Ol Shifty

Good lord, happy 4th

Well, in honor of this here holiday today, I have some thoughts.

While firecrackers, meat, family and drunkenness are probably the focus of most american’s attention today, I think it is worth noting that the holiday itself honors a historical event, the independence of this country from another. The freedom for americans from the taxes, religious control and other imperialist methods of England. Seemingly, granting us the freedom to eventually usurp those roles from our ex-shackle holders.

In human history, this seemingly hypocritical sequence from shackled to revolutionary to shackler has been played out so often and by so many groups of people that it has become the norm for national change.

The consistancy of this just serves to remind us, on this day when millions salute “our” suppossed greatness and superiority, that really now, people are basically the same, whereever and whenever they hail from.

The strange, ignorant and illogical nationalism that is celebrated here today (and in most other countries on their own particular day) just serves to make me ponder the similarity between nationalism and religion.

They are both ancient concepts manufactured by mankind which have formed our history and are used by the majority as a means towards maintaining: focus, confidence and community.

But, on the otherhand (or, actually, the same hand), they are philosophies devised by the powerful and used by them (and other insecure elements of society) as a means of maintaining control of, and division between, the populations of the world through dishonesty, ignorance and fear. As such, they serve only to dehumanize and disenfranchize people and are at the roots of cultural ignorance, racism, sexism, war and the majority of other hostile philosophies that mankind has, unfortunatly chosen to saddle itself with.

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Gleaning notions.

Reading an article today relating to Michael Cremo’s Forbiddon Archeology (a book that we used to sell lots of back in my Powell’s days) and discussing problems with the currently held beliefs of the human history and contrasting it with some vedic stuff got me in a bit of a tizzy last week. One thing that it brought to mind is that I feel that a disservice has been done to the world by the combining of the concept of evolution with the particular writings of Darwin.

I find it annoying when people poke holes in the work of Darwin in an attempt to disprove the concept of Evolution. Species "evolving" is such a bluntly obvious fact to anyone who tries to consider it, that the debunking of Darwin’s work should not be considered connected with actual evolution just because he got his name on the idea. I would say that while a particular 19th century scientist’s observation, built on a background of very little actual evidence (limited by the means of the times), may have done a great service to the forwarding of science, it isn’t really relevant that 100+ years later people are able to find holes to poke in what he had to say.  Combining Darwin’s scribbling’s with the actuality of Evolution would be akin to stating that Mars doesn’t exist because the lines on it did not turn out to be manufactured canals as some early observers thought.

In the same vein, even if there have been repeating cycles of hominids going back millions of years, or if this current cycle has exited much longer than is generally accepted, that has nothing to do with some weird Hindu mumbo-jumbo about repeating time cycles.

Where they mention: "Many thoughtful people… have concluded it is ultimately a spiritual crisis that demands a spiritual solution. Part of the problem lies with our modern scientific cosmology, which is mechanistic and reductionist. There is little place in modern science for the soul and God"

Spirituality (by which I mean some form of belief in the supernatural, rather than just a focus on the conceptual "spirit" of being human and acknowledging that we are a part of the general ecosystem) and man’s so-called souls and gods with which he has polluted and punished his mind and being since before he knew better, do not have any realistic or practical place in the existence of humans who (well, for the most part anyway) have gained the ability and willingness to actually investigate the universe around them. Nearly all forms of spirituality point to the human fault of continually looking for ways to put themselves (and their existence and history) above all else that may exist in the universe. Honestly, I would think that when the theory that the stars in the sky were actually other suns with potential worlds around them was first broached (an idea dating to classical Greek times but again voiced [and, of course, punished by death] in the 16th century) that humans should have recognized their ignorant ethnocentricity and all forms of religion and spirituality should have immediately been thrown into the dustbin.

Oh well. Also and somewhat related, this is an interesting little article on Giordano Bruno and the Infinite Universe.

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Lyrics of the week…

From those grandaddies of brilliance, Nomeansno, here is a choice bit of “Mondo Nihilissimo 2000” from the album all roads lead to Ausfahrt

Something’s wrong in the heartland
There’s an evil that creeps across this land
But they say God accepts all sinners
So why should we give a damn?

I was born of love eternal
But now I do the devil’s work
If there’s a God up there in Heaven
He must be one big fucking jerk

Haha!

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Devil takes the hindmost

So thinking about all of the evils of the world. Well, not the regular evils like greed and violence, rather the ones that bother the christians: homosexuality, drugs, disobedience, personal liberty, logical thought, equality, self-expression, learning about the natural world and just speaking truthfully in general…

Well, it seems to me that they normally blame all of those horrid abominations on the macinations of that satan figure of theirs (the devil, demons, servants of, worshippers of… Whatever).

But what I don’t get is that guy has only been around for what 2,000-2,500 years? So what about all those millennia of humanity before god, jesus, satan, etc, showed up? Was that stuff not happenning then? Was it happening but of its own accord, only later to be deemed bad after jehovah and his cronies showed up? Or did those myriad evildoing pre-abraham spirits all just retire when satan showed up and hand him the reins (and the credit)? Hmmm…

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Seen on facebook

A friend of mine has a bunch of these sort of things up on facebook. I decided to repost one that had my favorite sentiment…

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Things I learned from twitter

Something I saw in a @harryshearer tweet that was retweeted by @lawrence (wait, why am I following Lawrence O’Donnell and not Harry Shearer?), were the proported results of a CBS poll “Believers find athiests as un-trustworthy as rapists”.

Nice. Well, aside my suspicion that the percentage of rapists who are also “believers” probably far outweighs the percentage of people in general who are “believers”… I must complain this is a most egregious display of intentional ignorance. The kind of blunt and unthinking ignorance that leads to hatred and intolerence which, in turn leads to a substantial portion of the world’s woes.

Honestly though, as I’ve said before, this thoughtless distrust of the unfaith stems from the fact that those of faith do not truely believe that which they have faith in yet, sadly, they firmly believe that people are terrible inside and without the “guidance” (aka threats rules and fear) that people get from religion, civilization would collapse! That being the case, for centuries they have felt the need to force people to claim belief and to shun, torture and kill those who won’t go along with it. All just to save civilization!

So hey… Thanks guys for your faith in humanity!

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Ho ho ho

Ok please. I know that December 25th is the day that christians celebrate the birth of their jesus figure (however odd a form those celebrations take, considering…), but I don’t think that there is anyone (aside from indoctrinated young childen) who thinks that it is actually the supposed date of “birth” of that supposed entity… So please stop calling it jesus’ birthday!

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I hate you with a passion

Ok, maybe that’s not the best post title, but after my commute to work this morning, this title from the old Dre Dog album did pop into my head, so I figured, “what the hell?”.

I have a hard enough time with my commute without being tortured on top of it.

While there is one reasonable guy that I ride with, the rest of them seem to be either small minded friendly automatons, or else just mildly creepy. Either way, none of them seem inclined to ever think of uttering some kind of genuinely thoughtful notion about anything, just endlessly repeated drivel about work or the weather or some crap on T.V. Or, even worse, conversations about scouting, church, ignorant commentaries on the news or the other pointless mundanities that fill the minds of these shallow and ethnocentric fools.

The worst of all though (luckily, she doesn’t talk that much) is our little red-headed troll of hatred. I know that this may sound like the proverbial pot calling the kettle black, but she is a bigoted, loud-mouthed (when she talks) small-minded and hateful Baptist. An honest to god heaven believing, palin supporting wingnut who has nothing good to say about anything beyond the walls of her dreary marriage and ignorant little Baptist church brethren. Every time that anyone (especially at her work or in politics) does anything that she doesn’t agree with, she will call them “stupid idiots” over and over again (and over and over)… Which gets very tiring to hear.

Anyway, I spend two hours a day with these people which is normally just boring and mildly annoying. But the little troll was driving this morning, which is very unusual, and apparently that gave her the license to play the radio. While I dislike nearly all radio, especially in these parts, I had never had to listen to anything as trying as “The Light Network”.

Insipid and ArrgghhH!!! I carry both and iphone and an ipod (in fact, even a kindle with some mp3′s on it) so I dug through my pack most energetically wishing I had brought my grado’s with me, but hoping at least hoping to find some ears buds but, no, nothing. Loads of music, but no headphones. Argh! I spent the morning instead trying to write troubled emails and messages, whenever our lousy rural cell phone reception could pick anything up.

I did learn that if I opened my eyes I would learn that jesus loves me. I also learned that jesus is lord (though I think I’ve heard that sentiment somewhere before). Anyway, yes, I do feel bad that hearing such stuff causes such a nearly psychotic reaction in me, but I wish they would all just hurry up and make their intended trips to heaven and leave the rest of us alone. There is nothing more immoral, despicable, hateful, demeaning, embarrassing and anti-human than religion and “faith” and I just can’t help but have all of that flood my perceptions when I am made to hear it. It also serves to resalt the mental would that comes from realizing that my cross-country move moved me somewhere that has much different values than what I am used to… In a very troubling way.

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Rather long, but rather funny…

I stole this little bitty from Godless Geeks, but I’ll print it here in its full version…

Hundreds of Proofs of God’s Existence
Formerly: Over Three Hundred Proofs of God’s Existence
Originally adapted from a forum on the Internet Infidels.

1. TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENT, a.k.a. PRESUPPOSITIONALIST (I)
(1) If reason exists then God exists.
(2) Reason exists.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

2. COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT, a.k.a. FIRST CAUSE ARGUMENT (I)
(1) If I say something must have a cause, it has a cause.
(2) I say the universe must have a cause.
(3) Therefore, the universe has a cause.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

3. ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (I)
(1) I define God to be X.
(2) Since I can conceive of X, X must exist.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

4. ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (II)
(1) I can conceive of a perfect God.
(2) One of the qualities of perfection is existence.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

5. MODAL ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
(1) God is either necessary or unnecessary.
(2) God is not unnecessary, therefore God must be necessary.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

6. ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN, a.k.a. TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (I)
(1) Check out the world/universe/giraffe. Isn’t it complex?
(2) Only God could have made them so complex.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

7. ARGUMENT FROM BEAUTY, a.k.a. DESIGN/TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (II)
(1) Isn’t that baby/sunset/flower/tree beautiful?
(2) Only God could have made them so beautiful.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

8. ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES (I)
(1) My aunt had cancer.
(2) The doctors gave her all these horrible treatments.
(3) My aunt prayed to God and now she doesn’t have cancer.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

9. MORAL ARGUMENT (I)
(1) Person X, a well-known atheist, was morally inferior to the rest of us.
(2) Therefore, God exists.

10. MORAL ARGUMENT (II)
(1) In my younger days I was a cursing, drinking, smoking, gambling, child-molesting, thieving, murdering, bed-wetting bastard.
(2) That all changed once I became religious.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

11. ARGUMENT FROM CREATION, a.k.a. ARGUMENT FROM PERSONAL INCREDULITY (I)
(1) If evolution is false, then creationism is true, and therefore God exists.
(2) Evolution can’t be true, since I lack the mental capacity to understand it; moreover, to accept its truth would cause me to be uncomfortable.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

Read the rest of this entry »

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and about those darned homosexuals

Relating to today’s previous post about people trying to misrepresent their religious bigotries (or beliefs) as something other then they are, my state of abode is currently going through a gay marriage battle. Now I know I’ve covered this before. but the current dialogue makes me want to go again. I understand the tricky spot that the anti gay marriage folks are in. As far as I can tell there is absolutely no reason to not support gay marriage unless you have some religious beliefs that oppose homosexuality. Now since you can’t really (in this day and age at least) maintain a large public dialogue using reasoning like that, they have to come up with some other excuse.

That excuse being Tradition. I’m not sure when that became a valid excuse… Traditions change, if they didn’t black people would still be able to be bought and sold at market with no say in their lives and women wouldn’t be able to vote. Neither of them could own land and, of course, your wife should be burned when you die and your servants should be killed and buried with you. Strangely, those were changed.

So if one throws out the tradition excuse as just a red herring (or any tradition excuse that doesn’t claim an origin in religious belief), then what are you stuck with?

I don’t think that this is a gay marriage debate at all. The debate is still over homosexuality. The people who do not support gay marriage are the people who believe that homosexuality is a sin or some other kind of abomination and they probably think that gay people should be killed or sent to Siberia so they they don’t infect “our grandchildren” with their filth. God forbid one of your children become gay… How can we prevent it since we can’t just kill gay people anymore and make them hide? I know! The only opposition that is left to us in this country is to say that “real” marriage is too good for them. Let’s do it “No gay marriage, no gay marriage”.

It’s just easier to say in public than “kill the fags”.

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