Last posts on religion

Migration and Evolution

2011-12-12T16:04:43+01:00

Humans are inclined to stay where they are, moving only if they cannot find their place there. Thus, when humans first moved from Africa throughout the world, it is likely that those that moved furthest differed most from the rest of their kind, and as they passed on these differences this may have affected the development of the societies they found. In their differences from the groups they came from, they would have found it harder to identify with them, so that they would have developed less of a sense of identity, and therefore, of an ego, causing them to become more spiritual. This could mean that peoples that had moved further from Africa became more spiritual, with native South-Americans having been the most spiritual and native Africans having been the most physical of peoples, with many Meso- and South-American civilizations having had all the signs of schizophrenia. The harder it was to get somewhere, the further those that went there were from their people, so that while humanity moved to East Asia before moving to Europe (Bradshaw Foundation: Journey of Mankind), East Asia is far more spiritual because of the Himalayas, where Buddhism was born. The balance between the physical and spiritual likely lies in Indochina, where focus has long been placed on this balance, explaining why its cultures became as advanced as they did early in history. Of course, as cultures across the world became increasingly connected, most of these differences would have become assimilated, but some may have lasted to this day, such as the altruism of East-Asians and the egotism of the West.

Discovery News: Culture (not just genes) drives evolution

Religion and Philosophy

2011-12-03T01:58:00+01:00

The only reason people believe in religion is because it tells them God has connected with their world, thereby giving certainty to the otherwise uncertain idea that God exists: they do not want to believe in the religion itself as such, only to believe in God, but the religion gives them a way to believe in it. If they had any way of knowing God existed no one would need religion. This is why God should be a matter of philosophy and not of religion, and the further philosophy advances the less people will want religion. Religion is to philosophy what alchemy is to science: science cannot do anything about religion because it has nothing to do with it.

Creationism and Evolutionism

2011-11-26T14:18:00+01:00

If God created the universe from his consciousness, then the universe evolved all the same in God’s consciousness, and as God’s consciousness became the universe it would have evolved the same way. As all keeps evolving God is still creating the universe, and evolution involves the survival of the strong and extinction of the weak in every sense of the word. If the universe is God’s creation this would but mean to us than that the universe has a consciousness, which would not change its causality. In this way, science and religion could be connected, as religion would no longer try to be a science but rather a philosophy. To us the creation would not have taken place in seven days, but “with the Lord a day is a thousand years, and a thousand years a day” (2 Peter 3:8), a thousand years being symbolic, like many numbers in the Bible, of a very long time (Grace Online Library, Loraine Boettner: Postmillennialism: The Thousand Years, A symbolical Figure).

The Psychoanalysis of the Church

2011-10-15T00:52:00+02:00

“You [the Devil] are the incarnation of myself, but only of one side of me... of my thoughts and feelings, but only the nastiest and stupidest of them. From that point of view you might be of interest to me, if only I had time to waste on you."

— The Devil, Ivan’s Nightmare, from The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Devil, or “the beast” is actually a symbol of the beast within ourselves, that is, our instincts, which is why all instincts have at some point been seen as devilish, but the id, like any animal, only becomes evil if mistreated. Emotions are instincts, which is why we were told to repress our emotions lest they would turn to sin, even though they only turn to sin once we repress them: for sooner or later, and often indeed at the moment of our death, we reconnect with our unconscious mind, where all the emotions we repressed to it, in the lack of love to balance them, have taken on the form of demons. The underworld is symbolical of our unconscious mind, and we may either turn it into a heaven through love, or turn it into a hell through a lack thereof, and as the clergy turned their own unconscious mind into a hell in this way, whatever emotions still arose from it were sins, which is why the Church has had more than its share of it. The ego, as the part of the mind that keeps emotions repressed, became the only part they could still see as their own, and so they came to see the ego alone as their soul, and women having less ego than men, they were said not to have a soul. To keep the ego strong enough to keep emotions repressed, people needed a strong sense of identity, which is why they identified so strongly with the Church, a fact without which it may never have lasted as long as it did. God became nothing but the ego of society that kept its emotions repressed, and the Devil became nothing but those repressed emotions. Everything that reconnected to repressed emotions and therefore to the unconscious mind was seen as demonic, so that women became demonized not only because they made men feel lust, but also for their intuition, which is connected to the unconscious mind. Intuition concerns the unknown, and therefore darkness, and so out of fear of the unknown of our unconscious mind, we came to demonize darkness. But the darkness of the devil and the light of God are as yin and yang and so neither is in itself good or evil, which is why Satanists see the devil in much the same way as the Church God, as something good, and it may well be good to meditate on what the devil means to us, as the devil is nothing more than what Jung called our shadow and we may therefore reconnect to it in this way. The purpose of Samhain wasn’t to drive off demons as much as to make peace with them. This is the meaning of Goethe’s Faust: wisdom begins with self-knowledge and any seeker of wisdom must therefore get to know their shadow, and if we take care not to go too fast, as Dr. Jekyll, then we can deal with the repressed emotions bit by bit and turn them into something good. In time, however, they will come back to us no matter what we do, albeit at the moment of our death, and the same is true for our collective consciousness: the emotions repressed by the Church have come back to us for quite some time now. When God, the ego of society, died in the Industrial Revolution, psychoanalysis gave rise to surrealism, and society reconnected with its collective unconscious. By the time it did, it had taken on the form of a hell, and almost every emotion of society’s collective conscious took on the form of sin, and most of all in those forms of sin we tried hardest to repress: the greed of consumerism, the lust of pornography, the vanity of body modification, the envy of status, the sloth of entertainment, the the anger of racialism. The apocalypse has been happening every day for a long time.

Introducing Herman Cain

2011-06-12T00:18:00+02:00

Herman Cain is probably the most important 2012 candidate you’ve never heard of — and we’d like to change that. With Herman Cain growing more popular in the polls and the next GOP primary debate just around the corner, here’s the rundown on Herman Cain.

What you might know about Herman Cain

He is the former president and CEO of Godfather’s pizza
He is a Tea Party favorite
He is a former radio show host and Fox Business Channel contributor, naturally

What you might not know about Herman Cain’s and his campaign

He is surging in the GOP primary polls and is more popular than other, more well-known candidates. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll out just yesterday, he was tied for third with Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) — putting him ahead of Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Jon Hunstman.
He was the most googled presidential candidate during the month of May
He was on the board of directors for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City during the 1990s
He won the GOP’s first official debate, held last month in South Carolina, according to a Fox News/Frank Luntz focus group
His official campaign announcement in Atlanta attracted nearly 15,000 people
He has visited Iowa 19 times
He says he is proof that the Tea Party is not racist

What you should know about some of the extreme views of Herman Cain

Cain wouldn’t appoint Muslims to his administration: Back in March, ThinkProgress asked Cain if he’d be comfortable appointing Muslims to his cabinet and the federal judiciary. His response: “No, I will not.” During the now three-month long media firestorm that ensued, Cain has repeatedly tried to deny that’s what he said. PolitiFact awarded his denials a “pants on fire” rating. Religious tests are, of course, unconstitutional.
Cain would require special loyalty oaths for Muslims: Yesterday, Cain gave an expansive interview to Glenn Beck, who asked him about his comments on Muslims appointees. Cain once again attempted to tamp down the controversy by insisting he’d been misquoted, but then added he would require special loyalty oaths for Muslims — but not for any other religious group.
Cain says Muslims “have an objective to convert all infidels or kill them”: In an interview with Christianity Today magazine, Cain remarked: “The role of Muslims in American society is for them to be allowed to practice their religion freely, which is part of our First Amendment. The role of Muslims in America is not to convert the rest of us to the Muslim religion. That I resent.And so I push back and reject them trying to convert the rest of us. And based upon the little knowledge that I have of the Muslim religion, you know, they have an objective to convert all infidels or kill them.”
Cain’s solution for securing the border is a Great Wall of China featuring a moat with alligators: During an event ThinkProgress attended earlier this week in Iowa, Cain said: “Now, my fence might be part Great Wall and part electrical technology. […] It will be a 20-foot wall, barbed wire, electrified on the top, and on this side of the fence, I’ll have that moat that President Obama talked about. And I would put those alligators in that moat!”
Cain worked for a group and voiced ads in previous elections that accused Democrats of wanting to kill “black babies”: The group for which he was the spokesman and helped voice ads for in the 2004 and 2006 election cycles ran spots on black radio stations with lines like: “Black babies are terminated at triple the rate of white babies. The Democratic Party supports these abortion laws that are decimating our people, but the individual’s right to life is protected in the Republican platform. Democrats say they want our vote. Why don’t they want our lives?”
Cain thinks it’s “plausible” that Planned Parenthood was formed to systematically lower the black population: During a 2004 Senate run, Cain said: “One of the motivations was killing black babies, because they didn’t want to deal with the problems of illiteracy and poverty.”
Cain thinks homosexuality is a sin, but he’d appoint gay cabinet members –because, he says, they would not try to impose Sharia law: Cain told CBS news that he believes homosexuality is a sin; however, he told ThinkProgress earlier this week that he’d still be willing to appoint gays because he apparently believes they are anti-Sharia: “Nope, not at all. I wouldn’t have a problem with that at all. I just want people who are qualified, I want them to believe in the Constitution of the United States of America. So yep, I don’t have a problem with appointing an openly gay person. Because they’re not going to try to put sharia law in our laws.”
Cain taking part in a Tea Party, pro-gold standard bus tour of Iowa: Along with several other candidates, Cain will participate in a three-week tour of Iowa that is focused, in part, on returning the U.S. to the gold standard, a favorite theme of Glenn Beck and the Tea Party. Blaming the national debt, Cain did admit to an Iowa audience earlier this week that it might be too difficult for the U.S. to go back on the gold standard.
Cain misreads the Constitution to say the federal government can’t do anything about the foreclosure crisis: During a recent interview, Cain said, “The United States federal government, folks, has no jurisdiction over bankruptcy law. States do!” Article I of the Constitution, however, explicitly states: ““[t]he Congress shall have power . . . [t]o establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States.”

You know, I hate to tell Mr. Cain this but abortion is not an attempt to murder black babies and it's a well known fact that more white women obtain abortions than black women. As a matter of fact all anti abortion organizations have nothing but white people, mostly men, running them. Planned Parenthood not only provides abortions, but they also provide contraception to low income women and offer gynecological services such as pap smears to low income women. But of course we wouldn't want low income women to prevent themselves from becoming pregnant or deciding when such a thing is feasible and we woudn't want them to be screened for cervical cancer or cancer of the uterus. I am really growing tired of people's hysteria on this matter. I'm sorry folks but this country does not need to be overpopulated with people of any race. There aren't enough jobs to go around so what do you want to do? Bring a bunch of people into the world who won't be able to find employment? On the one hand people are fine with exporting jobs to other countries for cheap wages and on the other hand they don't want women aborting babies. Well guess what folks, those babies will one day become adults. What is this obssession with fetuses?

Apparently Mr. Cain knows very little about Muslims. The vast majority of them are not interested in converting people to Islam and have no desire to murder people who don't want to be Muslims. Apparently he doesn't know many Muslims. And why should they have to swear a special oath? How ridiculous. It's no secret that Christianity has a history of murdering people who wouldn't convert to Christianity. It's no secret that there are sects of Christians who believe that it's okay to kill people who aren't Christians. You're worried about Sharia Law? There are a number of Christians who would like this country to be run by Biblical Law which is the Christian version of Sharia Law. Let us not forget that Judaism begat Christianity which begat Islam. All three religions share similar feelings and have similarities in their religious texts. People criticize stoning in the Middle East and refuse to acknowledge that the method of execution in the Bible is stoning people to death. Where do you think Muslims got that from? And by goodness there are Christians who feel that should be a method of execution for people who are gay or who don't obey the Ten Commandments. How about we deal with the homegrown loonies in our midst and we'll let people in the Middle East deal with theirs. There is absolutely no chance of Sharia Law being instituted into the Constitution. There are not enough Muslims who even run for political office for that to become an issue. And I would dare say that the reason a lot of Muslims move here or to other countries is to get away from Sharia Law. Apparently there are Muslims who don't like such strict rules and they would rather live elsewhere. I have yet to meet a Muslim and I have met several who have stated that they want to kill non Muslims and man if only they lived under Sharia Law. Once again, hysteria.

Mr. Cain, if you think being a fucknut is going to convince white supremacists to vote for you and let's face it, white supremacists all vote Republican, that ain't gonna happen. And no, being the token black in the Tea Party doesn't mean that many of those people are not racist. It doesn't mean they all are but many are. They view your race as a problem. You might as well face reality brother. And no, you are not going to have a rat's ass chance in hell of becoming President unless you can trace your family lineage to the Queen of England because all of the former Presidents could. Including Obama. Let us not forget the man is half white and his mother's family can trace their lineage to the old bitch's family. Wake up and smell the fucking coffee you jackass.

To Feel A Dream

2011-04-05T16:50:00+02:00

Rather than believing that our hopes are true, we should dream of them as being true, knowing all the while that we are dreaming, but still feeling our dreams: for hope is not something we know, but something we feel. What we feel needn’t be what we know.

Islam and Near-Birth Experiences

2011-03-04T22:21:00+01:00

There are many aspects of Islam that may be seen as suggesting that the roots of Islam were once at least partly inspired on regression to the earliest unconscious memories of life in the womb. This would mean that Allah would be partly inspired on maternity, and so may be seen as a parental entity. Allah’s gender is not specified, though the pronoun “he” is used rather than “it” out of respect. However, it would be simplistic to reduce Allah to our mother, all the more as, during maternity, we did not know the parental entity, nor did it matter at the time: rather, maternity could be seen as one particular manifestation of the parental entity. In the widest sense, Allah could be seen as representing all parenthood of any kind, literal or metaphorical, in the universe.

The fetal position of sujud may be a way to regress to these earliest memories of this parental entity. The lack of visualization of Allah may be because we could not see the parental entity. The belief that Allah is a personal God may be because the parental entity was entirely caring for our every need. The belief that “we are nearer to Allah than his jugular vein” may be because we were inside the parental entity.

Finally, the belief in predestination may be because the parental entity’s emotions affected us, and, because the narcissism of infants which is perhaps also present in fetuses, we may have processed these emotions as being centered exclusively around ourselves. Yet, no matter what emotions came, they always returned to a baseline that was usually more or less the same throughout pregnancy, as though the parental entity’s emotions towards us were predestined. Having no ego, however, we would have had no sense of time.

Muhammed suffered from seizures during his revelations, apparently complex partial seizures, suggesting that, like many prophetic figures, he may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy (Cyril Glassé, Huston Smith: The new encyclopedia of Islam, page 133). As the entire Quran is considered to have been dictated by Mohammed, he would certainly have had the property of hypergraphia, much as Dostoevsky. If so, the Islamic belief in hell, perhaps as in other religions, may be inspired on the unconscious memories of the birth, while the belief in heaven would be inspired on the unconscious memories of the mother’s care. The fact that we have experienced both would explain why many people can at the same time feel a hope for heaven and a fear of hell.

Science Gone Wrong

2011-03-02T15:00:00+01:00

The Church’s creationism might have passed as scientific at one time. There is no reason that one of science’s hypothesis could not turn into a similar dogma yet. Creationism itself is a scientific hypothesis gone wrong. A poor scientific hypothesis, perhaps, but, in a time when little evidence was present, a scientific one nonetheless, at least every bit as scientific as, say, the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, and the fact that the latter is already finding its way in what may soon become the world’s main religion shows how close science is to creating a second Church. The Church is the result of a scientific theory gone wrong, and if there is one thing that we can learn from this, it is that in science, we must always try as much as we can to remain humble.

The Divine Patriarchy

2011-03-02T14:57:00+01:00

The Church never worshipped anything but itself and its own ego: it worshipped no God, but its own part of mankind, and in particular, men. It is an extension of a patriarchal society into death. The Christian God itself is nothing but an all-powerful patriarchal leader, and were it not that men knew that they had no power over death, then He would never have been accepted as a God, and in his stead a mortal man would take his place. In the absence of any mortal man who could control such large groups for a very long time, the Christian society needed an immortal one to better compete with other societies. The Christian God, as well as the Judaic God from which it originated, is a supreme alpha male.

The Church worships the male, as, incidentally, the widespread homosexuality in the Church shows. The Church’s condemnation of homosexuality is nothing but an attempt to keep the Church from growing emasculated: masculinity is so important in the Church because it is meant only to be powerful. It is for the same reason that Chassidims are forbidden to shave or cut their sideburns on the pain of death (for Rabbis, this was once on the pain of death): they are to express masculinity, and for this they are to satisfy the classic stereotype of the patriarch. The Church has been one of the most masculine groups in the world, which makes it the best example of the excesses of male pride. Pride is seen as the deadliest sin in Christianity only because it is reserved to the Church itself, and the humility preached by the Church is merely a means to make the masses submit to it.

That the Christian God is called “the Father” just shows how patriarchic Christianity is, and the creation story of man itself may be seen as a reference to a patriarch. The Jewish roots of Christianity were extremely patriarchic, with various key figures in the Old Testament being referred to as patriarchs. Genetic research even show that 98 of Kohanim today are likely descended from Aaron (Chabad, Loren Rozovsky: Raise Your Hand If You're A Kohen). With the great length that Jews went through to maintain racial purity, at one time killing women for adultery, this is not surprising. However, it also ensured that their group remained relatively small. The approach of the Christian church, however, was more memetic than genetic; it worked in the opposite way of the Judaic church. While the Judaic genetic strategy was to spread the same genes as much as possible, the Christian genetic strategy was to spread the same memes as much as possible, in such way that these memes would then ensure the selection of certain genetic traits.

Christianity has little to do with spirituality: much as the product in an enterprise of today’s religion of consumerism, it was merely a tool for the clergy to both give them power over the masses, and to give them a sense of power over life and death, power being the real value of Christianity. What really distinguishes Christianity from other religions, after all, is not its beliefs but its rules; these rules are nothing but a test of obedience, to ensure that only the most obedient of the strain would survive within the group while the rest would be executed, so that the group itself might survive in its competition with other groups.

The Church was a breeding ground for the purpose of creating a highly obedient race. Around the world other groups have served as similar such breeding grounds, meant to ensure that they developed the integrity to compete with the other groups, though none lasted as long and therefore had as much effect on human evolution as that of Christianity.

Yet, this trend of wars between groups is at least millions of years old, beginning from the time that troops of apes warred one another for resources in the African forests: Christianity is a means to pass on the genes of a group of humans in competition with other groups, and in this differs little from the means used by competing groups of apes. Since the competition of groups of apes, the groups evolved more and more integrity in order to better compete with one another, and the groups became larger, growing from clans to groups which could number in the millions and now even billions. The most important of these groups have been religious or nationalist, but in many respects there was often little significant difference between the two.

The Christian Church would have been much the same with or without Christ; in fact, Christ barely plays any role. After the treaty of Nicaea and the syncretism of the various religions in Rome into one religion which became Christianity, much of what was said of the Christian God in the Bible even became contradictory with the original Christ, a God of power rather than love: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household. Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:34-37) Christ has been turned into yet another figurehead of Christianity. Consider how much more the Church preached in the past of the miracles performed by Christ than of his actual ideas. For a long time, Christ’s true prophecy of love was a mere dint in the road of egotism, lasting in its pure form perhaps for but a few decades before he was made part of it. It is time to remember what Christ, and all the other prophets like him, really said, for it was anything but what the Church did in his name.

The New Enlightenment

2011-03-01T22:46:00+01:00

For the most part, the Enlightenment began in the same strange way that perhaps many transitions in history began, with boredom. Boredom caused established institutions, in particular the Church, to lose their momentum in the way they ruled people’s lives. Institutions like the Church speak to people’s pride, and in boredom, the lack of a sense of fulfillment frustrates those very attempts. People were losing their sense of purpose, and purpose lies at the basis of promises of the afterlife. There came time that simply could not be spent on anything other than this life.

In this case, the boredom was the result of the Industrial Revolution, which, by reducing the need for human labor to make a living, allowed the middle class to grow. People could achieve a reasonable degree of wealth even without being dominant; the people of the middle class were humble enough to doubt themselves, and at the same time had enough time to do so. With the time they had left, rather than increasing their wealth through mere dominance, they actually spent time to find ways to further increase the returns of their work. One of the ways to do this was through invention, which accelerated the Industrial Revolution.

People could spend more time working on how to be able to work less. As a result of this, there came a point that many people were having a lot more time on their hands. Their reason had the time to develop on its own, occupying itself with things other than work. Since technology was what many of them had been busy with, they already had a certain respect for science, and now they had more time on their hands, many of them may have spent some of it studying it, as it was where the technology they used in their work came from and so, something that concerned them personally.

Soon, however, they found that there was little left for all but the most genius of them to invent, and the big question occurred to them: now what? It is no surprise that this was the time of the “Weltschmerz” or world-weariness, and it is also no surprise that this term came from Germany, which in the Enlightenment was quite advanced in industry. This term was coined by someone of the higher class, however. Let’s take a look at the lower class.

At the same time the middle class was having more time for boredom, industrialization was making much of the lower class’ work, as that in factories, increasingly stultifying (the very word “boredom,” which has its origins in the eighteenth century, could have arisen from the use of bores). At the same time, it came to require an increasing amount of rationality. Ironically, this is why it became so mind-numbing: work that requires little thought can be practiced as a meditation.

At the same time, the sober world of industry was a world apart from the glorious world of the Church, and people were forced either to pass from one into the other, or to stay in one of them. There is no place for God in the industrial world. Away from the Church, people’s connection with God was felt most deeply in nature, a source from which they were now cut off. There was a suspension in people’s spirituality as science evolved and spirituality, being stuck in the Church, could not. Yet one cannot stop evolution forever, so that as spirituality kept evolving along with the rest of society, it eventually formed a new movement, that of existentialism. Existentialism came into our culture in the form of Romanticism, and what partly brought this movement into being, against all odds, was actually the very empirism of science at that time.

Romanticism is often seen as a reaction against the empiricism of the 19th century, but while this may partly be so, for the most part the two may have gone hand in hand, forming two aspects of the Enlightenment, its rational and emotional aspects. Romanticism and empiricism both drew from the same thing: experience. At the same time, while the science of that time was mostly empiricist and that of art mostly Romantic, science and art inspired one another more than ever before: science was practiced as an art, for its artistic value as well as its scientific value (e.g. number theory), while at the same time, art was practiced as a science, for its scientific value as well as its artistic value (e.g. science fiction, naturalism). In this balance, the two kept increasing one another and thereby, the whole of human culture and therefore of human self-awareness, which is the basis of existentialism.

There is another important reason for this transition, however, and it may even be the most important of all. On the one hand, there was the lowered quality of life of the working class. Workers spent more time away from their homes and family, with occupations such as mining, which were often far less pleasant than their former occupations such as farming. Since, according to the Church, all was God’s will, people began to think that they got this kind of life because they deserved it, and that God had forsaken them, which brought a sense of failure. On the other hand, at the same time a similar sense of failure was felt in the middle class as they were weaned off their habit of being almost constantly work. Since the dawn of civilization, people’s sense of self-esteem has always been primarily based on work, to the point that it made them arrogant; now, this source of satisfaction was partially cut off from them, to the extent that they were forced to face increasing periods of inactivity.

People in the lower and middle class began to feel worthless, unworthy of entering the paradise promised to the righteous, a feeling to which the growing displays of luxury in the Counter-Reformation Baroque of the Catholic Church only added. In time the suppression of society had come to such point that the lower class began to suffer from a collective inferiority complex, which simply could not be matched with the image of superiority with which the Church presented mankind’s place in the cosmos. The Church, as well as the top class which ruled it as a whole, had allowed its arrogance to run away with them until it came to stand in their own way.

In their sense of failure, people began to rethink their values in life with a depressive realism, which brought them to reason and thus to science, as well as something at least equally significant at that time, if not more so, philosophy.

Thus began humanity’s first era of existentialism, which gave birth to Romantic art, much of which to this day remains among the most beautiful we have. Ever before, art had been made possible only through enormous economic inequality, which allowed the rich to commission art entirely for themselves. Later, in the era of materialism, it would be commissioned for the masses. Only then, in the enlightenment, did human art on the whole acquire a life of its own. In the absence of promises of the afterlife, or promises of a better life later on as is now promised by the consumerist media, people then lived for art, or, in a broader sense, for beauty.

But the beauty proved too great for us and we fell to greed, and as we wanted more of it, soon the only part that was left of it was materialism. Thus existentialism turned into materialism and, in effect, came to its end. The plutocracy of materialism and the theocracy of monotheism have much in common. When the latter fell away, soon after, the former took its place. Everything we condemned in monotheism has now mostly shifted on to materialism, except for some places such as the United States who may pride themselves on still having both.

It is a strange twist of events that, in this way, many of those excesses have now partly passed from religion to science. This is not because they are inherent in either, but because any human is capable of arrogance, and arrogance is most likely to be found in those who are in the majority. Science has been having the upper hand for the better part of the last century now, and has accordingly been becoming more and more arrogant. Now, it is our spirituality which is truly evolving most of all, mostly, for better and worse, in the form of the New Age movement; and, much like the old Romantics probably wouldn’t, most people in the New Age movement actually refuse being seen as part of the movement. This is why it is a movement, rather than a group. For the most part, however, this evolution has no form whatsoever: the New Age movement may even be said to be nothing but an impostor of the movement that is taking place in our collective consciousness, because the movement by necessity has no identity, as this very movement is one of letting go of identity, for that is Enlightenment. Anyone who tries to so give it an identity will find that it will slip through his fingers like an eel, for, like Proteus, it is meant to keep changing, so that whatever name we would call it by, it would only be part of the truth.

If it were to continue in this way, we could be sure that science would become every bit as bigoted as our spirituality has been in the past. However, because science still, thankfully, has its foundations in the Enlightenment, it will not come that far: owing to the excellent timing at which it went through its Revolution, self-criticism has become central in science, and while damaged, in its heart, it has largely been left intact throughout the excesses of materialism, even though materialism was indirectly the result of science.

Nietzsche thought that, as Christianity would fall, humanity would go through a period of nihilism before arriving at existentialism. Unfortunately, as far as Christianity is concerned, society likely already had this period of nihilism brought about by the naturalism, or Romantic fatalism, of the late nineteenth century, and it marked the end of existentialism rather than its beginning.

It is understandable that Nietzsche, being bipolar, would think of this sequence of events, but unlike him in his depressive periods, most people, when faced with depression, always have an escape route in the form of distraction, and they found this distraction — their new distraction, to replace the old distraction of Christianity — in materialism. The question remains if we will now go through a similar period of nihilism now. However, there are reasons to think that this will not be the case, as, in fact, we have already been going through a much more gradual period of nihilism than that of the late nineteenth century, since the end of the Second World War, brought about by absurdism. Ever since, we have been faced with a growing “epidemic” of clinical depression. This gradual period of nihilism is much more hopeful, in that, like the epidemic of clinical depression there may likely have been in the eighteenth century, it is a sign that we are searching for new values in life.

Now, an awakening is dawning across humanity through the internet, which, as if emerging through the rubble of a city laid to waste in a battleground, allows us to arise from the cellars to which the collapsing buildings had confined us, to communicate and piece together what really happened to us — what could possibly have come over us — over the past century.

The Information Age has brought us to a transition into a new era of existentialism, the second in the history of civilization. And, as during the Industrial Revolution, it comes with in same strange way: boredom. Automatization is increasing unemployment and makes the employment that is left increasingly rational, which causes it to lead both to a new Weltzschmerz, and an estrangement from materialistic values. There will be a time when companies will automatize all work, and the only reason that this is not done now is because on the short term, this investment is still far more expensive than hiring employees. As and when this does happen, however, there will be no escape whatsoever left for us from the emptiness of our existence, an emptiness that, in effect, has always been there.

Each of us will soon, once again, be offered a choice: to collapse into nihilism in the face of the horrors of the past century — or evolve some spiritual backbone, and set it at last truly into existentialism, in existence itself. It is time for a new, Neo-Romantic Era, an era in which we are once more moved through what we feel, through what we really are. It is time for a new Enlightenment to begin.

Supreme Parenting Figure

2011-02-28T18:38:00+01:00

In our world, society has become a new parenting figure, and we all grovel to try and extract its approval, its parental love. Often, this echoes memories of our own parental love or lack thereof, because our parents themselves, in rearing us, were giving us this same kind of love that had been instilled upon them by society: that is to say, they themselves, in their way of rearing us, were groveling for the approval of the supreme parenting figure of society.

This “supreme parenting figure of society” may be called a God, and that we are increasingly becoming atheists, agnostics and pagans shows two things: on the one hand, it is a victory in gaining increased independence from that supreme parenting figure; on the other hand, it is the result of that supreme parenting figure becoming increasingly distant as population grows, so that, eventually, it comes to feel as if “there is no God” (“there is no supreme parenting figure in society”). This God, however, still exists, but now has merely become a colder kind of God, enforcing a colder kind of slavery.

It works so efficiently because love is such primary need that it will be sought wherever it can be found no matter how little there is, and if nowhere else, then it is sought in society itself. Because of this, someone starved of love from actual people is the perfect slave of society.

Things about spirituality, religion

2010-12-11T07:36:44+01:00

Ace of Cups
Upright: The beginning of love, joy, beauty, or good health
Reverse: Hesitancy to accept the things that come from the heart, love under a selfish grasp, egotism
Two of Cups
Upright: A new romance, a well-balanced friendship is beginning, harmony, cooperation
Reverse: A loss of balance in a relationship, a violent passion, love turning bad, a misunderstanding
Three of Cups
Upright: A good fortune in love, a happy conclusion, unknown talents are discovered, a sensitive and sympathetic person, hospitality
Reverse: Pain, gossip, unknown talents remain hidden, overindulgence
Four of Cups
Upright: Reevaluation, dissatisfaction with success, kindness may come from others
Reverse: New relationships possible, new goals, new ambitions, action
Five of Cups
Upright: Sorrow, loss of a loved one, a broken marriage, disillusionment, vain regret
Reversed: Return of hope, new relationships are beginning, return of a loved one, courage is summoned from within
Six of Cups
Upright: A gift from a childhood acquaintance, happiness and pleasure brought from the past, good memories, a new friendship, a gift from an admirer, new opportunities
Reverse: Living in the past, outworn friendships, disappointment
Seven of Cups
Upright: A long-worked imagination, unable to choose one's direction in life, illusory success
Reverse: A good use of determination, will-power, and a definite path will be chosen
Eight of Cups
Upright: An abandonment of one's current path in life, disappointment in love, misery and repining without cause, desire to leave one’s success for something higher
Reverse: Search for pleasure, seeking joy or success, a new love interest
Nine of Cups
Upright: An assured future, physical well-being, a wish may come true
Reverse: A lack in money, overindulgence, illness, a wish may not come true
Ten of Cups
Upright: A happy family life, true friendships, lasting happiness
Reverse: A family quarrel, loss of a friendship, children may turn against their parents, waste
Page of Cups
Upright: Gentleness, sweetness, kindness, an interest in poetry or art, news
Reverse: Selfishness, little desire to create, a poor imagination
Knight of Cups
Upright: Intelligence, romantic dreamer, the coming or going of an emotional matter
Reverse: Trickery, fraud, sensuality, idleness, and an untruthful person
Queen of Cups
Upright: Imagination out-ways one's common sense, a good wife or loving mother, happiness, gentle, a good natured person
Reverse: An over-active imagination, perverse, pleasure and happiness may turn bitter
King of Cups
Upright: A business man, a man of law, kindness, a considerate person, a willingness to take on responsibility, and enjoyment of the arts or sciences
Reverse: A powerful man but a double-dealer, crafty, violent, scandal, wicca

Swords
Usually predict aggression, force, ambition, courage, strife, misfortune

Ace of Swords
Upright: Beginning of a victory, ability to love and hate with ardor, a valiant leader may be born
Reverse: Caution when trying to use power to gain an ending, obstacles, tyranny
Two of Swords
Upright: Well-balanced emotions are needed, indecision, trouble ahead, in need of direction
Reverse: Release, beware when dealing with the unscrupulous
Three of Swords
Upright: Affections may experience "stormy weather", lovers separated, possible civil war
Reverse: Disorder, confusion, loss, sorrow due to loss
Four of Swords
Upright: Rest after strife, retreat, temporary exile, a change back to the "active life"
Reverse: Renewed activity, social unrest, labor strikes
Five of Swords
Upright: Failure, defeat, cowardliness, cruelty, an empty victory
Reverse: A lesser chance of loss or defeat, an empty victory, unfairness in dealings
Six of Swords
Upright: A journey, passage away from sorrow, harmony will prevail
Reverse: Journey will be postponed, no way out of present obstacles or difficulties
Seven of Swords
Upright: An unwise attempt, unreliability, betrayal, insolence, spying, possible failure
Reverse: Excessive help is given, good advice, counsel, stolen items are returned
Eight of Swords
Upright: Restricted action, indecision, censure, temporary illness, weakness, a prisoner
Reverse: Relaxation, new beginnings possible, freedom
Nine of Swords
Upright: Suffering, doubt, desolation, illness, injury, death of a loved one, suspicion, cruelty, misery, loss, dishonesty, pitilessness, slander
Reverse: Healing over time, unselfishness, patience, good news of a loved one
Ten of Swords
Upright: Sudden misfortune, ruin of plans, defeat, failure, pain and tears
Reverse: Evil forces are overthrown, courage, some success, better health
Page of Swords
Upright: Dexterity, grace, diplomacy, understanding, an upsetting message
Reverse: A cunning person, an imposture, ill health, unexpected events
Knight of Swords
Upright: A headlong rush into life, a strong man, bravery, a skillful and clever person, an unexpected coming or going off a matter
Reverse: Tyranny, a troublemaker, a crafty and secretive person
Queen of Swords
Upright: A quick and confident decision, a widow, one who can bear their sorrow
Reverse: Cruelty due to keen observations, a sly and deceitful person, narrow-mindedness, and a gossip
King of Swords
Upright: A judge, a powerful commander, a firm friendship holder but often overcautious, a wise counselor
Reverse: Evil intentions, an obstinate person, decisions or judgments may seem unfair

Pentacles
Usually predict money, industry, and material gain

Ace of Pentacles
Upright: A new business venture, the beginning of prosperity, beginning of happiness or pleasure
Reverse: Possible greed or misery, money may not be everything
Two of Pentacles
Upright: The ability to handle multiple situations, harmony is maintained during change, new projects may be difficult, expect a helpful message
Reverse: Difficulty with handling problems, expect a discouraging message
Three of Pentacles
Upright: Reward for skills or abilities, approval, success through effort
Reverse: Quality in workmanship is neglected; good work is expended due to a preoccupation with money, common place ideals or ambitions
Four of Pentacles
Upright: Love of power or money, a lack of give-and-take, miserly or ungenerous nature
Reverse: Some earthly possessions may be lost, obstacles or delays in business affairs, a spendthrift.
Five of Pentacles
Upright: Loneliness, destitution, loss of possessions, poor health, despair due to spiritual impoverishment
Reverse: New employment, revived courage, a new interest
Six of Pentacles
Upright: Sharing of prosperity, one will soon receive what are rightfully theirs, charity, gifts, and philanthropy, three-fold
Reverse: Bribes, unfairness, prosperity is threatened, jealousy, miserliness
Seven of Pentacles
Upright: Effort and hard work will cause growth, a pause during development, reevaluations
Reverse: Little progress, impatience, anxiety, investments may be unprofitable
Eight of Pentacles
Upright: Learning a trade or profession, employment is coming soon, skill, handiwork, small money gain
Reverse: Skills are not being used properly; a dislike of hard work, ambition is void
Nine of Pentacles
Upright: Well-being, things in life are enjoyed alone, solitude, a green thumb
Reverse: Loss is possible, danger from thieves, caution
Ten of Pentacles
Upright: Stable family, gain in wealth, property is acquired
Reverse: Family misfortune, caution, mind is dull, slothfulness
Page of Pentacles
Upright: Scholar, generosity, kindness, a careful person, learning new ideas/opinions
Reverse: Wastefulness, luxury, rebellious, opposing ideas/opinions, bad news
Knight of Pentacles
Upright: Trustworthy, a heavy and dull outlook, patience, accepting of responsibilities, an animal lover, a nature lover, the coming/going off a matter
Reverse: Irresponsible, impatience, timidness, carelessness, a standstill in affairs
Queen of Pentacles
Upright: Intelligence, thoughtfulness, a creative person, talents are used well, melancholy
Reverse: Too much dependence, neglected duties, mistrust, suspicion, not a very creative person
King of Pentacles
Upright: A chief of industry or a banker, a reliable person, a married man, solid, steadiness
Reverse: Materialistic, slow to anger, 'head is on the ground", bribes

services,metaphysical

occult, tarot

The God of the Unconscious Mind

2010-11-10T12:53:00+01:00

In many ways our unconscious mind may be said to be a God of our own, and a God in our own lives, and many ideas of God have likely been based on our unconscious mind. All our consciousness and therefore everything we are, arises from our unconscious mind, and so we will only become conscious of something in the first place if our unconscious mind makes us conscious of it. Since we need consciousness in everything we do, we owe everything we have to our unconscious mind. It is, therefore, the creator of our consciousness and so of everything we know, and there is no telling in what ways it rules us in ways we cannot foresee by making us conscious or unconscious of certain things at certain times to make us do things which only it knows what they are for. Prayer, which is actually hypnosis, is a way to connect to our own unconscious mind, and it is answered through consciousness.

On dowsing: “I don’t really believe in it save that it works. Maybe it’s this way. Maybe I know where the water is, feel it in my skin. Some people have a gift in this direction or that. Suppose—well, call it humility, or a deep disbelief in myself, forced me to do a magic to bring up to the surface the thing I know anyway. Does that make any sense to you?”

— East of Eden, by John Steinbeck

PersonhoodUSA's Radical, Fetal-Separatist Agenda

2010-10-27T04:31:00+02:00

I just had to post this lady's article here. Her name is Lynn Paltrow. These right to lifers are getting more and more insane as time goes. Pretty soon women who don't become pregnant are going to have hand their ova to the state to ensure they get fertilized because these women are denying their ova life.

Next week, people in Colorado will be voting on Amendment 62, a ballot measure sponsored by PersonhoodUSA. This organization seeks to establish the "pre-born,” including eggs, embryos and fetuses as separate “legal persons with protection under the law."

This organization claims that its goal is to end the "injustice of abortion.” In fact they are promoting a Fetal Separatist movement, one that is trying to legally separate pregnant women and the fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses inside of them. Their efforts are dangerous to all pregnant women including those who go to term, those who expect confidential medical care, and those who want to preserve their right to life and liberty.

The argument that eggs and fetuses may be treated as if they are legally independent of the women who carry them has been used to deprive pregnant women of their status as full constitutional persons. Angela Carder was forced to have cesarean surgery to advance the rights of the fetus inside of her. Shortly after the surgery both the baby and Ms. Carder died. Ms. Carder was deprived of her right to life. Recently, a pregnant woman was kept prisoner in a Florida hospital because doctors believed that doing so would advance the rights and health of the fetus. She nevertheless suffered a stillbirth. Ms. Burton was deprived of her right to liberty. Although courts in both cases eventually held that these deprivations of life and liberty were wrong, adopting fetal separatist measures would allow outsiders to take similar actions whenever they disagreed with the pregnant woman.

In New Jersey, V.M. refused to pre-authorize cesarean surgery. Although she had a successful vaginal birth, New Jersey hospital workers reported her to child welfare authorities for medical neglect of her unborn child. This report led to the removal of the newborn from her parent’s custody. As a result, V.M. her husband and her child have been deprived of their fundamental liberty interests in family life.

When doctors at a hospital learned that Laura Pemeberton was attempting to have a home birth, fetal separatist arguments became the basis for sending a sheriff to her home. She was taken into custody, forcibly restrained while in active labor, judged without representation and forced to undergo cesarean surgery, depriving her of her right to liberty, privacy, bodily integrity, medical decision-making and due process of law.

When CT in Iowa was five months pregnant and fell down a flight of stairs, she assumed that she had a right to privacy in her medical information. Hospital staff, however, reported her to the police and she was arrested – deprived of her liberty – for the made up crime of “attempted fetal homicide.”

Fetal separatists analogize fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses to African-American slaves who were once “denied their humanity” and “stripped [of] their personhood.” They suggest that their goal is simply continuing an American tradition of expanding membership in the population of Constitutional persons. But, in fact, fetal separatism, in the guise of adding one group to the Constitutional population will do something unprecedented in US history: subtract another.

When former slaves were added to the constitutional population, this did not in any way diminish the constitutional rights or personhood of any other people in the United States. Although slaveholders lost significant power and privilege to enslave, and exploit others, they did not lose anything in terms of their status as constitutional persons under the law.

Similarly, when women of all races were added to the population of Constitutional persons through the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote, and Supreme Court cases prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex neither the constitutional rights nor the personhood of men was diminished. While men lost significant power over their wives and daughters as well as advantages in the worlds of work, education and civic life, they did not lose their status as full constitutional persons under the law.

In contrast and as the examples above demonstrate, efforts to legally disconnect fetuses and to grant them entirely independent constitutional status would not merely add a new group to the Constitutional population: it would effectively denaturalize pregnant women, removing from them their status as Constitutional persons.

Passing measures that legally segregate eggs, embryos and fetuses from the pregnant woman will also result in a new regime of separate and unequal. Pregnant women could be sued, subject to child welfare interventions, or even arrested if they engaged in activities at work and at home that might be thought to create a risk to the life of the “preborn.” Legally separating the “pre-born” from the pregnant women who sustain them will ensure that in jobs, education, and civic life, pregnant women will, once again, be unequal to men.

When African-Americans and women of all races were added to the Constitutional population those individuals were empowered. Adding the “pre-born” to the Constitution will not free fetuses nor will it empower them. Rather, it will empower outsiders including police officers, prosecutors, judges, and child protection workers to advance their beliefs about what is right for the “pre-born” and to do so by controlling the pregnant women who carry, nurture and sustain them.

People voting on a “personhood measure” in Colorado next week should remember what is really at stake -- the personhood of pregnant women.

Is it merely coincidence that this shit is up for vote and we have all these Republican candidates who are opposed to abortion for any reason and want to outlaw contraception? If women don't watch out they are going to be reduced to human incubators giving birth to babies for the state. Less government my fucking ass.

Republicans And Their Love Of Incest And Rape

2010-10-20T00:20:43+02:00

I found this article and it once again revives the question of why Republican candidates are obsessed with babies conceived out of rape and incest.

cross the state, it has been headline news that Republican candidate for lieutenant governor Rebecca Kleefisch has refused to debate Democratic candidate Tom Nelson. A story by the Associated Press on Oct. 5 was picked up by many newspapers and TV and radio stations. But one week later, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has still not reported this to its readers.

The media, of course, routinely pushes candidates from either party to debate. The La Crosse Tribune did an editorial calling on Kleefisch to debate. It also noted that you can’t find any details of her stands on the issues at her website.

Adding irony is that Kleefisch is a former journalist herself who worked as a reporter at WISN-TV Channel 12 in Milwaukee. But she seems quite unavailable to the media. She declined a week’s worth of requests to do an interview with the Madison weekly Isthmus.

Kleefisch wouldn’t even talk to the press about her refusal to debate. A spokeswoman for her campaign was left to inform the media that Kleefisch won't debate, explaining that she wouldn’t because Nelson and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett are only interested in running away from their records and using false TV ads to distort the record of Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker. I would have thought that was a reason to debate the issues and clarify the truth.

Kleefisch ran to the right of everyone in the race for lieutenant governor. She has declared herself 100 percent opposed to abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. She supports allowing the concealed carrying of guns. And she religiously notes her Christian views. "It's important to voters to know that I answer to a higher power," Kleefisch told the JS. “If we aren’t Christ-centered, who are we to say we should be leading?” she declared in a speech in July.

Kleefisch appeared on Fox News in July as one of the “Mama Grizzlies,” a Sarah Palin-coined term for conservative women eager to protect their cubs. "Kleefisch is very Sarah Palin-esque, and she's embraced that," UW political science professor Barry Burden told Isthmus.

Isthmus suggested Walker’s campaign handlers could be trying to keep Kleefisch under wraps. “It hurts her credibility if she's not allowed to talk to media," Burden told the weekly.

Perhaps. But it’s worth noting that Palin was seen by Americans as losing her debate with eventual vice president Joe Biden. She – and Republican presidential candidate John McCain – would have been better off if the debate had never happened. That appears to be the thinking of Wisconsin Republicans – better to protect Kleefisch from a Sarah-style debacle in a debate. Hiding from a debate ,of course, wasn’t possible for Palin. That would have created a storm of protest from the national media, which would never allow a presidential or vice presidential candidate of either party to refuse to debate.

But there’s no such storm in Wisconsin over Kleefisch’s refusal, largely because the state’s largest newspaper has decided not to pursue the issue. The JS still has tremendous power, and when it chooses to be a crusading newspaper, it can influence state legislators and other policymakers, as well as the media. In this case, the editors have decided to ignore an issue that’s normally considered of vital interest in an election. Why?

Honestly, what kind of mentally depraved perverts are these Republican candidates? Especially with incest. How mentally sick can you be when you think it's perfectly all right for men to father babies with their female relatives? I'm beginning to wonder why rape and incest is even illegal since it's all right with these folks for women to give birth under these conditions. The Republicans act like they are so moral yet they love rape and incest. They probably engage in it themselves. It's quite obvious that they don't consider women anything more than just a walking birth canal.

Those Good Chrisitians

2010-10-13T02:34:00+02:00

Have you ever wondered why it is that a lot of these good Christian folks are just salivating over the prospect of abortion being outlawed even in cases of rape and incest? They have this obsession with wanting a nation of children born out of rape and incest. Apparently they think that men who commit these mentally depraved acts should be rewarded with fatherhood. I mean, hell, screw the women. As we already know, the fetus is of more importance then the human incubator it grows in. I've often wondered why it is that it's so vital that women impregnated by rape or a male relative be forced to bear these children. Now I know.

http://www.gospelaccordingtohate.com/2010/06/baptist-scandal-in-new-hampshire-girl.html

http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/police-girl-raped-then-relocated?page=0,0

The victim actually had to apologize to the congregation for her rape. Because after all, she was 1% responsible for this. This is why a lot of Christians want women to give birth to babies resulting from a rape or incest. Because they are partially at fault for this. After all, they have vaginas and if they didn't have vaginas then this wouldn't happen.

Church Plans Anti-Quran Burning

2010-09-08T00:54:00+02:00

July 30, 2010|By Lauren Russell, CNN

In protest of what it calls a religion "of the devil," a nondenominational church in Gainesville, Florida, plans to host an "International Burn a Quran Day" on the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The Dove World Outreach Center says it is hosting the event to remember 9/11 victims and take a stand against Islam. With promotions on its website and Facebook page, it invites Christians to burn the Muslim holy book at the church from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

"We believe that Islam is of the devil, that it's causing billions of people to go to hell, it is a deceptive religion, it is a violent religion and that is proven many, many times," Pastor Terry Jones told CNN's Rick Sanchez earlier this week.

Jones wrote a book titled "Islam is of the Devil," and the church sells coffee mugs and shirts featuring the phrase.

Muslims and many other Christians -- including some evangelicals -- are fighting the initiative.

The church launched a YouTube channel to disseminate its messages.

"I mean ask yourself, have you ever really seen a really happy Muslim? As they're on the way to Mecca? As they gather together in the mosque on the floor? Does it look like a real religion of joy?" Jones asks in one of his YouTube posts.

"No, to me it looks like a religion of the devil."

The Islamic advocacy group Council on American-Islamic Relations called on Muslims and others to host "Share the Quran" dinners to educate the public during the monthlong fast of Ramadan beginning in August. In a news release, the group announced a campaign to give out 100,000 copies of the Quran to local, state and national leaders.

"American Muslims and other people of conscience should support positive educational efforts to prevent the spread of Islamophobia," said CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper in the release.

The National Association of Evangelicals, the nation's largest umbrella evangelical group, issued a statement urging the church to cancel the event, warning it could cause worldwide tension between the two religions.

"The NAE calls on its members to cultivate relationships of trust and respect with our neighbors of other faiths. God created human beings in his image, and therefore all should be treated with dignity and respect," it said in the statement.

Dove's Facebook page, set up for the September event, has more than 1,600 fans.

"Eternal fire is the only destination the Quran can lead people to, so we want to put the Quran in it's [sic] place -- the fire!" the page says.

Well, hell. I'm thinking of grabbing a copy of the Torah, the Bible, the Koran, and a book of Mormon plus various and sundry Christian religious pamphlets people keep handing me, and some Catholic literature I picked up and having a bonfire on Saturday. Maybe roast some marshmallows over the open fire.

Let's do a what if. What if 9/11 had been committed by 19 Christian fundamentalists who wanted to take America over and institute Biblical Law? And turn American into a Christian Theocracy. What if. Would it be all right to hate all Christians, have a national Bible burning day, and spew hatred at all Christians? Bomb a few Christian nations maybe? Think about it. What if. Or would the Christians say "but we're not all like that!!!" What if 9/11 had been committed by 19 Timothy McVeighs. Would it be all right to hate all Christians and burn Bibles and accuse Christians of being of the devil.

Yanno, Terry. I hope I can call you Terry. You can burn physical objects. You can burn books. They're merely written words. But you can't destroy an ideology, an idea, a faith, a philosophy. They're intangible. So you can burn all the Korans you want to burn. But I guarantee you, when you wake up on Sunday morning, there will be the same amount of Moslems there were when you got up on Saturday morning.

You can outlaw things. You can burn things. But you'll never get rid of an idea. You won't burn the Islam out of anyone's head. And quite frankly I don't know what makes you think your brand of bullshit is any better than theirs. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are interrelated. Based off each other. Same basic premise. You'll have no god before me. That kind of shit. All three believe in the same god.

Quite honestly, I have no use for religion in any shape, form, or fashion so your excuse for burning these books is pretty damn funny. You're burning Korans because you think your religion is the right one. Well, guess what? All people of all faiths think theirs is the right one and everyone else has it wrong. You aren't the first to come up with this concept. So by all means, burn Korans until the cows come home if it makes you happy but bear this in mind. At first only your congregation of relatives knew you were a moron. Now the whole world knows. Isn't that just a bit embarrassing? I know it embarrasses me as an American whenever some idiot like you gets center stage for your 15 minutes of international fame. I can hear the chuckles and guffaws worldwide.

Personally, I think instead of the Afghans protesting in Kabul, they should take the Bibles that were given to them in the two dialects they speak and have a national Bible burning day. Bring the kids, the kabobs, and some marshmallows.

Paranoia and the Superego

2010-05-12T19:38:00+02:00

The superego concerns itself with possibilities in which we could be, and part of those possibilities involve people. To be able to tell how people would behave in those possibilities, it creates models of people, and as these models are what forms society it may be said that they are in effect part of society that always remains inside our own minds. Even if we are alone, we will still be think about what others would think of us, because they are in a way part of us, even though we do not see them as such. We have little control over these parts of ourselves, so that it is as if they are people in themselves, people other than ourselves, and if we are very different from them, we really don’t want them in our minds. If we were to live with everyone we know and each would know our every thought, then it would be only a matter of time before most of them would become our enemies. When we think too much about what people would think of us, in the mind this is what happens, and paranoia results (so that being startled easily may indeed be said to be caused by a “bad conscience”). In this case the superego may sometimes keep causing such stress on the ego that over the years, it disintegrates, resulting in schizophrenia, but the opposite may also occur. Schizophrenics are often paranoid because they are, in effect, persecuted by other people in their minds just because of how they think of them, and in this society is in part responsible for their suffering.

When one is different, one thing one must keep in mind, however, is that the reason why people have become so afraid of differences is because they have themselves been told to by their own superego, but they are in effect more their superego. By reaching through to who they really are we may see that who they really are mean no harm to us, allowing us to be ourselves, in spite of our differences, without becoming paranoid. For many people who become isolated, people come to seem nothing more than their society, but almost no one is ever as bad as their society, so that just looking at them, as individuals, may reduce paranoia.

Since we do not identify with our superego, we may perceive it as something outside of ourselves, and because it follows us everywhere we go, we may perceive it as something around us, and because it is nowhere in sight we may perceive it as something which follows us from behind. Someone which actually is behind us may therefore becomes associated with the superego and so cause the perception that the person is following us. At the same time, when we do something that causes a reaction from the superego, it may also feel as if we are being watched. This is one reason why the superego is associated with a theist God.

With society as part of our own minds, any conflict without becomes a conflict within. Most people solve this by making sure they are always on the winning side and suppressing the losing sides of the conflict in their minds, but if we could actually solve all the conflicts there are deep within ourselves, however, not only would we be at peace with ourselves but also with everyone else, so that we could also solve any conflict outside ourselves, for the world outside us is, in part, part of ourselves. The superego so connects us all that indeed, “We must recognize that the suffering of one person is the suffering of humanity, and that the happiness of one person or nation is the happiness of humanity.”

Existentialism in the Bible

2010-03-14T21:30:00+01:00

While existentialism is often rejected by Christians as atheist, the Bible itself is actually existentialist, stating in the Ecclesiastes literally that "everything to come is meaningless" (Ecclesiastes 11:8), that “even a live dog is better off than a dead lion” and even that "the dead know nothing" (Ecclesiastes 9:5). As often with religions, Christianity was actually existentialist once, and if Christians were made more aware of the existentialism in the Ecclesiastes, they might become it again.

The Nicaean Syncretism

2010-01-18T02:55:00+01:00

Similarities between Christ and other gods, notably Horus, indicate that a syncretism occurred between them, most probably during the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.

— Horus was born on December the 25th, which at that time was 6 Mechir in the Coptic calendar (Normandi Ellis: Feasts of Light: Celebrations For Seasons Of Life Based On The Egyptian Goddess Mysteries, page 16), but because the Coptic calendar does not use leap years, its months shift over time, so that right now this would be in Koiak. Jesus birthdate was placed at 25 December only in 354, 29 years after the Nicene Creed was formed (Catholic Encyclopedia: "VIII kal. ian. natus Christus in Betleem Iudeæ".)

— Horus was killed and resurrected, though the next morning rather than three days later (Donna Rosenberg, World mythology: an anthology of the great myths and epics, page 166). The sun stands still for three days near the solstice, but there is no mention anywhere of Horus ever having been dead for three days before resurrecting.

— Isis, Horus’ mother, was sometimes said to be a virgin (Isisdora Forrest: Isis Magic, page 140), though also sometimes said to have had sex with Osiris (Isisdora Forrest: Isis Magic, page 105) (Evžen Strouhal et al: Life of the ancient Egyptians, page 49). Unlike dogmas, however, mythology often has several versions. The version of Isis’ virginity which Isis is a virgin may be explained by the fact that Osiris’ penis had been cut off and replaced by one of gold, clay or wood (Matheus Franciscus Maria Berk: The Magic Flute, page 287). Another version says that Horus was already born when this happened (Donna Rosenberg: World mythology: an anthology of the great myths and epics, page 166). Yet another version says that Horus was conceived through a flash of lightning: "The lightning flash strikes, the gods are afraid, Isis waked pregnant with the seed of her brother Osiris." (Isidora Forrest, Isis Magic, page 22)

— Like Jesus, Horus was an only son (Egyptian Myths: "Glory to Horus […] the only son of Osiris").

— Both Jesus and Horus are said to have been of royal descent: Osiris was the king of Egypt and of the Underworld (Geraldine Pinch: Egyptian Mythology), while Jesus is said to be descended from King David (Martin C. Albl: Reason, Faith, and Tradition: Explorations in Catholic Theology, page 293; Joye Jeffries Pugh: Eden: The Knowledge of Good and Evil).

— Horus had twelve followers, who followed him throughout his journey through the sky (E. A. Wallis Budge: Egyptian Heaven and Hell, page 176: "The Boat [of Afu-Ra] is now towed by twelve gods.")

— Isis was syncretized with Meri, the goddess of the sea (Patricia Monghan: The New Book of Goddesses and Heroines). Mary is known as the “Star of the Sea” while Isis was called “Stella Maris” (James Stevens Curl: The Egyptian Revival, page 62; Michael Streich: The Cult of Isis in Imperial Roman Times). Isis was also identified with Sothis, or Sirius, which may have been the Star of the East, or the Star of Bethlehem.

— The three stars in the belt of Orion, aligned with Sothis, point at the place where the sun is to rise (Stellarium). These three stars may be said to be similar to the three solar deities.

— Like Christ travelled through the desert to face the devil, Ra (or Horus) travelled through the underworld to face Set, but unlike Christ, he did so every night (Jon Ewbank Manchip White: Ancient Egypt, page 37, Evans Lansing Smith: The Hero Journey in Literature, page 386).

— Like Mary was warned by an angel of God to flee to Egypt from Herod, Isis was warned by Thoth to hide from Set (E. A. Wallis Budge: Literature of the Ancient Egyptians, page 88).

— Horus was associated with Orion (Greg Taylor: The God with the Upraised Arm), and the Pharaoh, with which he was identified with Horus (Ninian Smart: The World's Religions, page 203), was often represented as a "God with the Upraised Arm" (as per Greg Taylor), which resembles Orion, and some versions of which even fit right into Orion, as one in the Temple of Edfu, which is associated with Horus’ battle against Set. In the Aeneid, Orion was seen as walking through the waters of the ocean: "'As great Orion moves forward, cleaving his way, with his feet treading the floor of the deepest mid-ocean.'" (Theoi Greek Mythology: Virgil, Aeneid 10. 763), much as Christ walked over water. That Horus was killed by a scorpion (Tamra Andrews: Dictionary of nature myths: legends of the earth, sea, and sky, page 171) may be because at one point in the year, the sting of the Scorpion points at where the sun will rise.

— Ra, who was syncretized with Horus, stilled the storm for Horus (Michael Pollard: The Nile) (Journal of Egyptian Archology: The Myth of Horus at Edfu) as Jesus did (Mark 4:35-40), and in both cases the storm was caused by their archenemy the god of the underworld (the Devil and Set).

— Asar was another name for Osiris (David Frawley: Gods, sages and kings: Vedic secrets of ancient civilization, page 271), and the Hebrew Bible compounded names of non-Jewish gods with “El” (Bruce M. Metzger, Michael D. Coogan: The Oxford guide to people & places of the Bible), in this case forming El-Azar which when latinized would become Elazarus or Lazarus. Jesus resurrected Lazarus (John 11:1-46), and Horus helped Isis and her sister Nephtys to resurrect Osiris by bringing them to the land of the dead and feeding his own eye to him (Donna Rosenberg: World mythology: an anthology of the great m

When Authorities Clash

2009-12-19T08:42:42+01:00

Clashes between religious authorities are common. One type of clash is that between completely different religions, for example, the contemporary hostility between Islam and Hinduism on the Indian subcontinent. In such cases, differences in worldview are so great that the only resolution is some accord permitting coexistence. A more common clash of religious authorities occurs within traditions, when some individuals argue very strongly for one way of practicing or interpreting the religion and another group argues just as strongly for a different method. Denominations within one religion or the formation of a new, closely related religion often are the result of disagreements between religious leaders, all of whom claim authority. In these cases, both leaders claim to revere that tradition’s ultimate religious authority, but also claim that responsibility to care for and interpret that religion has fallen into the wrong hands. At least three major kinds of protest have arisen repeatedly. First, individuals or groups protest that the wrong people have been put in authority or that they have too much power. The major division between the Sunni and Shi’ite branches within Islam arose from controversy over who was the legitimate successor to the Prophet Mohammed, meant to rule over a unified Islam. While the Protestant movement is complex, one major initial cause certainly was German Reformation leader Martin Luther’s (1483–1546) defiance of papal authority. According to Luther, the pope had usurped the authority that should reside directly in the Bible and believers should form their faith directly on the Bible rather than relying on the decisions of a human intermediary. Luther’s protests were only the first of many movements claiming to abandon various human institutions to return to the sacred text as ultimate and final authority. Today, numerous individuals and movements within Christianity claim to have found that unmediated text, but each claim is contested by another contender.

'Awestruck' Evening at First Congregational Church

2009-11-05T11:29:00+01:00

NOTE: This is the fourth in a series of articles about Battle Creek (Michigan, USA) area churches.

‘Awestruck’ Evening at First Congregational Church

By Jim Richmond

“My God, I used to take care of his kids!,” Laurie Macon, a northside neighbor of long ago, said, giving me a hug before the simple dinner that preceded the “Awestruck Service” last night in the dramatic, embracing circle sanctuary at First Congregational (United Church of Christ) Church near downtown Battle Creek.

I hadn’t intended to go to Church, but a friend, John Wright, called, wanting me to see his horses, and then go to Congregational for the service (“Hey, it’s different. You’ll like it.”).

I’d never been in First Congregational – always thinking it was part of the big, stuffy, old line, conservative and all-white churches half ringing the northside of Battle Creek.

I was mistaken: it is warm, engaging, inspiritational and (I don’t think the Lord would mind), fun.

Not too long ago, First Congregational added an expansive indoor meeting space, that’s more like eating in an open air courtyard – and that’s where we had a simple buffet dinner – quietly served and bussed by church members including, I noticed, a retired BC mayor and his wife, and another couple who are both architects and historical preservation buffs.

“People from all over town go here on Wednesday nights. If you like a contemporary service, and are inclusive, open minded -- this is a great place to be” my friend John commented, as we ate chicken, mash potatoes, gravy and cold slaw on paper plates, and as I gawked around at people in the Church courtyard, and the multi-story glass ceiling, which seemed to stretch into the night sky.

Rubber necking a bit, I see Donna and Jack Gray at another table, Marie Ptacin, Clare and Tom Ott, Nancy and Chris Schweitzer, Lauren Sackrider – and many other young and old time Battle Creek “suspects” – people known to quietly lead and support such efforts as Battle Creek’s Nursing Clinic (for the homeless), South Central Michigan Music Center, Habitat for Humanity, Substance Abuse Council, Alano Club, the tutoring program at Ann J. Kellogg School, the Battle Creek Community Foundation, JONAH, and other civic projects.

AT 6:30, we strolled into the adjoining, circular church sanctuary, open at its center, and which seats about 250 people in comfortable, stair-stepped concentric rings of pews.

The Wednesday night “Awestruck” Service was established by church members and Associate Pastor Leah Robberts-Mosser about 18 months ago, part of the Church’s evident journey to examine religious mission, membership and community outreach.

Wednesday night is different from Sunday morning service at First Congregational, which evidently has a more traditional liturgy and overall feel.

‘We wanted this (Wednesday) to be a special night when we eat, pray and worship together,” Associate Pastor Leah said.

Four teams of FCC members rotate in planning the Wednesday services, selecting the evening’s liturgy, reading, and music around a particular theme.

Last night’s music was inspirational, lively and uplifting, featuring a small, enthusiastic choir (dressed very casually like everyone else in blue jeans, Dockers and sweaters, it seemed) and an unusual blend of live music, musicians and instruments.

Pastor Leah talked on Apostle Paul’s message to The Philippians. There was an intimate breaking and sharing of bread and wine, by all, in the center of the sanctuary.

And at the end, we all went down to the sanctuary’s center again, to link hands, sing, celebrate the Lord, and also wish Pastor Leah, her husband David, and family “Godspeed” as they relocate to another Church in Illinois.

A lot of my stereotypes about downtown churches got broken at First Congregational last night during its Awestruck Service.

Walking out of the sanctuary, I found myself humming the melody and the lyrics to one of the evening’s hymns:

“Close as tomorrow the sun shall appear.

Freedom is coming and healing is near.

And I shall be with you in laughter and pain

To stand in the wind and walk in the rain”.

back to zero

2009-08-14T03:04:48+02:00

kemabali memulai hidup,masih ada rantai yang membelenggu,masih ada noda yang memenuhi,tapi masih ada harapan,let's back to fitrah..

Religious Law

2009-07-28T02:37:43+02:00

THE LAW WAS MADE FOR THE UNJUSTFor I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace. Galatians 5:3, 4 “But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.” Galatians 5:18Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: Adultery (voluntary sexual relations between a married person and somebody other than his or her spouse), Fornication (sexual intercourse between two consenting people who are not married to each other),Uncleanness (sinful especially involving or guilty of committing a sexual sin), Lasciviousness (showing a desire for, or unseemly interest in, sex—provoking lust), Idolatry (the worship of idols of false gods—excessive admiration or love shown for somebody or something), Witchcraft (the alleged effect or influence of magical powers—alluring or seductive charm or influence),Hatred (a feeling of intense hostility towards somebody or something), Variance (a difference between two or more things--a difference of opinion or attitude), Emulations (to try to equal or surpass somebody or something that is successful or admired),Wrath (strong anger, often with a desire for revenge),Strife (bitter and sometime violent conflict, struggle, or rivalry), Seditions (rebellion or incitement—actions or words intended to provoke or innate((relating to qualities that a person or animal is born with—coming directly from the mind rather than being acquired by experience of from external sources)) rebellion against government, authority, actual rebellion against government authority, Heresies—the holding of, of adherence to, an opinion or belief that contradicts established religious teaching, especially one that is officially condemned by religious authoritiesEnvying (wanting something somebody else has— the resentful or unhappy feeling of wanting somebody else’s success, good fortune, qualities, or possessions) Murders (crime of killing somebody), Drunkenness (drunk of frequently drunk), Reveling (to have an enjoyable time in the company of others, especially at a party), and such like; of which I tell you before as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.Thy Law is my delight----Psalms 119:174. All the law is fulfilled----Galatians 5:14 (“For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even this; THOU SHALT LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF.”)“Be not deceived: God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sow, that shall he also reap. For he that sow to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sow to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.”Galatians 6:7-9 WHAT THE LAW COULD NOT DO --------------------------------------------ROMAN 8:3-9Yah is a shorten form of the divine (Hebrew) name YHWH (Yahweh). Short form of the divine name YHWH (Yahweh). It occurs 25 times in the Hebrew Bible, both in relatively early texts (e.g. Ex 15:2; Ps 68:5, 19) and in later passages (e.g. Ps 115:17-18; 118:5, 14, 17-19). It features a further 23 times in the expression Hallelujah, which means "Praise Yah" (the spelling Jah instead of Yah comes from medieval Latin). The name Yah also appears as the final component in such biblical names as Micaiah, which means "Who is like Yah?"; Azariah, which means "Yah helped"; and Abijah, which means "Yah is my Father". Scholars are divided as to whether the name Yah is derived by shortening from YHWH or as to whether the forms Yahu and YHWH were expanded from the original Yah. ________________________________________Yah is also the name of the Egyptian moon god.Isaiah 40:8 “I am the Lord, that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven image.”The Egyptian worships the moon god Yah (graven image). To keep down confusion Yah should not be used. If you must use the Hebrew name, use the word “Yahweh.” Deuteronomy 6:13 “Thou shall fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shall swear by his name. Ye shall not go after other gods, of the people, which are round about you ;( For the LORD your God is a jealous God among you) least the anger of the LORD thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth. ”Isaiah 43:15 “I am the LORD, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King.”“Lord” and “God” is not the same name they are two distinct names. God is used as a title or form of address just as mom is used instead of my name Valerie. Yah is used instead of Yahweh just as Val is used instead of Valerie. However, since Yah shares the name of an Egyptian moon god, people who use the word Yah is said to have another god before the true and living God. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God(“Yahweh”((Hebrew)) sending his own Son(“Jesus”((English)) or “Yeshua”((Hebrew)) in the likeness o sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God (“Yahweh” ((Hebrew)). Why we go to church, “It is the house of God.” God is a spirit they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in true. It is not a plaything. It is not to match wits with anyone it is to worship the true and living God. “And thou, Solomon my son, know (to believe firmly in the truth or certainty of something) thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searches all hearts, and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee: but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off forever. “Take heed now; for the LORD has chosen thee to build a house for the sanctuary: be strong, and do it.”

Film ”The Scarlet Letter” A Country of Hypocrisy

2009-05-03T05:46:00+02:00

A woman named Hester lived in a small Puritan Village in 17th century had been accused of adultfully. She had to wear scarlet letter "A" all the time because of the sin she committed. She and her daughter, Pearl were always harrassed by the villagers.

Local villagers and its headman wanted to know who was the father of Pearl. At last the villagers found who he was and got shocked.

It seemed that the film revealed the true nature of America. The origin of America was Puritans. Puritans were exiles from England.

They lived under the faith of God because of fear they experienced in England. They created a very closed society with very strict rules. As a result they became hypocrits.

In last scene of the film, Hester and Pearl ran away from the land of hypocrisy, not freedom.

That represents feeling I have right now. I am losing interest in America and growing contempt for it.

American is not a dream country to me any more since 911, war in Iraq, deployment of USS George Washington in Yokosuka, and financial crisis.

Good-bye, America! A country of Hypocrisy!

Now I wonder where I am heading. The film gave me a hint.

The film was produced by Germans. It was all German version although the story took place in America.

It is just like holocaust films in English version made by Hollywood.

I am now studying German and getting more interested in Germany than ever.

God and His Mysterious Ways

2009-04-18T07:25:00+02:00

Life means encounter

2009-03-20T16:34:00+01:00

Life is full of hardships, whereas, it's fun. It's just like the beer is delicious after hard work.To the question - "What do humans live for?", many people have tried to answer in each way. So will I. "Humans live for encounters"It's good to meet someone that has a close sense of view to yours, but things are not so easy. Occasionally you meet hateful people, possibly so hateful that you feel like killing them.Encounter is not only with people, but also with such arts as books and music, and with religion. Human's feeling become insired by them.I will quote my "encounter" from the Bible.From the Evangelion according to John, 13 : 33, 34 33"My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. 34"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. "The action of love comes not only from the affection. The point is "As Jesus Christ lovd us". Love is similar to rain. And all of us are the cup for receiving it. Rain falls so much that cup becomes full and it overflows and the water falls into another cup.It's a bit away from encounter, but love is connected with a Japanese word, "Ichigo-Ichie"( means: you should treasure even one little encounter because you might never meet the person again)Treasure one encounter means think a lot of the person, think a lot of him/her means love him/her.One book says "Love someone means hope him not to die". I think it's the same.

Why

2009-02-16T02:32:00+01:00

http://pewforum.org/

48% for the US population? Two other polls have it at 14% and 39%... Oh well.

兒童床邊聖經故事之「祈禱的威力」與「有佢講冇人講」

2009-02-15T06:55:00+01:00

Monkey Business

2009-02-13T06:07:00+01:00

"So you believe in... monkeys?" a 21yo Kansan asked.

Since then, I wanted to find out what children here really learn at school.

Kansas City is a funny place that trap both godless liberals, right-wing religious fanatics and everyone in between.

Kansas thrust into international spotlight in 2005 when the state board of education voted 6-4 to adopt a new set of "science standards" that marginalized the theory of evolution. Those stupid "intelligent design" lazy fuckers redefined science, paving the way to slip God into science classroom through the backdoor (something that Texas is now trying to do).

So it felt kinda unreal and exciting to celebrate the bicentenary of Darwin's birthday here in KC at the Linda Hall Library today.

We were late for the cake, but did make it to the discussion session.

I half-expected some uninvited insane bible-thumping Jesus freaks screaming in tongues, and there was one.

But it was a brave greying school teacher who captured my attention, and here's what she said.

"I'm a school teacher in Shawnee (Kansas). I teach general science to 14 year olds. There're lots of Bible literalists in our district. The kids believe in whatever their parents told them and would openly challenge me every time I talk about evolution or genetics."

"They're very well versed. If you tell them about fossils, they'd just say that God put them there to fool them."

"They'd say they're not animals and would totally take the class down that road. I can't debate with 14 year olds in class. Very often I'd just have to stop the conversation. I hope one day they'll think back and realized that yeah, we actually HAVE taught them science."

"Fortunately, the district board is very firm about the curriculum and book banning. We've always been able to strike a balance in our library collection because of our incredible librarians."

"In fact, every year we have a ban-book-day called "Right to Read"."

[This post is a salute to her and all the defenders of science and reason.]

Darwin celebration: full house at the Linda Hall Library, Kansas City

Interesting claim about biological ”design”

2009-01-25T18:55:00+01:00

While researching dissection for a paper on Early Modern anxieties about not being able to encounter *everything* via sensory functions, I came across an interesting claim: Jonathan Sawday, author of one of the most influential texts on the topic of Early Modern dissection, notes that the idea that the human body is "designed" is very much specific to the late twentieth century. Indeed, the historical specificity of biological "design" seems to run counter to some claims that the concept is as old as Abrahamic religion.

Waiting at midnight

2009-01-03T22:57:00+01:00

In Yeats' 'Second Coming (Slouching towards Bethlehem)' his concern was Ireland's struggle:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

In our village church on Christmas Eve the candles were lit, every window ledge decorated, every pew filled and there was an expectant buzz of chat just before the lights went down: the familiar, lilting solo of the first verse of 'Once in Royal David's City', then the congregation of 400 or more swelled the sound, familiar incantations that span me back to a dozen or more fortunate Christmasses before. You can find stables round here, sheltering not oxen but ponies, much-loved mounts of Cressidas or Saras. Our cattle sheds will set you back around £1m. These days they've all been converted to executive homes for the less than poor or mean or lowly.

From the priest's welcome to the final blessing, the service runs like clockwork. The same carols, in the same order, latecomers pushing in from the pub, the brisk filing up to the communion rail, busy white gowned servers administering bread and wine, then back down the north aisle, faces respectfully downcast, expressions of assumed solemnity.

The sermon quotes Betjeman, not the bible.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

(from Christmas by John Betjeman)

In my own heart hope and doubt mingle equally.

Pope Benedict was widely reported just before Christmas as saying 'that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction' (Irish Times). His actual words are far less simplistic, but what kind of Christmas message was this? When dogma collides so catastrophically with the secret God of the heart (the God that knows all and accepts that which is meant to be), where is the good in organised religion?

Soon after Christmas on Radio 3's 'Belief' Cambridge academic Tim Winter (Abdal Hakim) was questioned with gentle persistence by Joan Bakewell about his conversion to Islam:

I always wanted to have the person of Jesus who I was brought up with and who is an extraordinary world figure... as part of my religious vision of the world. Islam is the only non-Christian religion where He's really important, but actually comes closer to you in a strange kind of way, because in the orthodox Christian understanding, He is man but also God. And I couldn't figure out how you can actually be human if you're also God. So in a strange kind of way I felt that one of the consequences of becoming Muslim was to become much closer empathetically, humanly, to the person of Jesus than I'd ever managed as an Anglican.

His answers are revealing when he is held to account on September 11, on women and democracy in Islam. He ends with his struggle to conform:

...you go through the door, and then the reality of religion is before you, which is ultimately about loving and adoring God, loving and adoring His creation, which is endlessly brilliant, beautiful, rigorous, difficult, fascinating. And trying to represent in one's own life a conformity to how God wants His servants to be. And that's difficult. Learning how to pray is easy, but actually conforming in the depths of one's being to what the divine, benign nature wants us to be - that's the real challenge. And I'm still working on that.

The 'little town of Bethlehem' is now, like the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory. There's been less dreamless sleep for the Gazans since the Israeli invasion this Christmas. One religion-dominated community is yet again beating the hell out of another. What hope now for the bi-national solution imagined by humanist Edward Said?

O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight

O holy Child of Bethlehem
Descend to us, we pray
Cast out our sin and enter in
Be born to us today
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell
O come to us, abide with us
Our Lord Emmanuel

The Bali Bombers, Mimesis and Me

2008-11-07T17:50:00+01:00

I've been reading in recent weeks about the so-called Bali Bombers, three men -- two brothers (commonly called Amrozi and Mukhlas) and an Imam/computer technician -- who were tried and found to be instrumental in the killing of 202 people -- most of whom were foreign nationals, including 88 Australians -- -- at nightclubs in a tourist area on the Indonesian island of Bali [in green] in 2002, to protest the US-led invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. (Bali is overwhelmingly Hindu, however.) Another 209 people were injured. (More at Wikipedia)

For their roles in the crime, their execution, which may occur by this weekend has now occured, will be by ritualised firing squad on another Indonesian island, off Java, the spot (or perhaps three separate spots) in the woods already decked out with chairs and crosses, after five years of legal appeals that apparently the bombers themselves had no interest in, as they have said throughout that they are ready and happy to die as martyrs, preferrably by beheading, in the Islamic way. They admit the crime and show no remorse but have apologised for killing Indonesian Muslims during the attacks.

Meanwhile, their family and other supporters are surging towards the moment of execution, burial, funerals, and partying, using the funeral as "an occasion 'to celebrate the victory of Islam.'" Graves have already been dug for the two brothers. A goat will be slaughtered. It will be an occasion for rallying.

As usual, it's the mimesis -- the accusative gesture, the heightening drama, the religious rituals and the prohibitions, the sacrificial centre that offers meaning and a feeling of unanimity amidst grief -- that interests me, and the predictable forms it takes, particularly as death comes very near:

The bombers are hailed by supporters as, variously, victorious martyrs, victims of an unfair system, and heroes whose deaths will spin off more heroes.

Family members have said it's unfair for the Bali Bombers to be killed before the Bali Nine heroin smugglers, who "should be executed first because their drugs could have killed more people."
The bombers issued a statement in October: "'Principally we are ready to die but if the executions go ahead it is wrong. If we are executed there will be new Mukhlases, new Imam Samudras and new Amrozis and they will take revenge,' they said."
They have also written "an open letter encouraging their supporters to retaliate after they are executed," naming some specific officials whom they believe should be killed.
The brother of two of the Bali bombers supports his brothers' right to kill "half-naked people [the people in the nightclubs] ... for the perceived insult. ... 'That's what [my brothers] believe. Whatever it is, it is against Islam and must be fought, whatever the form, whatever the action.'" Their mother concurred: "'I feel that killing infidels isn't a mistake because they don't pray.'"

The site of the execution has become rather sacred-seeming in the media, and both speech and acts related to the deaths are shot through with religious language and appeals.

Religion is obvious at the site(s): There are crosses there, religious officials have met with the men and will accompany the bombers to their place of execution (as will lawyers and a doctor).
There are rituals: the setting up of the execution site(s) in a particular way, the health check-ups for those who are about to die, families delivering a last meal of favoured goodies and other gifts. All the elements are in place, including autopsy table, helicopters and body carrier baskets, and the fourteen members of the execution squad, and a 'rehearsal' of the execution is planned for today.
There are mythologies and compelling stories galore, from everyone's point of view, and they all say the same thing: we are victims and someone else is to blame for the violence. We are justified. There are rumours among supporters of the bombers that the U.S. CIA was behind the most destructive of the three bombs that exploded that October night. They see the attacks as "'a conspiracy between America, Australia and the Jews.'" There are all kinds of theories concerning the nefarious meaning of the multiple delays in carrying out the executions.

The supporters are gearing up for a show of grief, celebration, and unanimity on behalf of religion and its martyrs.

Jemaah Islamiyah, a local network of "mostly Afghan trained militants" that is believed to be behind the Bali bombings, will be at the funerals in force and have threatened to kill in revenge for the executions. The founder of that group, Abu Bakar Bashir, plans to attend both funerals; he says that "Muslims would be angry if the men are executed but what he is most scared of is 'if God is angry.' 'If Muslims are angry,' he said, 'it will be only words. But if God is, it will be real problem.'"
The U.S. and Australian embassies in Jakarta received bomb threats by text message earlier this week. Australia has raised its terror alert and launched travel warnings in anticipation of violence after the executions are made known.
Some Indonesians are donating their land for the bombers' burial ground, to create a Jihadi cemetery; a blogger living in Jakarta notes: "'It is almost comical in a sense the competition that is being generated with regards to signing up the families of the soon to be dead killers to a burial spot.'"

Not only are the supporters building momentum, so is the media. I set up a news alert for "Bali Bombers" last week. It brings about 20-25 news stories per day into my email box, more than any other news alert I've ever had. And nothing is happening -- except the pre-death rituals, anticipation and intimations, and the post-death fears, anticipation and predictions -- and the precise recording of the process of momentum-building as mimetic.

I admit to feeling fascinated, not by these three bombers and what they've done, in particular, nor by their deaths whenever they occur, but by the process as it unfolds so clearly, so ordinarily though it's writ large, so (seemingly) unconsciously through all the conscious strategising.

To quote Rick Blaine in Casablanca (1942): "It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." Three people, yes, and yet, how alike we seem, how much the same the system seems to operate everywhere: how ready to grieve, to unify, to remove conflictual elements, to blame and accuse someone else, to seek revenge, to feel we are victims, to ritualise, to sacralise, to mythologise, to invoke a higher authority to support our views, to want our side to win, to join in the violence and to feel good knowing we're right.

Update 14 Nov: This article in The Age today hits most of the elements of the scapegoat mechanism: unification of splinter groups through shared anger, grief and a sense of being the victims of others -- the outsider 'others' become the enemies, displacing animosity among warring splinter groups; the compelling story that can be told to enroll new converts; the 'sacrifice' and the glorification of the 'self-sacrificing' victims; and, the understanding in modern times that violence in the name of religion masks "economic, political and social disaffection."

Did you know our PM is Catholic?

2008-11-02T05:05:29+01:00

Suprised to know our prime minister, Taro Aso is Catholic. I just recently learned that. He was elected on 25 of September this year.

But none of Japanese media reported his religious faith. He's been known as potential candidate for PM long time before. It has never become the issue.

I learned that by reading articles in BBC, CNN, FOX and Roman Catholic website.

Maybe you wonder why. Only a few percent of the population is Chrisitian in Japan. They are minority and experienced oppression during 16 to 19th century. But the thing is we really don't care. Are we atheist? No, actually Japan is known to be Budhist society and has many many Budhist temples. But native religion of Japan is Shinto. Shinto is polytheist. We welcome any kind of religion and personal religious faith doesn't matter to politics or so on. We rarely talk about religion in our daily life.

In recent politics, PM's visiting Shrines that memorize A-class war criminals has been controversial. He visited there, too although he is a follower of monotheist religion. Shiton has been considered kind of festivity or national symbolic spirit, not as religion you should be dedicated to.

In Western society, religious faith seemed to be a very big deal in politics and social issues such as abortion, homosexuality.

To tell you the truth I am Christian, too. I do not support him nor his party. Strangely I just feel intimate to him although I think he is most unqualified PM in history. Iraq war has been regarded as "Wholly war" by crusaders. Scary!

As far as I've checked his action and speech, I cannot find him practicing Christian. He caused tensions with neighboring nations by making provocative statements. He insulted the victims of the disastors, altzheimer patients and many others. He called opposition party as Nazis. His prime mister status wouldn't last so long because he is very, very unpopular so is his party. Soon enough, the parliament would be dissolved and new election will be coming up.

The nation would judge him and his administration and choose who to rule Japan. He will learn true meaning of the wholly bible words "Judge not others lest ye be judged."

Then he will shout "Jesus Christ!"

Need for Sense of Control, Either Personal or External

2008-07-17T14:40:00+02:00

Overcoming Bias points to an article in the July 2008 issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (links to full text here but it's fee-based, or available through your library system) that examines four psychological experiments and concludes that when we feel a weak sense of personal control, we are more likely to believe "in the existence of a controlling God" and to defend "the overarching socio-political system." The authors discuss "the implications of these results for understanding why a high percentage of the population believes in the existence of God, and why people so often endorse and justify their socio-political systems." Sounds interesting -- I hope to read more when the July issue is available via my library system's EBSCOhost subscription.

This hypothesis seems in line with earlier reporting correlating that the longevity of communities with their religious underpinnings (religious communities last longer than secular ones, on the whole) and finding that the communities persist longer when those underpinnings (and the lifestyle they lead to) are stricter, more controlling.

Marginal Revolution commented on the same article, hypothesising that similar effects may hold for medicine and media, i.e., that we'd be more likely to believe that doctors are effective when our health is in jeopardy and that we'd be more likely to believe in media accuracy when we believe we need that media information in order to be safe. In all cases, we want to feel that someone is in control.

Solutions: Religion (Notes from Status Anxiety)

2008-07-14T12:00:00+02:00

Notes from Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety (2004). This is the tenth post on this topic; the first is here.

PART II: Solutions

CHAPTER 4 - RELIGION

Death

Tolstoy's novella The Death of Ivan llyich (1886) is a Christian memento mori. Ivan Ilyich is all about status. When he realises he's going to die, he recognises he's wasted his time on Earth by leading an outwardly respectable but inwardly barren life. He always wanted to appear important and to impress people whom, he sees now, don't care for him at all. Those around him love his status, not his true vulnerable self.

The prospect of death may cause us to do what matters most to us and to pay less attention to the verdicts of others. We see we cannot "afford to defer forever, for the sake of propriety, our underlying commitments to ourselves."

Ruins! They comfort us, reveal our "punishingly high-minded sense of the gravity of what we are doing," our own exaggerated self-importance. Our miseries are tied to the grandiosity of our ambitions.

Community

We all have the same vulnerabilities and the same two driving forces: fear, and a desire for love.

The Christian would say that there is no such thing as a stranger, "only an impression of strangeness born of failure to acknowledge that others share both our needs and our weaknesses."

Christianity attempts to enhance the value we place on community -- through ritual (a transcendent intermediary) and through music (great leveller and social alchemist -- we see that others respond as we do, which forges connection).

Twin Cities

Jesus is the model for Christians' understanding of status. He has two different sides, as ordinary carpenter and as the holiest of men. We can see the difference between earthly status (determined by occupation, income, others' opinions) and spiritual status (related to one's soul and merits in God's eyes).

The City of God, Augustine, 427 AD: All human action can be interpreted from either the Christian or the Roman (earthly) perspective, which are different. Christian status derives from humility, generosity, recognition of one's dependence on God, etc.

Divine Comedia, Dante, 1315: Dante's Hell is home to many who enjoyed high status while they lived.

Christian lore asserts the superiority of spiritual over material success and endows its virtues with "a seductive seriousness and beauty" through music, art, literature, architecture, etc. "Through its command of aesthetic resources, of buildings, paintings and Masses, Christianity created a bulwark against the authority of earthly values and kept its spiritual concerns in the public eye."

Heydey of cathedrals, 1130-1530.

Christianity never abolished the Earthly City or its values, but that we retain any distinction between wealth and virtue is largely due to the impression left on Western consciousness by Christianity.

Religion and Polarity

2008-05-25T16:45:00+02:00

Tim Townsend's "Love Thy Neighbor: The religion beat in an age of intolerance" in the May/June 2008 issue of Columbia Journalism Review, is worth the read, in light of the Jeremiah Wright drama and the fundamentalist Mormon news of late here in the U.S., and the ongoing and manifold religious conflicts (and power conflicts cloaked in religion) all around the world.

Townsend is a reporter who has covered religion at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for the last four years. The gist of this essay is that religion is divisive and religious folk -- Jesus, too! -- are polarising. (The Matthew passage he quotes at the start of the essay doesn't convince me, but I agree generally with Townsend that a prophetic message can be polarising, and that Jesus's harsh language at times is divisive. My view is that Jesus disrupts the 'peace' we cling to, the very peace Jesus threatens verbally in the Matthew passage, in order to displace that temporary, violent sort of peace with a shot-through-with-life peace ...)

Townsend suggests that this polarity is nothing new in America, citing Puritan John Winthrop's landing-in-America sermon outlining "a political system whose top priority would be ... 'the duty of suppressing heresy, of subduing or somehow getting rid of dissenters.'" Townsend doesn't state the obvious, that suppressing heresy and marginalising dissenters had been the modus operandi of many in power, or seeking power, long before this.

Later, he speaks of the current chasm in the Episcopal church, which he says isn't about "sex, or even theology, but about power, and who gets to make the decisions that will tie the hands of everyone else." He quotes Cathleen Falsani, a religion columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times: "'Heat is good for a story, and religion is consistently good for that. ... Religion is polarizing. Maybe that's not the way it's intended to be, but it is.'"

I think adherence to religion both is and isn't intended to be polarising; it's intended to bring cohesion among some by excluding, marginalising, demonising, and polarising others, and it's very effective. Townsend quotes Neela Banerjee, religion beat reporter for The New York Times, who, speaking of the 'culture wars' between 'secularists' and 'the Christian right,' says that "'each sees the other as a profoundly dangerous influence on society.'" Kevin Eckstrom, editor of Religion News Service, agrees: "All parties, he says, feel their worldview is under attack." Look at almost any conflict, geopolitical or interpersonal, and you'll see the same mechanism, the same justification: the other is a danger, a threat, to what's good, to what's right.

Quickly, Townsend himself, when in his reporting he sought to respect all beliefs, became seen as the dangerous other and became the target of accusations: "Besides being called ignorant, arrogant, balding, stupid, rude, fat (my new nickname was Burger Boy), lazy, and incompetent, I was depicted as a Satanic baby. My mother was insulted. I was accused of lying about my academic degrees, having a comb-over, being a paid agent of the Saudi government, and acquiring 'numerous social diseases.' I was, apparently, a plagiarist and a terrorist. Someone did a search to see if I was a pedophile." And not only was he accused, his life was threatened.

I think, from a Girardian perspective, one could say that it's never the other who is the danger; the danger -- the real obstacle to love and to life lived fully -- is the perception that it's the other who threatens us and our worldview. (For more, read an excerpt from René Girard's I See Satan Fall Like Lightning at Paul Nuechterlein's Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary).

Truth is a Pathless Land

2008-05-07T15:49:18+02:00

Thinking about Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1996) today after coming across a short quote by him:

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

I don't know that much about him -- his writings are voluminous and some are still being discovered, edited and published. He was Indian, traveled extensively, was involved for a while with the Theosophical Society but broke from them around 1922, during which he experienced several mystical encounters (which he termed "the process") in which he felt a mystical union and immense peace: "Love in all its glory has intoxicated my heart; my heart can never be closed. I have drunk at the fountain of Joy and eternal Beauty. I am God-intoxicated."

By 1929, he had renounced any path as a way to Truth:

"You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, 'What did that man pick up?' 'He picked up a piece of the truth,' said the devil. 'That is a very bad business for you, then,' said his friend. 'Oh, not at all,' the devil replied, 'I am going to help him organize it.'

"I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or coerce people along a particular path." (in Krishamurti: The Years of Awakening, 1975, by Mary Lutyens)

Schools that he and his followers (though he said he didn't want followers) founded in India, England and the U.S. emphasise a holistic vision, concern for humans and the environment, and a religious spirit. He was awarded the United Nations Peace Medal in 1984. Of course, he's on YouTube (I haven't watched these yet.)

Krishnamurti's thoughts on meditation speak to me:

"Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life -- perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it. It has no technique and therefore no authority. When you learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy -- if you are aware of all that in yourself, without any choice, that is part of meditation. ...

"Meditation is the emptying of the mind of the known. It cannot be done by thought or by the hidden prompting of thought, nor by desire in the form of prayer, nor through the self-effacing hypnotism of words, images, hopes, and vanities. All these have to come to an end, easily, without effort and choice, in the flame of awareness."

Addiction to the Sacred

2008-04-09T04:00:00+02:00

René Girard and others (particularly, and excellently, James Alison in this post-9/11 essay) talk a lot about how humans use the act of sacralising something or someone -- grief, death, a victim, violence, etc. -- to justify the thing or the one, to make it beyond reproach, to give meaning to a meaningless act, to create unanimity and excitement, and primarily and purposefully, to confer to ourselves by association with the transcendent a heightened sense of identity, stability, and worthiness.

Eric Gans explains the relatonships between sacrifice and 'making sacred': "The word sacrifice contains within itself the paradox of culture. Etymologically to make sacred (sacer + facio), it means both to renounce and to kill. Culture is about renouncing and making sacred, but it is also about killing in the service of these ends."

With this in mind, I was interested to read this in The Economist today, in an article about how science is seeking to explain religious belief as beneficial in an evolutionary framework (the entire article is chock full of intriguing studies and conclusions):

"Richard Sosis, an anthropologist at the University of Connecticut, has already done some research which suggests that the long-term co-operative benefits of religion outweigh the short-term costs it imposes in the form of praying many times a day, avoiding certain foods, fasting and so on." [Non-Orthodox Christian or Jewish Americans might find it difficult to understand how practicising one's religion incurs short-term costs ... ]

"On the face of things, it is puzzling that such costly behaviour should persist. Some scholars, however, draw an analogy with sexual selection. The splendour of a peacock's tail and the throaty roar of a stag really do show which males are fittest, and thus help females choose. Similarly, signs of religious commitment that are hard to fake provide a costly and reliable signal to others in a group that anyone engaging in them is committed to that group. Free-riders, in other words, would not be able to gain the advantages of group membership.

"To test whether religion might have emerged as a way of improving group co-operation while reducing the need to keep an eye out for free-riders, Dr Sosis drew on a catalogue of 19th-century American communes published in 1988 by Yaacov Oved of Tel Aviv University. Dr Sosis picked 200 of these for his analysis; 88 were religious and 112 were secular. Dr Oved's data include the span of each commune's existence and Dr Sosis found that communes whose ideology was secular were up to four times as likely as religious ones to dissolve in any given year.

"A follow-up study that Dr Sosis conducted in collaboration with Eric Bressler of McMaster University in Canada focused on 83 of these communes (30 religious, 53 secular) to see if the amount of time they survived correlated with the strictures and expectations they imposed on the behaviour of their members. The two researchers examined things like food consumption, attitudes to material possessions, rules about communication, rituals and taboos, and rules about marriage and sexual relationships.

"As they expected, they found that the more constraints a religious commune placed on its members, the longer it lasted (one is still going, at the grand old age of 149). But the same did not hold true of secular communes, where the oldest was 40. Dr Sosis therefore concludes that ritual constraints are not by themselves enough to sustain co-operation in a community -- what is needed in addition is a belief that those constraints are sanctified."

Other studies mentioned in the article corroborate the idea that, perhaps, belief in a supernatural being (whether it's G-d or a ghost, as in some studies) creates coherence and a sense of security among group members, and leads to increased cooperation, collaboration, and sharing among members of the group. This seems to accord with the Girardian thought that 'making sacred' is a way to create unanimity, stability, shared identity. It says nothing of the possible cost, which Alison addresses in his essay, talking about the response of many to the terrorist attacks in the U.S. on 11 Sept. 2001:

"And immediately we began to respond, and our response is to create meaning. ... As we were sucked in, so we were fascinated. The 'tremendum et fascinosum,' as Otto described the old sacred, took hold of us. ... The old sacred worked its magic: we found ourselves being sucked in to a sacred center, one where a meaningless act had created a vacuum of meaning, and we found ourselves giving meaning to it. And immediately the sacrificial center began to generate the sort of reactions that sacrificial centers are supposed to generate: a feeling of unanimity and grief. ... Phrases began to appear to the effect that 'We're all Americans now' -- a purely fictitious feeling for most of us [in London]. It was staggering to watch the togetherness build up around the sacred center, quickly consecrated as Ground Zero....

"And there was the grief. How we enjoy grief. It makes us feel good, and innocent. This is what Aristotle meant by catharsis, and it has deeply sinister echoes of dramatic tragedy's roots in sacrifice. One of the effects of the violent sacred around the sacrificial center is to make those present feel justified, feel morally good. A counterfactual goodness which suddenly takes us out of our little betrayals, acts of cowardice, uneasy consciences. And very quickly of course the unanimity and the grief harden into the militant goodness of those who have a transcendent object to their lives. And then there are those who are with us and those who are against us, the beginnings of the suppression of dissent. Quickly people were saying things like 'to think that we used to spend our lives engaged in gossip about celebrities' and politicians' sexual peccadillos. Now we have been summoned into thinking about the things that really matter.'

"And there was fear. Fear of more to come. Fear that it could be me next time. ... Fear and disorientation in a new world order. Not an entirely uncomfortable fear, the fear that goes with a satanic show. Part of the glue which binds us into it. A fear not unrelated to excitement.

"What I want to suggest is that most of us fell for it, at some level. We were tempted to be secretly glad of a chance for a huge outbreak of meaning to transform our humdrum lives, to feel we belonged to something bigger, more important, with hints of nobility and solidarity. What I want to suggest is that this, this delight in being given meaning, is satanic. ...

"When I say satanic, I mean this in two senses .... The first sense is the sense I have just described: the fantastic pomp and work of sacrificial violence leading to an impression of unanimity, the same lie from the one who was a murderer and liar from the beginning, the same lie behind all human sacrifices, all attempts to create social order and meaning out of a sacred space of victimization. But the second sense is more important: the satanic is a lie that has been undone. It has been undone by Jesus's going to death exploding from within the whole world of sacrifice, of religion and culture based on death, and showing it has no transcendence at all. ... The pomp has nothing to do with heaven. It has nothing to do with God."

Obviously, religious communes like those referenced in the Economist article are likely not overflowing with pomp and cathartic grief. A religious commune, or religious order, may well survive not by any contrived sense of unanimity and feverish excitement borne of co-opted tragic grief -- after all, that unanimity and excitement doesn't last, and to believe that they do is to believe the lie -- but perhaps they are characterised more often rather by true transcendence, true cooperation and compassion, a unity achieved through struggle rather than unanimity. The similarity I see between the religious communes, as briefly described in the article, and the response to 9/11 that Alison is talking about, is the simple action of making meaning by referencing the sacred and transcendent, and even by actually making sacrifices (or feeling that one is making them), in an effort to feel, by association, that one has value.

As Alison has said, and points out later again in his essay in examining a passage in Luke 13, it's so very easy to feel justified and morally good when we ally ourselves with the transcendent, to adopt a dualistic viewpoint, to see others who differ from us as bad, as 'them,' as 'other.' It's so easy to think that I am privileged and valuable, because of my experience with the transcendent, in a way that you are not. That my life has meaning in a way that yours doesn't.

Alison again:

[I]f we are caught up in the world of giving sacred meanings, then we will be caught up in the world of reciprocal violence, of good and bad measured over against other people, and we will likewise perish. Once again I stress: Jesus [in Luke 13:1-5, and in Mark 13:1ff] will not be drawn into adding to meaning. He merely asks those who come to him themselves to move out of the world of sacred-seeming meaning. What does it mean for us to learn to look at the world through those eyes? ...

"Jesus not only taught us to look away, not to allow ourselves to be seduced by the satanic. He also acted out what the undoing of the satanic meant: he was so powerful that he was able to lose to its need to sacrifice so as to show that it was entirely unnecessary. We are so used to describing Jesus's cross and resurrection as a victory -- a description taken from the military hardware store of satanic meaning -- that we easily forget that what that victory looked like was a failure. So great is the power behind Jesus's teaching and self-giving that he was able to fail, thus showing once and for all that 'having to win,' the grasping on to meaning, success, reputation, life and so on is of no consequence at all. Death could not hold him in, because he was held in being by one for whom death does not exist, is not even the sort of rival who might be challenged to a duel which someone might win. But if death can only get meaning by having victory, if the order of sacred violence can only have meaning if it matters to us to survive, to be, to feel good, at the expense of someone, then someone for whom it doesn't matter to lose is someone who is playing its game on totally different terms, and its potential for giving meaning collapses.

"Here is where I am heading: We can imagine in the abstract something of the power which has nothing to do with death. What is much more difficult is imagining that power incarnated in a human heart and eyes looking at this world. Yet that is what we are talking about. A human heart and eyes so utterly held by the Creator that they speak the Creator's heart about this world. And not just in word, but by a creative acting out and living so-as-to-lose to the sacrificial game in order to undo it, thus enabling creation to be unsnarled from our truncation of it into a violent perversion and trap.

"Now this is what I find difficult. The heart, the desire, that wants to do something like that. What does it want? Why should it do it? Why not leave us to get on with it, stuck in our charades, thinking the world of our meaning and our death? In other words, the very fact of distracting us, by word and deed from being involved in what Merton rightly called 'pseudo events' suggests a desire for us to be something else. The eye that is teaching us to look away from the lure of the sacred is powered by a heart that wants us to be something else. And we learn our desire through the eye of another. Our learning to see through Jesus' eyes will eventually result in us desiring with Jesus' heart -- which is to say, our receiving the mind of Christ. ...

"Jesus not only teaches us to look away, but models what living from utterly non-rivalistic creative power for which death is not, looks like. There is a desire in this. A desire for us not to be trapped in death. And this is where I think I'm going -- something apparently terribly banal, but I think, of earth shattering significance. The person who teaches us to look away and models for us another way of desiring actually likes us. It is only possible to imagine doing something like that for someone you actually like. And Jesus is doing it for all of us who are caught up in the sacred lie -- which is to say, all of us.

"The staggering thing that this means, for me, is that the most extraordinary fruit of contemplation in the shadow of the violence which we are experiencing is this: God likes us. All of us. God likes me and I like being liked. It has nothing to do with whether we are bad or good, indeed, he takes it for granted that we are all more or less strongly tied up in the sacred lie. In teaching after teaching he makes the same point: all are invited, bad and good. Those are our categories, part of the problem not part of the solution, not God's category. God's 'category' for us is 'created' and 'created' means 'liked spaciously, delighted in, wanted to give extension, fulfilment, fruition to, to share in just being.' We are missing out on something huge and powerful and serene and enjoyable and safe and meaningful by being caught up in something less than that, an ersatz perversion of each of those things. And because God likes us he wants us to get out of our addiction to the ersatz so as to become free and happy. "

Vainpot For Sale

2008-04-05T10:10:00+02:00

Ever since I moved to KC, I find my soul much in demand. Random people from work & play just keep asking me to join their fellowships. Methodist, Baptist, Buddist all competing for my blogspirit. What's going on!? Have I become a recruitment challenge or some sort of conversion trophy?

May be I should auction off my "faith" on eBay. Yeah, just let all those voodoo organizations battling it out. $1M for my church attendance for a year. Do your best/worst to convince me of your particular brand of superstitions.

However, it looks like some very clever bloke from Crooksville has already beat me to it and took the joke one step further~

Debating

2008-04-03T22:12:03+02:00

Blog Readers of America:Hey, I'm Monica and this is my new blog. I'm new to the whole "blogging" thing so you'll have to bear with me if all I write is crap; hopefully it will eventually be better as time goes on. Sort of like America's Next Top Model; where the girls start out as really bad models but then get awesome. Look at Natasha Galkina; and even Eva Pigford. So there you go! I couldn't think of anything to write, so I just decided to talk about some of the things that I discuss with my friends. I have friends who I like to debate with ALL the time. We argue about everything under the sun. War, religion, abortion, and gay rights are just a few of our most common topics. I'll talk about them and my viewpoints here.Starting with the war: my viewpoint makes a lot of people mad because most of America's population is arguing against me. See, I believe the war in Iraq SHOULD be going on. Now most people reading this will be closing this window like 'This girl doesn't know what she's talking about'. And maybe I don't. But here's why I feel this way: remember September 11, 2001? I bet you do. Where were the U.S. Army Troops at that point? Here in the USA. Where are they now? In Iraq, defending us and doing one heck of a job. Have we had any serious bombings like that of the World Trade Center/ Pentagon? Nope. So there's where I see a connection; army troops in USA=larger scale bombings. Army Troops fighting in Iraq=USA is protected and terrorist free! Though I love to argue in a friendly way, I do NOT argue as in "Your opinion is stupid". Instead, say "No, and this is why...". So if you disagree with me, comment why and be sure to back it up. I'll reply to every single comment given!Next issue: abortion. Here we go... I love talking about this and do you know why? Because I have such a strong opinion on this subject. Do I agree with abortion? Absolutely not. I believe that every baby deserves a chance at life, no matter if it was an accident or not. A lot of people don't know about open adoption; it's where you can find a family to raise your baby, but you will still be involved in their life, and still be able to get to know them even if you can't afford a baby. And if you kill your non-born infant simply ecause you are afraid of the pain of childbirth; uh, sory, that's a pretty crappy reason to do it. Getting rid of a life because you're afraid of pain? It's just wrong. And people will say the baby isn't even alive yet; yes it is! It has all its organs and limbs, a brain and a heart, just like any other person, just smaller.And now we talk about religion. You know, I don't even know if I want to blog about this topic because I'm a Christian and of course I'll argue my religionis the right one, which might offend someone who reads this who isn't a Christian. So I'll just stop right here.Well, I'll be discussing more in my next post. Please come back and read, comment, and pass on. Thanks for reading!

Banana God

2008-03-31T08:45:00+02:00

The cultural war between creationists and scientists+everyone else has taken hold on Youtube over the past few year... with videos debunking literal interpretations of "holy" books getting millions of bickering comments.

I too tried to put my 2 cents into the whole ignorant-design debate, only to encounter the unbelievable believers.

A devout Christian yesterday suggested that I should look at the perfect banana, as the evidence that god exist. [Serious!] He said the banana is just too amazing and has to be designed by god for human consumption since it:-

1) Is perfect for the human hands to hold
2) Has non-slippery surface
3) Has a handle at one end to remove the wrapper
4) Has color indication on the surface about it's content
5) Green is too early for eating
6) Yellow is just right
7) Black is too late
.
.
10) Nicely shaped for the mouth

Blimme.

So I wrote back:-

1) Fits 4 monkey hands + elephant trunk as well
2) Not until you step on it
3) Elephants don't peel, neither did stupid humans when banana was 1st popularized 130 yr ago
4) Oh you do have common sense!?
5) U don't have 2 eat green banana only bcos scientists discovered ethylene
6) Not all bananas r yellow. Some red, some purple!
7) Black mushy ones r 4 baking
.
.
10) So is my penis.

[Yes I did.]

A crucial part of Barack's speech in Philly

2008-03-19T18:47:36+01:00

Impressed by Obama's respected pastor, Rev. Wright

2008-03-16T05:55:00+01:00

It is been reported that Obama's long time inspirer, Pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright made very controversial remarks in his Gospel speech. Obama denounced his remarks and he never knew the pastor did it until recently.

I can't find anything so controversial in his sermons.

He, himself is Afro-American, so there is no problem that he uses the word "Niger." He said America is founded on racist culture. I think he talked about slavery and masscre of Native Americans.

The most impressive to me, was he said "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," he said. "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans, and now we are indignant. Because the stuff we have done overseas has now brought right back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

This pastor is ex-marine. He knew what the war is like. He just criticized the U.S. foreign policy in his radical way, I think.

I don't think he meant to insult America.

For Japanese like us, Americans criticizing Hiroshima and Nagasaki were kind of impressive. Obama was spritually influenced by this pastor. Well, that sounds nice to us. Very humble attitude of Americans. He knows how the oppressed feel. That is why he is becoming popular among the impoverished layer of society including whites.

But I want to tell this pastor he should condemn not only the U.S. for dropping atomic bombs but also Japan who slaughtered many innocent Chinese and attacked on Pearl Harbor in the name of "justice." That is what I expressed in this post on this blog.

I understand why Mr. Obama had to denounce the pastor because today's America is no longer open-minded to radical leftist speech. This is sad thing to know. Isn't America free country any more? You can't criticize your government's policies because such acts are considered unpatriotical.

That is just like Nazi-Germany. I would be proud of a citizen of a country if the country is democratic and tolerates free speech including the things critical of itself.

Sometimes, by becoming anti of your nation, you will know better of your country and drive your country into right direction.

"God Damn America!" can change your country better after being tired of saying "God bless America."

What I'm Reading Online

2008-02-28T11:25:00+01:00

Just catching up on some things ...

----> "Are you going to hell?", a Salon interview by Louis Bayard of former born-again Christian John Marks, whose recent book Reasons to Believe: One Man's Journey Among the Evangelicals and the Faith He Left Behind details Marks' "two-year investigative odyssey through the heart of Christian America. Listening to the fiery testimony of megachurch preachers, traveling from Easter pageants and Focus on the Family seminars to Christian rock concerts and blogger conferences, Marks experienced firsthand both the promise and the limitations of the faith enterprise -- even as he queried, all over again, the grounds of his own beliefs." Marks hopes the book will lead to increased dialogue between evangelical Christians and others, a conversation which he says will be loud and angry, and which "can be done but only with both sides acknowledging that the other won't change."

Bayard mentions the statistic that "some 40 million unbelievers are attending church services," and aks why, to which Marks responds: "Because they like the church, they believe in what it represents, they believe in the social stances, they believe in the political values. But when you get to this central question -- Do you believe that Jesus Christ redeemed you for all time and do you live as if that's true? -- most people cannot tell you how many real believers there are."

----> Dave Pollard on "responsibility" as "promising back" and the many pitfalls of human interaction, particularly in groups. What he says resonates strongly for me right now as a leader (host, facilitator) of a small group and even as an active member of other regular small groups. I think I am usually aware at the time of hurt or disappointment in reaction or response to my actions and others' actions in small groups, but I often don't know what to do about it, other than to focus my attention on responding skillfully:

"All of these truths are about Responsibility and its burden. When we stand up in front of a group as an 'authority', or talk to an individual one-to-one, or just communicate wordlessly with someone, we are being asked to take some responsibility for their feelings, their understanding, and even their love. When a member of the audience asks us a question and we answer in a way that is unsatisfactory to them (for whatever reason) they are hurt. When we say something to someone that makes them flinch or frown or leads to a 'pregnant pause', they are hurt. When someone looks at us, perhaps in invitation to some further communication and we turn away, they are hurt. It is not intentional. No one is to blame. But there has been a Failure of Responsibility. The word 'responsibility' comes from the Latin words meaning to promise back. All of this pain is the result of unintended broken promises."

----> Which is more environmentally responsible: reading a newspaper in print or online? Brendan Koerner (The Lantern) at Slate says that reading online is better, but only slightly, and he doesn't have the stats to prove it. There's a lot to consider, either way: For paper, there's the tree content, the percentage of the paper's paper that's made of recycled paper, the emissions and petroleum use of the pulping process, and the newspaper distribution environmental costs. (Not to mention the petroleum use and emissions of the machines used to hew and transport the logs, which he doesn't.) For online versions, there's the kilowatt-hours of electricity used by each server (perhaps hundreds of them, including ad servers), the electricity to power the end-user's computer, and perhaps the environmental cost of disposing of all of our computer hardware, though that assumes that reading newspapers is a major reason people have computers -- a dubious assumption, IMO. Then there's the issue of carbon -- online, carbon is released right into the atmosphere; in print, it's 'locked' into the newsprint, which can be recycled or will decompose slowly in a landfill (but doesn't it release into the atmosphere then?).

My head hurts.

May that Glorious Era Never Come

2008-02-21T01:30:00+01:00

Kansas City has a long philanthropic traditions. It is not unusual for the wealthy to donate billions of their fortune to build some of the best libraries, galleries, museums as well as scientific research institutes right here. Without these visionaries, KC would be as plain as the rest of the prairie and I wouldn't be here.

Being a Chinese in middle America is like being an exhibit at the zoo. Trying to find a gay partner in this utopia of MWM-for-MWM (married white men) is basically home wrecking. Doing science in the rotting bible belt is literally a constant battle with religious insanity.

Just imagine there is a church in every single corner of the street, and all of them write to you about jesus who didn't really die.

In Kansas, we have had EVILgelicals successfully got onto the Board of Education, erased evolution from the science syllabus and installed their very own "intelligent design" creationist garbage for 2 whole years.

At my research institute, we have to employ a full team of retired policemen guarding the campus with loaded pistols, in case some crazy religious nut cases come crashing the gate, trying to save precious dead embryos & stem cells that were never there.

... and not to mention our extreme high rate of homicides and the Westboro Baptist Church fuckers that organize picketing at the funerals of AIDS victims. Private Catholic high schools can openly discriminate against the fair sex and banned female referees from presiding over basketball games.

All these SHIT makes it *really* hard to hire qualified scientists, or to be more precise, qualified white scientists who know better. As a result, we have lots of FOB Chinese scientists who are just happy to get out.

With a concentration of lonely aliens stranded here in a vacuum of support network, it was only a matter of time that some of them would find comfort and friendship (and usually more!) at certain free Chinese dinners every Friday night.

So it was no surprise that one morning, I found a poster offering such free Chinese dinner. What shocked me was that it's posted at work, written exclusively in Chinese, and bore the slogan "May the Glorious Era Dawn on Us, When All the Chinese Intellectuals are Converts".

Dar Dah. Welcome to the Chinese Christian Fellowship!! We are now recruiting. Virgins available upon request.

Well, none of my American colleagues wouldn't know what's going on, since the poster wasn't in English; my Chinese colleagues won't flip either, as they aren't aware of anti-soliciting laws.

So the whistle fell on my head, and I did my blowing.

As if the fire alarm has gone off and this was an emergency, the posters were removed immediately and within an hour, there was a frenzy of policy emails addressing every single employee at the institute.

No soliciting. No membership drive of any kind. No nothing not related to science.

Quite impressive, I have to say, and it makes sense.

Can you imagine Nature putting us on their news as the new flagship of "Christian science"?!

That'd be the E-N-D.

As if karma has been connecting the dots, everything came back to me eventually. The killer, according to Sherlock Holmes, always ends up at the victim's funeral. Hence the earlier post: http://vainpot.blogspirit.com/archive/2008/02/06/invitation.html

I should've know that Frank was the "ringleader". Like Frankenstein, he too has a creator plus a collection of DVDs. They should've fired him last year, when he gave his boss a Creationist box set for Christmas!

Virgin Fellowship

2008-02-07T05:05:00+01:00

In a way, I've always known.

There were only 2 possibilities.

I don't really know these mainland Chinese at work and I don't really get invited to their gatherings, as they don't really think I'm Chinese.

But guess what. In the name of the Holy Chinese New Year, I was invited to make dumplings. As soon as the door open, I saw a shrine on one side of the sitting room, a gigantic white cruxifix adorned with benign Made-in-China plastic flowers and nylon drapes.

That was the moment when I realised it was a Chinese Christian fellowship that I have entered. There they were, clusters of shy college girls and awkward boys, so characteristic of such gathering,

As soon as I buried myself in a bowl of raw mince pork, the host made a special announcement.

"His name is Ed and he is SINGLE!"

Cheers.

That was OK, since exactly 10 years ago I made that announcement myself in a Chinese Christian fellowship full of young unattached college girls, as a joke.

So it was both A) and B). They want to convert me as well as finding me a suitable partner. How very nice.

What really made me hide in the bathroom was that they started singing their very own "Jesus, I will always love you".

Coming to middle America is like turning back time. As a godless sodomite, I felt like I've been shoved back into 2 sets of closets.

They encourage to talk to the 18yo girls.

I said they were too young.

I said I'm waiting for the older ones to get divorced.

They didn't like that.

But that didn't stop them from calling me up whenever they needed a lift, to which I duly obliged. Some of my friends accused me of sleeping with the "enemy", but well, it's MY turn to convert somebody!

Huckabee.

2008-01-20T21:13:12+01:00

Slightly terrifying clip on this morning's McLaughlin Group: Mike Huckabee telling an audience that he's in favor of a Constitutional amendment to ban abortion and same-sex marriage. (Pat Buchanan, of course, thought this was a viable possibility.) I'm no political scholar (obviously), but I do know that the purpose of Constitutional amendments is to guarantee rights not already explicitly guaranteed by the Constitution. An amendment that would effectively take rights away, therefore, does not make sense in the context of the US Constitution. There was also lots of talk of this country being founded on the freedom of religion. Except, one of the founding principles of America was the separation of church and state, not freedom of religion, or the freedom to work religion into every aspect of American life.

Christmas in Japan

2007-12-16T09:15:00+01:00

Can you believe Japanese celebrate Christmas?

As you know, our people are predominantly Budhist. And even among Budhist, only a small portion of them practice it seriously. Most of our people are atheist.

Unlike Europe and the U.S. Japan's Christmas is basically commericial event. Good for business.

History goes back to late 19th century, Christmas was imported from the West. The below photo is taken from the top page of newspaper in December 1937.

As you see, it says "X'mas," that is misspelling. No ' is needed to spell Xmas (Christmas.) That is the ad of lady's boutique. "Christmas sale for lady's hats and furs." Surprisingly the same page posted the news article of Japanese imperial army's victory in Nanjing battle, former capital of China. That is where Nanjing massacre took place. I can't believe people celebrated the war victory and Christmas at the same time.

I "You Tube" today's Christmas in Tokyo.

Please click on Christmas in Tokyo.

First scene is the flyer for Christmas mass in church.

Second scene is brass band playing Christmas song.

Third scene is Santa Clause from Finland spoke and translater translated what he said.

He said, "I was surprised that there is no snow in Japan. So I had to use good Japanese automobile instead of a sleigh. In Finland, fairies are making presents for good children."

Last scenes were illumination of famous shopping mall, Shinjuku Southern Terrace.

Anyway, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Reality Program: 30 Days: by Morgan Spurlock

2007-11-28T12:25:00+01:00

I rented the DVD of Morgan Spurlock's reality program titled "30 Days." People in the program experience different worlds including film producer Spurlock himself. He is tall and looks like cock bird.

I first know him by the film "Supersize me." The show described his experience of eating only McDonald's hamburgers for 30 days. He described the obessity issue of America. How McDonald made Americans so fat and unhealthy.

After the success of this film, he then made the documentary programs with the same rule, that is people experience different worlds for 30 days.

There are 3 programs I liked.

1. Morgan and his girlfriend decided to live their lives by minimum wage. They learned minimum wage cannot support standard level of lives and the law should be amended to increase the minimum wage level. If you would be so poor that you cannot even afford to see a doctor.

2. An atheist woman lived in dedicated Christian family's home. There are not so many atheists in America, whereas in my country most people are. Dedicated Buhdists, Christians and other believers are minority and sometimes regarded as weird. In the U.S. Chrisitanity has strong influence in life. Christians cannot understand atheist way of living. Atheists feel oppressed in America. Kind of surprising to us, because America is a new country, why is it so religious?

3. The most impressive program, Cuban immigrant American who came to the U.S. legally when he was a child lived with illegal immigrants family. The Cuban man hates illegal immigrants and supports the governments tougher measure on the illegal immigrants. The family was just normal and happy loving people. The oldest girl was brilliant and thinking about going to the college. It was a big surprise to know that illegal immigrant girl could go to high school and got good grades and participate in golf tournament. Her school teacher supported her goals to achieve. She applied for Princeton and local college.

When I was in California, during 1990's, there was a referendum named Proposition 187, that bans providing services to illegal immigrants. There was a big anti-immigrants movement going on. I kind of understood people's anger towards illegal immigrants. They did not come to the U.S. legally. I never consider them good citizens.

In the program, the Cuban man went to Mexico to meet the relatives of the illegal immigrants family. Where they used to live was like rubble, I could understand why millions of Mexicans crossed the border just like the Cuban man did.

Blaming them cannot really solve this problem. This is the issue of global economy.

The program may include some kind of set-ups just like other documentary shows. But you can learn the importance of learning different worlds by real experiences.

Thank you, Morgan.