FLIRTING WITH DISASTER
I’m out of safe Washington waters and swimming near the edge in Idaho, Coeur d’Alene, and I don’t feel safe. Rightly or wrongly, I sense I’m in the sort of place where gays get tied to fences and beaten to death, where blacks are dragged to death behind cars, where self-appointed militias plot to kill those who protect the Constitution, where schemes are hatched to bomb government buildings, where the religion of the majority is forced on the minority, and where Paul Hills shoot doctors whose practices they don’t agree with and union men are dragged from jails and lynched. Only three of these actually happened in Idaho and one was decades ago. Do you know which three it is?
Idaho, land of Reverend Butler, skinheads and a strong religeo/conservative business movement which owns the state and the worker. History suggests, these are the kinds of places where, if the Churchly were given free reign in a Constitutionless time, Inquisitions would be formed up and anyone who didn’t toe the Church line would be pressed under stones or imprisoned. Free speech would be silenced unless it met certain Churchly codes.
Now, of course, many of my fears are groundless—yet (these things have been done by the religious right in other places)—and my fear has got me by the balls, and I’m reading Synaptic Self which discusses all these fear reactions I suffer with and which should allay my fears, but I’m a liberal in a strange Idaho landscape, and I am faced with black and white thinkers, and the fact is pretty well proven that black and white thinkers are rigid and authoritarian types, Taliban types, who are quite able to blow up or murder those with whom they don’t agree. And this is the town whose news rag has censored my input in the form of letters to the editor. They won’t even accept them.
BETTER THINK TWICE
Saw an intriguing license plate holder today:
“World’s Greatest Husband!” across the top
and beneath, “Just Ask My Wife.”
The first thing I’d be asking that woman is how many times she’s been married so that she can make those kinds of comparisons.
WE’RE TALKING OBSERVED CHEMICAL PHENOMENA, HERE, NOT GUESS WORK
“As long as the degree of emotional arousal is moderate during memory formation, memory is strengthened. But if arousal is strong, especially if it is highly stressful, memory is often impaired.... stress impairs explicit memory by altering the functioning of the hippocampus.” p. 223.
Discussing racial biases: “Given that negative attitudes and biases have their strongest effects on behavior when they are unconscious, and thus cannot be guarded against and compensated for, should researchers inform subjects of these biases?” p.221
“Humans with orbital cortex damage become oblivious to social and emotional cues, have poor decision-making abilities, and some exhibit sociopathic behavior.” p.227
The three passages are from Synaptic Self by Joseph LeDoux, Penguin Books (2003).
Like it or not, we humans are damn near robots. That’s the next fact that those who live in fear of knowledge won‘t be able to accept about reality. They’re still fighting facts like evolution which were long ago settled by the scientists who should know and who can demonstrate the evidence and interpret it meaningfully.
"In some parts of the world, people still pray in the streets. In this country, they're called pedestrians." —Gloria Pitzer
Friday, April 30, 2004
Thursday, April 29, 2004
AN OXFORD SCHOLAR DREAMS THE U.S.
Two thousand four, reading—a sunny morning at Hammer’s coffee house in downtown Spokane with gusty wind rearranging the city trash. Then come scattered clouds as The Canterbury Tales ghost through my thoughts after all these years, and I tumble seven centuries into the agrarian past.
I first read The Tales in 1963 or 1964 at the University of Dayton in Geoffrey Chaucer’s original middle-English with help from a heavily footnoted text. To read them like that allowed me to experience the guttural, Frenchified sound of an early form of what became, eventually, our American language. Much later, I added a course in Old English and experienced an even earlier form of English. I’ve read the original King James version of the Bible too, and Shakespeare. Throw in a little French, Russian and Spanish and...? Ah, well, too bad I could never use them in insular America. If only I had reason to use them, become proficient in them and keep them current, but....
“There was also an Oxford student, one
Whose logic studies long since had begun....
Of highest moral virtue was his speech,
And gladly would he learn and gladly teach.”
With a twinge I read “gladly would he learn and gladly teach” and meet a ghost of myself long abandoned and remember how I used to repeat that line to others and feel the virtuous calling call me toward an idealistic and better self. So warmly I dreamed! I dreamed the whole scene on a lonely 1964 road to Southern Illinois University one night as I stood under stars that filled the rural sky while my wife and child slept peacefully in the car. We were on our way to take up my first teaching assistantship. But nothing was as it was supposed to be and everything became more real than I could have imagined and, then, the early self I knew died as the hobo America of the Great Depression of my dreams crumbled about my ears to be replaced by Vietnam and left me beside the railroad track while the lonesome whistle wailed.
THE CHARACTER OF MERCHANT NEVER CHANGES
In Chaucer’s poetry, you can see the influence of genetic types going way back as you recognize the man (woman) who is, was and ever shall be “the merchant”:
“He spoke with pomp on everything he thought,
And boasted of the earnings he’d collected.
He felt the trade route had to be protected
Twixt Middleburgh and Orwell by the sea.
He speculated in French currency.
He used his wits so well, with such finesse,
That no one guessed the man’s indebtedness,
So dignified he was at managing
All of his bargains and his borrowing.
He was a worthy fellow all the same;
To tell the truth, I do not know his name.”
Anonymity’s dead in America,
Given our Trumps, Lays and Stewarts, Martha.
“Reading the book is like waiting for the first shoe to drop.” —Ralph Novak
(Dear reader, I should admit that all these quotes at the ends of daily posts come from the book, The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said, compiled and collected by Robert Byrne.)
Two thousand four, reading—a sunny morning at Hammer’s coffee house in downtown Spokane with gusty wind rearranging the city trash. Then come scattered clouds as The Canterbury Tales ghost through my thoughts after all these years, and I tumble seven centuries into the agrarian past.
I first read The Tales in 1963 or 1964 at the University of Dayton in Geoffrey Chaucer’s original middle-English with help from a heavily footnoted text. To read them like that allowed me to experience the guttural, Frenchified sound of an early form of what became, eventually, our American language. Much later, I added a course in Old English and experienced an even earlier form of English. I’ve read the original King James version of the Bible too, and Shakespeare. Throw in a little French, Russian and Spanish and...? Ah, well, too bad I could never use them in insular America. If only I had reason to use them, become proficient in them and keep them current, but....
“There was also an Oxford student, one
Whose logic studies long since had begun....
Of highest moral virtue was his speech,
And gladly would he learn and gladly teach.”
With a twinge I read “gladly would he learn and gladly teach” and meet a ghost of myself long abandoned and remember how I used to repeat that line to others and feel the virtuous calling call me toward an idealistic and better self. So warmly I dreamed! I dreamed the whole scene on a lonely 1964 road to Southern Illinois University one night as I stood under stars that filled the rural sky while my wife and child slept peacefully in the car. We were on our way to take up my first teaching assistantship. But nothing was as it was supposed to be and everything became more real than I could have imagined and, then, the early self I knew died as the hobo America of the Great Depression of my dreams crumbled about my ears to be replaced by Vietnam and left me beside the railroad track while the lonesome whistle wailed.
THE CHARACTER OF MERCHANT NEVER CHANGES
In Chaucer’s poetry, you can see the influence of genetic types going way back as you recognize the man (woman) who is, was and ever shall be “the merchant”:
“He spoke with pomp on everything he thought,
And boasted of the earnings he’d collected.
He felt the trade route had to be protected
Twixt Middleburgh and Orwell by the sea.
He speculated in French currency.
He used his wits so well, with such finesse,
That no one guessed the man’s indebtedness,
So dignified he was at managing
All of his bargains and his borrowing.
He was a worthy fellow all the same;
To tell the truth, I do not know his name.”
Anonymity’s dead in America,
Given our Trumps, Lays and Stewarts, Martha.
“Reading the book is like waiting for the first shoe to drop.” —Ralph Novak
(Dear reader, I should admit that all these quotes at the ends of daily posts come from the book, The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said, compiled and collected by Robert Byrne.)
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
DOG EAT GOD WORLD
One of the paradoxes of modern life is that those who are most in the clutches of evolution are those who don’t believe in evolution. Religion is rooted in a fundamentalist's and conservative's animal nature, in the pecking order of chickens and the battles between them for territory, sex and food. Religions express the vertical order of our evolutionary animal world. How often have I heard my conservative friends, when dismissing the needs of the poor, say, “It’s a dog eat dog world.”? The god concept is the dog eat dog instinct translated into consciousness and language. It’s the religionists’ instinctive recognition of a Top Dog. Not only that, their need for an afterlife is a conscious expression of the survival instinct. Fundamentalists reek of the authoritarian structure of evolution.
ATHEISTS DON’T EAT THE DOG GOD
In the April 28, 2004 Newsweek, p. 64, George Will, a noted columnist and apologist for right wing beliefs, asks the question, “Does human nature lend itself to freedom? [If not] our effort to increase individual freedom is an evolutionary oddity, a weak and probably vain effort to equip people with an opportunity some do not want and many will readily sacrifice.” Will will have more hope if he looks into the actions of atheists who have cast off all authority and who are truly free men and women who live within the law because of a respect for the law and whose self worth tells them that they should obey the law so as to treat themselves well and to not become self destructive. Religionists, on the other hand, always seem ready to kowtow to someone or other either because they don’t have the self worth to resist or because all resistance has long ago been driven out of them by the authoritarian nature of church authorities.
A DOG’S DOG BARKS
My daughter, I’m proud to say, many years ago, tried to exercise her personal freedom at Shadle Park High School but was thwarted by the school principal who forced her to say the “flag prayer” or “Pledge of Allegiance” as it could be called before Christians added the “under god” reference to it in 1955 and turned it into a prayer to monotheism. That principal made a liar out of all those “flag prayer’ supporters who claim that no one is required to recite the “flag prayer”, and I’m ashamed I did not do more to support my daughter in her complaint. I should have filed suit against the principal for forcing my daughter to recite the “flag prayer”. We would have won.
DOG-LIKE DOGS
Speaking of a type of authoritarians, like the principal, who want us to walk lockstep in their version of the truth—too many of them are like those pecking order people in the opening section of today’s blog entry or, like Will’s people, only too ready to surrender freedom for a comfortably conformist political order. They are authoritarian types and, thus, control freaks. Many of them display the estimable trait of wanting to help others and so become police officers, military men, nurses, teachers and ministers. Unfortunately, the flip side of wanting to help people can become the practice of controlling them. Helpers are often controllers. "Everything in moderation," a Buddhist might say, "even moderation."
DOG TROT RUTS
Speaking of control freaks—many control freaks are also afraid of getting high because getting high leads to loss of control, but, strange as it may seem, many control freaks also turn to drugs, alcohol or other addictions because they’re wound so tightly they get hooked on things that make them “feel good” or help them unwind. Never trust anyone who lectures too much on drugs; they may be using them now or will be using them in the future, or they may already be hooked on religion, food or sex. Almost every one has some addiction or other. Some are even hooked on their own self-righteousness. They get off on it.
DOG IS AS DOG DOES
Speaking of the control freaks who listen to or head up talk radio shows—how often do you hear these guys speak as if they can read the minds of their fellow Americans? They seem to be experts on motives of the president or some congressman they don’t like. What those guys are usually too ignorant to know is that when they try to guess at someone else’s motive, they are letting us in on themselves and what they are capable of. If you can recognize a trait in someone else, then it’s usually in you too. When I listen to talk radio, I usually end up knowing more about the participants than I learn about the world they’re claiming to know so much about.
DOGGONE ME TOOISM
Let me be brutally honest and say, yes—I am the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to that last failing.
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." —Ralph Hodgson (This was a statement about ESP, but I claim it for the whole world of religious superstition, including the reported resurrection of that dead prophet—if he even existed.)
One of the paradoxes of modern life is that those who are most in the clutches of evolution are those who don’t believe in evolution. Religion is rooted in a fundamentalist's and conservative's animal nature, in the pecking order of chickens and the battles between them for territory, sex and food. Religions express the vertical order of our evolutionary animal world. How often have I heard my conservative friends, when dismissing the needs of the poor, say, “It’s a dog eat dog world.”? The god concept is the dog eat dog instinct translated into consciousness and language. It’s the religionists’ instinctive recognition of a Top Dog. Not only that, their need for an afterlife is a conscious expression of the survival instinct. Fundamentalists reek of the authoritarian structure of evolution.
ATHEISTS DON’T EAT THE DOG GOD
In the April 28, 2004 Newsweek, p. 64, George Will, a noted columnist and apologist for right wing beliefs, asks the question, “Does human nature lend itself to freedom? [If not] our effort to increase individual freedom is an evolutionary oddity, a weak and probably vain effort to equip people with an opportunity some do not want and many will readily sacrifice.” Will will have more hope if he looks into the actions of atheists who have cast off all authority and who are truly free men and women who live within the law because of a respect for the law and whose self worth tells them that they should obey the law so as to treat themselves well and to not become self destructive. Religionists, on the other hand, always seem ready to kowtow to someone or other either because they don’t have the self worth to resist or because all resistance has long ago been driven out of them by the authoritarian nature of church authorities.
A DOG’S DOG BARKS
My daughter, I’m proud to say, many years ago, tried to exercise her personal freedom at Shadle Park High School but was thwarted by the school principal who forced her to say the “flag prayer” or “Pledge of Allegiance” as it could be called before Christians added the “under god” reference to it in 1955 and turned it into a prayer to monotheism. That principal made a liar out of all those “flag prayer’ supporters who claim that no one is required to recite the “flag prayer”, and I’m ashamed I did not do more to support my daughter in her complaint. I should have filed suit against the principal for forcing my daughter to recite the “flag prayer”. We would have won.
DOG-LIKE DOGS
Speaking of a type of authoritarians, like the principal, who want us to walk lockstep in their version of the truth—too many of them are like those pecking order people in the opening section of today’s blog entry or, like Will’s people, only too ready to surrender freedom for a comfortably conformist political order. They are authoritarian types and, thus, control freaks. Many of them display the estimable trait of wanting to help others and so become police officers, military men, nurses, teachers and ministers. Unfortunately, the flip side of wanting to help people can become the practice of controlling them. Helpers are often controllers. "Everything in moderation," a Buddhist might say, "even moderation."
DOG TROT RUTS
Speaking of control freaks—many control freaks are also afraid of getting high because getting high leads to loss of control, but, strange as it may seem, many control freaks also turn to drugs, alcohol or other addictions because they’re wound so tightly they get hooked on things that make them “feel good” or help them unwind. Never trust anyone who lectures too much on drugs; they may be using them now or will be using them in the future, or they may already be hooked on religion, food or sex. Almost every one has some addiction or other. Some are even hooked on their own self-righteousness. They get off on it.
DOG IS AS DOG DOES
Speaking of the control freaks who listen to or head up talk radio shows—how often do you hear these guys speak as if they can read the minds of their fellow Americans? They seem to be experts on motives of the president or some congressman they don’t like. What those guys are usually too ignorant to know is that when they try to guess at someone else’s motive, they are letting us in on themselves and what they are capable of. If you can recognize a trait in someone else, then it’s usually in you too. When I listen to talk radio, I usually end up knowing more about the participants than I learn about the world they’re claiming to know so much about.
DOGGONE ME TOOISM
Let me be brutally honest and say, yes—I am the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to that last failing.
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." —Ralph Hodgson (This was a statement about ESP, but I claim it for the whole world of religious superstition, including the reported resurrection of that dead prophet—if he even existed.)
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
GIVE THE OL’ JOHNSON TO BUSH
One observation remains true over the past hundred years. Liberals are peaceful humans while conservatives, right wingers and fundamentalists are figures of war and rage. Bush’s Iraq war once again shows how single-mindedly men like Bush send young men off to war.
Their hatred for the United Nations, a debating society aimed at negotiating peace, is another proof of how Bushites love to go to war. Bushites have contempt for peaceful people who talk rather than make war; they call peacemakers, the “chattering classes”. They hate to have their passion for war restrained by others in a peaceful way. They’d rather fight than negotiate, and they project their psychological imbalance on others when they say that others “only understand violence”. Actually, Bushites respect only violence. They prove that by resorting to it so frequently.
Their rage, their hatred and love for violence can be heard on their talk radio shows where drug addicts like Limbaugh call the political disagreements in America a war between “good and evil”. Sounding just like their terrorist counterparts in the Moslem world, Bushites dehumanize their enemies by calling them evil. This dehumanizing mental process is a necessary psychological step before eliminating an enemy. Read Mein Kampf to understand that weird irrational leap Hitler made to hate the Jews and see them as less than human. In that book, you will understand the conservative’s irrational hatred for peace-loving liberals. Hitler also hated liberals.
Liberals proved their peaceful natures in that they got rid of Lyndon Johnson because he intensified the Vietnam war, even though Johnson probably did more for the Great Society than any other Democrat and even though their love for peace gave the presidency to Nixon. That was definitely putting peace at the top of their list of priorities.
Bushites tendency for war and conflict is a sign of their inability to fully evolve their human mentality for communication which transcends our animal nature. They are still very much in the sway of their animal “fight or flight” responses. Liberals must continue to try and communicate with the Bushite mind, but we must also realize how dangerous they are and how likely to murder those who disagree with them. Bushites carry in their minds the image of their murderous Old Testament god who has murdered the human race more than once and who murdered his own son, supposedly. They pay lip service to the passion of their Jesus, but they war and murder like the angry god of their Old Testament. If you want to experience a truly peaceful religion, look into Buddhism or into the Quakers.
As for myself, I’ll wait for Bushites to prove their love of Jesus by aligning their actions with his words. If they were truly people of love and peace, following in the footsteps of their reputed savior, the war would be over with the imminent political defeat of Bush, but I don’t think conservatives have the courage that the liberals had in 1968 nor can they muster up a real love of peace.
"Somewhere on this globe every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth to a child. She must be found and stopped." —Sam Levenson (comedian)
One observation remains true over the past hundred years. Liberals are peaceful humans while conservatives, right wingers and fundamentalists are figures of war and rage. Bush’s Iraq war once again shows how single-mindedly men like Bush send young men off to war.
Their hatred for the United Nations, a debating society aimed at negotiating peace, is another proof of how Bushites love to go to war. Bushites have contempt for peaceful people who talk rather than make war; they call peacemakers, the “chattering classes”. They hate to have their passion for war restrained by others in a peaceful way. They’d rather fight than negotiate, and they project their psychological imbalance on others when they say that others “only understand violence”. Actually, Bushites respect only violence. They prove that by resorting to it so frequently.
Their rage, their hatred and love for violence can be heard on their talk radio shows where drug addicts like Limbaugh call the political disagreements in America a war between “good and evil”. Sounding just like their terrorist counterparts in the Moslem world, Bushites dehumanize their enemies by calling them evil. This dehumanizing mental process is a necessary psychological step before eliminating an enemy. Read Mein Kampf to understand that weird irrational leap Hitler made to hate the Jews and see them as less than human. In that book, you will understand the conservative’s irrational hatred for peace-loving liberals. Hitler also hated liberals.
Liberals proved their peaceful natures in that they got rid of Lyndon Johnson because he intensified the Vietnam war, even though Johnson probably did more for the Great Society than any other Democrat and even though their love for peace gave the presidency to Nixon. That was definitely putting peace at the top of their list of priorities.
Bushites tendency for war and conflict is a sign of their inability to fully evolve their human mentality for communication which transcends our animal nature. They are still very much in the sway of their animal “fight or flight” responses. Liberals must continue to try and communicate with the Bushite mind, but we must also realize how dangerous they are and how likely to murder those who disagree with them. Bushites carry in their minds the image of their murderous Old Testament god who has murdered the human race more than once and who murdered his own son, supposedly. They pay lip service to the passion of their Jesus, but they war and murder like the angry god of their Old Testament. If you want to experience a truly peaceful religion, look into Buddhism or into the Quakers.
As for myself, I’ll wait for Bushites to prove their love of Jesus by aligning their actions with his words. If they were truly people of love and peace, following in the footsteps of their reputed savior, the war would be over with the imminent political defeat of Bush, but I don’t think conservatives have the courage that the liberals had in 1968 nor can they muster up a real love of peace.
"Somewhere on this globe every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth to a child. She must be found and stopped." —Sam Levenson (comedian)
Monday, April 26, 2004
GETTING OUT WITH DIGNITY
Iraq is George Bush's mess. His failures are not America's failure or our soldiers' failure, not your or my failures. Iraq is the blunder of a poorly educated and stupid man who did a very stupid thing. A man so stupid should never have become president. We have a choice. If America re-elects him and keeps our troopers in Iraq, then the mess becomes America's mess too. But if we kick the bum out and tell the world that we don't support his stupidity, then America is saved from being blamed for Bush's ignorance. Toss Bush out, turn Iraq over to the UN and get out. Let's be right on this one.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." —Albert Einstein
ERASING THAT DAMN LOVE AFFAIR
Many movie buffs have probably seen Jim Cary's “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and wondered “What the hey?” I’ve talked with more than one person who responded like that. But, guess what? I think I’ve discovered the exact book passage which gave the writer his idea for the movie and, maybe, I’ve even tracked down a phone call he made to check his facts with the scientist/author who wrote the book. All of this is, of course, just a surmise on my part. I’m not a detective nor a psychic, but the coincidence is just too much not to share.
“Studies of fear conditioning have also revived interest in a strange but possibly very significant phenomenon in memory research—reconsolidation.... if you take a memory out of storage you have to make new proteins (you have to restore, or reconsolidate it) in order for the memory to remain a memory. One way of thinking about this is that brain that does the remembering is not the brain that formed the initial memory. In order for the old memory to make sense in the current brain, the memory has to be updated. This work has stimulated a lot of interest from both scientists and lay persons. One man called and asked whether it might be possible for him to eliminate the memory of his ex-wife by blocking protein synthesis in his brain while thinking of her.” The passage comes from a book called "Synaptic Self" by Joseph LeDoux, on p.161.
Also in the movie, the female character with the many-colored hair seemed to change as the movie progressed; she became more conservative. Certain pieces of dialogue were also repeated in different surroundings and circumstances. Those moments are also explained by current research into the brain, consciousness and personality, which show that every time we call up a memory and restore it, new protein must be manufactured for that memory. In short, the memory must be updated to fit into the new (or current) brain which had recalled it. Whoever made “Eternal Sunshine” was at least reading in the same realm of research as the author of Synaptic Self works in.
Iraq is George Bush's mess. His failures are not America's failure or our soldiers' failure, not your or my failures. Iraq is the blunder of a poorly educated and stupid man who did a very stupid thing. A man so stupid should never have become president. We have a choice. If America re-elects him and keeps our troopers in Iraq, then the mess becomes America's mess too. But if we kick the bum out and tell the world that we don't support his stupidity, then America is saved from being blamed for Bush's ignorance. Toss Bush out, turn Iraq over to the UN and get out. Let's be right on this one.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." —Albert Einstein
ERASING THAT DAMN LOVE AFFAIR
Many movie buffs have probably seen Jim Cary's “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and wondered “What the hey?” I’ve talked with more than one person who responded like that. But, guess what? I think I’ve discovered the exact book passage which gave the writer his idea for the movie and, maybe, I’ve even tracked down a phone call he made to check his facts with the scientist/author who wrote the book. All of this is, of course, just a surmise on my part. I’m not a detective nor a psychic, but the coincidence is just too much not to share.
“Studies of fear conditioning have also revived interest in a strange but possibly very significant phenomenon in memory research—reconsolidation.... if you take a memory out of storage you have to make new proteins (you have to restore, or reconsolidate it) in order for the memory to remain a memory. One way of thinking about this is that brain that does the remembering is not the brain that formed the initial memory. In order for the old memory to make sense in the current brain, the memory has to be updated. This work has stimulated a lot of interest from both scientists and lay persons. One man called and asked whether it might be possible for him to eliminate the memory of his ex-wife by blocking protein synthesis in his brain while thinking of her.” The passage comes from a book called "Synaptic Self" by Joseph LeDoux, on p.161.
Also in the movie, the female character with the many-colored hair seemed to change as the movie progressed; she became more conservative. Certain pieces of dialogue were also repeated in different surroundings and circumstances. Those moments are also explained by current research into the brain, consciousness and personality, which show that every time we call up a memory and restore it, new protein must be manufactured for that memory. In short, the memory must be updated to fit into the new (or current) brain which had recalled it. Whoever made “Eternal Sunshine” was at least reading in the same realm of research as the author of Synaptic Self works in.
Sunday, April 25, 2004
Riddle: What always weighs the same no matter how big it gets? (Answer at bottom of this entry.)
AND, NOW, FOR SOMETHING ENTIRELY DIFFERENT
In the late 40’s and early 50’s people entered a movie at any time. We didn’t wait for films to begin—we just went in—right in the middle if need be. This was because films were so formulaic and so few plot lines existed that a hip viewer could pick up the storyline at any point. Also, good guys and bad guys were easy to identify. In WWII movies, for example, since they were basically propaganda films, you just automatically hated the enemy and loved your American GI. A viewer knew exactly who he sided with and where the moral center was at all times. The trouble is that most people also tended to see real life in that way too—good guys versus bad guys. People and movies were pretty simplistic. Simplistic people still wish to see the world that way: evil and good.
However, the more experience I picked up the less able I was to hold onto such simplistic ideas of reality. Films began to change too as expanded consciousness gave us a more complex reality. Films like "David and Lisa" and "All Quiet on the Western Front" presented more complex psychological realities. Soon, bored by standard Hollywood fare, I began to look around, and I came across "8 1/2" by Fellini and I was blown away. For he shows us the complex nature of reality. Dreams, waking fantasies, psychological projections, memories, altered states are all blended together just as they are in our own conscious realities. He doesn’t even bother to separate them for us with clear distinctions. A viewer can't and couldn't just walk into the middle of his films and make any sense of them. In fact, I didn’t understand what Fellini was doing for awhile (I had to study and think) though I knew I was fascinated by what was being presented to me. But, as I learned more about consciousness, I began to understand what Fellini was up to. The balance between what he brought to alter my consciousness and what changed consciousness I brought to him shifted.
Now I truly do live in a new reality. My consciousness is permanently altered by my experiences, some of which are filmic, and I’m always looking for films and books that expand my understanding of how humans perceive reality. The search after these truths has been my goal for thirty years. It is disheartening to realize that some people still live in that old reality and can’t or don’t want to escape it. Over and over, they (Bush and co. and Moslem fundamentalists, for example) keep bringing us back to that old time rel.....(er).........reality with all its fury, suffering and aggression. The structure of their consciousness is actually out of touch with reality and in love with suffering; they’re a little crazy but don’t know it, so they feel dangerous to me and scary to be around. Some people inhabit the 21st Century, but they don't live here.
Answer: A hole.
AND, NOW, FOR SOMETHING ENTIRELY DIFFERENT
In the late 40’s and early 50’s people entered a movie at any time. We didn’t wait for films to begin—we just went in—right in the middle if need be. This was because films were so formulaic and so few plot lines existed that a hip viewer could pick up the storyline at any point. Also, good guys and bad guys were easy to identify. In WWII movies, for example, since they were basically propaganda films, you just automatically hated the enemy and loved your American GI. A viewer knew exactly who he sided with and where the moral center was at all times. The trouble is that most people also tended to see real life in that way too—good guys versus bad guys. People and movies were pretty simplistic. Simplistic people still wish to see the world that way: evil and good.
However, the more experience I picked up the less able I was to hold onto such simplistic ideas of reality. Films began to change too as expanded consciousness gave us a more complex reality. Films like "David and Lisa" and "All Quiet on the Western Front" presented more complex psychological realities. Soon, bored by standard Hollywood fare, I began to look around, and I came across "8 1/2" by Fellini and I was blown away. For he shows us the complex nature of reality. Dreams, waking fantasies, psychological projections, memories, altered states are all blended together just as they are in our own conscious realities. He doesn’t even bother to separate them for us with clear distinctions. A viewer can't and couldn't just walk into the middle of his films and make any sense of them. In fact, I didn’t understand what Fellini was doing for awhile (I had to study and think) though I knew I was fascinated by what was being presented to me. But, as I learned more about consciousness, I began to understand what Fellini was up to. The balance between what he brought to alter my consciousness and what changed consciousness I brought to him shifted.
Now I truly do live in a new reality. My consciousness is permanently altered by my experiences, some of which are filmic, and I’m always looking for films and books that expand my understanding of how humans perceive reality. The search after these truths has been my goal for thirty years. It is disheartening to realize that some people still live in that old reality and can’t or don’t want to escape it. Over and over, they (Bush and co. and Moslem fundamentalists, for example) keep bringing us back to that old time rel.....(er).........reality with all its fury, suffering and aggression. The structure of their consciousness is actually out of touch with reality and in love with suffering; they’re a little crazy but don’t know it, so they feel dangerous to me and scary to be around. Some people inhabit the 21st Century, but they don't live here.
Answer: A hole.
Saturday, April 24, 2004
Waiter: "Won ton?"
Patron: "Not now."
Get it? Thanks Tom W.
OLD EUROPE AND OLD AMERICA
Cheney may have gotten hold of a pretty good idea. Being from the old America, he could recognize the "old Europe", as he called it. Yes—Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, all that bunch, are old America with all that old time thinking. Isn't it time, we moved on to a new America, an America so just, so free and so humble that all nations would be drawn to become just like us? A nation in which, for the first time in history, no one is left behind? We could teach by example rather than by force. Let's cast off old America, the old ways, the old crowd, the old ways of empire and manifest destiny and social injustice, and enter fully into the 21st Century. Let's build a wholly new America!
CHARITY TERRORISTS
I don’t know if you’ve thought of it but...
As the American government becomes ever more efficient at stopping small revolutionary groups (some call them terrorists), ferreting them out of mountainous regions, out of homes and cities with urban tactics, spying on them from high in the sky and eavesdropping easily on their communications, our own chances to rebel against our government, if it becomes tyrannous, decline apace.
Don’t know if you’ve thought of it but...
Christians love to flaunt their charitable work and claim that liberals have no charitable tendencies. Wrong again. On the one hand, most religious charity seeks to use my tax dollars and someone else’s personal misfortune as an opportunity to preach religion at them, whereas all of my impulses over the last 45 years have aimed to create a social contract between us all, an equitable social system which is blind to religious, ethnic, gender, age and racial differences. My liberal impulse was to create a safety net that would be discrimination free and which would guarantee that any citizen who falls on hard times would deserve help until he or she could get on their feet again. No one was to feel they were receiving charity because our safety net was supposed to be there for every American. If someone is permanently damaged, that system would be there for them for a lifetime. In my system, no one ever needs to depend on charity. Finally, since poverty and social inequities damage us all, my goal has been to make sure that everyone contributes, through taxes, to making society safe and equitable. All of my LIBERAL impulses were generated by a humanistic concern for my fellow human animals who share this earth with me. Selfish people don't like such a system.
"I never trust a man unless I've got his pecker in my pocket." —Lyndon Baines Johnson (Another Texan I loved to hate.)
Now I'm off to be a delegate at the county district caucus for the first time in my life. That GW Bush is sure one hell of a motivator.
Patron: "Not now."
Get it? Thanks Tom W.
OLD EUROPE AND OLD AMERICA
Cheney may have gotten hold of a pretty good idea. Being from the old America, he could recognize the "old Europe", as he called it. Yes—Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, all that bunch, are old America with all that old time thinking. Isn't it time, we moved on to a new America, an America so just, so free and so humble that all nations would be drawn to become just like us? A nation in which, for the first time in history, no one is left behind? We could teach by example rather than by force. Let's cast off old America, the old ways, the old crowd, the old ways of empire and manifest destiny and social injustice, and enter fully into the 21st Century. Let's build a wholly new America!
CHARITY TERRORISTS
I don’t know if you’ve thought of it but...
As the American government becomes ever more efficient at stopping small revolutionary groups (some call them terrorists), ferreting them out of mountainous regions, out of homes and cities with urban tactics, spying on them from high in the sky and eavesdropping easily on their communications, our own chances to rebel against our government, if it becomes tyrannous, decline apace.
Don’t know if you’ve thought of it but...
Christians love to flaunt their charitable work and claim that liberals have no charitable tendencies. Wrong again. On the one hand, most religious charity seeks to use my tax dollars and someone else’s personal misfortune as an opportunity to preach religion at them, whereas all of my impulses over the last 45 years have aimed to create a social contract between us all, an equitable social system which is blind to religious, ethnic, gender, age and racial differences. My liberal impulse was to create a safety net that would be discrimination free and which would guarantee that any citizen who falls on hard times would deserve help until he or she could get on their feet again. No one was to feel they were receiving charity because our safety net was supposed to be there for every American. If someone is permanently damaged, that system would be there for them for a lifetime. In my system, no one ever needs to depend on charity. Finally, since poverty and social inequities damage us all, my goal has been to make sure that everyone contributes, through taxes, to making society safe and equitable. All of my LIBERAL impulses were generated by a humanistic concern for my fellow human animals who share this earth with me. Selfish people don't like such a system.
"I never trust a man unless I've got his pecker in my pocket." —Lyndon Baines Johnson (Another Texan I loved to hate.)
Now I'm off to be a delegate at the county district caucus for the first time in my life. That GW Bush is sure one hell of a motivator.
Friday, April 23, 2004
ALL TOO FREQUENTLY
Many times, students are brighter and more open to knowledge than their “brain lost in the Bible” teachers. All too frequently, I hear the tale of a fired up young public school child trying to tell one of her dull as death teachers some concept about evolution that she’s picked up from another source, and the teacher throws Bible water on it and puts out the fire. Joseph Campbell relates such a tale in one of his lectures on tape.
In 1948 or 1949, when I was in the 7th or 8th grade in a geography course, I was daydreaming around and staring at a world map pulled down before the black board at the front of the class. I suddenly realized that Africa’s west coast seemed to match South America’s east coast and how England seemed like it might fit against France. I don’t recall how many of those border similarities I noticed, but I got so excited that I rushed up after class to point out to my teacher the jigsaw world I’d discovered. She was a sexy, full-bodied woman towards whom my early puberty was directed.
“Do you think they used to touch?” I cried.
“O! No, that’s not possible,” she said firmly, without a question to herself about what I was showing her.
So there you go! I was devastated to be cut down by my secret love, and I dismissed the revolutionary insight from my mind lest I displease her further. So, I missed out on discovering continental drift. And so did she! Much of my American life has been just like that.
A rabbi, a minister, and a priest walk into a bar, and the bartender says, "What is this? Some kind of joke?"
PS: They let me out. (See today's previous post.)
Many times, students are brighter and more open to knowledge than their “brain lost in the Bible” teachers. All too frequently, I hear the tale of a fired up young public school child trying to tell one of her dull as death teachers some concept about evolution that she’s picked up from another source, and the teacher throws Bible water on it and puts out the fire. Joseph Campbell relates such a tale in one of his lectures on tape.
In 1948 or 1949, when I was in the 7th or 8th grade in a geography course, I was daydreaming around and staring at a world map pulled down before the black board at the front of the class. I suddenly realized that Africa’s west coast seemed to match South America’s east coast and how England seemed like it might fit against France. I don’t recall how many of those border similarities I noticed, but I got so excited that I rushed up after class to point out to my teacher the jigsaw world I’d discovered. She was a sexy, full-bodied woman towards whom my early puberty was directed.
“Do you think they used to touch?” I cried.
“O! No, that’s not possible,” she said firmly, without a question to herself about what I was showing her.
So there you go! I was devastated to be cut down by my secret love, and I dismissed the revolutionary insight from my mind lest I displease her further. So, I missed out on discovering continental drift. And so did she! Much of my American life has been just like that.
A rabbi, a minister, and a priest walk into a bar, and the bartender says, "What is this? Some kind of joke?"
PS: They let me out. (See today's previous post.)
BUMPER STICKERS WITH NO ATTITUDE
Retirement is so fine. I just duck in and out of the house from the coffee shops where I read and write and flap me gummos.... and think up all these little bumper sticker ideas.
Here's two laid back ones:
1) Septics Are Factivated.
2) I'm Full Of It and I Vote!
Tonight, I'm going to go do some volunteer work at a mental hospital. I just hope they let me out.
Retirement is so fine. I just duck in and out of the house from the coffee shops where I read and write and flap me gummos.... and think up all these little bumper sticker ideas.
Here's two laid back ones:
1) Septics Are Factivated.
2) I'm Full Of It and I Vote!
Tonight, I'm going to go do some volunteer work at a mental hospital. I just hope they let me out.
Thursday, April 22, 2004
SO THIS IS AMERICA?
An ignored minority does live in America, the minority of the non-Christian, and it is evidenced by the fact that no non-Christian has ever been president of the United States. Our Constitution clearly states that our president need not pass any religious test, yet Christians have kept out all religions but their own from the presidency.
Our current president in his power hunger has no compunction about manipulating America’s religious prejudices to keep in power, and his power base of Christian fundamentalists is only too happy to go along with him. Recall that before the right wing fundamentalists approved George Bush to be their candidate in 2000, they required him to write a letter testifying to his religious beliefs. He had to pass their unconstitutional religious test before they would support him. Fundamentalists and conservatives who so disrespect the Constitution have happily forced god onto our currency and into our pledge of allegiance even though that was not the intention of our founding fathers. Now we’re even fighting god’s war for democracy (see Bush’s last press conference) against Moslems.
They’ve already disregarded so many Constitutional protections, can fundamentalists be expected to respect any of them? If you ask me, the greatest threat to American freedoms which has ever existed is alive and active in the Republican Party under George Bush. Sadly, we can see how many Republicans who would normally be outraged at such disrespect for the Constitution gladly kowtow to the trend because they love being in power more than the Constitution.
WAS HIS GRANDFATHER A JUDEO-CHRISTIAN, I WONDER?
"My grandfather used to make home movies and edit out the joy." —Richard Lewis
An ignored minority does live in America, the minority of the non-Christian, and it is evidenced by the fact that no non-Christian has ever been president of the United States. Our Constitution clearly states that our president need not pass any religious test, yet Christians have kept out all religions but their own from the presidency.
Our current president in his power hunger has no compunction about manipulating America’s religious prejudices to keep in power, and his power base of Christian fundamentalists is only too happy to go along with him. Recall that before the right wing fundamentalists approved George Bush to be their candidate in 2000, they required him to write a letter testifying to his religious beliefs. He had to pass their unconstitutional religious test before they would support him. Fundamentalists and conservatives who so disrespect the Constitution have happily forced god onto our currency and into our pledge of allegiance even though that was not the intention of our founding fathers. Now we’re even fighting god’s war for democracy (see Bush’s last press conference) against Moslems.
They’ve already disregarded so many Constitutional protections, can fundamentalists be expected to respect any of them? If you ask me, the greatest threat to American freedoms which has ever existed is alive and active in the Republican Party under George Bush. Sadly, we can see how many Republicans who would normally be outraged at such disrespect for the Constitution gladly kowtow to the trend because they love being in power more than the Constitution.
WAS HIS GRANDFATHER A JUDEO-CHRISTIAN, I WONDER?
"My grandfather used to make home movies and edit out the joy." —Richard Lewis
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
FISHY CUT BAIT
"We won't cut and run."
"We can't cut and run."
"There's no way we'll cut and run."
"As long as I'm in office, we won't cut and run."
The preceeding are all cut outs from press releases from the Vietnam era.
Anyone familiar with history saw this Catch 22 coming our way. Bush's supporters, many too young to know history, right wing males too bullheaded to learn, and evangelical types who don't know anything, probably don't understand what's going on. First you ignore all the warnings about a quagmire and bull ahead into war, then once you've attacked unnecessarily because you're too impatient to wait for diplomacy, you say, "We can't cut and run." Effectively, you've locked everyone into war forever.
Of course, we can withdraw from the mess Bush caused! It's his mess, and it is not our trooper's mess or our trooper's failure or America's failure either. It's Bush's mess, and I say not one more soldier should die trying to clean up Bush's mess. He's killed enough of our young men and women and enough Iraqis. Bring our guys home, and let the Iraqis sort out the mess Bush made. It's their country, not ours.
Twenty years from now, Iraq will be just like Vietnam is now. I hear Bush's supporters say: "Vietnam? What's going on there?" [Pause...] Nothing important will be going on in Iraq either twenty years hence if we get out now.
"Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic."—Dan Rather
"We won't cut and run."
"We can't cut and run."
"There's no way we'll cut and run."
"As long as I'm in office, we won't cut and run."
The preceeding are all cut outs from press releases from the Vietnam era.
Anyone familiar with history saw this Catch 22 coming our way. Bush's supporters, many too young to know history, right wing males too bullheaded to learn, and evangelical types who don't know anything, probably don't understand what's going on. First you ignore all the warnings about a quagmire and bull ahead into war, then once you've attacked unnecessarily because you're too impatient to wait for diplomacy, you say, "We can't cut and run." Effectively, you've locked everyone into war forever.
Of course, we can withdraw from the mess Bush caused! It's his mess, and it is not our trooper's mess or our trooper's failure or America's failure either. It's Bush's mess, and I say not one more soldier should die trying to clean up Bush's mess. He's killed enough of our young men and women and enough Iraqis. Bring our guys home, and let the Iraqis sort out the mess Bush made. It's their country, not ours.
Twenty years from now, Iraq will be just like Vietnam is now. I hear Bush's supporters say: "Vietnam? What's going on there?" [Pause...] Nothing important will be going on in Iraq either twenty years hence if we get out now.
"Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic."—Dan Rather
DOUBTING THOMAS DIGS THE GARDEN
Lo, these many years, I’ve been struggling to come up with some sort of evidence which would irrefutably prove that the Bible and the Koran are the inerrant word of Christianity’s, Judaism's and Islam’s hypothetical superbeing. It would be so comforting to be able to know without doubt there’s some sort of higher being in another dimension who looks out for us—specially if we could do so without totally surrendering our grip on reality and taking somebody’s word for it like ignoramuses in the early darkness of humankind. Appeals to authority, we all know, mean nothing as evidence, and, in fact, that’s what current faith is (belief without evidence) since there is no evidence of an immaterial world or superbeing anywhere in the world.
The task of finding and touching this spiritual place has always seemed insurmountable, for how can we ever bring the immaterial world under the microscope of common sense and measure it as one would measure the length of a pickle and taste the taste of a pickle, dill or sweet? No, it seems that there will be those who believe in something which does not exist (in the material world) and those who demand proof before they believe in this nonexistent thing.
Doubting is not new. Many a Doubting Thomas lives among us which like that fictional doubter can not believe until he’s actually touched the gaping wound. Thomas was fiction's original scientist; he demanded sensory data before he believed. Well, and why shouldn’t we take after Thomas and also ask for concrete data? Why should we just take a book’s or people’s word for it? Why should we set ourselves up to be patsies for religious charlatans among us?
I thought long and hard before I came up with the perfect proof. There is one place in the Universe where the spiritual world and the world of the senses meet. It’s the eastward entrance to the Bible’s Garden of Eden. The proof lies there for the Bible tells us so. We know exactly where to look for the entrance. It’s near the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers and it should be easily found because, “After he [God] drove the man out, he [God] placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the Tree of Life.” Genesis 3:24
This eastward entrance must be visible by the flashing sword and the cherubim. They must be visible because they were put there to keep man away from the Tree of Life. God would not be so foolish as to put an invisible flashing sword and invisible cherubim to guard the entrance to the Garden. Cherubim and sword have to be visible to the naked eye or else God is capable of unbelievable stupidity and waste.
So—there it is, under our noses. Someone should get right over there and find that flashing sword. You’d think a spy satellite ought to be able to see it. Perhaps Bush could set the CIA to gathering data from sky cameras. It should be visible from a long distance away, and it’s a sure proof that a spiritual world exists separate from the real world most of us live in. It’s the only place I know of where the two world’s meet for all to see. Or... sorry to say, suppose we can’t find the sword and cherubim and that would mean the Bible has got at least one big hole of a lie in it.
A LIFE VERSE THAT FITS MY IDENTITY
I like the idea of giving oneself a life verse from the Bible to live by like so many Christians do. I had to think long and hard to come up with one sufficient to my needs, then, suddenly, it appeared to me in my dream of life. It’s Exodus 3:14. It suits me to a T; it’s me all over.
Here’s a song title: “I Gave Her a Ring, and She Gave Me the Finger.” —author anonymous
Lo, these many years, I’ve been struggling to come up with some sort of evidence which would irrefutably prove that the Bible and the Koran are the inerrant word of Christianity’s, Judaism's and Islam’s hypothetical superbeing. It would be so comforting to be able to know without doubt there’s some sort of higher being in another dimension who looks out for us—specially if we could do so without totally surrendering our grip on reality and taking somebody’s word for it like ignoramuses in the early darkness of humankind. Appeals to authority, we all know, mean nothing as evidence, and, in fact, that’s what current faith is (belief without evidence) since there is no evidence of an immaterial world or superbeing anywhere in the world.
The task of finding and touching this spiritual place has always seemed insurmountable, for how can we ever bring the immaterial world under the microscope of common sense and measure it as one would measure the length of a pickle and taste the taste of a pickle, dill or sweet? No, it seems that there will be those who believe in something which does not exist (in the material world) and those who demand proof before they believe in this nonexistent thing.
Doubting is not new. Many a Doubting Thomas lives among us which like that fictional doubter can not believe until he’s actually touched the gaping wound. Thomas was fiction's original scientist; he demanded sensory data before he believed. Well, and why shouldn’t we take after Thomas and also ask for concrete data? Why should we just take a book’s or people’s word for it? Why should we set ourselves up to be patsies for religious charlatans among us?
I thought long and hard before I came up with the perfect proof. There is one place in the Universe where the spiritual world and the world of the senses meet. It’s the eastward entrance to the Bible’s Garden of Eden. The proof lies there for the Bible tells us so. We know exactly where to look for the entrance. It’s near the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers and it should be easily found because, “After he [God] drove the man out, he [God] placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the Tree of Life.” Genesis 3:24
This eastward entrance must be visible by the flashing sword and the cherubim. They must be visible because they were put there to keep man away from the Tree of Life. God would not be so foolish as to put an invisible flashing sword and invisible cherubim to guard the entrance to the Garden. Cherubim and sword have to be visible to the naked eye or else God is capable of unbelievable stupidity and waste.
So—there it is, under our noses. Someone should get right over there and find that flashing sword. You’d think a spy satellite ought to be able to see it. Perhaps Bush could set the CIA to gathering data from sky cameras. It should be visible from a long distance away, and it’s a sure proof that a spiritual world exists separate from the real world most of us live in. It’s the only place I know of where the two world’s meet for all to see. Or... sorry to say, suppose we can’t find the sword and cherubim and that would mean the Bible has got at least one big hole of a lie in it.
A LIFE VERSE THAT FITS MY IDENTITY
I like the idea of giving oneself a life verse from the Bible to live by like so many Christians do. I had to think long and hard to come up with one sufficient to my needs, then, suddenly, it appeared to me in my dream of life. It’s Exodus 3:14. It suits me to a T; it’s me all over.
Here’s a song title: “I Gave Her a Ring, and She Gave Me the Finger.” —author anonymous
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
TENDER EARSHIT
Recently I ended a letter to the editor to my local newspaper, the Spokesman Review, in Spokane, Washington with the word "bullshit". They asked me to change the word because it was a word they didn't use in their paper. I'm sure that word is going to shock all the wheat farmers and cattle ranchers who surround this little backward town in Eastern Washington. It's not as if they don't step in it or a mighty fine substitue for it all the time.
I'll never forget the time many years back when members of the Eastern Washington U. literary magazine crew (Willow Springs) and friends were playing a softball game in a pasture in Oakesdale. One of us made an excellent slide into home plate and bottomed out in a big pile of bull- or cow- stuff at the end of his slide. OK—so he missed home plate by a wide margin. Unfortunately I was one of those who rode with the slider to the game. Gagsville all the way home, literally and figuratively.
ALAN DERSHOWITZ SAYS BENCH PACKED ON THE RIGHT BUTTOCKS
"The bench is always going to be heavily weighed toward the ideological right. One side, the Republicans, picks ideologically; the other, Democrats, picks without regard to ideology in a way that you expect the surrogate will be ideology—assuming that more blacks, women, Latinos, will be more interested in issues of liberty, and that just doesn't turn out to be the case, particularly on religion." from Freethought Today (Mar. 2004, p11.)
"If you don't go to other people's funerals, they won't go to yours." —my source says "anonymous" but I heard it was Yogi Berra
Recently I ended a letter to the editor to my local newspaper, the Spokesman Review, in Spokane, Washington with the word "bullshit". They asked me to change the word because it was a word they didn't use in their paper. I'm sure that word is going to shock all the wheat farmers and cattle ranchers who surround this little backward town in Eastern Washington. It's not as if they don't step in it or a mighty fine substitue for it all the time.
I'll never forget the time many years back when members of the Eastern Washington U. literary magazine crew (Willow Springs) and friends were playing a softball game in a pasture in Oakesdale. One of us made an excellent slide into home plate and bottomed out in a big pile of bull- or cow- stuff at the end of his slide. OK—so he missed home plate by a wide margin. Unfortunately I was one of those who rode with the slider to the game. Gagsville all the way home, literally and figuratively.
ALAN DERSHOWITZ SAYS BENCH PACKED ON THE RIGHT BUTTOCKS
"The bench is always going to be heavily weighed toward the ideological right. One side, the Republicans, picks ideologically; the other, Democrats, picks without regard to ideology in a way that you expect the surrogate will be ideology—assuming that more blacks, women, Latinos, will be more interested in issues of liberty, and that just doesn't turn out to be the case, particularly on religion." from Freethought Today (Mar. 2004, p11.)
"If you don't go to other people's funerals, they won't go to yours." —my source says "anonymous" but I heard it was Yogi Berra
Monday, April 19, 2004
JUST BE HUMAN, FER CRYIN' OUT LOUD!
Atheists love the human in you.
Others may love you because some one or some power or some thing tells them they ought to, but atheists love the humanity in you just because you and he and she are the humans we are.
"The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age." —Lucille Ball
Atheists love the human in you.
Others may love you because some one or some power or some thing tells them they ought to, but atheists love the humanity in you just because you and he and she are the humans we are.
"The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age." —Lucille Ball
Sunday, April 18, 2004
Saturday, April 17, 2004
Vocation
This dream the world is having about itself
includes a trace on the plains of the Oregon trail,
a groove in the grass my father showed us all
one day while meadowlarks were trying to tell
something better about to happen.
I dreamed the trace to the mountains, over the hills,
and there a girl who belonged wherever she was.
But then my mother called us back to the car:
she was afraid; she always blamed the place,
the time, anything my father planned.
Now both of my parents, the long line through the plain,
the meadowlarks, the sky, the world’s whole dream
remain, and I hear him say while I stand between the two,
helpless, both of them part of me:
“Your job is to find what the world is trying to say.”
William Stafford
As an atheist, I hate to say it, but Stafford is a believer, but beauty is beauty and wonder is wonder and in Stafford's believing is the intelligence to realize that the goal of all humankind is to understand the dream within the waking we inhabit. People of intelligence soon realize that the universe is still a beautiful and wondrous thing, even if you allow yourself to understand how it really works. Read Shakespeare's "The Tempest" for more about dreaming awake. It's better than a Bible.
"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake." —Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973)
This dream the world is having about itself
includes a trace on the plains of the Oregon trail,
a groove in the grass my father showed us all
one day while meadowlarks were trying to tell
something better about to happen.
I dreamed the trace to the mountains, over the hills,
and there a girl who belonged wherever she was.
But then my mother called us back to the car:
she was afraid; she always blamed the place,
the time, anything my father planned.
Now both of my parents, the long line through the plain,
the meadowlarks, the sky, the world’s whole dream
remain, and I hear him say while I stand between the two,
helpless, both of them part of me:
“Your job is to find what the world is trying to say.”
William Stafford
As an atheist, I hate to say it, but Stafford is a believer, but beauty is beauty and wonder is wonder and in Stafford's believing is the intelligence to realize that the goal of all humankind is to understand the dream within the waking we inhabit. People of intelligence soon realize that the universe is still a beautiful and wondrous thing, even if you allow yourself to understand how it really works. Read Shakespeare's "The Tempest" for more about dreaming awake. It's better than a Bible.
"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake." —Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973)
Friday, April 16, 2004
FUNDAMENTALISTS AND AMERICAN VALUES
Fundamentalist Christians are forever saying that American law is based on Christian dogma, yet their insistence on forcing their God into America's "Pledge of Allegiance" the last 50 years proves that modern American Christian fundamentalists would not be able to create a secular nation like we have in America in which religion and the state are separated. Modern fundamentalists would ignore the religions and non-religions of the minority and make America a theocracy. They'd have an official Christian religion for America and force all Americans to pray as they pray. Their agenda to force their Ten Commandments plaques on us and their concept of "one god" (even though their god is three gods) into the Pledge of Allegiance proves that they could never write America's Constitution in which all religions and non-religions are treated equally. So give me a break about the American Constitution being founded on Christian principles! They don't understand how democracy works; it ain't in their Bible.
Want something to curdle your blood? Here's a communication from a loving Christian to the Freedom From Religion Foundation: "I WISH YOU WERE ALL DEAD, starting with Michael Newdow." (Freethought Today, Vol.21 No.3, April 2004)
Sounds remarkably like a terrorist, doesn't it? Shows you how Christians would handle religious freedom in America. Can you imagine that these folks could write the Constitution our founding fathers wrote? Can you imagine what would happen to non-Christians in America if we don't all stand up and defend the separation clause in the Constitution?
"There is no they, only us." —bumper sticker
Fundamentalist Christians are forever saying that American law is based on Christian dogma, yet their insistence on forcing their God into America's "Pledge of Allegiance" the last 50 years proves that modern American Christian fundamentalists would not be able to create a secular nation like we have in America in which religion and the state are separated. Modern fundamentalists would ignore the religions and non-religions of the minority and make America a theocracy. They'd have an official Christian religion for America and force all Americans to pray as they pray. Their agenda to force their Ten Commandments plaques on us and their concept of "one god" (even though their god is three gods) into the Pledge of Allegiance proves that they could never write America's Constitution in which all religions and non-religions are treated equally. So give me a break about the American Constitution being founded on Christian principles! They don't understand how democracy works; it ain't in their Bible.
Want something to curdle your blood? Here's a communication from a loving Christian to the Freedom From Religion Foundation: "I WISH YOU WERE ALL DEAD, starting with Michael Newdow." (Freethought Today, Vol.21 No.3, April 2004)
Sounds remarkably like a terrorist, doesn't it? Shows you how Christians would handle religious freedom in America. Can you imagine that these folks could write the Constitution our founding fathers wrote? Can you imagine what would happen to non-Christians in America if we don't all stand up and defend the separation clause in the Constitution?
"There is no they, only us." —bumper sticker
THE BUSHMAN ISSUES A FATWA
I don’t listen to the Bushman when he talks. It frightens me to hear that America’s being led by a lunatic religious fanatic. My sources tell me that in his little press conference Wednesday night our Bushman came out of the arid desert of his pea brain, like a Moses, prepared to force the Moslem world into democracy by strength of arms. He implied that his God had been talking to him and told him that God gave America democracy and that it was his destiny to spread this democracy all over the world.
Holy Manifest Destiny, bat brains, shades of past mistakes, we’re going on Crusade! The Bushite really meant it a year ago when he called the war in Iraq a Crusade. Saddle up, troopers, we’ve got ourselves a holy war, an American jihad. Watch out North Korea, watch out Palestine, watch out Moslem, non-Christian world, watch out you evil ones—here we come, the righteous ones!
Wait a minute, though! Whoa! Stop the horses! Is the Bushman hearing things out there in the arid bush where his brain lives? He claims to know that his god tells him that his duty is to lead America on a Crusade to rid the world of anything that doesn’t resemble American democracy. But in the book of his god’s word, I think the Bushman calls it the Bible, there is no democracy and no elections (except by an anointing by a higher authority like a king or prince), so his god couldn’t be telling him about democracy. His god doesn’t even recognize a democracy, only kingdoms and princedoms. So the bushman must be hearing things that aren’t there. He must be off his rocker, out of his gourd, several bricks short of a full load! O, goodness sake’s alive, he really is crazy! He hears things that aren’t there!
SUPPORTING THE TROOPS
There is nothing I want to do more than support the lives of our troops, and, so far, I’m not responsible for one death over there in those Moslem countries. Bush has killed them all with his bad decisions. From the beginning, I’ve been trying to save their lives by keeping them out of Iraq, and now I want to support their lives and their families by bringing them home from this nightmare Crusade that a religious fanatic has gotten them into. I pledge to continue to support the lives of our troops by supporting any politician who offers to bring them home as soon as he’s elected.
But, there is one trouble. If the troops support the holy war Bush declared two nights ago to overturn every government that’s not like America’s, and if they want to stay in Iraq, then they sort of say they don’t want me to help keep them alive. Well, that’s their choice. I’ll continue to support their lives even if they don’t want me to. I can do no less. But any soldier who wants my support in keeping him alive, he knows I’m here at home, trying to get him out of Bush’s nightmare and back to sanity as quickly as possible. With a good conscience, a true patriot could do no less.
BAGGING THE JIHAD
The Bushites think that by demonstrating “shock and awe” and “resolve”, they’ll prove to the Arab world (which, like America, only respects force) that the sight of a few body bags won’t deter Bush from his holy war on governments not like America’s government. They’ve been saying exactly that in so many words from the beginning. Yes, what’s a few body bags in a country of hundreds of millions? Who’ll really feel the sacrifice? As long as there’s nothing of personal interest in those bags, like a Bush or Rumsfeld son or daughter, then which of them cares that they’re filling a few more bags every day of the week. What’s a poor ol’ Texas boy to do? After all—it’s the fruits of his personal jihad he’s bagging up, isn’t it?
“In the Texas bush country, fiction is reality enough.” —an unknown soldier
I don’t listen to the Bushman when he talks. It frightens me to hear that America’s being led by a lunatic religious fanatic. My sources tell me that in his little press conference Wednesday night our Bushman came out of the arid desert of his pea brain, like a Moses, prepared to force the Moslem world into democracy by strength of arms. He implied that his God had been talking to him and told him that God gave America democracy and that it was his destiny to spread this democracy all over the world.
Holy Manifest Destiny, bat brains, shades of past mistakes, we’re going on Crusade! The Bushite really meant it a year ago when he called the war in Iraq a Crusade. Saddle up, troopers, we’ve got ourselves a holy war, an American jihad. Watch out North Korea, watch out Palestine, watch out Moslem, non-Christian world, watch out you evil ones—here we come, the righteous ones!
Wait a minute, though! Whoa! Stop the horses! Is the Bushman hearing things out there in the arid bush where his brain lives? He claims to know that his god tells him that his duty is to lead America on a Crusade to rid the world of anything that doesn’t resemble American democracy. But in the book of his god’s word, I think the Bushman calls it the Bible, there is no democracy and no elections (except by an anointing by a higher authority like a king or prince), so his god couldn’t be telling him about democracy. His god doesn’t even recognize a democracy, only kingdoms and princedoms. So the bushman must be hearing things that aren’t there. He must be off his rocker, out of his gourd, several bricks short of a full load! O, goodness sake’s alive, he really is crazy! He hears things that aren’t there!
SUPPORTING THE TROOPS
There is nothing I want to do more than support the lives of our troops, and, so far, I’m not responsible for one death over there in those Moslem countries. Bush has killed them all with his bad decisions. From the beginning, I’ve been trying to save their lives by keeping them out of Iraq, and now I want to support their lives and their families by bringing them home from this nightmare Crusade that a religious fanatic has gotten them into. I pledge to continue to support the lives of our troops by supporting any politician who offers to bring them home as soon as he’s elected.
But, there is one trouble. If the troops support the holy war Bush declared two nights ago to overturn every government that’s not like America’s, and if they want to stay in Iraq, then they sort of say they don’t want me to help keep them alive. Well, that’s their choice. I’ll continue to support their lives even if they don’t want me to. I can do no less. But any soldier who wants my support in keeping him alive, he knows I’m here at home, trying to get him out of Bush’s nightmare and back to sanity as quickly as possible. With a good conscience, a true patriot could do no less.
BAGGING THE JIHAD
The Bushites think that by demonstrating “shock and awe” and “resolve”, they’ll prove to the Arab world (which, like America, only respects force) that the sight of a few body bags won’t deter Bush from his holy war on governments not like America’s government. They’ve been saying exactly that in so many words from the beginning. Yes, what’s a few body bags in a country of hundreds of millions? Who’ll really feel the sacrifice? As long as there’s nothing of personal interest in those bags, like a Bush or Rumsfeld son or daughter, then which of them cares that they’re filling a few more bags every day of the week. What’s a poor ol’ Texas boy to do? After all—it’s the fruits of his personal jihad he’s bagging up, isn’t it?
“In the Texas bush country, fiction is reality enough.” —an unknown soldier
Thursday, April 15, 2004
MEDIEVAL CROWS COME TO ROOST IN THE BUSH
Last time I looked out the window, I saw automobiles swooshing by on this morning’s wet pavement. I didn’t see one wooden-wheeled ox cart lumbering along. This is the 21st Century, isn’t it? Sometimes the news issuing from the Bush fiefdom makes me picture Macbeth’s three bent witches, circling a boiling pot, mumbling, “Bubble bubble, toil and trouble....” I picture medieval scholastics discussing how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. It’s Nancy and Ronny consulting an astrologer all over again....
My sources tell me that during discussions about stem cell research, Bush’s religious advisers were throwing around the concept of the “moment of ensoulment”. Where do you find the soul? Is it in the toe as well as the thumb? Is it in both lungs? How much does it weigh? How can you measure at exactly what moment, the soul comes in? What piece of equipment measures the “moment of ensoulment”? Let me see—I assert the soul comes in at exactly the moment the newborn exits the birth canal. My measuring equipment is every bit as good as theirs. Mine’s called a bullshit detector.
A CONTRADICTION TO THE ABOVE
“So I try not to learn, disengage because reasons
block the next needed feeling. While others
talk, all of my tentative poems begin
to open their eyes....” —William Stafford
from “Following the ‘Markings’ of Dag Hammarskjold”
(Dag was one of the first UN Secretary Generals and also a poetic writer.)
SO WE LOST THE WAR IN VIETNAM. SO WHAT?
We supposedly lost the Vietnam War. Therefore, that loss should give us a benchmark by which to gage the importance of Bush’s war in Iraq which, according to him, we must not lose. Okay—what major difference is the lost war in Vietnam making in the history of the world today?
By the way, we didn’t lose that war. We turned the war over to the South Vietnamese and they lost it.
Actually, there are many alternative explanations among the Bushites, the same Bushites who talk about the "moment of ensoulment". Martians sneaked in and helped the North Vietnamese. They came in through the Stargate at Rosewall. Another theory is that the South Vietnamese were bitten by an exotic Bible mosquito that carried a loser virus. The favored Bushite theory is that it’s all predicted in the Bible, in Markthewlukejohn 40:love, in which it is written that the Great Blogger will come from a kingdom in the Northernmost regions of Hell with laughing chariots of fire, saying, "Ho, ho, ho," to defeat a great red, white and blue soaring thing in the sky.
ANY IDIOT CAN TELL YOU
A recent poll question asks whether Bush or Kerry can best keep America safe from terrorists. Anyone who would think he really could answer that question is probably too dumb to be answering poll questions.
Last time I looked out the window, I saw automobiles swooshing by on this morning’s wet pavement. I didn’t see one wooden-wheeled ox cart lumbering along. This is the 21st Century, isn’t it? Sometimes the news issuing from the Bush fiefdom makes me picture Macbeth’s three bent witches, circling a boiling pot, mumbling, “Bubble bubble, toil and trouble....” I picture medieval scholastics discussing how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. It’s Nancy and Ronny consulting an astrologer all over again....
My sources tell me that during discussions about stem cell research, Bush’s religious advisers were throwing around the concept of the “moment of ensoulment”. Where do you find the soul? Is it in the toe as well as the thumb? Is it in both lungs? How much does it weigh? How can you measure at exactly what moment, the soul comes in? What piece of equipment measures the “moment of ensoulment”? Let me see—I assert the soul comes in at exactly the moment the newborn exits the birth canal. My measuring equipment is every bit as good as theirs. Mine’s called a bullshit detector.
A CONTRADICTION TO THE ABOVE
“So I try not to learn, disengage because reasons
block the next needed feeling. While others
talk, all of my tentative poems begin
to open their eyes....” —William Stafford
from “Following the ‘Markings’ of Dag Hammarskjold”
(Dag was one of the first UN Secretary Generals and also a poetic writer.)
SO WE LOST THE WAR IN VIETNAM. SO WHAT?
We supposedly lost the Vietnam War. Therefore, that loss should give us a benchmark by which to gage the importance of Bush’s war in Iraq which, according to him, we must not lose. Okay—what major difference is the lost war in Vietnam making in the history of the world today?
By the way, we didn’t lose that war. We turned the war over to the South Vietnamese and they lost it.
Actually, there are many alternative explanations among the Bushites, the same Bushites who talk about the "moment of ensoulment". Martians sneaked in and helped the North Vietnamese. They came in through the Stargate at Rosewall. Another theory is that the South Vietnamese were bitten by an exotic Bible mosquito that carried a loser virus. The favored Bushite theory is that it’s all predicted in the Bible, in Markthewlukejohn 40:love, in which it is written that the Great Blogger will come from a kingdom in the Northernmost regions of Hell with laughing chariots of fire, saying, "Ho, ho, ho," to defeat a great red, white and blue soaring thing in the sky.
ANY IDIOT CAN TELL YOU
A recent poll question asks whether Bush or Kerry can best keep America safe from terrorists. Anyone who would think he really could answer that question is probably too dumb to be answering poll questions.
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
THE DANCE OF THE TOREADORS
Bush’s religious tolerance for the drug of violence was strengthened last night in his speech when he authorized our military’s use of all necessary violence to end the violence in Iraq. Bush’s current use of violence is the result of the violence of war (and occupation) against the violent dictator who the violence of Republican presidents propped up and supported and armed for violence all these years until our violence tired of the violence of the violent man whose violence we aided and abetted for violent decades... ad infinitum.
Roses are red,
Violence are blue.
Many are dead.
How about you?
"Old soldiers never die, just young ones." —graffito
HOW LONG WILL OUR TROOPS BE AT THE DANCE?
Decades... if not centuries... if not millennia....
CHECK YOUR NEW'S SOURCE AT THE DOOR
Now would be a good time to check out the validity of your new's sources. If they prepared you for everything that has happened inside Iraq, then they can be trusted. If they didn’t, I’d find another new's source. Yours can’t be very good at their job. Ask yourself:
Have you had any surprises about anything that has gone on in Iraq? Did you know that the director of Fox’s new’s department is an old hand in Republican party propaganda? Did you believe that we’d find weapons of mass destruction? Did you believe we’d find close ties to religious terrorists like Osama? (Never mind now. I mean before the war created a place for terrorists to get a foothold in Iraq.) Did you believe the plutonium rumors? Did you not know that Moslem religious extremists like al-Sadr would eventually rise up to oppose the religious extremism of fundamentalist Christian George Bush’s occupation of their Moslem country? Did you think Moslems in Iraq would not notice the way American soldiers kneel down on one knee to pray over fallen comrades and the crosses around their necks as compared to the way Moslems get down on a prayer rug and bow toward Mecca several times a day? Did you not know that they’d feel some sort of religious undertones to their occupation and also slop that feeling over onto democracy itself? Were you surprised to find out that all Cheney/George’s Texas oil buddies at Haliburton are getting rich off this war? Were you surprised to find out that most of Saddam’s weapons came by way of past Republican administrations? If you had any surprises about these or other issues, then you need to ask your new's sources why they weren’t doing their job of informing you.
My new's sources prepared me for most everything that’s happening by giving me balanced, well researched, wide ranging views of what was happening all through the lead-in to Bush’s war so that I could make up my own mind. My sources didn’t do a one sided, rah rah sort of journalism which is good for ratings but poor for informing citizens about things they need to know. My sources did their job of giving me the unbiased news (their job when its done right) so that I could make an unbiased decision about the issues and wasn’t blind sided by the facts when they came down.
Can you say the same for your new's source? Were your sources a sort of private propaganda machine for the religious right and for Bush’s actions? Did they operate like a government Pravda under the Russian government? Did they manipulate your patriotism in order to make you a repeat listener or reader or did they challenge you and make you uncomfortable so you’d have to think rather than react? Only you can answer the questions.
The new's sources which prepared me to be an informed citizen were Newsweek, public radio’s “All Things Considered” and many other of Public Broadcasting’s news shows on TV and radio. They even included the “news pages” of my local paper the Spokesman Review—not their editorial pages, but their new's pages.
Of course, I’m also an old fart who reads a lot of history and biography and who reads newspapers of any type, and I’ve seen enough American history in my life to have a wider view than someone younger who doesn’t read much and who is sort of history deficient. Now don’t blame me for pointing up your failings. If you fell for poor journalism, that’s your responsibility. You know if you’re well informed or not and how much effort you put into your life to improve the quality of that muscle your brain and your ability to think clearly and logically. Don’t call me an elitist if the fault lies within you, Horatio. If you’re an elitist dummy, take responsibility and become more literate. It’s not high school anymore. You can’t continue to beat up people who still get better grades than you! That's not good for you or your country. Time to grow up and smarten up too.
Bush’s religious tolerance for the drug of violence was strengthened last night in his speech when he authorized our military’s use of all necessary violence to end the violence in Iraq. Bush’s current use of violence is the result of the violence of war (and occupation) against the violent dictator who the violence of Republican presidents propped up and supported and armed for violence all these years until our violence tired of the violence of the violent man whose violence we aided and abetted for violent decades... ad infinitum.
Roses are red,
Violence are blue.
Many are dead.
How about you?
"Old soldiers never die, just young ones." —graffito
HOW LONG WILL OUR TROOPS BE AT THE DANCE?
Decades... if not centuries... if not millennia....
CHECK YOUR NEW'S SOURCE AT THE DOOR
Now would be a good time to check out the validity of your new's sources. If they prepared you for everything that has happened inside Iraq, then they can be trusted. If they didn’t, I’d find another new's source. Yours can’t be very good at their job. Ask yourself:
Have you had any surprises about anything that has gone on in Iraq? Did you know that the director of Fox’s new’s department is an old hand in Republican party propaganda? Did you believe that we’d find weapons of mass destruction? Did you believe we’d find close ties to religious terrorists like Osama? (Never mind now. I mean before the war created a place for terrorists to get a foothold in Iraq.) Did you believe the plutonium rumors? Did you not know that Moslem religious extremists like al-Sadr would eventually rise up to oppose the religious extremism of fundamentalist Christian George Bush’s occupation of their Moslem country? Did you think Moslems in Iraq would not notice the way American soldiers kneel down on one knee to pray over fallen comrades and the crosses around their necks as compared to the way Moslems get down on a prayer rug and bow toward Mecca several times a day? Did you not know that they’d feel some sort of religious undertones to their occupation and also slop that feeling over onto democracy itself? Were you surprised to find out that all Cheney/George’s Texas oil buddies at Haliburton are getting rich off this war? Were you surprised to find out that most of Saddam’s weapons came by way of past Republican administrations? If you had any surprises about these or other issues, then you need to ask your new's sources why they weren’t doing their job of informing you.
My new's sources prepared me for most everything that’s happening by giving me balanced, well researched, wide ranging views of what was happening all through the lead-in to Bush’s war so that I could make up my own mind. My sources didn’t do a one sided, rah rah sort of journalism which is good for ratings but poor for informing citizens about things they need to know. My sources did their job of giving me the unbiased news (their job when its done right) so that I could make an unbiased decision about the issues and wasn’t blind sided by the facts when they came down.
Can you say the same for your new's source? Were your sources a sort of private propaganda machine for the religious right and for Bush’s actions? Did they operate like a government Pravda under the Russian government? Did they manipulate your patriotism in order to make you a repeat listener or reader or did they challenge you and make you uncomfortable so you’d have to think rather than react? Only you can answer the questions.
The new's sources which prepared me to be an informed citizen were Newsweek, public radio’s “All Things Considered” and many other of Public Broadcasting’s news shows on TV and radio. They even included the “news pages” of my local paper the Spokesman Review—not their editorial pages, but their new's pages.
Of course, I’m also an old fart who reads a lot of history and biography and who reads newspapers of any type, and I’ve seen enough American history in my life to have a wider view than someone younger who doesn’t read much and who is sort of history deficient. Now don’t blame me for pointing up your failings. If you fell for poor journalism, that’s your responsibility. You know if you’re well informed or not and how much effort you put into your life to improve the quality of that muscle your brain and your ability to think clearly and logically. Don’t call me an elitist if the fault lies within you, Horatio. If you’re an elitist dummy, take responsibility and become more literate. It’s not high school anymore. You can’t continue to beat up people who still get better grades than you! That's not good for you or your country. Time to grow up and smarten up too.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
GANG UP ON THE CHURCH: ARE YOU ADDICTED TO VALUES?
Values are an interesting phenomena. Everyone has them, and they’re based in pride. Values are one path to belonging and to achieving status. Except as they impact the larger community, there’s little difference between the values underlying the values of a religious community and the values of a gang.
In the religious community, you must demonstrate what a good and sanctimonious person you are. The holier or more humble you’re perceived to be, the more status you get. In the gang, you must prove how tough you are. Maybe you must show you can take a beating or that you can kill someone. But, in both the gang and the religious community, a value’s underlying purpose is about finding your place in a group, about belonging and, specially, about pride of status.
Both communities have values and both live by them and act on them, and, in both, some members are more or less successful in achieving them. You get your status and your worth from how well you demonstrate your group’s values.
My point being? Let’s not pride ourselves on our values, for pride goes just before an elbows over teacup.
"If there is a supreme being, he's crazy." —Marlene Dietrich
"I don't know, I don't care, and it doesn't make any difference." —Jack Kerouac
Values are an interesting phenomena. Everyone has them, and they’re based in pride. Values are one path to belonging and to achieving status. Except as they impact the larger community, there’s little difference between the values underlying the values of a religious community and the values of a gang.
In the religious community, you must demonstrate what a good and sanctimonious person you are. The holier or more humble you’re perceived to be, the more status you get. In the gang, you must prove how tough you are. Maybe you must show you can take a beating or that you can kill someone. But, in both the gang and the religious community, a value’s underlying purpose is about finding your place in a group, about belonging and, specially, about pride of status.
Both communities have values and both live by them and act on them, and, in both, some members are more or less successful in achieving them. You get your status and your worth from how well you demonstrate your group’s values.
My point being? Let’s not pride ourselves on our values, for pride goes just before an elbows over teacup.
"If there is a supreme being, he's crazy." —Marlene Dietrich
"I don't know, I don't care, and it doesn't make any difference." —Jack Kerouac
THE THOMAS PAINE OF IRAQ
Well, now we've gone and done it. Now we've really moved into the Vietnam mode with our attacks on a true Iraqi patriot, al-Sadr. In black robes and white turban, he's the fiery Thomas Paine of the American Revolution .
We have no business going after a true patriot, but we're doing it. We've crossed the line in our obsession with forcing an American-style government onto Iraq when we promised we'd let the Iraqi's have any type of government they wanted. Another Bush lie. Pile it on that slag pile of Bush lies we've already got.
Some history. In Nam, America supported a government led by French trained, Catholic leaders who had been educated in France during the French occupation of South Vietnam. Ninety percent of Vietnam's citizens were Buddhists, but their country was being led by the 10% of them who were Catholic, educated in French schools with Western cultural ways. In Iraq we're supporting a bunch of hand-picked American trained Iraqis. In Nam, we were sort of like the Germans who helped Britain against American revolutionaries rather than being like the French who came to the aid of the American Revolution. We were on the wrong side. We're begining to be on the wrong side in Iraq.
We're starting to lose sight of our values in Iraq. al-Sadr is a patriot of Iraq who suffered under Saddam and who now is suffering under America's occupation of his country. He has every right to want the Americans out. It's his country, and he wants a government for his country which is not like America's government. He has the right to disagree, and he has a right to fight the occupiers of his country to achieve his aims (didn't our founding fathers do exactly the same thing?), and what does al-Sadr get for it? As the British did to our newspapers in our Revolution, we shut down his newspaper. We silenced dissent. We did an undemocratic thing and something totally against our own Constitution, but Bush is not a Constitutionalist. He doesn't believe in the Constitution. He puts the Bible over the Constitution, so, of course, he doesn't mind silencing a Moslem.
But, aren't we being told that 90% of the Iraqis want democracy? How do we know that? Who's taking the polls in that country without phones and bad electricity and chaos everywhere, a country divided into three widely disparate groups: Sunnis, Shia and Kurds? What poll taker walks into the armed camps of al-Sadr's men and asks them what they want? How did they take the polls in all the little towns across Iraq? There are no real and accurate polls in Iraq. They're being made up as Bush goes along. Let me predict: the polls being reported don't exist and if they do, they are not scientifically accurate and aren't representative of the country as a whole.
**************************************
A TITBIT OF PASSION FRUIT
Jesus was pretty lucky. He died quick on that cross, in a few hours. Other less godlike men, treated the same as Jesus, sometimes hung on those crosses for two to three days before giving up the ghost.
******************************************
"Classical music is music written by famous dead foreigners." —Arlene Heath
Well, now we've gone and done it. Now we've really moved into the Vietnam mode with our attacks on a true Iraqi patriot, al-Sadr. In black robes and white turban, he's the fiery Thomas Paine of the American Revolution .
We have no business going after a true patriot, but we're doing it. We've crossed the line in our obsession with forcing an American-style government onto Iraq when we promised we'd let the Iraqi's have any type of government they wanted. Another Bush lie. Pile it on that slag pile of Bush lies we've already got.
Some history. In Nam, America supported a government led by French trained, Catholic leaders who had been educated in France during the French occupation of South Vietnam. Ninety percent of Vietnam's citizens were Buddhists, but their country was being led by the 10% of them who were Catholic, educated in French schools with Western cultural ways. In Iraq we're supporting a bunch of hand-picked American trained Iraqis. In Nam, we were sort of like the Germans who helped Britain against American revolutionaries rather than being like the French who came to the aid of the American Revolution. We were on the wrong side. We're begining to be on the wrong side in Iraq.
We're starting to lose sight of our values in Iraq. al-Sadr is a patriot of Iraq who suffered under Saddam and who now is suffering under America's occupation of his country. He has every right to want the Americans out. It's his country, and he wants a government for his country which is not like America's government. He has the right to disagree, and he has a right to fight the occupiers of his country to achieve his aims (didn't our founding fathers do exactly the same thing?), and what does al-Sadr get for it? As the British did to our newspapers in our Revolution, we shut down his newspaper. We silenced dissent. We did an undemocratic thing and something totally against our own Constitution, but Bush is not a Constitutionalist. He doesn't believe in the Constitution. He puts the Bible over the Constitution, so, of course, he doesn't mind silencing a Moslem.
But, aren't we being told that 90% of the Iraqis want democracy? How do we know that? Who's taking the polls in that country without phones and bad electricity and chaos everywhere, a country divided into three widely disparate groups: Sunnis, Shia and Kurds? What poll taker walks into the armed camps of al-Sadr's men and asks them what they want? How did they take the polls in all the little towns across Iraq? There are no real and accurate polls in Iraq. They're being made up as Bush goes along. Let me predict: the polls being reported don't exist and if they do, they are not scientifically accurate and aren't representative of the country as a whole.
**************************************
A TITBIT OF PASSION FRUIT
Jesus was pretty lucky. He died quick on that cross, in a few hours. Other less godlike men, treated the same as Jesus, sometimes hung on those crosses for two to three days before giving up the ghost.
******************************************
"Classical music is music written by famous dead foreigners." —Arlene Heath
Monday, April 12, 2004
CAVE OF THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS
I stand in the sunshine, warm on my head, in my dream of a life, and peer into the cave of pre-historic, creature darkness from the ages before the human animal commenced. Far in, I hear voices, screams, the sound of creatures in fear and pain. Could this be Plato’s Cave, I think.
So I call in softly, “Hey, come out, you guys. Come on out! Come on!”
I listen. I hear barks, yaps. They’re afraid to come out! I think I hear them crow they’re comfortable in there with familiar 2000 year old rituals whereas out here all's new and all promise with a little courage to let go of old nightmares. Out here, a rock’s a rock, a life’s a life and things keep changing.
I creep to the very edge of their cave and make one more attempt. “Look! None of the demons in there with you are out here in the sun. They’re all in your head. Come on out. There’s nothing to fear out here in this fine and pleasant dream.”
But nothing happens. They remain in their Platonic cave nightmare with the blood and pain and fear of their crucified one clutched tightly to their chests, hoping for the end times, hoping to die soon, as quickly as they can.
*******************************************
"If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner."
—Tallulah Bankhead
I stand in the sunshine, warm on my head, in my dream of a life, and peer into the cave of pre-historic, creature darkness from the ages before the human animal commenced. Far in, I hear voices, screams, the sound of creatures in fear and pain. Could this be Plato’s Cave, I think.
So I call in softly, “Hey, come out, you guys. Come on out! Come on!”
I listen. I hear barks, yaps. They’re afraid to come out! I think I hear them crow they’re comfortable in there with familiar 2000 year old rituals whereas out here all's new and all promise with a little courage to let go of old nightmares. Out here, a rock’s a rock, a life’s a life and things keep changing.
I creep to the very edge of their cave and make one more attempt. “Look! None of the demons in there with you are out here in the sun. They’re all in your head. Come on out. There’s nothing to fear out here in this fine and pleasant dream.”
But nothing happens. They remain in their Platonic cave nightmare with the blood and pain and fear of their crucified one clutched tightly to their chests, hoping for the end times, hoping to die soon, as quickly as they can.
*******************************************
"If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner."
—Tallulah Bankhead
As I stroll through the downtown a' Spokane, Washington with my backpack on my back, lookin' a little scruffy 'cause 2 day's growth a' beard, feelin' happy 'cause I'm retired and though not rich, at least I got roof over my head, food in belly and clothes on back, a damn fine mind that's still functioning, and a wonderful wife who I love, a bit younger and still working (until the Bush budget takes her job), I can imagine how it feels to be one the guys coming from the Mission on Trent with his backpack on and feeling kind of low and down and out and trembling 'cause he's a bit hungover and uncertain in the sunlight, thinkin' how he'll get together a few pennies to get on with or buy him a pint a' booze, but happy to see the sun and no more shivering in doorways until next winter comes with puffy cheek wind blows to freeze him to the bone, an' thinkin' maybe he won't have to spend too many more damn nights at the Mission, listenin' to all that Jesus crap they lay on you just so's you can get a cot and a hot....
Yeah, I can imagine it, I sure can. There was a time when I sat in an alley too, lo these many 25 plus years ago, back in another dream and in another world, and I think of a fragment of a poem by Bill Stafford:
“... to an imagined place
Where finally the way the world feels
really means how things are....”
from “In Dear Detail, by Ideal Light” by William Stafford
Yeah, I can imagine it, I sure can. There was a time when I sat in an alley too, lo these many 25 plus years ago, back in another dream and in another world, and I think of a fragment of a poem by Bill Stafford:
“... to an imagined place
Where finally the way the world feels
really means how things are....”
from “In Dear Detail, by Ideal Light” by William Stafford
EMANATIONS FROM THE DREAM WORLD OF A DREAMY OLD MAN
I just had a two day wrestlin' match with a hairy old blog that come outta the trees and had me by the seat a' my pants. He had me shut down tighter than a man after a three day cheese eatin' contest, but I prevailed and now I can get back to comoonicatin' with the rest of this heyar world of bloggeermanship. I do promise to get a link or two to the real world put into my bloggone blogerific blog when n' IF I can learn how or can con someun else fer to do it fer me 'cause I'm just an old, ramblin' fart with the slobbers arunnin' down my chinny chin chin and boogers (not bloggers) hangin' outta my nose. I'm even beginning to smell bad even though I damn well do take a bath at least once a month, need one or not. I think after a man passes the ripe old age of 65, the skin jus' startsta smell bad an' that's jus' the way 'tis.
"Nobody wants justice." —Alan Dershowitz
That's right, Alan. Evolution predicts everyone wants victory. Think about it!
I just had a two day wrestlin' match with a hairy old blog that come outta the trees and had me by the seat a' my pants. He had me shut down tighter than a man after a three day cheese eatin' contest, but I prevailed and now I can get back to comoonicatin' with the rest of this heyar world of bloggeermanship. I do promise to get a link or two to the real world put into my bloggone blogerific blog when n' IF I can learn how or can con someun else fer to do it fer me 'cause I'm just an old, ramblin' fart with the slobbers arunnin' down my chinny chin chin and boogers (not bloggers) hangin' outta my nose. I'm even beginning to smell bad even though I damn well do take a bath at least once a month, need one or not. I think after a man passes the ripe old age of 65, the skin jus' startsta smell bad an' that's jus' the way 'tis.
"Nobody wants justice." —Alan Dershowitz
That's right, Alan. Evolution predicts everyone wants victory. Think about it!
Saturday, April 10, 2004
Imagine this headline and lead in:
LEFT BRAIN IS A PATHOLOGICAL LIAR:
EVERYTHING YOU BELIEVE IS MADE UP
“The world as we know it was exposed today as being nothing less than a tissue of fabrications, lies and distortions perpetrated on the human animal by his left brain....”
The fictional headline and story lead-in are made up, but the facts supporting it are not. The following is from Stephen Pinker’s The Blank Slate, page 43:
“One of the most dramatic demonstrations of the illusion of the unified self comes from the neuroscientists Michael Gazzaniga and Roger Sperry, who showed that when surgeons cut the corpus callosum joining the cerebral hemispheres, they literally cut the self in two, and each hemisphere can exercise free will without the other one’s advice or consent. Even more disconcertingly, the left hemisphere constantly weaves a coherent but false account of the behavior chosen without its knowledge by the right. For example, if an experimenter flashes the command ‘WALK’ to the right hemisphere (by keeping it in the part of the visual field that only the right hemisphere can see), the person will comply with the request and begin to walk out of the room. But when the person (specifically the left hemisphere) is asked why he just got up, he will say, ‘To get a Coke’—rather than ‘I don’t really know’ or ‘The urge just came over me’ or ‘You’ve been testing me for years since I had the surgery, and sometimes you get me to do things but I don’t know exactly what you asked me to do....’
“The spooky part is that we have no reason to think that the baloney-generator in the patient’s left hemisphere is behaving any differently from ours as we make sense of the inclinations emanating from the rest of our brains. The conscious mind—the self or soul—is a spin doctor, not the commander in chief.”
*******************************************
That’s right—the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, and we lie to ourselves and each other all the time and don’t even know that we do.
As I read the above, I begin to get the picture that all our wonderful human ideas about reality are just handy rationalizations the brain makes up for us so that we can walk, talk and chew gum at the same time. Long ago I began to understand that the idea of a hypothetical superbeing (god) who created an afterlife, etcetera, is just the conscious manifestation of our body’s evolutionary drive to survive, a reason made up for our finding ourselves walking around in these atomic bodies and talking with other members of the troop of chimps we discovered ourselves among when consciousness first evolved.
By the way, the reason a surgeon would cut the corpus callosom in half is that some people suffer from seizures so severe, prolonged and frequent that medication can do nothing for them. Their only relief comes with a surgery that separates the left brain from the right by cutting the corpus callosum.
LEFT BRAIN IS A PATHOLOGICAL LIAR:
EVERYTHING YOU BELIEVE IS MADE UP
“The world as we know it was exposed today as being nothing less than a tissue of fabrications, lies and distortions perpetrated on the human animal by his left brain....”
The fictional headline and story lead-in are made up, but the facts supporting it are not. The following is from Stephen Pinker’s The Blank Slate, page 43:
“One of the most dramatic demonstrations of the illusion of the unified self comes from the neuroscientists Michael Gazzaniga and Roger Sperry, who showed that when surgeons cut the corpus callosum joining the cerebral hemispheres, they literally cut the self in two, and each hemisphere can exercise free will without the other one’s advice or consent. Even more disconcertingly, the left hemisphere constantly weaves a coherent but false account of the behavior chosen without its knowledge by the right. For example, if an experimenter flashes the command ‘WALK’ to the right hemisphere (by keeping it in the part of the visual field that only the right hemisphere can see), the person will comply with the request and begin to walk out of the room. But when the person (specifically the left hemisphere) is asked why he just got up, he will say, ‘To get a Coke’—rather than ‘I don’t really know’ or ‘The urge just came over me’ or ‘You’ve been testing me for years since I had the surgery, and sometimes you get me to do things but I don’t know exactly what you asked me to do....’
“The spooky part is that we have no reason to think that the baloney-generator in the patient’s left hemisphere is behaving any differently from ours as we make sense of the inclinations emanating from the rest of our brains. The conscious mind—the self or soul—is a spin doctor, not the commander in chief.”
*******************************************
That’s right—the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, and we lie to ourselves and each other all the time and don’t even know that we do.
As I read the above, I begin to get the picture that all our wonderful human ideas about reality are just handy rationalizations the brain makes up for us so that we can walk, talk and chew gum at the same time. Long ago I began to understand that the idea of a hypothetical superbeing (god) who created an afterlife, etcetera, is just the conscious manifestation of our body’s evolutionary drive to survive, a reason made up for our finding ourselves walking around in these atomic bodies and talking with other members of the troop of chimps we discovered ourselves among when consciousness first evolved.
By the way, the reason a surgeon would cut the corpus callosom in half is that some people suffer from seizures so severe, prolonged and frequent that medication can do nothing for them. Their only relief comes with a surgery that separates the left brain from the right by cutting the corpus callosum.
CROSSING
On rocks uptilted from the stream
Soft grows the moss.
Moved by the movements of a dream,
I slip across
Through blue reflections of my wavering face,
By stones held distant from the bottom place.
When woodland on the new won side
Unmakes my way,
And I think of the earth's green hide,
I almost stay,
But memory of my blue-mirrored face
Unstops my movement in this wild, green space.
Geo
On rocks uptilted from the stream
Soft grows the moss.
Moved by the movements of a dream,
I slip across
Through blue reflections of my wavering face,
By stones held distant from the bottom place.
When woodland on the new won side
Unmakes my way,
And I think of the earth's green hide,
I almost stay,
But memory of my blue-mirrored face
Unstops my movement in this wild, green space.
Geo
Friday, April 09, 2004
PASS OVER THE EASTER IF YOU DON'T MIND
Easter and Passover are bringing us news once again of Moses and Jesus even though the evidence certifies one as nonexistent and concludes the other may not have existed and certainly did not arise from the dead.
The strongest evidence against Moses is the Egyptian historical record which makes no mention of Moses, and if the king, Ramses, and his army were swallowed by the Red Sea, they didn’t hear about it because they went right on living after they drowned.
As for Jesus. Hebrew holy places, dating before Jesus, still exist. Miraculous locations continue in the record for centuries and pilgrims still journey to them. Explain how the tomb in which occurred the most mighty miracle of the resurrection slipped out of existence like so many Mormon tablets?
Bible says Jesus told at least one apostle that before that apostle died, the Kingdom of God would be established on Earth. (See Jesus's plan and hope in the book The Passover Plot.) Everyone believed Jesus knew what he was talking about and, so, they didn’t need his resurrection or an empty tomb story. They lived in daily anticipation of the end times. In 80 CE (i.e. Common Era), four generations later, when the Kingdom still hadn’t arrived as Jesus predicted, the stories of the resurrection and tomb were introduced into the record in the fiction of Mark. Whoever wrote Matthew and Luke mimicked Mark.
The author of John was a hallucinating lunatic who came along in 125 CE. Who hasn’t met a modern John on any street corner in America, off his meds, out of his head, spouting Old Testament verses?
All of these facts and more are available to anyone who looks into the work of legitimate Bible scholars. You won’t find reliable answers in the work of Christian apologists whose only goal is to prove what they never question and who twist the facts to try to weave a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
"He was a wise man who invented god." — Plato
Easter and Passover are bringing us news once again of Moses and Jesus even though the evidence certifies one as nonexistent and concludes the other may not have existed and certainly did not arise from the dead.
The strongest evidence against Moses is the Egyptian historical record which makes no mention of Moses, and if the king, Ramses, and his army were swallowed by the Red Sea, they didn’t hear about it because they went right on living after they drowned.
As for Jesus. Hebrew holy places, dating before Jesus, still exist. Miraculous locations continue in the record for centuries and pilgrims still journey to them. Explain how the tomb in which occurred the most mighty miracle of the resurrection slipped out of existence like so many Mormon tablets?
Bible says Jesus told at least one apostle that before that apostle died, the Kingdom of God would be established on Earth. (See Jesus's plan and hope in the book The Passover Plot.) Everyone believed Jesus knew what he was talking about and, so, they didn’t need his resurrection or an empty tomb story. They lived in daily anticipation of the end times. In 80 CE (i.e. Common Era), four generations later, when the Kingdom still hadn’t arrived as Jesus predicted, the stories of the resurrection and tomb were introduced into the record in the fiction of Mark. Whoever wrote Matthew and Luke mimicked Mark.
The author of John was a hallucinating lunatic who came along in 125 CE. Who hasn’t met a modern John on any street corner in America, off his meds, out of his head, spouting Old Testament verses?
All of these facts and more are available to anyone who looks into the work of legitimate Bible scholars. You won’t find reliable answers in the work of Christian apologists whose only goal is to prove what they never question and who twist the facts to try to weave a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
"He was a wise man who invented god." — Plato
Good Mawnin' America.... Imagine! Somewhere on this cozy little globe, a single room with a magnificent view, some guy's expiratin' his last breath, and over there, look, some little her's crying her first cry. Bet it won't be her last. She don't sound too happy with the reception she's getting. Bright lights, loud sounds, applause spanked onto her behinder. Why, youall, it's the Broadway of her birth into the dreamlife of her drama. Will she ever wake up or will she sink into the routine of addictions most of us live in—drugs, sex, food, possessions, love, religion? Which addiction will she take up? Anything to keep from thinking about the grim reaper she knows is waiting in the wings for her final curtain. One look at that guy and she'd be shocked into reality pretty quick, you betcha.
What media's massaging your ego this morning? Radio, TV, books...? My media's literature. That's what tells me my story. It creates the fiction which my imaginative consciousness tells me is the true story of my life. Which is yours? What fairy tale do you live by? Make it a good one. At least, let's hope it entertains you and keeps you on your toes. At least build your consciousness out of good literature or great sex, not some silly romance, like Bible tales, fer goodness sake!
Yep, the Great Meat Wheel casts us up and throws us down, around and around we go and where it stops, nobody knows.
"I tended to place my wife under a pedastal." — Woody Allen
What media's massaging your ego this morning? Radio, TV, books...? My media's literature. That's what tells me my story. It creates the fiction which my imaginative consciousness tells me is the true story of my life. Which is yours? What fairy tale do you live by? Make it a good one. At least, let's hope it entertains you and keeps you on your toes. At least build your consciousness out of good literature or great sex, not some silly romance, like Bible tales, fer goodness sake!
Yep, the Great Meat Wheel casts us up and throws us down, around and around we go and where it stops, nobody knows.
"I tended to place my wife under a pedastal." — Woody Allen
Thursday, April 08, 2004
JUST THE BEGINNING:
I’m amazed that people still speak of the “theory of evolution” as if the word “theory” somehow undermines the reality of the thousands of natural process, easily observable, which the term, evolution, encompasses. In the first place, a theory is “a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle offered to explain observed facts”. In the second place, those who still close their minds to the “theory” of evolution are often devout believers in an even less realistic explanation for human existence. Instead of processes humans can see and test, theists posit the naive “hypothesis” that an unseen superbeing created the whole shebang we call life. An “hypothesis” is only an “assumption made in order to test its logical or empirical consequences”. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) Thus, an “hypothesis” is without proof while a “theory” is well on the way to scientific acceptability.
In theists, then, who deny the facts of evolution, we witness the absurd example of people who believe a hypothesis but not a theory. This, sorry to say, does not speak very highly of their scientific credentials, for if they will believe an hypothesis above a theory, either their scientific acuity or their motives must be brought into question. In order to be logically consistent, they must at least deny there is a superbeing until some quantifiable evidence is put forth for it. If they doubt both the superbeing and evolution, then we can at least believe in the veracity of their motives. However, if theists continue to believe a personal hypothesis above an observable theory, then we must question their motives. Any intellectually honest theist must eventually become, at least, agnostic.
Another untenable hypothesis of the theistic group is the idea of “intelligent design”. First, may I suggest Richard Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker as a brilliant book for the layman’s understanding of how natural selection works to bring about what seems like design? Beyond that book, let me point out how easily “intelligent design” falls apart. All we need do is look at the fossil record, at the observable, quantifiable and undeniable rise and death of zillions of species of the past and at the species currently arising and dying out, to refute design. For an intelligent designer, which is all powerful, why so much hit and miss, why so much carnage and waste in the creation? Why is this intelligent designer’s touch chaotic, random and continuing? If an interior designer came into our home when we first bought it and continued to this day to stay here and to tear apart the living room and kitchen, never finishing, we’d not long call him an “intelligent designer”. We’d say goodbye and good riddance. So, we must ask, if not by design, why does life keep fiddling with life? I’ll tell you why: it’s because we’re not witnessing the plan of a master craftsman but the random and chance operations of a natural selection whose processes perfectly explain the life of earth as we humans can observe it today.
I’m amazed that people still speak of the “theory of evolution” as if the word “theory” somehow undermines the reality of the thousands of natural process, easily observable, which the term, evolution, encompasses. In the first place, a theory is “a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle offered to explain observed facts”. In the second place, those who still close their minds to the “theory” of evolution are often devout believers in an even less realistic explanation for human existence. Instead of processes humans can see and test, theists posit the naive “hypothesis” that an unseen superbeing created the whole shebang we call life. An “hypothesis” is only an “assumption made in order to test its logical or empirical consequences”. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) Thus, an “hypothesis” is without proof while a “theory” is well on the way to scientific acceptability.
In theists, then, who deny the facts of evolution, we witness the absurd example of people who believe a hypothesis but not a theory. This, sorry to say, does not speak very highly of their scientific credentials, for if they will believe an hypothesis above a theory, either their scientific acuity or their motives must be brought into question. In order to be logically consistent, they must at least deny there is a superbeing until some quantifiable evidence is put forth for it. If they doubt both the superbeing and evolution, then we can at least believe in the veracity of their motives. However, if theists continue to believe a personal hypothesis above an observable theory, then we must question their motives. Any intellectually honest theist must eventually become, at least, agnostic.
Another untenable hypothesis of the theistic group is the idea of “intelligent design”. First, may I suggest Richard Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker as a brilliant book for the layman’s understanding of how natural selection works to bring about what seems like design? Beyond that book, let me point out how easily “intelligent design” falls apart. All we need do is look at the fossil record, at the observable, quantifiable and undeniable rise and death of zillions of species of the past and at the species currently arising and dying out, to refute design. For an intelligent designer, which is all powerful, why so much hit and miss, why so much carnage and waste in the creation? Why is this intelligent designer’s touch chaotic, random and continuing? If an interior designer came into our home when we first bought it and continued to this day to stay here and to tear apart the living room and kitchen, never finishing, we’d not long call him an “intelligent designer”. We’d say goodbye and good riddance. So, we must ask, if not by design, why does life keep fiddling with life? I’ll tell you why: it’s because we’re not witnessing the plan of a master craftsman but the random and chance operations of a natural selection whose processes perfectly explain the life of earth as we humans can observe it today.
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