Random Woohoos

“Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking”  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Well, meat-mannequins, the other member of the firm has convinced me not to hang up my blogging hat.  Her feeling is that even if only a handful of people are reading this and the people who are reading this aren't the people who need to read it anyway...it's doing me a lot of good just putting this stuff down.  And she is correct.  So send your complaints to rayvyn2k@yahoo.com.  Woohoo!


In this episode, since my last blog ran on a bit, I'm going to just be doing a few quick jabs to the solar plexus of ignorance and misinformation and throwing a few uppercuts of speculation in there for good measure:


Concerning my repeated references to The Wizard of Oz:  The movie and the books, etc are thick, deep works that have a lot of allegorical and metaphorical references.  Dotty Gale's tale is, from one perspective, the tale of a shamanic journey.  A shaman being one who, through some sort of personal experience, finds they are able to "walk between the worlds."  Dorothy travels to Oz, a richer, more colorful world than our own mundane world and has adventures and meets entities like her guardian angel/spirit, Glinda, who can be argued to be Dottie's higher self.  Other strange personages are met, other entities that help guide and protect her as she travels through this strange land.  Many of the people in Oz are versions of people she knows in the "real world," as when you're traveling to Another World, you need to have that experience put into a frame of reference you can understand enough  in order to get something out of it.  Dorothy's "trip" through Oz is a classic tale of a shaman who goes to another place, just on the other side of the veil, and she experiences a truth at the end and confronts the Wizard of Oz, who is a god, and puts him in his place and secures the assistance of that god.  Also, the film version of Wizard of Oz is rife, according to those paranoid about the Freemasons/Illuminati conspiracy, with occult imagery.  Yeah, a wagon wheel is arguably a symbol of the sun, but trying to say Kansas is full of agents of the Shadow Government is a bit much...or is it?  Wizard of Oz is one of those works that is absotootly a case of something trying to tell us something or somebody.

Now shifting gears a bit:  Judaism ceased to exist in August 70 AD.  The Romans destroyed the temple at that time, thereby preventing Jews from sacrificing to Yahweh and performing all the rites involving the temple in their worship and obedience to Yahweh's will, thereby erasing the main point of their religious practice, which renders their religion null and void as they can no longer practice it.  To help put this in context, imagine if Muslims could not travel to Mecca at least once in their life, assuming they are physically  and financially able to do so.  So, banished from temple worship, the Jewish leaders and Rabbis created Judaism 2.0 which has as much to do with the Old Testament instructions on how to worship Yahweh as Windows has to do with Apple's OS.  You can still surf the internet and stuff with it, but the operating system is different and as the bible repeatedly says that Yahweh changeth not, the idea that Yahweh will be satisfied with the next best thing is just top-drawer silliness.  So there.


Speaking of silly religions:  Islam is the fakest religion this side of Scientology and Iglesia Maradoniana (the worship of still-living Argentine football player and former national team coach Diego Maradona).  Stop me if you've heard this one before:  Six centuries after the birth of Yeshua bar Joseph (who'll I get to in a minnit) This regular Abdul who we know today as Mohammad (Arabic for "don't take my photograph") goes around preaching that there were, as I touched on last episode, editorial mistakes in the Old Testament and Ishmael was actually the beloved son of Abraham and Yahweh's...I mean...Allah's chosen people are therefore the Arabs, not the Jews.  The Arabs liked this idea, and you know the rest.  There is actually a theory that Mohammad was instructed and subsidized by agents of the Catholic Church, those agents being an early version of what we would now call Jesuits, in the idea that that Arabs could be mobilized into a military force and then sent to Palestine to liberate the Holy Land from the Persian Occupation.  But then having created a monster, the Church was unable to control it.  A modern parallel is the US supporting Saddam Hussein against Iran, then having Saddam get too big for his britches.  But, Saddam Hussein, you're no Mohammad, are you?  Saddam, are you listening?  Of course not, because you're dead, matershagger.

Now on to Yeshua bar Joseph known more commonly as Jesus (pronounced Hay-Suess) of Nazareth:  More than a few scholars and astronomers are saying that Halley's Comet was the Star of Bethlehem.  Under the theory that the Star of Bethlehem was just not made up, as the Gospel of Matthew is considered one of the more trustworthy gospels although none of the gospels are from first-hand accounts of Jesus' life, but were written decades after.  One idea is based on the fact that the comet can appear and then disappear as viewed from earth when it comes close.  And it did come by the earth in 12 BC, about 12 years earlier than the traditional view of Jesus birth.  So it could have appeared before the Magi in the Persian world, they followed it, and then it appeared again in Palestine.  If this is true, then Jesus would have been actually in his mid-forties or even pushing fifty at the time of his death, which makes some sense in that he is repeatedly referred to as Rabbi in the gospels.  It is also recorded that he taught in the synagogues.  Here we see a picture of Jesus not as just a "carpenter," the actual wording in the gospels from the Greek means builder or artisan.  But the fact that Jesus is referred to as a Rabbi and taught in the synagogues infers that he was actually a Jewish Rabbi in his later life and you don't get called a Rabbi overnight.  Very interesting as this theory shows a man who was engaged in religious studies in the Jewish law and then...maybe...he figured out that we aren't fallen from the love of *G*O*D* but that for us to be Children of God, we must be God's Children and therefore we are also divine.  After that revelation, Jesus realized his and our own divinity and tried to teach people that "the Kingdom of Heaven is within you."  He was silenced within 3-3 1/2 years, by the Jewish religious establishment, the Gnostics were labeled as heretics and the Xian Church was built on the teachings of not Jesus, but some guy named Paul who never knew Jesus personally.  Think about it:  Jesus lived with 12 guys during his ministry who sponged up what he was saying, but the Church was built upon Paul's teachings?

Now for the big finale:  The eagle has been used by major World Empires as their animal totem long before Uhmurkah.  The Persians, the Babylonians, the Romans all used it (not to mention Napoleon and Teh Third Reich) and the eagle as a symbol of Zeus, an aspect of the supreme *G*O*D* was picked by the Founding Fathers as a symbol of the divine principle in terms of authority and power.  Despite the propaganda from the right-wing, the Founding Fathers were not fundamentalist Xians, but had Diest, Agnostic and even Atheist viewpoints between them.  Those godly-minded among the FF's recognized man as having the ability to Reason and realized this ability connected them with the divine principle.  Now...and yes, I do have a point...here's an illustration by Benjamin Franklin:

The idea behind that crazy old hermit Ben's image is that if you picture the colonies as a snake, they cannot be separated but must be united, that if they are not united, it would be like a snake that had been chopped up to pieces.  Which is a dead snake.  Now lookit this:

Recognize this?  Yep, the Tea Party is using this flag as a symbol of their political views.  This flag comes again from the American Revolutionary period and is a warning to those who would seek to mess with the US.  What is very fascinating is that the Tea Party is of course a conservative Xian organization  and the snake in Xian theology is a symbol of evil and Ol' Scratch hisself.  Now consider that one of the Tea Party's big issues is illegal immigration from Central and South America, most notably Mexico, along with the increasing population of Hispanics in Uhmurkah in general.  Now take a look at the below image and see if you notice anything prophetic:

Don't see it?  Let me focus in on the center image of the flag of Mexico:

Heavens to Mergatroid!  It's an eagle killing a snake! 





Next blog we'll talk about cities and why they may be a very bad idea.

Selah

Compete Against Thy Neighbor

Us and Them
And after all we're only ordinary men
Me, and you
God only knows it's not what we would choose to do

"Us and Them"  Pink Floyd

Welcome humanoids to what may well be my last blog.  Why?  Well, neighbors, if the stat sheet is correct, my last blog entry was read by FOUR people (not including myself).  Now, I'm not saying I'm "enlightened" or anything, but there are some things I'm wanting to deal with in this blog that I think will do a lot of people good.  I mean, it'd be a real shame if I was revealing all the friggin' secrets of the universe here and no one read this except a few folks.  There's a rule about this phenomenon:  Those who know do not speak, those who speak do not know.  I can also add:  those who know and speak are not listened to...or are later silenced.  Or, as they say, the good die young.  Is Bill Hicks still around?  No?  Case in point.

I'm not telling you anything you don't already know here.  You can look for yourself and find out what I have.  I'm just a guy who was raised in a rural community in Middle Tennessee who should have been doomed to a life of contented, ignorant, intolerant bliss.  If a reformed redneck like me can walk up to the top of the pyramid, so can you.  I'm not selling anything here or asking you to believe anything.  I'm trying to crack your outer shell of ideology so a little light can get in.  The Truth is out there, Scully, so stop being such an Philistine.

Why is it that we can't see the Truth about certain things and seem to be compelled to destroy our civilization?  More simpler, older cultures still around today that are more connected with Nature (and thereby actual reality) even say the Western World is trapped in the "Dream of the North," meaning we are taking a long sleepwalk over a short pier.  Why are there this late in the day, atheists, climate change deniers, "birthers," people who still think the Earth is the center of the universe and people who think Adam Sandler has any talent?  Why are we using up our resources, continuing our dependence on fossil fuels and most suicidal of all...why is so much of the world today looked at in terms of black and white, good vs evil, paper vs plastic, David Letterman vs Joaquin Phoenix, Xian vs Muslim vs Jew, Cable vs Dish, Us vs Them when clearly the human race working against each other instead of working together is counterproductive to all of us getting along, personally and temporally?  It doesn't have to be A, or B or C...it can be All of the Above.

As Rodney King asked, after being beaten like a rug by a bunch of white policeman, "Why can't we all get along?"

An easy answer is...we're not supposed to, not yet.  I mean, we can ask why we seem to be sleepwalking to oblivion, why for decades now we've been a button-push from nuclear armageddon, why we are shitting where we are eating...and one answer is that it is FATE.  (Notice the big F.  And A.  And, etc.)

*G*O*D* appears to operate like the Joker in Dark Knight.  He is obviously a person who is organized, with it, spends hours somewhere planning and plotting and gathering resources and putting together his deathtraps and then has the gall to raise his eyebrows, all innocent-like and says "Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it. You know, I just… do things.

Why would you, for example, take Meth?  You know you're going to look like walking roadkill...and feel like it...sooner or later.  Yet, there you are, making it in the garage.  And just why are you putting all that absinthe and turpentine down your neck and hanging out with that jerk Gauguin when it's just going to lead to madness and a damaged earlobe?  And please explain why are you coercing young men into having sex with you when you're the pastor of a big church in Atlanta who is known for his anti-gay sex rhetoric?  Why why why?  Why are you putting on that dress when you KNOW it makes your caboose look big?

Being stupid just doesn't explain this phenomenon.  To err is human, apparently.  How come?  Why are we more drawn to drama, crime and violent sports programs on teevee instead of happy, shiny programming?  Why, if Uhmurkah is an Xian nation (chuckle) is Capitalism the economic system, a system built on competition, not cooperation?  Why do we dance around perfection and choose complexity when simplicity will do fine?  Why is it about YOU and not about THEM, which also includes YOU?

Why have we been at war with each other?  Why did Cain beat Abel's head in with a rock, just because it turned out that Yahweh isn't a vegetarian?  Why did Yahweh choose Abel over Cain, when they were both sacrificing to him the work of their hands?  Why couldn't Yahweh have a salad with his steak?  Is it possible, apart from just that we are doomed to struggle with each other instead of snuggling with each other, that the main religions of today are about us vs them?  BINGO.  Give that man a cigar made out of angel poo.

Why did Yahweh choose Abel?  Well, since this is an allegorical story, a myth, we have to look at the motivations for those Hebrews who created this story.  The Hebrews were, originally, a nomadic people who kept livestock.  They were herders of hamburgers.  They didn't settle around and do a lot of organic gardening.  The blood sacrifice of an animal, in Yahweh's case, was to show the Hebrews that they were superior in his eyes to the other people who were more settled in cities and tilled the fields, but also kept livestock as well.  The fruit of the earth also was associated with those pesky goddesses.  Abel is superior to Cain because he chose the right sacrifice.  The unwritten side of that is that Cain should have known that Yahweh liked ribeyes over radishes.  Also, Abel is the victim, to show that not only is the sheep-keeping Hebrew superior, he is also persecuted by...y'know...THEM...those no-good followers of Cain who are growing okra, tomatoes and spinach in their backyards.  They are not to be trusted and are most probably also goddess worshipers, or least polytheists.  They probably never rewound video tapes before returning them to Blockbuster, too.  Marxists and socialists, the lot of 'em.

This a great trick and you can see it working today where a bunch of white people marched on Washington DC recently, when they are the ones in charge of how Uhmurkah is run, to complain and say they "want their country back" and feel like their civil rights are being infringed if K-Mart decides to call it a "Happy Holiday Sale" versus a "Christmas Sale."  I'm in charge and have my boot on your neck, so stop picking on me!

Then...later in the Old Testament, to show that when the Hebrews settled down in the "Promised Land" that they occupied after the God of Love told them to slaughter the indigenous peoples, that it was okay now to be a city-dweller and a momma's boy and even grow a zucchini once in a while, we get the story of Jacob and Esau.  Esau was a man of the outdoors, hairy, rugged, kept the sheep...and smelled like one.  He wore flannel shirts and dipped smokeless tobacco and liked tractor pulls and rode the mechanical bull at the honky-tonk down at Gilead.  And he would never be seen drinking Bud Light.  He was also dumb as a box of hammers and is depicted as being easily manipulated and tricked by his smarter and cleaner-smelling, metrosexual vegetarian brother Jacob.

Birthright or a bowl of soup.  Seems like an easy choice, right?  Not for Esau, who probably thought that the word "tangiers" was when someone makes fun of a person because they got burned in the sun.  (If you get that joke, you get extra Woohoo Points(tm).)  Jacob uses brain, not brawn although he did wrestle an angel once, to get his way and he becomes the favored of Yahweh and it is from Jacob, called later Israel, that the Hebrew Nation is created.  Although Jacob never said, "My bad, dude," the story finishes up with Jacob and Esau being reconciled, which allows the city-dwelling aspect to merge with the sheep-herding aspect of the Hebrews, allowing both phases of the Hebrew culture to be recognized.  But Jacob is the winner, which is the point.  Jacob lies, deceives and cheats his way to the top and Yahweh pins a medal on his chest.  The rest, as they say, is pretty fucking depressing history.

A political nation was built by Yahweh and this one time lowly patron god of cattle-drives turns into a James Bond villain who wants to rule the world.  And Yahweh doesn't stand around telling his enemies his master plan, he puts a few dozen bullets in the brain of his opposition at the first opportunity.  Then he grinds his enemy up and makes breakfast sausage out of him and eats him with an omelet and cranberry juice.  And then he defecates out the sausage into a bucket and then Yahweh takes it up into a hot air balloon and dumps it out over several square miles of the Pacific Ocean, just in case.  Which is only fair, as Yahweh did write The Book of Revelations and therefore has already revealed his plans for world domination.  Not Yahweh's fault if 007 didn't do his homework, eh?

The main point we need to take away from what would become known as Judaism is that it was the first religious concept that, as far as we can tell, marked the change from a general respect between different cultures, diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks, to the mindset that everyone else was not only inferior to you and all their gods are false, but they had it coming when you burned their cities and put everyone in the city to the sword.

Judaism, then Xianity and then Islam have used this mentality ever since.  These "religions" say that my god can not only beat up your god, there is no such thing as "your god."  And that because of that, I have every right to invade your land, kill or enslave you and give you blankets fulla smallpox.  I shudder now when I recall, when I was an Xian and believed that Jesus died for the sins of all mankind  in order to redeem all mankind and experience the love of Yahweh, that I reckoned it was also okay that we slaughtered so many of the Native Americans as they were just godless heathens anyway and they were in the way of progress and "God's Will."

The term "godless heathens" wins the Oxymoron Award and leaves such terms as "jumbo shrimp" and "military intelligence" in its dust.  Saying that a "heathen" is/was "godless" is comparable to "batless baseball team" or "chlorineless swimming pool" or "kleavageless Kim Kardashian."

Of course what is funny (and soul-crushingly sad) about this is Xianity is itself Polytheistic.  Father, Son and Holy Ghost, all extant at the same time, from alpha and omega...even a member of the Tea Party can count to three, right?  And if you're a Catholic...oh geez.  Well, you've got the goddess back in there, of course.  And then all the venerated saints are themselves objects of well...veneration.  There is a delegation of divine authority and governance in the Catholic pantheon that rivals Hinduism.  Getcher program getcher program...you can't tell the patron saint of shish-ka-bobs from the patron saint of porterhouse steaks without a program.

But you see that this us vs them, good vs evil concept comes from "monotheistic" religions.  Any idiot can see that these three big outfits galvanized racial/ethnic groups together into a worldly, political alliance.  Xianity, a religion claiming a Semitic heritage is clearly a European...that is...White-mans' religion (along with the cultures subjugated by Xians, like Africans and South Americans, etc).  Islam gathered together the Arab nations by saying there were some editorial mistakes in the Old Testament and it was Ishmael that was the favored son of Abraham, not Issac (yeah, just a small mistake there, Hebrews). And of course Judaism is the religion of the Jews.  These three outfits are political, cultural identifiers, not actual religions.  They are all three competing with each other for world domination and they want your vote and your dollar and when obedience to the state is wrapped up in the fate of your immortal soul, that's quite a motivation to stick with the program.  As I mentioned in an earlier blog, many Xians in Uhmurkah have been tricked into thinking that Thou Shalt Vote Republican is the 11th Commandment.

All three of these stooges have sacred texts associated with them that are valid, but those sacred texts are so loosely written that if you think it is your god's will to bomb THEM to smithereens, you can find passages in your scriptures to support that.  Joshua, King David, Mohammad, Constantine, Hitler, George W Bush, all these conquerors believed (or claimed) they were doing the will of their almighty god.  It's not a war crime if Yahweh or Allah says so, right?

What we do need to credit these "religions" for is the advance of "civilization."  Especially Xianity.  Because if Western Civilization is a virus...Xianity is the carrier.  Go unto all the world and convert those heathens...or else.  And so we had, just a few centuries ago, worldwide exploration and conquest.  The Spanish especially went to other lands, populated with other civilizations, and then stuck a flag in the beach and proclaimed that that land belonged to them now and all you natives need to (1) put some clothes on and (2) bow down before this big golden cross we brought from across the pond.   The Gospel of Jesus was perverted into "Xianity" which is not Christianity and lo and behold, Christendom was borne and instead of waiting for the Kingdom of Heaven, a bunch of Xians decided to take over the planet before Jesus' promised return.  Impatient, much? 

So now we struggle with each other still.  These religions divided us and divide us today.  Gone are the days in the Western World when Herodotus wrote about going to Egypt and seeing how their gods were pretty much like the Greek gods but never suggested that Isis and Thoth, etc were false gods.  Judaism, Xianity and Islam separated us, instead of uniting us...and because these religions are also cultural identifiers, if you are a card-carrying member of the Big Three, your politics, your self-identity,  your worldview is not about Truth...but about what your religion says truth is.  You can be a member of these religions and actually be able to be spiritually enlightened...but subjecting yourself to just a few minutes of today's news headlines shows you are in a blessed minority.  Being against each other...no...it's not what *G*O*D* would want us to do, and doesn't seem what we would want to choose to do, unless there was a point to all this worldwide wrestling.

Now for, mayhaps, some good news:

Globalization and world wide communication and the associated advances in technology, along with modern archeology and other sciences, are doing to these three wolves in religious clothing what taking a sledgehammer to a house built on stilts eventually does...cause it to come crashing down into kindling.  Civilization was spread by these world-conquering religions and now the subsequent era of globalization may promise to refine this concept into something that is not about your worldwide military, political empire, but about humans helping out humans for the common good.  The more we know about THEM, the more we realize they are actually US.  And carpetbombing hundreds of thousands of brown people in Iraq, for example, is hurting us in Uhmurkah because we couldn't really afford all those bombs and using up more than our share of the earth's resources is hurting the entire planet.  We have to understand we are all in this together...or sooner or later...the cockroaches are going to get their turn.  Something seems to be holding us back from this consolidation and reconciliation, but we do seem to be moving ever swifter toward a big change, whether you can believe in it or not.  For beholdeth, the day of having thy teeth kicked in cometh as a thief in the nighteth.

Civilization, in terms of city-building, only started about 10,000 years ago, we had world empires only about 6000 years ago.  The printing press was invented around 1441.  Then we move forward to electricity, television, the internal combustion engine, cell phones, the personal computer, the internet and microwave popcorn.  All within the past 200 yrs.  We're developing technology faster than we can keep up with those advances because we keep trying to fill that *G*O*D* shaped hole in our lives with anything but the divine principle.  We're nearing a saturation point where we'll realize technology has enabled us to be able to communicate with and organize ourselves into a cohesive worldwide community but once we get to that saturation point we'll also realize that this technology doesn't make us happy or better or contented, where it counts.  A lunatic asylum with high-speed internet, Playstation 3s and a cappuccino machine is still a loony bin. 

We all need to get on the same page in order to see that we're all Dottie Gale and we just want to go home again and see Auntie Em back on the farm.

Aaaaaaaand...she'll be coming around the mountain when she comes, OH, she'll be coming around the mountain when she comes and we'll all go out to meet her.

See you next time...maybe.

Selah

The Woohoo Thus Far

A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.
Mark Twain

Well, it's Sunday Morning September 19 in the Year of Lord Help Us 2010.  Welcome True Believers, to this latest edition of Vigilantius.  Pope Gregory here with a brief (maybe) blog in which I look back at the previous blogification and touch on a coupla key themes.  Yes, as Yahweh rested on the Sabbath, so do I now here plunk meself down and muse upon my creation.  And I behold that it is iffy.

Oh, I am sorta kinda pleased, at least I'm doing this blog, which was the biggest step.  Now I only need to begin to take it more seriously.  Now that last statement may strike you a bit considering the heady subjects I've already tackled and friends, I've just peeled the first few thin layers off of this onion.  My use of humor I hope you find engaging and entertaining and hopefully disarming.  I'm dealing with some difficult ideas here and if we can have a good laugh about things that should be keeping us up all night in a cold sweat, then that will help us move forward.  A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

But one thing I have to tighten up is my grammar, or the lack thereof.  The other member of the firm has pointed out several serious breaches of grammatical etiquette, to my shame.  I do spend a fair amount of time writing and then editing/tweaking these posts before hitting that PUBLISH button.  But there always seems to be one or two or seven mistakes.  And I don't want to get into the idea that this is "just a blog."  There is always a chance that what I have to say could reach a mass audience, but not have that chance because of the bad grammar.  That sort of thing, however unfair, is a reality.  Write the great Uhmurkan novel if you like.  If you write it all on loose-leaf college-ruled notebook paper, in pencil, and tie it together with a rubber band and mail it off to a publisher, you've just wrote the great Uhmurkan bird-cage liner.

However, I do want this blog to have an open, organic, nigh-conversational tone to it.  I imagine myself talking to you, not you reading this.  I also want a stream-of-consciousness feel to the blog.  I don't sit down here in front of the pyooter and stare at the screen when I begin to compose a post (or maybe in your opinion a pile of compost), I know already what I'm going to be going on and/or going off about.  It's just a matter of getting some semblance of coherence to my ideas.  I also recognize the "rules" of grammar as guidelines and tools.  We must be careful to avoid fascism where it is unwanted or unnecessary and if the other arts used the same restrictive rules that literature likes to maintain we'd never of heard from Vincent Van Gogh or Orson Welles or Pee-wee Herman.

My motivations for the blog I have already expressed in previous posts.  I understand...not feel, or believe...that I have come to a place in my life, having been part of a repressive culture and religion and being able to move on to a larger, greater understanding of the human experience, where I feel that I have something important to say about Truth.  I do not know the Truth.  But there are certainly some Truths that we all can agree on, if we are willing to establish the facts.  The problem today is a great many people treat their beliefs as facts.

Take the Theory of Evolution, f'rinstance.  This a theory.  Not a law.  But the scientists whose careers depend on Evolution being accepted as the Truth, although they're all *chuckle* apparently altruistic, completely objective saints who continually have guilt over being paid for their public service, do not discuss it in these terms.  There is too much at stake for them.  Scientists are paid to come up with results, not constantly be researching or theorizing.  They must come to conclusions.  I mean, you must feel sorry for, say...paleontologists.  They spend hours and hours digging in the dirt with a toothbrush and come up with a few fossils and then they go back to their lab and they imagine a prehistoric animal to the extent they'll tell you what its diet was, what it looked like with flesh and skin and such on it and what its favorite color was.  Hard to blame them for making shit up.

What I'm trying to say here is we need to focus on what is true, not treat speculation and guesswork as Truth, and cease to insist you're using reason and logic and critical thinking when you're clearly just trying to buttress your ideology, when an objective observer can clearly see the thing is a house of cards built on a foundation of jello.  For example, my theory on homosexuality being a product of Evolution (yes, big E) is me speculating.  It is a plausible explanation, but I can't prove my theory into LAW.  What we do know is homosexuality isn't a crime, or a reason to abrogate a person's civil rights.  You wear pah-jah-mahs and they wear pah-jam-mahs, but that's no reason to call the whole thing off now is it, chief?



As I stated in a previous post, a significant portion of scientific endeavor is irrelevant.  Now I'm no flat-earther, but we need to use science to better mankind and deal with our current circumstances, not be so obsessed with exactly what kind of animal lived a few millions years ago.  I find this sort of science fascinating, the same way JRR Tolkien is a good read, but whether velociraptors or cave trolls actually existed in this planet's past means dishwater to us in practical terms today.  Finding out how the universe began and what's going on with it in current cosmological terms today has me rapt when I watch the Discovery and/or Science Channel, but that won't put food on the table of starving kids in Africa or Uhmurkah today.

A great deal of science, sadly, is being produced by atheists whose whole motivation for their work seems to be to disprove *G*O*D* and those lesser expressions of consciousness, the more regional gods and goddesses like Yahweh and Hermes and Elvis.  And then we go down the Tree of Life to less sophisticated expressions of consciousness...that means US, we who are created a little lower than the angels.  We are, like the title of that great James Cagney movie,  angels with dirty faces.  We are the extras in the back of the stage while Romeo and Tybalt confront each other and we weep when Bacchus is torn to pieces...I mean when Mercutio is stabbed.  His death is a tragedy...and so some extent, so is the story of the universe.  I didn't mean to go so far into that last bit.  I'll elucidate later on such topics.  That stuff is a bit much for a Sunday Morning halfway through my first cuppa joe.

Regarding my focus on Xianity.  Xianity is currently the single most serious threat to personal freedom and democracy going right now.  There is a very serious and highly-organized sect of Xianity that not only believes that Uhmurkah was created as a Christian Nation, although our Constitution expressly forbids the government recognizing, or establishing laws based on, a particular belief, they feel we should "get back to" that place, although that place never existed.  In truth, Uhmurkah is an experiment to see if a nation founded on the idea that people can reason together for the betterment of the people can survive the human need to rule over others.

What is most ironic is that many of these jokers claim they are the true patriots.  But they are actually traitors to this country.  Uhmurkah is a nation whose government is based on compromise.  It is the system.  However, a certain political group, mainly based in the Uhmurkan Southeast, refuse to cooperate or compromise and because they are not in power anymore, they accuse the political party in power with tyranny.  The last time we had this sort of political environment, it led to the War Between the States.  And if something doesn't change soon, there is a real possibility this country may go to war with itself, instead it won't be one state against the other, it will be neighbor against neighbor...against those who love freedom and those who want to dictate to you how you should live because they claim their interpretation of their Big Book o' Myths and Legends gives them the right.

I'm not about to tell you to live according to the stories in my collection of Irish Tales of Terror or suggest that you be forced to worship Br'er Rabbit as your personal lord and saviour or that Harry Potter's parents died for your sins.  But I would and do respect your right to form a religion based on the Uncle Remus Stories.  BTW, this year's Tar Baby Festival has been cancelled, because it's unseasonably warm and the Tar Baby looks more like Jabba the Hutt than a baby.  Amen.

Faith is the evidence for things unseen...not a way to hide the Truth under a sheet so you can go on about your business like nothing happened.  The Truth right now is like White Elephants defecating in the choir lofts of the churches and Xians are trying to pretend there are no pallid pachyderms pushing out piles of poo there at all.  Faith is there for you to fill in the areas that you cannot be sure of.  It's theological drywall spackling.  And we cannot be sure of a great deal.  But many Xians are playing the tenuous game of having complete and utter faith in their religion while seemingly having zero certainty about what to expect out of Yahweh.  Here's an example:  when tornadoes came through my hometown in the spring of last year, here's some of the statements that were voiced by Xians:

Well, we are blessed that the tornado didn't touch our house.
Well, we are blessed that it just took the roof off our house.
Well, the house is a wreck, but thank Jesus no one was home.
Well, the house is gone, but thank god no one was hurt bad.
Well, our dog got swooped up and we can't find her but no one else was hurt and we don't know where our house is right now, we are so blessed to be alive.  (Although you'd go to Heaven if you die?)
Well, the house was completely destroyed and the mother and child were killed, but thank god the father wasn't killed, let's all keep him in our prayers.

You get the idea.  This isn't the sign of people who have a god they can count on, it's a sign of people that bless their god when things go well, whether your house is not destroyed by a tornado, or it's a sunny day, or the car repair bill wasn't too bad, or your child got over her sickness, etc and when things go pear-shaped...well, that's just the Lord's will and we've just got to have faith.  When I was an Xian, it was a wonder I got out of bed in the morning.  It's much more sane to realize the Shit Happens than to go about all day thinking you're blessed because you and your other Xian associates keep telling yourself that you are.  And anyway, the bible itself says it rains on the just and the unjust alike.  The bible itself is not the source of your idea that you're just so blessed alla time.  C. S. Lewis said, "It (prayer) doesn't change god, it changes me."  He was a true mystic and I consider a True Christian, as well.  May Yahweh rest his soul.

No, we need to have a better, surer understanding of the nature of the universe than it is governed by a god who appears to be capricious and bi-polar.  Even Einstein said that *G*O*D* does not play dice.  I'm at that place now of a clearer understanding and If I can at least cause you to contemplate other possibilities, maybe you can join the relative few of us who are trying to get off this karmic merry-go-round.  Let me buy you a Coke and teach you to sing in perfect harmony, metaphysically-speaking.

But this takes time.  I spent about 10-15 years transitioning from Xianity to...er...OTHER.  It's not easy and I still am haunted by the past, by all the regret.  And I still find myself, like Michael Corleone in Godfather III, getting pulled back in.  It requires constant vigilance on my part to keep myself on the straight and narrow.  But I am hopping and skipping down that road now.  I guess what I'm saying is...we need to be off to see the wizard.  Hope that clears everything up.

Next time I'll talk about why, Rodney King, no...we cannot all get along.  At least not yet.

Selah

Tomorrow is Another Gay

If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.  Oscar Wilde.

Hello, Sailors.  Herein is part two of our current lesson on Homosexuality and You.  Now pay attention class and you kids sniggering there in the back of the room better straighten up or you'll stay after school watching Brokeback Mountain in the A/V Lab with the Home Economics teacher Mr Filbert, who, as you all know, is fruitier than Carmen Miranda's headgear.  We're going to have an adult, mature, reasonable, rational, logical discussion about men packing each others' luggage and about women drinking the nectar from each others' rose petals.  There may or may not be a quiz later.

Now...in our last bloggage, we opined that homosexuality, as it makes no sense considering the agreed upon operating system of boy meets girl and therefore becoming fruitful and multiplying, must have some other rational explanation rather than the conservative religious right-wingnut view that gays and lesbians are all dirty degenerates.  Even the whole "parents of children must be husband and mother" view does not hold water, as studies have shown.  In fact, there is evidence that children raised by husband and husband or mother and mother are more well adjusted than children raised by what many consider to be the best (and only) option.  And as I advised last episode, and as you yourself can observe, some men DO have valid romantic sexual attraction (even tho they can't engage in textbook sexual intercourse) for other men and some wimmin do have a burning desire to get under the undergarments of other wimmin.  This Truth shouldn't exist as the real reason for romantic attraction is so people will mate with each other and therefore continue the species.  Right?

And so we are left to ponder:  What th' fudge is going on 'ere?!?!

Well, let's look at the logical reasons why a man would want (or need) to shack up with another man or why a woman would want to be bosom buddies (pun intended) with another member of that distaff race.  While it is a sentimental idea that there is a woman out there for every man and vicey versy, unfortunately like many sentimental ideas, it is an idea that is several stupid shades of wrong.  Most sources I culled info from give women the population advantage roughly 52 % to men's 48%.  So no...there is not exactly seven brides for seven brothers here.  If we tried to pair each woman to a man (of age of consent) then there would be a significant number of women in their prom dresses still sitting forlorn over there against the wall.  What are we supposed to tell these females...get thee to a nunnery? 

And then you factor in all the factors that go into men and women being attracted to each other in the "normal" sense and we can clearly see that...no...everybody is not destined to find somebody to love that is of the opposite gender.  That's a nice thought, but it's rubbish.  It's something you say to someone who is just this side of being better looking than John Merrick to make them still have hope.  If you don't know who John Merrick is, google him, and remember, Google never forgets. 

Grace Slick sang, "Don't you want somebody to love?"  Why of course you do...and orgasms are part of reinforcing that relationship with your significant (or insignificant) other.  When you shop for groceries...if they are out of the russet potatoes, you either go without...or you pick up a bag of yukon golds.  So in terms of a person finding a soul, and bed, mate...hooking up with someone of the same gender makes sense, out of sheer necessity, which is not necessarily the biological mother of invention. 

Now a conservative would say this is wrong, morally and ethically, not just biologically.  Which is not a surprise.  The term "conservative" itself describes someone who does not like change.  They even fear it.  There is NO change they can believe in.  A leopard cannot change its spots...but a human apparently can change it's sexual orientation.  And a leopard, in theory, can change into something else entirely.

Which brings up my next topic.  Homosexuality as a choice...or as a new biological paradigm.  (It does not need to be one or the other, we're employing complex, lateral thinking here.)   In a previous blog I off-the-cuff suggested that homosexuals are mutants.  Now heterosexual is a descriptive term, not very scientific.  We as humans are homo sapiens.  That's a Latin term, so we know science is involved here, the italics also help.  That's a legitimate label.  It means "wise or rational man."  Why we still refer to Rush Limbaugh as belonging to homo sapiens, I'm not sure.

Now...in the Marvel Comics' X-Men comic books, movies, etc, mutants are these "people" who are born with superpowers or at least some pronounced difference to humanity.  Stan Lee was a genius to create the concept of mutants as a way to explain a bunch of superpowered superheroes.  I mean, high-school nerds can only be bitten by so many radioactive spiders or be genius enough to create armored super-suits or be born on another planet, etc.  Not all of us can be expected to be "fortunate" enough to have our parents gunned down in front of us when we were nine years old and then spend the rest of our life scaring the fertilizer out of criminals.  In those funny books, these mutants are referred to as homo superior, or "better than regular old generic man." 

You may see where I am going with this, and I hinted at this last blog, so let's talk about the theory of evolution for a bit here.  Evolution is a theory, not a law, although it explains a lot.  Evolution does NOT prove the non existence of an intelligent designer.  It is perfectly reasonable, atheists and literal-minded Xians, to entertain the possibility that instead of creating all the flora and fauna over a two-three day period and being content with the creation...that the intelligent designer has been fiddling around with creation over the eons.  That creation is not a bronze sculpture, but an erector set and is mutable and changeable.  The idea that an organism's DNA can mutate on purpose based on environmental factors takes as much faith as the intelligent designer idea.  Of course the writers of the book of Genesis (which was not Moses, we've found that out) were retelling the myths and legends, the cultural traditions, of their people and these allegorical, metaphorical stories about woman being created from Adam's rib and Noah's flood and all that stuff was never meant to be taken literally.  Creationism is like someone going around trying to dig up Paul Bunyan's skeleton.

But we do know that DNA does mutate.  You're mutating as you read this.  Don't get squigged out on me.  The usual mutations to DNA are so subtle as it continually unknits and puts itself back together that they don't make, usually, any impact upon your genes.  But sometimes they do.  And it is reasonable to entertain the possibility (remember, we're building a mystery here...not trying to carve this in adamantium) that some mutations resulted in a dominant species that was better at adapting to it's circumstances than its ancestor species was and we now have only the dominant species or at least breed of a certain animal.  WE are the result of the Neanderthals being nearly wiped out by Cro-magnons, but both types of pre-humans are mutations from the common ancestors, those damn, dirty apes.

I say nearly wiped out, because we still have Neanderthals.  They're somewhere making their "Obama = Hitler" signs right now.  But in theory, one type of organism wins out over the other similar type of organism and the "best man wins."  And that's why we now have koalas, ferrets, narwhals, pygmy marmosets and a few straggling republicans that are on their way to extinction, as they are unable to adapt to a changing world.  The word "Dodos" comes to mind.

And the need for a species to adapt to their environment may be why we have homosexuals.  Or...shall we say homo sexualis, "naughty men," instead?  Seriously folks...maybe "humans who are able to adapt their sexual orientation" is a new mutation and we are evolving to be able to adapt our sexual orientation at will, although the biological status quo suggests it should be impossible?  Homo sexualis would be the best of both worlds, yes?  Everybody would be able to enjoy a partnership with a sexual partner, redefining what sexual intercourse is, and still be able to mate with someone of the opposite sex for the purpose of procreation, if/when necessary.  Is it, f'rinstance, due to the seemingly current overpopulation of the planet, that we are adapting to become sexually fulfilled while not having the desire to procreate, because there's just too damn many of us?  Are homosexuals firing blanks because our survival is threatened?  Is this a sign that we should become vegetable and subtract, rather than be fruitful and multiply, because we are trying to seat twelve when this table only serves eight?

Also, think about this:  when's the last time you met a stupid homosexual?  These people, consistently, are the most creative, inventive and frankly with it people alive today.  TV, movies and all the other media are saturated with gays and lesbians.  These people are, at best, only 20% of the world's population, yet their impact on the world is immense.  Face it...these people ARE better than homo sapiens in many ways.  And when you plug in there the folks who are bi-sexual (having your cupcakes and eating them, too) and transgenderism and all the other 31 flavors of sexual orientation you don't get a much higher percentage.  Also, think of this:  surely the number of homosexuals in the world is not consistent going back in history.  I mean, the percentage of us who are going gay appears to be growing.  We may be one day referring to heterosexuals as the ones coming out of the closet instead.

Oh yes, we've had historically going back thousands of years evidence of folks batting for the other team, but there is also evidence that, f'rinstance, Spartan warriors having sex with other male warriors was part of a martial (not marital) bonding process, especially when a superior would command a new recruit to grab his ankles, and may be part of a cultural phenomenon rather than just two males telling each other that they "complete" each other.  We also have the example of an older male in Greece taking a younger male as his student/pupil and then pleasuring each other due to their bond.  Oscar Wilde used this example to defend his lifestyle, the people in charge didn't buy it, and they sentenced him to hard labor for two years.  His humorous sayings couldn't save him because the establishment were even more serious about maintaining the status quo.  The conservatives made an example of him.  We haven't come a long way, baby.

No, I am convinced that the number of homosexuals in the world is growing.  And whether it is a conscious decision or it's how you were made, it shows a genetic adaptability that reveals that we as humans may well be the paragon of animals, even if dolphins may be wiser than us.  And I say that making it a "lifestyle choice" and being born gay can be equated because being able to choose homosexuality means you are able to override the Law o' the Birds 'n' the Bees.  Which we may have to rewrite to be the Law of the Birds and the Bees and also the Birds.

So, love the one you're with, even if they look anatomically similar to yourself.  There's not only no shame in this...but you should be blowing raspberries at the folks still doing it the old-fashioned way.  This is why, if I am having a meal with some of you homosexuals and I appear uncomfortable, it is not because I am homophobic, it is because I am in AWE of you, much the way I gape and stare at sharks in an aquarium or a white tiger at the zoo. 

Selah

How Bout Dem Gayboys!

“The homosexual community wants me to be gay. The heterosexual community wants me to be straight. Every [writer] thinks, 'I'm the journalist who's going to make him talk.' I pray for them. I pray that they get a life and stop living mine!”  Ricky Martin (Before he came out.)


Good Morning, Vietnam.  Now I know a buncha you Xians out there are no doubt tired of my persistence in raking your belief system over the coals.  All must be tried in the fiery furnace.  My reasons for doing so are multiform.  For one, several of you who are my Facebook friends, although I may now be hiding your toxic posts, also avow to be Xians.  It is due to the Woohoo I bear in my heart for you that I seek to alert you to your paradoxes.  Also, as a former Xian, I know my contentment NOW versus my contentment then is "beyond belief" and I want to at least open in your mind the possibility that the reason you are an Xian and content to be one is most likely due to you were trained to be one and you've surrounded yourself with others who also share your beliefs and the joy and love you feel may be no more than social contentment.  If you are truly spiritually content and you are not a hypocrite (1) you should get a federal grant so you can teach other Xians your secret and (2)  then more grace unto you and your household.

Another reason to pull Xianity's pants down around its ankles is to show more generally that if you pick any belief system apart you won't have anything left.  It's like unraveling a sweater; you go far enough and there is no sweater.  Here is an axiom, free of charge, for you to file away and never forget:  No one belief system is true except Truth, and Truth is beyond belief.  All valid belief systems give us the means to arrive at Truth.  Hence all belief systems, yes, even maybe Scientology, are true.  We're talking about understanding the Mystery here...not trying to come up with a Solution.

Xianity is a belief system borne in the Semitic/Greco-Roman world and its theologicall raisons d'etre , especially that a solar deity was born of a virgin, was killed/murdered/sacrificed and then resurrected into godhood, are not new.  This is not news, even though you could call it Good News.  It has parallels with many other belief systems much older than it.  In fact, it is fair to say that the founders of Xianity plagiarized other belief systems, especially Zoroastrianism.  It is the Microsoft of belief systems, it did what other religious traditions were already doing, it just made it more easier to use...and also bullied other competitors into near oblivion.  


The crux of my past blogs regarding Xianity and You can be summed up in this:  If you do not have the love of Jesus love of Jesus love of Jesus down in your heart down in your heart...you have to ax yourself:  "Is the problem Me, or is it my belief system?"  For me...Xianity taught me to be prejudiced against others, especially black people, not that they were also precious in Jesus' sight.

Today we have a political movement called the Tea Party borne out solely from the trauma caused to white people by the election of a Black president.  They call him a socialist/Marxist, even though they have little idea what those political ideas mean and lump them together as if they were peas in a pod, they call him anything except what he is.  Xianity taught this to me, it was part of my culture to be prejudiced against my fellow man, instead of having love in my heart for my fellow man.  And if you're an Xian and you do NOT have love in your heart for your fellow man, then you're not actually an Xian.  And please spare this author the "judge not lest ye be judged" stuff.  Read Yahweh's Instruction Manual for yourself, lest ye be verily surprised when thou art flung into yon burning lake of fire.  I've taken the beam out of my eye, now I'm trying to tell you about the mote in yours.  Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.  Having come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as sin, here comes a stone at you low and inside. 


Speaking of having love for your fellow man...HOW BOUT DEM GAYBOYS!?!


Homosexuals have always fascinated me.  When I was an Xian, my fascination was due to being instructed that homosexuals were no-good, degenerate perverts who were 24/7 in rebellion against the will o' Yahweh...or at best, mentally ill.  Tea Party backed Christine O'Donnell, candidate for Senator for Delaware has for years claimed that you could cure someone of homosexuality.  And, oh I love irony...she has a lesbian sister.    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/17/christine-odonnell-sister-lesbian  The universe has a wicked sense of humor.  A former staffer of Mrs O'Donnell's who she claimed was cured of homosexuality has since come back out of the closet.  His emails and phone calls are not being responded to by Mrs. O'Donnell.  Which is just rude.


NOW...having gotten my head straight about humanity and that we're all in this thing together, homosexuality still fascinates me for different reasons.

(I can see this is going to have to be a two-part blog.)  Let me go ahead and address this whole "homophobia" thing.  That means "Fear of Homosexuals."  Now let's compare that to say...well, say for example that you're a certain homicidal archaeologist who has the same respect for women that James Bond has who likes stapling your fedora to your head...then you have Ophidiophobia.  This means when you see a snake, you are probably going to stammer and have sweat bead up on your forehead and stare out into the distance while saying "snakes, why did it have to be snakes."  NOW...is this the reaction that gay folks receive by those who are uncomfortable around them?  Not quite, is it?  I have perceived in others, and myself, a general awkwardness around them.  Which I still have to some extent.  But this is now due to my perception of homosexuals being so different from heterosexuals, which obviously they are.  If heterosexuals are square pegs, homosexuals are round holes.  If heterosexuals are AC, homosexuals are DC.  If heterosexuals are Bobby Riggs, then homosexuals are Billie Jean King.  You get the idea, eh?

You see...homosexuality shouldn't exist.  A pat "not that there isn't anything wrong with that" approach like shown in Seinfield episodes isn't really dealing with the issue, which is why we still have not yet witnessed heterosexuals and homosexuals shaking hands and agreeing to move on.

You see there IS something wrong with homosexuality.  I'm not talking morally, ethically, etc.  I mean it should be impossible.  A man and a woman are attracted to each other based on a number of levels.  A great quantity of those levels and factors are hormonal, are due to pheromones, etc...but THE reason, in the pure end of the examination of this phenomenon is that a man and a woman are attracted to each other romantically to procreate.  Yes, making the beast with two backs is fun and nature put pleasure into the process otherwise...well, let's face it...between the messy fluids and the sheer Lovecraftian nature of the body parts involved...if we didn't get physical pleasure out of it...the sex drive itself might not be enough to compel us to get busy.

(Another reason orgasms in general are so desired is that it is at the moment of orgasm that our fucking monkey/reptile brains shut the hell up for a moment and we can achieve a brief bit of clarity in our consciousness.  More on this in a later friggin' post.)

The sex drive is the drive to pass on our genetic material on to the next generation and romantic love is part of the process for us humans, although studies show that monogamy may be an exception in the Western World (here's where you'll count up all your sexual partners.  Don't put notches in the bed post if you currently have a sexual partner), and that the reason why people do tend to have more than one sexual partner in a lifetime is that we want to spread around our genetic material.  And I'm not just talking about us randy guys here.  It takes two to make a taco.

But that's really the point.  Men and women seek each other out with the main objective being to make little versions of themselves.  That means men and women as they alone are equipped to get jiggy with it and make babies.  This also means...homosexuals can't actually have sex.  Oh yes, they can manipulate...sometimes with the help of naughty equipment...the sexual organs (which is the entire body) to achieve orgasm...but they cannot have sexual intercourse.  They cannot mate.  They are firing blanks.

When Bill Clinton said he did not have sex with that woman, he wasn't committing perjury.  Still, you gotta admit, Wild Bill had a lot of spunk.  (pun intended)

But clearly...homosexuals DO have romantic attraction toward people of the same gender.  They
DO have love and Woohoo for each other the way a mating pair of humans do.  And they want to go to the chapel and they want to get a-married.  They engage with each other in every respect like a male and female combo do, except they can't actually have sexual intercourse.  The question is WHY?  Because it doesn't actually make sense.  What's the point of trying to write the great Uhmurkan love story if there's no lead in your pencil?

So clearly the sex drive to procreate, the hormonal and pheromonal factors that are part of that process are either being overrode by something else or there is something other-than-else going on here.  There must be a change to the paradigm.  But this Truth, that homosexuality, upon examination, defies the whole boy meets girl operating system, is why the conservatives find it so easy to condemn homosexuals as being perverts or mentally ill.  Again, there (appears) to be no logical explanation for homosexuality.  Getting to the bottom (no pun intended) (snicker) of why a man can LOVE a man and why a woman can LOVE a woman will allow us to be able to reach a greater understanding of the human experience (are you experienced?...I am).  There must be a logical explanation to this phenomenon other than the conservative view that homosexuals are perverts or mentally ill.  I believe there is, and this is why homosexuals fascinate me and...in truth...I'm a bit jealous.

My own theory is that homosexuals are the next evolutionary improvement upon humans.  And in my next blog, I'll examine that theory.  Now excuse me while I go kiss the sky.

Selah.

Turn on the Light FM of the Soul

You know, we all have our inner demons. I, for one - I can't speak for you, but I'm on the verge of moral collapse at any time. It can happen by the end of the show.
Glenn Beck

Hello pilgrims.  Y'know, when I decided to do this blog, it was to spare folks from my pesky habit of actually referring folks to what THE HOLEE BIBLE says about the requirements one has to meet to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.  I did this on Facebook a lot, which is a place people go to participate in fun things and "socially connect."  Talking about these heavy subjects was bumming folks out, they have busy lives and shoot, they need another bag of seed for their Farmville(tm).  Now, if you're reading this, you've actually had to come here, into my lair.

Facebook is a great communication tool, but like most of the technology we have that allows mass communication, it's not spent very wisely in terms of actually bettering our lives.  Not only that, the interwebs, etc is a great source of misinformation and is vast enough that if you believe that aliens taught the Ancient Egyptians how to build pyramids and that George Bush, Sr is actually a shape-shifting lizardman, why you can find that dank corner of  the interwebs and have your ideology buttressed by other tin-foil hat wearing believers.  We don't appear to be using these communication tools well and one of the problems is...y'know...hey...nobody wants to talk about these important issues like...oh...say...I dunno...religion and politics...except to just solidify their bias and prejudices. 


But it turns out that these two topics are where most of our human activity is connected to.  Religion is how our minds (the invisible being we actually are) can connect with reality on all it's levels, not just the superficial one of physical reality.  Religion helps us see the big picture of what it means to be expressions of consciousness.  Which necessarily include gods and their roles in this thing called life.  Politics is about running our civilizations and whether you're a citizen of the greatest nation on Earth (Luxembourg) or Amazonian indians going commando and sleeping rough and eating grubs for breakfast, you're gonna have politics.  It's what keeps the trains running on time.  Even if you don't have trains.  Or wheels.  Or underwear.


What the Republican party has so cunningly done is wed religion and politics together so that millions of hapless, clueless and increasingly ethicless Christians have been conned into thinking that Jesus dying for their sins has bushwhack to do with who to vote for in the coming election.  It doesn't.  Not a jot.  Render unto Caesar Romero what belongs to Caesar Romero and render unto Yahweh what belongs to Yahweh.  (Note I use "Yahweh" instead of "God."  That's a big part of the problem.  Xianity pretends Yahweh is the only god around, and Xianity has done a cracking job the past several centuries relegating anybody elses' gods to the realm of "just" myth and legend, etc.  Or "deceptions by the devil."  I'll have more on this later where I discuss one reason so many Xians seem out of touch with the very god they claim they serve is because Yahweh is a Middle-Eastern god and most Xians in Uhmurkah come from Europe or Africa or Central/South America.)

Yahweh is a jealous god and he doesn't want any gods before him.  Or after him.  He wants a monopoly.  He's the Wal*Mart of deities.


So...I expect and have expected some folks to respond to some of the things I've posted on Facebook and on this blog with some defensive, frothing-at-the-mouth blather, but I wasn't expecting to be told to "Lighten Up."  Heck.  You're right.  We're only talking about peoples' immortal souls here...what's the point, right?  No biggie.  Let's just hang out. 


Fascinating.  Let's all hit the bongs and call the whole thing off, eh?  Let's twist again like we did last summer.


I've noticed that the right wing conservatives have a hard time responding to direct questions or truths regarding their positions.  All the folks who call Obama a Fascist/Socialist, when asked WHY they think that or when you ask them to point to a particular thing he's said or did that caused them to come to that conclusion, they hem and haw and when their brains begin to shut down, they tell you you're part of the Leftist Alliance and a traitor and that if this is a diplomatic mission to Alderaan, where are the fucking ambassadors?  So to speak.


Shoot, Sarah Palin almost fainted when someone asked her what newspapers and/or magazines she reads.  The answer is she doesn't read or expose herself to anything that doesn't reinforce her poisonous worldview and when the media shows video clips of her speaking or quotes some of her tweets she complains about the media making stuff up.  This woman wants to be the high priest of an Uhmurkah that is a Theocracy where you all will be subject to worship how she and Glenn Beck please.  Everybody wants to rule the world.


Such people live in a hermetically sealed bubble and facts and truths have a very hard time penetrating.  Especially when you've been conned into connecting your religion with your whole identity as a person, and you have been taught that this makes you better than everyone else.  It's even worse when you've been conned into believing that America and Christianity is somehow tied together.  Why do folks in the Eastern Hemisphere and elsewhere burn the Uhmurkan flag?  Because we have worked hard to earn the title, THE GREAT SATAN.


You know what evangelism is?  Evangelism is a practice in which you want others to think the same way you do to reinforce your own opinions, however toxic they are.  Because if you're surrounded by other lemmings who think the same way you do, why would you question your ideology?  And Xianity has done a good job making sure each successive generation is conditioned and with the program until many Xians now believe America was created as a summer camp for Christians and that it's okay to bomb brown people in the Eastern Hemisphere into smithereens...HELL, we did the same thing to the Native Americans and that worked out great!

Another fascinating thing is the "New World" was a place where Christians in Europe were fleeing to to escape persecution, and now the Xians in Uhmurkah want to do the same thing to religions they don't like.  The Puritans left Europe not necessarily because they were being persecuted...but because they weren't the ones doing the persecuting.

Some Christians have been able to escape this.  A church in Florida recently had a service in which Hebrew, Christian and Muslim religious texts were all read in a show of solidarity for people of Abrahamic faith, regardless of their interpretation of the expression(s) of the Yahweh/Allah/Jesus godhead.  Children were shown several different kinds of flowers of different colors and shapes...but they're all flowers...to demonstrate the variety of faiths that are out there.  To celebrate diversity in that we have a bouquet of religions to pick from, not just one type.  A church in the Memphis, Tennessee (yes, that Tennessee) area has welcomed a mosque that is being built right next door.  The church even let these terrorist heathens use their space for Ramadan-a-Ding-Dong prayers.  The pastor of the church admitted feeling fear originally, but recognized that as an emotional, not a rational, response and so reached out and really implemented that whole "Love Thy Neighbor" thing that other Xians have such a hard time dealing with.  Now the Christians and next door's Muslims are like peas and carrots and have taken to calling each other "brother and sister."

Dogs and cats will be sleeping together next and I hear the Hatfields and the McCoys are planning a clambake in which Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann will be the guests of honor where they will sing "Ebony and Ivory" together while Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno go from table to table asking if you'd like your Bell jar refilled with moonshine.


The good news is the wailing and gnashing of teeth coming from conservative Xians is the death rattle of Christendom and their fear of Islam, Black People, social equality and justice and civil rights for everybody including the gays, reveals their faith is as thin as Shelly Duvall after a long aerobics session and if they allowed themselves to ponder this for a minute a little bit of light might get in.  Instead, they attack the messenger instead of being able to respond to the message or just say "lighten up."  A lot of Xians are scared.  And they have a right to be.  There's a lot of bad karma built up that is ready to give them a wedgie for all eternity.


I say, let there be light.  Fiat lux, awready.  Multitudes, multitudes in the basement without a flashlight, who will give batteries unto these my chillen?


Next episode, I promise, we'll have a gay old time.


Selah
 

Lucas' New Testament

Although I write screenplays, I don't think I'm a very good writer.
George Lucas

Whaddaya mean "Greedo damn well shot first,"  everybody knows Han Solo shot first!

No...Lucas changed his story.  And Star Wars is his story.  If he wants to change it, then he can.  He sorta kinda regretted it later, even showing up in public once with a "Han Shot First" T-Shirt.  Lucas' motivation for having Greedo shoot first...wait a minnit.

Alla you have seen the original 3 Star Wars movies right?  The theatrical releases?  If you haven't then imagine in capital red letters in large font the words SPOILER WARNING flashing on and off for the remainder of this blog.

Now where were we...oh yeah.  Lucas wanted Han to shoot in self-defense, not to be the first one.  He wanted Han to be more heroic earlier in the movie.  Lucas isn't a very good writer, that is true.  He said so.  For example...Han Solo is on the run from Jabba the Hutt, owes him some money big time and is desperate to get a big job that will "really save his neck."  So where does Han Solo go to look for such a job?  Jabba the Hutt's home planet of Tattooine, naturally.  Heck, if I want a restful night's sleep, I always check into the Bates Motel, myself.  Perfect logic, that.

Of course it was "destiny."  The same destiny that allowed the best wizard in all of Middle Earth to just by coink-ee-dink be smoke-ring blowing pals with the very hobbit that found the One Ring.  Serendipity-do.

But what Lucas did in establishing in the original Star Wars that Han would shoot first was to let us know that Han is a scoundrel.  Han is a smuggler.  Now since the word "smuggler" is sorta close to the word "snuggler" which is of course a good thing, let me go right out and say it, or rather let the dictionary do it for me:

–verb (used with object)

1.

to import or export (goods) secretly, in violation of the law, esp. without payment of legal duty.

2.

to bring, take, put, etc., surreptitiously: She smuggled the gun into the jail inside a cake.

–verb (used without object)

3.

to import, export, or convey goods surreptitiously or in violation of the law.

 

Han Solo was a criminal, engaged in illegal activity that would be illegal whether the Empire or the Old Republic were running the show.  In short, Han Solo was the Star Wars Universe equivalent of a Drug Mule.  He wasn't smuggling teddy bears to give to disadvantaged children on Kashyyyk (gesundheit).

 

This is why when Han Solo later sticks his neck out for somebody else, it is dramatic and a game-changer and he then becomes a more likable character, because he redeemed himself from being a no-account smuggler with a bad hair-cut who is only in it for the money.  Or as Lando called him, a pirate.  Sidenote here...if you "pirate" stuff online or elsewhere, that's being a thief.  So there.  But after Han Solo redeemed himself, he was able to go on to other roles like playing Jack Ryan and some homicidal archaeologist whose name escapes me right now.

 

So Han shooting first makes all the sense.  He's not a Caspar Milquetoast.  Lucas further redeems Han by creating a romantic relationship with Her Worshipfulness.  And who could blame him?  I mean that hairstyle and the conspicuous absence of underwear...I feel funny just picturing her.  Having Han and Leia hook up and, according to later canonical Star Wars fiction, make little Jedi Knights who could sneak into the cookie jar without using their hands, was a good decision, because it helps alleviate those rumors that Han and his walking carpet co-pilot sometimes got jiggy with it the cargo bay.  Such rumors dog Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to this day.  Take Lamont Cranston and his "friend and companion" the lovely Margo Lane...we all know they were doing the Shadow Shuffle in their spare time.

But I be digressin'.  So...Lucas changed it.  But yet, to the logical and reasonable among us, that seemed like a poor decision.  So the question is:  can a creator depart from his true faith?  Yep, you guessed it, this is where religion comes in.

 

Because if the original theatrical release of Star Wars where Han shot first is Lucas' Old Testament, then the later editions are the New Testament.  The last 3 "Star Wars" movies, which have as much in common with the original Holy Trilogy as Woody Allen has with Wilt Chamberlain, are the Apocrypha, and aren't considered canon, but are a heck of a read, just for the jaw dropping weirdness of them.

 

Now let's shift our attention to Yahweh.  A male god who rose from being a Semitic God of Sheepherding to being regarded by many people all over the planet as Teh One 'n' Only Livin' GAWD.  Assuming that the Old Testament is Yahweh's word and all the books of it are dictation that was taken down by all the various authors, and we assume the New Testament is also Yahweh's own memoirs, then...Yahweh changed his mind.

 

The question is...Did Han shoot first, I mean...is it "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" or is it Greedo shot first and Han turned his other cheek and ducked the shot (which would have probably just taken Han's eye out anyhow) I mean...is it "turn the other cheek" and "bless your enemies" and alla that?  Well, which is it?  Do you follow the New Testament, which is the Current Contract...or so you go back to the Old Testament?

 

The answer is much the same as with the Star Wars movies...it depends on what your preference is, and you make choices based on your prejudices and circumstances.  Which is of course silly, isn't it? I mean...where movies are concerned, we can do that, yeah?  But where your immortal soul is concerned, shouldn't you make sure that your focus is on the New Covenant?  Makes sense, right?

 

Except that is not how the game is played right now.  F'rinstance.  Jesus said to sell all you have and give it to the poor.  Now I'm not about to do that and I don't suggest you do it.  Jesus himself, when a woman used expensive ointment on Jesus, rebuked Judas when he protested by saying that you'll always have the poor.  (This is an example as why there are so many Xian denominations...whatever you want to do, hey, you'll find a scriptural reference to back it up.)  The early Xians practiced the redistribution of wealth as well, a concept which most Xians in Uhmurkah find as likable as Adult Bookstores.  So how come most Xians today are very interested in wealth, materialism and regularly say that it was the Lord's will they get a certain job, or have their home, etc?

 

I mean, exactly where in the New Testament did Jesus promise you a rose garden?  He said that Yahweh would make sure you had food, clothing and shelter, but he never promised you filet mignon, $100 tennis shoes and a 4 bed/3 bath house in a choice gated community.  He never mentioned PS3's and iPhones and vacations in the Caribbean, that's for sure.

So why do so many Xians in Uhmurkah not only aspire to such things, but actually believe it is their Lord's will that they have those things?  Because in Uhmurkah, after World War the Sequel, we had a middle class in this country that began to be more prosperous and industry counted on these Xians buying all these products and stuff that they really didn't need, things that were marketed to them as things that would change their lives for the better.  Materialism and carnality and an obsession with status and wealth became the new paradigm.  How to do you reconcile this concept with the New Testament's direction to live simply and share your wealth with others so that nobody has to go without and so nobody has more wealth than anyone else? 

 

How do you have Capitalism when Jesus was clearly a Socialist?

The answer is you go back to the original theatrical release...I mean, the Old Covenant and you find in the Psalms and in some of the writings of the prophets verses about how Yahweh will bless you and enrich you if you tithe and live according to his will.  Here's one among many such passages:

"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the LORD of hosts."(Malachi 3:10-12)

 

Now this is obviously 180 degrees from what Jesus said.  And Jesus came to give you the NEW covenant with Yahweh.  And to be an Xian, you have to believe that Jesus is Yahweh in his fullness, that Jesus IS Yahweh, that he is Lord of all Creation and the New Testament is the New Rules.

 

But these passages are what has allowed the Xian church and its storytellers...the preachers and religious leaders...to transform Sunday Mornings into How to Get Rich Seminars.  Jesus will bless you in your circumstances and make you wealthy and healthy?  If you want to believe that, then please don't read any of those sections of the New Testament where Jesus says the opposite...and your church is helping because they never talk about those passages anymore either.

For me and mine house...Han Solo shot first, even if the creator changed his mind, yea verily.

 

Next Vigilantius Time, Next Vigilantius Channel, we may talk about homosexuals and why you should envy them, even if they are mutants.

 

Selah