Archive for October, 2011

Overpopulation and Nature’s Regulation

Posted in agnoticism, Atheist, belief, biological traits, culture, freethought, gay culture, humanity, life, lifestyle, nature, random, sex, sex taboos, Social, thoughts with tags , , , , , on October 26, 2011 by chouck017894

Early in the priest-written book of Genesis 1:28 it is stated, “And God blessed them (a male and female couple not yet named), and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over…every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”  By this instruction, sex is established as the means of re-creation (and recreation).  Few persons pause to ponder over the word “replenish,” which implies that there must have been previous similar circumstances.

In our world today, however, it is abundantly clear that man has more than adequately fulfilled that particular “replenish” guideline which the Lord allegedly demanded.  The human species has brutally subdued everything around him, and has been especially industrious in replenishing the Earth.  In fact, the world population today on this little  planet has nearly reached the seven billion mark!  In less than a century, from 1942 when the world population was a mere two billion, breeding has apparently become an obsession.  Despite the unprecedented population explosion, the looming disaster it invites is treated as a taboo subject for the news media.  That head-in-the-sand approach to rampant human “fruitfulness” could lead to ecological catastrophe for the entire world.

Once upon a time as the human species evolved, having  multiple children was valued as a resource for the parents in their declining years.  As man proceeded to assert his “dominion” over “…every living thing that moveth upon the earth,” some of the wiser ones formulated sciences and technologies that contributed toward healthier offspring and protection from diseases: this made heavy breeding unnecessary, even impractical, as a means of self-insurance.

However, leaders of most faith systems have always promoted the priest-composed instruction of subduing the Earth and stressing the replenishing of our species for the simple reason that it assured an increase in their followers.  But the alleged godly suggestion to “replenish” the Earth should never have been considered a license to indulge in extensive production of more than could be properly cared for.  The idea of “replenishing” the Earth for god was advantageous for priestly authority, and this is still utilized by faith merchants as “revealed” religious instruction.  Unfortunately dedication to this sense of limitless “replenishing” also led mankind to indulge in the assumption that to “subdue” meant that exploiting the planet was a divine  right of man, not the counsel to safeguard it.

The present world population is ecologically unsustainable for an extended period of time.  History has repeatedly shown that in periods when human population increased up to sevenfold there followed (god-sent?) disasters of unprecedented food shortages, escalating prices for essentials, etc., which were always followed by civil revolts and deadly riots—even cannibalism.  But still there are those today who willfully ignore history and loudly trumpet that god abhors the use of contraceptives, or that providing sexual information for the avoidance of disease and careless human reproduction is somehow against god’s will!  This irrationality is so pronounced even today that various national leaders have actually advocated childbirth bounties!  (Hitler, for example.)  Apparently the religiously obsessed do not think that god gave man a brain in the expectation that man would use it to assume responsibility for himself and for the world he was advised to “subdue.”

Ironically, even “lower” animals are far smarter than that.  In the wild, when territorial areas become threatened by diminishing supplies, the animals will intuitively limit their breeding.  That is god-installed rationality, which has apparently atrophied in man.  Nonetheless, Nature remains active and vigilant in providing animate life with subtle safeguards, and often Nature’s adjustments, which are indifferently provided, tend to horrify the ego-centered religionists.  Rather than allow human life to self-destruct through brainless over breeding, Nature seems on occasion to amend human DNA to avoid over breeding.  One such adjustment, it could be argued, may be the modification to same-sex attraction.  Indeed, same-sex attraction can be seen throughout all animate nature and has always been present in Nature.  To the horror of those egocentric religionists this indicates that such attraction could be a natural organic safeguard against runaway reproduction which would prove disastrous for all life on the planet.  The chromosome assembly in any species is the means to insure diversity of species characteristics, which also insures ecological balance and benefit.

The idea that same-sex attraction could possibly be a natural built-in precautionary measure taken within DNA sequence may seem farfetched at first thought, but there are some known factors to consider.  Research has shown that changes in a parent’s lifestyle or in the environment, even when only minor or temporary, which occur before or during the reproductive period can cause subtle, even visible changes in the next generation.  The increased emotional tension throughout the modern world certainly contributes to people’s lifestyles in ways that could feasibly alter human sexual magnetism.  That safeguard seems always to be present as a precautionary ingredient in the electromagnetic nature that shapes an animate life form.

Nature, the bearing principle of Creation, retains it own special safeguards.  The genes initiating a new entity are usually hidden from the enzymes by RNA interference, so that the information which the genes ordinarily contain is kept hidden from enzymes.  Subtle changes in DNA structure will occur when the RNA briefly ceases to maintain interference however, and this results in the disappearance of little chemical markers that lock the coil of DNA around  protein complexes of the gene.  The lost marker function opens access to the genes which are then made available to enzymes that can read the gene’s code and use them for protein production.  Only a minor alteration in the code therefore affect the development of the lifeforms which can allow for a rather rapid response to biological and/or environmental conditions when necessary.  If there is any “sin” in variations of sexual magnetism, it is in failing to honor Creation’s laws of diversity.

It has been noted in a previous post (Homosexuality and the Bible, December 2010) that there are only about six or seven brief inferences on same-sex attraction that can be cherry picked out of the entire collection of priest-written “holy word” as implying “sinfulness.”  In comparison there are well over three hundred disapproving verses on heterosexual indulgences to be found.  This suggests that to evaluate a degree of sin quality to someone’s inborn sexual nature is not a particularly rational motive to indulge in prejudice as a devotional practice to honor the Creator.

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Dogmatic Faith and Paralyzed Spirit

Posted in agnoticism, Atheist, belief, Christianity, culture, faith, freethought, life, politics, random, Social, thoughts with tags , , , , on October 15, 2011 by chouck017894

Faith, the hallelujah kind, is a difficult human eccentricity to explain, for how are we to logically categorized which of our emotional or mental workings are to be factually considered as “true,” or “pious,” or “spiritually revitalizing“?  And why, exactly, should other physically ecstatic, mentally invigorating, or spiritually revitalizing experiences be dismissed as profane or even as supposedly abhorred by god—any consensual sex act, for example?  Even pondering over this incongruity is haughtily dismissed as disrespectful or blasphemous.

The general consensus among man-fashioned faith systems is that the perceived intelligence responsible for Creation and which is ceremoniously appealed to as “God” is said to be omniscient and omnipotent (all-knowing and all-powerful).  This raises the question of why should humans find it necessary therefore to whip themselves into the neurotic concept that there is only one way–some man-concocted faith system—which can propel believers into a higher attunement with that omniscient and omnipotent being?

In practice the my-way-only approach of these ego-gratifying faith systems that pretend to understand universal workings is to ignore the astonishing plurality and diversity which the universe openly prefers and openly displays.  Such an unrealistic disregard for life’s vast diversity in the practice of “faith” is testimony that exposes what these man-invented faith systems are really designed for—the exploitation of the masses through ego manipulation.

Considering that this little planet is swamped with a minimum of 4,200 religions, faith groups, schism-denominations, independent churches, tribal beliefs, cultural traditions, congregations, etc., such claims made by each of them to an imagined exclusive access to universal powers are illogical. And every one of those thousands of faith systems flourish by pretending that they alone possess exclusive access into a “paradise” or “bliss” or some vague spiritual country club in the sky.  That bogus assertion is nothing more than the indulgence in ego manipulation. [Statistics on spiritual/religious groupings used here were researched by adherents.com/]

When any man-conceived faith system becomes activated into an aggressive drive to impose its self-serving doctrines upon all those whom they can subject to it, that system ceases to be a spiritual search for enlightenment: That aggressiveness is intentionally directed to achieve only mundane objectives.  The plurality and diversity that is found throughout every aspect that is seen as life and Creation relays the universal truth that every person’s connection to the Source may also be achieved in diverse, personal ways, not just through some unyielding, uncompromising man-invented dogma.  It is when something becomes dead that it transforms into a stiff, cold, inflexible and unfeeling shell of existence—that state of lost awareness which we speak of as rigor mortis.

Rigor mortis is defined as the progressive stiffening of muscular tissues after death, which is known to be caused by chemical changes in the physical body.  Thus a fact of our material continuation happens to be that when some life aspect becomes unbending, unresponsive and unyielding, that aspect is no longer capable of interacting appropriately in a supple elastic manner with the living.  (Radical right take note.)  All life is defined by its flexibility, suppleness and lenience, therefore these traits active as life stand as the criterion by which we may measure the life-value of whatever interacts with our awareness of self.   Faulty teachings of man-conceived faith systems have, unfortunately, perverted our understanding of the electromagnetic energies (aura) that radiate around every life form and which is spoken of as “spirit.”  It is that measurable and indestructible electromagnetic vibrancy which always stands available as our personal link to the Source, not the indulgence in formulated posturing.

It is the awesome plurality and diversity that is observable everywhere throughout the universe which propels and sustains the universe.  And it is that plurality and diversity which provides us with the analytical means to evaluate the practice of religious fundamentalism.  The man-invented faith practices (and political systems) which demand rigid, unyielding ideology, and which fosters itself through negative tenets of hatred for life’s diversity are inherently anti-life. (Radical right, wake up!)  Sadly, that unyielding attitude is not the golden path of salvation; that is nothing more than spirit in the constriction of spiritual rigor mortis.

Related post: Spiritual Rigor Mortis, November 2010

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Betraying the Oath of Equal Justice

Posted in agnoticism, Atheist, culture, freethought, Government, politics, random, religion, Social, thoughts with tags , , , , , , on October 7, 2011 by chouck017894

…this concerns recent U.S. history and it should not be forgotten if we value the principles of true democracy.

Do religious dogmatists or political activists dominate the United States Supreme Court today?  As unlikely as that may sound, there is considerable evidence to support such a suspicion.  It is not prejudice to point out that five of the nine justices on the US Supreme Court are Roman Catholic.  Percentage-wise that certainly does not fairly represent the diverse faiths of the majority of American citizens.  And it is not political bias to point out the fact that all five of those Catholic justices were nominated by Republican presidents, and that many of the Republican members of Congress who confirmed them had used religion as a political lure for voters.  That these five justices routinely formulate their “decisions” as a bloc can be pointed to as supporting evidence in an accusation of willful perversion of justice that is supposed to be made available by them for the protection of people of all diverse faiths.

One’s devotion to a particular faith system is not necessarily a testament of one’s integrity or wisdom. Like love, faith may also be blind to glaring weaknesses in their choice.  In the situation of love, the choice that one makes rarely affects the lives of the masses.  Dogmatic faith, on the other hand, can and has destroyed countless millions of lives through the ages.  Consider how faith caused the slaughter of millions across Europe throughout the church-fueled Dark Ages.  It was a long timeframe in which the corporate-styled Catholic faith system was used for justifying the indulgence in unwarranted imprisonment, torture and slaughter of million of people across Europe.  History records that horror as the “Inquisition.”  Over seven million persons were tortured and killed in the guise of Christian faith in Spain alone!  That tendency of religious injustice and inequality which had once prevailed so long across Europe was a frightening warning to the founding fathers of the United States, which is why they so adamantly insisted upon separation of church and state.

To Chief Justice John G. Roberts credit, early on in his career he had often made known his approval in regard to fundamental First Amendment values (freedom of speech).  And this makes it all the more difficult to understand his leading the court in a 2010 decision to dismantle campaign  finance laws which would allow money-bloated corporations the First Amendment rights that were intended only for private citizens. By this betrayal of the Constitution which declare private citizen rights these five “justices” decreed that corporations were to be regarded as private persons!  It smacked of payback time for the corporate money that had put them in the seats of justice, and it opened the way for corporations to freely distort and corrupt and misrepresent the wishes of true private citizens.  That high court decision was in no way the means of protecting free speech of individual persons.  The opening line of the US Constitution, if those five “justices” would read it, states, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice…”  It does not say, “We the corporations…”

All of the exemptions and benefits for corporations that the bloc of five had railroaded through longstanding democratic safeguards had been a bit too much for President Obama, and in his January 2010 State of the Union address he referred in a straightforward but polite manner to the “justices” legalization of the unethical allowance given to corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to support candidates who would do corporate bidding.  Roberts, with supreme indignation, further shamed the high court by stating publicly that he found the president’s criticism to be “very disturbing!”  Again Roberts ignored that the First Amendment allows everyone the right to question the actions of some governing branch—even the President.  And in a later speech at the University of Alabama, Roberts had the audacity to say that President Obama had “denigrate” the State of the Union into a political pep rally!  Clearly it is Roberts, leader of the disdainful interpretation of the US Constitution, who sank into inappropriate political mud-slinging.  That was more than “very disturbing” conduct by a Supreme Court “justice” who is expected to retain an impartial position in passing any public judgments.

The White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, later pointed out the obvious miscarriage of the Constitution’s declarations by the US Supreme Court, the declaration of equality and democratic justice for each private citizen.  “What is troubling,” the Press Secretary said regarding the president’s rightful concern of the loss of the rights that properly belong to the private citizens, “is that this decision opened the floodgates for corporations and special interests to pour money into elections—drowning out the voices of average Americans.”

The record of the Supreme Court Justices’ decision stands:  These five “justices” overturned a longstanding precedent that prohibited corporations from spending their enormous funds in national elections, and this contemptible decision presents an alarming threat to our democracy.

The five Republican-Catholic “justices” who forced this atrocious decision that corporations have private citizen rights upon the real private citizens, if they have any genuine loyalty to this democratic form of government or to the private citizens they are supposed to serve, they would reverse their outrageous decision.  Otherwise, every one of those five “justices” who took the oath to defend and uphold the people’s rights are not patriots and should be impeached.

It was also this John Roberts’ Supreme Courts’ favoritism of profiteering corporations over the nations’ private citizens which, in a later decision, thumbed their collective noses at private citizen rights again by placing severe limitations upon the legal steps that allowed private citizens to join together in class-action law suits against the too frequent wrongdoings of corporations against their employees.  It was the workers—the producers—who brought forth and assured all the advances and productivity in American society, and which fought for the principles of fair exchange among citizens.  Denying the victims of corporations wrongful deeds their day in court (such as the employees) is the first step into a corporate run government of tyranny.  The Supreme Court is not a holy branch of government, and such decisions as reviewed here are reason enough to demand public accountability.

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Jonah and the Whale Myth

Posted in agnoticism, Atheist, belief, Bible, Christianity, culture, faith, Hebrew scripture, prehistory, random, religion, thoughts with tags , , , , , , , on October 1, 2011 by chouck017894

Storylines in biblical tales are utilized repeatedly, but are cunningly disguised.  The whale of a tale of Jonah, the 32nd book in the Old Testament production lineup, is another case in point.  The story of Jonah in the belly of the whale is presented in Judaism as a model of human ability to repent and the willingness of god to forgive.  The book of Jonah is regarded to be so profound by the Jews that the entire four chapter book is read in the synagogue each year on the Day of Atonement (10th of Tishrei).  Indeed, Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year for them, and atonement and repentance are the central theme.  This period of observance was mandated in the priest-written book of Leviticus 16:29, but there is only bleak  acknowledgement of its connection with the Autumnal Equinox.  A new year is calculated from this period, but, curiously, the Torah makes no mention that 1 Tishrei is to be regarded as marking the start of a new year.  Christianity puts its own spin on the Jonah myth, imagining that the alleged deliverance of Jonah from the belly of the “great fish” was a foretoken of the resurrection of Jesus.

A short synopsis: – Jonah was charged by god to go to the city of Nineveh to cry out against it.  But Jonah was not too thrilled at the idea of going to Nineveh and indulge himself in rabble-rousing, so he hopped the first available ship out of Joppa that was headed for Tarshish in attempt “to get away from the service of the Lord.”  Never considered in Judaism or Christian acceptance of the Jonah myth is the fact that in older Greek myth the demigod Herakles (Hercules) was also swallowed by a whale, and he too had departed from Joppa!  Add to this curious coincidence that it was at Joppa also where, in Greek myth, Andromeda was bound beside the sea as a sacrifice to a sea monster.  So where was Joppa located?  In Greek myth Joppa was located in Aethiopia.  No, this is not the same as the African nation of Ethiopia.  Aethiopia symbolized the dark, mysterious primordial energies out of which Creation is initiated.  Figuratively speaking Joppa was the capital of that region of primal energies, thus a seaport city.

This means that the  book of Jonah is another “holy” tale utilizing coded elements from prehistory wisdom which taught how elemental energies issue out of Source and begin involvement in their formation of matter.  Nineveh, therefore, represents energy involvement at the third pre-physical stage of development.  But Jonah is portrayed as longing to escape to Tarshish—which just happens to be identical with the Tarshish of the Solomon myth and identical with Tartarus in Greek myth.  So Jonah’s hoped for destination comes from the zodiacal sign of Taurus, in which the lessons of Creative Energy had been taught in prehistory time.  Thus Jonah, as he is meant to be, is fleeing  upon the waters (elementary energies) of Creation.  The chaos within the creative energies is accounted for by relating “…the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was threatened to break apart” (Jonah 1:4).  The sailors aboard the ship surmised that Jonah was somehow to blame for the tempest and so tossed him overboard.  He was, of course, supposed to be a part of the Creation energy-waters.  This, too, was in older Greek myth.

God cannot be outsmarted, and so the Lord had prearranged that a “great fish” would be stationed nearby to swallow Jonah, and the reluctant “prophet” wound up in the belly of the “great fish” for three days and three nights (echoing the first three days of Creation).  So the three days and three nights allegorize the first three dimensions out of quantum conditions, as had been taught in pre-history Creation lessons.

The greatest puzzle of this story for the theologians and biblical scholars is not the assertion that Jonah lived for three days and three nights in the guts of a “great fish,” but they puzzle over the prayer that Jonah allegedly recited while inside the belly of the “fish.”  Jonah did not repent his refusal of god’s command to go to Nineveh, he did not beg for forgiveness, and he did not beg for deliverance from his predicament.  Instead Jonah gives praise for being saved, and this baffles the biblical experts.  How, the devout wonder, could he say while in the fish’s belly, “For thou didst cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood was around about me, all thy waves and thy billows passed over me…Yet you didst bring up my life from the Pit…” (from out of the quantum conditions).

Lost in the sacred language style of holy storytelling is the fact that genetic consciousness (personified as Jonah) must be immersed in primal creative energies and “swallowed” to become active as the Life Principle.  Once the third energy phase is accomplished, genetic consciousness then becomes active and is “vomited” forth upon the next dimension of creative energy to progress into and through the four energy planes that will involve as dense matter forms.  This is why Jonah, while in the guts of the “fish,” is portrayed as expressing praise rather than seeking forgiveness.

The Jonah myth continues with the “great fish” vomiting him upon “dry land”—the same “dry land” mentioned in the Genesis myth after the “firmament” had been accounted for.  And it is the same “dry land” attained by Noah at the 40th day.  At this point Jonah must then trudge his way to Nineveh to fulfill his duty.  In other words, it is not material-matter land as we think of it, but is the developing prototypal form of matter.  This is why Jonah is then totally content to follow god’s orders and proceeds to Nineveh, which represents the powerful primal energy stages through which the Life Principle is to manifest all life forms.  Ignored by the bewildered faithful who are distracted by Jonah’s prayer is the assertion that it took three days to cross the city of Nineveh: no manmade city takes three days to go across.  It does, however, take three cosmic “days” for the Life Principle to span the primordial energy stages to approach involvement as matter–just as the first three “days” in the Genesis account of Creation.  And this is why Nineveh must be saved, and Jonah then plays the “prophet” saying an eight word prophecy, “Yet forty days (the next four phases of energy development), and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” (Jonah 3:4)  This modest “prophecy” allegedly caused “…the greatest of them to the least of them…” to repent immediately, and they “perished not.”

All such biblical myths dramatize the fact that the Life Principle originates through the elementary planes of energy to manifest as diverse matter-life forms.  The most important revelation of these mythic accounts is that everything which is made manifest is refined in this way, and the very same energies go into all things living and inanimate, and are therefore equally honored by the Source.  This truth horrifies those who are puffed with spiritual pride.

In Christian myth Jesus personifies the Life Principle, so Jonah gets referred to in the book of Matthew 12:40: “For as Jonas was three days in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of Earth.”  Thus life rises triumphantly out of elemental circumstances.  This is nothing other than sacred language methodology which repeatedly rework a small selection of storylines throughout the entire collection of Old and New Testament books.

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