Friday, January 25, 2013
Friday, December 08, 2006
Allee Allee Oxen Free
Iran is going to host a world conference, supposedly featuring scholars from around the world, to investigate whether or not the Holocaust actually happened. It's about time. This will probably prompt Bush to convene a council to find out if we really landed on the moon in 1969.
Seriously, though, how can anyone be living in the world of the 21st century and have any doubts as to whether the Holocaust happened? There are people alive today who lived in European concentration camps. They still have numbers tattooed on their forearms.
And even if that weren't the case, what about the bigger question? How the fuck did we misplace SIX MILLION JEWS? If they didn't disappear into the extremely well-documented camps, where did they go? If they weren't involved in the most visible, high-profile, profligate genocide attempt in world history, where are they hiding?
And as for modern Jews, you guys need to give it up. The Bible says you're the chosen people, but, as we can see, it's as wrong about that as it is everything else. God apparently doesn't even like you. Unless he likes you the way a second grade boy likes a second grade girl: by pinching her, calling her names and pushing her down every chance he gets.
Wake up.
Seriously, though, how can anyone be living in the world of the 21st century and have any doubts as to whether the Holocaust happened? There are people alive today who lived in European concentration camps. They still have numbers tattooed on their forearms.
And even if that weren't the case, what about the bigger question? How the fuck did we misplace SIX MILLION JEWS? If they didn't disappear into the extremely well-documented camps, where did they go? If they weren't involved in the most visible, high-profile, profligate genocide attempt in world history, where are they hiding?
And as for modern Jews, you guys need to give it up. The Bible says you're the chosen people, but, as we can see, it's as wrong about that as it is everything else. God apparently doesn't even like you. Unless he likes you the way a second grade boy likes a second grade girl: by pinching her, calling her names and pushing her down every chance he gets.
Wake up.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Now, Bullshit.
Right this very second there are eleven full-time exorcists working for the Catholic Church here in America. Just thought you should know.
Eleven.
Wake up.
Eleven.
Wake up.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Represent
Over the past ten years I've read a lot about Buddhism. I've studied it and met lots of people who practice it. I've noticed something about those people, and it's something that's always confused me. A high percentage of them don't identify themselves as Buddhists.
Many people drawn to Buddhism fancy themselves nonconformists. They've rejected their birth religion and gone in search of something better. They've spurned the embrace of a capitalist society in favor of spirituality. They're not going to believe something just because someone told them it was true (unless that person is Asian). They're open-minded free-thinkers, goddammit, and they refuse to label themselves, to limit themselves to one idea or philosophy. So when they discover Buddhism, and think it has all the answers they're looking for (plus it's so damn Asian), they don't like to be called Buddhists. They may practice its tenets and follow the Buddha's teachings, but they don't want to be pigeonholed.
This is, of course, ridiculous. It's part of the specious notion that by labelling something, you impose all the limits of that label. If someone is a Republican, or a hippie, or a punk, or a Catholic, then that defines them. Not only does it define them, but it implies that they'll never be anything outside of that, never be anything MORE than that word. Once you accept what society and others want to call you, then you're doomed to live in that little niche forever.
What an incredibly short-sighted view, and one that does more harm than the problem it thinks it's solving. People are always going to think of other people in certain ways. It doesn't matter what you call yourself or don't call yourself, those around you will always identify, label, limit and shelve you in their minds. It's damn near unconscious. And, for the most part, it doesn't fucking matter. None of that changes what you are, or what you can become.
I spent a few months at a Buddhist meditation center in Vermont some years ago. It was packed with people practicing one very specific path of Tibetan Buddhism. They meditated every day, they said weird little prayers before they ate, they had secret rituals for the higher ranking members, there were specific rooms dedicated to specific deity practices: in short, they behaved exactly like Tibetan Buddhists the world over. Why, then, were so many of them reluctant to claim they were Buddhists?
I remember one girl in particular. She used Buddhist Sanskrit words in casual conversation. She was very concerned with her suffering and how to end it (which is the ONLY thing that the Buddha taught). She'd been to lots of Buddhist meditation retreats. Yet she adamantly refused to call herself a Buddhist. "I'm a meditator," she'd reply when pressed. Yet there are many different types of meditation, and she was most certainly a Buddhist meditator.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with looking at something that walks, swims and quacks like a duck and saying, "Dude, check out that duck." Your words have not doomed it to duckness. Your ideas have not limited it to ONLY duckness. You have not destroyed it's potential, nor have you really defined it as a creature.
From the perspective of ultimate reality, labels do reinforce dualistic thinking. They perpetuate the subject/object, me/you types of thought that Buddhism seeks to disabuse. But we're not talking about ultimate reality here, we're talking about relative reality. We're talking about our day to day lives that make use of dualism for highly practical reasons. Without it, how the fuck would we know which car was ours when we headed off to work? How could WE pick OUR wife up from HER parent's house without those divisions?
These daily labels are helpful. Without them, we'd have no idea if we were taking Advil or rat poison. And, Buddhist or not, you'll find surprisingly little efficacy in saying "It's all one, man. Everything is interconnected and inseparable," after you swallow arsenic.
So, to all my fellow Buddhists out there: shut the fuck up and get over it. Being Buddhist means many things, and one of those things is that the only limits you have are set by yourself. Stop being so attached to what you're called and start paying attention to what you are.
Wake up.
Many people drawn to Buddhism fancy themselves nonconformists. They've rejected their birth religion and gone in search of something better. They've spurned the embrace of a capitalist society in favor of spirituality. They're not going to believe something just because someone told them it was true (unless that person is Asian). They're open-minded free-thinkers, goddammit, and they refuse to label themselves, to limit themselves to one idea or philosophy. So when they discover Buddhism, and think it has all the answers they're looking for (plus it's so damn Asian), they don't like to be called Buddhists. They may practice its tenets and follow the Buddha's teachings, but they don't want to be pigeonholed.
This is, of course, ridiculous. It's part of the specious notion that by labelling something, you impose all the limits of that label. If someone is a Republican, or a hippie, or a punk, or a Catholic, then that defines them. Not only does it define them, but it implies that they'll never be anything outside of that, never be anything MORE than that word. Once you accept what society and others want to call you, then you're doomed to live in that little niche forever.
What an incredibly short-sighted view, and one that does more harm than the problem it thinks it's solving. People are always going to think of other people in certain ways. It doesn't matter what you call yourself or don't call yourself, those around you will always identify, label, limit and shelve you in their minds. It's damn near unconscious. And, for the most part, it doesn't fucking matter. None of that changes what you are, or what you can become.
I spent a few months at a Buddhist meditation center in Vermont some years ago. It was packed with people practicing one very specific path of Tibetan Buddhism. They meditated every day, they said weird little prayers before they ate, they had secret rituals for the higher ranking members, there were specific rooms dedicated to specific deity practices: in short, they behaved exactly like Tibetan Buddhists the world over. Why, then, were so many of them reluctant to claim they were Buddhists?
I remember one girl in particular. She used Buddhist Sanskrit words in casual conversation. She was very concerned with her suffering and how to end it (which is the ONLY thing that the Buddha taught). She'd been to lots of Buddhist meditation retreats. Yet she adamantly refused to call herself a Buddhist. "I'm a meditator," she'd reply when pressed. Yet there are many different types of meditation, and she was most certainly a Buddhist meditator.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with looking at something that walks, swims and quacks like a duck and saying, "Dude, check out that duck." Your words have not doomed it to duckness. Your ideas have not limited it to ONLY duckness. You have not destroyed it's potential, nor have you really defined it as a creature.
From the perspective of ultimate reality, labels do reinforce dualistic thinking. They perpetuate the subject/object, me/you types of thought that Buddhism seeks to disabuse. But we're not talking about ultimate reality here, we're talking about relative reality. We're talking about our day to day lives that make use of dualism for highly practical reasons. Without it, how the fuck would we know which car was ours when we headed off to work? How could WE pick OUR wife up from HER parent's house without those divisions?
These daily labels are helpful. Without them, we'd have no idea if we were taking Advil or rat poison. And, Buddhist or not, you'll find surprisingly little efficacy in saying "It's all one, man. Everything is interconnected and inseparable," after you swallow arsenic.
So, to all my fellow Buddhists out there: shut the fuck up and get over it. Being Buddhist means many things, and one of those things is that the only limits you have are set by yourself. Stop being so attached to what you're called and start paying attention to what you are.
Wake up.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Trapdoor
Zen means the bottom is going to drop out of everything. Instead of walking sure-footedly across the floor of our lives, confident in our ability to navigate pitfalls, Zen shows us that we learn only when the floor is gone.
We base our lives on reference points that we believe are indelible. This is MY house and MY wife. MY job is a piece of shit. I hate Democrats. Abortion is a SIN. I'll never understand YOU. I quit drinking. I ALWAYS order the pad thai.
We build our lives around these likes and dislikes, around the ever-emerging facets of our personalities. Despite the fact that we're never done, we always feel finished. We feel like we know who we are and we stop investigating. We try to cruise through our days with a mental blueprint that dictates how we should react to pretty much anything that we encounter.
Occasionally, though, we stumble into something that strips us bare. We have no idea how to respond; nothing has prepared us for this situation. All of our carefully cultivated notions of who we think we are and what we believe we're about are gone in a flash. Our mind empties, and, all too often, fills up with fear.
This is a trapdoor. We're walking with our head up and our eyes fixed ahead. We're striding as if we know exactly where we're going. Suddenly, the floor beneath us gapes open and we're falling with no reference points, no expectations, no hopes or dreams or illusions. We don't have a plan for this, so we allow fear to take us over.
It doesn't have to be like this. We are afraid because our preconceived ideas have proven they can't handle everything. Because they are PREconceived, they can't cope with moment to moment living. We need to walk without all of our judgements and opinions and reservations firmly in mind. We have to respond to life as it happens, not before it happens. Trapdoors are a chance to understand the world and yourself, not a cause for terror. They shake you out of your misbegotten certainties and remind you that life doesn't shape itself for you.
All of our daily reference points are bullshit. This journey we're on isn't from Tallahassee to Topeka. Road maps and directions won't help. Wrong turns aren't wrong and the right of way isn't right.
The next time you fall through a trapdoor, notice what's happening. Watch how your mind reacts. I think you'll find that it panics at first. That's a bit disconcerting, but stay with it. Much sooner than you think it'll calm down and you'll be able to actually experience things instead of just reacting.
As I said at the beginning of this post, Zen is about the bottom dropping out of everything. Not just paying attention when we stumble into a trapdoor, but actively working to remove the floor altogether. Without ground to stand on, without any reference points, without anything familiar to stain our minds with illusions, we can see the world for what it is. We can participate in our lives fully, and not worry about what our blueprints dictate.
Wake up.
We base our lives on reference points that we believe are indelible. This is MY house and MY wife. MY job is a piece of shit. I hate Democrats. Abortion is a SIN. I'll never understand YOU. I quit drinking. I ALWAYS order the pad thai.
We build our lives around these likes and dislikes, around the ever-emerging facets of our personalities. Despite the fact that we're never done, we always feel finished. We feel like we know who we are and we stop investigating. We try to cruise through our days with a mental blueprint that dictates how we should react to pretty much anything that we encounter.
Occasionally, though, we stumble into something that strips us bare. We have no idea how to respond; nothing has prepared us for this situation. All of our carefully cultivated notions of who we think we are and what we believe we're about are gone in a flash. Our mind empties, and, all too often, fills up with fear.
This is a trapdoor. We're walking with our head up and our eyes fixed ahead. We're striding as if we know exactly where we're going. Suddenly, the floor beneath us gapes open and we're falling with no reference points, no expectations, no hopes or dreams or illusions. We don't have a plan for this, so we allow fear to take us over.
It doesn't have to be like this. We are afraid because our preconceived ideas have proven they can't handle everything. Because they are PREconceived, they can't cope with moment to moment living. We need to walk without all of our judgements and opinions and reservations firmly in mind. We have to respond to life as it happens, not before it happens. Trapdoors are a chance to understand the world and yourself, not a cause for terror. They shake you out of your misbegotten certainties and remind you that life doesn't shape itself for you.
All of our daily reference points are bullshit. This journey we're on isn't from Tallahassee to Topeka. Road maps and directions won't help. Wrong turns aren't wrong and the right of way isn't right.
The next time you fall through a trapdoor, notice what's happening. Watch how your mind reacts. I think you'll find that it panics at first. That's a bit disconcerting, but stay with it. Much sooner than you think it'll calm down and you'll be able to actually experience things instead of just reacting.
As I said at the beginning of this post, Zen is about the bottom dropping out of everything. Not just paying attention when we stumble into a trapdoor, but actively working to remove the floor altogether. Without ground to stand on, without any reference points, without anything familiar to stain our minds with illusions, we can see the world for what it is. We can participate in our lives fully, and not worry about what our blueprints dictate.
Wake up.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Re-Ignition
This blog is all about change. As I've mentioned before, change is the one and only constant in our world. All things must reflect this.
The mighty Chair Leg of Truth has reflected this badly. It began as a place for me to talk about Zen. After awhile, my capricious interests became more intrigued with politcs. As time went by, I became more captivated by religion. In between all of these shifts were great periods of inactivity. I was not writing here because I was conflicted. For some reason I felt I should be concentrating in one major area, with minor deviations. The fact that I wanted to write about George W. Bush one day, my Zen teacher the next, and Islamic fascism on the third created a needless quandary that resulted in fewer posts.
This is not a political blog. It's not a religious blog. It's not a sexual blog, or an art blog, or a hateful blog or a compassionate blog. It's not a Zen blog. It is no one of these individual things, yet, as a whole, it is all of these and more.
I've come to accept this. I've made peace with it. I'm no longer attatched to the notion that this place will always conform to what I think it should be. I'm not in control and that's perfectly fine. I'm done struggling. This blog will be what it will be.
Zen is a Japanese translation of the Chinese word Ch'an, which is a translation of the Sanskrit word Dhyana, which roughly means "meditation." Meditation is not something Buddhists do on a cushion in a shrine room. It's not something that is cultivated for a half an hour and then left behind as the day progresses. It is not a stop-gap method to happiness. It is our mind's natural state. The act of "meditating" reveals that our minds, left alone, rest in a meditative awareness. When we realize this awareness is with us daily, we can relax and notice things without labelling them as "good" or "bad."
I will be back here much more frequently. Rather than avoiding this site because I don't feel I have something pointed, intellectual, and well-researched to say, I'll use this blog to reflect my daily awareness. Hopefully there are still a few of you out there interested in reading it.
All that being said, you know what I'm aware of right now? What I'm painfully, hyper-aware of right this second? What an unspeakable fucking douchebag O.J. Simpson is.
I'm back. Wake up and resist.
The mighty Chair Leg of Truth has reflected this badly. It began as a place for me to talk about Zen. After awhile, my capricious interests became more intrigued with politcs. As time went by, I became more captivated by religion. In between all of these shifts were great periods of inactivity. I was not writing here because I was conflicted. For some reason I felt I should be concentrating in one major area, with minor deviations. The fact that I wanted to write about George W. Bush one day, my Zen teacher the next, and Islamic fascism on the third created a needless quandary that resulted in fewer posts.
This is not a political blog. It's not a religious blog. It's not a sexual blog, or an art blog, or a hateful blog or a compassionate blog. It's not a Zen blog. It is no one of these individual things, yet, as a whole, it is all of these and more.
I've come to accept this. I've made peace with it. I'm no longer attatched to the notion that this place will always conform to what I think it should be. I'm not in control and that's perfectly fine. I'm done struggling. This blog will be what it will be.
Zen is a Japanese translation of the Chinese word Ch'an, which is a translation of the Sanskrit word Dhyana, which roughly means "meditation." Meditation is not something Buddhists do on a cushion in a shrine room. It's not something that is cultivated for a half an hour and then left behind as the day progresses. It is not a stop-gap method to happiness. It is our mind's natural state. The act of "meditating" reveals that our minds, left alone, rest in a meditative awareness. When we realize this awareness is with us daily, we can relax and notice things without labelling them as "good" or "bad."
I will be back here much more frequently. Rather than avoiding this site because I don't feel I have something pointed, intellectual, and well-researched to say, I'll use this blog to reflect my daily awareness. Hopefully there are still a few of you out there interested in reading it.
All that being said, you know what I'm aware of right now? What I'm painfully, hyper-aware of right this second? What an unspeakable fucking douchebag O.J. Simpson is.
I'm back. Wake up and resist.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Shazam!
The Pope is thinking seriously of abolishing limbo. You know, the place in between Heaven and Hell where the souls of dead babies go to be punished lightly, or rewarded a little, or to feel warm and safe, or cold and alone, or maybe nothing at all happens. That place. The Pope thinks he wants to do away with it because "it has always been only a theological hypothesis."
This is an interesting situation since, lacking proof for ANY aspect of faith, someone can still single out one notion as only "hypothesis." Every single word of revealed religions, whether written or verbal, is a theological hypothesis. Without a shred of evidence, one can never say that any part of their faith is a concrete truth. Naturally, that doesn't stop the Pope.
Until the 13th century, there was no limbo. Newborn babies who died went straight to Hell. Neat, huh? Catholics became increasingly uncomfortable with the notion of an omni-everything, compassionate, gentle, loving God sending newborns to Hell, so the idea of limbo was created. Strange; 13th century Catholics were OK with murdering heretics, spreading Christ's word at swordpoint, and carrying out all other bloody manifestations of their heinous cult - why lose sleep over a few babies sent to Hell?
Limbo has long been resisted and protested in the Church. After Catholics made God stop sending babies to Hell, and He started sending them to Limbo, they decided that wasn't so great either. Newborns, because they hadvn't been baptized yet, can't go to Heaven. That's a tried and true rule. This still seemed harsh to a lot of Catholics, and many millions the world over have scrubbed it completely from their daily worship and thoughts.
These same Catholics continue to be more or less cool with discrimination against homosexuals; the criminalization of abortion and excommunication of women who have them and doctors who perform them; the rigid prohibition on any birth control, including the wearing of condoms between married couples, one of whom has AIDS; and generally deferring to the Vatican so as to be kept in a philosophical Stone Age.
I understand, though. Everything I mentioned in the previous paragraph is part of what the Pope refers to as "definitive truth of the faith." "Definitive" because old, white men have gotten together several times since Christ's death to decide what would become doctrine and what wouldn't. "Truth" because they said so, and, after 2000 years people are still more inclined to believe these ridiculous fairy tales than to jettison all religious ideas for the good of mankind.
Goodbye, Limbo. I'll wait with bated breath til the Pope tells me where dead babies go now (I hope it's not my house). In the meantime, I'm gonna go knock up my wife. When I'm done with that, I'm taking her to have an abortion.
Wake up and resist.
This is an interesting situation since, lacking proof for ANY aspect of faith, someone can still single out one notion as only "hypothesis." Every single word of revealed religions, whether written or verbal, is a theological hypothesis. Without a shred of evidence, one can never say that any part of their faith is a concrete truth. Naturally, that doesn't stop the Pope.
Until the 13th century, there was no limbo. Newborn babies who died went straight to Hell. Neat, huh? Catholics became increasingly uncomfortable with the notion of an omni-everything, compassionate, gentle, loving God sending newborns to Hell, so the idea of limbo was created. Strange; 13th century Catholics were OK with murdering heretics, spreading Christ's word at swordpoint, and carrying out all other bloody manifestations of their heinous cult - why lose sleep over a few babies sent to Hell?
Limbo has long been resisted and protested in the Church. After Catholics made God stop sending babies to Hell, and He started sending them to Limbo, they decided that wasn't so great either. Newborns, because they hadvn't been baptized yet, can't go to Heaven. That's a tried and true rule. This still seemed harsh to a lot of Catholics, and many millions the world over have scrubbed it completely from their daily worship and thoughts.
These same Catholics continue to be more or less cool with discrimination against homosexuals; the criminalization of abortion and excommunication of women who have them and doctors who perform them; the rigid prohibition on any birth control, including the wearing of condoms between married couples, one of whom has AIDS; and generally deferring to the Vatican so as to be kept in a philosophical Stone Age.
I understand, though. Everything I mentioned in the previous paragraph is part of what the Pope refers to as "definitive truth of the faith." "Definitive" because old, white men have gotten together several times since Christ's death to decide what would become doctrine and what wouldn't. "Truth" because they said so, and, after 2000 years people are still more inclined to believe these ridiculous fairy tales than to jettison all religious ideas for the good of mankind.
Goodbye, Limbo. I'll wait with bated breath til the Pope tells me where dead babies go now (I hope it's not my house). In the meantime, I'm gonna go knock up my wife. When I'm done with that, I'm taking her to have an abortion.
Wake up and resist.
No More, Daddy
No father, judged sane by a jury, would be forgiven for murdering his eight children with the argument "They were ignoring and disobeying me. They were bad children. They were headed for a bad end." Why then, is God tolerated? In the Old Testament, the Heavenly Father slaughtered every human on the planet save for a select handful. It's right there in the book. God has erased the entire population, killed first-born sons, ripped fetuses from wombs, mandated the stoning deaths of alduterers, obstreperous children, heretics and homosexuals; He's turned wives into salt, burned cities to the ground, allowed his chosen people to be enslaved and decimated for centuries, and, in the case of Job, tortured an innocent man who did nothing but show him dedication and reverence.
Folks who believe the Bible is the most superior authority on morality and ethics need to actually read that motherfucker. Other than the Qu'ran, the Bible is peerless in its depravity and perversion. And I'm just talking about GOD; let's not even worry what the PEOPLE in that book do.
I will never understand how folks who read the Bible don't just shudder, put it down, and look for something better, like Fox News. I mean, let's take a look at God's Ten Commandments. These are the promulgations that were given to the people of Abraham straight from the hand of the Lord Himself:
1. You shall have no gods before me.
2. You shall make no graven images.
3. You shall not take my name in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.
These have absolutely nothing at all to do with morality or ethics. These are specifically related to Judeo-Christian mythology. When people talk about how the Ten Commandments aren't actually religious, just a uniform list of non-denominational goodness, remind them that the first FORTY PERCENT do not pertain to anything but Yahweh. These have no place in our courthouses, schools or any other public building.
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. Don't murder.
7. Don't commit adultery.
8. Don't steal.
9. Don't lie.
These are good ones. And, unlike the first four, they have nothing at all to do with God. These are core values, and have existed since primates could walk on two legs. They haven't always been followed in the strictest sense, but we can certainly agree that they are almost universally accepted around the world, regardless of a society's place in history, location, population, religiosity, or lack thereof. No religion can take credit for these ideas. No spirituality came to the conclusion, in a void, that these were prized attributes. These ideals, if they were generated, have been generated by almost every culture on earth, totally independent of each other, and, in the main, ignorant of the Abrahamic God
10. Don't covet anything that your neighbor has.
This is common sense. The more you lust over your neighbor's twenty foot, jet-black, pimped-out, rim-spinnin, forty-yards-to-the-gallon, dick wagon, Hummer H9, the unhappier you'll be. This goes double for his sweet-ass wife bent over in the garden planting marijuana while listening to her 60 G iPod and knocking back glasses of Louis XV. Worry about yourself.
The only Commandments that can be truly credited to the Bible are the first four, and, as we've seen, they're totally pointless if one hasn't been brainwashed by the hypocrisy to begin with.
The Ten Commandments had no place in the founding of our country, either. God is never once mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, or our Constitution. The men who tore America away from Britain were deists at the most, and, perhaps, agnostics and athiests in actuality.
This country has no formal allegiance to God. His appearance on our money and in our Pledge of Allegiance did not occur until the nineteen-forties and -fifties. The phrase on the back of a dollar bill "Novus Ordo Seclorum" means "New Secular Order." Our founders had high hopes of a country whose politics and public life were uncorrupted by the vicious taint of any religion. I have to believe they'd be crushingly disappointed with where we've ended up.
This is a Christian nation today, October 6th, 2006. It was a Christian nation yesterday, and last week, and the past decade. But it hasn't always been like this. Once, we were contumelious upstarts, putting our country together with the dregs and descendants of Victorian Europe. Toms Jefferson and Paine had nothing but outright, public contempt for Christianity. Many of their contemporaries were in total agreement. And yet, here we are.
God is useless. He is a vindictive, mind-altering monster twisting the thoughts of folks who could otherwise be well-adjusted, helpful citizens of our global community. Christians like to comment on the love and tolerance that Jesus preached. I'd like to point out that the only hate that is still condoned is the hatred masquerading as religion. All one has to do to defend an irrational prejudice these days is contend that one's spiritual teachings predicate discrimination against Jews, homosexuals, blacks, women who have abortions, athiests, Democrats, Asians, Hispanics or any other group desired. These viewpoints will be protected as long as religions are allowed to to create unsubstantiated claims predicated on the mandates of invisible rulers that are constantly in contention with one another.
Religion is stupid. The only reason Americans are predominately Christian is because they were born here. The only reason Muslims are Muslims is because they were born in Islamic countries. Jews inherit their Judaism. The Abrahamic faiths make no sense whatsoever; they are products of geography, family and superstition. Politics, sexuality, psychology, economics, sociology - all these things are open to informed debate. Why is religion such a heavily guarded, closed-off arena of public life? Because it is ludicrous. Religion cannot be defended because it generates no testable data.
Religion has no place in our lives. It makes no positive contribution that couldn't be made without the mention of God. Morality and ethics are completely divorced from mainstream religion. Every place on earth, from the most posh, hillside mansions to the most forsaken, poverty-stricken shitholes imaginable share common ideals. These have existed since time out of mind. There is no God. There is only life.
Stop worshipping the asshole who would have seen you drowned in New Orleans, raped by a priest, blown up in Iraq, chewed to pieces by cancer or crucified next to his son; all without a single reason or validation for your suffering.
Wake up and resist.
Folks who believe the Bible is the most superior authority on morality and ethics need to actually read that motherfucker. Other than the Qu'ran, the Bible is peerless in its depravity and perversion. And I'm just talking about GOD; let's not even worry what the PEOPLE in that book do.
I will never understand how folks who read the Bible don't just shudder, put it down, and look for something better, like Fox News. I mean, let's take a look at God's Ten Commandments. These are the promulgations that were given to the people of Abraham straight from the hand of the Lord Himself:
1. You shall have no gods before me.
2. You shall make no graven images.
3. You shall not take my name in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.
These have absolutely nothing at all to do with morality or ethics. These are specifically related to Judeo-Christian mythology. When people talk about how the Ten Commandments aren't actually religious, just a uniform list of non-denominational goodness, remind them that the first FORTY PERCENT do not pertain to anything but Yahweh. These have no place in our courthouses, schools or any other public building.
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. Don't murder.
7. Don't commit adultery.
8. Don't steal.
9. Don't lie.
These are good ones. And, unlike the first four, they have nothing at all to do with God. These are core values, and have existed since primates could walk on two legs. They haven't always been followed in the strictest sense, but we can certainly agree that they are almost universally accepted around the world, regardless of a society's place in history, location, population, religiosity, or lack thereof. No religion can take credit for these ideas. No spirituality came to the conclusion, in a void, that these were prized attributes. These ideals, if they were generated, have been generated by almost every culture on earth, totally independent of each other, and, in the main, ignorant of the Abrahamic God
10. Don't covet anything that your neighbor has.
This is common sense. The more you lust over your neighbor's twenty foot, jet-black, pimped-out, rim-spinnin, forty-yards-to-the-gallon, dick wagon, Hummer H9, the unhappier you'll be. This goes double for his sweet-ass wife bent over in the garden planting marijuana while listening to her 60 G iPod and knocking back glasses of Louis XV. Worry about yourself.
The only Commandments that can be truly credited to the Bible are the first four, and, as we've seen, they're totally pointless if one hasn't been brainwashed by the hypocrisy to begin with.
The Ten Commandments had no place in the founding of our country, either. God is never once mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, or our Constitution. The men who tore America away from Britain were deists at the most, and, perhaps, agnostics and athiests in actuality.
This country has no formal allegiance to God. His appearance on our money and in our Pledge of Allegiance did not occur until the nineteen-forties and -fifties. The phrase on the back of a dollar bill "Novus Ordo Seclorum" means "New Secular Order." Our founders had high hopes of a country whose politics and public life were uncorrupted by the vicious taint of any religion. I have to believe they'd be crushingly disappointed with where we've ended up.
This is a Christian nation today, October 6th, 2006. It was a Christian nation yesterday, and last week, and the past decade. But it hasn't always been like this. Once, we were contumelious upstarts, putting our country together with the dregs and descendants of Victorian Europe. Toms Jefferson and Paine had nothing but outright, public contempt for Christianity. Many of their contemporaries were in total agreement. And yet, here we are.
God is useless. He is a vindictive, mind-altering monster twisting the thoughts of folks who could otherwise be well-adjusted, helpful citizens of our global community. Christians like to comment on the love and tolerance that Jesus preached. I'd like to point out that the only hate that is still condoned is the hatred masquerading as religion. All one has to do to defend an irrational prejudice these days is contend that one's spiritual teachings predicate discrimination against Jews, homosexuals, blacks, women who have abortions, athiests, Democrats, Asians, Hispanics or any other group desired. These viewpoints will be protected as long as religions are allowed to to create unsubstantiated claims predicated on the mandates of invisible rulers that are constantly in contention with one another.
Religion is stupid. The only reason Americans are predominately Christian is because they were born here. The only reason Muslims are Muslims is because they were born in Islamic countries. Jews inherit their Judaism. The Abrahamic faiths make no sense whatsoever; they are products of geography, family and superstition. Politics, sexuality, psychology, economics, sociology - all these things are open to informed debate. Why is religion such a heavily guarded, closed-off arena of public life? Because it is ludicrous. Religion cannot be defended because it generates no testable data.
Religion has no place in our lives. It makes no positive contribution that couldn't be made without the mention of God. Morality and ethics are completely divorced from mainstream religion. Every place on earth, from the most posh, hillside mansions to the most forsaken, poverty-stricken shitholes imaginable share common ideals. These have existed since time out of mind. There is no God. There is only life.
Stop worshipping the asshole who would have seen you drowned in New Orleans, raped by a priest, blown up in Iraq, chewed to pieces by cancer or crucified next to his son; all without a single reason or validation for your suffering.
Wake up and resist.
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