More Musings on religon:

Yes I can't seem to criticize organized religon enough, maybe though it isn't my fault but that of those in charge. The far right wing always scares me, no more so than
when I read the newspapers about the oppressive nations of Afghanstian, and to lesser extents Iran and Saudi Arabia. There religion is dominant and to question it is to risk 
oppression. There is no cultural or intellectual curisioty if it would upset the leaders who don't want any threating actions to their fiefdoms. Women are for the most part property
of their husbands, no art, writings, dialog, music is allowed that would upset the elite. All in all these backward nations are at the same exact point as the christian society of the 
Middle Ages was before the Rennissance and Englightment of the 1500-1700's. If it wasn't for liberals of the day like Locke, Franklin, Jefferson, Paine we would still be under religous domination.
By the way Saudi Arabia, one of the most backward and un christian nations on earth is a big U.S. ally because of oil. Remember the middle east and its' terrorism, violence and archaic laws
the next time somebody says we need a set of laws built solely on the old testament. Also ask him if they're going to also give up pork and be a socialist. After all socialism is the economic
system favored in the bible by god. Did not Jesus say "it would be easier for a camel to enter through the head of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven."  Show me 1 line where capitalism is 
endorsed in the bible. Even the vague notion of liberty that would encompass capitalism is not supported in the bible. The bible is fascist, God is Big Brother. He spies on you, records everything
you do and if you don't respect him properly he'll send you to eternal torment. It always amuses me when fundies talk about big brother and the implation of chips to track them but they worship 
the ultimate Big Brother. Marx and his fellow communists were never as fascist as their god. Marx also rejected religion partly because the religous powers forgot their poor roots 2000 years ago
and searched more for gold than their fellow man's salvation. If religion had always stayed true and not helped the ruling elites to stay in power, by endorsing such things as the notion of divine
rights then Marx and other fellow intellectuals would never have rejected and been so hostile to religion.


Elitism:


  Elitism: Why are only liberals eltitist, is it because we're the smartest, the best educated, the most rational and emphatic. No it is because it is a convenient term to emplace on us that is well, 
elitist. What about conseratives, aren't they ever elitist. After all they own the supposedly left wing leaning media, you ever seen a rich socialist?  If you have I'll show you an empathetic libertarian.
Do  William Buckley or George Will look like the kind of guys who after a hard day of sipping martinias off the coast of a Carribean Island will go down to Hanks' bar in Redneck, Georgia and have themselves 
a frosty one while listening to Travis Tritt. Of course not, they and so Steve Forbes-a man who wants to do us all a favor by lowering his taxes and decreasing the govt. programs that serve us are all elitist.
Frankly elitism by itself isn't unamerican, we all don't have the same gifts. The Supreme Court is extremely elitist, but in a good way. It serves to protect the minority groups and their voices consitional 
rights from the majority. That is why we have a Bill of Rights.

The Stupidest Thing I ever Heard

By far the stupidest thing that I have ever heard was the statment love it or leave it. Sounds pretty patriotic doesn't it, you don't like our country then leave it. Let's analyze that a little though. Love what,
the country or the government. Does anybody think the government is always right? Mc Veigh and other far right militia and religous wackos do, and that is there right. The most far right of them will even commit violence.
They say that Thomas Jefferson and others committed violence and they are right, but they also had legimate backing, tried other options and didn't exist in a democracy plus did not commit terrorist acts on innoncent individuals.
Liberals, and so for the most part were our deist freethinking founding fathers, utilized violence but they one of the last liberal groups to do so. Labor unions of the 1800s' would have rarely became violent if not violently provoked
and denied the right to bargain in good faith, the early civil rights era lead by me such as Dr. King was non-violent even when confronting the violence of the KKK. The Vietnma war protestors of the '60's fought against using by the 
vast majority peaceful means, were the ones targeted with "love it or leave it." Did the founding fathers though when they complained about the injustices that England inflicted leave America for present day Mexico or Florida because
they did not love it in the present state. No they fought and acheieved democracy and consitionally guaranteed rights to allow people to epose such inane terms as "love it or leave it."  I understand that many of those who fought in WWII
had fought for democracy and protection of our borders but since then nary a war by the U.S. has been fought for those goals. Vietnam especially was not fought to defend an invasion or to bring democracy to Vietnam. Indeed an early leader
of S. Vietnam, Diem, was so undemocratic and unjust that his own people had to kill him. "Love it or leave it" is an Orwellian statement that just serves to enfraschise those in power be it consratives or even liberals. I would not wish to live
in such a state.


What the Supreme Court Mandated Purpose.

The main purpose of the U.S. Supreme Court is not to uphold some notion of state rights, why not county  or village rights too?, but the consitutional rights of the citizens of the U.S. and each individual states. Indeed the reason why the powers of 
the federal government were limited by the founding fathers was not so much to give states greater authority over the rights of its' members but to protect individual members of states from the abridgment of rights by the federal government. Consitional and
civil rights are of the greatest importance and need to be safeguarded. Unfortunately today the only reasonable way to do that is to have a Supreme Court to uphold those rights- that is their primal duty and they have an obligatin to enforce it. The Founding
Fathers knew that we needed a strong Court to uphold the rights of the individual over the whims of the majority. They also knew that a conserative frame of mind that is apathetic to other individual rights would not protect those rights unless compelled to 
 by a legimate body, such as the highest court in the land. Many men of the era, such as Ben Franklin wanted stronger consitional rights for all members of the society, such as an end to slavery, but more conserative elements blocked such proposals. Protecting
the rights of gays, homelessness is not liberal judicial activism. Would the protection of those with blonde hair, or blue eyes, or those really tall be unconsitional because it is not exactly stated in the Consitution? In fact conserative judicial activism is alive
and well in America-Death penalty which is cruel and unusual in the western world and violates due process by not allowing appeals after a certain state, namely death. The Supreme Court should never forget its' mission, to let freedom ring.



 I was listening to a lecture in class one day and the teacher stated something that caught my eye, or more literally ear. It is displacement or the concept that someone else is responsible for your urges desires, fears etc. The late 1600's salem witch trials were
a great example of this phenomenal. Some puritian men, or at least one stated that they had sinful lusts or desires because a puritian woman came to him and gave forth these desires to him. It was not his fault or whatever he had natural desires or immoral if you are 
one to state man should not think for himself, it was her fault. She of course was promptly burned at the stake I think. Talk about blaming the victim huh?? So what we have here is religion denying a great gift that either nature most likely or God, why did he make sex
so desirable huh, ignore because it is sinful. Why is sex sinful anyway? Does it create bodily harm. Rape does you answer, but is rape caused by sex. It is caused by porn some will state. Most rapists viewed porn, and that is true, but also most rapists driven cars, have
like chocolate, but does that lead to rape. The majority of men would state they have seen porn and some would admit they have secret desires to be a porn star. Does that mean most are rapists. Of course not. Aids, unwanted pregnancies that is a negative virtue of sex, but
does that mean sex in itself is sinful. Married couples have unwanted pregnancies or even transmit sexual diseases to each other. Before the testing of sexual diseases for marriage licenses syphillis, gonera and others were probably pretty common, does that mean marriage is 
sinful in itself? Aids is not from a wrathful god, you would think he would be putting heads of dead loqusts in the bed of Phil Knight if he/was/it/whatever was really angry about something sinful. Aids is caused by physical causes, just like the black death of the 14th 
century which news flash wasn't caused by God but rats. Sure sex can spread it but that does not mean sex in itself is bad any more than it means industrization in itself is bad unless you have widespread pollution, unjust wages etc... In more open countries in terms of 
sexuality like Sweden the rate of unwanted pregnancies is lower even though there are different factors, such as an increased social welfare system and an unheterogencous multi-cultural population to discriminate against. What are the rates of rape in the U.S. versus
the more open Western world, I would believe it is lower in a nations that allow sex easier, prosition, etc-more constructive outlets and one that doesn't frustrate the individual into hatred of another for teasing him which our nation encourages.This is a topic I think
I shall explore soon.


  LSD-the good the bad, the one who looks like Rush


What is real, what is truth, do you know what is real, are you sure or do you think you do. We all think we see the same world. Earth 3rd rock from Sol, an arm of the Milky Way galaxy in some cluster I can't name because I only got a C in astronomy. What though if all this
was a massive hallicunation, what if heaven forbid all of us are insane and in some sanituraium on some space station orbiting Alpha Centurai with deslusions we're from a planet we call earth that really is a wasteland of rock. Pretty far fetched huh, not so more than religion.
The Descartian notion I'm trying to get at is we really don't know what or who we are. All we see and feel is from sensory organs that are imperfect. Present day virtual reality seems pretty primitive but imagine its' growth another few hundred years until the day, like in Star
Trek the Next Generation you cannot tell reality from fiction. Imagine that our world is all a game and we just have to turn it off, though we don't know how-and that dieing or going to hell is a way of doing that.
Maybe consencious is not limited to just each person but there is a global consecious on the tip of our fingertips we can't sort out. LSD plus other drugs change our sense of reality-but does that mean they are any more unreal for that. William James did not think that we should 
have to know reality all the time in its' true form as Plato would want, doesn't religion do that itself with its' fairy tales of heaven, hell, and God? Fairy tales that are just parables to give messages. There are many mythologies on creation and it is naive to think christanity
is the only true one and the others might not have a little bit of truth to them too. Truth is not monopolized by one religion, group of people or even sense. UV rays exist but we cannot see them, ultrasound exists but we cannot hear it, does that mean it does not exist. Oh,
but those are external sources that we cannot detect because of faulty sensory equipment, and that is my point. Our sensory equipment is faulty so we cannot never know the whole truth, about a true reality or dimensions. Senses are just imanges of the external world, imperfect to
a sort, we can never know the whole truth but we can strive but does that mean we have to be focused on it all the time. Alcholol distorts reality, so does marijuna but is that all bad. Why do some have to live in this world all the time if it makes them unhappy. Happiness is the greatest
good, even more so than truth, truth is just a means to happiness. Many shamans use peyote and other drugs to get truth from the universe, and in some ways they do that. What they see may not be the utter truth but it is truth to deeper understanding of the universe and ourselves.

This page has been visited times.

  "Immortal Beloved"

"One has gotten through Bob."  

"One has gotten through where Kyle, can't you see I'm kind of busy."

"One of those who believed in that old myth has gotten through and become immortal."

"The Zeus worshipers?! I swear if this is one of your games I am..."

"Wait a second Bob, one of the christies, you know the ones who believed that christian mythology was literal
and not just a bunch of fairy tales for children and the dim has gotten through the screening process and has 
become immortal through the aging stoppage process. We thought we were through with them but we are not, they 
are still here, or at least one of them is. We're going to have to kill them. They agreed to go to their god
by letting theirsleves die and become angels or whatever they believe in and let us atheists and humanists have
earth, this isn't fair. We got a contract, we will sue..."

"Just calm down a minute Kyle, let us think this thing over rationally. Do you know the man's name, the christie
you call him. Do you know where he is?"

"Yeah, his name is Mace, John Mace, or John the swinging Mace he likes to call himself. Actually he is in room rm.
414D and he wants to meet you."

"Really", said Bob obviously taken aback by surprise, "send him up then."

Later:

"So you are John the Swinging Mace. You do know that you have violated a contract which states that if you have a religous 
believe in God and heaven and all that that you would go into heaven quietly without forcing your beliefs on non-believers 
before that said event we atheist will pay you a sum equal to 10% annunally of our gross income. Did you receive payments
and are still receiving them."

"Yes I did."

"Do you still profess a belief in heaven and God."

"Yes I do."

"Then why on earth did you become immortal, that is a violation of contract. I will sue. You have your heaven. Why would you want the 
drugdery of our eartly heaven."

"The unborn children"

"Now see here, I though the issue of abortin was already settled, this..."

"No, I am not talking about abortion, I am talking about the children that you atheists
will give forth to in the future. They, innoncent they need to be allowed worship their god."

"Oh christ!!"

"Don't use our  lord's name in vain."

"Don't you see I don'believe in your lord. Aren't we ever going to get rid of you guys. You see now our
race isn't limited and held back by foolish desires for immortality because their afraid of nothingness.
We don't have to build a absurd fairy tale that limits freedom and happiness because some people worry
of their death. For those who don't like to think for themselves, they too don't have to join us."

"Uh Bob, I think you need to see this, oh fuck, you really need to see this." 

Bob turns his head to look at the direction that Kyle is pointing too, as he does his face becomes pitch
white. He knows this isn't going to be a good day. Outside the windows in all directions were men carrying 
crosses and singing hymns and all that he could see possesed the percular orange tint of hair that came 
from going through the immortal process.

"You see Dr. Kaldell, nothing was said about making our own immortal maching, just using yours. You cannot forget
god no matter where you go. He is coming soon and he won't let you hide from him."


      The END




    
     "And the World Turned Upside Down"


  Let me ask you, are you sick, are you tired of the christian right using god to legimitaize their views, are
you tired of battling inane thinking and emotion with rational thought and still losing. Are you tired of them 
having God on their side and using it as a crutch whenever, which is usually always they can't think of a legimate
answer except you're going to hell for blasphemy or thinking for yourself. Don't you wish the God of the old testament
was a little more liberal so you could use him to legitimize your more logical and emphatic views. Let's face it, the
religous right is mostly correct, the God in the bible is on their side, ok so its' largely a myth but its' their myth. 
Sure there are old Jewish customs that they no longer take part and sure socialism is much more than the bible endorsed 
by Jesus and the others, you know the part about the camel going into the head of the needle more so than a rich man to 
heaven, well I got just the idea for you. Since christanity is made up to justify, condone and even encourage hatred and 
injustice and domination and injustice against gays, blacks, women and especially nonbelievers because they are the ones 
who would question this nonsense why not make up our own religion. But you ask, would we not know that it is a myth, after
all we made it up. That's the beauty of it though, how many fundies really believe in the shit they say they do, after all
they want to restrict atheist views and up to 100 years ago they did that easily, look up Robert Ingersoll, why? Because they
were deep down afraid of being wrong. We too can make up a religion that stresses equality, justice, equal rights for gays,
empathy for the poor while at the same time incorporating the past couple hundred years of science. So they say we are liers
and what we state is not the truth, hell truth is in the eye of the beholder, what you need is faith. With strong enough faith
2 + 2= 5. We believe in this long and strong enough no matter how nuts it might seem, it still would be a lot saner than 
the absurd stuff the fundies believe now, than hey its' the truth. Deism, the religion if you want to call it that of the 
founding fathers is a good place to start. Hey life formed from aliens manipulating DNA. So if you have any good ideas on 
how this liberal religion background is, maybe a plot from a good Star Trek episode-prefarably next generation or Voyager than
e-mail me and I'll put it on this page if it is any good and/or I have room. 

More Notes:

Fundamentalist scholars

How come chrisanity and other related theist myths are about the only myths that people who study them actually believe in. After all no scholar outside of the Apache community believes that the creation story of men was from climbing out of the earth, and that the reason man was made because to provide comfort to the animals. Hell even the Apaches today don't believe in it, so why do christian scholars, if they want to consider themselves intellectuals give up the absurdites of the bible and just flat out call themsleves christians.

Fundies evolved from apes

Men came from apes who are more emotional than logical man. Fundamentalist man decrys rational man for using his intellect and rationally to look at the problems of religion. If fundie man is self described more emotional along with the apes than rational atheist man does it now follow that religious man is indeed more closely related to the apes than the man who utilizes his cranium genetic gifts. Fundie man, who decries evolution and us coming from apes though is in fact the missing link between apes and man. And they said we would never find it.

A Question of Faith

When I take my german midterm next week and put in place by mistake einem as feminine dative instead of masculine date as it truly is, if I have faith that I am right and the teacher and the language itself is wrong-than am I now right. In other words is 2 + 2=6 or 3 if you have faith it does?

God our Keeper?

Why obey a terrible god if he/it put us on earth, he is a brute and a dictator- why should we listen to him. If we genetically devised a new animal, does that give us the right to torture him to eternally?

Some Thoughts on Private Property:

Private property-why should somebody's family own somethine for dozens of generations- what possible great deal could a guy hundreds of years ago made to a family then that would equalize that kind of sale for the family who sold the rights to the property or the community that gave up claim to it. By the way, why should Cuba give back land to capitalists who took advantage of the peasants in that country. Hell why don't American Indians get back the land that has been robbed from them generations ago. When the rich own all the land in the world where will everybody else go?

Congressional Raises:

Why do capitalists worry so much of the little raises Congress is making, 2.5% for Congress, barely keeping tabs with inflation and doing one of the hardest jobs in America. One that requires one to be an expert on economics, social science, the envrironment, fundraising etc. Corporate America CEO's on the othr hand often make 25% or greater corporate profit even when there are cutbacks and their workers wages stagnment or decrease with inflation. From the mid 1970's to the mid 1990's median adjusted income after inflation has declined at least 7%. I am one who much rather pay a politican, use the post office-much cheaper $3 two day or three day shipments-see Fed. Ex beat that, than the private industries. Giving money to the government for the most part is improving our society, giving it to business is pretty much making a few richer. Privization of our government would cost taxpayers sums that would dwarf the payraises to congress.

Vietnam War Protestors:

How many protesters actually rooted for Vietnam. How many were actually communist. Virtually none I would wager and if they were it was because of radical reaction to the reactionary violent appraoch the U.S. tried in favoring a capitalist dictarorship over a communist dictatorship. Hell that isn't even close. The U.S. would gladly support a capitalist dictatorship over a moderately socialist democracy- just ask the people of Guatemala after the Dole Fruit Company complained. Wow-a whole nation overthrown by another because of one corporations' greed, and you thought the British were tough.