday. I asked if people agreed with me that the fraternal order of umps would now get together to call everything close against the Mets for now on. And than against the 2nd place Phillies tonight we got a rash of horrid calls that included a clearly blown out call on Jose Reyes at 2nd base and numerous bad calls on balls and strikes in the late innings that probably cost the Mets the game in a squeaker. There were clearly 2 different strike zones tonight. A normal, even expanded one for the Phillies pitchers, and a tiny one for the Mets. The 48 year old respected veteran Julio Franco even got thrown out by the home plate ump from the on deck circle for complaining about what he was seeing on the field. In the clubhouse afer the game he was visibly upset and callled the umps out some more. This is a guy who should know and who does not overreact easily. He’s known as the ultimate class act who is usually a peace keeper rallying others to keep a clear head.

This was Revenge Of The Umpires.

And it may continue all year. The Mets are now only 3 up on the Phillies who are on a 9 game winning streak and will be in first place very soon. The Mets just aren’t that good, but now they also have to contend with the fraternity of mafioso, LAPD-like protecting of their own from the leagues cheating umpires as well.

What does this have to do with abortion?

Well first off Hernandez should have been born with a coat hanger sticking out of his head. . . I exaggerate for effect of course. Also the Mets season is being aborted by their once again not forming the proper nucleus and foundation, instead preferring to patch together unmatched parts and not prioritizing pitching. Theirs is an organizational plan that should have been aborted many years ago. It’s getting better. But it’s in a fetal stage and too many people are expecting mature results. Including the still sometimes dumbass Mets. But the Mets are still the good guys just like when they battle the evil emoire in a week or two. I speak of the Yankees of course. The oppressor’s team. The man.

And it is the multiple systems the Mets must now battle that threaten our very national existence.

Bear with me here people.

This casual exceptance of cheating with rationales like, “they have to pay their dues, the long timer deserves an advantage,” and the like, are part and parcel of the kind of corruption rampant in America. This stuff allows us to paint over reality however it fits us. It remakes the facts into something subjective and malleable.

Vague reality leads to our other national atrocities like Bush and the fundamentalist version of reality funneled through the corporate owned right wing media. In a country where we stand alone as the only developed nation not acknowledging global warming because of the rights manipulation of science, think tanks that alter facts to fit the policy, a government that does the same, and people suffering or letting others suffer due to the religion they happened to get brainwashed by at some point in their lives, there needs to be more people sticking up for truth and replacing the cozy warmth of subjective truth with the allegiance to the greater good based on an empirical grasp that helped build our foundation.

Jesus H people you get that guy calling Rumsfeld out at his press conference for being a liar and the media makes the accuser sound guilty of some lack of decorum despite evidence supporting his comments. Even Rumsfeld’s denials of lying and having said he knew where the WMD’s were is a probable lie. It’s on tape. Him on Meet The Press in 03 saying he knew exactly where they were and actually pinpointing those locations on live tv. But the media instead of focusing on these lies once again puts the victim-accuser-whistleblower on trial. And it is left to Jon Stewart to point it out and show the tapes, as it always is, because the lies are just too damn big and in our faces for anyone but a station that airs South Park to have the wherewithal to talk about. The real msm doesnt consider it their job to discuss unpleasant reality. Stuff like impeachment. America doesn’t have the stomach for it they say. Polls say otherwise. But it is they that do not have the stomach for it. And their reality becomes ours because they keep saying it and those that counter them are ignored or derided by the punk-ass bitches on FOX News and it’s sister conservaholic news outlets.

ABC News recently falsely reported the effects of the morning after or RU-486, keeping in lockstep with the religious undermining of reality that has pervaded our government and its scientific institutions. We already have a case where alot of evidence indicates the FDA has held off on approval due to political pressure that is of course due to the religious influence in this administration. At the same time these purveyors of official reality decry crime. Yet evidence indicates abortion prevents crime. And a recent research study indicates that America is tied for second and trailing only Latvia for the worst rate of infant mortality of all industrialized nations. CBS News. Why don’t the media and the religious hypocrites care about this?

Is it because these facts support tired liberal-left wing notions of how we need single payer health care, social safety nets, and more maternity leave for mothers, all of which is indicated to be at least partly to blame for our atrocious rate of killing our babies (And I would add environmental action since it’s my personal opinion our toxic environment is poisoning mothers and children)?

Of course health care and mercury emissions don’t spark the religious mind as easily as one note superficial issues like abortion. The in vitro baby offer solutions with easy black and white answers that offer attractive controls over people’s naughty parts if followed. But once those supposedly ensouled people get out into the world we see once again that they lose their political and emotional value and become as useless as facts have become in a country that sees them as being as pliable as their morality.

So what I’m saying is when you root for the Mets the rest of this season you are fighting the power and quite possibly doing your part to save babies and children.

You’re certainly doing more to do so than the Christian right ever has or ever will.

Death, Belief, & Reincarnation

Published on April 19, 2006 in ..The Dude, Religion and The Ill-Literates. 1 Comment

Ok, I’m a believer that much of our existential angst along with many of our behavioral erraticisms is due to a latent fear of death. I’m also convinced that that fear is at the root of much attraction to all the worlds religions. From a psychological viewpoint reincarnation is no different though it offers a less dogmatic investment in our immortality. But does it hold up to the kind of scrutiny I think any belief system must in order to amount to more than mental and spiritual masturbation?

The religious impulse is finding more and more corrolaries to parts of the brain and our biological and physiological evolution. This is not much in dispute outside of the anti-science world of the Bushites. Of course people drift to religion for many other reasons and religion has it’s power for many other ones as well. It’s a form of control, an excuse to justify criminal acts and atrocities, a means to keep people mollified and content, and so much more speaking from the motivations of its purveyors. As far as its subjects go beyond those genetic roots there is a need for people to feel connected to something larger, for the ego trip it provides those who bask in its automatic sense of superiority over those they are are usually inferior to in most real and tangible ways, a romantic chimera to keep them warm, brainwashing of the community and families that are dependent on their investment, and more.

But at root, it and most of our psychological issues are being traced more and more to the fear of death if not necessarily in overt proximate causal ways.

I feel this need to rise above death too. I wonder about what comes next. Is this all there is and every missed opportunity and bad decision, lesson learned, and regret will all mean nothing and never find their recompense. Occasionally I’ve clinged to the idea of reincarnation as a hope for more. The idea that even if it’s not me and my memory that what I do with myself now, how I live my life, the form I condition my “soul,” in, will determine what some eternal essence of me goes onto next.

But is this more grasping at straws bullshit no less delusional and crazy then the condolences Christians, Muslims, and Jews use?

Reincarnation has some fundamental flaws in it for me. I’ll throw them out there and see if anyone has a reasonable hypotheiss for or against.

First off the amount of people on the planet has been growing exponentially. Where are the souls coming from then? Is the Before Sunrise Ethan Hawke explanation of souls divided and split up, and thus explaining our sociiety of growing differentiation and specialization, valid?

And what of the fact that all the professional and scholarly work in this field has been done, for the most part, in India? With rare exceptions all the work comes from there. This would appear to suggest that its a societal power of suggestion thing similar to the phenomena of people of the West seeing the “virgin” Mary in a Waffle or random wall stain. And isn’t it curious that in both cases, those that see these figures of church lore or those in India that are constantly seeing a past loved one in a young child, are from societal groups who are at the lower ends of the financial ladder. This suggests psychologically that people with less to look forward to in this life and more readily living with thoughts of their ends in lives that offer so little to divert them from unhappy thoughts, see something that gives them a superiority and value they can’t get from the now, here, or real.

And india in general has much of the country living in squalor and with much more of a regular likelihood of dying young due to violence, accident, disease, or malnutrition. Indeed reports of reincarnation studies done throughout the country offer little in the way of rebirths or belief in them in the more urban areas of India. Why if it’s such an excepted belief system that they are more open to enabling to see what we don’t, does it only occur among the most destitute and desperate?

And where these reports are abundant the villages are all very much alike making the striking similarities that children report about life in another village less stunning. And just why is that these souls travel so little distance between lives? Is it likely that any kind of astral projection or travel would be so limited by distance?

Now of course some Americans have talked about past lives and gone through the whole past life therapy thing. But is this just the dilletantism of comparitively rich Americans with alot of leisure time? It’s interesting to me that there are so many reports of these types of searchers having past lives of such noteworthiness, often greatness, while their Indian counterparts are all reproting on coming from a life of diminshed expectations just like theirs. How much then of all this comes form the subconcious minds expectations. Americans grow up with fairy tales and movies revealing so much of the worlds possiblities, often mixing our pop cultrual experiences and their memories with the memories of our true lives. In India the village life and stasis of class in the caste system are all many people know.

In this perspective the idea of some kind of rebirth seems as far fetched as Christians cavorting in Heaven with angels and relatives. Or rising from their graves at the Rapture to ascend with the J man while the rest of us are “LEFT BEHIND.” And which is it exactly? Do they go to heaven or do they wait until the rapture? Is it only the bodies rising at the rapture to join the souls? If so why, if the soul is so important and you still can see each other the way they looked in this life if you believe the light and tunnel folks whose bodies “died” momentarily? Seems like there is at root a deep need to still connect it all to our bodies and ground it all in materialistic impulses.

Dr Ian Stevenson has done the most work on the subject, writing volumes over decades of following leads and traveling the world. But mostly he has found nothing outside of India and has shown nothing that impartial clinical examinations could not find holes in.

Now I too have heard stories about hard to explain things right here in the U.S. and I’d like to believe they mean something. But many of the greatest ones have been investigated and come up lacking. I’ve heard some personal stories too, from friends over the years, which have not been investigated professionally. And not having been there or experienced them I can’t do more than say how interesting it is and suspect another explanation is behind it.

Bob’s got me thinking about collective unconscious again. Maybe what alot of these experiences come down to is an ability that is latent in most of us, and more pronounced in some, to tap into the collective unconsciousness. It seems many of them involve kids who are less muddled and stifled, or filled with so much mental detritus that they can best tap into the cc and see the emotional imprints others have left behind like radio waves that you have to be tuned to in order to pick up. This would speak to something extraordinary about human existence, but unfortunately does not lead to the conclusion that we have immortal souls that either hang around or are reborn.

Though are bodies may be recycled after we’re gone, and we’re all part of the same group of matter that has always been here since the Big Bang, and will presumably be here until the big crunch or whatever awaits us, there is no evidence to support the theory that something non-materialistic suffuses that matter. It seems highly unlikely that the scattering of our remains and incorporation back into the substance of life could all congeal in a physical and mental re-representation of our neurons and synapsial connections along with all the other vague brain matter responsible for our memories and impressions. It seems more likely that society evolves as our bodies do, and that as we act in it we change the physical landscape and leave an impression that is both cultural and emotional. Those impressions become part of that evolving unfolding of the body politic. Like Hegel and the Idealists believed, history is god unfolding and revealing itself over time and the steady progressive trending forward. Perhaps as we live our lives, some or all of us, leave an impression of own godliness as creators of this world, and most if not all notions of god as well, and some tap into that in a gifted way that some children can just pick up an instrument and feel how to play it.

Part of me also believes that those aforementioned pshysiological corrolaries that invole the spiritual formed to accomodate some reality. Most likely they formed as a survival mechanism taht granted those who believed an advantage over those that did not. But there is the possibility that they evolved in a manner similar to the way our brains ability to recognize mathematical equivilents evolved. Or spatial dimensions. There is an undeniable external support of our various numerical skills, Newton’s calculus was supported by the world as is a childs putting 2 apples together with 2 others and concluding that they have 4. Our brains evolved to parallel an inherent reality. We don’t walk around bumping into corners, or into walls because our brains work withing real world geometrical dimensions. So maybe the spiritual impulse accomodates something in the real world that those genetic, cortex and temporal lobe triggers evolved to allow us to see or feel.

I don’t think Judaism, Buddhism, Chritianity, hinduism, Islam, or any other extant belief system is the real world equivilent of that bio-psychological tendency. More likely, if there is something to this idea, our past religions and beliefs are stepping stones towards that greater spiritual truth. Like our bodies, brains, and perhaps our cultures, religions have been though evolutionary steps and still need to do more evolving before they get close to any kind of maturity. Relatively speaking they are in their infancy and acting like it. But maybe these early and clumsy spiritual outgrowths are referencing deeper and more complex spirtual realities we’re evolving towards understanding and actualizing.

Unfortunately we live in a world where our technological evolution is far outpacing the spiritual and giving these overgrown stunted religious philosophies modern tools to play with is very dangerous.

Whether this last theory is true or not, it is as close as a strict adherence to evidentiary and empirical supports can get someone like me to this thing we call god. Or the unproven numous known as soul or spirit. And either way I think we’re wasting our time doing anything with the worlds heretofore major religious belief systems besides studying them for their insights and metaphorical value, and then taking that knowledge to a higher ground where we can transcribe a more inclusive code and hope than what the archetype called Moses brought down from Mt Sinai.