Reverend Speaks

2007-05-09T18:39:00.000-07:00

I've noticed (a DUH! moment) that folks don't seem to like to have their beliefs challenged.

Over the past couple weeks I've been commenting on a blog started recently by an atheist. While I despise the atheist credo as much as fundamentalist faiths, I thought I'd give this chap an opportunity. I don't spend much energy online these days, as web content is not really very interesting to me. Especially the sophomoric musings of lazy wannabe intellectuals.

So I thought I'd see what this guy had to offer by poking at the places where he was just spouting atheist dogma, which is just as poisonous as radical Islamist and abortion clinic bombing fundamentalist Christian dogma. To make a short story shorter, this chap came unhinged at the following comment I posted:

So things are not fine then.

I certainly do not debate the merits of believing in oneself. I would
debate the merits of individuality in the Western sense, but I'm sure
you'll tackle that in another post.

I've been noodling over this post and wondering what the point is.
Honestly, not to be dull-witted, but I still kinda must be missing the
main point, as I do not find the stop and think about it moment here.

What I have come up with, though, is a thought about a friend of mine
from college, who I no longer keep in touch with. We called him "Sh#t
House Rat" because we determined that he was crazier than one. He
embraced this name. He was born again and incredibly intelligent. (Not
necessary mutually exclusive, you know. Einstein's downfall was his
faith, too, arguably one of the brightest minds to ever exist). He went
to naturopathic medical school in Arizona (I can't remember the name -
Southwest, I think). After two years in the program, he dropped out,
went back home to become a preacher in Pittsburgh (or somewhere
thereabouts).

When we were undergrads in San Diego, we'd often debate the merits of
the New Testament and whether things were real or mythical in the Bible.
Often times, I would make him physically ill. How, you ask? Because I
would confront his faith head on with things he could not deny, yet
clashed with his beliefs.

My point here is that obviously, our debates had no impact other than to
perhaps strengthen his resolve. The willingly deluded are not easily
swayed by the truth (have you been around since 2000? Have you been
paying attention?). In fact, when confronted with the truth, they
retreat further into their fantasy or lash out (witness abortion clinic
bombings, Pat Robertson's rantings).

I posit that scoffing only helps you feel superior, which is really
contrary to the point of trying to build community.
Let's tackle ritual some other time. I would like to show you that
ritual is very important and without it you become less human and more
robotic, which if that is your goal, fine, but I'd like to think that
you are after a more sentient reality than that.

I won't argue for dogma, because the unexamined life is not worth
living. And I think superstition is fun. Right Ganesha?

Looks to me as though the atheist is closer to my friend Sh#t House Rat than he'd like to admit.

Why are you only thankful today?

2004-11-25T13:29:00.000-08:00

Perhaps because you have been accustomed to the daily thrashing we receive from the pseudocompassion of today's neoconservatives. Most of us aren't begrudged this day off. Hopefully you at least got the day off. Another thanks giving for a day to set it apart from the others. But don't think it's safe from the Christian Capitalist agenda. Soon paid holidays night be illegal, because it hinders competitiveness. I'm sure those eight year olds in China don't get paid holidays. Watch for the leveling of the playing field.

If I prayed to the christian god, I suppose I'd find it difficult to be thankful every day too. The thing about the idea of worshipping the god of the bile, er bible, is that you're doing it in vain if you only thank him once a year. The church I grew up in pointed out the idea that you need to be equally thankful every day. If you're not, your faith is not strong enough to move the proverbial mountain.

I, personally, look at Thanksgiving Day as a perjoritive celebration of the American genocide. Much like Columbus Day celebrates a very evil man as a hero. Again, we honor the genocide with a holiday celebration. How is this right?

The short answer, as you can probably guess, is that it is right in no way. The road to hell is paved with celebrations of genocide. As I wrestled with my issues of faith so many years ago, I took with me the teachings of my childhood church that emphasized the point that mainstream Christianity is not the church of God it portrays itself to be. Christian actions and the two thousand year legacy of death and destruction have no relevance to the teachings of Jesus. Come judgement day, the overwhelming majority of mainstream Christians were going to find themselves on a one way trip into a lake of fire.

I could not agree more today. From the evidence I have seen just this month, American Christians are rotten to the core and determined to make sure our great Nation of the People, by the People, for the People becomes a dogmatic autocracy run by the most cruel of emporers.

Be thankful for the fact that we are now looking at the resurgence of an evangelical movement of liberalism. Be prepared to suffer for your faith, as did the true believers during the last Gilded Age. Be prepared to give up your liberty, happiness and even perhaps your life in our ideological revolution. When you fight guns, money and bombs with ideas, we must be prepared to lose battles. But as the hubris of the culture of violence causes it to self-destruct, we will be there to pick up the pieces. And welcome the newly enlightened into the New Progressive Era.

Finally, give thanks that every move made by little w brings us a day closer.

A false prophet and his lame duck

2004-11-05T20:10:00.000-08:00

Shame is upon America. Caveat emptor, all of you who voted for Bush. Your regret will begin soon.

As I write this, the assault may have already begun on Falloujah. Expect a bloodbath. Bush has murdered an estimated 100,000 Iraqis. Maybe 10,000 more by Monday. That will just be lesson number one for you to learn about your new President: Lame Duck Bush.

What acts has Bush performed to outwardly show his faith? I know of none. He talks alot, but he is short on acts of compassion or mercy. George Walker Bush has, in his capacity as President, been directly responsible for truly unknown qualtities of torture, imprisonment, death and destruction. How dare he claim to follow the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth?

I hear him say he does a lot of praying. I used to do a lot of praying. I know what happens when you pray. Unless you're certifiably insane or on drugs, God does not engage you in conversation during your nightly prayer. Anyone who claims otherwise needs professional attention, or is a bald-faced liar and a false prophet.

When people talk directly to God, the experience changes an individual both inwardly and outwardly. Bush has never climed the mountain to talk to God, he has never spent weeks fasting in repentance, he has never sat in ashes covered in boils. He has never once talked of pounding swords into ploughshares, he has never once spoken of turning the other cheek, and he has never once hesitated to send someone to their death. This man has spoken with the devil, but he most certainly not ever spoken with God.

To hedge this bet, I must admit that bare-knuckling his sobriety probably gave him a near ecstatic experience, at the very least. But he shows no signs to prove he ever healed from his narcotic disease. In my own experience, just because someone went sober does not prove they are better.

Many sober folks still lie, cheat and steal to get their fix. The fix just changes. To truly have a healing experience, a complete spiritual cleansing must be followed by carefully refilling the self with new intentions and refocused attentions. The record shows us clearly where Bush's attentions are and what his intentions have amounted to: nothing good.

Shame on any good Christians who allowed themselves to be deceived by this wolf. His sheep's clothing has been threadbare for years, yet so many remain deceived. Your pennence is to tell everyone around you of your sin and your sorrow. And then you must join us in scorning him for his crimes.

Desecration of the Sacred

2004-09-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040904/NEWS/409040342/1178

Have the corporate titans no shame? It seems to me the profane has subjugated the sacred in our never ending war for profits. We all know why - greed is the deadliest of sin.

Contaminating the Garden

2004-08-19T19:22:00.000-07:00

CNN.com - Tribe has%A0best excuse for poor math skills - Aug 19%2C 2004

Sometimes I wonder what some folks are doing, muddling in affairs they have no business fiddling with. Maybe the counting thing is better left to the industrialized world.

I tend to think that this information might be interesting, but what happens when the Pirhana learn more math? Will it affect their culture? Will it turn them into greedy buggers like us?

Maybe that was part of what they rejected when they remained in their State of Grace with the Earth. Their ancestors may have been cognizant of what numbers and math are when they decided that they wanted no part it.

Then, teaching them math would be contaminating the culture with a terminal conceptual disease. I just hope it doesn't stick.

Otherwise, aren't the findings thought-provoking?

Biblical Archaeology Brings the Past Closer to the Future

2004-08-19T18:01:00.000-07:00

CNN.com - Scholar says he%27s%A0found John the Baptist%27s cave - Aug 16%2C 2004

I must say, although some would disagree, the Bible is a valuable history of Judeo-Christian phenomenon. What dogma and revisionism have obscured shines through regardless of the paradigms of the authors and reauthors. The Essenes and their Dead Sea Scrolls have taught us much about the New Testament, and discoveries like this help us see clearer the world of the past and even resurrects long-dead legends.

Perhaps this is the cave of John the Baptist, or maybe it is not. What matters most are the truths we affirm, the undoubt we gain. As much as the Christ legend borrows from those who preceded him and those who followed him. A contemporary voice fill some of the void left by the lack of other early Common Era artifacts.

The Marvels of Our Backyard

2004-08-16T18:34:00.000-07:00

CNN.com - Cassini spies%A02 new Saturn moons - Aug 16%2C 2004

We first invented tools as extensions of ourselves, to make tasks easier to perform, manipulate our world.

Many tools are extensions of our senses, observing the world and the universe in ways we cannot. We employ tools to learn, learn things that dogma obscures. We have found new satellites which orbit about Saturn, one of our closest relatives in the solar system, and perhaps a place we might find life. Stay tuned for real enlightenment and news that brings us closer to true understanding of our place in the universe.

Private Space Travel

2004-08-05T18:42:00.000-07:00

The Race is On: Second Private Team Sets Launch Date for Human Spaceflight

Can we handle the responsibility?

I'm not sure we can, but we have the means now. Time for a deeper spiritual meaning to secular life has arrived. It actually came about a century ago.

Secular Religiosity

2004-07-08T18:32:00.000-07:00

So many religions speak out against the secular world. It is said that there are no morals in secular life. God tells us all we need to know and do, according to fundamentalist monotheists.

Bully for those who talk to their gods. But in the real world, the gods really do not seem to change things for the better. Isn't that what gods are for?

The secular world has taken the future into their own hands. And the religious fundamentalists bomb us and the Jesus freaks take away our rights.

We look to build a future for all humans. They look to destroy us and each other.

No wonder the world is in such shambles these days. The ignorant are gaining power over the enlightened.

The enlightened who know that the higher ethic does not live in a book nor tell us to hate.

I have a personal theology. I had fun inventing it. Perhaps someday I will share my gods with you.

But for now, I am only telling you that the Bible should be left out of our laws. Justice depends on it.

Sins of the Past

2004-07-06T18:43:00.001-07:00

Will always come back to haunt you, whether you are a former governor, a church or an entire nation.

Goldschmidt deserves to pay for his mistake, although time has passed and he undoubtedly has learned from that mistake.

The Catholic Church has been around for 1800 years, and will survive this. Change is on the horizon, not all for the better.

As far as we Americans are concerned, best to stay home this summer and rely on your neighbors to watch your back.

Confessions

2004-06-30T21:50:00.000-07:00

A few confessions to ease the soul and get on with purging my Karma:

Although I believe whole-heartedly that my money should only go to those who practice their business according to what is right and just, many of my dollars go to those who would take advantage of and cause damage to the environment and its denziens, flora and fauna, including their fellow humans.

I work for a solid corporate citizen, but I detest the corporate marketplace.

I often dismiss and disrespect the views of others while I maintain that everyone has a valid perspective.

I have been lazy in pursuing my goals for the past few years.

I Feel Compelled to Say

2004-06-27T14:16:00.001-07:00

Our need for something greater than ourselves can still be fulfilled if God does not exist outside our imaginations.

When we think of the whole of existence as the same entity, of which we are part, we become the universe. And it becomes us. We are Her looking at herself. This is why we exist.

I Recommend A Book or Three

2004-06-27T14:16:00.000-07:00

Now I'm certain you've all read the Bible and are familiar with the stories in it. Now read an insightful satire. "Small Gods" by Terry Pratchett. Easy reading and wildly intriguing, this is Candide with a modern feel.

Also be sure you've read "Cien Anos" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" embarrasses the rest of modern literature. Then read "Living to Tell the Tale."

Now, it's Sunday and I must groom the yard. Small sacrifice to pay for an altar to life. Live Right. Live Organic.

I tell you, real men use reel mowers. True love for the Earth and the Universe and the Ultimate dictates a higher standard than those of the fools who pollute. Achieving that standard is as easy and rewarding as trying it once.

Details of Phoebe Emerge from Cassini Flyby

2004-06-25T17:54:00.000-07:00

Details of Phoebe Emerge from Cassini Flyby

Here's a wonderful example of how our natural living universe asks us to just look at her. Awesome and terrific, she has lived for billions of years and will live for billions more. Phoebe and Cassini have afforded us a glimpse into the origins of our solar system and our home.

The Natural Universe and Her Song

2004-06-21T18:39:00.000-07:00

Forget the supernatural. I have. The word is an oxymoron.

Everything that happens is natural. It must be. Otherwise it would not happen.

I love the way we scare ourselves. The scariest thing we know is the unknown. Now, as you might recall: there are known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns, that is to say the things we do not know we do not know.

That actually makes perfect sense. Donald Rumsfeld is quite the philosopher, in some respects. Who knew I could base a theological argument on a paraphrase of Rummy?

To get there from here, we need to do the first part and question what this statement means. Firstly we have known knowns. So, what do we know?

We know little. The are so few immutables in the universe. From our frame of reference, we have much more than a few observations we conceive of as immutable.

The universe is one of possibly innumerable universes. We cannot yet understand our universe. To us it looks like a bunch of galaxies. Our universe is trapped by time, which must be factored into the definition of universe. I like to think of it as basically everything we have observed and a lot of what we haven't trapped in a bubble we perceive as time. Now, the universe does not exist without time. Time is how we think of as movement. When motion stops, the universe ceases to exist.

We are told by those scientists gals and guys that the universe expands outward from the event which caused it to exist. It has been doing so for umpteen billion years (I'm not sure what the latest number is, it keeps changing). We have been here for maybe a million or more years, but as modern humans, about one tenth of that time, we have existed to learn intimate details in a way no other specie seems to want to.

Our experiences have been written for a few thousand years, and thus begins our true frame of reference. From what we have experienced and documented, we take ideas, learn them and call them knowledge. We know what we have learned. These are known knowns. A known has been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Known unknowns are things we know we do not know, like the square root of negative one. We call it 'i' so that we can use it in math. Pi is the same. We may never get to the bottom of pi, but that will not stop us from trying. This is one of the traits which separates us from the rest of the world, as a specie. Our quest to limit our doubt about the world and its universe has brought us to the most wonderful age of reason. We know more than ever. We also know about a gazillion other things we do not know.

The final category, unknown unknowns, pretty sums up the majority of the known universe. Every time we think we know something, the rules change. Think of gravity and time. Our frame knows only one time and one gravity. But earth time is pretty much limited to the earth, and the same with our gravity. As permanent as these rules of the universe seem to us, they are limited. Thus my premise that there are few true, if any, knowns. I like to think of knowledge as undoubt, the opposite of doubt. I undoubt that when I drop a brick, it will find the most direct route to my toe. Every time.

I have undoubt about the sun, that it will come up tomorrow. It does every day. One day it will explode, and this will no longer be true. Ergo, I propose that knowledge is transitive, which pretty much makes everything I write true, until it is true no longer.

When we think of the supernatural, we thinks of ghosts, esp, miracles, and all other things mystical. This is a known unknown in as much as we cannot prove anything about the supernatural. Otherwise it become a known known and no longer be supernatural. At that point it's perfectly natural, like the earthquakes, liquefaction, floods, hail, volcanic eruptions, locust plagues and all sorts of ther things once attributed to the supernatural.

The Oracle was just debunked. She huffed methane. That's her secret. She didn't even know herself. Folks would come by and get fits along with her. They would interpret their hallucinations and seizures and use it to guide their decisions. Great coping skills? I think not. Anyhow, I digress.

Another one of my basic assumptions in my cosmology is that everything that happens is natural. Otherwise it would not happen. A supernatural event cannot happen. There is nothing unnatural about our universe. In fact, that is the definition of natural.

Therefore, I do not believe in bewitched houses, demons, angels, ghosts and goblins or anything supernatural. What I believe is what I have learned either through direct experience or a reputable source. I judge each source and add to my attic what I feel is true.

I have collected what I consider to be knowledge, just as everyone else has. My knowledge is that we know nothing. I choose to measure my undoubt, rather than stand firm on so called knowledge. Along this line of reasoning, I doubt anything supernatural happens or exists. If something happens, it must be natural. When I see a ghost or a goblin, I will think it's perfectly natural.

That's my universe. And there's room for you, too. It could be endless (although if it's expanding, it must be finite).

Now as for her song, I shall leave you with this:

She is us and everything. She is alive. Life is existence and vice-versa. She grows. That's her song. And as such, we grow with her. And that's why we're here, how we got here, our basis for knowledge and our destiny.

God Is Dead

2004-06-12T14:44:00.000-07:00

Or at least he should be.

I am not an atheist. I am not agnostic. Hypothetically, I am a Gnostic theist.

Conceptually, monotheocracy has proven itself unworthy of our faith. Violent Christians, Muslims and Jews have ruined it for me. The thought of living in the promised land made me tingle as a child, however as a worldly scholar of religion, government, history and modern life, my cosmology and desire for understanding burst the dogmatic barriers which prevented true appreciation of life, the world, the universe and the ultimate.

God conquered in the beginning and he's still at war several thousand years later. Maybe the time is nigh to abandon this god and search for truths beyond those of our ancestors. Maybe not. Maybe it's a millennium or two overdue.

Why god to begin with? I have a theory. To conquer. Christianity's rise to global power owes itself to war and the desire to control. Some born-again Christian nihilist has become president of our great land and is wiping out Muslims to this day in order to bring a Christian ethic to an evil land.

Domestically, radical Christians bomb as a matter of policy. Globally, we have a disaster. What makes it so difficult for people of different faiths to live in peace? A violent god spawns violence.

The problem is, that god is not on anyone's side. God does not seem to care. Given that we have been waiting for Jesus to come back for over one hundred generations, have traveled to the heavens and not found this god, and seen back beyond Adam and Eve, how is it possible that we have not yet moved beyond this god and looked to make a deeper connection to this glorious universe which so lovingly nurtures us?

God is an idea which has outlived its usefulness, if it ever had a legitimate one other than war.