Archive for February, 2010

Ancient Star Lore & Biblical Myths

Posted in Astronomy, Atheism, Atheist, belief, Bible, Christianity, culture, faith, history, humanity, prehistory, random, religion, thoughts with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 23, 2010 by chouck017894

There is never any acknowledgment among religious scholars of the vast debt that is owed to the prehistory star-wisdom and cosmic understandings upon which the authors of “sacred” tales fashioned a holy “history.”  A good example of sacred language is the intentionally oblique manner that actually refers to the Zodiac.  For example, in Proverbs 8:27 it is the Zodiac that is spoken of where it says, “When he established the heavens, I was there: when he set a circle upon the face of the deep.”  Elsewhere in scriptural myths the four major Zodiac divisions are alluded to as the “four-square wilderness camp” of the Israelites.  In sacred language, wilderness always referred to the void in which creative activity brought forth energy manifestations.  Israelites, the supposed forebears of the Hebrew devotees of Yahweh, are really in reference to the elementary particles or primordial energies moving—or fleeing—into prototype forms that are to become manifest as matter.  And the twelve Israelite “tribes” alluded to are none other than the twelve divisions of the Zodiac reworked and presented as ancestral background.  (This is detailed in The Celestial Scriptures: Keys to the Suppressed Wisdom of the Ancients.)

The twelve “tribes” are said to have been headed by the alleged descendants of Jacob/Israel, and each “tribe” can be identified in relation to the Zodiac divisions.  The most undisguised reference is found in Genesis 49:17 where Jacob/Israel lay dying and gives the “blessing” which was supposedly prophetic of the tribes.  In this case the “prophecy” was in regard to Dan: “Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels so that his rider shall fall backward…”  This is reference to Scorpio (and its associate constellations, Ophiuchus and Serpens) which in the Zodiac lineup is figuratively at the heels of Sagittarius, the Centaur.

The most famous reference to the Zodiac in biblical myths, however, is the alleged “vision” of a “wheel in the middle of a wheel” related in the book of Ezekiel.  We should take into account that Ezekiel is one of the two “prophets” linked with the exile saga (the other “prophet” of exile is Daniel who personifies Libra).  The story goes that the “prophet” Ezekiel allegedly saw the “likeness of four living creatures” that came out of the midst of a “whirlwind” that circled out of the sky, and their “faces” were likened to a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle.  It is not coincidence that these figures also happened to refer to the constellations that marked the quarterly divisions of the ancient charting of the heavens.  Ezekiel’s man was and still is the representative of constellation Aquarius, which heads the first quarterly  division, and the water signs of Zodiac.  The lion, as you may suspect, represented the constellation Leo which heads the third Zodiac division.  The ox is Taurus, more familiarly represented with the bull, marks the second quarterly division.  The eagle happened to be the Hebrew figure used for constellation Scorpius (Scorpio), and heads the fourth quarterly division.  The “vision” reference to the “likeness” lineup was muddled intentionally in an attempt to disguise the fact that the Zodiac was the true source of the “prophet’s” vision.  The “whirlwind” of Ezekiel’s vision is in reference to the entire cyclic movement of the constellations which exemplified the cyclic rhythm of Creation. 

Of course we should not ignore the glaring coincidence that there were supposedly twelve apostles that are said to have orbited around Jesus just as the twelve Zodiac divisions seem to revolve about the Sun.  Each of those can be identified with specific Zodiac signs.  Thomas, for example, is Gemini (remember, he had to see Jesus’ hands).  In St. John 20:24 (King James version) he is called Thomas Didymus, and Didymus comes from the Greek didymos, a direct reference to the Zodiac twins–Gemini.  Thomas was also referred to as “…the twin.”  Then there is the “many mansions” spoken of as being in my father’s house (John 14:2), which alluded to the twelve major Zodiac divisions, each of which also had three sub-constellations closely associated with it.

Perhaps the greatest mockery of ancient star lore pops up in the book of Revelation which was based entirely on prehistory events in Earth’s shifting and terrifying relationship with other planets.  These prehistory calamitous events served as the basis for the alleged “prophecy” of Armageddon in the closing book of the New Testament.  Reworked and presented as the “judgment” passed upon man by god to take place in the near future the tale’s purpose was to strike fear in spiritual seekers to turn them to the cult movement that became Christianity.  Today the book of Revelation still strikes fear in spiritual seekers who accept as truth the claim that every word in their man-written scriptures contains prophecy of world’s end.   However, the timeframe of Revelation‘s writing, 132-135 CE, makes it suspicious, to say the least.  The composing of Revelation followed upon the Jewish insurrection in Jerusalem under Bar Cocheba, 132-135 CE, which had spread to Cyrene, Egypt, Cyprus and Mesopotamia.  At that time the psychological change in the Jesus character from gentle teacher to the harsh judgmental figure was due primarily at frustration at the Jews and a conviction of the author that the Christian movement had been mishandled.  Tellingly, through the early centuries of the Christian cult movement the book was banned as unacceptable numerous times by many prominent church leaders who felt that it was not consistent with the compassionate, peaceful Jesus character presented in earlier N. T. scriptures.

9 Comments »

Obsessing Over Other Peoples’ Sex Interests

Posted in Atheist, Christianity, culture, faith, gay culture, Government, history, humanity, life, politics, random, religion, thoughts with tags , , , , , , , , on February 20, 2010 by chouck017894

Why would Christian “pastors” from America—such as Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundridge and Don Schmiere—have felt “called by god” in March 2009 to fly off to the African nation of Uganda to stir up harsh hatred against some peoples’ sex attraction?  The obsession of these guys on the matter of “curing” homosexuality has nothing to do with spiritual integrity.  No one concentrates on anything that does not stimulate them in some matter, so their “god-inspired” purpose to go to Uganda to advise on matter of homosexual attraction makes for very queer missionary work.

To begin with, Uganda is not especially noted for its advanced humanitarianism, and add to this the history of religious missionary intrusions almost everywhere show that the “work” has been accompanied far too often by aggravating any misery rather than alleviating it.  Provoking and contributing to hostility is not the ticket to heaven, but the aforementioned pastors were eager to work with the Ugandan “faith” leaders to “help stop the homosexualization of the nation.”   The inference would be funny if it were not so tragically absurd.  But Pastor Lively said in an interview with Alan Colmes that he, Lively, had been invited to Uganda because, he alleged, the Ugandan politicians were concerned that American and European gays were trying to export homosexuality to their paradisiacal country. 

Such an opportunity could not be ignored: the Ugandan nation already had harsh penalties for persons who were biologically wired with same-sex attraction so it was a matter of making hay where the sun was shining.  By October 2009 in Uganda a new bill was proposed by David Bahati, a core member of The Family and organizer of the Uganda National Prayer Breakfast, allowing the government to execute HIV-positive men.  Bahati was convinced this extreme and hateful indulgence was the best manner to serve god.  The visiting and obliging fundamentalist pastors simply helped stoke the fire. 

Back in the United States, there was a flare of indignation among politicians and some religious bigwigs.  President Obama was officially appalled, saying at The Family sponsored National Prayer Breakfast that such proposed legislation to execute HIV-positive persons was “odious.”  Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, dared to denounce it at the same Prayer Breakfast.  By Christmas time 2009 even good old evangelical super-pastor Rick Warren sent out a video to Ugandan pastors denouncing the proposed legislation as “extreme,” “unjust,” and “un-Christian.”  Unfortunately, Warren’s spiel wasn’t so much inspired by any genuine concern over the treatment of gays, but at accusations that he had helped sponsor the bill.  Perhaps the accusations were triggered out of a misunderstanding–Warren’s Saddleback mega-Church in Lake Forest, California (affiliated with Southern Baptist convention)  had hosted a Ugandan pastor who did indeed support the proposed genocide legislation.

It is always rather interesting to watch religious leaders squirm around things to protect their self-made holy image.  Not to malign Warren as example, but he was quick to declare his neutrality in commenting on what he called a “political process.”  In a Newsweek interview Warren declared, “The fundamental dignity of every person, our right to be free, and the freedom to make moral choices are gifts from God, our creator. However, it is not my personal calling as pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations.”

But is sidestepping the issue of promoting genocide to be so easily excused?  Is that just a political issue?  Is that avoidance the procedure we are to accept as moral leadership?  Is the “I never take sides” statement by Warren in a “Meet the Press” interview the example of Christianity’s high intellectualism? 

Funny, isn’t it, how hate and intolerance and ignorance can be excused with religious loftiness.

Leave a comment »

Things Unseen

Posted in Atheism, Atheist, belief, culture, faith, humanity, Inspiration, life, naturalism, nature, random, religion, science, thoughts with tags , , , , , , , , , on February 18, 2010 by chouck017894

There is an unfathomable amount of creative activity swirling everywhere around us that we cannot personally perceive but which science opens to us a somewhat broader understanding.   Even so, the unknown remains vast.  We scrawny human beings still have to work around the fact that we are limited physical beings and, as an example, even those persons privileged with perfect eyesight see only vibrations between 450 trillions of red light and 750 trillions of violet light.  And those with “perfect” hearing actually hear only vibrations within the 32,000-33,000 range.  That is like hearing only one small tonal chord in the vast symphony of Creation.  Dogs, cats, and other animals—even insects—often have certain better physical senses than we embody.  So we should stop pretending that we are the undisputed masters over nature or that we are the darlings of a humanlike Creator, and face up to the reality that the how and where we fit into the universal diversity of “existence” is extremely limited. 

With only our personal aware consciousness to appraise universal consciousness from this dense matter perspective, the bulk of Creation’s dynamism cannot be perceived.  There are whole dimensions of creative action that exist beyond our limited awareness.  It was noted in The Celestial Scriptures that it is with our physical senses that each of us stays constantly in touch with the truth of the universe, although the illusion of our matter-being tends to cause us to respond to it inappropriately (selfishly) rather than respond with responsible coexistence. 

Through science research we know that transitional levels of energy exist.  Atoms were once thought to be the ultimate building blocks of all energy forms.  But after exhaustive research there was found to be even more minuscule energy levels that are apparently activated from the quantum level—a level, it was found, that is influenced by how it is observed.  What this seems to suggest is that an awareness we term consciousness is present even in quantum causation.  But that all-encompassing creative consciousness should never be thought of as a humanlike being complete with humanlike feelings, prejudices and weaknesses as the practice of religious escapism commonly chooses to picture it. 

Electric force is one of the fundamental forces of Nature, but only recently have researchers identified a physical phenomenon of electric force that they refer to as electromagnetic rotation.  With this new awareness of this phenomenon there is presented to mankind a means of better understanding how the smallest building blocks in nature interact to form gases, liquids and solids that make up the material world we know.  An interesting feature of electrostatic rotation is that when it is induced without the occurrence of friction the result is the initiation of spin.  And it is spin that is used in quantum mechanics to explain phenomena at the nuclear, atomic, and molecular domains.  This could lead to a deeper understanding of the fundamental properties of matter, which, unfortunately, holy “revealed” writings have never been able to explain. 

So man’s scientific inquiry into the unseen workings of the universe is not exactly an irreverent indulgence as fundamental religionists often claim.  It is really more of a determined attempt at expanding man’s awareness which confirms humanity’s close relationship to all that is created.  Delving into Creation’s wonder-workings therefore expresses man’s will to expand spirit as opposed to religious indulgence which appeals only to each person’s ego.  Ego, we should remember, always identifies itself as centrally positioned in every situation.

Human disposition must learn that it is only when ego can look upon its intimate relationship with all things without a commitment to the temporary physical senses that one’s potential “divine” nature begins to open up.  Yes, this sounds like religious rhetoric: but the subtle difference is that the religious message is always bound up with sectarian centralism.  This awareness of our close interreltatedness with all things that are seen and unseen is the key held out by all the wise spiritual leaders and classic philosophers when they have counseled man, “Know thyself.”

2 Comments »

Pretense of Piety

Posted in Atheism, Atheist, belief, Christianity, culture, enlightenment, faith, history, life, politics, random, religion, secularism, thoughts with tags , , , , , , , , on February 16, 2010 by chouck017894

Religious proselytizing is a special type of propaganda.  From at least the early 1960s in the United States there has been a virtual epidemic of this type of pseudo holiness.  The spread of this affliction has been a carefully plotted pattern of contamination by those who recognized the material profits and worldly power that was to be had by injecting people’s psyches with holy fears of being rejected by the Source and sustainer of all diverse life.

Through the last couple of decades of the twentieth century each person’s personal beliefs about how they are to respect the creative life force has been artfully deformed into a political cause that dares assert that their selected belief systems should have free access to tax money collected from all diverse people to practice their religious brand of discrimination.  “Faith-based” is a deceptive moniker chosen to proclaim their delusions of exclusive access to an indifferent creative force, and is nothing more than propaganda rhetoric.  Even today, a decade into the 21st century, sectarian lobbies shamelessly seek the political clout to force all U. S. citizens to live under their narrow, man-invented theological regulations.  How militaristic maneuvering for earthly power is a soul-saving operation for a loving omnipotent Creator fails to compute as spiritual integrity.

Think this claim of religious politicizing is farfetched?  In November 2009 a coalition of extremist evangelicals and Roman Catholic bishops met to pound out a 4,700 page document they called “Manhattan Declaration,” with the pretentious subtitle, “A Call of Christian Conscience.”  Of course it is implied that the arrogant political demands framed in the document were God-directed, with God supposedly recommending public policies that covered such things as marriage rights, reproductive rights, what is to be accepted as proper sexual magnetism, and other niceties.  These representatives of a proclaimed loving God backed up their holiness by declaring they would ignore any democratic-flavored laws that they did not like.  They, and no one else, had heard God’s shrill trumpet—or “clarion call”—for strict regimentation in conduct of life’s diversity that would please him. 

So extreme and devious are these types of hierarchical “faith” systems that they dare to self-promote their spiritual selfishness as “a promotion of human dignity.”  And, by God,  they will seek to wipe out anyone who disagrees with them!

The Preamble of this bloated Declaration begins with the statement that…”Christians are heirs of a 2,000 year tradition of proclaiming God’s word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, the oppressed and suffering.”  The interpretation of Christian history that follows this whitewash then lingers only on the sparse times when Christian practitioners happened to actually rise above the very offenses they say that they denounce.  True history shows that justice was not exactly a Christian concern in the formative years of the movement: they were more rebels, criminals and agitators than law-abiders.  The tyranny of the Roman Catholic Church indulged in justice by “reaching out with the compassion” that is known as the Inquisition when millions of defenseless souls were tortured and killed for not measuring up to church demands. 

The document sidesteps all the many gory pages of their religious practices by saying, “While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages…” they then quickly claim Christianity to have been the only source that “defended innocent  life”!  If this document is taken as truth, only Christians have been responsible for any advances in human welfare and care in the world. 

To borrow words from the Manhattan Document, “…consider carefully and reflect critically on the issues…” that you pompously trumpet.  You have no right whatsoever to make demands on the diverse expressions of life that you dare to judge.  What you pretend is spiritual enlightenment amounts to little more than masturbation of your ego.

1 Comment »

Promoting Holy Horrors

Posted in Atheism, Atheist, belief, Bible, biological traits, Christianity, culture, faith, history, humanity, life, politics, random, religion, thoughts with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 15, 2010 by chouck017894

The role of religion in incidents of escalating violence throughout the world is broadly ignored and suppressed in daily “news” reporting, and this avoidance is peculiarly conspicuous in the United States.  The media’s self-imposed censorship of religious pretentiousness and deceitfulness in synthetic acts of serving civil freedom is something of an oxymoron.

The relationship between each person’s taught belief system and a cultivated tendency to fan it into physical violence rests in a complicated asymmetrical balance of emotions that are due in part to the contradictory elements that make up religious “traditions” and practice.  Much of western organized religions have become so heavily politicized and pretentious that any creditable spiritual content it had has settled like sludge to the bottom of the barrel.

The Torah, the Christian Bible, and the Quran are close cousins that have indulged in an ongoing incestuous relationship for millennia.  Each “holy” record claims common ancestors, and the love-hate infatuation of their close relatedness has bred only deformed mental attitudes that have disturbed the whole world.  Each “faith” extols the virtues of compassion, altruism, humility, mercy, peace and justice, while also relating alleged god-approved acts such as stoning, warring, enslavement, destruction and deceit.  Spiritual integrity cannot evolve in such an agitated environment for it teaches seekers to direct noble sentiment of respect only to specific persons or to some man-conceived method of honoring the Source of all things. 

That which is revered as  “faith” is, more often than not, little more than a focus on some self-proclaimed authority and a practice of bibliolatry—text worship—that  is always open to questionable interpretation.  Extreme devotion to the written word that was presented by men who awed tribal members with their improvable claims of divine favoritism is like trying to drive forward down the highway of life while staring into the rearview mirror.  It  is indispensable to know what is behind you, but it is more essential to keep your eyes on the road itself.  Too often the aim of those “authority” figures seeking to direct traffic is to stir up a sense of sanctified rage in others which feed into their sense of personal power more than it accomplishes anything with decisive merit. 

If one studies the genuine, honest history of major western religious movements—not just the faith’s approved whitewashed versions—it is a shock to find that most pages are blood-soaked.  To hold up such falsified storied accounts as examples to follow to meet one’s higher potential assures nothing but continued tragedy.  If we remove the blinders which “faith” has pressured upon us, we can see that even today the savagery of sacrificing diverse life expressions is accepted as being appealing to the Source of all that diversity!

 We need look no further than the sorry loss of spiritual integrity now being advocated throughout some African nations.  As Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity has spread across Nigeria and Congo, the teachings of the missionaries has been that the Bible is the perfect word of God.  That perverted teaching has insured the practice of bibliolatry, the literal interpretation of every word.  The result has been the heartless indulgence among the converts in beating, burning, and disfiguring of children that have been condemned by Christian pastors and priests as “witches”!   It is all done in the name of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, so how can it be evil?

And let us not ignore any longer the horror that has recently been advocated in the African nation of Uganda under the instigation of Evangelicals known as “The Family” from the United States.  Uganda’s president succumbed to Evangelical pressure and converted to their highly politicized form of “faith.”  Now convinced that he is fully filled with holy insight he has accepted the challenge of “wiping out” homosexuality in his earthly (and over populated) realm.  Rather than seek to understand causes from biological perspectives, he has chosen instead to dedicate his leadership to eliminating the natural diversity in life’s pool.  Thus he promoted a bill that allowed the death penalty for any gay infected with AIDS, and even advocated jail time for parents that did not report their homosexual teens to the police.  Gestapo tactics for God. 

Thus throughout Africa the Evangelical and Pentecostal missionaries still peddle their Bibles and seek to convert the largely docile people into acceptance of sacrificing innocent persons to receive favorable reward from the Prince of Peace.

1 Comment »

Creation’s Law of Diversity

Posted in Atheism, Atheist, Bible, Christianity, culture, faith, history, politics, random, religion, thoughts with tags , , , , , , , , , on February 13, 2010 by chouck017894

Diversity in human nature is not something that austerely organized religions or stubborn party-line politics have ever seriously accepted as being the intentional course of action in Creation.  The demand by them is for rigid boundaries even though the universe plainly displays an infinite range of inventive configurations.  The false claim of those highly methodized faith and political systems is that there is only one process by which a person may fit into the broad scheme of Creation’s diversity, and that method just happens to be their man-invented set of guidelines.

Rigid religious indulgence reduces the essence spoken of as spirit to something that amounts to identity politics, and this flies in the face of a profusion of identities that are grandly displayed throughout the universe.  Whatever the creative force may be, it has never been a power that indulges in hard-edged religious, political, social or gender  identities.  The truth is that the perceived steadfastness in any person’s identity is a transitory illusion of the circumstances of interaction which each identity encounters.  With eyes that see only exteriors, and counseled by man-conceived faiths or political practices, the masses have been led into an obtuse habit of pretending that the creative power is somehow disturbed by minor distinctions such as racial, ethnic, religious, political, sexual and such.  That refusal to admit that intended diversity is what propels Creation is the hallmark of fundamentalism.  Even for those who are skeptical of the fundamentalists’ narrow approach on how they think others must live their lives, the independent thinkers still tend to buckle under to peer pressure or to the media for identity clues and fail to remember that peers and the media benefit from the arbitrary identity boundaries they impose.  In such an atmosphere a person may then be guardedly accepted as marginally different. 

Concentrating on minor differences as though there is no interconnection to all that is perceived as reality as religious and political indulgence commonly imply only insures needless self-inflicted turmoil.  The Bible, for instance, held as the standard of moral and ethical conduct, gives frequent examples in contemptuously labeling differences, and this automatically establishes and energizes abrasive power relationships.   This is but a grudging rejection of the creative power in which all things are interconnected.  The funny thing is that the labels they use to identify others tend to shift over time, and identities get reconstructed—re-diversified—but the interrelationship remains.  A good example of this is how women, thanks to male-written scriptural tales, have had to endure centuries of being dispossessed as second class beings.  This type of anti-diversity nonsense is most glaringly apparent today in some  Muslim-oriented cultures.  And in ignoring the fact that the creative power does not indulge in hard-edged social, religious, political or gender identities, we have been jockeyed into the concept that the law of diversity at work in Creation can be overruled by man’s bigotry.

If rightly understood, the natural multiplicity found throughout every aspect of Creation opens the means of developing working, productive alliances.  The comprehension that there are no strict polarities at work in Creation would open the truly progressive way to advance into humankind’s higher potential.  Creation’s diversity is the means of generating universal power, not an extravagance to be disassembled and repressed.

Leave a comment »

God So Loved the World

Posted in Atheism, Atheist, belief, Bible, Christianity, faith, history, random, religion, thoughts with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on February 12, 2010 by chouck017894

To the author of the book of John, written c. 105-106 CE, from which the title of this blog-post was borrowed, the “world” spoken of consisted of the Roman Empire.  There was limited awareness of Asiatic peoples, but no awareness whatsoever of other peoples on the other side of the planet.  This fact should be a pertinent point to consider when assessing any messages allegedly relayed to the world through Roman-citizen mediums of that era. 

Excuse this glare of logic cast upon the recesses of faith; it is mentioned here due to the fanaticism of a Baptist group in the state of Texas who “want to bring Christ’s message of hope into every home in Texas” i.e. proselytize.  And they want to do this good deed before Easter (April 4, 2010).  The name Easter, we should remember, is borrowed from a Pagan goddess that was honored each year at the time of the vernal equinox.  The do-gooders, in their commitment to seek believers, are striving to flood every household with CDs, in both English and Spanish, of how “God so loved the world” that he would sacrifice his “only begotten son” for one little material planet that he had created out of nothing.

To quote from Time Frames and Taboo Data, pages 196-197:  The book of “Saint” John, inserted between Luke and The Acts of the Apostles (both written c. 84-90 CE), was written considerably later than the two mentioned books—almost certainly it was composed c 105-106 CE.  This “fourth” gospel has been questioned on critical grounds, and an earlier date for authorship—85-90—is generally insisted upon to make it seem as contemporary to Luke and Acts.  The John book allegedly covers the last seven years of Jesus’ life, but there is a committed dogmatic feel to it that is more in keeping with the recently established church guidelines that came into being in the early 100s.  The Jesus movement had, by the early 100s, moved away completely in an attempt to convert Jews; thus in John the character of Jesus has developed into the ethereal “Christ.”  The author was obviously intent upon eliminating the irrelevant and ambiguous incidents given in earlier gospels to focus upon and emphasize the tenets of the newly established Christology.  It is as though the gospel of John had been fashioned in the hope that it might replace the “gospels” of Mark, Matthew and Luke.  That intent seems evident in the opening line of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word (implying Christ) was with God…”  By doing this the author virtually disqualifies the other gospels, which, as in Mark began with the baptism of Jesus and in Luke which began with the birth of John the Baptist, to set Jesus as Christ at the beginning of Creation.

According to John, Jesus called his disciples in a town called Bethany; a town that John says was along the Jordan River.  Mark and Matthew, however, say that Jesus chose fishermen from the lakeshore town of Capernaum where Jesus found them fishing.  John also relates that John the Baptist told two of his followers to follow Jesus because Jesus was the Messiah.  These two were Andrew and Simon, and for some unexplained reason Jesus is made to rename Simon Kephas, which is said to be from Greek and translate as “Peter.”  There is something contrived here: something that is meant to juggle into place a claim that Simon, alias Peter, ventured to Rome to establish his church there.  Another curiosity is that a disciple that is never mentioned in Mark, Matthew or Luke is said to have joined, along with Philip, those who were with Jesus, and this newly introduced disciple is given the name Nathanael.  There are numerous other points in John’s account that are contrary to those found in the other three “gospels,” but the point here is that the author then expended some effort to harmonize events leading up to Jesus’ last conflicts.  For example, to get Jesus into position to enter Jerusalem where he is to stir up the hostility of Jewish priests, John asserts that Jesus spent the night in an unnamed town on the Mount of Olives.  The next day in the temple, Jesus more-or-less absolves a woman caught in adultery, and later immodestly speaks of himself as “the Light of the World” that had come down to Earth to save humankind.  The Jews were then depicted as descendents of Satan (even though Jesus was himself a Jew) who wanted to stone Jesus.  There are considerably more variants from the three synoptic writings, but these brief examples are more consistent with the later date of authorship and the intent for it to supplant the first three gospels. 

It was also noted on page 198 of TFTD that the message of salvation and transfiguration did not fully solidify as Christianity’s offer until c. 105-106 with all the refinements being incorporated in to gospel of Saint John.

So the fervor of the Texas proselytizers seems to have no concern about all the inconsistencies and contradictions in the convictions that they advocate.  A message of hope gets a little fuzzy when accompanied with so much ambiguity.  For those of us who dig for answers, it will take a little more than just rephrasing it all in English and Spanish.

1 Comment »

Brief History of Haitian Misery

Posted in Atheist, culture, Government, history, politics, random, thoughts with tags , , , , , , , , , on February 5, 2010 by chouck017894

Haiti, 2010.  Early on after an inner-earth adjustment under Haiti, the armchair prophet, Pat Robertson, was spouting divine obscenity saying that nature’s violence was all the Haitians fault for having had the audacity to rebel against slavery in 1791.  Fantasy of “divine retribution” is such a tired, worn-out, empty-headed response to natural fluctuations of planet energy.  Such nonsense is but a stubborn clutching at superstition in the name of religious posturing.  Equally disgusting has been the number of “reporters” and “commentators” that have mangled history to disguise their inner prejudice or to blow more hot air into their assumed superior grasp of timely events.

The columnist Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post comes to mind, whose reporting commonly begins with her blowing kisses to herself.  In her assessment, the tragedy was all a man-made disaster.  Forget the massive earthquake; it was the weakness within the public institutions that was at fault for the physical collapse of buildings on a monumental scale.  One of those buildings was the Presidential Palace—which just happened to have been built by US Marines that occupied Haiti, 1925-1934.  The majority of other public buildings were built under the supervision of well-schooled architects using the most advanced techniques of the period. 

So what.  Applebaum goes on to judge the basic assistance available after the Haitian disaster and finds it all below the cooperative relief efforts made available after the tsunami roared out of the Indian Ocean, or, say, the (not so perfect) federal response after Hurricane Katrina.  Applebaum apparently chose to ignore that the Haitian government was weak to begin with, having never really been able to shake free from a history of oppression, slavery and colonialism, and a massive debt imposed upon them by France as punitive reparation payment before they were allowed unhindered international trade.  In addition, Haiti has had to endure such things as economic sanctions, US meddling and intrusion, the cost of initiating the government, powerful drug traffickers, a weak and corrupt government, a paralyzed legislature, and a billion $ debt to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the International Bank.  So comparing Haitian relief efforts to those carried out in New Orléans, USA (August 2005) and tsunami victims in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Maldives (December 2004) where a slightly kinder history and better conditions existed is absurd.

Other commentators have also thrown guilt-implying judgment upon Haiti’s plight.  One in the New York Times, David Brooks, went so far as to blame the culture of Haiti as the cause for the severity of the earthquake.  To accent his point, he compared Haiti with Barbados, stating that Barbados had suffered slavery and colonialism too, but was doing “pretty well.”  Ignored by him were some pertinent facts.  Haitians slaves refused to wear chains in 1791, and established their nation in 1804.  Barbadians, however, endured the less brutal British slave practices, and the Brits abandoned slavery around the 1850s, so Barbados history is far less bloody.  Indeed, Barbados did not even attain independence until 1966.   

US meddling mentioned here earlier was in reference to Washington instigating the placement of dictators (Papa Doc and Baby Doc) who used the nation’s treasury as their personal bank account.  Although they were finally removed (through the very ones who had sponsored them), the US-directed International Monetary Fund will now undoubtedly demand that the nation continue to repay all the international loans that had been taken out in Haiti’s name by those aforementioned US-sponsored leaders.  An open secret is that the IMF targets Third-World nations, and the western banking industry is apparently backed by the American weapons industry.  Then there is the smell of OIL that waifs up from the fractured Haitian territory, and it promises a potentiality equal to that of its nearby neighbor, Venezuela.  Kind of makes one wonder if all the American military personnel now swarming over Haiti have only humanitarian reasons for being deployed there.

4 Comments »

Reasoning, Politics and Teabags

Posted in Atheist, culture, Government, logic, politics, random, thoughts with tags , , , , on February 2, 2010 by chouck017894

On the teeter-totter that is politics, the exercise of coöperation for mutual benefit often gets forgotten in the fever of inflamed egos, with either end of the oscillating act imagining it is in complete control of what is up or down.  Weight, of course, can be a cause, but muscle and energy has its dynamics too.  When one end holds the landed position it can flatter itself by declaring, “I am the superior one because I hold command with the power of earthy magnetism,”  i.e. materialism.  The up-end can flatter itself and declare, “I am superior because I am catapulted skyward and therefore discern things further than you,” i.e. liberalism.

Of course neither extreme is what supports their capability of movement.  The necessary but commonly overlooked part in the attempt to out-seesaw each other is the fulcrum—the pivoting point.  In this illustration it is the point upon which political attention may seesaw between passion and skepticism.  That pivot-point, that area upon which balance is meant to be sought regardless of the violent oscillations imposed by either end, is often but erroneously presented by each side as reason.  For each end of the teeter-totter it is their assessment of what the reason represents which serves as the center of their self-assurance.  Regrettably, reason is not always reasonableness.

Reason serves as something like the central point of a magic circle that we all place around ourselves—a self-made center in which we may feel secure, and where the turmoil at either end of the seesaw is rendered invisible by the magic of modifying conclusions to suit our vanity (or greed).  This begs the question: Is reason always reasonable?

It is reasonableness that must serve as the true fulcrum, the means of balance in communal exchange, not simply some reason which can always be molded by one’s ego.  It is reason to which each person flees when meeting some opposing passion which obstructs desired control of some situation.  It is reason, not reasonableness, that allows the freedom to reject any relationship, which then bars the  seemingly  incompatible virtues from being tested by consideration of what is best for the majority of the people.  We can see that lack of reasonableness being played out today in the USA by the Republican odds and ends who are spoken of as “tea-baggers.” 

Their withdrawal into their shallow and brittle reason-center has been shown to be a sad and misdirected move by the fact that their stubborn and raucous refusal to consider any position other than their own is not the true fulcrum of the mechanism upon which everyone can share incentive.  Refusal to negotiate or coöperate on any principles and just say “no” to everything is not reasonableness, but is simply infantile self-absorption.  That obstinate refusal to give their enthusiasm and dedication to reasonableness and truth, but choose instead to indulge in “party-line” selfishness is hardly the quality that is looked for in social responsibility.

 

Leave a comment »

Questioning the U.S. Supreme Court

Posted in Atheist, culture, Government, politics, random, religion, thoughts with tags , , , , , , , on February 1, 2010 by chouck017894

The oath of office taken by each U. S. Supreme Court Justice has them solemnly swear to “…faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me under the Constitution and laws of the United States, so help me God.”  (Italics added.)  Citizens who care about civil rights, civil liberties, and separation of church and state are beginning to get a bit nervous about the U. S. Supreme Court since John G. Roberts was made Chief Justice in 2005.  The extent to which this Court has actually changed national laws—laws with precedence going back seventy to one hundred years—and turning them steadily and covertly to the right is disquieting.  In the present Supreme Court, in the dispensing of “equal justice,” Roberts is more often than not aided and abetted by Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Anthony Alito, with Anthony Kennedy very often inclined to the right.  All were Republican nominated, and all are Catholic.

 Even persons who are only superficially acquainted with the democratic principles expressed in the U.S. Constitution are aware that religion and government are meant to be kept separate for the sake of both.  So it is reason for alarm when a Supreme Court Justice promotes himself as “an avenger of the Christian faith,” and in one of his speeches declare himself to be “a fool for Christ.”  Perhaps Supreme Court Justice Antonio Scalia meant it in jest: for the sake of true equal justice let us hope so.  On the other hand, he has openly shown his favoritism toward his taught beliefs when considering his version of “equal justice” in regard to a religious symbol, the cross, that had been placed on government land in the Mohave Desert in California.

The eight foot tall cross was allegedly erected as a war memorial, so Scalia declared that it did not meet with the definition of a Christian symbol!  The court’s judgment, written by Scalia: the cross is “…the most common symbol of the resting place of the dead.”  Really?  Perhaps the dead Christians slumber peacefully because of it, but what of the Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, native Americans, atheists or others of lesser known faiths who died for the nation?  Does the long shadow cast by that stark unnatural form really grant all those killed in war the respect that they deserve and earned from the nation?  Despite what Christian extremists claim, the United States was NOT founded as a Christian nation.  Article 11 in the U. S. Treaty with Tripoli, 1796-1797, which also officially ended the War of Independence with Great Britain, says, “As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion….”

Equal justice means taking into consideration all evidence to be considered in a case.  As an example of how the Supreme Court has significantly changed national laws, consider the case of Herring v. United States.  The nine Justices passed the decision, which cannot be reviewed, of when evidence must be excluded when police, through good faith or negligent conduct, violate the Fourth Amendment.  Limitations on this were presented with this decision, but it fractured old precedence.  Other precedents have suffered as well.  Plaintiffs relying on the Age Discrimination in Employment Act were thrown a curve in the 14 Penn Plaza v. Pyett case when the Justices declared that individual employees cannot bring claims to court under federal age-discrimination law when they are part of collective bargaining agreement that required arbitration.  The Age Discrimination in Employment Act suffered more fracturing in Gross v. FBL Financial Services by making it more difficult for the plaintiffs in this case to meet burden of proof than did plaintiffs in other forms of employment discrimination suits.

And are true democratic principles being exercised when the possible innocence of a person convicted of a crime is denied a means of presenting scientific support of his/her innocence?  In the District Attorney of the Third Judicial District v. Osborne, the Supreme Court passed a 5-4 decision that those convicted of a crime had no Constitutional right to DNA testing, even though it would not cost the government one cent.  Were the Justices at all concerned about assuring that someone might prove their innocence even though they were convicted?  Is a mistake in identity such a rarity in the legal system?   Yeah, sure.

  • see also Supreme Court NOT for the Citizens, January 22, 2010.

4 Comments »