Confusion Of Ideas

Jesus the Bartender

2010-09-26T13:11:00.001-07:00

For fun, I lurk around Fundies Say the Darndest Things. That particular link will take you to the following quote by Andy Schlafly, Phillis Schlafly's brain-dead son and, um ... author of Conservapedia. Follow the link if you want to see the rest of the commentary.

"The second chapter of the Gospel of John describes the conversion of water into wine by Jesus at a wedding reception. Intuitively one would expect the conversion to occur before anyone tasted the drink. But under quantum mechanics, it is not until observation that matter acquires a definite state. John 2:9 describes this precisely as required by quantum mechanics, and the KJV misses this subtle issue of timing in the conversion." - Andy Schlafly, Conservapedia, Biblical scientific foreknowledge

Of course, trying to derive quantum mechanics from a Bible quote is like trying to get a signed prenuptial agreement from a blow-up doll. Really, there are just so many levels of fail! Here, thanks to another poster on FSTDT, is what the Bible passage says.

John 2:7-10

7 Jesus said to them, "Fill the waterpots with water." So they filled them up to the brim.
8 And He said to them, "Draw some out now and take it to the steward." So they took it to him.
9 When the steward tasted the water which had become wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom,
10 and said to him, "Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poorer wine; but you have kept the good wine until now."

Sure.

My first comment was to state that this is an often-repeated parlor trick that has nothing to do with magic and/or miracles. So many people have reproduced this that I can't understand why anyone would pay any credence to this. I fear I was less than diplomatic. My exact words were:

It's an f-ing parlor trick you dipshit. How many people have to repeat it before you admit that it isn't magic? It's fraud!

Water: H-O-H
Wine: A complex mixture of water, alcohol, esters, organic components of grapes, Lactobacillus vini, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and other agents of fermentation. It is a product of the controlled decomposition of juice pressed from grapes. You don't happen across it. You find it in barrels, casks, bottles and boxes because humans made it and put it there.

Maybe you should try to explain it with cold fusion, or wormholes to a parallel universe.

Andy: ever the dipshit.

This comment drew the following observation from a poster going by the name of nutbunny.

@ breakerslion:
He is Jesus.
He can do anything.
Chemistry means nothing when God decides to fuck around.

That got me thinking about this in a whole different way. What proof could one offer directly from the narrative that this was a gimmick and not a miracle? This is what I came up with.

(Yes, but) starting with that premise opens up a larger can of worms.

1. Is the end product real wine or synthetic pseudowine? (edit: To be clear, is this a whomped-up, exact chemical copy of wine, or did it come from grapes?)

2. If real, where did it come from?

3. If synthetic, why was it necessary to start with water? Where did all the other elements come from (Carbon, Nitrogen, Misc other trace)?

4. If real, why was it necessary to start with water? Was this some kind of "packrat" teleportation, and some poor slob wound up with several wine jars full of water? Stealing is not all that miraculous.

5. Why allow your minions to get close enough to fuck with it? A really impressive miracle would be, "Go pick up that empty wine jar," and hey presto! it's full again!

In short, if this is a miracle, why did it need a stage magician's set up?

There is one explanation that occurs to me that does not require chicanery on the part of the god-man alleged to be Jesus in this story. The story is pure fiction, written from the perspective of a first century storyteller. Water is a necessary ingredient in the transmutation into wine because water is one of the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water. At the time this story was circulated, people believed that anything could be created from the proper combination of these four "elements". Wine being liquid, the closest "element" to wine is water, and this becomes the natural starting point for any being incapable of grasping all the ramifications of "all-powerful".

Unfortunately for the credibility of our storyteller, no matter which way you look at it, the universe doesn't work that way.

Pissing on Great Moments in History: The Boston Tea Party

2010-08-02T06:43:00.000-07:00

Proudly copied from Urban Dictionary without permission but with all advertising links and attributions intact. What's a dictionary for?

6.	teabagger	2700 up, 2170 down
	buy teabagger mugs, tshirts and magnets A misinformed, right-wing corporate media consumer who often fails to understand that BOTH major parties represent a corrupt plutocracy that steals from the middle class by taxing labor and profiting from corporate tax subsidies. A teabagger also often fails to acknowledge that George W. Bush and his neo-conservative minions perpetrated one of the boldest and most egregious executive power grabs in the history of the United States. Furthermore, teabaggers mistakenly continue to blame a newly elected President Obama for all that ails the United States of America, based on a grossly flawed perception of reality (including latent racial prejudice) and despite the fact the U.S. economy collapsed on the previous administration's watch. Teabaggers are also known to base their misguided, right-wing-media-inspired beliefs about President Obama on stupid conspiracy theories about totalitarian takeovers, FEMA camps, etc., despite the fact these very same theories have been circulating around on the Internet for years, and were originally ascribed to neo-conservative cabalists at a time when Barack Obama had not even entered national politics. Teabaggers also are known to be particularly paranoid, xenophobic and intolerant, especially with regard to immigrants and anyone who isn't white. Additionally, teabaggers generally echo stupid myths about entitlement spending (it actually only accounts for about 1% of federal budget spending), have no idea that most poor people in America are not lazy, actually do work and don't want to be on welfare, and have no idea what socialism actually means or that socialist reform in this country is actually what allowed a middle class to flourish and ultimately make the U.S. one of the most prosperous nations in human history. Furthermore, teabaggers incorrectly equate socialism with Stalinism, think a system that rewards greed (capitalism) is the divine preference (despite Gospel evidence to the contrary), and are shameless champions of a misguided belief in American exceptionalism. Teabaggers also fail to recognize the inherently unpatriotic nature of their failed every-man-for-himself ideology that ultimately vilifies anyone who supports public policy aimed at reaching out to fellow Americans in need. They celebrate an exploitative corporatocracy (holy creator of jobs, blah blah blah) while denigrating the little guy for being "weak." Interestingly, teabaggers uphold an immoral, morbidly obese, twice divorced, draft-dodging, college dropout and known drug addict as their de facto leader, and are even known to advocate burning books. Of course, teabaggers fail to recognize the blatant hypocrisy within the GOP and tend to oversimplify all political debate and social issues, much like their pseudo-intellectual, fat-ass leader. Finally, incredibly, teabaggers fail to recognize the hysterical double entendre associated with their proudly adopted teabag moniker. Every village has its idiots, of course, but it's sad when citizens of any nation allow themselves to be whipped into a frenzy en masse by a state-run propaganda machine masquerading as a legitimate, fair, balanced and independent news organization. Teabaggers are right to believe the future of the U.S.A. is in jeopardy, but sadly they have not yet correctly identified the real enemy. Perhaps when teabaggers finally grow up and mature into thinking adults, they will see the right-leaning power establishment for the oppressive and cunning beast that it is. Teabagger: We don't care that George Bush tripled the deficit and lied us into a war. The new administration only cut taxes for 90% of the population... fascists. Let's go throw some Lipton tea bags into a fountain! brainwashed misfit idiot fool foxlover by deepshot Apr 20, 2009 share this

"Reality is defined by the craziest person in the room" - Scott Adams

I am unimaginably weary of having my reality defined by the ignorant, senile, deliberately misinformed, and the lunatic fringe, or some combination thereof.

Messed-Up Bible Stories 4: Noah's Ark

2010-02-11T12:47:00.001-08:00

If civilization were to fall tomorrow, would Gilligan's Island be inerrant Truth 2500 years from now?

The Idiots are Taking Over NOFX Kinetic Typography

2010-01-19T05:40:00.001-08:00

That would explain it. I have a Life magazine from the Eisenhower era. Cover story: "What's Wrong With Our Schools?"

Hello little pigs, welcome to the ideological sausage factory.

Those treated like caged animals tend to revert to animal behavior. Good examples of this can be found in the alpha ape behavior that can be observed in our prisions and in the schoolyards. The more repressive the regime, the more animal behavior it produces.

Parents and teachers alike seem to think it's important that young children know fun facts like, "George Washington is the Father of our Country." That and $1.50 will buy you a cup of coffee. Nobody teaches these kids how to think, reason, and argue because no one likes a wise-ass kid. Then too, such a child is less easily exploited in later life. There's only so much room at the top, after all.

Boned Agian

2010-01-11T16:58:00.000-08:00

I wrote about this the first time when I read the book and found myself simultaneously furious and disappointed at the ending. I'm talking about The Lovely Bones. Now, one of my favorite young actresses, Saoirse Ronan, is playing the dead-girl lead, Susie Salmon. Isn't that a name that just screams DC Comics? Right up there with Lois Lane, or Lex Luthor, only cutesy, wholesome, and innocent, like Raggedy Ann.

I'm sure she'll do just fine, financially and career-wise, but I think making someone so alive "do" dead is a criminal act. That's not to mention the mental gobbledy-gook this "story" reinforces. I was so annoyed by the book that I went looking for reviews that might help me understand the cause of such a visceral reaction. I found Wonder Bread, by Melvin Jules Bukiet, on The American Scholar. He nailed what is so profoundly wrong with this lovely finger painting of a picture much better than I ever could.

(Spoiler alert) Excerpt:

Generally speaking, the sex-murder of an adolescent offers little that’s good. But in The Lovely Bones, mom and pop hook up and so do Ray and Ruth, whose body Susie is allowed to occupy just long enough to have real, true, beautiful sex for once in her afterlife. “I had never been touched like this,” she tells us. “I had only been hurt by hands past all tenderness. But spreading out into my heaven after death had been a moonbeam that swirled and blinked on and off. . . . Inside my head I said the word gentle.” The book ends with a glow.

Every impulse in every sane reader must shriek No! at this pabulum. It’s not lovely that Susie’s been slaughtered, hacked, and dumped in a pit. It’s not lovely that icy Mr. Harvey gets his comeuppance by a conveniently dropped icicle as the pit containing Susie’s body parts is being drained, leading us to assume that her remains will be found and that she will finally get a lovely stone.

Nice thought if you can abide it. Unfortunately, it’s false to all human experience to find “growth” in tragedy. In fact, the dull truth is that pain is tautological. The only thing suffering teaches us is that we are capable of suffering.

The Wonder Bread article is a long read, but well worth it. If you don't care to read it all, skip to the end and enjoy Bukiet's nice strong finish. You might not agree with his position, but this man knows how to support an argument.

Hat tip to the New Yorker cartoon for the tombstone idea.

Who Wants to be a Fundamentalist?

2010-01-01T13:21:00.001-08:00

The new game show loosely based on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”

You are on the honor system for “Ask a Friend” (two lifelines) and are free to consult the archives at Rapture Ready or Free Republic as often as necessary in place of “Ask an Expert”.

Question 1, Value 10.

Complete this phrase: “The weather outside is … “

A. Frightful
B. Nauseating
C. Wiry
D. Pre-Apocalyptic

Question 2, Value 100.

Barack Hussein Obama is …

A. President of the United States
B. President of Iran
C. “Happy New Year” in Turkish
D. Satan

Question 3, Value 1,000.

Evolution Theory is …

A. The theory that living organisms mutate over time, leading to new species.
B. The theory that explains how the Earth moves around the Sun.
C. A sitcom on CBS
D. Satan’s evil plot to discredit God.

Question 4, Value 10,000.

Abortion is …

A. The premature termination of an unwanted pregnancy by medical means
B. A political hot button that gets pushed more often than a drug dealer’s doorbell.
C. A video game with killer robots.
D. Satan’s way of thwarting God’s divine right to insert souls into unborn children.

Question 5, Value 100,000.

Democracy is …

A. Government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
B. A tyranny of the majority, created by skillful manipulation of popular opinion, and mitigated by an occasionally impartial judicial system.
C. An artistic expression that is the opposite of a caricature.
D. Heretical

Question 6, Value 1,000,000.

Women are …

A. The female of the species Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
B. The most frequently underpaid and abused subset of society as a whole.
C. The adult form of girls
D. God’s accursed baby factories, and the sole property of their fathers until sold to a husband.

Question 7, Value 10,000,000.

Faith is …

A. Belief in something without the requirement of positive proof.
B. Another word for prejudice, delusion, or self-delusion.
C. Never having to say, “I don’t know.”
D. Compulsory

Question 8, Value 100,000,000.

Armageddon is …

A. The Biblical vision of the end of the world.
B. The ravings of St. John, the Mentally Deranged.
C. A famous East End nightclub of the 1960’s
D. Next Wednesday.

Question 9, Value 1,000,000,000.

The Bible is …

A. The holy book of the various sects of the Christian religion.
B. A book of Middle-Eastern mythology, badly-remembered history, and plagiarism used to indoctrinate children into subservient behavior and hierarchical thinking.
C. An instrument used for load-testing drawers in hotel bedside tables.
D. The absolute, inerrant, Word of God, written by God, edited by God, typeset by God, sold and distributed by God. The absolute pinnacle of history, science, and information available to the human race, and God’s love in convenient book form without which you will burn for all eternity in Hell. And furthermore, GodGodGodGodGodGodGod! Correction: one capital letter is not enough. GODGODGODGODGODGODGODGOD!

Answers: D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D, D.

Score: 0 = Not Fundie. 10 – 1,111,111,110 = Seek help.

So ...

2009-12-01T17:16:00.000-08:00

Has the Dahlia, I mean Dalai, Lama ever reincarnated as a woman? If not, why not? I would think the odds be 50 - 50, as the Great Zappa used to say. Could it be that the seekers have a misogynistic bent? How would that affect their accuracy? What story do they tell themselves to explain this lack of ... curiosity? ... flexibility? ... ability? on the part of their god-man? Inquiring mind would like to know.

Until I get a better answer, I'll just have to imagine that the monks who run that circus can't stand the idea of their leader titty f-ing some stud, or maybe getting pregnant. Pretty much anything else is gender independent. Then again, maybe it's just the old bleeding hangup. Any way you look at it, it doesn't look that enlightened to me.

Incidentally, I have no hangup about using the f-word, but other people seem to think a euphemism will protect children's sanity, so there you go. And you boys in high heels? Yes, I know about boob jobs, but can you really see the Dalai Lama getting a boob job?

More Fun With Python

2009-11-24T18:08:00.000-08:00

One of my small vices is to read and comment on Fundies Say The Darndest Things while taking my break at work. Lately, they have been getting a lot of mileage out of a dolt by the name of Andy Schlafly, and his two insane projects, Conservapedia (Think, bigot gets banned from spewing bullshit on Wikipedia, starts his own lemonade stand.) and a conservative rewrite of the Bible. Let that sink in a minute. Andy is trying to remove the liberal bias parts. He's either the most masterful Poe since Ann Coulter (kidding, sadly) or he really is the most demented individual ever to be the editor of an encyclopedia. Perhaps his first job out of high school was felting hats, or developing Daguerreotypes.

When this little nugget of lunacy caught my attention, it inspired me to write a response that I feel is worthy of languishing virtually unnoticed in more than one place, so here it is.

Joaquin, "Allahu" has to mean "Allah", not God. The Muslim chant, which is what this is from, is to Allah, not God.

["Andy, the word "Allahu" means in Arab "God". It comes from: Al-lâh. "Al" means "the" and "ilah" means "god""]

Joaquin, I have an open mind about this, but Muslims chant to "Allahu" and they're not chanting to "God", but to "Allah".

Andy Schlafly , Conservapedia 51 Comments [11/24/2009 12:57:46 PM]

*****

(In the voices of the Python "Pepperpots".)

'Ello Haynoo!

'Ello Heem!

What's on the Telly?

It looks to be a pogrom.

I can see that! ... What's it about?

Some sod by the name of Amos Shitfly or something's gone and started a dispute about the name of God.

What, again? ... God's not a name anyway, it's a title.

It's Ya-way.

No it isn't, that's just Hebrew for "who am". The real name's a secret.

... Maybe it's Herbert.

It's not Herbert!

It could be, how would you know if it's a secret?

It's NOT Herbert!

(TV announcer) And now it's time for the internecine violence on your TV set to explode....

(explosion)

How'd he know that?

(announcer) It was the only logical outcome.

- Apologies to all at Python Ltd.

Check This Out!

2009-11-15T08:21:00.000-08:00

I love the happy accidents in life. That lineup almost makes me believe in karma or a higher power. Of course, a higher power that wasn't totally ineffectual would have opened up a manhole for Beck to drop into, so I guess I have to go with karma. You look right at home there Beck.

Hit and Run

2009-11-04T16:07:00.000-08:00

1. 2012: The Movie.

Review: Sight Unseen.

Are you fucking kidding me?

If you believe like I do that the World of Woo bullshit has to stop somewhere, some time, boycott this piece of shit. Don't see it. Don't rent it. Don't watch it on cable. I know our non-contribution to the supernatural bullshit mill will be as a fart in a wind tunnel, but it's the principle of the thing. It's one thing for Mel Gibson to regurgitate the anti-Semitic Passion Play from the Dark Ages. That wheezing, hurdy-gurdy of a religious scam is still going strong. It's quite another to revive the defunct superstition of a defunct, pre-Colombian civilization. That's just fucking stupid in light of the very provable fact that there are people here who are so brain-blasted by the everyday social bullshit that they will believe ANYTHING.

2. Applebee's has announced that they will give free food to Veterans and active Military Personnel on Veteran's Day. Consider taking the day off from work and providing shuttle service from your neighborhood VA Hospitals and Homeless Shelters. There are Veterans out there who could use a free meal, and I'm sure they are not the customers Applebee's had in mind when they made this offer.

Ass Groove Jesus

2009-10-25T12:13:00.001-07:00

How did I miss this one from March 15 of this year? I think it looks more like Emmett Kelly's famous clown persona, Weary Willie. Would that make it an ass clown?

For other opinions try Skeptic Rant or Pharyngula. Hat tip to both.

DJD With Upper Extremity Radiculopathy

2009-10-01T04:16:00.000-07:00

That's the fancy term for why I have not been blogging. Translation: The C4 vertebra in my neck is pressing on a nerve juncture that makes my right arm feel like a giant toothache unless I follow Homer Simpson's advice from the Guatemalan Insanity Pepper episode.

"Note to self: don't do anything!"

The Allege-ed Virgin Mary, Revisited

2009-09-11T12:38:00.000-07:00

Like the man in They Live had to say, "I knew it had to be something like this."

http://www.blogster.com/anaibendai/now-illustratedthe

Hat Tip to Rita

Idiots at the Cato Institute?

2009-09-05T09:06:00.000-07:00

The Cato Institute is a think-tank devoted to free-market, Libertarian ideals. It is no surprise, therefore, that they would adopt the following attitude. It always surprises me when smart people make dumb statements however, even though everyone is equally capable in that regard. Economist Chris Edwards was quoted on national television as saying, “The economy would have started recovering by now without government intervention.”

This is a stupid statement because it is demonstrably meaningless, having only emotional appeal to those who dispute the wisdom of current government policy. Don’t get me wrong. I am no fan of bank bail-outs that do not “trickle down” into real relief for those being foreclosed upon. I’m just equally annoyed at pundit inaccuracies.

The first problem with this statement can be compared to the insolvable question, “Do you get wetter running through the rain or walking?” There are too many variables to arrive at an answer. What “Economy” is Edwards talking about? The US economy? The global economy? The macro economy? The micro economy? Too many inter-connected variables. Once a change has been introduced, the chain of cause and effect without that change can only be imagined, not accurately predicted. It’s worse than trying to predict the weather patterns two months later if hurricane Bob had never existed. We do not have a parallel universe to observe and accurately chart the chain of consequences.

Problem two: the “X-factors”. Without an economic stimulus package, do things get so bad that one wild-card individual finds a stash of phosphate fertilizer and blows up the Commodities Exchange? Extreme example, to be sure, but all unpredictable consequences have to be ignored (low probabilities are discounted) when making “what-if” predictions. This idealizes the result, as at least some low-probability consequences are bound to happen, but which ones?

The third problem is slightly different, but in the same vein. Granting for the sake of argument that the statement, “The economy would have started recovering by now without government intervention” is true, it leaves the following question unanswered. From what depth of misery would we be recovering? How deep a trough would the crash-landing of the economy have dug? See the problems above for why this question is equally unpredictable.

Spending time thinking about what would have happened, or what might have happened in these circumstances is living in the past and a waste of time, except from the standpoint of propaganda, or agit-prop. One is far more productive when attempting to chart a course based on what did happen, or what Lewis Black among others likes to refer to as, “FUCKING REALITY!” Chris Edwards of the Cato institute is either an idiot for making such statements, or he thinks his audience is stupid enough to accept these statements at face value, or both.

Wednesday August 5, 2009

2009-08-18T18:02:00.000-07:00

Remember that date. Years from now, your Grandchildren might ask, Where were you on that day in August, 2009?

Why?

(CNN) -- The American Psychological Association concluded Wednesday that there is little evidence that efforts to change a person's sexual orientation from gay or lesbian to heterosexual are effective.

... And it only took them, what? Twenty years of supporting data? I guess they had to be sure.

Hat tip to Mister Jeb's Blog

Always Trash the Competition

2009-08-15T05:54:00.000-07:00

From Morning Edition, an NPR Newscast, August 13:

"Catholic Church leaders in Italy are chagrined that a nearly $200 million lottery takes place Thursday. Church leaders say the drawing encourages greed, false hope and an idolatrous worship of money. Although entrants have about a one in 600 million chance of winning, there's no dearth of Italian municipalities entering."

Transcript and recording here.

One can just imagine the conversation that took place.

"Your Holiness, our Priests are reporting that the take for collections is down 23%!"

"What? What is going on around here? Have the Priests all gone soft?"

"No your Holiness. People are spending their money on lottery tickets."

"Oh sure! And how much you think they'd give the Church if they won? Greedy bastards! Chasing money all the time! They know they got a snowball's chance in Hell of winning right? .... They're worshiping money at the altar of false hope. Hey... Wait a minute... Greed... False hope... Idolatrous worship... THAT'S OUR RACKET! Put some muscle on 'em boys! Declare an edict or something! I want this stopped!"

The Prejudice of the Hypothetical

2009-07-19T08:01:00.000-07:00

I am reading god is not Great by Christopher Hitchens. I’m less than half way through this book, and already I owe Mr. Hitchens a debt of gratitude. He has identified for me a type of confusion I had not noticed. From page 18:

“A week before the events of September 11, 2001, I was on a panel with Dennis Prager, who is one of America’s better-known religious broadcasters. He challenged me in public to answer what he called a ‘straight yes/no question,’ and I happily agreed. Very well, he said, I was to imagine myself in a strange city as evening was coming on. Toward me I was to imagine that I saw a large group of men approaching. Now --- would I feel safer, or less safe, if I was to learn that they were just coming from a prayer meeting? As the reader will see, this is not a question to which a yes/no answer can be given. But I was able to answer as if it were not hypothetical.”

His answer is long and excellent, but that would be a spoiler. Aside from the rephrasing required for a yes/no answer, Mr. Hitchens recognizes this type of question and identifies it elsewhere in the book as a “trick question.”

The human brain tends to evaluate hypothetical questions like this one subjectively. It is statistically doubtful that one living in the US has ever encountered a group of militant religious fanatics exiting a prayer meeting. Further, it is doubtful that the description “militant religious fanatics” would be employed in the process of elimination one would use to identify a group of men exiting a religious edifice in the US. Additional visual queues would be required to plant that suspicion, like the presence of side arms, or KKK robes, Nazi arm bands, and the like. Elsewhere around the globe, the possibility is more immediate to the casual onlooker, and including that possibility in one’s list of possible identifications could make the difference between life and death.

Our life experiences color the internal picture we paint to interpret the hypothetical question. In addition, those fortunate enough to live in relatively peaceful countries are conditioned to give people and situations the “benefit of the doubt.” Those living in more dangerous times and places know this can get you killed. When a person asks a hypothetical question, and that person is depending on the generic nature of that question to color the audience’s perception of the answer to that question, a subtle trap has been laid. It’s obvious to me that Mr. Hitchen’s intellect, education, or both is superior to mine because he recognized this, and was able to avoid the direct, ambiguous answer with concrete examples supporting his position. Thanks to him, I will do the same should the situation arise.

Assholes in Florida!

2009-07-05T18:28:00.000-07:00

What a surprise. There are assholes everywhere. Somehow, Florida seems to have a bumper crop of the brain-dead religious zealot variety, and a surplus of asshole clergymen to feed off them. The latest rash load of shit from the particular assholes in question has to do with the manufactured outrage and protest against the FLASH recruiting billboard seen here.

According to this WSVN story, the billboard, which can be seen from Interstate 95, is “next to a business owned by an African-American preacher.” Gee, I wonder who is winding up the little automatons and filling them full of moral outrage. Does this preacher really feel that the undeserving stranglehold religious corporations have on the minds, emotions and imaginations of the masses is threatened by this sign? Or, are these Christians so starved for stimulus for their built-in persecution complex that they are grasping at any excuse to feed it?

Citing fair use and further quoting the over-aggressively copyrighted WSVN story:

The members of the community cite two main problems: born-again Christians own the business right next to the sign, and the billboard is located right in the middle of an African-American community.

Now wait a minute here! First, we’ve already established that this is not just some Jesus drone that owns that business, it is a full-fledged man of the cloth, pan-handling exploiter of human fear, weakness and uncertainty. In short, a class A manipulator and user of the system. Second, and even more egregious, what the F- does the ethnicity of the neighborhood have to do with anything? Is this some bizarre form of denigration (look it up before you play the “race card”) of this community? Are they saying that African-Americans are less tolerant than white people? Do African-Americans have a problem with distinguishing a thing from that to which it is adjacent? Does this particular community have a problem with the concepts of tolerance, and free speech? Excuse me while my head explodes!

Just so I’m clear on this position, correct me if I’m wrong.

It’s okay for the myriad of religious machines to:

Broadcast religious, televangelistic, and telethon programming without apparent limit on TV and radio.

Post religious billboards on highways, and billboards advertising bottom-feeding religious “help” organizations.

Insinuate themselves into sporting events and college graduation ceremonies.

Monopolize every meaningful event in a person’s life, from cradle to grave, and insist on injecting religious overtones.

Insure that every politician and almost every prime-time television show injects a little God-belief into their scripts.

Foster all manner of superstitious twaddle that directly or indirectly supports the alleged power of the church, and the alleged afterlife.

It’s not okay for a secular organization to:

Put up a billboard that goes out of its way not to say anything offensive concerning contrary beliefs.

Another quote from the WSVN news article:

After seeing the billboard, Team of Life community activist Essie "Big Mama" Reed brought her students out to protest it Wednesday afternoon. "Nothing else matters, but that sign needs to come down. In the name of Jesus," Big Mama chanted, as she led her students in protest.
She said the sign affects something much deeper than business. "I don't know the reason for putting this sign up," said Big Mama. "It says 'Do not believe in God.' How are we going to make it? Look at our schools, everyday. Everyday there's something going on. Kids are out here killing each other, kids are here using drugs. Who else are they going to believe in?"

People like you, who are blind to their own narrow-minded bigotry, are reason enough for putting that sign up. Thousands of years of religious indoctrination have not made a dent in the social problems you see around you, but somehow, that is the only answer you have. Do you know what doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result is called?

Nothing else matters but that sign needs to come down? Do you know how stupid that sounds? There are real issues to fight for the world over, and people are dying. But I forget, this life has no meaning for you. The only things you obsess on are the weird scenes you imagine await you when you die.

Who else are they going to believe in? How about themselves for starters. How would it be if every aspect of home and social life wasn’t telling them over and over that they were inferior, worthless, and weak. How if they were taught self-reliance instead of being taught to be a permanent child, and letting others do the thinking for them? All in the name of Gawd the Father of course. It’s great for your sense of self-worth that you can organize so many followers, but what about their ability to lead, even if only themselves? Do they move to achieve their goals, or pray and wait?

Now you can be offended!

Hat tip to vjack at Atheist Revolution

Tales of the Weird

2009-06-27T09:52:00.000-07:00

When I was in high school, my friends and I used to play a little game. We would stand outside the cafeteria doors before lunch, and roll pennies and the occasional nickel down the crowded hallway. The objective was to see whose coin could go the farthest before it hit someone or was stepped on. This was before the Gameboy was invented, so we did what we could to amuse ourselves. Like most schools the hall emptied out quickly when the bell rang, so that signaled the end of the game. So on this one day, I found my arm cocked back to throw when the bell rang and, what the hell, I threw it anyway. This is how I got to see my coin roll the entire 70 or so feet of the hallway and disappear into a stress crack in the opposite wall.

The gross improbability of this result led to my first independent hypothesis about the nature of the universe. One could roll pennies down an empty hallway, aiming at that crack, and never hit the mark before one’s arm fell off from fatigue. My 17-year old mind pondered this, and thought that maybe, just maybe, the universe existed in such a way that any possible act, no matter how improbable, would occur somewhere at least once before the end of time.

What happened between last Thursday night and Friday evening brought this back to me. See if you can come up with a number small enough to measure the probability of this chain of events.

Last Thursday night, there was a thunder storm. A bolt of lightning struck close enough to overload the two circuit breakers that feed power to outlets in the back yard. On Friday morning, I discovered that the land line phones were knocked out too. The handsets reported “line in use” on the display, but there was nothing but a few crackles on the line, like it was disconnected. As unusual as this was, I assumed that the storm had knocked out a transformer or a repeater or something. By evening, when nothing had changed, I began to suspect that the problem was in the house. I disconnected all the devices from the wall jacks and replaced them one by one, starting with the wireless base station. The problem persisted until I disconnected that and connected another phone. At first, I thought the base station was fried, but upon examining the RJ11 connector that plugged into the wall mount, I saw that it had a blackened look. One of the two contacts was completely missing. I immediately assumed that it had been fried in some kind of an electrical short. Much to my surprise, what at first looked burnt turned out to be something entirely different.

Last Fall, my kitchen was renovated. The renovation included a granite counter top, and moving a wall-mount for the telephone from the kitchen into the adjoining dining room. While this work was taking place, the Panasonic wireless phone system was removed from the wall mount and plugged in elsewhere. A plastic bracket was removed to convert the base station from a wall mount to a table-top configuration.

Some time after the wiring part of the renovation was complete, there was an ice storm, and the accompanying power failure lasted more than a day. This is how my only analog phone with wired hand set wound up plugged into the wall mount in place of the wireless system. This configuration was allowed to remain in place until Spring.

Meanwhile, the renovation completed, the contents of the kitchen were moved back into the cabinets. In the process, the bracket for the Panasonic base station found its way into the DJD (Designated Junk Drawer) in the new kitchen. Also during this process, a bottle of soy sauce was dropped and smashed on the granite. The junk drawer happened to be part open at the time, and the contents were splattered. During the clean up, several drops that had landed on a 3/4” x 2” upper surface of the plastic phone bracket were missed and remained there. Eventually, the bracket and the base station were reunited with the wall mount in its new home in the Dining Room. Once again, the semi-dry and sticky drops of soy sauce were overlooked.

Prior to the electrical storm, it had been raining here for a week straight; the humidity was through the roof. For the two days leading up to the thunderstorm, the temperature hit 80 degrees for the first time this Summer. At some point, the sticky soy sauce “melted” and dripped directly onto the phone jack. This was the dark substance on the RJ11 connector. Did the vibration from the clap of thunder cause it to fall or was it already there? Was the salt content sufficient to corrode the contact, or was there a final push from a current spike caused by the lightning? Was it sheer coincidence that the phone crapped out at the same time as the lightning strike? I’ll never know, but no matter how you add it up, it’s just weird.

Mob Psychology Part II

2009-06-06T07:59:00.000-07:00

My intention is to edit this post over the week end (or maybe over the week) and throw out a bunch of little snippets as examples of mob behavior and mob manipulation.

I.

Today on Yahoo News:

"Web Mourns Two Deaths - The Internet faces the tragic loss of a young athlete and a beloved actor. (link) Sadness dominates the week"

This refers to the deaths of Karine Ruby and David Carradine. My first reaction was, "Oh no, the Internet is so young! I wonder if it's ready to face a double blow like this one! Maybe there's grief counseling, like for high school students."

Beyond the lazy construction however, there is the comfort of knowing that, not only am I being told how to think and feel, I've just been told how I was supposed to feel all week! Gee, now I feel guilty. I'm such a cold-hearted bastard. I gave Karine one raised eyebrow for succumbing to the Law of Averages for doing something stupid, egotistical, and dangerous. I gave Carradine one raised eyebrow for the rope. I've got a good friend down the street with a wife and two kids in college who is probably going to die from cancer sooner or later, but if things don't improve, sooner. This shouldn't happen to a dog, but he is a great guy. He didn't do anything intentionally dangerous to purchase this fate. Too bad he's not famous, or the rest of the world could be told how to feel about this situation. Good people die every minute. I don't mourn because I don't know them. I don't know these celebrities either; I know of them.

II

January 23, 2008, Birmingham.

After leading police on a high-speed chase, and attempting to run over one officer at a road block, the perpetrator rolls his minivan and is ejected from the vehicle. Several police officers proceed to beat the perpetrator, who appears to be unconscious. Story and video here.

In the eyes of the law, all are equally chargeable with the crime of assault. In psychological terms, two of the officers are more guilty of starting this beating frenzy than the others. First, there is the obvious choice, the one that struck the first blow. The second cop to join in created a psychological trigger point. By imitating the actions of the first beater, number two simultaneously established the first cop as the alpha, and established the scenario as a mob action. The rest joined in by reflex, without much, if any, conscious decision. Something tribal and ugly was fired off here. Emotions were at a fever pitch. The Blue Skins joined forces against a common enemy. It is probably a source of personal shame to these officers that they were unable to resist such a soft target. They are however, the warrior class of the community tribe. They are the man-hunters. That scene is not unique. It has been repeated in every major city throughout the years. If it resembles the monkey scene from 2001, a Space Odyssey, this is no coincidence. The tribal programming is there, courtesy of our ancestors, natural (and unnatural) selection, and instinctive behavior. We have only our fore brain to discriminate between impulses with desirable and undesirable consequences. Sometimes it's not enough, and the consequences follow. This is not an excuse for the officers' lack of vigilance. It's just a reason.

III

Oprah.

Master manipulator. Oprah says, "Look under your chair!", get a reward. Operant conditioning. Do what Oprah says, get a reward. She creates a nice, carnival atmosphere, and engages in the kind of generosity and philanthropy that has a huge pay-back in terms of her own image. She did not get super rich by giving it away or finding the cure for cancer. She's selling. The only difference between her operation and that of the Televangelist of your choice is her product mix is broader and includes very emphatically herself.

Mob Psychology

2009-06-01T17:25:00.000-07:00

The name of this blog is “Confusion of Ideas” because it’s devoted to the theory that, given enough conflicting information, the human mind will completely lock up. Rather than sort through the evidence backing up a particular claim, the multitude of claims will make that process appear to be an overwhelming task before it is even attempted. At this juncture, the individual will choose the theory that is best liked, or most insistently asserted, regardless of basis or lack thereof. This is the basic abdication of reason, and is helped greatly along when one is surrounded by others equally willing to abdicate and be told what to think. Not only does it then seem like the thing to do at the time, you are surrounded by people beaming approval at your decision.

Knee-jerk mob psychology was a survival mechanism at first. Mobilizing the tribe against a common threat without a long debate has obvious advantages. When it works the way it’s supposed to, abdicating your judgment and following the orders of a social leader can insure the common good, and enrich the community. When it doesn’t work, often the consequences are dire. One of the roles of the capricious gods in early society was to explain away the blunders of social leaders. “The gods were against us. We were screwed from the get-go. It’s not my fault. Sacrifice a virgin and let’s move on.”

Mob psychology is a valued commodity in modern society. The fear and mistrust required to throw a given group into “us versus them” mob mode is carefully nurtured in various ways. Here is a South Park clip describing one of the more subtle ways we are continually being divided against one another. All the while we are being separated out, we are repeatedly being required to re-identify with our designated or chosen sub-groups. What is the purpose of injecting the National Anthem into the beginning of sporting events? And why, as George Carlin asked, must we remove our hats? What does a hat, or lack thereof have to do with patriotism? What is this tribal ritual bullshit? Can someone get me a picture of one of those grease-painted, half-naked idiots standing solemnly with hat on chest? Meanwhile, if I removed my hat to reveal a little revolving propeller on my head, there would be outrage. I would be “making a mockery” of this sacred ritual. Why don’t we cheer an excellent play made by “their” team? In one-on-one sports like tennis, golf, or billiards, excellent play is acknowledged no matter who pulls it off. It’s all about belonging to the mob and letting your emotions go along for the ride.

We are constantly being played, and being played off against each other by people who know how this works and who want something from us. People who, for one reason or another, do not trust us as individuals to make a decision in their favor. Instead they resort to tricks of impulse and fear. The individual goes along with the group because he/she fears ostracism. The group holds itself apart from others for fear of loss of identity. It’s like a Mexican standoff, and no one will drop their guns first.

Open Letter to Tyler Frost

2009-05-09T08:39:00.000-07:00

The Heritage Christian School in Ohio has threatened Tyler Frost with suspension for the remainder of the year if he attends his girl friend’s prom at a public high school (story here).

Excerpt: The handbook for the 84-student Christian school says rock music "is part of the counterculture which seeks to implant seeds of rebellion in young people's hearts and minds."

Oh noes! Young people challenging authority! What is the world coming to?

Here is what I have to say to Tyler Frost, and any other persons in similar institutions.

Dear Tyler,

Congratulations on taking a bold step toward being your own person. You have been given an opportunity to see the putrid white underbelly of the organization that has dominated you for many years. How you interpret what you are seeing is of course, up to you. I would like to share my perspective with you.

I am an atheist. I believe that the probability of the existence of such an improbable supreme being is so small as to be virtually non-existent. What then, do religious organizations represent but a hierarchy of men imposing their world view on others by means of an unassailable sock-puppet of authority? These are the control freaks of the world. They are the inmates running the asylum, and there is no agreement even among themselves as to what form their vision of control should take. Your institution is run by fundamentalists. Others cherry-pick that ancient book differently. Whether or not they actually believe in the existence of God, they believe that humans require control or else they will run amok. They also believe that they are the ones chosen to exert this control. One cannot be in the same room with these self-appointed authority figures without experiencing their sense of entitlement and their domineering attitude.

My advice to you would be to walk away and not look back. In my opinion, what has been done to your brain by this organization is every bit as psychologically damaging as trusting your welfare to a pedophile would be. This is one of several circumstances that the GED was designed to address. I realize that this advice is probably unrealistic. It is extremely difficult for young people to survive and prosper in this world at present without a support system. That same cold reality keeps many Amish children Amish. Ride this out any way you feel you have to. I hope you continue down the path of self-direction.

In closing, I would just like to add that I do not think everything you have been taught in terms of morality and ethics is wrong. This is something often claimed by religious authorities about the views of the atheistic community. I do however believe that what you have been taught regarding the origins, purpose, and justifications for these social contracts is wrong. I also believe that the justification for this deception grossly underestimates the strength of character in the average human being. Such a negative world view is both condescending and dangerous.

Best of luck in your personal journey of discovery.

C. O. I. Rumfuddle

2009-05-06T03:53:00.000-07:00

It has just been discovered that Phillip Markoff, formerly known as the Craigslist Killer, used a Chevrolet vehicle to get to and from the scenes of his crimes. He will henceforward be known as the Chevrolet killer, and the Attorney General is looking into whether further regulation is required for the Auto industry. Fox News is conjecturing wildly that this might affect the automotive bail-out.

Fairpoint: Worst Phone Company Ever!

2009-04-26T15:18:00.000-07:00

Last year, Verizon sold it's land lines in New Hampshire to Fairpoint Communications. the turnover was delayed and delayed until about January of this year. One ice storm later, Fairpoint was so backlogged with repair requests that they were struggling to fulfill customer expectations. Their solution? Take two weeks off to regroup.

This was enough to make me consider dumping them, but now this shows up on my bill:

"Starting mid-March, monthly billing statements were issued on regular cycles so your statement was sent to you on your regularly scheduled date. However, due to our recent system changes, prior to March, you may have received your monthly invoice later than your regularly schedule (sic) date. For this reason, if your payment for the invoice that we delivered to you late was not processed by the time your next billing statement was sent to you, your new invoice may (might, goddammmit!) reflect (state!) a past due amount. Remember, (ok...) you will always have 30 days to pay your bill from the date indicated on the bill. The past Due status on the indicator may (grrr!) not be accurate."

Seriously, WTF-ing F is the average person supposed to make of this?

Translation into 1960's Business English:

We have recently made a change to our billing cycle. Your bill might reflect a payment past due if your previous payment was not received before the current bill was issued. Please disregard, and we apologize for any inconvenience.

I'm moving my business to Comcast. I have no faith in their abilities either, but they're the only other game in town.

2009-04-22T17:36:00.000-07:00

Religion - watch more funny videos

"Religion" Video banned on YouTube. Meanwhile, Venomfangx.... Proving once again that the delusional have no tolerance for anything that challenges the delusion.

Nobody Takes me Seriously

2009-04-19T18:49:00.001-07:00

Not that I really care, and not entirely true perhaps, but true about one particular attitude that I have adopted in recent years. I no longer attempt to argue logically with Theists. Instead, I tend to fight irrationality with irrationality. I seem to have lost credibility with this tactic. I think it’s a perfectly logical response to the bullshit. Here’s why.

Take for example, 4Truth.net. This is a textbook example of my problem with theistic argumentation. It’s full of what Robert Anton Wilson would label fnords. First you have the name. Anyone who would try to preempt your good judgment by telling you that they are about to tell you the truth is probably about to bullshit you. This web site does nothing to refute that hypothesis. Like most theistic arguments, they stack the deck, lay down the cards, and then act like they have done something amazing.

Here’s what I’m talking about.

"Hasn't the existence of God been disproved?"

Christian Response: The person who asks this question usually believes that the existence of God has been disproved by philosophy, psychology, or science.

That’s nice. How many times…. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. You cannot shift the burden of proof away from your claim that such a fantastic and impossible being exists. Your belief in an unsubstantiated god is nothing short of delusional. It is not necessary to disprove the existence of some entity whose existence has not been proved. No serious pragmatist or philosopher would ask this question. The person who builds this straw man is trolling for the easily confused

Philosophical Objections to the Existence of God

The Problem: The major philosophical objection to the existence of the God of the Bible involves the problem of evil. Christianity teaches that God is both all-powerful … and all-good … Christianity also maintains that God created everything ... Yet, evil exists in the world. Therefore, many atheists argue that either God is not all good and is the author of evil, or God is not all-powerful and cannot do anything about evil. Either way, the atheist contends that the all-good and all-powerful God of the Bible cannot exist.

Christian Response: Christians answer the philosophical arguments against the existence of God by reaffirming the Christian doctrine of creation. Unlike pantheistic religions, Christianity teaches that God has created that which is not God. The doctrine of creation teaches that the universe is not a part of God, nor is it an illusion in the mind of God. Christianity teaches that God has invested His creation with true existence. Not only did God create something separate from Himself, but also made part of His creation in His image ... According to the Bible, humanity has been made in the image of God. One of the implications of being made in God's image is the ability to make decisions. People are not programmed robots or animals controlled by their instincts-but possess free will.

When theologians refer to human beings possessing free will they do not mean that people have unlimited options, but simply that they have the ability to choose between available options.

When God created humanity with free will He gave the ability to truly love or reject Him. God gave the ability to freely obey or disobey Him. God does not force anyone to love or follow Him …. Christianity teaches that it is the misuse of free will that allowed evil to come into the world ...

I’ve removed the Biblical references from the above. You don’t have to prove to me that your delusion is internally consistent. I grant that this is what you believe because somebody wrote it down and someone else swears by it. Loudly. And repeatedly. Ad Nauseum.

How many ways has the deck been stacked here? First, this is not the major philosophical objection, just one of many, and an old one known as the Problem of Evil (POE). The alleged “misuse” of Free Will does not answer the question, it begs it. How exactly can one “misuse” free will? (A thing for which we are beholden to no external entity, by the way.) The point is, you either have it, or you don’t. Having it, all options are possible, and none by definition can be “misuse”.

There is also a nice, simplistic view of options presented here. One either loves God or rejects God. No nuance of believing but hating versus thinking the whole religious edifice is built upon a crock of bullshit. One is never rejecting the religious corporations, one is rejecting the alleged and conveniently absent god. People have been successfully murdered through this deliberate misdirection. Maybe that’s one reason why the major monotheistic religions keep pushing their holy books and downplaying their own history.

I could go on, but it’s just more of the same. The site refers to “good and evil” and “sin” with no understanding or admission that this is all part of the religious paradigm. It is a gross oversimplification of the human condition and always has been. People like black and white solutions, but the world is in color and shades of gray. It’s just so much easier to jerk people around by their previously implanted black-and-white prejudices/sensibilities. We do not live in a comic book with comic book heroes and villains. Don’t get me wrong; there is ethical, and unethical behavior. There are honorable, and dishonorable, and altruistic, and self-serving behaviors. All can be justified. All justifications are not equally compelling. Manipulating a person’s sense of shame in order to make them subservient and a lesser human than their full potential will allow is criminal. This is the primary crime of religion.

Long story short, there is no arguing with a person who argues from within an internally consistent, closed-loop delusion. This is why I prefer to tell the believer, “Your god has wings, and wheels, and looks like a big Tylenol!” … or something like that, usually with a bit more contextual relevance. Even if they don’t see it, I hope the juxtaposition will make some other reader realize that what the religious zealot believes is no less ridiculous than what I can invent on the spot.

The image is actor Frank Fontaine, a.k.a. Crazy Guggenheim.

What the Internet Can Teach Us About the Bible

2009-04-08T18:09:00.000-07:00

Every couple of years, I get one or more of these emails from well-meaning but naive individuals. You have probably seen one like it if not this one.

From http://www.snopes.com/, Example of a hoax that has been circulating since 2002:

This information arrived this morning, from Microsoft and Norton. Please send it to everybody you know who accesses the Internet.

You may receive an apparently harmless email with a PowerPoint presentation called "Life is beautiful.pps."

If you receive it DO NOT OPEN THE FILE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, and delete it immediately.

If you open this file, a message will appear on your screen saying: "It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful", subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC and the person who sent it to you will gain access to your name, email and password.

This is a new virus which started to circulate on Saturday afternoon. WE NEED TO DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO STOP THIS VIRUS.

AOL has already confirmed its dangerousness, and the antivirus Softs are not capable of destroying it. The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself "life owner", and who aims to destroying domestic PCs and who also fights Microsoft in court! That's why it comes disguised with extension pps. He fights in court for the Windows-XP patent.

MAKE A COPY OF THIS EMAIL TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS.

In March 2008 a warning began circulating that erroneously linked the (real) Mail Server Report worm with elements of the 'Life is Beautiful' virus hoax and claimed that the resulting amalgam "HAS BEEN CONFIRMED BY SNOPES"

Lots of nice “word salad” here, with Microsoft, AOL, and Norton bacon bits to add the appearance of substance. What it lacks is anything like a firm date that might cause one to suspect that it is as old as dirt. Instead, you get vague references like, “This morning” and “Saturday”. This dog has been be-boping around, and pissing on mailboxes for SEVEN YEARS. This is what can happen in a culture that is at an historic pinnacle of communication and information availability.

Now lets rewind back to the early Iron Age. We are now discussing a time when there were no phones, no telegraphs, no newspapers, not much literacy to speak of, no understanding of chemistry, psychology, physics, or the causes of weather. What happened in the next town could be a matter of conjecture, or rumor, or outright bullshit without any simple way to verify.

One of the many Christian arguments against the theory that the Apostle Paul was full of shit is, there is not enough time between the alleged death of Jesus and Paul’s preaching for a legend to be born.

From The Origins of Christianity and the Search for the Historical Jesus Christ by Acharya S.

Excerpt:

Horus of Egypt

The stories of Jesus and Horus are very similar, with Horus even contributing the name of Jesus Christ. Horus and his once-and-future Father, Osiris, are frequently interchangeable in the mythos ("I and my Father are one").41 The legends of Horus go back thousands of years, and he shares the following in common with Jesus:

Horus was born of the virgin Isis-Meri on December 25th in a cave/manger 42, with his birth being announced by a star in the East and attended by three wise men.43He was a child teacher in the Temple and was baptized when he was 30 years old.44

Horus was also baptized by "Anup the Baptizer," who becomes "John the Baptist."He had 12 disciples.He performed miracles and raised one man, El-Azar-us, from the dead.He walked on water.Horus was transfigured on the Mount.He was crucified, buried in a tomb and resurrected.He was also the "Way, the Truth, the Light, the Messiah, God's Anointed Son, the Son of Man, the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God, the Word" etc.He was "the Fisher," and was associated with the Lamb, Lion and Fish ("Ichthys").45

Horus's personal epithet was "Iusa," the "ever-becoming son" of "Ptah," the "Father."46Horus was called "the KRST," or "Anointed One," long before the Christians duplicated the story.47

In fact, in the catacombs at Rome are pictures of the baby Horus being held by the virgin mother Isis - the original "Madonna and Child" 48 - and the Vatican itself is built upon the papacy of Mithra 49, who shares many qualities with Jesus and who existed as a deity long before the Jesus character was formalized. The Christian hierarchy is nearly identical to the Mithraic version it replaced 50. Virtually all of the elements of the Catholic ritual, from miter to wafer to water to altar to doxology, are directly taken from earlier pagan mystery religions.51

******

“Several years ago, 500 people witnessed the appearance of the once-crucified, and resurrected after 3 day Godman. Pontius Pilate and Herod do not want you to know this. Don’t be fooled! Spread the Word! Tell everyone you know! If you believe this and tell ten people by nightfall, good luck and a luxurious afterlife will come your way. If you break the chain, you will be roasted without basting for eternity. Please give us your money so we can continue our work and save other people from this terrible fate. POPES CONFIRM THAT THIS IS NOT A HOAX!”

Pastor Caught Lying For Jesus

2009-03-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

Story here, with hundreds of comments. In brief, Daniel Florian, owner of the Unreasonable Faith blog, caught Pastor Chris Fox posing as an atheist and basically putting forward the usual ridiculous, distorted talking points of the religious machine regarding atheists and their alleged lack of morals.

The constant reiteration of this “Lord of the Flies” style argument tells me two things about religious indoctrinees. First, it seems likely that they have genuinely bought into the idea that morality is external, authoritarian, and dictatorial in nature. They further believe that it requires the “God-stamp” of authority or else it is a meaningless, arbitrary, edict imposed by one group of humans upon another. Morals are neither arbitrary nor meaningless, no matter where you think they come from. This kind of black and white, binary thinking is common among the religious, even though their behavior, like most humans, does not conform to that philosophical stance. In any event, their moral compass is (believed to be) external to themselves, and so they apparently believe they would have no morals without such a structure.

Second, it tells me that many people actually take my advice. I often tell people that if I want to learn about Jewish culture for example, I find the best people to ask about it are members of the American Nazi Party. If I want to understand the atheistic point of view, the best person to ask would be a member of the clergy. Why would he lie?

I’m not going to bash Pastor Fox too hard here. I have seen plenty of Poe posts on religious blogs, so this behavior is hardly confined to religious types. He has apologized, and stated that he realizes that this kind of behavior is misguided. Maybe he’s not lying about that.

I do want to address one of the comments on that blog that seems to have gone off on a bit of a tangent. There are two comments near the top from “revival09”. This is obviously a person with a strong belief in divine magic of the Christian variety. You can go read the posts if you want, they are a little long to post here in their entirety. These excerpts will give you the flavor.

“Hi, it should not be a great shock or revelation that a single church leader would be a hypocrite. As a matter of fact Jesus reserved his harshest words for the “church leaders”. He called them hypocrites, white-washed sepulcures, vipers.
But that could if you searched apply to anyman regardless of his profession. The problem would be if you could describe Jesus as a hypocrite.

You see He never said “Follow them”, He said “Follow Me”. In fact He said do as they say, not as they do….

…I am certainly not a theologian or schollar or anything like but I do have one advantage. I have personally witnessed numerous life changing miracles, healings, signs and wonders by Jesus.”

Yeah. It’s always just one bad apple. How many questionable acts by how many members of the clergy does it take before one apologist admits there is a pattern of behavior among a significant number of clergymen that one might label egomaniacal and immoral?

The book says that Jesus said a bunch of nasty things about the clerics. This is one of those things you have to throw in if you want to create a closed-loop delusion. Denounce the clergy when necessary. Yup. Got that base covered. No need to go outside for an explanation. House of cards intact. Sleep on.

Revival09 either believes that he has seen divine magic, or he is lying for Jesus and believes that the end justifies the means. I would really like to know why he thinks it is that God can’t or won’t heal amputees? I’m collecting the lame excuses that apologists attribute to God’s behavior in this matter.

From revival09’s second comment:

“You’re interested in knowing more about miracles? Of course you are. Why wouldn’t you be. Are you ill? Have you financial problems? Relationship problems? Is your life empty? What are you looking for from the person that you reject?...”

Note the immediate jump to conclusion. If you want to know about “miracles” you must want something. Academic curiosity is foreign to this one. There is no imagining that someone might be genuinely interested in how these witnessed “miracles” either broke the laws of statistical probability, or passed muster as not being outright fraud. Interested parties have been faking miracles for centuries. It’s a well-documented behavior of human scam artists and the Catholic Church.

"…I’m not going to try and Sell my Jesus to you. You need Him not the other way around.…”

Who wants to bet that the author cannot recognize the inherent contradiction in those two sentences?

I leave you with this thought:

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow….”

Fnord.

It took me quite a while to figure out what Robert Anton Wilson meant when he used the word “fnord”. It took even longer to be sure. It didn’t help that those calling themselves Discordians while firmly planting tongue in cheek didn’t seem to have any idea. I can tell you with assurance that the above quote is a fnord. You will see them if you really want to and if you try.

Scientology: Full Jason Beghe Interview

2009-03-18T18:18:00.001-07:00

This is over two hours long, so it's quite a commitment. It's interesting to hear a first-hand account before decompression has a chance to set in. If you are not familiar with the jargon, and are interested, try the Operation Clambake link to the right.

Here is the Tom Cruise response:

“Jason, Jason, Jason. How could you? Thirteen years, Jason. Thirteen years! You were an OT 5! That’s higher than Jenna Elfman and Jason Lee. That’s higher than Giovanni Ribisi. You were tied with Travolta! You were tied with Travolta!!
You say that Scientology hasn’t delivered you what it promised. Jason, that’s ridiculous! Look at all the great acting roles you got once you got clear. “Danny Blaines” in Chicago Hope. “Don” in four episodes of Family Law. Jason, you were Matt’s closeted military lover in Melrose Place. You and he almost kissed!
You say you know people who are OT 8’s who are unhappy, who have migraines? That’s so glib, Jason. You’re so glib. I mean, how can we KSW when all these SPs are fighting the OTs and the orgs? Jason, if you’re a PTS then LRH will be PO’d! Maybe you should get some KFC PDQ and then R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.!
Oh, and Jason, what was with that weird fake laughter you do near the end of the video? I mean, who laughs like that, huh?
Let me tell you something, Jason. This whole thing has really hurt. Really hurt. Not only did I have to get my thetan levels checked, but this whole controversy almost ruined Suri’s birthday week. She turned two Friday! And I made her! With Katie! By having sex!
Fortunately, Jason, your little tape did not ruin our celebration. In fact I’m going to see Katie and Suri right now, because they are totally not in New York, and Katie and I are totally not having a trial separation. But before I sign off, Jason, let me leave you with these words, to quote the great Kelly Preston: Scientology rocks! Why am I sure that Scientology rocks? Because I did the research! I know!”

So what do we have here? Some Ad Hominem assaults, some false sarcasm, and a lot of childish mockery. What are we supposed to take away? "We don't take you seriously, Jason, so no one else should either!"

This is a childish and idiotic attempt at damage control. It is one giant fnord. It makes as much sense as trying to hide the Nazi Party behind a cute little old Bavarian mascot with a big white mustache and Lederhosen. Unfortunately, it works on a society with a notoriously short attention span. As time goes by, both will be remembered with equal lack of weight by too many uninterested parties.

Who's Keeping Burger King Workers Below the Poverty Line?

2009-03-14T07:27:00.001-07:00

... And so it goes....

There was a story my Strategic management professor used to tell that went something like this: In the 70's, when Toyota started to kick GM's ass, a bunch of executive types went to Japan to get a clue. Their Japanese counterpart told them, "In Japan, we make things. In the US, you play with money."

The gravy-sucking pigs have done their damage. It's time to shut them down. You can blame the Labor Unions all you want for ruining Industry in the US. In my book, it's at least a dead heat with the multiple layers of superfluous, bloated Management that (for example), JIT inventory practices created within the Auto industry and their teir I, II, etc. suppliers. I saw that first-hand. Then there's the whole Credit Industry. Pass the steak and shrimp salad.

Ever go out to dinner with a group of college friends and have to fork over extra money because the collection to pay the bill came up short? That's the way I feel as a taxpayer, being asked to kick in while these assholes keep their "earnings".

I Could Be Wrong…

2009-03-01T07:19:00.000-08:00

… but I sincerely doubt I am this time.

An old commenter has revisited my posts about Dr. Wayne Dyer, “Wherein I Believe That Dr. Wayne Dyer is a Gibbering Idiot” part 1, and part 2. I responded in the comments section and repeated that response below. I think some points need to be more specifically addressed.

The fierce Pet Food Emergency of Now (formerly known as Black Leopard) accuses me in his/her first recent comment of not addressing the points of the earlier comment. Let’s see if that holds water.

The Comment:

He may not be correct about everything he says, but it is actually idiotic to call him a gibbering idiot. Putting that label on the man is an instance of failure in analytical reasoning. Understand that I am not defending everything Wayne Dyer says. His model of reality may be over-extended, but he does have areas that he does very well in. His description of the behavior of neurotic people (and their failure to think positively in situations which truly call for it) in his earlier work is actually right on target. I do not agree with absolutely everything he says. It might be a 75% agree 25 % disagree kind of thing and I've often wondered what he would think of that. I don't believe that having an ego is necessarily a bad thing or causes one to be selfish,materialistic or unspiritual. What is interesting is how he can be so "cocksure" of mysticism as truth. He does have a good grasp of literary concepts. Also I don't believe that there is anything wrong with achieving goals, being proud of achievements, getting an "A" in a college course or reaching any other type of high standards of performance. You can have this big ego and still be liberal, humane, compassionate and altruistic. It depends on the semantics of the term ego. Maybe if one has high self-esteem we call that having a strong ego as opposed to overcompensating for feelings of inadequacy with a weak ego, but people assume that this is the case if they see someone striving to reach difficult goals.

My response at the time:

As stated in the post above.“Some prominent researchers* believe that our intelligence, creativity, and imagination interact with the energy field of intention rather than being thoughts or elements in our brain.”

This is a massive confusion of ideas, bordering on gibberish.I stand by my assessment. I know a flim-flam man when I hear one, and Dyer's work is a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. In other words, he gibbers. If he believes that mystical stuff himself, he's an idiot. Anyone who tells you that you are tapping into a power outside yourself to accomplish your goals is both setting you up for magical thinking, and giving you a built-in excuse for failure.

I admit the phrase, “gibbering idiot” is a sound bite, calculated to create controversy and debate. The phrase, “I think that Dr. Wayne Dyer is a shrewd individual who creates semantic rat’s nests of intellectual-sounding oratory without much material content calculated to confuse an audience into thinking they are not smart enough to understand what he is trying to say, when in fact he is not saying much of anything” just does not have the same flow. There is also a well-documented phenomenon wherein con artists start believing their own bullshit. L. Ron Hubbard was such a case. If Dr. Dyer has succumbed to that ego trip, then in my opinion, that makes him an idiot, no matter how well educated he might be. How is that a failure in analytical reasoning?

Your statement: “He may not be correct about everything he says…” is also interesting. Persons running this kind of con depend on being given the benefit of the doubt. I extend no such courtesy. You meant, “might” by the way, but that is a battle long lost, and also subtly to the advantage of the con men. He can be correct about the composition of steel, the weather, the right way to burp a baby. It makes no difference regarding the assertions that I am “calling bullshit” on.

“I don't believe that having an ego is necessarily a bad thing or causes one to be selfish,materialistic or unspiritual.”

No, but we’re talking about the hypothetical state of Wayne Dyer here, not in generalities. I neglected to comment on this before for perceived lack of relevance. For the record, I think a healthy ego makes one unspiritual, and I couldn’t be happier about that. The rest of your comment is a bit of a word salad, I’ll address the points individually.

1. I’m not sure he is so “cocksure”. He might be faking for fun and profit.
2. A good grasp of literary concepts is helpful in creating fiction. The average human mind wants everything neat and formulaic. We like it when things meet our expectations or agree with our prejudices. Life is not so obliging.
3. Egoism does not necessarily correlate with achievement or striving to achieve. One can be goal-directed without being egotistical. One can be afraid of failure.
4. The only goal I can be sure of in Dr. Dyer’s case is the goal of banking his next million.
5. You say his model of reality is overextended. I say that it is a pure distortion that conforms nicely to the superstitious prejudices that have been aggressively programmed into the human race, but has little to do with reality . Reality is not decided by a consensus of opinion. You don’t get to vote on whether or not angels or leprechauns, or some pool of psychic intention energy are real. You must put up, or shut up. Just saying so is not proof.

Some other points you raise:

“Wayne Dyer would never feel that he had a need to respond to you because he believes in the principle of not caring what other people think of him and he is correct in identifying this as a fundamental principle of what is emotionally healthy.”

Not that he even knows I exist, but this behavior too is a façade. One must appear to be above one’s detractors, or have that much courage in one’s convictions or the façade cracks. His assertions cannot stand up to intense scrutiny, and this is a way to avoid it while appearing superior. Humans are social animals. While it is wrong to be a slave to public opinion, the opposite extreme is equally wrong, especially if your chosen profession is influencing other people. For them, you are merely replacing one source of external opinion with another, your own. Peer review is an important scientific and psychological principle, and that sort of opinion needs to be given some weight.

“In your conception of the world you must see yourself as a skin encapsulated ego that knows better than anyone else how the universe works.”

Straw Man Fallacy.

“As far as the distinction between mental faculties interacting with an energy field versus being thoughts in your own brain....., THOUGHTS IN YOUR OWN BRAIN?I hate to disappoint you but 1) Every thing comes from somewhere especially since 2) conservation of matter and energy states nothing is destroyed but simply changes form 3) Every bit of the matter and energy (and possibly consciousness)that you are made of came from processes such as chemical evolution that came from the "big bang" and the 4 basic physical forces of nature that were there before the "big bang". Did you think that you brought yourself into existence?”

1. I am well aware of the electro-chemical processes that allow the brain to function. I have a reasonably good understanding of how our bodies process food. The parts of the brain required to perform specific cognitive and motor functions are known, as can be demonstrated through the specific and predictable changes observed in victims of traumatic brain injury.
2. The Universe itself might be a closed system, but it is so immeasurably vast that the human brain cannot grasp it all at once. The Earth, and my body on the other hand are not closed systems. The Earth gets energy from the sun. My body ingests food and water, makes chemical changes designed to store and release energy, and excretes waste. I even make vitamin D from sunlight.
3. To directly attribute the process of chemical evolution to “the big bang”, one must first postulate alternative outcomes for the big bang. It is equally possible that the nature of proto-matter (black hole stuff) and energy made this outcome inevitable. Are there not enough possible variations in matter-energy particles without seeking more that do not conform to the nature of that which is already known? Do they not all share common building blocks?
4. There was no “nature” as you and I understand it before the big bang. There may indeed have been axioms of matter and energy. I think I was brought into existence by the process of sexual reproduction.

This is getting pretty long to be a single post, so I’ll end here with my initial response to these new comments.

Hi "The fierce Pet Food Emergency of Now",

You have done quite a bit of work here and given me some things to think about.

My blog is not abandoned. I have written a few things lately that I am not satisfied with, so they were not posted.

You accuse me of an Ad Hom. attack. I very carefully stated that this was my belief. I am not presenting it as an established fact as most mud-slingers attempt to do.

The man is a huckster. That statement is easy to prove. He sells unfounded New-Age pseudo-science to those who are subject to the techniques of mass hypnosis he employs in his "lectures". His intent is to make money. I cannot state with 100% certainty that he and the other mutually validating ilk at Hayhouse Publishing are wrong, but the burden of proof falls on those making the assertions. They have not one shred of scientifically verifiable evidence for their wild extrapolations on some of the wilder speculations of quantum mechanics. They are the modern snake oil salesmen. It doesn't matter to them whether or not their product is valid or effective, they have made a market and are vending for profit. They do not dazzle one with brilliance, they bamboozle with bullshit. Don't believe me? Watch Dr. Dyer with the sound off. Notice the props. Notice the symbolic weight of the props and what he does with them - he "endows". These are the actions of a calculating manipulator. Those who are trusting, and who have no prior experience with this type, and who are struggling to make sense of the nonsensical metaphysics they have been subjected to practically since birth, are like deer in the headlights.

So if I call Dr. Dyer an egomaniacal shitheel, that's not an attack against his beliefs. That's how I size him up.

As to his product, it shares many of the attributes of religious products and similar scams. It exploits a flaw in authority-based human behavior. I'm going to assume I don't have to take you through all the aspects of tribal alpha/non-alpha behavior. If you don't know what I'm talking about, say so, or watch a show on apes. Humans are not that different, just more language and symbols to go along with the rituals. At the outer ring of magical thinking, there is a construct. It is born of fear. Fear of adults when one is little. Fear of retribution. The construct goes, "If I push all the right buttons in just the right order, everything will be ok." The exploit is simply this: if the magic formula that promises enlightenment and/or wisdom and/or salvation and/or wealth isn't working, you must not be doing it quite right. Or put another way, you still don't quite get it, so buy another book.

* Those "promenent researchers" are other members of the Hayhouse Mutual Validation Society by the way. As far as I can tell, they gain promenence by pulling on each other's bootstraps.

It's a Tragicle.

2009-02-13T05:31:00.001-08:00

Photo from story here

Four crew members, 44 passengers, and one person in their home in Buffalo, NY were killed when God withheld his rays of love from Continental Flight 3407 from Newark, NJ causing it to plummet into the ground. The object of God’s wrath is unclear and mysterious as always, but there are indications that it might have been the man inside the home.

From the article:

“It's remarkable that it only took one house," Bissonette said. "As devastating as it was, it could've easily wiped out that entire neighborhood on a strafing run type of thing."

Remarkable indeed. One might even say tragaculous.

Honesty in Advertising?

2009-02-08T14:05:00.000-08:00

Meet Kennon Vaughan.

From all indications, Kennon is aggressively putting himself on the fast track to be the next Oral Roberts or Jimmy Swaggert. This young hopeful in the religious Personality Pageant seems to be making all the right moves too. That’s not what brought him to my attention, however. He seems to be making no bones about creating a religious money machine with himself at the top of the hierarchical pyramid. He has named his operation “Downline Ministries”.

From Netlingo.com

Downline: Refers to multi-level marketing (MLM) and describes people who work beneath you, or 'down the line'. A person's job would be to recruit others to sell their product, and in return, receive a percentage of their sales. The next person's job then is to recruit people even more so below them, and receive a percentage of their sales. This technique continues down and down. Part of the scheme of this entire process revolves around the people at the top being the real money makers. MLM existed before the Internet, but the Net has helped it to really take off.

From the Mission Statement at downineministries.com:

“In the Spring of 2004, after a year of prayerfully discerning the specific nature of this call, I founded “DownLine Ministries” to aid in the training of men to make disciples. “DownLine” is a non-profit organization, birthed under the guidance and leadership of a phenomenal Board of Directors, including Kem Wilson Jr., Jack Moore, Roy “Soup” Campbell, Hamp Holcomb, Dr. David Libby, Paul Ellis, and Dr. James Selecman.”

So, the mission is essentially to train people how to train followers - for a fee of course. I have never noticed a shortage in willing followers or Seminary Schools, but Kennon apparently discovered a need that required filling. And who gets to be the Band Leader of this new chapter of the Jesus Glee Club? One guess.

I have to admire his style, if not his motives or ethics, which remain questionable. He has run his campaign with the skill of a General. He has made all the right moves. He has formed strategic alliances and a nice mutual admiration society. He has secured the all-important 501c3 classification for his school. Visitors are informed of this and invited to participate through donation right on his home page. He has shown a good understanding of multi-tier, multi-faceted marketing, including the use of testimonials from self-interested parties. Some of them should end, “I’m not just a satisfied customer, I’m also on the Board of Directors.”

Vaughan has worked hard to promote himself as a leader with a squeaky clean reputation. His Bachelor Party is even a matter of public record. You won’t see any of the usual shenanigans here, it’s an athletic competition. If there are any skeletons in his closet, he’s working hard to keep them in the past. That way they can be attributed to his life before he was “saved” and easily overlooked/forgiven by the faithful. Vaughan has also made a strategic marriage. I’m not saying he doesn’t love this woman, but he certainly did not settle for his high school sweetheart, or the girl next door. I predict that she will be more help in this venture than Tammy Faye was to Jim Bakker. He has wasted no time in starting a family, either. Given the usual Christian hang-ups about human sexuality, making babies is a requirement. Besides, people tend to show more trust toward a “family man”, for reasons known only to psychologists. Freddie List was a classmate of mine, so I don’t afford family men or Paragons of the Church any special consideration. I digress.

In six short years, Kennon Vaughan has taken an idea from dream to infrastructure. He is likely to go far if he doesn’t succumb to any of the temptations that seem to plague the successful Alpha personality. Power corrupts, as a look at the history of Swaggert, Bakker, or Roberts could tell you. That Vaughan has the alpha personality is indisputable. He is highly competitive, and shows a strong will to dominate. He is on a track that will very likely allow him to surround himself with people who will give him what he wants, wealth, power, and a panoply.

Give God Some More Credit!

2009-01-26T13:20:00.001-08:00

It's a Tragicle! I love it!

Bad Faith Awards!

2009-01-20T09:54:00.001-08:00

http://newhumanist.org.uk/1958

It's a Miracle... Again!

2009-01-17T13:44:00.000-08:00

Chesley B. Sullenberger III has been described as "a pilot's pilot." The man has been flying since he was 14. He has flown fighter jets and commercial aircraft. He is one of those rare individuals, like race car drivers, who have his profession in his blood and bones. He pays attention. He cares, and it all matters to him. He probably feels the plane as an extension of himself the way a tennis player feels the racket is an extension of his arm.

On January 15, 2009, he piloted a plane with no engines into a successful water landing on the Hudson River. He knew he had enough velocity, and he made several decisions allowing him to sit the bird down where some might have frozen in the belief that they were already screwed. He rolled the dice a little, to be sure. They came up seven because, sometimes, they do. If the river had been deeper, or muddier, or things had gone wrong... but this time they didn't. That was in major part due to Capt. Sullenberger and his will to keep control of the aircraft.

So of course, "It's a Miracle!" Governor David Patterson wants everyone to know that Goddidit! This point of view is being repeated over and over: "Miracle on the Hudson!" Once again, the skills of an extraordiary human being cannot possibly be credited to him. God must get the credit. If the plane were to hang inexplicably in mid-air while everyone got off, that would be a miracle. If 2" of ice held under the weight of the plane, that would be a miracle. If the river suddenly parted like the Red Sea allegedly did, or became suddenly shallower in that particular spot... I'm sure you're getting the picture. A plane that was flown properly and obeyed all the laws of physics that were applicable under the circumstances is not a miracle. It is a breathtakingly beautiful piece of flying. Tell that to the superstitious lot that think God was fiddle-fucking about with the wings, all the while ignoring all those people getting blown up in the "Holy Land" from missile fire.

But wait, Capt. Sullenberger did get help pulling this off! This just in! God is a Ferry Boat!

Congratulations to all the human beings who participated in this rescue.

A Christmas Quandary

2008-12-26T13:23:00.000-08:00

These are the bits and pieces of the post I was alluding to back in October. Lately, a lot has been going on in my life, and in the lives of people I know and love. I have not found the time to develop an essay on the Gnostics, or to research another curiosity that suddenly came into focus for me this Holiday season. I’m sure other people have noticed this and commented on it, and I must admit it was in plain sight, I just never thought about it before.

It all started with this section of The Origins of Christianity and the Search for the Historical Jesus Christ by Acharya S.

Excerpt:

Horus of Egypt

The stories of Jesus and Horus are very similar, with Horus even contributing the name of Jesus Christ. Horus and his once-and-future Father, Osiris, are frequently interchangeable in the mythos ("I and my Father are one").41 The legends of Horus go back thousands of years, and he shares the following in common with Jesus:

Horus was born of the virgin Isis-Meri on December 25th in a cave/manger 42, with his birth being announced by a star in the East and attended by three wise men.43
He was a child teacher in the Temple and was baptized when he was 30 years old.44
Horus was also baptized by "Anup the Baptizer," who becomes "John the Baptist."
He had 12 disciples.
He performed miracles and raised one man, El-Azar-us, from the dead.
He walked on water.
Horus was transfigured on the Mount.
He was crucified, buried in a tomb and resurrected.
He was also the "Way, the Truth, the Light, the Messiah, God's Anointed Son, the Son of Man, the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God, the Word" etc.
He was "the Fisher," and was associated with the Lamb, Lion and Fish ("Ichthys").45
Horus's personal epithet was "Iusa," the "ever-becoming son" of "Ptah," the "Father."46
Horus was called "the KRST," or "Anointed One," long before the Christians duplicated the story.47

In fact, in the catacombs at Rome are pictures of the baby Horus being held by the virgin mother Isis - the original "Madonna and Child" 48 - and the Vatican itself is built upon the papacy of Mithra 49, who shares many qualities with Jesus and who existed as a deity long before the Jesus character was formalized. The Christian hierarchy is nearly identical to the Mithraic version it replaced 50. Virtually all of the elements of the Catholic ritual, from miter to wafer to water to altar to doxology, are directly taken from earlier pagan mystery religions.51

Mithra, Sungod of Persia

The story of Mithra precedes the Christian fable by at least 600 years. According to Wheless, the cult of Mithra was, shortly before the Christian era, "the most popular and widely spread 'Pagan' religion of the times." Mithra has the following in common with the Christ character:

Mithra was born of a virgin on December 25th.
He was considered a great traveling teacher and master.
He had 12 companions or disciples.
He performed miracles.
He was buried in a tomb. After three days he rose again. His resurrection was celebrated every year.
Mithra was called "the Good Shepherd."
He was considered "the Way, the Truth and the Light, the Redeemer, the Savior, the Messiah."
He was identified with both the Lion and the Lamb.
His sacred day was Sunday, "the Lord's Day," hundreds of years before the appearance of Christ.
Mithra had his principal festival on what was later to become Easter, at which time he was resurrected.
His religion had a Eucharist or "Lord's Supper." 52

Krishna of India

The similarities between the Christian character and the Indian messiah are many. Indeed, Massey finds over 100 similarities between the Hindu and Christian saviors, and Graves, who includes the various noncanonical gospels in his analysis, lists over 300 likenesses. It should be noted that a common earlier English spelling of Krishna was "Christna," which reveals its relation to '"Christ." It should also be noted that, like the Jewish godman, many people have believed in a historical, carnalized Krishna.53

Krishna was born of the Virgin Devaki ("Divine One") 53a
His father was a carpenter.54
His birth was attended by angels, wise men and shepherds, and he was presented with gold, frankincense and myrrh.54a
He was persecuted by a tyrant who ordered the slaughter of thousands of infants.55
He was of royal descent.
He was baptized in the River Ganges.55a
He worked miracles and wonders.
He raised the dead and healed lepers, the deaf and the blind.
Krishna used parables to teach the people about charity and love.
"He lived poor and he loved the poor."56
He was transfigured in front of his disciples.57
In some traditions he died on a tree or was crucified between two thieves.58
He rose from the dead and ascended to heaven.
Krishna is called the "Shepherd God" and "Lord of lords," and was considered "the Redeemer, Firstborn, Sin Bearer, Liberator, Universal Word."59
He is the second person of the Trinity,60 and proclaimed himself the "Resurrection" and the "way to the Father."60a
He was considered the "Beginning, the Middle and the End," ("Alpha and Omega"), as well as being omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent.
His disciples bestowed upon him the title "Jezeus," meaning "pure essence."61
Krishna is to return to do battle with the "Prince of Evil," who will desolate the earth.62

Prometheus of Greece

The Greek god Prometheus has been claimed to have come from Egypt, but his drama took place in the Caucasus mountains. Prometheus shares a number of striking similarities with the Christ character.

Prometheus descended from heaven as God incarnate as man, to save mankind.
He was crucified, suffered and rose from the dead.
He was called the Logos or Word.62a

Five centuries before the Christian era, esteemed Greek poet Aeschylus wrote Prometheus Bound, which, according to Taylor, was presented in the theater in Athens. Taylor claims that in the play Prometheus is crucified "on a fatal tree" and the sky goes dark:

"The darkness which closed the scene on the suffering Prometheus, was easily exhibited on the stage, by putting out the lamps; but when the tragedy was to become history, and the fiction to be turned into fact, the lamp of day could not be so easily disposed of. Nor can it be denied that the miraculous darkness which the Evangelists so solemnly declare to have attended the crucifixion of Christ, labours under precisely the same fatality of an absolute and total want of evidence."63

Tradition holds that Prometheus was crucified on a rock, yet some sources have opined that legend also held he was crucified on a tree and that Christians muddled the story and/or mutilated the text, as they did with the works of so many ancient authors. In any case, the sun hiding in darkness parallels the Christian fable of the darkness descending when Jesus was crucified. This remarkable occurrence is not recorded in history but is only explainable within the Mythos and as part of a recurring play

The Creation of a Myth

The Christians went on a censorship rampage that led to the virtual illiteracy of the ancient world and ensured that their secret would be hidden from the masses 64, but the scholars of other schools/sects never gave up their arguments against the historicizing of a very ancient mythological creature. We have lost the arguments of these learned dissenters because the Christians destroyed any traces of their works. Nonetheless, the Christians preserved the contentions of their detractors through the Christians' own refutations. For example, early Church Father Tertullian (@ 160-220 C.E.), an "ex-Pagan" and Bishop of Carthage, ironically admits the true origins of the Christ story and of all other such godmen by stating in refutation of his critics, "You say we worship the sun; so do you."65 Interestingly, a previously strident believer and defender of the faith, Tertullian later renounced Christianity 66

The "Son" of God is the "Sun" of God 67

The reason why all these narratives are so similar, with a godman who is crucified and resurrected, who does miracles and has 12 disciples, is that these stories were based on the movements of the sun through the heavens, an astrotheological development that can be found throughout the planet because the sun and the 12 zodiac signs can be observed around the globe. In other words, Jesus Christ and all the others upon whom this character is predicated are personifications of the sun, and the Gospel fable is merely a rehash of a mythological formula (the "Mythos," as mentioned above) revolving around the movements of the sun through the heavens.68

For instance, many of the world's crucified godmen have their traditional birthday on December 25th ("Christmas" 69). This is because the ancients recognized that (from an earthcentric perspective) the sun makes an annual descent southward until December 21st or 22nd, the winter solstice, when it stops moving southerly for three days and then starts to move northward again. During this time, the ancients declared that "God's sun" had "died" for three days and was "born again" on December 25th.

The ancients realized quite abundantly that they needed the sun to return every day and that they would be in big trouble if the sun continued to move southward and did not stop and reverse its direction. Thus, these many different cultures celebrated the "sun of God's" birthday on December 25th.70 The following are the characteristics of the "sun of God":

The sun "dies" for three days on December 22nd, the winter solstice, when it stops in its movement south, to be born again or resurrected on December 25th, when it resumes its movement north.
In some areas, the calendar originally began in the constellation of Virgo, and the sun would therefore be "born of a Virgin."
The sun is the "Light of the World."
The sun "cometh on clouds, and every eye shall see him."
The sun rising in the morning is the "Savior of mankind."
The sun wears a corona, "crown of thorns" or halo.71
The sun "walks on water."
The sun's "followers," "helpers" or "disciples" are the 12 months and the 12 signs of the zodiac or constellations, through which the sun must pass.
The sun at 12 noon is in the house or temple of the "Most High"; thus, "he" begins "his Father's work" at "age" 12.
The sun enters into each sign of the zodiac at 30°; hence, the "Sun of God" begins his ministry at "age" 30.
The sun is hung on a cross or "crucified," which represents its passing through the equinoxes, the vernal equinox being Easter, at which time it is then resurrected.72

Contrary to popular belief, the ancients were not an ignorant and superstitious lot who actually believed their deities to be literal characters. Indeed, this slanderous propaganda has been part of the conspiracy to make the ancients appear as if they were truly the dark and dumb rabble that was in need of the "light of Jesus." 73 The reality is that the ancients were no less advanced in their morals and spiritual practices, and in many cases were far more advanced, than the Christians in their own supposed morality and ideology, which, in its very attempt at historicity, is in actuality a degradation of the ancient Mythos.

Indeed, unlike the "superior" Christians, the true intelligentsia amongst the ancients were well aware that their gods were astronomical and atmospheric in nature. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle 74 surely knew that Zeus, the sky god father figure who migrated to Greece from India and/or Egypt, was never a real person, despite the fact that the Greeks have designated on Crete both a birth cave and a death cave of Zeus. In addition, all over the world are to be found sites where this god or that allegedly was born, walked, suffered, died, etc., a common and unremarkable occurrence that is not monopolized by, and did not originate with, Christianity.74a

(Aside) I have heard Christian Apologists state that Satan invented all of these precursor religions to confound us poor stupid humans, and dilute the alleged legitimacy of the Jesus chronicle. This strikes me as just about as ridiculous as the scene in Blazing Saddles where the town folk build an entire fake town to lure the bad guys away from the real one. For this imaginative brain fart to be true, Satan would have to be omniscient (but still not a god! No! Never!) In addition, to allow this plot to take place, God and Satan must be both all-powerful, and stupid. Is it really so easy to imagine some red-butted demon, switching his tail, clomping with cloven hoof through human history and hatching such lame plots? And what? Jehovamagod is too busy getting his ass kissed by the Seraphim and just lets it happen? Boy, making shit up is so easy a child could do it! Isn’t it more likely that the Medicine Show came to town, and adapted their Zoroastrian mythos for local consumption? I think these religious scams were the Bronze Age equivalent to Amway, and that pyramid schemes, like the one Paul was trying to float in his lifetime, are as old as the pyramids themselves.

Here’s the curious thing: all of the sun-based Pagan religions hold the “crucifixion” or death vigil around the Winter Solstice. Christians moved their death ceremony to the Spring, taking over a Pagan holiday without even bothering to change the name. In addition, they moved the birth ceremony to be near the Winter Solstice, even though the account of Jesus’ birth has shepherds sleeping in the field, which they did only around lambing time, in the Spring. This has all the earmarks of a one-for-one swap, but why? My church taught that early Christians in Rome picked Dec. 25th to celebrate because it coincided with Saturnalia, and they could have their meetings unnoticed by the general population, which was of course persecuting them. I don’t think I buy that explanation, given the track record of the people who told the story. So if the birth date and the death/re-birth date were deliberately switched, what was the motive?

Cult Procession Fail

2008-12-20T08:36:00.001-08:00

Maybe the veneer is finally cracking. "Quick! More snake oil!"

I'm Still Here

2008-12-11T16:13:00.000-08:00

I've been caught up in other shit. Here's a quick thought until I get my forebrain back from the cleaners.

Lazarus:

The alleged son of God brought Lazarus back from the dead.

According to dogma:

Lazarus was really really dead, not just faking or in a coma.

If Lazarus was good, he was in Heaven, and Jesus did him no favor bringing him back to a world almost 2,000 years before Pasteur or Penicillin.

If Lazarus was bad, he was in Hell, and it was God's will that put him there.

Either way, how was bringing him back to life the right thing to do?

Fred "The Crank" Phelps?

2008-11-16T09:04:00.000-08:00

I just read Running from Hell, Growing Up in America’s Most Hated Family, by Trevor Melanson. It’s an interview with Nate Phelps, Fred Phelps’ son.

The article speaks for itself, but one particular thing caught my attention.

“I know that very early on [my father] was under the influence of those drugs,” Nate said. Pastor Phelps was attending law school and would take amphetamines to stay awake and barbiturates to come down. “It spiralled out of control [and he] was prone toward violence….He just wasn’t tolerant toward the presence of all of us kids running around—and the accompanying noise….He would beat the kids with his fists and kick them and knee them in the stomach.”

From info-drug-rehab.org:

"Long term effects of amphetamine abuse are as follows: Restlessness, “amphetamine psychosis”, hallucinations, violent and aggressive or anti-social behavior, weight loss, tremors, gastrointestinal damage such as ulcers, and heart disease such as enlarged or weakened heart, disturbing thoughts, memory loss and brain damage, liver damage, and impotence

Drugs damage the brain and it may take a considerable amount of time for that damage to be repaired. Once the user begins rehab treatment, it is important to understand some of the symptoms of withdrawal. Those symptoms can include some or all of the following effects: Severe craving, deep depression, fatigue, restlessness, and extreme anxiety, insomnia, deep uneasy sleep for as long as 48 hours, inertia, paranoia, mental confusion, psychosis and intense hunger.

It will take a while in a drug rehab facility to help a person recover from an acute amphetamine reaction or over dose. Body temperature must be kept stable and the patient will suffer psychological effects and need constant emotional support. It may be necessary to use tranquilizers in the event that a drug rehab patient becomes violent. Rehab patients will want to start using again in an attempt to cope with the fatigue they feel once the drug is out of their system. They may also need treatment for depression that comes as a side effect of the addiction. A long term rehab program for maintaining abstinence must be strictly followed. Recovering from amphetamine addiction is not unlike recovery from alcoholism and other forms of drug abuse.

Recovering addicts will profit from joining a support group. After the initial rehab period there is another 5 year period of sobriety before the rate of relapse drops to zero."

Mania is listed as one of the symptoms of amphetamine overdose/abuse.

From Wrongdiagnosis.com:

"Mania is more than just feeling good or even euphoric. With true mania, people can be described by words like "frantic", "hyperactive" or over-excited. Often a person's thoughts and speech is so "fast" that it tumbles over itself and becomes fragmented by following tangents of thoughts and ideas. Cycling between mania and depression is the hallmark of bipolar disorder (previously called manic-depression) but there are other possible causes of mania.

Sometimes, other symptoms may be present and may help your doctor analyse your condition. The symptoms your doctor may ask about (in association with Mania) may include:

Psychotic symptoms? - If manic phase of bipolar affective disorder is severe the person may suffer from psychotic symptoms e.g. delusions such as the belief that one has supernatural or special powers, or that one knows a famous person; hallucinations including "seeing" famous people or "hearing" their voices."

Psychotic symptoms are also listed separately as a symptom of excessive amphetamine dose.

I know three people who abused amphetamines in their college years. The one who did it the least is mostly normal, and only manifests a strange semi-paranoid personality disorder when he is very drunk. He will suddenly say something like, “I don’t have to take this!” and go storming off. I’ve seen this on three separate occasions and I don’t know if some playful insult triggers it, or if he just assumes that laughter at the far side of the room is about him. Possibly he is remembering something that has nothing to do with the situation at hand.

The second person was a long-time user. He uses caffeine like an ex-herion junkie uses methadone. He will drink about 2 liters of Pepsi a day to maintain a baseline energy state. See the withdrawal symptoms on the citation above for his reasons. He has been doing this for decades. He’s a brilliant fellow, but he’s a lot better at talking than listening.

The third person used MDA as a recreational drug along with LSD and other street drugs like speed-laced cocaine, etc. This person will be taking serotonin uptake inhibitors for the rest of her life, and has been institutionalized every time she goes off her meds. I really believe that the medical/psychiatric profession is in denial over the long-term effects of amphetamine abuse. The treatment protocols remain the same regardless of the causes.

Which brings us back to Fred Phelps. In my somewhat-informed opinion, regarding him as a brain-damaged speed freak would explain a lot. He is abusive, violent, and paranoid. He believes he is special, and in communication with a higher power. He exhibits anti-social behavior, and has obsessive, recurring, disturbing thoughts about gays and homosexuality. When viewed in this light, when his own particular idiosyncrasies and obsessions are known, his behavior is predictable. Sad as this state of affairs is, to me, the fact that there are people out there who would look up to him for leadership rather than urging him to seek medical attention is the more tragic aspect.

Kudos to Aaron Kinney for bringing this story to my attention.

Why I Can't Vote for John McCain

2008-10-26T09:09:00.000-07:00

“We’re Americans. We never quit…”

Fall of Saigon

Somalia

“…We don’t hide from history,”

Smallpox Blankets

Columbine Miners Massacre

Johns Manville’s Great Escape from Asbestos Lawsuits

“…we make history!”

Rambo!

“Barak Obama says he wants to ‘spread the wealth around’.

That’s not our country!” - John McCain

Halliburton's No-bid Contracts

Economic Stimulus Act of 2008

Regressive Tax

Any tax structure that favors one economic group over another, either by nature or by loopholes, represents a redistribution of wealth.

One other point of clarification in closing to avoid a potential shitstorm of outrage from the Patriotic Armchair Military. US Soldiers do all that is asked of them, generally speaking. Sometimes it makes sense to throw in the towel. Those who exclude this possibility are poor strategists who create nothing but casualties. My objection here is to the delusional rhetoric, not to the actions of military personnel in the performance of their duty.

Origins of Chritianity

2008-10-19T08:44:00.000-07:00

My next post, if it ever gets written, started as a result of this research: The Origins of Christianity and the Search for the Historical Jesus. by Achyara S. The web site I initially found it on was neither one of those. It was a Gnostic site that included a rebuttal of sorts. I knew a little about the Gnostics, I knew that the Church eventually decided they were heretics, but I didn't know much about what they actually believe. The "rebuttal" is a word salad composed of dogma and logical falacies. I was originally going to write a critique of that essay, but the core beliefs are equally tempting. To me, they illustrate how far a group will go to delude themselves with pat excuses for the inconsistencies and contradictions in core Christian dogma.

Blogfrog

2008-10-07T17:51:00.000-07:00

Aaron Kinney put up a post about this post at Anarchy in Your Head titled, “Anarchy, the New Atheism”. After reading it, I felt compelled to comment that Anarchy has been around for quite a long time as a non-government philosophy, and has a rich history of its own. Aaron’s reply to that comment got me thinking, never a safe thing to do. This is the part that set me off and writing:

“Now that atheism has begun achieving mainstream acceptance, and anarchy, while increasing in popularity, has not yet achieved mainstream acceptance, anarchy is accordingly the new atheism, just like atheism was the ‘new gay.’”

I kind of understand what you're saying Aaron, but I think there is additional social chemistry to consider. I've been struggling with how to express this concept, along with it's implications for a long time.

There is a way of looking at things that says, once one battle has been fought and won, another can take its place, or take its turn. There is another way of looking at things that says, everything always emerges before its time, and then persists as a wave form of peaks and valleys until some final integration takes place. I think there is a combination of these two models. There are too many variables to accurately predict how that combination will play out in any given situation, however. One is inspired by others' successes. If there was no conflict, no resistance, no prejudice or fear, any given organized movement for social justice would be unnecessary. Society would merely acknowledge the disparity and adjust. Unfortunately, human history has been dominated by those who are most insane.

It’s often said that the Women’s Rights movement was an outgrowth of the Civil Rights (ethnic flavor) movement of the 1960’s. It set an example tactically. To say more is to ignore the ongoing social pressures resultant from such events as the Woman’s Suffrage movement, and the employment demands of World War II, and the subsequent peacetime reversal of the demand for both laborers and heroes from all segments of society. The caste system and segregation could not reestablish itself. The barriers were already coming down. The Movement was in essence a large group of people with one primary message: “NOT FAST ENOUGH!” The secondary messages are, “We’re not going back” and, “those trying to shove us back can fuck off”. The Women’s movement, the Gay Rights Movement, the demands for equal treatment from groups like atheists, anarchists, etc., etc. are all The Civil Rights Movement.

There is a pattern to the way these issues present themselves. It is a combination of the size of the population affected, and the degree of oppression (per capita) to which they are subjected. Women represent a larger population than African Americans, but there were factors that made the affronts to the smaller group more egregious. There were no Jim Crow laws on the books that made it an offence not to discriminate against women. Then too, if you write out all these groups in set notation, they all have overlapping subsets. The woman’s group was further fragmented because, until the 1970’s, single-income families were common. Career housewives did not encounter wage discrimination in the workplace, or the glass ceiling. Laws discriminating against the rights of women to hold property, vote, smoke, or gamble had already been erased. Meanwhile, The Americans of African descent were being redlined into ghettos, and generally being denied the opportunity to have even one breadwinner in a family that could reach his or her full potential.

There is also a third factor that is even more basic to human nature. Robert Heinlein said, “There are two kinds of people, those who want to be led, and those with no such desire.” What he didn’t say in so few words, is there are some in the latter category with a strong desire to lead others. Some of those provide necessary direction and expertise, others ruthlessly exploit this desire in some to be led. These are the self-serving megalomaniacs, ruled by emotional and financial greed, and leading mainly by use of fear. Unfortunately, there is a confederacy of interests that are served by this model, and selfishly but effectively work to maintain this as the status quo. Humans are easily organized into hierarchies, having lived and bred, and having been subjected to them since the prehistoric time of the alpha male.

In one respect, Anarchists have more in common with the failed Marxist movement than with atheists or gays. Black Americans, women, gays, and atheists have all taken a turn on the Civil Rights stage, demanding equal treatment and equal rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” under the law. Marxism and Anarchism demand a revolution in government, hopefully not a violent overthrow. In any case, these philosophies present an alternative, not a system that can co-exist with the bastard-Capitalistic Republic disguised as a Democracy that we live under in the US. As Winston Churchill once quipped, “"Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried." If anyone ever does get a social anarchy off the ground, I’d be interested in seeing how far it flies before becoming corrupt. Not in my lifetime, I think.

Flying Spaghetti Monster Found!

2008-10-02T10:39:00.000-07:00

Next time some overly-religious type hits you with the "Eye of God" Nebula, hit back with this fun fact!

Galactic 'spaghetti monster' powered by magnetic fields
20:07 20 August 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Rachel Courtland

http://space.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn14573&print=true

A Tale of Two Movies

2008-09-21T16:59:00.000-07:00

I recently watched two movies in close succession, The Life Before Her Eyes, and Forgiving the Franklins. Both had religious and afterlife overtones, but one was disappointing and the other was not.

The Life Before Her Eyes started out as a great secular drama, and then took a left turn into spookytown. SPOILER ALERT. I can’t talk about this film without ruining the “surprise” ending. Since for me, the “surprise” ending ruined the film, I think this is only fair.

Uma Thurman does a brilliant job playing Diana McFee, a woman who is tormented by a moment in her past. She has survived a Columbine-like school massacre 15 years in the past, but her best friend Maureen did not. As the movie switches us back and forth from present to past, we see the relationship develop between two improbable friends. One is a “good girl”, and the other, Thurman’s younger self, is one of those classic, wild, rule-breaking “troubled” teens. We are also given glimpses, a-la-Catch 22, of a repeating and slowly unfolding fatal moment. The girls happen to be alone in the Woman’s Room when the shooting rampage takes place. The shooter bursts in. The girls predictably ask not to be killed, and the killer presents them with a moral dilemma. He informs them that he will only shoot one of them, but they must decide which one it is to be. The tension mounts as the scene develops. We are given ample opportunity to conjecture on just what went down that this woman blames herself for. We wonder when or if she will come out the other side. I wanted her to find peace, and stop blaming herself for being a kid put in an impossible situation by a maniac, whose fault the outcome truly is. Instead, the author takes us to spookytown. It seems that what we have been watching this whole time is an unsatisfying fantasy of what Thurman’s life would have been had she not decided to take several bullets for her sweet innocent friend.

Suddenly, what we have here is a Redemption Story. Diana, we are told, “deserves” life less than her goody-two-shoes friend, and this is her one chance to do something noble. This is apparent because Diana has had premarital teen sex, a serious no-no in teen flicks, and also an abortion as a result. These themes are introduced late in the film, so we are not supposed to feel sympathetic toward this character. Diana’s daughter is in fact, a name on one of those anti-abortion demonstration crosses on the parochial school lawn. The biggest problem of course, is this act of grand nobility coming out of a school shooting spree. To understand what’s so very wrong with this, read Wonder Bread, a review by Melvin Jules Bukiet of a similarly-themed stories that he labels “Brooklyn Books of Wonder” (BBoWs).

From the end of his essay:

“Coddled and cosseted, they’re the first generation of novelists who grew up reading the young-adult pap that they’ve now regurgitated with a deconstructive gloss learned in college. Of course, such aspirations require equivalently high subject matter. Hence the BBoWs’s mock encounter with enormity. Still, they have no teeth. They’re sheep in wolves’ clothing who manage to write about bad things and make you feel good.

So what’s so terribly wrong with all this? BBoWs are benign and smart and claim important antecedents (Krauss’s pantheon, Auster’s nods to Borges and Calvino, Foer’s echoes of Günter Grass before the latter’s recent . . . um . . . awkwardness), and some are stunning prose stylists (Eggers and Chabon and Krauss) who clearly have literary talent to spare. That’s precisely why their books are more insidious than simpler genre novels wherein people manage to triumph over trauma.

In fact, trauma’s never overcome. That’s what defines it. Your father is dead, or your mother, and so are most of the Jews of Europe, and the World Trade Center’s gone, and racism prevails, and sex murders occur. What is, is. The real is the true, and anything that suggests otherwise, no matter how artfully constructed, is a violation of human experience.”

I can’t say it any better, “a violation of human experience.” There is no nobility or redemption to be found in a school shooting. It’s a senseless act of madness. I was so looking forward to a Joseph Heller ending, seeing as how they so boldly lifted one of his literary techniques.

Forgiving the Franklins, on the other hand, starts out in a very religious small town, and almost immediately jumps into spookytown. The Franklins, with the exception of one daughter, are exempted from Original Sin while in a coma. The rest of the action follows, and raises interesting questions about modern Christian beliefs. I will not spoil this movie. Go rent it, or see it if you haven’t. I think you’ll agree that the movie uses symbolism and belief as a vehicle for exploration in a manner that makes it an excellent story and a solid literary effort, even if you don’t agree with the message.

Graphic from http://www.screamingreel.com/report266.html

Magical Thinking

2008-09-14T16:04:00.000-07:00

In response to vjack’s post, “Promoting Reason and Critical Thinking” over at Atheist Revolution, I thought I would give it a shot. What better way than to talk about the opposite? Magical thinking is what makes religion the opiate of the masses. It is the core of misdirection and the black heart of those empty promises of wish-fulfillment that gives the pathological lies of religion such broad appeal. Magical thinking is strenuously promoted by a wide variety of self-interested parties because it makes people easier to control and manipulate. Magical thinking can be used to create mental shortcuts, broad and faulty associations, and stimulus-response triggers in those being manipulated. Among other things, it’s an engine of prejudice.

From Wikipedia:

“According to Frazer,[1] magical thinking depends on two laws: the law of similarity (an effect resembles its cause), and the law of contagion (things which were once in physical contact maintain a connection even after physical contact has been broken). These two laws govern the operation of what Frazer called "sympathetic magic", the idea that the manipulation of effigies or similar symbols or tokens can cause changes to occur in the thing the symbol represented. Typical examples of sympathetic magic include the use of voodoo dolls, and the fetishization of cargo cults. Others have described these two laws as examples of "analogical reasoning" (rather than logical reasoning). Magical thinking is a common phase in child development. From the age of a toddler to early school age children will often link the outside world with their internal consciousness, e.g. "It is raining because I am sad".”

I think there is something deeper going on. I doubt I’m the first to say this, but the reference is lost in a lifetime of reading. I think magical thinking was actually a survival skill in the early days of human development. Consider the world as it existed in pre-Bronze age civilizations. Lightning is magic. In order for lightning not to be magic, one must have an understanding of electricity, and static electricity, and electrical induction, and weather. One can pick up an electrical charge from rubbing animal fur, but in order to understand its nature requires the use of storage batteries and copper wire, or reasonable facsimile. This is why understanding the nature of lightning had to wait for the 18th Century. The hardware was not available to design the experiment. So what choice does a human mind have in a situation like that? The brain can obsess on its lack of understanding and/or remain bewildered. This state of mind often leads to indecision and immobility. The alternative is to chalk it up to magic, or some action of some anthropomorphized version of natural forces, and move on. As has often been pointed out, this is an explanation that is a non-explanation, but it serves as a frame of reference and allows one to stop thinking about it and act. That said actions might be wholly unproductive or cause the unnecessary sacrifice of virgins is only material in the long run. Short-term, “problem solved!” We still indulge in systems like this today when we use burial rituals to bury the emotional trauma of loss and move on.

Also from Wikipedia:

“Magical thinking is often intensified in mental illnesses such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), clinical depression or schizotypal personality disorder.[citation needed] In each it can take a different form peculiar to the particular illness. In OCD, it is often used in ritual fashion to ameliorate the dread and risk of various dangerous possibilities, regardless of whether it has real effects on the object of fear. It contributes more to peace of mind, in that the person now feels they can engage in a risky activity more safely.

This is not unlike magical thinking in non-afflicted individuals; lucky garments and activities are common in the sports world. It begins to interfere with life when those activities deemed risky are routine and everyday, such as meeting others, using a public toilet, crossing a busy intersection, or eating. It is important to note, however, that not all people with OCD engage in a strict form of magical thinking, as many are fully conscious that the rationalizations with which they justify their obsessions or compulsions to themselves and others are not 'reasonable' in an ordinary sense of that word.

There is a correlation between psychosis and magical thinking. It has been found that those who scored highest on magical thinking showed a predisposition to psychosis (Eckblad & Chapman, 1983). Research has also shown that paranormal beliefs, including magical thinking, are correlated with people experiencing psychosis from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (e.g., Thalbourne and French, 1995).”

So what does this say about the rest of us? The ones who don’t cross the line into mental illness but show these same tendencies? To me, it says we are hard-wired to believe in some confluence between our lives and statistical probability called “luck”. It says there is a built-in short cut in our thinking that takes over in the face of contradictory information, or when we lack sufficient data. It tells me that there is a good reason that ignorance is extolled as a virtue by those that use this built-in system in others for their own financial gain. This is the system, and the social mechanisms in place to exploit it, that one must compete against when advocating rational thinking.

Buffalo Story Re-posted for an Odd Reason.

2008-08-30T18:05:00.001-07:00

I'm posting this story agian, not as a summer re-run but because of all my posts, this one seems to be accumulating spam. I'm not sure why, how, or for what reason because a majority of it seems to be in Chinese. I'm deleting the original to see what will happen next.

In my last post, I identified four broad categories of financially poor individuals. This time, I’d like to concentrate on those that have little money because they have little use for money. This group generally consists of communities that are mostly self-sufficient and barter among themselves. Whether ancient or modern, technologically simple or complex, large or small, this factor is a common thread. Money becomes another commodity in these cultures, not the one-and-only means of exchange. This subculture is less susceptible to threat and coercion, and is therefore seen as a competitor, or threat, to any hierarchy seeking complete control of the general population.

In 1800, most of the land West of the Mississippi River was considered “Indian Territory”. France and Spain had a claim on it, but those governments hadn’t done much with the real estate. Meanwhile, the fledgling United States had begun a steady push westward of Native American tribes and nations. This was done by treaties obtained by any means. That there was never any intention of honoring any of these treaties is easily demonstrated. In 1803, the US purchased the Louisiana Territory from France. In 1804, a treaty ceding all Fox and Sac land East of the Mississippi River, and Some areas West of that line was signed and enacted. That the four signers had no authority to broker this deal was immaterial.

"Quashquame, Pashepaho, Ouchequaka and Hashequarhiqua were sent by the Sacs to St. Louis to try and free a prisoner who had killed an American. The Sac tradition was to see if the Americans would release their friend. They were willing to pay for the person killed, thus covering the blood and satisfying the relations of the murdered man. Upon return Quashquame and party came up and gave us the following account of their mission: On our arrival at St. Louis we met our American father and explained to him our business, urging the release of our friend. The American chief told us he wanted land. We agreed to give him some on the west side of the Mississippi, likewise more on the Illinois side opposite Jeffreon. When the business was all arranged we expected to have our friend released to come home with us. About the time we were ready to start our brother was let out of the prison. He started and ran a short distance when he was SHOT DEAD! This was all they could remember of what had been said and done. It subsequently appeared that they had been drunk the greater part of the time while at St. Louis. This was all myself and nation knew of the treaty of 1804. It has since been explained to me. I found by that treaty, that all of the country east of the Mississippi, and south of Jeffreon was ceded to the United States for one thousand dollars a year. I will leave it to the people of the United States to say whether our nation was properly represented in this treaty? Or whether we received a fair compensation for the extent of country ceded by these four individuals?" - Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk. J. B. Patterson, 1882.

One year later, in 1805, the US signed a treaty with a different group of tribes establishing the boundary of US and Indian Territories in the middle of what is now Ohio. The point is, there was never any attempt to create a uniform boundary, and enforcement of the terms of any of these treaties was one-sided. Through the 1800s several Nations had treaties granting hunting rights in the Great Plains. As long as there was large herds of bison, the Native American population could sustain a lifestyle largely independent of Western-style banking and commerce.

“Bison herds, so vast that they could be 50 miles wide and take 5 days to pass a fixed point. This species had such a broad distribution that in 1612 they were observed grazing along the Potomac at the site that would become our nation's Capitol.” Bird Nature.com

By 1900, the bison were almost extinct. This was not accidental. The herds were destroyed simply because they were free for the taking. It is hard for me to sell you a side of beef if you can walk out your front door and shoot a bison. If you are, for example, part of the Sioux Nation, and I take away your means of supporting yourself, I can then force you onto reservations where you become part of the lowest tier of my Western hierarchical pyramid, the Charity Cases. Church leaders can hold you up as a shining example of “the heathen” that needs to be “saved”, and the “savage” that needs to be “schooled”. All kinds of money will change hands as people are convinced that you have to be matriculated. You can escape the wastelands and lands of zero opportunity where you have been barracked, but the only way out is through the levels of the Western Culture Pyramid, all nice and neat. The bison had to go for other reasons too. The railroad had been given vast rights of way across the plains. The idea was to sell off land to settlers and create towns that would, in turn, create demand for the services of the railroad. Never mind that it wasn’t vacant land, it wasn’t owned either, and free land cannot be taxed. Bankers cannot underwrite mortgages on public land. The whole thing had to be chained up, fenced off, and the bison had to go. Killing them for food wasn’t fast enough, so a fad was created for Buffalo Robes. Anybody who was anybody, or who wanted to be mistaken for anybody, had to have one. Then too, the animals could be shot for the sport of it, and left to rot. And that’s the story of how one group of independent people were subdued and forced into place in the Nuevo-Feudal system that is the modern Western corporate-capitalist hierarchy. It’s also the story of how one example of the bounty of the Americas was systematically destroyed to make sure that someone, somewhere, would have to pay the going rate for almost every meal consumed. Why am I telling this story? Because there are modern trends that suggest that we are all being herded into reservations, so to speak. All who aren’t doing the herding that is.

Relative to our ability in the US to live without total dependency on the multiply-taxed monetary system:

In 1497, John Cabot returned [from his voyage to the New World] with stories of the Grand Banks, where cod appeared so thick that a person "could walk across their backs." That news opened the North West Atlantic fishery, which helped feed the world for centuries to come. – Historica Minutes

The entire Eastern Seaboard has been practically fished out. It is maintained in this near-exhausted state by the enlightened indifference of the respective governments that will not discourage factory fishing that destroys habitat. This course of action ultimately ruins small, independent fishermen that can no longer make a living. Meanwhile, as long as the corporate factory boats can cover their costs, they scoop up what remains and destroy the competition at the same time. Now the independent fishermen must work for the corporation, or move on. Either way, his earning power is diminished. Small farming communities often lived with minimal cash outlay by trading goods and services among themselves. Today, the small farmer has been practically wiped out in many places in the country. The truck farms are now growing condos, or they have been chained together in huge corporate combines. This did not help:

“Bartering occurs when you exchange goods or services without exchanging money. An example of bartering is a plumber doing repair work for a dentist in exchange for dental services. The fair market value of goods and services exchanged must be included in the income of both parties.” - IRS Topic 420, and part of the Tax Code.

I can’t find the actual tax code entry, but I seem to remember that this was either amended, or came into greater enforcement during the late 1970s. With this alteration in the Code, the government is not just taxing the use of money, but actually taxing labor, demanding a share of what would otherwise be even exchanges of value.

In other news:

“The EPA recently announced one in three lakes and 25 percent of rivers are polluted by mercury and other harmful substances. So much so that the government issued a warning to children and pregnant women that serious health problems can come from eating too much fish. The warning level is the highest ever reported by the EPA, partly as a result of more measures taken to monitor for mercury. A 2003 survey found contamination evident in 14 million acres of lakes and 850,000 miles of rivers, the latter being up by 65 percent since 2002. The EPA said the warning does not apply to grocery stores and restaurant fish because such a small percentage of it is caught from inland bodies of water. The problem also is not associated with deep-sea fish” – USA Today August 25, 2004

If you want a meal in this country, these days you must buy it or beg for it. Either way, welcome to your planned existence. The photo was taken in 1870. It is a mountain of bison skulls. I found it here.

Original Comments:

concerned citizen said...
Would you stop! I'm having a hard time being my cheerful optimistic self reading this... & could you explain Nuevo-Feudal system?I have a germ of an idea that keeps running through my mind. It's the idea that the Law meant to protect us is the Law that will ultimately oppress us. Where can i find literature about that?
9:06 AM

breakerslion said...
Explaining what I mean by Nuevo-Feudalism is turning into my next post. Sorry, but you'll have to wait.Law has always had an opressive component. This comes about primarily when we let someone else decide what "for your protection" means. Did the White people of the South really need the "protection" that the Jim Crow laws bestowed on them?I recently saw a rerun of a South Park episode where "The scene in which Randy Marsh craps out his mouth has been edited for your protection." Three similar scenes were likewise replaced by a similar placard. Somebody decided that I had to be protected from the sight of a cartoon turd coming out the mouth of a cartoon. What a sad, stupid world we live in. Meanwhile, in Darfur... real life-threatening problems!
5:26 PM

concerned citizen said...
i wasn't thinking about literature like South Park, gee wizz! More Machiavelli type stuff.
7:14 PM

angelsdepart said...
The fact that we are being herded concerns me. Even if you are aware of it, what can you really do about it?

If You Believe In Prayer

2008-08-27T17:51:00.000-07:00

I have a question for you. The “Jesus Wallet” is from a marketing campaign described on PopCult Magazine here. Basically, it’s a scam. I think only the most brain-blasted believer would not agree that the perpetrator of this demand for cash is a religious predator. Here’s the question. If the recipient of this mess really believes, and is sincere in their prayer, why won’t it work? Sure, the sender is a scoundrel, but that has nothing to do with the nature of the poor fools who are praying, and the relative merit of their petition for relief. Is the whole thing tainted by the Reverend’s cooties or something? These are good, desperate people who are going to fall for this crap, so what is your explanation for a god that would let this happen? If the supplicants are worthy, I can’t see any reason why this is not a perfectly legitimate prayer, regardless of the inventor. The point of origin is what should count, right? So, when it doesn’t work, does one admit that prayer is worthless, or does one just say, “they’re not doing the magic incantation right?”

The only thing more useless than prayer are the people who promote it.

Missing Woman Found Trapped in Car

There was an intense search by the State Police, and presumably volunteers. The search was narrowed down by computer forensics tracking her cell phone use to a particular tower. She was air-lifted by helicopter to the hospital, where she is being treated for severe dehydration and renal failure. It will take the best that medical science has to offer to pull her through. After all this high-tech, human effort, what did the husband say on the news?

“Thank you Jesus!”

Were I part of the rescue effort, or any of the professionals that trained them, I would say under my breath, “You’re welcome, asshole!”

12th Foundation Falsehood of Creationism

2008-08-25T13:03:00.001-07:00

Your God is a made-up, absent, alpha-male analog intended to be the unassailable apex of a religious hierarchy.

THIS is awesome!

Hat tip to:

http://doesgodexist.multiply.com/

Stuck (again)

2008-08-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

I've been stuck on two writing projects that are not developing the way I want them to. One is personal and requires solitude that I don't have. The other is what was going to be my next post for the past two weeks. I just can't find the time right now to wrestle with the fine points for the post. I'm giving up on it and moving on. Here's the thumbnail, if anyone cares.

Title: Poison.

Have you ever been exposed to a person or persons that just didn't seem to like you and you don't know why? Maybe you reminded them of someone, maybe your attempts to be friendly were viewed with paranoid suspicion. Maybe you just didn't smell right, or they had some kind of ethnic or racial prejudice, or thought you did by virtue of your ethnicity. Maybe they have prejudices against your particular lifestyle, or condemned you for something that happened when you were kids. Whatever the reason, you just didn't seem to hit it off for some reason you can't pinpoint. If you're like me, this is painful and confusing. You try very hard to overlook the snubs and remain friendly, but nothing changes.

I've had a few of these experiences, and one in particular has been gnawing at me lately. I see this guy a couple of times a year in a summer vacation spot. I've known him since I was six, and he was about 15. He works hard, and has wide experience in carpentry, plumbing, etc., etc., etc. He is loved by his family, and well-liked by his friends, and I have nothing but respect for him. We just don't get along. I can think of several reasons for him to judge me harshly. I was a kid who kind of drifted, there was the drug scene, and other incidents in my life I'm not proud of. I was almost 30 before I figured out I wasn't a kid anymore. He's a devout Catholic and I'm the atheist product of a divorced Protestant family. I'm a non-Christian married to a non-Christian. He's the patriarch of a large family of children and grandchildren, and I have no kids. We have never discussed religion. If it works for him, I'm not going to give him any shit about it unless he tries to evangelize me or something, which he won't.

We don't have a lot in common, except some friends. I don't expect to be invited to any of his barbecues, I just don't like being treated like I'm something nasty he picked up on his shoe. I want to be judged for who I am, not who I was, or who I'm not, or some ancient slight between our two families.

It occurred to me that there is a large number of people for whom he makes the summer more enjoyable, or at least leaves unaffected. To me, he is a sour note in an otherwise pleasant experience. He is poison. I would alter my feelings about him if I could, to the point where I couldn't care less. The problem is, that we are likely to continue to interact, and I do have respect for him and for his lifestyle, religion aside. I could ask him in so many words what particular bug he has up his ass where I’m concerned, but I don’t think I would get a straight answer. Knowing him as I do, I think he would maintain that he had no problem with me, and then continue to treat me as if he did. He just wouldn’t want to discuss it with me.

This is where the post refuses to gel. I did not want to make it all about me, or this quasi-asshole of a guy. Thinking about this made me realize that it’s really easy to ruin someone’s day without meaning to, or even realizing that you have done so. We have become, at least on a part-time basis, a nation of thin-skinned assholes. I will remember this next time I’m tempted to scream obscenities out the window at a driver that might feel stupid enough already. I really don’t do that as often as some, but once is enough.

Most Holy Cracker Updates

2008-07-26T09:38:00.000-07:00

Some of you might be sick of this absurdity, but I am fascinated by the many different facets of this socially-induced sickness that have been turned to light and explored.

Here is a recent development wherein the Student Senate at UCF has voted to impeach Webster Cook. Will they do the right thing in the end? Yeah, sure (coughs out “Blowjob!” a-la Animal House).

Here is the tidbit from the article above I would like to focus on:

UCF is barred by federal law from confirming whether any complaints have been filed against Cook. But the statements included in the affidavit refer to a formal complaint against Cook by the campus ministry for disrupting the service.

Barred by Federal law from making complaints a matter of public record. Why? … because it would “hurt the whole town?” Can someone help me out here? Whom does this law serve?

And now we come to the real reason that the Campus Ministry is so angry. Webster Cook disrupted a “service”. Hypnotists cannot perform induction if they are interrupted. To put this another way, it’s hard to jerk a person off if they are distracted before the “money shot”. It comes as no surprise to me that religious organizations that demand tolerance for their money-grubbing lunacy have zero tolerance for "disruption". You might wake someone up to the bullshit that way.

Here and here are recent P.Z. Myers posts. He forgot to include the German Bologna. Why German? Beef and pork.

Here is one for the recipe books, if not the history books.

Those Who Can, Do...

2008-07-21T18:35:00.001-07:00

and those who can't...

Most of us have heard this and know how it ends. I have known my share of teachers, and I beg to differ. Those who can't, go into politics.

I'm still playing catch-up on things. Check this out.

Monique Davis has been chastised for her comments, and has apologized. That's nice. A politician will say anything. That's what they do. I want to peel a couple more layers off this onion and look at it two more ways. I want to address how she said what she said, and ponder why she said it.

" I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him."

This comes from that standard shovel-full of bullshit that smarmy preachers jam down the throats of their congregations. "Atheists don't really disbelieve in Jehovamagod, they're just mad at HIM." No, we really think IT is the product of some really creative and insideous bullshit.

"We look forward to him and his blessings."

Yes, we know. This is how the scam works. You look forward to your reward, and then you die and no one has to pay up.

"And it’s really a tragedy -- it’s tragic -- when a person who is engaged in anything related to God, they want to fight. They want to fight prayer in school. I don’t see you (Sherman) fighting guns in school. You know?"

This is a false analogy of sorts, as well as a fallacy of an undistributed middle. Nobody is arguing in favor of guns in school. There are laws against guns in school, and laws governing prayer in school. The differences are that prayer in school is not illegal, and the faculty and staff are not known to willfully disregard the laws against guns.

"I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. "

This is a false statement, as can be demonstrated by her subsequent remarks. She has already reached her conclusions. It is either rhetorical, delusional, or a deliberate lie.

"This is the Land of Lincoln."

At first glance this looks like a non sequitur. It’s a non sequitur that has been carefully loaded up with jingoistic meaning and fired off repeatedly over the years. One, two, three, KNEE-JERK!

“This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, …”

This is also the land of the Illinois, who were pushed off their land through worthless treaties, chicanery, hostage taking, and other immoral acts. It’s the land where people also believe in Vishnu, Brahman, Muhammad, the Earth Mother, and Adolph Hitler. Ms. Davis isn’t talking about those people because they aren’t part of the social/religious/political hierarchy who were conned into electing this manipulating D student of history and humanity. She is only interested in stroking the fragile egos of those who have been taught to both fear and scorn the ones who don’t believe exactly what they have been taught to believe. You know, the Marks of the Christian White Man Scam.

“… where people believe in protecting their children.… “

As opposed to what fucking planet where parents don’t have this instinct? No one in history ever ate their own babies as a cultural norm… and oh yeah, “Won’t someone please think about THE CHILDREN?”

“What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous—“

Nice word, “spew”. Especially from someone who is spewing out a bunch of emotional appeal, very short on reasoning and logic… and proof for what is being asserted. This is the sentence that proves the one that starts, “I’m trying to understand… “ is false.

“It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!”

I think you mean “progress” Ms. Davis. And, shouldn’t “state” be capitalized, as in the State of Mandatory Ideology you and your kind want to create? Manufacturing false outrage might get you elected, but it also creates the kind of prejudice that divides the common man, and keeps control-freaks like you in control. This is the “progress” you would have us believe you are supporting, the status quo. The only danger to “our” children, is the risk that they will not become blind followers, and will be socially ostracized (as you are attempting to do here) because of it. Once again, nobody is talking about guns right now but you.

If you are fed up, why don’t you get up and leave you posturing jackass? You know why, and so do I.

“You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.”

Thank you for explaining your version of someone else’s beliefs. I’m sure your version is more in line with what your follower friends want to believe. I always say, “If you want to know what an atheist is all about, ask a Christian.” Good thing you don’t have the final word on who has rights. Oh wait….

The True Meaning of the Eucharist

2008-07-15T03:58:00.000-07:00

People ask, “What’s the true meaning of Christmas?” but few bother to ask about the true meaning of the Eucharist, a.k.a. Holy Communion. The subject came to my attention lately through this post on pharyngula. Here is the editorial that got P.Z. Myers embroiled in the latest crusade of the control-freaks to maintain their delusional hold over the gullible and unsuspecting indoctrinees. In short, Catholics are taught to believe that the consecrated Host (cracker, not computer for you UNIX heads) is ACTUALLY, not symbolically, the body of Jesus, the Christ. Yum. Anyway, this caused a whole lot of freaking and geeking lately when Webster Cook walked out of the Sacred God-cave at his college campus with an unmasticated and uningested chunk ‘o Jesus bread.

Before I get to the crux of this biscuit (Could you resist?), a little history they don’t generally teach in Sunday School. The Last Supper, where this whole communion thing comes from, was the Passover Seder, a ritual meal commemorating the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt and slavery, led by Moses. During the meal at various times, unleavened bread, or Matzoh is passed around and consumed. Wine also figures into the ritual at given intervals. At some point in this meal, Jesus threw away the script and decided to improvise. He either passed around Elijah’s cup (a.k.a. The Grail), or commented during one of the ritual toasts that the wine was his blood. He also declared the matzoh to be his body. Was he drunk, or overly enthusiastic about his religious roots, or should he be taken literally? There are two possible literal interpretations. The Bible makes no mention of Jesus being referred to as “cracker man”, or “vintage boy” after this incident, so we can rule out his being composed of those substances. The Bible also does not mention the Disciples suddenly discovering man meat in their mouths, or quaffing blood like vampires. Neither of these substances would be considered kosher, and no Jew would eat them even if it wasn’t Passover. I think it’s safe to say that Jesus meant this symbolically. I think he was declaring himself, “body and soul”, a Jew. Oh wait … that won’t do.

So why do the Catholics insist on an actual transubstantiation of cracker into flesh and wine into blood when these sacramental objects are blessed? To elevate the PREIST above the ranks of normal man, of course. What a powerful shaman to perform such a miracle! And then, there’s the whole feeding ritual! Grown men and women, on their knees, being fed and watered like baby birds by in loco deus, Father Father. God’s children indeed! It’s all just a magic act and a domination game, and it works.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Jesus really is made of crackers... and Satan is a Pulled-Pork Pladdah.

Catching Up on a Few Things

2008-07-05T07:41:00.000-07:00

I've been busy elsewhere lately, but a few things have crossed my radar.

Vatican Blesses Mary the Musical

Excerpt:

The Vatican is staging its first ever musical next week, a dramatisation of the life of the Virgin Mary.
Mary of Nazareth, A Story that Goes On features a former Miss Italy contestant in the lead role and music by a composer more famed for scoring exotic B-movies.

However, unlike Jesus Christ Superstar or Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, it has been officially blessed by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state.

Sounds Frothilishiously craptacular. It also stands as absolute proof that the Vatican condones fictional bullshit. There is no historical record of the life of Mar-yam. There is no biblical record either, so this is not even Official Bullshit. I feel perfectly safe in asserting that there is little probability that her life (granting she ever really existed) resembled in the slightest the portrayal in this self-serving product-ion. I don't even have to see it. If it was sufficintly revisionist and simplistic to soothe away the original thoughts of the Unofficial Cult of the Alleged Virgin Mary, it's drek.

Let's review: why is Mary a virgin? Deuteronomy 22:

22:17 And, lo, he hath given occasions of speech against her, saying, I found not thy daughter a maid; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city.

22:18 And the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him;

22:19 And they shall amerce him in an hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days.

22:20 But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel:

22:21 Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.

But there's a way out for our poor damsel...

22:28 If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found;

22:29 Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.

Why Ya-sif, you old scamp!

Women were their father's property, to be bartered for 50 shekels of silver, or three goats and a hand job, or whatever one could barter with the Old Man as fair exchange. As long as someone could be found to pay for the "spoiled goods" AS IF she were still a vigin, the whole stoning to death for harlotry thing could be avoided.

Something tells me that won't even make the Director's cut.

****

Blogging about such things as atheism in Iran can get you killed.

Iran Seeks the Death Penalty for Blogging

They work so hard to convince their brainwashed minions that they're the good guys and we're the evil ones. Assholes. Self-serving control freaks. Feral little manipulating shits. Your ant-hill-of-bullshit civilization can't collapse soon enough.

****

Ingrid Betancourt Thanks Gawd for her release.

This kind of behavior apparently wins her an audience with the Pope

It also raises a few questions.

1. Did she thank God for making her 6 year imprisonment part of HIS PLAN?

2. Does she think she was on some kind of waiting list? If so, can she explain why she should get preferential treatment over several other eggregious wrongs in this world that have required righting for an even longer period of time?

3. Is she thanking God for making the rebels stupid enough to fall for this ruse? Is that not the same as thanking God for making them stupid enough to be recruited into FARC in the first place?

4. Is she thanking God for making the Colombian operatives smart enough to pull this off? Is that not an insult to the men and women who trained them and selected them for the mission?

5. What part of this experience does she attribute to magical intervention? If she is merely thanking HIM for allowing this rescue to happen, is that not the same as thanking HIM for not preventing it? "Thanks for not being an asshole on this one, God!"

She also said:

"I am so happy to breathe the air of France. I owe France everything," Betancourt was quoted as saying by BBC news after she was flown in to Paris to meet President Nicolas Sarkozy."

She also thanked her rescuers. Does this make her just another opportunistic politician?

****

Jesse Helms and Bozo the Clown (Larry Harmon) died on the same day. I don't think I need to say anything more about that.

God's Song (Randy Newman) - The Truth

2008-07-05T07:38:00.001-07:00

Because it keeps making so much sense. Selling this stuff makes people rich. Selling this stuff makes people powerful. Selling this stuff causes wars, and builds nations.
Selling this stuff does not make it true.

Posted in response to Ingrid Betancourt's thanking of Gawd for freeing her from the FARC rebels.

James Dobson, "J'accasse!"

2008-06-24T05:46:00.000-07:00

James Dobson accuses Obama of `distorting' Bible

By ERIC GORSKI, AP Religion Writer

Excerpt:

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - As Barack Obama broadens his outreach to evangelical voters, one of the movement's biggest names, James Dobson, accuses the likely Democratic presidential nominee of distorting the Bible and pushing a "fruitcake interpretation" of the Constitution.

...

...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

George Carlin: 1937 - 2008

2008-06-23T06:51:00.000-07:00

George Carlin Mourned as Counterculture Hero

Yes, he was a hero to many, including me. In a world where a hero need do nothing more to distinguish himself than put on a uniform, pick up a gun, and march to destruction, George did more than that. George Carlin fought with words, not crude or high-tech tools of murder. As he would have been quick to point out, dying for a cause does not make you a hero, it makes you a casualty, or a victim depending on one's point of view.

In his own words, excerpted from the Reuters Obituary:

"I don't have any beliefs or allegiances. I don't believe in this country, I don't believe in religion, or a god, and I don't believe in all these man-made institutional ideas,"

He has done more in my lifetime to raise the general public's consciousness of the tools of mind control and manipulation than anyone else I can think of. Conservative forces will be quick to paint him as a drug addict, as if that one trait could define him and make him somehow worthless. They would not go to the trouble of discrediting him if they did not fear his message. He is my hero.

George had a great dislike for euphemisms and imprecise use of words, especially when that imprecision was a deliberate attempt to conceal or whitewash the facts. I heard a newscaster refer to his death as George Carlin having "passed away". I think this would have annoyed George. He was annoyed a lot, so it's a pretty safe bet. I'm not sure he didn't use that phrase once in a bit about sloppy phrasing, and thinking, but I'd have to check out his vast body of work to be sure. I send him off with my take on the matter, which he inspired.

Passed away. The person is dead! They didn't pass anything, unless you count the bodily fluids when the sphincters let go. Passed away makes it sound like the poor slob farted himself to death! "Joe ate too many stuffed cabbages and drank a quart of beer and passed away. The hard-boiled eggs might have had something to do with it too."

So long George, we're gonna miss you.

Funnies!

2008-06-05T19:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, break’s over.

Coincidentally, a friend just sent me a link to Break.com.

One of the many reasons that I find the religious life style unsuitable: I firmly believe that the logical outcome of faith-based belief (belief without proof) is the kind of craziness manifested in these little vignettes. The sheer volume of similar examples is the proof upon which I base that belief. These good folk are just emulating the prophets of old. They are spreading their own brand of egomaniacal mental illness while possibly preserving their own delusion that it’s really God’s egomaniacal mental illness… um, WILL! I meant, “will!” No, really.

Preacher says men need to piss standing up

Very Nice, Preacher

Westboro Church Pastor is Insane

And only a very little bit farther down the slippery slope of unreason, you get this.

If you don’t laugh, you cry.

Give It a Rest!

2008-05-31T10:48:00.000-07:00

Taking my own advice, I'm giving the religious, per se, a rest. There seems to be a lot of apologies and PC silliness taking place in recent weeks.

http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/91459

We have become increasingly thin-skinned and easily offended. I think this was a trend even before the whole "image of Muhammed" thing hit the fan on the heels of those Dutch political cartoons. Our culture seems to be increasingly obsessed with other people's gaffes. Either that, or we are constantly on the lookout for excuses to take offense. It is beginning to remind me of all the fake, exaggerated reactions I used to see in the "pro wrestling" matches of my youth.

Rather than just gripe about it, I'm proposing a cure. It's radical, but drastic times call for drastic measures.

Before you read further, know that I am dead serious. I want you to find a quiet corner, or if you're less inhibited, open a window and shout. I really mean it. Do this, don't just read it.

Repeat after me:

EVERYBODY SUCKS!

Now, doesn't that feel better? Now we can all move on without worrying about the particulars of exactly how each of us sucks!

For you South Park fans, the uncensored "fish helmet" scene above is widly acknowledged to be a fake by the way.

"Get Outta My Garage!"

2008-05-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

If you’re old enough to understand that reference, you can’t be much younger than I am at best. I’m having one of THOSE birthdays this week end. To celebrate, I’m going to help some friends muck out their Family Camp in preparation for the 2008 season.

I dug up that picture as a response to the black banner that is currently hanging on my office door. Incidentally, I looked up Freddie Prinze in Wikipedia. I had forgotten that he had killed himself at such a young age. (Memory: one of the first things to go. *sigh*) I had thought he was at least 30, but he was only 23. Such was the energy level of his life that he seemed older. Here are two quotes from the Wiki article I’d like to share.

“Prinze was born Frederick Karl Pruetzel at St. Clair's Hospital in New York City, the son of Maria and Karl Pruetzel. His mother was Puerto Rican, and his father, a Hungarian of Lutheran and Jewish background, immigrated to the U.S. from Germany in 1934.^[1][2][3][4]

Prinze was raised in a Hispanic section in Washington Heights, New York City. He began his education at a private Lutheran school, in a religious compromise by his parents (though his mother took him to Catholic mass on Sundays). “

“During the early morning hours of January 28, 1977, after receiving a restraining order from his ex-wife the previous evening, Prinze, who occasionally told friends that "life isn't worth living", made a series of farewell phone calls to family, friends and management from his hotel room at the Beverly Comstock Hotel. His business manager, Marvin "Dusty" Snyder, was alarmed after receiving one of the calls and rushed over to Prinze's room. When Snyder arrived, Prinze continued his rueful phone calls, telling his mother "Mom, I love you very much, but I can't go on. I need to find peace." Snyder called Prinze's psychologist from the next room about what was happening, but the psychologist insisted that Prinze was in no actual danger. Snyder returned to Prinze, who supposedly called his ex-wife and said "I love you, Kathy. I love the baby, but I need to find peace. I can't go on." After the call, Prinze pulled out a gun from the sofa. Snyder tried to intervene, but Prinze shot himself in the head, and was rushed to the UCLA Medical Center to be placed on life support following emergency surgery. Prinze's family removed him from life support, and he died at 1:00 pm on January 29 at the age of 22.

The death, initially ruled a suicide, was years later re-ruled an "accidental shooting due to the influence of Quaaludes". His mother, Maria, led the effort to have the cause of death reworded. Prinze had a history of playing with guns, faking suicide attempts to frighten his friends for his amusement. He had left a note stating that the decision to take his life was his alone, but because he pulled the trigger in the presence of a witness -- something suicides rarely do -- it gave enough weight to the argument that he really was not planning to take his own life that night.”

Ok… er… I mean… shuuuure! Why not?

His Mother Maria made a monumental effort to have the wording on the cause of death changed. This is because Catholics have a huge hangup about suicide. God won’t let you into Heaven if you kill yourself … unless you didn’t really mean to. My question is this: who was she trying to convince? Church dogma would suggest that Jehovamagod, being omniscient, knows the real score, so …. Was she trying to convince the priests? Does their opinion really change reality like that? Are they bound by a secular court document? Help me out here.

Why I Seldom Argue With Religious Types Any More

2008-05-18T17:19:00.000-07:00

So I got into this, um, discussion with a Christian evangelistic type over at Atheist Revolution. I’ve said it before; arguing with clever religious types reminds me of a “conversation” between 5-year olds.

“My daddy’s a fireman!”

“I have a new dolly!”

The comment thread got quite long, and I only have one more thing that he brought up that I would like to address. First, a little background to set the context and illustrate my point above.

Joshua’s opening gambit:

Your entry statement says 'breaking free from irrational belief'. With respect, what do you mean by this?What, exactly, do you mean by rationalism? Plato would have argued that rationalism is about perceiving reality through the mind - that reality can only be really known through the mind - not through experience or the senses. Berkeley argued that we don't even know for sure that what we perceive with our senses actually exists at all - putting into the doubt the whole material world including science. And even if you accept that the senses can be trusted - what about the 'irrational' nature of science - take, for example, string theory that modern scientists are taking very seriously: that there are more than 3 dimensions! If rationalism is about perceiving things in time and space in a logical, coherent way - well, then, modern science is suggesting that we may have to think again.

Therefore what do you mean 'irrational [belief]'.

This to show that nothing is irrational, or everything is, or we puny mortals can’t really tell the difference.

My response:

This is a brain-muddling argument, made to create self-doubt. It applies equally to the religious bullcrap that you have been spoon fed, and will be spoon fed from cradle to grave. Here is the key to unlock this box: it makes no difference. If you think it does, light a match and hold it to your hand and try not to be burned. Do it often enough, and your friends will have you committed. Reality has a way of imposing itself, no matter if it's as it seems, or we all live in a bowl of shaving cream.

There are [more than 3 dimensions]. There are at least four. Time is the fourth, and Einstein and others have the math to prove it. Nothing can exist for no time at all.

YOU FAIL.

If that's not enough, thinking of solid objects in three dimensions (length, width, height) is a very linear (two-dimensional) way of looking at things. Moreover, all dimensions below "#4" are imaginary, not being able to exist on their own.

We always have to think again, when new information is uncovered. Unless, that is, some clowns steeped in dogma make us drink Hemlock.

"Therefore what do you mean 'irrational [belief]'."

Death is life, down (burial) is up ("Heaven") "First causes" had to come "ex machina" from a Deus whose very complexity defies the "first cause" and complexity arguments. How's that just for starters?

The response:

Are you suggesting that rationalism - that Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza and others were guilty of something negative in some important way?At the end of the day all philosophy, whether it is rationalism or empiricism is open to doubt.

Are you suggesting that all western philosophy is negative in some important way?

Am I trying to impugn Famous Western Philosophers when I suggest that religious people put forth the, “we can’t know what’s really real” argument in order to create self-doubt?

See what I mean?

Later on, Joshua holds out St. Paul and St. Francis of Assisi as examples of what’s good and right about Christianity. This is in response to my belief that religious institutions are money machines. These guys are supposedly the models of self-sacrifice, martyrdom, and poverty. I tell Joshua (in so many words) that I think Paul was a little more opportunistic and self-serving than the popular press would have one believe, just not terribly successful at launching the money machine in his own lifetime. In hindsight, the response should have been predictable.

What about St. Francis?

Ok, What about St. Francis?

St. Francis belongs to a group of people known as ascetics. Lots of religions have them.

They are really good PR. In addition, they are really good fund-raisers because they look poor. They dress and act that way not because they have to, but because they want to. This is the dress code of the Order that they have joined. Typically, they take a vow of poverty, but they are panhandling all the time. The money goes to the Temple, or the HMIC (Head Monk In Charge). The monks themselves might live an austere life, and perhaps have some kinky prayer or penitence rituals, but historically, they have eaten well when others in the neighborhood were not so fortunate. Historically too, this is one of the finest examples of a working commune. That always amuses me a little when religious types start ripping on hippies or Marxists.

There were compelling reasons for the working poor to consider the monastic/cloistered life that had nothing to do with spirituality. The prospect of three square meals, a roof and a cot for life, along with some kind of education still has its appeal today. Now, some people enlist in the army for much the same reasons. People who join monasteries or convents are, for the most part, people who believe that it is nobler to be pissed upon than to piss on others. Or, they believe in the nobility of being a drudge for their chosen cause. They either have a bit of a masochistic streak, possibly as a result of church-induced guilt and paranoia, or they have a strong desire to let someone else tell them what to do so they don’t have to think about it. The sameness of everyday ritual would also be appealing for high-functioning autistics and borderline autistics.

Back to the “great PR” assertion.

This is the face that the church wants you to see:

Not this.

This

Not this:

This:

Not this:

Quoting Prof. Thomas J. Reese, an American Vatican expertfrom Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University "Inside the Vatican" (Harvard University Press, 1996) “In 1994, the [Price-Waterhouse Independent] audit listed: - 1,483 billion lire in assets [About $848 million]: - - 732 billion lire [about $419 million] in liabilities (in the"Consolidated Financial Statements of the Holy See" (410 billion incash, 479 billion in stocks and bonds, 29 billion in gold, and 470billion in fixed assets - investments and real-estate) . 269 billionlire are in deposits and accounts of Vatican entities, 96 billion foremployees' severance indemnities and 262 billion at the value ofpensions to present employees;- 750 billion are in net assets [$430 million]. These figures are without the bank and the Vatican City. Reese estimates that it would add up to$500 million to $1 billion. However, deducting the Vatican City'sbudget and the $270 million reported as "fixed assets", the sum islower than $1 billion, maybe even less than quarter billion dollars.

That was 14 years ago, and does not include “priceless” works of art, or inflation in the Real Estate market. One should note that closing churches, and consolidating diocese in the US and selling off Real Estate to pay for the pedophile lawsuits was not, strictly speaking, necessary. The Church has a very proprietary attitude towards assets already in their possession. The Vatican is not going to take it on the chin, not when the parishioners can.

This tally also does not include the total net worth of the Anglican Church, the Episcopal Church, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church, The Church of Latter Day Saints, the Church of Scientology, The collective worth of the Televangelistic mega-churches, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc., etc, etc.

This tally also represents only one of three financial statements that are normally used to track business activities, the Balance Sheet. There is also an Income Statement, and a Statement of Cash Flow, or whatever they are calling it this year. The Income Statement tracks annual revenues, before and after expenses, and the Statement of Cash Flows, basically shows where the income was generated, and where the expenses originated. This last document is something that a tax-exempt, “not-for-profit”, religious organization would kill to protect, I suspect. The amount of “charitable donations” that actually make it into the hands of charity cases after everyone gets paid, bribes change hands, kickbacks are counted, and all expenses are deducted might make people think twice about donating.

Re-posted for a religious friend

2008-05-15T18:50:00.000-07:00

ax-17-versus-1-21

ax-17-versus-22-34

moses-supposes-his-toeses-is-roses

Scamology - The Final Chapter

2008-05-04T08:57:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: The events depicted herein take place in an alternate Universe. It's my Universe and you can't have it!

L. Jack Horner is tasked with spinning an Origin yarn that will separate those with any semblance of critical thinking skills from meat for the institutional scam he is developing. He comes up with a yarn that would make an old sailor weep with admiration. L. Jack used to be a Naval Officer himself. The prospect of an undistinguished and mediocre career did not suit his particular brand of egomania. He hallucinated a Japanish submarine and sent an entire wartime Naval unit chasing a Will-o-the-Wisp down the Central Amurican coast. He will later remember this as one of the best periods of his life. This is probably where he learned that he had the gift of bullshitting convincingly.

When we left off last time, Nu-gai, an Emperor of the Galaxy unsurprisingly similar to Ming The Merciless, had just rid his Mongo-like Empire of intelligent species that he deemed undesirable and overpopulated. (Pardon me a moment. HACK, HACK, HACK, HACK, HACK! Ok, I feel better now.) Nugai first rounds them up and freezes them at his giant frozen-concentrate concentration camp. (HACK! Sorry. I’ll stop now.) He later decides to send them to earth on giant DC8-shaped space ships. He does this because, somehow, it’s worth all the effort.

When the winged dildo-craft arrive on earth, they dump their cargo in the volcanoes at Hawaii. They do this because of an inexplicable shortage of volcanoes and molten planets in Nugai’s galaxy, and because a race known as the Perillan Brotherhood had a lock on the volcanoes of Italy and Greece. It does not end there however. As soon as the frozen aliens hit the magma, they die, and their spirits escape upward. This is very important to establish the afterlife-belief so important to any successful religion. The escaping souls are vacuumed up by yet another fleet of spacecraft. They are imprisoned and ghost-brain washed into forgetting who they are and where they come from. This is to prevent them from trans-emigrating back from whence they came, and causing Nugai to have to start all over from the beginning.

The alien ghosts (ghost aliens?), who are now known as “Feeties”, are left to roam the earth. This all happens in Prehistoric Times, and the ghosts must wander and lament their fate without so much as a ghostly chain to rattle; chains having yet to be invented. Eventually, the Human Race started showing signs of intelligence. The Feeties, homesick for a real body, attach themselves to these early humans and become the less scrupulous half of their inner dialogue. This is really saying something, as the Human Race at this time was still trying to work out the first two unwritten commandments. They went something like: “Thou Shall Not Steal Food or Women from Someone Bigger than You”, and “Mind Your Own Business”.

Anyway, the Feeties attach themselves, and it is their presence that is credited for many of the woes of humanity. In addition to irrational behavior, the interaction of the Feeties with bodily fluids and bacteria is credited as being the cause of smelly feet and armpits, bad breath, and of course, smelly shit. Scientifonomists are taught to believe that they can rid themselves of Feeties and all associated problems. Through the use of the O-meter, a talk therapy technique called “Minding” and the occasional degaussing, Scientifonomists are told they can achieve a state where their shit no longer stinks. All this for a fee of course. The new arrival is given a course of Minding sessions based on how much he can be made to believe he can afford. The Minding session consists of an O-meter, a “Minder” and a “Mindee”. The Mindee is encouraged to spill his guts and wallow in self-pity while holding the banana-like probes of the O-meter. The Minder is paid to listen and act like he cares, and to ask uncomfortable and embarrassing questions designed to erode self-confidence and self-worth. This unburdening process often engenders the same feelings of gratitude and loyalty one sees in regular practitioners of the Priestly Confession, and in victims of the Stockholm Syndrome. (So far, in every parallel universe I have encountered a Stockholm. Most of them bear more resemblance to Amsterdam – ed.)

When the Mindee starts showing signs of impatience and frustration that can no longer be quelled, it is time to pronounce him “cured”. The Mindee (also known as the Mark), is told that the Feeties have been peeled off, and he is now free of them, or “Shucked”. He is now free to believe that his shit doesn’t stink. He is also told that he is in a state that makes him eligible for membership in one of the inner circles of the organization. After so much help straightening out the cosmic injustices of the Mark’s life, it’s only natural that he will want to further the financial success of the organization. It is also only natural that the organization will be reluctant to let the Mark off the hook.

One opportunity for the Mark is to become a Minder himself. This will of course require some very expensive training. Another opportunity is to join the Sea Monkeys. This is an invitation-only inner circle. It was started by L. Jack in part because of his nostalgic feelings toward Navy life, and in part by his desire to stay beyond the 12-mile limit. This was during a time when avoiding scrutiny and subpoenas seemed like a very good idea. The monumental boredom, loneliness, and occasional storm-induced fear, and interdependency of the crew is also a great way to cement feelings of subjugation to the group.

If life on the sea does not appeal, the Mark might also be invited to join the Scientifonomist Scrutiny Society, or the SSS. This is the group that diligently roots out sedition within the organization, champions the Myth of Persecution, and entangles detractors in frivolous nuisance lawsuits. This is basically a complex and expensive execution of one of the scam artists’ favorite weapons, stealing the high ground. The Church of Scientifonomy can well afford to spend some of its victim’s money this way. Replace, “liberal press” with, “Suppressive Person” if you care to read that link. No other changes are required.

L. Jack finally dies, but not before he and his cohorts successfully muscle in on the religion scam. In perfect execution of the closed-loop delusion, they provide a defensive explanation for all their detractors and encourage their followers to hate and fear them. Detractors are labeled “Suppressive Persons”. The are attributed all manner of evil motives in keeping with the organization’s mythology. Detractors are also diligently sued to discourage future detractors. Competitors, such as mainstream medical and psychological organizations are strenuously denigrated. Any exposed wrongdoing or illegal actions of the organization are attributed to “misguided” actions on the part of individuals within. Said individuals are purged for the crime of getting caught, and the organization lives on like some beast with a life of its own. Scam artists are always attracted to a good money machine like flies to shit, and this group will never lack in leaders or promoters.

Moral: If you can make a story sound ridiculous by injecting a little sarcasm and changing a few proper nouns, it was ridiculous to start with.

Special thanks to Robert A. Heinlein, Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and Robert Anton Wilson, whose literary contributions provide the yardstick by which it is proved that you need a microscope to appreciate the contributions of L. Ron Hubbard.

While You Were Busy...

2008-04-22T18:48:00.000-07:00

Praying for Peace...

Pope Pius 12 (1939 - 1958)

Chilean Coup 1939
Peruvian Military Coup 1939
Italian Invasion of Albania 1939
Soviet-Japanese Border War 1939
Japanese Blockade of Tientsin 1939
World War II 1939-45
The Winter War 1939-40

The Katyn Massacre 1940
Stern Gang in Palestine 1940-48

Ecuadorian-Peruvian Border War 1941
New 4th Army Incident in China 1941

Internment of Japanese-Americans 1942-45
Italian Anti-Fascist Coup 1943
Nationalist Uprising in Ecuador 1944
Salvadoran Military Revolt 1944
Greek Civil War 1944-49
Guatemalan Teachers Protest 1944
Guatemalan Military Coup 1944
Latvian Partisan War 1944-49
Lithuanian Partisan War 1944-52

AD Coup in Venezuela 1945
Algerian May Day Demonstration 1945
The Setif Demonstration in Algeria 1945
Chinese Civil War 1945-46
Palestinian Mandate 1945-48
Burmese Rebellion 1945-46
Indonesian Independence 1945-50
Kurdish Mahabad Republic 1945-46

Bolivian Popular Revolt 1946
Chinese Civil War 1946-49
Haitian Military Coup 1946
Huk Rebellion in the Philippines 1946-54
French Indochina War 1946-54
Korean Occupation Rebellion 1946
Paraguayan Coup 1946
Partition of India 1946-47
Portuguese Military Coup 1946

Pakistani Annexation of Kalat 1947-48
Indian Annexation of Junagadh 1947
Ecuadorian Military Coup 1947
Kashmir War 1947-49
Madagascar Revolt 1947-48
Paraguayan Civil War 1947
Sino-Mongolian Border Clashes 1947-48
Thai Coup d'Etat Group 1947
Trieste Incident 1947-53

Communist Purge in Albania 1948-9
Deir Yasin Massacre in Palestine 1948
Israeli War of Independence 1948-49
Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi 1948
Annexation of Hyderabad 1948
Berlin Blockade 1948-9
Karen Revolt in Burma 1948-Present
The "Bogotazo" in Colombia 1948
The "Violencia" in Colombia 1948-58
Costa Rican Civil War 1948
Calderonista Invasion of Costa Rica 1948
Enmore Shootings in British Guiana 1948
Jamaican Military Coup 1948
Malayan Emergency 1948-60
Paraguayan Military Coup 1948
Peruvian Naval Mutiny 1948
Salvadoran Military Revolt 1948
Sino-Taiwanese War 1948-65
Reformers Coup in North Yemen 1948
Korean Guerrilla War 1948-9
Venezuelan Reactionary Coup 1948
Ysu Rebellion in US Occupied Korea 1948

Bolivian MNR Coup 1949
Congo War 1949-67 Libyan Revolt 1949-51
Thai Naval Revolt 1949

Attack on Blair House 1950
Anglo-American Plot: Albania 1950-2
Chinese Communist Terror 1950-58
Chinese Occupation of Tibet 1950
Delgado Assassination: Venezuela 1950
Indochina War 1950-54
Indonesian Civil War 1950-61
Korean War 1950-53
Nationalist Uprising in Puerto Rico 1950
Nepali Congress Rebellion 1950-51

Argentine Revolt 1951
Bolivian Military Coup 1951
Bulldozing Incident in Egypt 1951
Thai Naval Revolt 1951
Thai Government Coup 1951
Vice Presidential Coup in Panama 1951

Buraimi Oasis Dispute 1952-55
Bolivian MNR Revolution 1952
"Enosis" Campaign in Cyprus 1952-59
Egyptian Police Militancy 1952
Free Officers' Coup in Egypt 1952
Textile Workers' Strike in Egypt 1952
Tunisian War of Independence 1952-55
"New National Ideal" in Venezuela 1952-54
Maronite Coup in Lebanon 1952
Second Batista Coup in Cuba 1952
Thai Anti-Chinese Campaign 1952-55
Mau Mau War 1952-56

26th of July Movement in Cuba 1953
Achinese Rebellion in Indonesia 1953-7
British Intervention in Guyana 1953
Colombian Military Coup 1953
East German Uprising 1953
Loatian Rebellion 1953-87
Moroccan Rebellion 1953-55
Druse Uprising in Syria 1953-54
Anglo-American Plot: Iran 1953
Iranian Military Coup 1953

Algerian Independence 1954-62
Batdambang Massacre 1954
Nagaland Insurgency 1954-Present
Guatemalan Revolution 1954
Paraguayan Coup 1954
Pathet Lao Insurgency 1954-59
Tibetan Uprising 1954
Viet Minh Incursion: Cambodia 1954

Military Revolt in Buenos Aires 1955
Military Revolt in Argentina 1955
Buddhist Rebellion in South Vietnam 1955
Calderonista Invasion of Costa Rica 1955
Israeli Raid on Gaza 1955
Pakhtunistan Crisis 1955-57
"Black Thursday" in Singapore 1955
Student Rioting in Singapore 1955
Sudanese Civil War 1955-Present

Assassination of Anastasio Somoza 1956
Nationalization of the Suez Canal 1956
The Sinai War 1956
Cameroon Rebellion 1956-59
Castro's Revolution in Cuba 1956-59
August Uprising in Honduras 1956
Honduran Military Coup 1956
Hungarian Revolt 1956
Peronist Unrest in Argentina 1956-7
Poznan Rioting in Poland 1956
October Confrontation in Poland 1956
Sino-Burmese War 1956
Tamil-Sinhalese Unrest in Ceylon 1956
Tibetian War 1956-59
Viet Cong Insurgency 1956-65

Franco-Tunisian Border Clashes 1957
Invasion of Ifni by Moroccan Irregulars 1957-8
Iman's Revolt in Oman 1957
Syrian War 1957 Tunisian Revolt 1957-62
Turko-Syrian Border Incidents 1957
Warsaw Riot: Poland 1957

Achinese Rebellion in Indonesia 1958-9
Army Coup in Burma 1958
Colombian Civil War 1958-87
French Officers' Revolt 1958
Indonesian PRRI Revolt 1958-61
Iraqi Army Revolt 1958
Lebanese Civil War 1958
Paraguayan Exile Insurgency 1958-9
Communal Violence in Ceylon 1958
Sudanese Military Coup 1958
Thai-Cambodian Border Clash 1958
Venezuelan Military Revolt 1958

Pope John 23 (1958 - 1963)

Banadaranaike's Assassination 1959
CPT Insurgency: Thailand 1959-
Rwandan Independence 1959-61
Sieu Heng's Defection 1959
Guatemalan Rebellion 1959-74 Iraqi Pan-Arab Revolt 1959
Iraqi Antigovernment Rebellion 1959
Paraguayan State of Siege 1959-60
Tibetan Uprising 1959
USR Secession: Maldives 1959-62

Algerian Colonists' Revolt 1960
Guatemalan Army Revolt 1960
Greater Somalia Movement 1960-64
Franco-Moroccan Dispute 1960
Indo-Chinese Skirmishing 1960
Israeli Capture of Eichmann 1960
Iraqi Annexation Threat: Kuwait 1960
Katangan Secession: Congo 1960-64
Laotian Military Coup 1960
Army Coup: Congo 1960
Stanleyville Secession: Congo 1960-1
Ethiopia-Somalia: Border Clashes 1960
Imperial Guards' Coup: Ethiopia 1960
French Army Revolt: Algeria 1960
Salvadoran Military Coup 1960
Sharpeville: South Africa 1960
South Vietnamese Military Revolt 1960
Soviet Plot: Albania 1960
April 19th Students Revolution 1960
Rebel Invasion: Nicaragua 1960
The U-2 Incident 1960

Angolan War of Independence 1961-74
Bay of Pigs Invasion 1961
Berlin Wall Crisis 1961
Ecuadoran Coup 1961
Eritrean Secession: Ethiopia 1961-93
Guatemalan Civil War 1961-96
Laotian Civil War 1961-62
Nepali Congress Rebellion 1961-62
Nigerian Civil War 1961-74
Pakhtunistan Crisis 1961-63
Sandinista Insurgency 1961-78
South Korean Military Coup 1961
Syrian Revolt 1961-66
Salvadoran Young Officers' Coup 1961
Yeman War 1961-70
Iraqi Kurd Revolt 1961-63

Algerian Revolt 1962-65
Argentina's "Black Year" 1962-3
Burmese Military Coup 1962
Cameroon Rebellion 1962-71
Cuban Missile Crisis 1962
Guatemalan Student Riots 1962
Guinea-Bissau Indepenence 1962-74
Insurrection in Brunei 1962
Pathet Lao Insurgency 1962-75
Dutch New Guinea Guerrillas 1962
Mozambique Independence 1962-75
Rwandan Civil War 1962-63
Sino-Indian War 1962-63
North Yemeni Civil War 1962-70
United Arab Republic Dissolution 1962

Algerian-Moroccan War 1963-64
British Honduras Crisis 1963
Cypriot Civil War 1963-64
Congolese Military Coup 1963
Ecuadoran Coup 1963
Military Coup: Dahomey 1963
Dominican Embassy Raid: Haiti 1963
Dominican-Haitian Clash 1963
Dominican Military Coup 1963
FLQ Terrorism: Canada 1963-70
Guatemalan Military Coup 1963
Haitian Rebel Invasion 1963
Honduran Military Coup 1963
Indonesia Confronts Malyasia 1963-66
South Vietnamese Military Coup 1963
Syrian Nasserite Coup 1963
Tupamaros Terrorism 1963-73
Togolese Military Coup 1963
Tutsi Massacre: Rwanda 1963

Pope Paul 6 (1963 - 1978)

Brazilian Military Revolt 1964
Dhofar Rebellion: Oman 1964-75
Maly-Chinese Violence: Singapore 1964
Panama: Anti-American Rioting 1964
Thailand War 1964-87
VP Coup: Bolivia 1964
Gulf of Tonkin Incident 1964
PRP Rebels: Congo (Zaire) 1964-97
Gbenye's Insurrection: Congo 1964
Rann of Kutch Dispute 1964-5
Syrian Urban Unrest 1964
Tanganyikan Army Mutiny 1964
Zanzibar's Revolution 1964

Bolivian Workers' Uprising 1965
Chadian Civil War 1965-90
Mobutu Coup: Congo 1965
Dominican Civil War 1965
Indonesian PKI Purge 1965
Muslim Brotherhood: Syria 1965-85
Nigerian Electoral Dispute 1965-66
First Burundian Republic 1965-66
Thai Rebellion 1965-87
Vietnam War 1965-75
Military Coup: South Vietnam 1965
Second Kashmir War 1965
South Yemeni Independence 1965-67

Black Panthers in America 1966-73
Chinese Cultural Revolution 1966-69
Central African Republic Coup 1966
Military Coup: Ghana 1966
ELN Insurgency: Colombia 1966-Present
Namibian Independence 1966-88
Nigerian Ethnic Violence 1966
Nigerian Coup 1966
N. Korean Infiltration Campaign 1966-71

Algerian-Moroccan Border Clash 1967
Biafran Secession 1967-70
Cambodian Tax Revolt 1967-70
Catavi-Siglo Massacre: Bolivia 1967
ELN Insurgency: Bolivia 1967
Cypriot Crisis 1967
Katanga Revolt: Congo 1967
Exiles Invasion: Congo 1967
Colonels Coup: Greece 1967
Honduran-Salvadoran Tension 1967
Officials' Plot: Egypt 1967
Sierra Leone 1967-71
Six Day War 1967

Basque Terrorism: Spain 1968-
FARC Insurgency: Colombia 1968-
Prague Spring 1968
Dhofar Revolt 1968-74
Malaysian Rebellion 1968-87
Northern Ireland Sectarianism: 1968-94
Panamanian Military Coup 1968
Pueblo Incident 1968
Iraqi Kurd Uprising 1968-70
Sentencing Demonstrations: Egypt 1968
Reform Demonstrations: Egypt 1968
Israeli Raid on Beirut 1968
Peruvian Military Coup 1968
Mali Military Coup 1968
NLF Insurgency: Muscat & Oman 1968
Yemeni Civil War 1968-9
Baath Party Coup: Iraq 1968

Panamanian January Coup 1969
Panamanian December Coup 1969
Sino-Soviet Border Clash 1969
Sudanese Military Coup 1969
Libyan Military Coup 1969
Shatt al Arab Dispute 1969-71
Palestinian-Lebanese Hostility 1969
Christian-Shia Violence: Beirut 1969-70
Free Papau Movement 1969-Present
FLQ Crisis: Canada 1969
Guyanan Rebellion of 1969
Sanwi Secession 1969
The Soccer War 1969
War of Attrition 1969-70

Baader-Meinhof Gang/RAF 1970-92
Bete Rebellion 1970
Cambodian Civil War 1970-75
Black September: Jordan 1970-71
Lebanese-Palestinian Clashes 1970
NPA Rebellion: Philippines 1970-99
Polish Revolt 1970
Syrian Military Coup 1970
Iranian Plot: Iraq 1970
Syrian Sponsored Terrorism 1970-86
Trinidadian Rebellion 1970

Bangladesh Independence 1971
Bolivian Rightist Revolt 1971
Corrective Revolution: Egypt 1971
Lebanese-Palestinian Violence 1971
PLF Uprising: Ceylon 1971
Monima Revolt: Madagascar 1971
Moroccan Rebellion 1971-73
Rhodesian Civil War 1971-79
Thai Government Coup 1971
Amin's Coup: Ugandan 1971

British Honduras Crisis 1972
Burundian Genocide 1972
Ecuadoran Military Coup 1972
Lithuanian Students Revolt 1972
M-19 Terrorism: Colombia 1972-91
Moro Rebellion 1972-86
North-South Yemen War 1972
Salvadoran Military Youth Coup 1972
Student Unrest: Madagascar 1972

Iraqi Kurd Uprising 1974-75
Madagascar Coup 1974
N. Korean Infiltration Campaign 1974-82
AFM Coup: Portugual 1974
Turkish Invasion: Cyprus 1974
Ethiopian Civil War 1974-91
Malian-Upper Voltan War 1974-75

Angolan Civil War 1975-91
Assassination of Ratsimandrava 1975
Belize Crisis 1975
Cambodian Refugees: Thailand 1975-95
Khmer Raids: Thailand 1975-9
Kampuchean Killing Fields 1975-9
Lebanese Civil War 1975-76
Libyan RCC Coup 1975
Mayaguez Incident: Cambodia 1975
Rightist Coup: Portugal 1975
Leftist Coup: Portugal 1975
Nigerian Military Coup 1975
Pathet Lao Occupation 1975
Panama Canal Negotiation Crisis 1975
Renamo Insurgency 1975-92
South African Rebellion 1975-87
Saharan War 1975-91
San Salvador Demonstration 1975
Syrian Revolt 1975-82
Occupation of East Timor 1975-89
Ogaden War 1975-78
UNF Coup: Comoros 1975

Argentina's "Dirty War" 1976-83
Israeli Raid on Entebbe 1976
Second Burundian Republic 1976
South African Language Rioting 1976
Thammasat Massacre: Thailand 1976
Thai Naval Coup 1976
Nigerian Coup 1976
Peace Village Incident 1976

Hmong Guerrilla War: Laos 1977-92
Bengali Military Coup 1977
Jumblat's Assassination 1977
FRG Commando Raid: Somalia 1977
Comoran Massacre: Madagascar 1977
Coal Miners Strike: Romania 1977
Cost-of-Living Strike: Colombia 1977
"Infitah" Rioting: Egypt 1977
Libyan-Egyptian War 1977
Pakistani Army Coup 1977
Panama Canal Treaty Ratification 1977
Salvadoran Electoral Protest 1977

Iranian Revolution 1978-89
Afghan Marxist Coup 1978
Dominican Electoral Intervention 1978
Drug War: Colombia 1978-
Israeli Invasion of Lebanon 1978
Jonestown, Guyana 1978
Majeerteen Coup: Somalia 1978
SSDF Insurgency: Somalia 1978-86
Mercenary Coup: Comoros 1978
Red Brigades Terrorism: Italy 1978-
Sandinista Revolution: Nicaragua 1978-9
Uganadan-Tanzanian War 1978-79
Kampuchean Intervention 1978-91
Student Riots: Madagascar 1978
Zaire Rebellion 1978-87

Pope John-Paul 2 (1978 - 2005)

US Ambassador: Afghanistan 1979
Amin's Coup: Afghanistan 1979
Dacko's Revolt: CAR 1979
Soviet Occupation: Afghanistan 1979-88
Military Youth Coup: El Salvador: 1979
Grenadan Military Coup 1979
Iran Hostage Crisis 1979-81
Libyan Invasion of Chad 1979
Y.H. Incident: South Korea 1979
Park's Assassination: South Korea 1979
Second Kurdistan Movement 1979-95
Military Coup in Ghana 1979
Sino-Vietnamese War 1979
Bakalori Protests in Nigeria 1979-80
Ugandan Rebellion 1979-87
North-South Yemen War 1979
Vietnamese Raids: Thailand 1979-88

Catalan Terrorism: Spain 1980-
Liberian Coup 1980
Libyan Army Revolt 1980
Salvadoran Civil War 1980-92
Spanish Embassy: Guatemala 1980
Student Protests in South Korea 1980
Kwangju Uprising: South Korea 1980
Honduran Rebellion 1980-87
Iran-Iraq War 1980-90
Maldivian Coup 1980
Mozambique Rebellion 1980-87 Military Coup: Guinea-Bissau 1980
Nigerian Maitatsine Rioting 1980-82
Rwandan Coup 1980
Shining Path Rebellion 1980-99
Solidarity Movement: Poland 1980-81
Surinamese Military Coup 1980
Thai-Loation Patrol Boat Incident 1980
Turkish Military Coup 1980
West Nile Terror: Uganda 1980-5
Zimbabwe Rebellion 1980-87
Ecuador-Peru Border War 1981
Contra Insurgency: Nicaragua 1981-90
Comoran Coup 1981
Honduran Leftist Insurgency 1981-90
Assassination of Sadat: Egypt 1981
Israeli Reactor Raid: Iraq 1981
Libyan Invasion of Chad 1981
Libyan Airspace Incident 1981
Marshal Law in Poland 1981-83
Mercenary Coup: Seychelles 1981
Military Coup in Bangladesh 1981
Military Coup in Ghana 1981
Spanish Military Coup 1981
War in the Bush: Uganda 1981-6

Ethiopian-Somalian Border Clash 1982
Falkland Islands War 1982
Guatemalan Military Coup 1982
Islamic Repression: Algeria 1982
Israeli Invasion of Lebanon 1982
Military Coup: Bangladesh 1982
Military Coup: CAR 1982
N. Korean Assassination Plot 1982
SNM Insurgency: Somalia 1982-88
Hindu-Muslim Violence: India 1982
Sikh Separatism: India 1982
Surinamese Unrest 1982
Thai Drug War 1982

Aquino's Assassination 1983
GAL Terrorism: Spain 1983-
Guatemalan Military Coup 1983
Invasion of Grenada 1983
Maldivian Coup 1983
Military Coup: Upper Volta 1983
Nigerian Coup 1883
PLO Terror 1983-87
Rangoon Bombing 1983
Said Ali Kemal's Plot: Comoros 1983
Shooting Down of KAL 007: 1983
Tamil Insurgency 1983-Present
Sudanese Revolt 1983-87
Cameroonian Revolt 1984
Golden Temple Massacre 1984
Indira Gandhi Assasination 1984
Kanak Rebels: New Caladonia 1984-5
Sindhi-Muhajir Conflict 1984-92
Thai-Laotion Border Clash 1984
Turk Assimilation: Bulgaria 1984-5

Agacher Strip War 1985
Comoran Military Revolt 1985
Haitian Revolution 1985-86
Israeli Raid: PLO Headquarters 1985
Nigerian Coup 1985
Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior 1985
Sudanese Military Coup 1985
Thai Military Coup 1985
Ugandan Military Coup 1985

Ugandan Civil War 1986-95
American Raid on Libya 1986
Nigerian Student Protests 1986
Philippine Revolution 1986
South Yemeni Civil War 1986
Surinamese Revolt 1986-89
Nicaraguan Incursions: Honduras 1986-7

Battle at the Grand Mosque 1987
Brasov Protest: Romania 1987
Burkina Faso Rebellion 1987
Fijian Military Coup 1987
GP Violence: Comoros 1987
National Civic Crusade: Panama 1987
Student Agitation: South Korea 1987
Bombing of KAL 858 1987
Barracks Uprising: Argentina 1987
Stark Incident 1987
Third Burundian Republic 1987
Thai-Laotian Border Clash 1987-88

Algerian Antigovernment Rioting 1988
Armenian-Azerbaijani War 1988-94
Bougainville Revolt 1988-98
Burundian Pogrom 1988
Burmese Spring 1988
Haitian June Coup 1988
Haitian September Coup 1988
Kanak Separatism: New Caladonia 1988
Kashmiri Insurgency: India 1988-
Lockerbie Incident 1988
Mercenary Coup: Maldives 1988
Palestinian "Intifada" 1988
Panamanian Military Coup 1988
Strait of Hormuz Incident 1988
Venezuelan Fishermen Massacre 1988

Babri Masjid Destruction 1989-93
Casamance Secession 1989-91
Denard's Coup: Comoros 1989
Election Fraud: Madagascar 1989
Georgian April Tragedy 1989
SPM Insurgency: Somalia 1989-90
USC Insurgency: Somalia 1989-90
Romanian Revolution 1989
Liberian Civil War 1989-95
Libyan Fighters Incident 1989
Namibian Transition Crisis 1989
Panamanian Military Coup 1989
Paraguayan Military Revolt 1989
Philippine Military Revolt 1989
Senegal-Mauritania Border War 1989-91
Tiananmen Square Massacre 1989
US Invasion of Panama 1989
Venezuelan Food Riots 1989
Collapse of the Berlin War 1989-90

ANC-Inkatha Violence 1990-94
Mass Demonstrations: Albania 1990
Student Protests in Albania 1990
Mercenary Uprising: Comoros 1990
Democracy Protests: Nepal 1990
Tuareg Separatism: Mali 1990-96
Nigeria: Jukun-Tiv Violence 1990-92
Osh Riots: Kyrgyzstan 1990
Transylvanian Violence: Romania 1990
Tuareg Separatism: Niger 1990-5
Persian Gulf War 1990-91
Philippine Army Rebellion 1990
Somalian Revolution 1990-91
South Ossetian Rebellion 1990-92
Surinamese Revolt 1990-92
Syrian-Phalangist Coup: Lebanon 1990
Trinidadian Rebellion 1990
Tutsi Insurgency: Rwanda 1990-91
Walvis Bay Dispute 1990-4

August Coup: USSR 1991
Croatian Secession 1991-95
Djibouti Civil War 1991-4
Honduran Peasant Massacre 1991
Kurdish Revolt in Iraq & Turkey 1991-
Palace Massacre: Madagascar 1991
Shi'ite Rebellion: Iraq 1991
Slovenian Secession 1991
Sierra Leonean Civil War 1991-6
Somalian Civil War 1991-93
Soviet Intervention: Latvia 1991
Thai Military Coup 1991
Togolese Civil War 1991-2
Tontons Macoutes Revolt: Haiti 1991
Moldovan Civil War 1991-92
Neo-Duvalierists Revolt: Haiti 1991-94
Georgian Civil War 1991

Abkhazian Rebellion 1992-93
Algerian Civil War 1992-
Angolan Civil War 1992-
Bosnian Civil War 1992-95
Bangkok Massacre: Thailand 1992
Comoran Military Coup 1992
February Coup: Chad 1992
May Coup: Chad 1992
Hindu-Muslim Riots 1992
Khmer Rouge Insurgency 1992-8
Nigeria: Kataf-Hausa Violence 1992
Military Coup: Sierra Leone 1992
Dushanbe Demonstration 1992
Tajikistani Civil War 1992-4
Mahore's Anti-Comoran Violence 1992
Venezuelan February Coup 1992
Venezuelan November Coup 1992

Burundian Civil War 1993-4
Georgian Civil War 1993-94
Russian Communist Revolt 1993
Somalian Clan Warfare 1993-

Bajaur Insurgency 1994
Chechen Revolt: Russia 1994-6
Chiapas Rebellion: Mexico 1994
Ghana - Ethnic Violence 1994-5
Rwandan Genocide 1994

Ecuador-Peru Border War 1995
Ghana - Tribal Violence 1995
Hutu Infiltration: Burundi 1995
Zapatista Suppression 1995
LRA Insurgency: Uganda 1995-

Burundian Hutu Rebellion 1996-
Burundian Military Coup 1996
Colombian Peasant Uprising 1996
North Korean Infiltration Campaign 1996
Liberian Civil War 1996-7
Military Coup: Sierra Leone 1996
EPR Revolt Mexico 1996
Northern Ireland Sectarianism 1996

Albanian Rebellion 1997
Anjouan & Moheli Secession 1997
Cambodian Civil War 1997
Sierra Leonean Mutiny 1997
ECOWAS Intervention: 1997-8

Ethiopian-Eritrean Border War 1998
Kosovo Uprising 1998-9
Northern Ireland Sectarianism 1998
RUF Resistance: Sierra Leone 1998-
Tutsi Rebellion: Congo 1998-

Ethiopian-Eritrean Border War 1999-

What does it take to convince you that your ritual invocation to your invisible god (who isn't really there) doesn't work?

- or maybe you’re just not doing it right.

Some of those who do not neccessarily believe in this hokum, believe that religion is the only way to instill a sense of morality in those who fall on the left side of the intelligence bell curve.

I have several times encountered the "Lord of the Flies" description of atheists. You know, we must certainly be running amok with immorality without faith in Gawd and fear of Hell to keep us in line.

The question for the day is, if religion is so good at instilling morality on a small scale, why is it such a miserable failure on the larger scale? How is it that we are expected to throw the rules right out the window "For God and Country"?

As if I didn't know.

20th Century armed conflict timeline courtesy of of OnWar.com

And Now ...

2008-04-20T18:14:00.000-07:00

A message of hope from Pope Pius 12 (1939 - 1958): "There's hope."

A message of hope from Pope John 23 (1958 - 1963): "There's hope."

A message of hope from Pope Paul 6 (1963 - 1978): "There's hope."

A message of hope from Pope John-Paul 2 (1978 - 2005): "There's hope."

A Message of hope from Pope Benedict 26: "There's hope."

Because talking about a thing is the same as doing something.

Wake Up!

2008-04-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

"Ha, figures it'd be something like this." - Nada, in They Live

WAKE UP!

2008-04-17T06:37:00.001-07:00

This is one of the movies in an eight-way tie for my favorite. Seems somehow apropos in light of the Pope's visit. Speaking of eight, I'm looking for eight people to put on baseball uniforms and crash a Catholic Church with me. If they can say Mass at a stadium, I think hosting a baseball game in a church is just good sportsmanship and fair play. I also need a 24-carat gold, jewel-encrusted Home Plate.

Strange, But True.

2008-04-16T16:47:00.000-07:00

I have a new second-favorite movie! Holy Man, 1998, Jeff Goldblum, Eddie Murphy. Showing on Encore at the moment. I don't know if this movie was panned, suppressed, or what, but it never crossed my radar before now. I think mainstream America missed the sublime juxtoposition of religion and the Home Shopping Network.

Here is a review from Christian Spotlight labeling this film "offensive".

Need I say more?

I Can't Believe It!

2008-04-15T19:15:00.002-07:00

Why would she use a paper knife? Just last week I caught her putting dish detergent in the Kitchenaid and muttering something about Derwood Kirby. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Anyone? Frank? Frank? I think my watch stopped.

Frank Zappa - Flakes

2008-04-15T19:15:00.001-07:00

A prophet of our time describes the ID crowd's ideal world.

Mission

2008-04-15T18:31:00.000-07:00

Go here.

Click here -> Expelled

You'll see why.

Scamology, Continued Yet Again.

2008-04-13T08:38:00.000-07:00

When I started this project, I honestly did not realize it was going to take this long to explain it all. I apologize for the serialized nature of this, and promise to stop at short-story length and not turn it into a novella.

Chapter 4, Cont.

Disclaimer. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real scam artists is strictly coincidental. The sun is not 100% guaranteed to appear over the horizon tomorrow just because it did so today. That’s a kind of coincidence too. Besides, it’s always all about you, isn’t it?

At 4:00 AM, L. Jack sits bolt-upright in bed. He has just had a strange dream. He has been kept sitting in a waiting room, waiting to see Moe Horowitz of The Three Numbskulls. In the dream, Moe is a rich mogul like Horace Hughes. While he’s waiting, Harpo Sparks from the famous Sparks Brothers keeps hitting on Moe’s sexy blonde receptionist. Three men enter the office and are shown right in to see Moe.

L. Jack asks the secretary “What about me?”

She replies, “I told you it would be difficult to see Mr. Horowitz without a lawyer. That man had two.”

At this point Harpo starts counting money out on the desk. The secretary puts her hand down his pants and appears to be jerking him off. Harpo stops counting out bills and she stops moving her hand. He counts out more bills and she continues. He starts laying out bills faster and faster. L.Jack reaches for his wallet and wakes up.

The dream was his unconscious, trying to tell him something. Of that he was sure. Maybe it was several “somethings”. He gets out of bed, and ponders. The most obvious message, he says to himself, is that important men are hard to see. That’s when it hits him. He snatches a Bible off his bookshelf and turns frantically to the book of Acts, chapter 17. It was as he remembered. Paul’s attempts to establish his church are foiled as he gets ridden out of town after town by the established clergy. He winds up in Athens. Seeing a rich city-state with a population wherein all manner of god-worship is tolerated, he immediately sends for his two cohorts, Sillyas and Timmah.

It was just that simple. A prophet standing on a soap box expounding his beliefs is seen as a nutcase. A prophet sitting on a soap box, waiting for people to come to him to hear his wisdom is seen as a wise man, sight unseen, before he even opens his mouth. People aren’t likely to find you on their own, however. That takes advertising. Advertisement by converts. Advertisement by Disciples. If you can’t make disciples, buy them. It all started to come together in his head. He needed accomplices.

For his first attempt, he opens the Diuretic University of Research (DUR). This is no more successful than his earlier published attempts. He uses this as a learning experience. He learns that those who are sold do not necessarily make good salesmen. The True Believers that he is counting on to recruit more initiates are not up to the task. He also learns that he can eliminate unwanted business partners by turning them in as Kommunists. This is the period of the Kommunist witch hunts, headed by Senator “Taildriller Joe” McSorley.

The dream came back to him. The Three Numbskulls, the three Sparks Brothers, the Man with Two Lawyers, Paul, Sillyas and Timmah. He needed two cohorts, people who knew exactly what he was trying to do. He needed two con-artists like himself. After several months of cozying up, skulking about, and sounding out prospects, L. Jack has chooses two partners. To help him in the re-tooling of his scam, he selects John “Johnny Galoshes” Galliano, and Bobby-Sue Whipit. He will later marry Bobby-Sue for a combination of legal reasons and atavistic tendencies toward alpha-male egomania.

Bobby-Sue and John bring all their knowledge to bear on the problem. They tell L. Jack that the name he has chosen for his organization is too unfamiliar to allay the suspicion of curiosity-seekers. They need something that sounds familiar, with just enough of a difference to draw attention to itself. After some debate, they focus on the pseudo-scientific bent of this philosophical gambit, and select “Scientifonomy” as a name that will make this seem more modern and forthright than other religions. This opens the door to incorporating other scams into the mix, like medical quackery. They revive an old galvanic skin response detector, predecessor to one of the components of the modern lie detector, and call it an O-meter. This is an inside joke; the more they get to use it, the more the mark will owe. They have explained to L. Jack that, in the world of religion, followers are called disciples. In the larger world of tent shows, pyramid schemes, and carnival scams, they’re called marks. The only exception is the P.T. Farnum Circus, where they’re referred to as “suckers”. None of these derogatory labels are ever to be used in public of course. The illusion of respect must be maintained or the marks will take offense and go elsewhere.

John and Bobby-Sue remind L. Jack that all religions also have an origin story. Convincing marks that you have a handle on how everything works is much easier if you first convince them that you know how everything began. As the writer of the group, L. Jack is tasked with coming up with this story. He falls back on what he does best and writes a dilly of a piece of hack science-fiction.

He writes about a galaxy ruled by the Emperor Nugai. Any resemblance to Ming the Merciless of Mongo is strictly due to lack of imagination and scruples. Since no one gets to be Dictator of the Universe without being evil, Nugai is evil. One day, Nugai decides that his galaxy is too crowded. He complains to his ministers:

“The galaxy’s full of the wrong kind of creatures!
There are too many Blurgles, and Wombles, and Screechers
There are too many Nim-jums, and Tieblots and Stubbins!
Even worse than all that,
there are too many Flubgublins!”

Nugai decides to do something about this problem. Since his afterlife belief is of the reincarnation flavor, and since he didn’t become Emperor of the Galaxy without knowing things like that for sure, he couldn’t just kill them. Instead, he orders them all to hold a stick over their head (Emperor of the Galaxy, remember?) and freezes them into popsicles so the souls can’t get out. At this point, Nugai could have just dumped all these corpsicles off on a really cold planet and had done with it, but no! He doesn’t have a firm grasp of how things work, and nobody who argues with him lives very long (Emperor of the Galaxy, remember?) He builds an elaborate, energy-consuming gigantic freezer. He makes this freezer in the shape of a giant pyramid because, why not?

After about a jillion years, someone approaches Nugai with a scheme to turn his giant freezer-pyramid into upscale urban townhouses. The only problem is, what to do about the corpsicles? Whatever it was, it had to be an overly-elaborate and resource-wasting Final Solution worthy of the brain of the Emperor of the Galaxy. Nugai orders a fleet of intergalactic space ships to be built to transport the corpsicles far, far away. They end up looking just like the Douglas DC8 because wings are so very useful in space. (Lack of imagination, remember?) He also has a second fleet of ships built. More about those later. The whole operation is then flown out of Nugai’s galaxy and into ours. Since the needle of the improbability meter on this story has already flown off the gauge, it should come as no surprise that, despite odds of about 590 billion to one, they wound up here on Earth.

(to be continued)

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God is Dead!

2008-04-06T08:36:00.001-07:00

So... Who got his gun?

Chapter 4: The Fetus Sucks its Thumb and Does Other Cute Things

2008-03-31T17:31:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: Fiction. Other disclaimers may apply. Send resume with 4 box tops c/o Kellog’s, Battle Creek Michigan.

L. Jack’s study of successful cults and cult leaders continues. His study of groups alleging secret knowledge brings him to the Temple of the Noble Mystic Stonelayers. He discovers an organization of secrets within secrets, and circles within circles. The initiates are not told how deep the rabbit hole goes. A candidate is only told that there is an inner circle when he is invited to join it. After a while, no one is really sure if they are in the inner circle, or a not-so-outer ring. Followers are sworn to secrecy at every step, but of course, knowledge of the actual structure leaks out eventually. L. Jack finds the brilliance of the original concept inspiring. Every level of the organization is capable of not living up to the initiate’s expectations. The rationale will be that greater revelations await at the next level, and one need only behave as a good follower and the path will open for him.

L. Jack finds the back story of this cult intriguing as well. The Stonelayers, the story goes, were the flooring-contractors for the Holy temples. They were also slaves of course. Their beginning is commemorated in one of their drinking songs:

“When we were the slaves we cut the stone,
That went in the buildings that would be God’s home.
We laid the sills and arched the doors,
And polished up the tiles on the Temple floor
We polished those tiles so carefullee,
That now we are the Rulers of Societee!”

The story goes that the Stonelayers took their work seriously and did it with precision and dedication. As a reward for their devotion (and for not cutting corners), The Angels Scat and Bebop gave them the Secrets of the Universe. Being stonelayers, they wrote these secrets down on stone tablets. To protect the secrets, they hid them in plain sight by simply keeping the slabs of stone face-down. There are two conflicting accounts of what happened next. One says the stones were lost when a fresh batch of floor tiles was dumped on top of them by the rival guild of Stone Haulers. The stones were set into the floor before anyone realized what had happened. Being that they were slaves and this was a temple, they couldn’t exactly tear up the floor and look for them. This they say, is the origin of the phrase, “Leave no stone unturned.” The second legend is that Nebuchadnezzar was throwing a big party, and had the stones hauled away to be used as an expansion to his patio. In any event, they were never seen again. The Stonelayers were ashamed that they lost the instruction manual to the Universe. They made up their own rituals to follow in the hopes that their continued devotion would be rewarded some day with a second copy. Among the rituals that they invented were the secret handshake, and the ten-percent member discount.

Membership in Secret Societies peaked in the 18th and 19th Centuries. The three biggest franchise competitors were the Stonelayers, the self-flagellating Roseytushians, and the Enlightenaminae. This last group was of particular interest to L. Jack. The Enlightenaminae owed their existence to two 18th Century Germanians, Johann Washaut, and Baron Adolph Knudnick. Together, these two used the very structure of the Stonelayers organization to hijack members. They created new secret societies and made “exclusive” offers to Stonelayers to join this “secret” inner circle. The scheme worked so well that at one point, they were practically creating secret societies du Jour, and of course collecting dues all along the way. L. Jack marveled that these two entrepreneurs had stumbled on the mystic knowledge of bait-and-switch, and seemed to have developed it into a proto-pyramid scheme without ever developing it fully. In any event, the whole scheme unraveled when Napoleon took power and the membership went off to play soldier instead. The only two groups known to survive are the Enlightenaminae and a group that survived by switching its membership to women. This second group eventually went public as Mary Jayne Cosmetics.

As he left the library that evening, L. Jack went over and over in his mind the things he had learned so far.

1. People, at least some of them, can be made to believe anything. Even when an entire group knows that rituals are made-up, it doesn’t stop them from being willing participants.

2. People are more likely to pay up front if they expect a benefit to themselves, like the secret to happiness, long life, or spiritual enlightenment. If you are asking them to contribute to a cause, or help others, they require a longer sales pitch.

3. Delivery of empty promises can be postponed almost indefinitely simply by requiring small tasks or goals to be performed by the initiate on his way to the promised end. If you can extend the expectation of the goal beyond a person’s lifetime, so much the better. Extending the period of commitment also serves to entrench the commitment in the mind of the initiate. The more time and money a person has invested, the less they will be willing to believe that it is all a scam.

He had also noted that most, if not all, successful religions had a couple of other things in common. All of them had some kind of charismatic alpha figure. It might be a god, or a dead prophet, or a living one, but there was always some kind of master of all wisdom or enlightenment somewhere in the mix. This was very encouraging to L. Jack, since he was the self-appointed fountainhead for this project. The popular religions all had some form of explicit or implied death-denial as well. It might be a concept of heaven or hell, or it might be reincarnation, or just some form of spirit world that transcends material existence. Any non-corporeal being implies life beyond the physical.

All of these thoughts just keep turning over and over in L. Jack’s mind. He feels like he’s right on the edge of understanding what he needs to make his new religion a commercial success. Something… something…. Something he saw or read, some other element is still missing. It danced around just on the edge of his thoughts, where he couldn’t see it clearly. He found himself chewing on the end of his favorite quill pen in frustration. It just wouldn’t come clear to him, and he knew it was important. He decided to sleep on it and review the reams of notes he had made in the morning.

(To be continued)

Until the Next Time

2008-03-26T03:49:00.000-07:00

It's over. I passed. I'm back. More later.

Short (I hope) Intermission

2008-03-08T16:19:00.000-08:00

Life has once again interfered with my living of it. I'm studying for (re)certification exams, and I promise to pick up the story where I left off.

Meanwhile, I finally figured out what's been bothering me about this guy's name.

James Gandolfini...

... de von Ausfern- schplenden- schlitter- crasscrenbon- fried- digger- dingle- dangle- dongle- dungle- burstein- von- knacker- thrasher- apple- banger- horowitz- ticolensic- grander- knotty- spelltinkle- grandlich- grumblemeyer- spelterwasser- kurstlich- himbleeisen- bahnwagen- gutenabend- bitte- ein- nürnburger- bratwustle- gerspurten- mitz- weimache- luber- hundsfut- gumberaber- shönedanker- kalbsfleisch- mittler- aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm?

Until next time.

Scamology, part 3

2008-02-26T17:16:00.000-08:00

"If I'd had more time, I'd have written a shorter letter" - Cicero

Well, maybe not shorter, but definitely better edited.

Chapter 3 (cont.)

Disclaimer: This is fiction. If you make anything of it, it’s your own dirty mind at work. Go sue yourself. You know who you are, and so do I.

The story so far: L. Jack Horner is a Fantasy Fiction writer who has decided to create his own religion. He is to be the prophet-in-charge and head priest of course. He is in it for the money. He is pissed off because his reams of dross do not make him the kind of cash that one blabbermouth holy roller can rake in. After some meandering philosophizing that he no doubt considers “pearls before swine”, he decides to get serious.

Next, L. Jack turns his attention to Secret Societies. He studies the mixed success of one of his contemporaries, Aleister Frawley. Aleister was an egomaniac that sprang fully formed from his mother’s loins in Angland. He was also a Right Bastard, and proclaimed by a sitting judge to be the nastiest man in what remained of the Brigish Empire. This was meant in the same way that a deeply ethnic Black woman means it when she says, “You Nasty!”

Aleister took a page from more ancient Secret Societies, but formed his around the principles of Tantric Yoga and the stage-magic offshoots of Zoroastrianism. He did this mainly because it gave him the kind of cachet he needed to pursue his favorite hobby, buggering younger men and women. He is credited for being the first to re-spell “magic” as “magyk”, and is indirectly responsible for the spelling of, “chemical white shit used to lighten coffee” as, “kreem”. His evil lives on.

At the height of his success, Aleister had a whole colony of followers that thought he was a god and liked to be buggered. They set up shop in Sisilia until the dictator Muscletini took one look and kicked them the hell out of his future Mafia theme park. Frawley was quick to credit his “magyk,” and karmic retribution for the fact that Muscletini never lived to see his dream realized.

After that, it seemed like the ministry of Aleister Frawley faltered into the tepid regions of the lunatic fringe, but there was one or two things about his later life that L. Jack found interesting. For one, he largely supported himself through book publications. For another, he always seemed to have a tight cadre of loyal friends who would support him in his hour of need.

This in turn, led L. Jack to study Frawly’s inspirations, Dyspensky, His wife “Dyspenskia”, and their mentor, the famous mystic Curdcheif (pronounced like kerchief with a “d”). This bunch went all through Europe during the time of the Ruskan Revolution, convincing everyone that happiness derived from concentration and joy in menial tasks. They got a lot of free drudge work done for them in consequence. The Ruskian revolutionary, Topsky, liked their message very much, and thought it promoted the right blend of service and servitude. He was heard to remark that they could all have become great friends if only Curdcheif and Company had shared his love of vodka. L. Jack was impressed with the clever way that Curdcheif and the Dyspenskys got other people to toil for them, and pay for the privilege besides.

Frawley, like Jacob Jones before him, claims to be privy to secret knowledge, and have divine (or demonic) help in the translation. He also surrounds himself with arcane symbols which he imbues with mystical “magykal” power. For this portion of Frawley’s inspiration, L. Jack turns his attention to a very old and reasonably successful and durable Secret Society, the Stonelayers.

(to be continued)

Scamology, part 2.

2008-02-18T08:34:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: The following is a work of fiction. The story you are about to read takes place on an imaginary parallel world in a parallel universe. Any similarities to real people or events is caused by your own mind connecting dots that might or might not be there. The author takes no responsibility for the contents of minds belonging to evil dot-connectors. The names of people in this parallel universe have been changed to protect the innocent from the overly litigious perpetrators of similar scams.

Chapter 3: From Embryo to Fetus

L. Jack studies other people’s success stories. He studies Jacob Jones, the founder of Ritrardism, also known as the Lost Saints of the Deity Church, or the LSD Church. Jacob had convinced his followers that he had discovered several tablets of strange writing. These tablets were not stone, or even clay, but had been made by impressing symbols into huge sheets of salt water taffy. Over the centuries, the taffy had achieved the hardness of carborundum. That, coupled with its irresistible nature made the threat of broken teeth too real to allow anyone else to see these tablets. Jacob claimed that he was able to resist temptation and translate the tablets through divine intervention by the angel Boni, and by putting the tablet and his head inside a pickle barrel.

The tablets told the story of three Evacuations from the Middle-East in Biblical Times to the new world, and the civilizations resulting from those dramatic Movements. Among the people to spew forth were the Jarhedds, the Nejurks, the Lardast, and the descendants of Mukluk. Very, very, VERY long story short, there were Troubles, wars, and great and heroic feats took place. When it looked like the whole thing was circling the bowl, the prophet known as Ritrard, last in a long line of Holy Prevaricators, created a Reader’s Digest version of their history. He did this by painstakingly impressing individual characters into the once-pliable salt water taffy, typesetting not having been invented yet. Shortly after this feat, the art of making salt water taffy was lost, along with the art of making Rayon. This proved to be the death blow for the ancient civilization. The shame over the carelessness in losing these treasured recipes, the very things that separated their culture from the primitives all around them, caused the Last of the Nejurks to completely obliterate any trace of their civilization. Utterly consumed by self-disgust, they then marched themselves five abreast into the sea. Since they were Indo-European and not Chinese, it took them only four days, five hours, and nineteen minutes to become extinct.

That the tablets contained information about events that had not yet happened at the time of their composition is one of the Great Unexplained Miracles, and an article of faith in the LSD Church. The other one is how events that are tenuously linked to Pre-Calumnian civilizations in the Itchytan Peninsula in Central Amurka came to be discovered in a hole in the ground in Dysconnectedy, New Yawk. When questioned about either of these puzzling miracles, Ritrards immediately launch into a comparison of the two. Hence the birth of the expression, “to pull the other one”.

L. Jack was duly impressed that Jacob Jones and his successors were able to Sell this, and vowed to look into it further.

(to be continued)

Scamology Part 1.

2008-02-10T15:18:00.000-08:00

If prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, religion is the world’s oldest scam. It gets repackaged and re-invented over the years. It incorporates other scams and spins them off, out of the religious mainstream as well. Psychics, and fortune-tellers owe their trade to bygone religious mummery and superstition. The modern art of advertising owes its success to psychological triggers that were first unearthed and exploited by religious organizations.

The basic tools, indoctrination, misdirection, mass hypnosis, isolation achieved through paranoia, are always the same. Beyond this, most modern religions also follow a basic structural formula that is more similar than diverse, regardless of the veneer applied to it. Every once in a while, someone invents a “new” religion, but they almost invariably imitate the same system of scams that have been proven to work time and again.

A good scam is like one of those headache-inducing pictures that look like random patterns on first glance, but when you force your eyes to focus a foot behind the plane of the canvas, another pattern or 3d-seeming object appears. The best scams have the most ornate patterns of bullshit to disguise the underlying design. If you want to see the underlying design, it helps to know what you are looking for. Most people’s education is lacking in this field deliberately. One’s susceptibility to scams makes one a better consumer in general.

One fun way to familiarize yourself with the basic pattern of scams is to think like a scammer.

Warning: The following information is presented for self-defense purposes only. Any attempt to use this information to take unfair advantage of the susceptible and gullible will lead to moral bankruptcy.

Disclaimer: The following is a work of fiction. The story you are about to read takes place on an imaginary parallel world in a parallel universe. Any similarities to real people or events is caused by the underlying similarities endemic to all religious scams. The names of people in this parallel universe have been changed to protect the innocent from the overly litigious perpetrators of similar scams.

Chapter 1: Fertilization

Once upon a time there was a man named Little Jack Horner. For obvious reasons, he went by the name of L. Jack Horner. Jack was a writer of Fantasy tales. He wasn’t a good writer, but he was prolific. It was like he had the legendary 10,000,000 monkeys inside his head, all pounding out words on their 10,000,000 typewriters. In short, what he lacked in quality, he made up in quantity. The pulp magazine editors found this handy when deadlines were looming, and kept him around.

One day, Jack was sitting in his editor’s office, a man we’ll call John W. Stewart. They were sitting around with a fellow writer, Robert McDonald Kinderlein, just kind of shooting the breeze. Horner was on again about how hard he had to work to develop stories that were good enough to earn meager pay of a pulp fiction writer. Maybe it was the cigar smoke, maybe it was the bottle of Three Roses Bourbon in Stewart’s bottom desk drawer. In any event, the conversation turned to how wonderful it would be if one could write a story that would just keep giving. A “golden egg” of a story for which people would pay, over and over again, to hear retold. Somebody in the room drew the obvious parallel to the “Ia-sus story”, or maybe it was the “Mu-Achmed story”, things were a little hazy by that time. Anyway, shortly after that, L. Jack pops the question.

“Why don’t we start our own religion? Just to see if we can pull it off!”

Kinderlein is noncommittal, but Stewart is intrigued. He promises to buy and publish anything of interest that grows out of the project, strictly as a work of fiction of course.

Chapter 2: Early Gestation, from Zygote to Embryo

L. Jack noodles around with the idea for a while. He starts out with an overlay for human psychology. He has studied some psychology, and possibly learned some things about himself that he did not like and therefore rejected. At any rate, he has recognized that most theories of psychology are represented by an imaginary framework, through which human behavior is identified and explained. There are no apartments in the human brain for Sigmund Fraud’s “It”, “Me-go”, and “Stupormego”, he thought to himself. All you really need for a framework is internal consistency. If someone wants to claim that it’s full of shit, well, let’s just see them prove it! If there was one thing that Jack had in abundance, it was imagination, so he gets right on the task of Explaining it All.

First, a name is required for the new philosophy. Something that sounds familiar, but new. Religious organizations have long been divided into two camps, Harpolonian and Diurnain. They take their name from the two mythical sons of the great god Breus, Harpo and Diurnie. Harpo is the god of ritual and digestive regularity, often associated with the sun for its nasty habit of rising every day whether one is ready or not. Harpolonians believe that god is silent, scary, and wants things like money and obedience. Diurnie is the god of excess and partying, often associated with beachfront properties and whorehouses. Diunians believe in having a good time, and only stopping to make their way home during the morning hours of the next day. Most modern religions are Harpolonian, and the philosophical bent is described as Harpologetics. Jack coins the term “Diuretics” as a label for his alternative religious philosophy.

Stewart prints some early essays, but Jack’s insight is not given the recognition and acclaim he feels it deserves. Somehow, he has failed to captivate and excite his audience. The fledgling religion is in danger of becoming stillborn. Something is missing. Jack is nothing if not persistent. He will write reams of chaff to glean a few precious germs of story. He is now obsessed with the idea of launching a new religious movement, if only to prove that he is smart enough to do it. He goes back to the drawing board, studying the success stories of those who had perpetrated similar scams in recent history.

(to be continued)

Deal - A - Dogma

2008-02-02T06:01:00.000-08:00

First, take a pack of cards and shuffle well....

I belong to a Yahoo group called Athiesthaven. The group's main contributors hail from the Eastern Hemisphere, and I enjoy the obsevations and the occasional, cautious, political news from that part of the world. You might take that last as a reference to China, but there are many countries in that part of the world where political activism is vigorously discouraged. Some of them might be thought of as "free", "democratic" societies by the average US citizen. I digress. Do your own homework if the subject interests you further.

Lately, a fellow going by the name of Basem Omar has been attempting to promote Islam on the site. I guess he likes a challenge. Of course, the scope of that challenge gives him a built-in excuse for holding himself blameless for failure. That thought, and this volley, got me thinking again about the sleazy nature of dogma.

The conversation starter:

RM wrote:
Islam Idiocy (Moronic Mohammedans)

http://www.thejesusmyth.com/islam-idiocy-moronic-mohammedans.htm

[snip] Muslim woman are not allowed to be viewed by men outside the
family, not even by physicians.

Pregnant Belgium Muslim woman needs an emergency cesarean delivery,
only anesthesiologist available is a man, and the woman's husband bars
his entry into the operating room.

Basem Omar replied:

"the man is wrong
if it is emergency and there isnt any women doctor its allowed in islam to have the operation

now a question for you
whose in your opinion had preserved his pure nature till now

this man or that who share or switch his wife with his friends

i dont wait for an answer

best wishes

basem"

He had to wait a while for it, but I gave him one anyway. My response:

The man is not wrong because HE doesn't think so. He is also not wrong because the jibbering cleric who filled him full of this nonsense left that impression, either deliberately or through his own stupid interpretive rantings. One of the biggest problems with unfounded religious fanatical bullshit faith-based belief in what some bullshit-artist shaman/priest/cleric tells you, is that it is subject to a myriad of interpretations dependent upon what the control-freak-in-charge decides is convenient for his agenda that particular day. What kind of creator would give a rat's ass about this stuff? It's all designed to create embarrassment, submission to the power hierarchy, and to divide the human race into factions of exclusive ritualistic morons. A man who thinks for himself is not easily controlled, and probably won't do your dirty work without at least asking embarrassing questions first, and negotiating fair payment second.

Basem, you are so secure in your delusional bubble and so happy living life inside a fairy tale that you will probably never be able to see the actual point of all this hypnotic, ritualistic rubbish. Promiscuity is only a problem for those who wish to re-channel the human sex drive into religious ecstasy. Marriage is only sanctified because it provides a stable environment for breeding a replacement set of victims. The wealthy of this world tend to "go alpha" and do whatever the fuck they please. Rules are for the rest of us. Rules make us soldiers in other people's causes, and they get to cry crocodile tears when we get the shit blown out of us.

Back to your example of the, “man who share or switch his wife with his friends". Your example bespeaks a mindset wherein it is the male's decision, prerogative, whatever. Arrangements that take place between mutually-consenting, reasonably hygienic adults have nothing to do with you. If that lifestyle does not make you comfortable, then no one should have the right to force you into it. That works both ways. People do things without a complete understanding of the risks involved and pay the consequences. That goes for marriage too.

There are unethical aspects to the institution of marriage. Any relationship can suffer from coercion and be poisonous. People change. That's why in the real world, the one that's not pursuing wealth through guilt-tripping, we have divorce. In the current system, divorce is an opportunity for another breed of social parasite, the divorce lawyer, to make money. Alternative legal frameworks could be developed to protect the rights and future of children, but have not. This is because the institution of marriage is fanatically defended by religious fanatics.

**********

I hope I wasn't too harsh.

The contradictions and ambiguities in scripture are deliberate. The preacher-man of [insert-sect-here] can stack the deck to support his message du jour. He can also, when required, point his finger at any religious absurdity and say, "No! You're interpreting that wrong! You're taking that: out of context/too literally/not literally enough!" The take-away lesson for the would-be Televangelist is... The True Faith is what you say it is this week. Anyone else is doing it wrong.

Today's slogan: "Faith. It's not just unprovable, it's unaccountable!"

So I Wrote My Weatherman

2008-01-24T10:09:00.000-08:00

(WMURTV News 9, Manchester, NH)

Dear Kevin Skarupa,

Thank you so much for your comment, "I'm a man of science. Come on!" this morning after the anchors picked up Anderson Cooper's "Bigfoot on Mars" story. When so much serious attention is being paid to alleged psychics, ghosts, and other hallucinatory phenomena from the world of woo, it's nice to know that there are some rational thinkers out there that aren't afraid to ridicule the ridiculous. How things like this get reported as straight news defies my understanding. The only newsworthy item here was a complete lapse in good judgment by Anderson Cooper, and that's not really news either. Thanks again and keep up the good work.

This is the landscape of Mars. Examine it closely.

Do you see any of these on the horizon?

Or any of these lying around on the ground?

Empty beer cans? Trash of any kind? Food of any kind? Water of any kind? Atmosphere to speak of?

Yeah, sure. That's a running Bigfoot, and my mother's the mermaid on the tuna fish can!

"It's!"

When a Dick Invents a God, He's a Damn Fine Dick of a God

2008-01-13T12:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I came across the phrase, “God is a dick” in the comments section over at Happy Jihad’s House of Pancakes. This reminded me of The Evangelical Atheist’s excellent series of the same name, so I quickly recommended it. Then I thought about it and realized that I probably hadn’t read every single installment, so I started to re-read them all from the beginning. I got as far as Part 2, where this little nugget of deceit, intolerance and mass murder came up in EA's shovel.

EA provides an excellent synopsis, so I’m including it here.

“Ahab, seventh king of Israel, married the ever-popular Jezebel and built a temple to the god Baal. Elijah, prophet of Yahweh, led the struggle to remove the cult of Baal from Israel. A duel of the deities ensued. Elijah told Ahab to gather all the people of Israel and 450 prophets of Baal at Mt. Carmel. Ahab complied. When everyone was gathered, Elijah laid out the ground rules. Two bullocks would be prepared for sacrifice and placed upon piles of wood. Then the prophets of Baal and Elijah would try to get their respective gods to ignite the wood and claim the sacrifice. The followers of Baal were allowed to choose their bullock and go first. They plead with Baal from morning until noon to take the sacrifice.”

And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awakened. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them. [1KI 18:27-28 KJV]

And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and lad him on the wood, and said, Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood. And he said, Do it the second time. And they did it the second time. And he said, Do it the third time. And they did it the third time. And the water ran round about the altar; and he filled the trench also with water. And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God. And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there. [1KI 18:33-40 KJV]

I take a slightly different approach than does The Evangelical atheist. I start with the premise that Jehovamagod is not only a dick, he is a made-up dick. This makes the Rabbi/Preist/Clerics the obvious beneficiaries and suspects in the crime. It boggles my mind how honest some of these accounts are. The crime is spelled out in enough detail that one can see through it if one tries. I’m not sure why they did this. Were they so arrogant as to think that no one would figure it out? Or, was this some kind of test, and those that solved the puzzle were either, a) invited into the temple hierarchy, or b) killed as heretics because the power of the priest class depended upon a population of dull-witted sheeple. Then too, these temple chronicles were probably never meant for general consumption.

I dealt with Moische/Moses and the “miraculous” genocide of the Egyptians here. Employing the same kind of analysis, can you see what the Priests of Baal did wrong? It’s a trick question. The answer is, “practically everything”. They agreed to a challenge where the other side set the rules. They underestimated the chicanery of their competition. They allowed all kinds of fussing and fidgeting and human interaction with the pyre and offering to Jehovamagod. Even if they had a plot up their sleeve to “help” their god light the fire, the best they could have hoped for was a tie. It was a sucker bet.

They were also suckered into going first. (“Let’s have a contest to see who can hit the lightest! You go first!) What do the hours of 6 AM to Noon have in common? Broad daylight. When did this “miraculous” ignition take place?

“And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice….”

Sunset. More correctly, after sunset, because Elijah put on a show first. Nothing like twilight to obscure what one doesn’t want seen. As for the rest of the production, doesn’t it seem like a stage magician’s setup? That’s because it IS a stage magician’s setup! These assholes were using magic tricks to animate their false gods. They do it all the time. Take the hollow-collapsing-staff-with-snake-inside that Aaron/Moses and the Egyptian priests had, for example. What’s up your sleeve, Moses? You can turn a stick into a snake. Big deal. Blackstone can make pigeons disappear! In this machine age, we tend to forget that hand-crafted items are not impossible, just expensive.

So how was the rest of this magic trick pulled off? I don’t know for sure, and all the witnesses are conveniently dead, as they say in mystery fiction. I can say how I might pull it off. What if the barrels of water weren’t water? What if the very first barrel of water wasn’t water? (“Barrel” is a mistranslation by the way. These folks used big earthen jars. Usually, of a size that one reasonably strong person could handle.) So what could this “water” be? Alcohol? Maybe, but not likely and it smells when it evaporates. Oil? That’s more like it. Lamps of the time used oil and rendered fat. What if the first barrel or so poured on the wood was something like that? Wouldn’t the remaining water bead up and run off without penetrating the wood? As for the light, a couple of sneaky alternatives come to mind. Hollow log containing burning charcoal? Not much smoke, enough combustion to insure a fire, soon as the log burns through. Throw some good tinder underneath, where the surrounding logs block the flow of water to be sure. Deliberately miss pouring stuff on the center of the pile (where maybe your cow hide will divert it?) just to be safe. The passage states: “Then the fire of the Lord fell….” Flaming arrow or spear perhaps? Risky, but possible with practice. Better for timing too. For that matter, how about the old standby burning rope soaked in oil fuse? Remember, Elijah is working the crowd, Exhorting the heavens, waving his arms around, and who knows what else. Classic misdirection, the staple of manufactured miracles since the beginning of religion. While all eyes are on Elijah, what else was transpiring in the shadowy dusk? Or maybe Elijah was just vamping until the fire started. Dusk hides wisps of smoke from smoldering tinder too.

As Sherlock Homes was fond of saying, “Once you rule out the impossible, the improbable, no matter how unlikely, must be true.” Water doesn’t burn. Repeat that to yourself if you need to, but no amount of magical thinking will make that untrue. Unless you separate the hydrogen atoms from the oxygen atoms with hydrolysis, it won’t burn. If the ancient Israelites, or their make-believe sky-god did that somehow, there would be a big blue flash, a boom, and a lot of singed eyebrows. It didn’t happen that way, according to scripture. Build a big enough fire, and the remaining water will steam off. This would be consistent with adding an oil-based accelerant to the wood. The passage claims that the rocks and dust were consumed too (Elijah elaborately reconstructs the altar with 12 stones as part of the set-up). Exaggeration? Or, were these “stones” part of the show? Big chunks of sulfur? Clay or mud-covered somethings? No way of knowing, but there are three explanations that require no magic. The whole elaborate set-up routine could have been a stall. The main event would then take place at dusk without appearing to go on for hours without garnering divine response. The only thing required for this “miracle” is the kind of sophisticated dishonesty often found in con artists.

The priests on the losing side are not invited into the fold. Instead, they are slaughtered like animals. Make no mistake, this is a politically motivated crime. The prophets of Baal were Jezebel’s men. Their incursion into the kingdom was the equivalent of a rival Mafia family starting a turf war. This was the bronze-age equivalent of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. The priests of the rival temple were shown no quarter, and were killed quickly. I’m guessing here, but I’d say they had to die before they could figure out how they were tricked, regroup, and come up with a “Mud Show” of their own. It never hurts to strike while you have an angry mob on your side either, for that matter. Those interested in world domination should take notes. These guys were pros.

So I Wrote My Representative

2008-01-08T17:42:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Hodes,

I would like to make known my strong opposition to H. Res. 888.
I for one, am dog tired of the religious right's leadership brewing the unending tempest of outrage in the teapot that is the separation of church and state. That they garner money to combat this false and manufactured outrage is indeed the irony of the situation. Apparently religious freedom is not enough unless they are free to force-feed their chosen religion to others.

These monetary motives aside, the alleged history portrayed in the resolution is false. Upon this distortion alone the proposal should die a death of derision. I recommend this web page for a succinct rebuttal of the "facts" contained in the "wherases" of this wheezing and self-serving distortion of American History.
http://www.talk2action.org

Thank you for your time.

Backed Up, with a Sinking Feeling

2007-12-26T09:38:00.000-08:00

I’m officially struggling with my next essay. I have an extreme aversion to the type of manipulative bastard that is my subject. I would rather clean hair out of the sinks at a college women’s dormitory (in summer when there’s no one around to break up the monotony) than think about this parentally-condoned exploitation.

Here instead are a couple of odds and ends.

I wanted to post a video of Zeitgeist’s “The Greatest Story Ever Told” for my contribution to The War on Christmas (Reg. US Pat. Off. By Fox News), but I was unable to find it. You-Tube just says “…may not be available.” I guess it’s mommy signed a permission slip and it’s on vacation. Seriously, did someone find this “offensive?” There was a lot of buzz when it first came out. Some people opined that some of the dots connected in this film were sketchy at best. Decide for yourself. Here is the transcript, including citations and supporting material. On the other hand, perhaps Zeitgeist had it pulled by exercising the copyright because they would like to make some money.

Best one-line summation of the Jesus myth I have ever heard:

“It’s a great story, in that a lot of people fell for it.”

A whole tapestry in a single thread!

A recent conversation about a less dangerous manipulator, Joel Osteen (I talked about him here), yielded this (paraphrased):

Q: These people seem to be happy in their delusion… a lot happier than I am. Where’s the harm in that?

A: The harm is, that it’s a lie. Joel is exploiting basic human needs for belonging and acceptance. Since God does not exist except as a concept, the top of the pyramid does not exist. When a preacher says, “You need God”, the real message is, “You need me”. That’s the big lie. None of those followers need him, but they have been conditioned to believe that they do.

Q: But he makes people feel good about themselves. How is that different from, say, what John Gray does?

A: John Gray does not create addiction. Joel’s ministry is not about sending people out with a clearer understanding of themselves and others. Joel makes between 30 and 40 million dollars annually from filling his stadium-church week after week, and from donations from his TV audience. He says he needs this money to “keep his ministry going”. In other words, everybody gets paid. This is a huge production. This is not a fresh crowd every week. He strokes their egos, but gives no lasting insights for self-direction, so they have to come back for more next week. This is a classic reinforcement trap. With someone like John Gray, once you get the message, you hang up the phone.

Another video that I wanted to post and discuss is not yet available on You-Tube. The United Methodist Church has created an advertisement showing a kid attaching a note to a kite and flying it. He reels the kite in, opens the note, and slaps an “Oh Wow!” look on his face, implying that he has received an answer from Big Daddy in the Sky. That doesn’t really happen.

Ok children, can anybody tell me what that’s called? Anybody? Starts with “Buh”…”Bull”… That’s right, it’s BULLSHIT! And who relies on bullshit to get their message across? Bullshit artists. Very good. Class dismissed.

For those who found the Zeitgeist link a bit overwhelming (I know I did!), Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth is a lot more fun.

Hair clog photo boosted from Chicago 2-flat.blogspot.com. Thanks for doing the dirty work!