Trans-Realities

Trans-women are not real women, hence the modifier—trans. Faux women, trans women, transgender women (more disclaimers) are actors, biological men, transvestites, usurping the safe spaces of women and girls. Being incapable of being a man does not make you a woman. Being a man was never very easy but today, where have all the real men gone?

Now domesticated shadows of our former selves, we eat from a trough of grocery store chains that provide the most economically feasible pseudo-foods, without any caloric output on our part. We live in homes we cannot build and sit for hours a day in front of a screen. Men are already basically modern women.

Trans is an adjective modifying the noun woman. Legally, a disclaimer is a repudiation or denial of responsibility or connection.

“Trans woman” is an admission of non relation to women. If you have to add “trans”, you are not a woman. How does one “feel” they are a woman if they actually are? If you think you’re a woman you are not. Real, needs no modifier. It is obvious to everyone but the one imposing their trans-ideology.

Manhood is hard and it appears the quickest way out of your inherent responsibility as a man, is to claim the rights and privileges of being a women.

It is interesting how this phenomenon resides in groups subject to its influence. It is not a biological difference but a mental one.

This is what we have fought for. Technology has led to this. The pinnacle of feminism is Only Fans. Women “don’t need no man” any more (except as subscribers) to pimp themselves into slavery where they make so much money they can never get out of it. The pimp is the app, the well paid slaves cannot do anything but sell their sexuality for a well paid lifestyle, while adding nothing to the economy—and birth control, now having all the emotionless sex with complete freedom, electing to punch a time clock or sell their body for $14.99 a month. And “men” are buying it. If this is what we have to offer we are doomed.

It just strikes me as odd with the world of equality at our fingertips we choose to selfie, pose naked and imitate the mechanics of breeding rituals without actually breeding. This is where secular society has failed to take us in the world without religion. I think we can do better than that.

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Science of Belief

Knowing full well the core nature of reality is not real, science continues to chug along in a religious, materialistic attitude.

Every theory we know is ultimately wrong and will eventually be replaced, yet is expertly purposed for its usefulness in manipulating the *particles and elements.

Christianity thinks that belief itself is a fundamental virtue. They manipulate the inherent nature of humans into an assumption that this is real, in spite of its own teaching.

Science knows it isn’t real and lives as though it is. Christianity believes it is real and lives as though it isn’t.

*Particle—an excitation it a field of energy

*Religion—an energy in a field of excitations

In other words, a lot of buzz about nothing.

A Problem Overbrewed

The first time in human history patients are encouraged to formulate their own diagnosis AND prescribe their own treatment, which may (and does) include self assisted mutilation.

If humanism, secularism, or feminism is going to gain the trust of a religious or midstream society, we’re going to have to do better than this. We have to say no.

Frankly, education, universities, and government was better, life was more enjoyable when religions were in charge.

If you don’t believe me, go to a local school board meeting and just watch the administrators try to untie the hands in their knots. They are paralyzed and powerless because they are afraid to offend a tiny minority that will test no limit to have their diagnosis be the cure for what ails the normal world.

In medicine we were always trained not to participate in a mental health delusion but to steer the patient back to reality. Why has that changed? Are these the people you want to make decisions for your sons and daughters? They have hijacked the narrative and own the asylum. Why else would it be risky to even say such a thing?

North American Cooperation

The mound builders were in the process of building the pyramids, though they likely didn’t know it. Raising their ceremonial grounds—a thousand years laying the groundwork when interrupted by European settlers, the mounds contained ancestral remains, positioned carefully and built upon generations, never to be capped in stone.

Monks mound, Ohio

How did the previous great societies build their buildings? Perhaps they cracked the code. “Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.”

A pyramid is the extended phenotype of the mature and advanced human society. It is the capstone of a naturally occurring technology—out of respect to our ancestors in a spirit of cooperation, it just happens.

The life cycles and rhythms of society are long and as often as not, fail in errant ways and selfishness. Will we leave no enduring mark on the world? Maybe a dam or two, resting on the deserts of dead ecosystems.

But prior civilizations have left the mark. The accomplished life cycle of a mature society—they crack the code and then disappear. What else is left to do once you beat the game?

Only by putting aside our petty differences and the fake outrage dominating religion and other movements, that take personal responsibility and kick it down the road. We have a long way to go and apparently, a short time to get there.

Beavers build their dams and birds build their nests, but what is the extended phenotype of the human being? It takes many apparent life cycles to reach old age and wisdom, but what we do when it’s all figured out, is build a cooperative monument to be discovered by the next group of humans. An unquestionable mark—they did it!

I wonder how many advanced civilizations have discovered and excavated the great pyramids of Egypt and Mesoamérica? They’ve been around quite some time throughout the rise and falls of many societies. Nobody has ever figured it out by sheer will—it is merely something we do if left to the natural course of existence.

Look familiar?

Cracking the code is a voluntary effort of cooperation and civility—not a system or mass movement, or really any effort at all. It isn’t something some one will figure out. We’re all in this together.

Conformity vs Sentience

What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There’s no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told-and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare.

Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their ‘beliefs.’ The reason is that beliefs guide behavior which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion. Next question”. ~Michael Crichton

Race of Biology

It is a basic misunderstanding of genetics and generally inaccurate to use racial labels for DNA lineages that cut across supposed racial groups. DNA identifies us by lineage and not by race—a very distinct difference. The default mistake that most of us make, is assume that common racial characteristics will link us closer in the DNA lineage. That’s just the society we’ve grown up to “think racially”. But DNA has the best reputation in racial thinking.

Using mitochondrial DNA (tracing the mothers, mothers, mothers) “we find in every classroom that some of the students’closest maternal relatives belong to a different race than they do. These lineages do not follow common racial categories—but in fact our mitochondrial lineage tells a different story that race is not a biological reality”—Thomas Murphy, PhD. Anthropology, Bioanthropolgy, Edmonds College

Our racial concepts are biased. They are based on our politics—our ways of excluding and discriminating against each other are ways that are not supported by biology. Yet we take superficial appearances and then dump people into categories based upon those when our biology is much more complex than that.

Race is a social construct, not supported by a close look at human biology. Our physical features such as skin color, facial structure, or hair texture, typically associated with race, are inherited independently and cut across populations just like DNA lineage.

When we actually look at the biology of skin color, it has nothing to do with arguments on morality, goodness, or evil. Us and them are ridiculous in a world of DNA. Skin color evolves in response to the environment and to assume skin color is even a separate race is a social construct. Biology is clear—we are all one race. We are all one people. The habit of breaking things into categories is as destructive as it is useful.

Irony of Ironies

I find it amusing that people like Ye or Andrew Tate claim they have exposed the matrix and have awakened from reality, yet they are devout Christian and a recent convert to Islam, respectively.

These organizations are the epitope of matrices and the founders of thought control, spreading their entropic ideas while standing firmly on the foundations of them.

This is no different from “waking up” and then switching from democrat to republican, or visa versa. Which side your in matters not to them—it is that you pick a side that matters. The discord that ensues is the program.

Curious if what Ye says is true, that blacks are the real Jews? Moses and Paul, who were Israelites, were mistaken for Egyptians. Egyptians were black Africans. For some, the fact that Ancient Egyptians were Black could be new information and sound outlandish.

But our history is pleat with whitewashing history. Even Jesus was white, right?

The Art of Nothing

Is seems religion has an edge on atheism. How does one continue to embellish on unbelief? What new ideas can we pull out of thin air to aggrandize a negative? There are no assumptions to defend, no miracles to fantasize, no mythical beasts or gods to rewrite, revise, conjecture, or expand.

Religion is science fiction with a penalty, where believing the right fiction is coupled with an unlimited license to caricature your wildest dreams into a human right—where making god more better and more powerful than anyone can imagine—right up until someone reimagines it.

God has evolved in my lifetime to incorporate the ontology of science and atheist philosophers. They get it all. Every idea of existence can be attributed to this mythology. You win. I have no deity to defend.

Even the best argument for nothing is laid waist by belief and tradition. Never failing to take credit for solving your existential anxieties—which tend to solve themselves anyway. All bleeding eventually stops. But give god his due. It is you who solves the crisis and always has been. It’s too bad the men of words cannot give credit to you for your own course corrections.

Socialism vs Capitalism

We don’t like each other enough for socialism to work.

If the purpose of life is to enjoy it, why isn’t everyone enjoying it? Some peoples purpose is to not enjoy it. They find themselves doing the stress of dislike over and over again, bitching and then doing it again. It is nearly impossible to overcome your programming.

Socialism is the best way to lower expectations of happiness and equalize doldrum. Killing creativity is the best way to make everything fair. Making everything fair is counter intuitive to evolution and the way the universe operates.

Capitalism works because it isn’t fair, while simultaneously being completely fair.

If capitalism were fair it would be socialism. Bringing in socialism is probably the best way it insure we would finally develop a better form of government.

I would rather take my chances than have you take them for me. Socialism on the coattails of capitalism is theft. For socialism to succeed it need be voluntary, and we don’t like each other enough for that.

Is the metric fairness or contentment, and for who?

Nobody has ever asked about this pencil sketch

Making Mockery of Gay and Lesbian Rights

For centuries shunned, persecuted, killed, slurred, and separated by the ruling classes of politics and religion, gays and lesbians clawed their way out of censorship to be able to openly love, and openly participate in society. The current gender dysphoria is making a mockery of those struggles with a pseudo-identity, self labeling of prepubescent teens and and young men and women who are the majority pretenders—bandwagoning their way in a social media experiment popularity contest.

My older daughter got in on this fad early and came out as lesbian. “Very well”, I said, “sounds like you’re finding your way”. She is now married (to a nice man) with two kids. She had no idea what she was at that age, but the allure to follow the fad was just too strong.

Most children are too early on this decision to be anything at all, but today we have it—gay, lesbian, non-binary, trans, neutral pronouns I’ve never heard of now enforced and endorsed by school districts and the law.

I took my youngest (11) to audition for a play last week and the first greet of the director was this; “so what pronoun do you prefer? She said “um, just call me by my name”. I was impressed she deferred to a more reasonable path. She hasn’t yet requested a name change, but some of her school friends change them weekly.

If you don’t want to be a girl or boy, fine, but why do you need a label at all? Can’t you just be you?

This current situation is as absurd as the Flying Spaghetti Monster getting religious exemption and acceptance. But our neofascist, inclusive, yet litigious and sensitive society is now too intimidated to call it for what it is.

Those that decry cultural misappropriation are currently the most guilty of all—making a mockery of the real struggle for equality and those that are truly oriented in a way that took centuries to liberate. Or am I missing something?

Dealing With Vertical Morality

How you treat others depends on which direction you see the world. Vertical morality is when you see morality as a hierarchy—that some authority figure above you has a set of rules and punishments you are supposed to live by. The problem is; if you are able to imagine someone as above you, it’s easier to imagine certain others as below you—those that don’t believe in your rules. Your focus will then tend to be on self preservation and measuring your own piety against your perception of others.

In a horizontal framework you judge your actions based on how they affect others—that your actions are motivated by the positive and negative affects of those around you, who in fact are all your equals.

And this is where we are. The vertical framework is an obnoxious bully system. Loving your neighbor as yourself doesn’t fair very well when yourself is an insufficient, guilt laden sinner who can do nothing of herself.

Love is never fruitful by way of commandment or dogma, but the realization that we are all equals—not in the sight of a god but in the sight of each other. That would be a chapter I’d like to see.

Racism

Does racism in ignorance make you a racist? How can you tell if you are, or aren’t?

I was complaining about getting jury duty last month and a friend of mine said, “just tell them you’re racist and you’ll get released”. I replied “hey, that comment makes you racist”. He said “ no, I’m not racist. How would that make me a racist”?

“Because you’re assuming that the defendant will be a person of color”.

After hearing the Joe Rogan tapes, especially the comments about planet of the apes at the theater, he tips the scale into racist. Not an innocent, solo act of ignorance, but an N-word montage of good ol’ boy white privilege followed by his own admission the theater comment was racist.

This is the first time ever hearing Rogan outside of an MMA commentary, but I think I heard enough to see he isn’t ignorant. He’s blatant.

But he really doesn’t think he’s racist. So how do you know? Can one accurately judge their own personality?

Suspending Disbelief

Understandium via pretendium.

As a reader or listener of any story we undergo what is called a willing suspension of disbelief as an attempt to understand the narration, trust the narrator, and interpret why the story is being told toward some underlying idea.

This suspension temporarily undermines suspicion. We are encouraged to have an open mind, but can we honestly do that then resurrect our senses at the end of the drama?

To enjoy any theme demands this—to let fiction entertain for a time is to insight the intent of the author to glean whatever underlying meaning for ourselves that can be siphoned off for future use or self improvement, or to simply be entertained.

This suspension of disbelief is a key point of christianity—the actors and storytellers now expect you to live in this state as a virtuous arrival at something, which is nothing at all.

In real life the story was rejected because it didn’t happen that way, but stories are as plentiful as those who believe them—and grow accordingly to the need that human foibles project into real life what lacks substance by any other view.

If there is any value in the Christ narrative it is this—to temporarily suspend doubt to repose some allegorical meaning or entertain some wishful daydream to escape the doldrums and insecurities of life and death. To demand it’s permanence is to stick humanity right where it is today—stuck in the past arguing a point that gave hope to despair, in which each is a symptom of the other.

Permanently suspending disbelief is impossible, for everyone is already an atheist. Trusting your doubt is as natural as temporarily suspending it to enjoy the show, but it isn’t meant as a permanent state of living—it doesn’t lead anywhere.

Things are not what they seem when you flip ‘em over. Our brains construct reality.

Flip the photo.

Who Am I?

While religion has attempted to define that for me and failed, to find yourself isn’t listening to how you have been labeled or perusing through self help books, but looking within and answering the question all by yourself.

The duplicity of humanness is evident even in the structure of everyday language. Who am I? Want to find your real self? Automatically, these imply there is intrinsically more to you (two of you) and that there are many I’s within you, and there is self—The real Self, and finding that one demands you understand that the I you have been trained to be, isn’t the real you, or the entire you at all.

Unconsciously or consciously, we all mostly identify with two selves. The life you live in the matrix, and the real you that tires of wearing the mask. The imperfections you displease in the mirror and the ideal self you, that you can never quite master.

The you that complains about the way the world is but cannot change your own consciousness, habits, or secrets, has no room to judge anyone else who can’t change either, where real change is mostly accomplished by pretending and frequent relapse.

Many of us are quite aware (and tired) of the hard work and imposture of acting out our performative and cultural selves. Humans often seek refuge in nature, in the home, the bedroom, the bathroom; places where the conscious performance of their everyday interaction rituals can be put on hold.

Those that no longer identify as I, are those that have dropped the rigor of charade and discovered self. Ethically, then, it may be important to recognize that for the most part, we are all real impostors—each playing their preferred game; that little niche of life that dispenses the most hormones to their particular personality. The rigorous scholar, the realist, the spiritualist, the concerned politico, the worrier, the philosopher, the court jester, the asshole—each in his own right the perfect display of a self governing organism, when they can get away with it.

If one is to blame all are to blame. Like republicans blaming antifa for leading the White House riot, yet republicans followed them in—when they thought they were republicans…

Faith in Atheism

I took some flack a while back linking those two words together. I don’t always ask questions because I already know the answer, but is there a point in unbelief that requires faith, in this case, of a young, lifelong casual believer (thanks grandma) who recently decided he’s an atheist, based on a few arguments from a well known celebrity?

He didn’t come to this conclusion based on inadequate religion, gnawing contradictions or of unanswered prayer, etc, but by believing a cleverly worded argument of a well known person. Is this not a show of faith?

Granted, as Rapar stated, “Atheism is the lack of faith like cold is simply the lack of heat, not a natural state of its own“.

And Tildeb; “WTF? What is that bit all about? Creating a false dichotomy here doesn’t create a more ‘balanced’ opinion; it creates another ‘I’m an atheist, but…’ apologist with a drive by smear at those who have every reason to grant experts higher degrees of confidence in their informed opinions. That’s not ‘faith’ of the religious kind at all Jim, and you should know this by now”

Do I need identify what kind of faith I don’t have? How can you not believe something you haven’t investigated? Have you ever had faith? Have you ever been a believer because of indoctrinating parents?His atheism certainly is faith of a religious kind.

Our culture puts onus our way, a weird position to consider belief as a positive and unbelief as its opposite. But we are unnaturally forced to consider belief and make a decision. I would think an informed decision would make a stronger position. This young man is ripe to fall into a Ray Comfort-style trap, just as he did a Joe Rogan.

So, after this I might rephrase, that his faith is not in atheism, but his atheism is faith in the opinion of the celebrity. Because I guarantee in this case, he knows not enough of either, belief or unbelief to really be a believer or a non.

Forgiveness and Freewill

Forgiveness is the misguided premise that people have the capacity to make individual, independent choices. Evolution is on auto-pilot. If there were such thing as isolated agency (beyond the organizational will of the field of all existence) the result would be unmanageable, runaway chaos.

Therefore there’s nothing and no-one to blame or forgive. This is the whole of the self-regulating cosmic organism—itself doing it to itself.
Be a little patient out there and flow with it. You are not in control of anything.

The art of forgiveness is a form of self love and self interest. Letting go of the past relieves the anxiety and imagination that the past is driving the present. Such clinging is the root of anxiety. One can stop at any time, but this is what makes the game interesting.

Off to work this morning.

What To Do…About Everything—

Did you exchange, a walk-on part in the war, for a lead role in a cage? —Roger Waters

I figure if all goes well, I have about 35-40 years left as a human being. How do I want to spend it? How do you want to spend it? Anxious for the morrow? Is it productive or even enjoyable to involve oneself in compounding the mess by constantly trying to fix it?

The things that we object about our situation is precisely what we are doing to overcome it. Do you see that? Can you see that?

“It is perfectly obvious that the whole world is going to hell. The only possible chance that it might not is that we do not attempt to prevent it from doing so”—Robert Oppenheimer

While atheism is one step closer to peace, abandoning all sides of all dogmas makes it perfectly clear that beliefs are the cancers that grow more beliefs, to which very little of humanity has any immunity at all.

Be a much better road without the fence

Freewill vs Stimuli

Are we making our own choices or just reactions to stimuli?

Imagine a moment you are a lonely nerve ending. All of the sudden something rubs against you—“are you there?” “Yes, I am here”. But it takes another to stimulate relational awareness. Without other there would be no way of identifying self existence. It is said by some that god (or the universe) would not know it is god because there is nothing outside of itself to bring it to awareness of itself.

On the other hand, identifying self by other is also as ambiguous an introspection, because what others think of you rarely adds up to what you think of you. All of us are simply reflections of our external world.

So what is the difference between commenting, hitting the like button, or just moving on? Do you have to agree to appreciate another point of view? I was accused at watchtower of trolling christian blogs. I responded that I only read two, usually hit the like button to appreciate their efforts, yet only comment occasionally if stimulated to do so. But for some the reward is bloviating what stimulation they incurred previously. That is trolling, fanaticism—a self aggrandized irritation.

You may comment or not, but that choice has already been made by the years of stimuli, or not. There may-be freewill, but it was captured in a bottle long ago the moment humans learned the art of civilization.

Endings That Don’t Mean Anything

After a serious consideration of so many points of view, atheism stands closely to buddhism, hinduism, and the tao, that there are no gods or God as a deity. There simply is—a complex interdependent organism we call universe—that of which, we are all pieces.

There is no god as defined by religions today, for the term god, how used as a deity is silly, really. There is only one thing and it’s an event. A big one—call it whatever you want, but abrahamic religions are at odds with common sense, reason, enlightenment, awakening, etc. And what is and what isn’t. It’s an impossible religion, stripping its members of the tools required for its objectives. Guilt is now institutionalized as a virtue. The hypnotic state is lord and waking up is forbidden. If there is god, there is nothing that is not it.

All I know is there are no things, no people, no objects. A noun is simply a figure of speech. A person is defined much more by what they do than what they are, but in fact its one thing. A thing is a unit of thought expressed in language to describe form. That same form that appears to be so tangible has little or no traditional matter as a concept, but energy. But that too, is one thing.

For purpose of description and understanding we must break the world down into some sort of units, but there is no matter, only shapes. Body and “spirit” are outdated terms. It’s all one thing.

One quite often hears people say “all things consist of matter”, but what is that? They are the specific patterns of manifested energy. Matter as such is an abstraction. Looking for a uniform matter as the principle of everything is like wanting to not eat cherries but fruit in general. But fruit is also an abstraction. Matter cannot be contrasted to separate things as something immutable to something mutable. Matter in general cannot be seen, touched or tasted. It isn’t tiny little granular building blocks of nature. What people see, touch or taste are only certain forms, registered in the neurons by language. Matter is not something that exists side by side with other things, inside them or at their basis. All existing formations are the same matter in its various properties and relations. Matter vs spirit are outdated terms. Its all one event where we calculate regularities and write them into generalities.

These forms of energy that appear so tangible by our senses (made from levels of the same energy) yet things are not what they seem. The christian ego is a fraudulent misrepresentation of reality. You are not a visitor here on probation, but you are here because you are it. You are the big bang still banging, way out on the edge of a continuous happening.

Nothing is in charge. Your freewill is a reaction to stimuli. Your choices are presented to you by dominant personalities that interpret—that the Rorschach Blot of a universe can only be their way.

So, what does it all mean? It doesn’t mean anything at all. But it’s a hell of a vacation from the voids that bookend a function of an interesting process. It’s amazing.

Randomly interesting pantry

Physics and Mystics

After centuries of two opposing (wrong) philosophies, it seems change is just too hard on pride—they will accept anything but this.

Robert Oppenheimer is reported to have said, “If we cannot disprove Bohm, then we must agree to ignore him.”—and ignore him they did. But why? Because Bohm’s theory of quantum potential threw a wrench in the hierarchy of accepted science, unifying physics with what mystics have known for millennia—its all one process. There are no separate events in nature, which means the universe is one organism. This is god—and nothing known or seen or felt is not—which actually means, there is nothing that is not connected, its all one—it’s a process—and you too, are it.

This is not the deity god of traditional misinterpretation—it is the fact that there are no partitions between any event, place, or material—that there are no things, only demarcations on an imaginary line through calculus. Where does one event begin or another end? Only in our attempts to interpret non-existent laws into symbols. Where math and the word becomes the reality instead of the symbol of it. Where Hebrew thought infiltrates science to its core to believe there must be actual laws of nature. But there are none—merely observable regularities through something regular—where clocks and rulers attempt to demarcate a connected process through a specific point of view—then put it into words.

If the Christian is right, then Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, and atheists, are wrong. When so many groups disagree, the majority must be mistaken. And if the majority is misguided on just this one topic, then almost everyone must be mistaken on some issues of great importance.

This is a hard lesson to learn, because it is paradoxical to accept one’s own folly. You cannot at the same time believe something and recognize that you are a chump to believe it. A sucker born every minute, but somehow that sucker is never oneself.

“Building on the interpretation of the quantum theory introduced by Bohm in 1952, David Bohm and Basil Hiley in 1975 presented how the concept of a quantum potential leads to the notion of an “unbroken wholeness of the entire universe” Science will continue to struggle along with this notion that it can observe itself, but you’d have just as much luck observing whats behind your eyes when you’re looking out. It’s the only logical conclusion. Observing a process changes it simply because you—are observing you, and that changes the experiment and it can’t be pinned down. The only way to properly observe the true nature of anything in its static form, is to do it without looking at it—and it can’t be done. But we can at least demarcate the highlights we choose to like, based on the proper stimulus that agrees with our anchoring bias.

About Time

The concept of time must be taught with rigor in order for children to conform to it. What greater illusion exists than to habitualize existence based on the past, to lay out the future while ignoring the present. Children have no concept of time—and they are right. For time is simply a mental relation between two moments—a learned reckoning. Living in the moment is therefor timeless.

“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist only in the present, which is what there is and all there is”—Alan Watts

The past is a memory. The future—an expectation. Is the immediate present simply a fractal marking on a line of events, or a continuous movement through it, where the past is moving with the present?

“Our perception of time’s flow depends entirely on our inability to see the world in all its detail”—Carlo Rovelli

We have a deep intuition that the future is open until it becomes present and that the past is fixed. As time flows, this structure of fixed past, immediate present and open future gets carried forward in time. This structure is built into our language, thought and behavior. How we live our lives hangs on it.

“The concepts of time and change may emerge from a universe that, at root, is utterly static”—Craig Callender

“The concept of time is simply an illusion made of human memories, everything that has ever been and ever will be is happening RIGHT NOW”—Max Tegmark

“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infintesimal hairline between a causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation (thinking and thinking about thinking) We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas“—Alan Watts. These symbols limit our perceptions of life, for what can be known (accepted as knowledge) is simply that what can be put into words—symbols of events.

Aa a small example, our english language structure changes the meaning of the past every day, even moment to moment, ie; I love…you. Really, I love flowers. See how that works, even in common speech? Forgiveness also changes the meaning of the past, while a grudge locks you in it, held to bitter moments that no longer exist.

“reality is just a complex network of events onto which we project sequences of past, present and future”—Carlos Rovelli

“Zen is a liberation from time. For if we open our eyes and see clearly, it becomes obvious that there is no other time than this instant, and that the past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality”—Alan Watts

We teach history, we plan for the future, but rarely teach anything on how to live today—and if you don’t ever live in the present, you wont be able to enjoy the future, because it never comes. Our cultures are constantly preparing for the next level of life.

Learning to think like an adult (to take life seriously) takes effort and repetition. Playing this hoax on our children is the key to maintaining the illusion and keeping players in the game—and kids know life is a game, and of such is the kingdom of heaven, uh, I mean…the game of life. But interesting nonetheless, that mystics, philosophers, and physicists all agree that time is an illusion—simply not what it seems. Language and writing are partly to blame (symbols) yet religion is quite the guilty party—always training for later.

Does anybody get this?

Happy Co-dependance Day

Another beautiful day of choosing sides based on a propaganda and belief. Seems Americans (the whole world) just can’t get enough of each other, but in the realms of endless polarity, should we expect anything different? If you want to know peace you must have discord—and if you cling to belief without understanding the nature of truth vs human cognition? My respects to the whole world—we’ve done it. What is the best way to confront nature, anyway?

This HERE from a front-line climate activist. (5min read)

And HERE for a expert rebuttal

There is no 12 step program to decontaminate the dialogue, but one bold one. Has it ever occurred to anyone, that the president is fighting because you are? Has it ever occurred to anyone that everyone is wrong because the questions are?

In christianity there is a principle (although they don’t know it) that confessing they are a sinner, whether it’s even “sin” or not, is exhilarating because in this one moment of life they know with absolute surety they are right about being wrong—and now have a benchmark to measure any success because of the failure. And realizing one is completely wrong is about as accurate a statement as can be mustered.

In order to be effective, a doctrine must not be understood, but has rather to be believed in. A doctrine that is understood is shorn of its strength—If a doctrine is not unintelligible, it has to be vague. If neither unintelligible nor vague, it has to be unverifiable—Eric Hoffer

Why Religion Endures

Spiritual disciplines, prayers, meditations, faith, songs, yogas, biblical study, and all forms of scripture, are ways of persisting in folly—doing over and over what you’re doing already, will eventually make you…wise? Yes, but it’s not how you think.

To exhaust all attempts at spiritual knowledge is to finally see the absurdity. Adherents need at last, to take this belief seriously. That is the only way out, as evidenced by those who have already left.

It is akin to convincing a flat-earther the world is round—you must let them walk, due-west as far as it takes for them to see it on their own—when they wind up right back where they started. Field test the words, live it, I mean, finally give it your true attention and quit dabbling in commandments and guilt, and you will see if for what it is—it is nothing at all but a donkey following a virtual carrot. It will last forever because no one takes it seriously.

“Every church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet, as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.
Each of those churches show certain books, which they call revelation, or the word of God. The Jews say, that their word of God was given by God to Moses, face to face; the Christians say, that their word of God came by divine inspiration: and the Turks say, that their word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from Heaven. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all”—Thomas Paine

The appeal to faith was a masterful play on the foibles of human psychology. One is not compelled to test, only to believe. Until it is tested it will endure.

Those who are weak in their atheism aren’t much different—believing the experts and catchy memes is no foundation to shout about either. I am mostly convinced that the two questions are wrong, but I know not what they should be.

The Element of Illusion

First let me preface, I am an atheist. There are arguments for “something else”, but I don’t know what that means. I am not protective of my atheism (finding what people call god would be a prize winning effort) but I do struggle with the term and how it’s been defined beyond the reach of understanding.

Life itself is some type of illusion (deceived by our own relativity?) What you see on the surface seems so real and tangible (mass) yet is hardly anything tangible at all but energy (what is that?) and According to Einstein, energy and mass are equivalent (that’s the message of E=mc2) But our interpretation of how solid an object is purely relative. How would we know any different than what we are relative to our surroundings (insert puddle analogy) It seems so “there”, but is only a form of energy, which we know little about.

In physics, the kinetic energy (KE) of an object is the energy that it possesses due to its motion. KE= 1/2 mv2. In emergency medicine, we alway want to know how fast the car was going, etc, so the severity of injury and patterns can be predicted. Stopping that motion releases a lot of joules, and how quickly it stops is the difference between life and death.

Earth is energy in form, hurling through orbit at 66,000 mph and spinning—and the energies accumulated to reach that speed it still possesses.

Ideas on the other hand, have no energy. Life has evolved into the lazy mans game, gaining 90% of our knowledge by opinions and papers, instead of experience. There is little horse-sense applied to solving problems, but persuasion turned to belief rules the culture. While utility inspired the idea, now the idea has a life of its own. Man, now disconnected from his environment lives in a life of barriers—and through opinion develops ideas on how to master that environment.

Since the idea has no mass, the end of arguing over beliefs would drown without a whimper—no explosions or mass casualties. It would be like cancelling church during a pandemic. Would anybody have even noticed if it weren’t for a few showmen insistent on keeping there ideas alive for cash flow?

Anyway, Christian influence has the world at odds—because of belief (everyone is compelled to take sides) The appeal to faith also uses no energy, but is the path of least resistance where belief now trumps utility—now the way of the world. The nature that evolved the man no longer exists. There were more sustainable philosophies, but it appears to be too late for that. We are now in the puddle of belief, and for most of the world it’s a perfect fit.

In Perfect Harmony

Turns out the way, the truth, and the life, is really the half way, the half truth, and a half a life—and it meddles with nature, a serious setback.

Holding to faith as the pinnacle of religious virtue, it has created a great famine of original thought and stunted the collective growth of the species. But we were told it was so much more than it is, which is fine if you never examine any other ways of thinking, or being.

Even atheism with its functional, unlimited connection and hope for humanity—to grant every inhabitant of the planet equal asylum, surpasses religious morality with ethical behavior—simply a more natural, organic development based on fairness.

Religions in general have failed to accept nature as boss. But in the end, after all the information-gathering research, decisions are made by hunches, snap judgments from somewhere in the consciousness, and often against your own judgment. Hunches that have billions of people raising families and living in homes and going on holiday. To the pious skeptic regarding the natural man, isn’t this a testament to the effectiveness of nature and the brain? The more we try to fix the world and shoehorn religious ideals into the public forum, the more we have to look around and say, wow! everyone seems to be getting along just fine, with or without my belief. Nature is best left alone to do its thing. Be happy with that and leave it be—it’s a lot smarter than you think.

“It brings in to play innate and spontaneous intelligence by using it without forcing it. It is fundamental to both the Taoist and Confucian thought, that the natural man is to be trusted, and from their standpoint it appears that the western mistrust of human nature is a kind of schizophrenia”—Alan Watts

This point of view is that the brain is a fundamental organism of nature and is to be trusted without coercion, which is evidenced by the success of humanity—in spite of the various commandments and synthetic religious dogmas. Even the Native American traditions exemplified this process.

I am the walrus, 2020

Creation Theory—A Destructive Force

Is there a better way to experience nature rather work against it, or do you prefer the Hebrew creation influence to confront it and lord over it?

Seeing the earth as a construct, an artificial scape to house the finite man that resides in the body, makes mankind a foreigner in a temporary setting, viewing nature as outside of himself.

The ecologist describes every organism and its relationship to the ecosystem. That western man views himself outside of nature has infected these thoughts that now threaten the world.

Underneath the superficial self—that one that pays attention to this and that, counts the rules and feels apart from nature, viewing life as a struggling visitor on a strange planet (trying your best to get out of here in one piece) there is another self, more really us, than I, and the more you become aware of that other self, the more you realize that you are inseparably connected with all that there is. Would that make you a better, more kind and reasonable person, or a worse, more destructive person? Knowing you are not just the ego confined to your skin, but that you are connected to your external environment as a total function of the ecosystem? I would think it would make you more responsible, more kind, and more aware of the needs of others, and intuitively careful with the earth and its resources.

The alternative to Jesus as lord and us as fallen sinners, isn’t that there’s nothing—to the contrary, it’s everything. It’s how many of our ancestors lived for millennia and left very little traces on the world. This fallen world idea (nothing created lasts forever) has an inevitable death sentence to it. And seeing things more deeply connected (which we are) could certainly improve our chances of surviving on this rock.

It is the way of the Tao—to roll with it, not against it. Nurturing it like an aging mother, not in the Judeo-Christian theme as natures lord and master.

On Free Will—In the Beginning

If we are born sinners by nature and regardless of our effort—subject to sin, we would have no freewill to be “sinless,” especially since we are intellectually damaged long before we understand concepts of evil in a religious sense.

Adam and Eve were created with the capacity for disobedience, but the real crime would be god creating men and women who are gullible, easily tricked by whimsical rules, clever speech, flattery (and shiny things) Whose fault is that?

”it is God that worketh in us to will and to do“—Phil. 2:13

Since god is using sin to accomplish his will, is it possible that sin is not evil at all, but merely a label of semantics—a certain set of arbitrary rules for the game? Only by the establishment of these random rules in which the human mind is ineptly programmed to adapt, sin would be the plan all along, manufactured by god.

As a non believer in any religions god, do I have the freewill to truly believe? Simply giving my mind to appease society or my own insecurities would ultimately be pretending to believe.

Then, if I do decide to believe—who cares? Hundreds of thousands of churches closed for the pandemic…I never noticed. Me thinks they have overrated their necessity.

Remaining Consistent

I would not accept your right to pollute my breathing space to enrich your own life, nor would it be consistent to allow any individual to seed illness on me without my consent.

I’ve met some very inconsiderate people these past few days who have violated my personal office space and encroached my social safe zone. After a few intrusions my office is now locked.

The fact is nobody knows if they have it or not til it manifests, but many are openly pretending no exposure to the virus and have put me at risk.

In what universe is it morally acceptable to condemn others to death on the grounds that one himself is supposedly willing to die?

Avoiding the virus

Picnic #4

Patient Zero—A Christian Model

During the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, researchers quickly tried to identify the source patient. Another researcher misread some scribbled notes reading ‘patient O’ (as in the letter O) as patient zero, a French-Canadian flight attendant Gaëtan Dugas.

Two years ago (nearly 25 years later) the patient zero hypothesis has been put to rest and Dugas ‘cleared’ as patient zero, but the term lives on, misleading those who do not understand how disease processes work—or pathophysiology (Dugas died believing he had killed 1000s) Researchers don’t like the term because it is misleading how disease processes develop.

Dr. Ian Lipkin, a professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University in New York, said, “It is not uncommon for infectious agents to percolate in the environment for years or even decades without detection“, and finding the absolute beginning is a pipe-dream.

Enter Religion—

Finding the origins of Christianity has been another curious journey—a nefarious beginning and doctrines now contrary to the original words. Assumptions have to be made, stories altered, investigations unfold, yet no decisive winner in the debate of origins. Why? A deceptive premise, perhaps?

But, the claim was made and that is enough for trusting mind of the common man.

The accusation and defamation of Mr Dugas was also inspired by religious belief. I wonder if that was through special revelation, or general revelation? Having a direct link to god is certainly proof enough that ecclesiastical statements are made from pure bias.

What year was Jesus born again? Zero? Surely we would know the date of birth of the most important character that changed the calendrical reckoning…

“Using these methods, most scholars assume a date of birth between 6 and 4 BC, and that Jesus’ preaching began around AD 27–29 and lasted one to three years. They calculate the death of Jesus as having taken place between AD 30 and 36″—Oh really? And this, the most important event in the history of the world.

Where All the Bad People Are

“Americans grapple with evil amid the decline of religious faith”—The Heritage Foundation

Roaming through some end-time prophecy (the doom and gloom stemming from Christian belief) when it struck me that I don’t really know any bad people. End-times are actually better times than ever before.

Even this mild “prophecy” is at odds with observations.

“Even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased“—Daniel 12:4

“I Just love this sign, because it is clearly pointing to our day today, and it cannot be refuted by anyone”—End-Times Website. We actually have an information explosion, while the depth of individual knowledge is likely at an all-time low.

I also disagree on other points. Prior civilizations have also had varied types of advanced knowledge compared to what we currently have today. Certainly we have a different type of knowledge than at other times, but is there actually more knowledge? And the explosion? What we have is “A handful of real innovators and a planet full of end users”.

“The world is going to hell in a handbag”—yet life expectancy is up, infant mortality down, and extreme poverty is down, (way down by billions over the past 50 years) Your chances of living out your natural life (and even beyond that) is greater now that ever before. Seems that god is punishing us with long and prosperous lives in this “wicked and perverse” generation.

I suppose the real fate of the world the rests on the transgendered and homosexuals refusing therapy or celibacy. The True Christian© morality doesn’t seem to be accurate here either, as we embrace the lives of every human life gets better.

I have traveled around this great county to all but one of the fifty states. Good people outnumber bad 100 to 1—no, I dare say 1000 to 1. Rarely ever have I crossed paths with a human that wasn’t just awesome in one way or another. It’s the best of times, but you’ll never hear that from the pulpits or the news selling fear. The Bible prophecies and the preachers are at complete odds with the way the world is trending.

Where on earth are all the evil people?

The Art of Atheism

Atheism is not a belief, but its side-effects are an art form of independent thought, skillfully navigating through life with immunity from all religious dogmas. The art of atheism rejects religion based on its outcomes and insufficient evidence. It rejects the Jehovah Affect© and the self important aggrandizement of its zealotic “explainers”. It is simply self empowerment over our own mental and physical intuitions and abandoning the tried and failed—which was not bought in wisdom, but in opportunistic haste.

We have been stationary cycling with these ideologies long enough. And while world is ready to embrace inevitable change rather than more of the same “ancient wisdom”, monotheism digs in its heels to maintain parental control.

I am not Atheism, but Atheist. I chart my own path with purposeful impunity. Atheism is simply a million ways of clarity from the delusions of religious beliefs in gods—

How long shall we accept faith and it’s limitations by obedience to archaic laws from a violent time? Transcending belief mode is our greatest hope.

A true religion would be a rite of passage, not a permanent need.

Atheism rejects what belief has done to human anatomy, physiology, cognition, and the regressive nature of living in the past. No longer by faith am I a dis-intuitive, calcified victim of self deprecation told what “we” believe, and I refuse to accept the physiological changes that occurred through compliance to this belief, as permanent.

As we rekindle these lost arts connecting intuitions with existence, it has to be without any help from them. How long shall we chase this dead-end without a single solitary fact? Just believe…believe the hardwiring of faith and repetition can be severed.

Prayer Hypocrisy—The Way of Desperation

Matthew 6:5-6—And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

6: But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly”

The prayers they offered yesterday are even more useless than normal. The religious right is simply posturing and openly making asses of themselves—dragging America out as laughing stocks of the world.

Extended Phenotypes

Genetically predisposed to do something useful, the beaver naturally builds a dam with no training from its specie. Some of the ingenuity is quite amazing, being copied in principle by human engineers and hydrologists.

Birds also build nests operating automática with no training required, it’s hardwired and as natural as eating.

Humans build shelters too, and take notice when it is lacking. “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Luke 9:58

So what is it that humans naturally do, or even usefully tend to with no training? What are we programmed to do?

Through the course of religion we have been trained to wait, to believe empty promises that have yet to come to fruition. To ignore what we see, in favor of words. To propagate wishes as truth, and most importantly, place more importance on what we don’t know than what we do. Maybe we don’t know anything, and that’s the problem.

In a recent study interviewing patients in palliative care, the number one regret was what they worried about when life was good. Humans like to worry—though we all know the uselessness of it so we nobly call it concern, then live a life fighting back nature vs accepting things as they are, infighting our lives away over two false premises—out of worry panted by another.

Left or right, or which religion most closely aligns with what I’ve been conditioned to believe—then fight for it, all distractions from being you, which when we finally learn to do it, is pretty awesome all in itself.

“Man, sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself”—Miles Davis

Anosognosia and Religious Certainty

Anosognosia is a neurological deficit in self-awareness, a condition in which a person with a disability is unaware or in denial of its existence. This disability we are addressing today is belief—regarded as personal achievement or a high mental destination, where “I believe” has become the pinnacle of religious thought. But what is belief other than a set of imaginations that have been carefully honed to pacify existence? There’s no substance to it at all.

Scientific beliefs are corroborated, falsified, tested and reviewed, then applied to produce a result or technology (we have satellites in orbit with these ideas) that actually produces something.

Religious beliefs are simply compared imaginations with other hopefuls for the mere sake of believing. And today, religious belief of any kind (even strictly opposing views) are respected for the simple fact they believe something, or anything at all. Certainly any belief is more worthy than unbelief—at least they have a chance, right?

Yet, belief is nothing more than a set of ideas that may sound really neat (or morbid) but is simply wishful thinking—assigning it some strange importance that will outwit nature does not make it real. But, we’re sticking to it against all reason, turning the mere idea into defensive pride, renaming it faith (which is the arrival at what?) all the while these fascinations do nothing to transcend humanity from this long monotheistic stall.

“Anosognosia is a lack of ability to perceive the realities of one’s own situation. It’s a person’s inability to accept that they have a condition that matches up with their symptoms“ (1) These religious beliefs occur despite significant lack of evidence or the predicted outcomes.

“Go to, thy faith hath dug you a hole”.

Faith by Atheism

“Atheism in the informal sense is a profoundly religious attitude—an attitude in life of total trust in letting go. When we form images of god they are all really exhibitions of our lack of faith—something to hold on to, something to grasp.

And so there is the profound central mystery of the attitude of faith—to stop chasing it, to stop grabbing it. Because if that happens the most amazing things follow. All these ideas of the spiritual, the godly as this attitude of “must“—”And we have laid down the laws which we are all bound to follow“. This is not the only way of being religious and relating to the inefable mystery that underlies ourselves in the world—you!

If we cling to belief in God, we cannot likewise have faith, since faith is not clinging but letting go—Alan Watts.

Atheism is total trust that the universe is happening with or without your pathetic belief, and long before YHWY hit the scenes.

Modern faith is merely clinging to the hope in imag-ination—an idol of your minds eye, attempting to comprehend beyond comprehension, while simply picturing your flavor of god simultaneously makes you a sinner.

So, here we are—you are to blindly believe by your choice (a worthless epithet in disingenuity) but form no images of god, for in your grandest musings only offer pathetic, inadequate renderings offensive to the supreme offender.

“The Bible itself is now the ultimate graven image of our time, and all time” but as we see the believer cannot help but add to it. The idea of a god takes special, mental wrangling and wording to complete a sentence that stands without excuses to believer and non alike. Nothing written could even remotely approach it—and the image you’ve created holds no utility to humanism.

The Rules of the Universe

The idea that the universe has a specific agenda and demands Christian behavior is laughable, really. The tyrannical father figure of the cultural near-east governs the universe expecting certain liturgy from its inhabitants (he has opinions) that we must believe in him in his secrecy or be cast off forever, right where we came from just a few short years ago. Back to the void? Hardly

Imagine having never existed, that it all began here…and after you die—nothing. If that is the case it defies the laws of energy, as well as being an uncomfortable and strange feeling.

You, can never not be. This physical experience only identifies as unique because it is contrasted by our normal existence. When you identify with yourself, who and what you are, it is never the physical activity of muscles and blood flow, breathing and chewing that composes you. Those things are automatically done in the background, without thought.

What you are is this; an infinite participant in the only possible game in the universe to relieve eternal boredom. All the knowledge and skill in the entire cosmos is at our disposal. There are no surprises or guesses, no waiting or wondering for an everlasting creature with trillions of eons, owning all of everything, knowing all of everything. What would an infinite being (such as me) possibly do to relieve the boredom, to pass the time? Enter into a realm of not knowing.

This blip of mortal existence, only interesting at all for the mere fact we don’t know the outcome nor the beginning. Bookended by two unknown voids, we jump in knowing full well the misery and the fame, the chance and the luck, despair and delight, for every ending we break through to our normal existence, bam! we laugh our ass off because the game gets us every time.

Why else would the truly enlightened refuse to involve themselves in the rescue of human misery? All the worlds a stage. We are a never ending happening of a living universe. Little neurons getting a glimpse of ourselves and experiencing emotions we could never know in our regular boredom.

Morality Imprinted By God—Homo Ferens

If morality is imprinted by god into the hearts of man, why is it that feral children adapt the morality of the host species? (so much for god imprinted on the hearts of men) Not only is such social behavior learned, but it is rarely unlearned, with the vast majority of these kids becoming institutionalized after capture—even after being baptized by the well intended, they remain in their adolescence mindset, be it wolf, monkey, antelope, or bear.

Interesting side note; feral children also develop the acute senses of their host species. Nocturnal vision, acute hearing, and sense of smell are all superhuman compared to the tame man, showing adaptations develop much more rapidly than one would expect.

Philosophizing God

If believing in god is enough to imagine him into existence, then god is equally diminished by the arguments against him. The seesaw effect, back and forth, god, no god, poof, there he is, then gone again. There is no advantage to believing because of a cleverly worded argument that can be dismantled by reason. The real existence of a god would be an irrevocable surety. It is not, therefore he is not.

If god were real, no argument would be needed. Take any of the popular arguments for god and at first glance—quite clever. But, that’s about as far as it goes. A genuine treatise shoehorning the existence of god would in fact, be evident without persuasion, manipulating word games, sermonic hormones, and overcoming doubt, which doubt in itself should be a red-enough flag.

The bottom line is this; Religion has the audacity to think it can outwit nature. Accepting this natural order takes the fear out of life and negates the threats of death with endless suffering posed by religion. It also restores the esteem to man taken by religion. Atrophy and decay is a normal part of this experience and getting that little fact takes the decision to fear from our hands and tosses it out—the decisions surrounding death is made for you. Indigenous types all over the world accepted it as the natural course of things. Even in men’s ignorance or brilliance it mattered not. It just is and is nothing to fear. Understanding that keeps one from getting suckered by religious threat and seekers of power.

Accepting the fact we don’t know what happened before this life or what happens after is truly the only thing that could possibly excite an infinite being like myself, infiltrated with all encompassing consciousness in his natural state.

Things have lived and died long before the Abrahamic visions of the monarchical boss. For millions of years species have came and went long before “the fall”, just as the earliest hominids lived and died out, so will we. So what? Oh those poor souls for all those years before Jesus.

What Denomination of Atheism are You?

How much do we need to know before we can safely say we don’t believe?

Having not much in the way of indoctrinations outside Christianity, my unbelief is limited to a specific scope of practice—a field test of the words and ideas that were forced on me without my consent since birth. Really, can we reject all the other gods we don’t yet know?

Since we don’t know much about eastern religion, nor the meanings of orthodoxy, or Hinduism, most of us here have an atheism to the Yahweh god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The other gods we hardly know, so considering blanket disdain or unbelief in something unknown is nearly impossible but yet, hardly worth the time to explore it out.

The key strong belief lies in pretending this life holds vast importance, that your worry and concern are somehow moral, noble and righteous. But this just isn’t true, and fearing to really live life because of the dogmas has crippled humanity into a fear of being afraid, instead of allowing life to play out the scenes. Fear as a normal part of this exploration, like the order of operations, first comes fear, then comes the faith (which isn’t faith at all, but worry)

We have been conditioned to believe here in the Christian god out of fear and faithless worry, but really it’s all the other gods we don’t know that we should be concerned, worried, and watching about—for we know this one isn’t real.

De-Colonizing Your Mind

“Belief is something you turn to when you don’t know your authentic self”

What better way to control people than to make them sorry for being human? Make them believe they are simply fallen—nothing but welfare dependents expected to be grateful for even the most miserable of lives. Atheists can be just as deprecating as the religious. Human viruses, soulless, dispiritual evolutions of nothing more than a dumb, random accident of the primordial ooze. These are not my people.

Consumers, blindly selling their life and time away for gadgets and fleeting entertainment, the next more outrageous and wasteful than the last, trading life for accumulation, ignoring nature (or manipulating it) without restraint or care, but to eek out a few short years in physical comfort by self enslavement while ignoring vast potentials of depth, character, and connection—these are not my people.

Contentedness need only be approached by finding who you are in relation to this very moment of experience. Not a reminiscent wish or future imagination for the finding, but right now. Settling for cleverly worded ideology with unlimited empty promises has proven it will never run its coarse—grinding humanity to a near-dead stop for millennia. We’ve had enough, or maybe not…

Finding unity, the connection to consciousness is not achieved through belief, but by looking back past the colonizers so seeded with religious ego they destroyed the usefulness of practical knowledge and practice—truth once utility to life before Christianity planted its flags and Islam rooted its heels by force.

Spiritual unity—the knowledge of coexistence with the earth, its plants and creatures, the oneness of life before fear, even today is seen in the actions and minds of the child. Eventually we get to them, and such fearing is handed down because we’ve lost touch with the order of things, and death, the natural cycle of life after life interrupted by mere pauses.

“The measurement of our civil advancement is now calculated by longevity. We’ve found a way to miserate ourselves longer and longer, traded for intellectual and spiritual starvation“.

The colonizers, unhappy alone in their own misery and quest for endless greed destroyed countless expressions of being, traded for derogation of everything good and substituted reality with platitudes.

Where we really are is somewhere in the mix of experience measured by time for the moment. Meanwhile “Our authenticity, guarded in distractions and dogmas of fear, is the natural man prior to persuasion, forced down roads of complexity, hiding the subtleness and beauty of the original you”

How to Dismiss the Wrong Beliefs

With Islam overtaking Christianity through fertility rates, it must soon be the one True Faith© How can so many people have gotten it wrong, but in the process now of getting it right? The guard is changing because gods will is in control. The pendulum is finally swinging towards Mecca and there is no other explanation—except one.

Trading one wrong for another. It is belief itself that is the culprit—thought convictions so strong one would strike their own children because of them (or go to war with a neighbor) The way to know if your thought convictions are true is to apply the same criteria to your own faith as you do to others—and that they do to yours. Islam makes perfect sense…to a Muslim, while they shake their heads at the ridiculous Christians that have been duped beyond reason.

The truth is…there is no Abrahamic truth—there is only settlements of faith based on geographically bred familiarity.

Faith—dividing nations from within one believer at a time through the pulpits of propaganda and fear. It’s so obvious an atheist can see it. And that’s exactly the point.

Promises Promises

His covenant was to be everlasting, and they should possess forever the country he should give them. Now it is plain these promises never were realized.

They have never been fulfilled concerning the great blessings with which they were to be favored. For although they won a few small victories over some poor nations whom they plundered, this did not prevent them from being conquered and reduced to servitude, their kingdom destroyed as well as their nation.

And now the remainder of this unfortunate nation is looked upon as the vilest and most contemptible of all the earth, having no country, no dominion, no superiority. Finally these promises have not been fulfilled in respect to this everlasting covenant which God want to have for filled to them because we do not see now nor have we ever seen any evidence this covenant has been fulfilled. On the contrary they have been for many centuries excluded from the possession of the small country they pretended God had promised that they should enjoy forever—Voltaire

Now it is propped up by the United States. Like all of Christianity is propped and joined with governments, for it cannot stand on its own merits. The one foreign domain ignorant enough to believe the imposters who feigned to be prophets and who, in order to more easily deceive the ignorant and simple minded, boasted of acting and speaking by the Spirit of God. The saddest part about believing in a god as the head of your nation—living conceited while vastly overestimating your greatness. Boasting the power of a god who requires the wealth and missile systems of another country to enforce its scripture.

The ritual heritage that we are so fond of it in detail descends from animal sacrifice, colored clothing, blood, livers, bird crops, and kidneys. Animal skins, dung, smoke, foreskins and certain measures of oil with wine—the whole being offered and infected by dirty ceremonies as filthy and contemptible as the most extravagant performances of magic.

The Art Of Theism

Theism abuses ideas to promote their own source of validation by degrading all of humanity—breaking them to the lowest level of creature vs lifting them up.

Theism is the ultimate display of pride in self doubt—only through faith can you be whole, which is pure rubbish.

Theism writes disingenuous attempts to promote the will of a deity they readily admit escapes comprehension.

Theism promotes faith so humans fail to act of their own accord—waiting for guidance when deep down they already know what to do, lacking confidence because of the same faith.

Theism persuades men to condemn other men for their genetics and lack of Jesus in their culture.

Theism demonstrates mans ability to dismiss pure reason to pacify insecurity.

Theism teaches faith in god (the ultimate idol) which is merely a substitute for our own achievement and effort—reality teaches us there’s nothing like finding contentment through doing something for yourself and achieving self worth through accomplishment.

Theism is the ability to nurture pretending, believing, and hope, into an honor, resorting to faith when you can’t reason your belief

Theism has constructed a god that requires us to wait for reward—convincing believers that true peace is after life and conjures one to waiting instead of making it so now.

Theism is to abuse faith—a temporary principle of discovery by making it the pinnacle of achievement.

Theism is the arrival at nothing; mere thought convictions without substance or positive results. How long does an idea deserve to meet its objectives?

Theism is the ability to dismiss hard evidence of historically poor outcomes by believing that it’s convictions are not the cause of the outcome (but everywhere it planted it’s flag, cruelty followed)

The strongest of faith cannot endure once we know truth, but is then often secured by pretending and group pressure. Faith however, cannot exist with the slightest amount of proof. It is imperative there is no proof. Proof would not destroy religion, but it would kill faith and it’s ill affect on the human race.

Theism is a way of challenging death…while still dying.

Theism is a way of assigning meaning to random chaos, blaming a devil for the ills in the world then punishing those that don’t believe that—for merely a different thought.

Theism attempts to use reason to explain belief by clinging to traditions molded before reading was common.

Theism embraces the thought that humans are incapable and justify misplaced devotion to imagination. Humans are actually pretty awesome. But by belief they can be persuaded to do the unthinkable.

Theism rewards mere thought conviction and words as something of substance and will punish those that don’t have them.

Theists practice the art of exaggerated importance. Honoring strong faith (which is simply stubborn pride) stemming from a challenge in reverse psychology. Who can claim belief most earnestly in the face of knowledge reaches the pinnacle of faith.

What it Means to Believe

“The true meaning of belief is to powerfully imagine“.

Humans have great imaginations and will consider criticism of such supernatural/religious fantasy as an affront to character. If you cannot imagine what they imagine at a ridiculously high level, you are not fit for the kingdom of god.

“Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”—Mark 9:24 / ie; Lord, I can imagine that; help my imagination!

Finding the right things to imagine is the key to strong faith. “In my fathers house there are many mansions. If it were not so I would have told you“. Notice he never explains what it is like in heaven, but lays it at the feet of your imagination—the most powerful tool in the playbook.

Imagine that! Belief/imagination/religion is to pretend that the question trumps the answer and the search is the true meaning. A philosophical approach that sets “I don’t know” to wordplay. There are answers, but few want to know much beyond feeling good by believing in a system with no substance.

Now we are at an impasse. I am supposed to imagine the unimaginable, and believe that select humans have a personal relationship with it. The masterful play on human psychology—to pretend substance comes through belief and arrival rests on the pinnacle of imagination.

Meanwhile, we imagine a Saviour, someone to come down out of the sky to fix our wastefulness while we remain a greedy people and rationalize human destructiveness by waiting it out—but belief in god will not save us. That is up to us to address reality.

HG Wells—

Indeed Christianity passes. Passes—it has gone! It has littered the beaches of life with churches, cathedrals, shrines and crucifixes, prejudices and intolerances, like the sea urchin and starfish and empty shells and lumps of stinging jelly upon the sands here after a tide. A tidal wave out of Egypt. And it has left a multitude of little wriggling theologians and confessors and apologists hopping and burrowing in the warm nutritious sand. But in the hearts of living men, what remains of it now? Doubtful scraps of Arianism. Phrases. Sentiments. Habit

So we see HG Wells, ably predicting many future events, also ably observing the condition of Religianity™️ There are no more replacement parts. Time for a new model—

Where is God—A modern Invention

Of all of the most important things one would scribble on a wall, seems like god would be one of them.

32,000 years ago an artist lived in what is now modern France. Not some pre-enlightened hominid, (for by their works you shall know them) but a talent renown.

200 such paintings in the Chauvet cave alone. Recently discovered caves in various parts depicting hominid and wildlife motifs also show the hand of an accomplished artist. They also show that life may have been very different than we imagine—and the hands of the artists too.

Scenes depicting more modern and also extinct animals, human hands, landscapes, mermaids, sailing ships, but the most important thing (one would think) is gods. Where are the priests and deities in these 20-30,000 year old efforts? Funny how we label the ancients as “primitive” but quite possibly the ideas of god are strictly a modern invention we project in reverse, presupposing because our brains have been ruined by the idea.

The Transmission of Faith—Now What?

Imagine a moment I’m projecting my consciousness on you—there, that was easy.

That is the beauty of religious belief. It takes no effort nor academic discipline, but is lauded as type of high achievement. Belief was never intended as an end-point, but a proving ground, a temporary waypoint to truth. We test our theories and improve them, retest and share them, accept criticism and hone our hypothesis into a working physical model that creates actual things—results.

Resting on belief we find there is nothing to do, no equations to solve, no advances in the general knowledge of humanity, so we take to the road and teach the technique on others—and believe harder, like concentrating on it could bend a spoon. Dreamy philosophies of heaven and celebrated archaic battles in hairsplitting, immoral grandeur.

It is not natural to believe in god. How many have found god having never been persuaded, presented, or indoctrinated by another mere mortal? The true wonder of nature hits us the first time our toes touch the grass as a child. It’s real and you know it! That wonderful mystery spawns curiosities and appreciation all on its own. Through beliefs we quickly quell the desire for discovery, resting on our smug fat butts with a specially tailored shortcut to never knowing anything—Faith

Like a kid that found his dads hatchet, what are we to do with all this free time? What else is there to do but injure yourself and everything around you? And thinking about thinking about belief. Whoa! That’s deep!

What is Spiritual and Why it’s Not

Why do humans treat things they can’t see with more reverence than things they can? Spirituality is the act of making holy the voids in human perception through imagination.

Faith is the act of assigning honor to things you wish were real as if believing them actually meant something. Unsatisfied with Providence and what minimums it provides, we fail to live in the moment through supplemental prayer, always looking ahead and hoping because we have settled for mediocrity—belief someone or something else can make it better. Proving really, that humans can see a much better solution than the framework “god” has provided his pinnacle of creation through religion.

After careful scrutiny we find anything that persuades belief before thinking, is doctrinally sound. Anything doctrinally sound will never be settled without faith.

Who would do that but a manipulative genius who preyed on the weaknesses of human psychology? Religion is basically reverse psychology for grownups, inflicted on our youth to prevent them from becoming grownups—to lead a dependent life.

There is a difference however, between the regular, know-nothing Christian who is trying to make his way through life with tools that have been forced upon him by persuasion and fear, and the apologist who is an apologist because he knows better, but won’t face the failures of religion with integrity.

There is one good reason no man has ever seen god. Anyone want to take a shot at why?

Indian painted rocks, Spokane WA 7/20/19

Breaking it all Down

I have a stone here in my hand made of granite—an igneous, course grained rock formed under intense pressure, composed mainly of quartz and feldspar with minor amounts of mica, amphiboles, and other minerals. What are its components made of?

Breaking it apart, cracking the composition into smaller and smaller fractions to the nth°, we finally find the atom, lay open the pieces and we find nothing—like a Russian Matryoshka doll. Left with an empty shell comprised of .00000001% of “physical matter” in the common understanding.

We are made of barely nothing—a mere projection from the conscious vacuum, gravitational waves, and energy. We are space. We are in fact, energy. The eyes and ears, neurons of our own entity. The whole universe of everything.

Similarly, we find the firm foundation, the rock of ages, the priesthoods, the believers, the fathers of dogmas by errant perception of regionally based experience, and when we break it all down to its core and lay out all the parts we find nothing. It is coated, however, with a large smudge of hope and bullshit.

“The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion. Not anything can be studied as a science, without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is not the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing—Thomas Paine

At the core of religion we find it relates to science after all. After peeling back the layers we find nothing. No substance, no proof, no matter, no bliss, but under intense pressure to believe. I’m certain Delusionite™️ is an undiscovered element for the periodic table—we certainly have evidence of its existence.

Real Faith—The Faith of an Atheist

It is not about the science. Atheism is the ultimate expression of faith—letting go of the idols of gods with complete confidence in the central mystery—we are the midst of it, swimming in it and completely surrounded. We are It. How else would you know but that it is so central as our being we cannot consciously recognize it.

“Atheism in the informal sense is a profoundly religious attitude. An attitude in life of total trust of letting go. When we form images of god they are all really exhibitions of our lack of faith—something to hold on to, something to grasp.

When we don’t grasp we have the attitude of faith. If you let go of all the idols of faith you will of course discover that what this unknown is precisely, the foundation of the universe, which is precisely you.

It is not the you you think you are (it is not your opinion of yourself) it is not your idea or image of yourself, it is not the chronic sense of muscular strain which we usually call “I” You can’t grasp it, of course not, why would you need to? Suppose you could, what would you do with it? You could never get at it!”.

And so there is the profound central mystery of the attitude of faith—to stop chasing it, to stop grabbing it. Because if that happens the most amazing things follow. All these ideas of the spiritual, the godly as this attitude of “must“—”And we have laid down the laws which we are all bound to follow“. This is not the only way of being religious and relating to the inefable mystery that underlies ourselves in the world—you.

“If we cling to belief in God, we cannot likewise have faith, since faith is not clinging but letting go“—Alan Watts

Physics and philosophy are converging into what is, while religion, the restrictive band (the choke point) is digging another ancient foothold to maintain control through fear and deprecation—

Want to Believe

“Humanity desires belief and will sacrifice good sense to get one“—then pay dearly for the ability to hope and pass the litmus test—to have enough belief to be saved.

They pay with their wallets, of course, but what is the real price of fervent belief in ideas that fantasticize spiritual meaning?

Subterfuge—”deceit in order to achieve one’s goals“. Shortcuts to meaning are impossible to produce the desired results—Settling for meaning by way of fear is diminished capacity—through belief we can ignore our deficiencies for third party recompense.

Turn-key, prepackaged, big-box religion has an interesting, if not completely arrogant approach, using subterfuge to present group enlightenment and personal salvation while shortchanging the creature. Firstly, exacting guilt where there is none, chopping humanity down only to notch it back to an average, mediocre, lifetime dependency.

If I believe Jesus is savior and son of god, I can be saved. If I don’t believe this version from lack of evidence and consistency I will be damned to eternal torment—so basically handwaving contradictions and errant outcomes are tests of faith that must become a way of life to keep your senses. Who would present such a far-fetched and cruel story and believe god is good, merciful, kind, and love?

“The truth will set you free“, not belief, not faith. The key to discovering truth is unbelief, for by it we reject incongruity without adhering to systems that stifle our ability to see the world for what it is.

By submitting to belief our journey is carefully guided down the path of mediocrity. The current state of affairs is the objective reality of subjective faith.

How to know there is no God

“Just out of curiosity do you believe there is no God?” Lander

That is not a valid question. Unbelief is not a belief. Your statement is a misnomer. The evidence that has been attributed for god have other valid explanations (including forgery) In fact, most of what was once attributed to the gods are now fields of study these days. I’m not so gullible to assume these last few pieces to the puzzle won’t be explained in the near future. I’ll wait so I don’t have to backtrack to keep finding cracks to shoehorn in an underwhelming, divisive belief into pseudo-reality.

Out of curiosity, do you believe there are no other explanations for unreliable human perceptions? There are dozens of one cares to look.

THIS 4 minute bird video will brighten your day!

unFaithing—Saving Humanity

The biggest regret of humanity—examining what we have done and how we have behaved after realizing there are no gods. This regret is typical of de-converts even now.

The earth is in turmoil—they do nothing but wait..for a supernatural…solution.

Life on earth is a race of beliefs—to appear correct (and word it just right) and accumulate enough stuff before we die, before there is no more—like a gas tank on empty, we press the pedal irresistibly harder. Maybe with enough speed the roads of overuse and will converge only after we’re done here.

Life non-earth—after the resurrection and the world is led by Jesus, we will no longer need this physical world—I guess it makes sense to trash it now. But this begs the question that Christianity loves to pose—what if you’re wrong? What if there is no god? Maybe we should err on the side of caution and be a little kinder.

The Great Potential of Humanity

Religions, no matter how absurd are protected by law because they cannot stand on their own merits. This buffer allows absurdity to be honored as a virtue.

Religion has at every age kept the human mind in darkness and held it in ignorance of its true relations, of its real duties, and it’s true interests. It is but in removing its clouds and phantoms that we may find the source of truth, reason, morality, and the actual motives which inspire virtue—Jean Messlier 1704

What are the true interests of humanity and, what’s stopping us?

Foundationally wrong, religion nurtures self doubt. You are not “worthy to loosen his shoe” and but a vile sinner from birth, but ONLY through belief in Him? Without god you are nothing? I completely disagree. That is not the path my friends. The human being is quite possibly the most versatile and creative creature of all time. Misguided in this phase of belief, but by unbelief can “put away childish things” such as faith in a god that has yet to meet its objectives.

Man has proven quite capable, even dragging along the dead weight we’ve accomplished great things. Imagine if we all embraced discovery? Imagine if we truly loved our neighbor and collaborated in an honest reality? We are quite capable of taking care of ourselves. Man has proven quite resilient with his teaspoon of dust and sprinkling of consciousness, in spite of the extra baggage. We have the capacity to unite and become incredible, but it will never come by way of religious belief. They had their shot.

Knowing the un-Knowable

Of all the gods that ever lived in the minds of men that have come and gone, the one with the most staying power never even showed up. The others—ousted by the unknown god that doesn’t do anything, can’t be approached, proven, described nor touched. Even our own imaginations that created him cannot imagine his omnipotence, for anything we can imagine or explain, he must be bigger, staying above the fray of explanations way—for the sake of the profession it must remain this way.

Curious sky—NE Washington

In Acts 17, Paul hits a masterful homerun on the first swing: “Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.

For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you”

So thus it is—Paul begins the religion of contradiction with a contradiction. He claims to know the god that can’t be known, condemns superstition by introducing the most blatant superstition in known history. They took the bait! Hook, line, and sinker and have poisoned lowered the minds of humanity to prideful pretending. They know something they readily admit they don’t know—“God is naught but in the minds and yearnings of insecurity”. But to pretend to know what can’t be known, certainly has a tidy little smugness about it, doesn’t it (wink)

Monotheistic Gaze

For over a thousand years of majority beliefs, Christianity has the world at a standstill. How long should we wait for the “truth” to achieve its objectives? The world is in a trance; unable to see past the focal seizure of belief. Neptune’s Dolphin used the term “monotheistic gaze”, but reminded me how unproductive daydreaming can be. Living in the past, hoping the future ends—if only we get the chance to watch the sinners burn...sigh

Imagine for a moment the promises of eternal life at the foot of a capricious master of cruelty—disconjugate gaze comes to mind as we try to imagine (then the common eye-roll) what to do for billions of eons while we worship in bliss—or else!

Do you trust a god that has already “repented” (changed his mind) about his creations. Did he not tire of men’s ability to ignore his demands and drown all but eight? Is this the same god that, after only one day of his time, just said “to hell with it”, and hit the reset button? Are you sure he won’t get bored with the whole “worship thing”—something he couldn’t possible need as an omnipotent being, nor want if he was a good one?

Someone that can curse his own child for not offering a blood sacrifice and burnt meat of his own creation, doesn’t get my vote.

“They tell us it is our sins that force Him to punish us. I will answer that God, according to yourselves, is not immutable, because the sins of men compel him to change his conduct in regard to them. Can a being who is sometimes irritated and sometimes appeased, be constantly the same?” —Jean Messlier

Other things that cause the gaze:

• Honoring attempted child sacrifice
• Circumcision as a covenant (male genital mutilation)
• Stories of virgin birth
• Burning and killing animals to please their creator

But, keep believing and you’ll get acclimated to the idea.

Evolving From Belief Mode

So, if I am skeptical by nature and don’t believe, but agree to believe by choice, would god then judge me for being a liar? If one simply does not believe the story, but agrees for the sake of community, family, income, for the children, isn’t that dismissal of personal integrity a sin?

Can one truly decide to believe, or in my current case, I only now can decide to pretend to believe? Deciding to believe is a choice, which makes it pretending mixed with hope—that lacks integrity.

It seems as though we are destined to believe, as distasteful and destructive as it is to the current form of humanity. Even those that leave Christianity generally adapt another belief of some kind. Everyone wants a belief. To me, at this point that just seems weird (maybe I’m weird) but I believe nothing. There is no progress in a modern, overpopulated world for these uberdeveloped thought convictions, backed by stubborn, tribal pride, which is ultimately just strong belief in faith.

The antithesis of what the scripture supposedly intends, but draws out the man in a course few can correct.

If I had to choose at this point, some primal form of worship would be my choice.

Morality—Appearing Better

“A man that firmly believes that God sees everything, knows everything, is everywhere, will, when he is alone commit actions which he never would do in the presence of the meanest of mortals (or the general public). Those even who claim to be the most firmly convinced of the existence of God act every instance as if they did not believe anything about it. There is scarcely a man that does not fear more what he sees than what he does not see—the judgments of men”—Jean Messlier

More powerful than any idea of an all seeing god, men check themselves because of what others will think—even will claim to believe in god for the same reason. No fear of an unseen deity has kept man restrained when he is alone or away from those that know him. That sense of obligation is morality by genuine nature, nurture, and neurology.

Morality among mankind is nothing more than consensus and personal autonomy within a framework of what all persons are collectively willing to tolerate.

Religious doctrine is nothing short of a few, trying to force compliance allowing religious authority to have a higher level of autonomy. And like politicians, they are above the laws they administer for god.

Christian morality is discussed as simple wordplay for recognition—all talk, then go about your business with approval—he’s a believer!

It takes special training to reach that level of hypocrisy.

WTF?

To the True Churches

Years ago when I was a True Believer © (AD, DDa, AWOB), I purchased a piece of property for farming. It was 20 acres below the high-line canal and approved for flood irrigation. It had a swale in the middle sloping down a bit to one side and had to be leveled. Three or four days on a tractor and a laser—or embarrassingly, maybe I could just hold up my hand and command it in the name of Jesus!

—It didn’t work.

After a few days of dozing I came to my senses—I didn’t believe hard enough…God was testing my faith.

It is said that all churches which are founded in error and imposter will come to a shameful end. But if Jesus Christ intends to say that he has established a society of followers who will not fall either into vice or error, these words are absolutely false, as there is in Christendom no church, no society, and no sect which is not full of errors and vices viruses [sic] especially the Roman church though it claims to be the purest and the holiest of all. It was born into error, and even now is so full of delusions which are contrary to the intentions, sentiments, and doctrine of its founder (Paul, P-peter) Because it has contrary to his intention, abolished the laws of the Jews of which he approved and which he came himself and said to fulfill them, not to destroy. It has fallen into the errors of idolatry of paganism, as seen by the idolatrous worship which is offered to its god of death (and child abuse)

And nobody’s is moving any mountains.

“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them—Mark 11:23

I didn’t doubt it, or I wouldn’t have done it. —Enter Explanations

Every Christian thinks the other are doing it wrong. In this I agree.

Irritating for Jesus

Being persecuted for your beliefs doesn’t make you a martyr, nor does it prove you right. It does, however, prove you irritating.

Dying for religion doesn’t make it true. It only proves is your fanaticism was stronger than your love of life.

They tell us that the truth of religion is beyond worldly reason. Do you not admit then, that these truths are not made for reasonable beings? To pretend that reason can deceive us, is to say the truth can be false, that usefulness can be injurious. Is reason anything else but the knowledge of the useful and the true?

Besides, as we have but reason and our senses (such as they are) to lead us in this life, to claim that reason is an unsafe guide and that our senses are deceivers, is to tell us that our errors are necessary, that our ignorance is invincible, and without extreme injustice, God cannot punish us for having followed the only guides which he desired to give us—Jean Messlier, Testament

Then go on to pretend intelligence is a gift from god. The same god that is immaterial but created material. The same god that is immutable and alone, where his laws do not apply because he is apart of any society. The same god that lets his most irritating effective servants die without lifting a single finger to come to their aid.

“And that’s why it was such a brilliant idea from prophet Mohammad (and from the Bible) to explicitly describe the religion as the absolute last word from God that would never get any future amendments of any kind. It was the first to say it was the last, and and it worked pretty well by taking their immunity against listening to others and learning form them to a whole new level” Haritha

By abandoning your reason and senses, you can believe anything. Depending on where you were born, of course.

My road less traveled.

Assuming the Supernatural is Real

I’ve contacted a highly recommended shaman guide that can enter the realms, speak to the “teachers, masters and guides” to open the archives of the souls of the universe. Most people ask the lords of the records “what is my purpose” or what is the meaning of this existence? Everybody on earth has a spiritual clan and a guide (teacher) that can be approached by those here who are attuned to those frequencies.

I don’t really feel a need to find purpose. In fact I have really no spiritual, purpose inklings at all. But since I learned I have been recycled, re-purposed, and have been on this similar journey for many cycles to enhance my real life after this one, I am intrigued what it all means. What then, should I ask the Akashic Records of the knowledge of my soul? I need some ideas. I was told I can’t ask “when” questions as they will not be answered. That leaves how, what, why, and where, which I think is sufficient. What could I ask, or what would you ask for the betterment of mankind if you had a few minutes to peek into our final destination to find or focus on a higher purpose?

Where We Go From Here

If this life were part of a series of reincarnated experiences, why would it matter at all in mankind’s search for purpose if we can’t remember them from one existence to the next? Where does it all go when you’re dead and buried? In the next 85-90 years another entirely new crop of humans will populate the earth, while nearly 8 billion purported “meanings” and “purposes” of life are lucky to be remembered after 1 generation.

From my former religiously stained fingers—death is the great escape into peace. Not by living again, but by offering exactly the same “freedom from care” that we experienced before we were born. What was lost—peace, is once again found only to be unknown—again.

We have risen to life, now against the odds of inevitable aging and death we hope to carry on, realizing some form or potential. Would we settle to be a meadow of wild grass or a meandering brook, only to prolong any semblance of physical experience? All this searching for meaning over a brief flicker from past lives feign to recall (or sleep paralysis) or merely an active, imaginative brain inventing?

The desire to live forever is a notion implanted—a wishful potential of an ideal—yet death will reunite us to our past”.

Certainly there are things I enjoy now—things that I would miss, while others disdain—if I were aware to see it.

“Such is the audacity of man, that he hath learned to counterfeit nature, yea, and is so bold as to challenge her in her work”—Pliny the Elder

All of these experiences seem a little futile if you can’t remember them when in the physical realms where they are useful to us. If reincarnation were real, what good is finding out purpose in this life if we don’t remember it coming or going?

Is it so hard to live in the present? Are we just hamster-wheeling for nought?

The crooked trail into our wilderness.

Interesting mushroom

Being First—More Powerful than Right

You know those brands that becomes a household name, even when using the competitions product? Ziplock, Saran Wrap, LEGO’s, and Jell-o come to mind. Proprietary eponyms eventually fade into genericide, losing there luster in sales, but the names live on. Being first is powerful. Staking claims on territory is much the same. Whoever plants their flag first, it can take hundreds of years to get just a slice in return.

Enter religion.

Staking a claim on morality, religion has branded itself as the authoritative source on it. There are better versions available, but morality is synonymous with god and religion. Why? Because they said so—and they have the biggest brand. I need some acetylsalicylic acid—Asprin™️.

But, after unbelief we see morality is a natural phenomenon and find our groove pretty easily. This strivation for balance, homeostasis, civil society, and equilibrium is as natural as cause and effect and our ability to process consequences. We like fairness and we’ll give it to get it—just like other animals.

It’s no secret that a friendlier and more inclusive moral construct is possible, but then the next big lie too has been repeated ad nauseum—and that that, would be too difficult. Not so fast my religious friends. We could work out a rough draft over coffee if it weren’t for the beliefs. Those naggy little seeds that hijacked universal decency and divided us.

We really should do something about this. If the biggest is going to dominate the rules, Islamic morality is just a few years away. Two factions, both wrong, competing to force ideas on the world—and control you and me by legislating them. When that happens, humanism won’t look so bad, will it? Just Google™️ it—on your search engines.

Believing in Faith vs Practicing Beliefs

Religious believers of every fashion you can imagine cover the globe in a philosophical, often self-satisfied smugness—that the believer actually knows something. I would prefer they start using the term, “embracing ideas”, since the stigma associated with the words “faith”, or “belief” connotes too much religious autocracy. Having a personal relationship with a supernatural god you can’t comprehend, see, touch, even imagine, also just sounds so…crazy. Ok? But I hear it’s worth it…only later.

Embracing a good idea, relieves one of the burden of delusional psychopathy, may actually calm personal nerves, reduce anxieties, defeat self depreciation, and promote good behavior. Regardless of this new trend (as of now) faith and belief are terms that should be absorbed back into the cosmos, stricken from the record.

That’s an idea I can embrace, espouse, grasp, and hold on to—without faith hijacking the conversation with a damaging, self-imported debasement that is no longer useful. Belief is not an honorable trait, nor is faith worthy of accolades. It’s simply a decision, a conviction of thought in one’s own weakness to believe in something that is not around to help.

Creation—Making Sense by Probability

“In an infinite universe, if there is even the slightest chance that something will happen, like the development of life from non-living materials, it not only will, it must. It’s simply the laws of probability at work“—Grouchy Farmer

Taking the shortcut “god”, is lazy economics. In the easy-way of zero effort we were taught that god created the universe. A god that we could only not see, but not even comprehend. It fails the simplest test of reason—it’s a feeling, imposed upon us for lack of a trying effort to think for yourself. A better answer (in an age where little was understood about the physical world) would have been “I don’t know”, god made a little sense—Enter reason

“Searching for god, we don’t discover who he is, we discover who we are”—

Just kidding. We don’t find who we are unless the search is a completely personal, expert-free search. Listening to the religious professionals, we adopt their beliefs and sort out our own equilibrium with their ideas. That is not us, but a conglomeration. In some cases you may need to journey their path—only to later realize you don’t need them. We are so easily influenced (as evidenced by mass belief) the only person you can trust is yourself—by your own observations and meditations.

After a lifetime of drawing your sources from a poisoned well, well, it takes a conscious effort to set such preconceptions aside for a time and admit to yourself this—You may very well be wrong about every single thing you think you know. Hitting the reset button takes courage and most of all, true humility. The fact is, 99% of what you think is yours, are the ideas and opinions of others. Who would you be without that?

I finally have a belief—that one curious soul can quietly see the world and in their own way and add a striking point of interesting realism to this puzzle we call life. It just takes a step back from the coercive opinions to find it. Not from the “experts” but through our own observations.

Sounds of A Raindrop—Evidence or Imagination

My blanket lay at the edge of the edge of the beach, right where the sand turns to sparse grass—and the clouds, a high and milky white mess on a hazy blue background.

The forecast called 40% chance of rain today, but nothing looked imminent. I closed my eyes and the world around me started to dissolve. My senses heightened in their fading and hearing beyond the crowd to the surf, the waves blended into a monologue of eternal, blissful siesta.

A distant dog-bark echoed my direction long away through a gentle breeze. A pre-dreamy, drowsy calm invaded my physical being and time seemed a stand still—then it happened—I heard it. Like a bullet parsing through time-frozen air molecules, a shwooshing sound with the grace of a high-speed zipper in slow motion. Then, it hit me—a single rain drop on the inside of my forearm.

Wetting my stratum corneum, somatic receptors fire a signal through a thousand miles of road-map nerves at light speed, landing in my well mapped sensory cortex, eliciting a preconditioned response from an altogether, other part of my brain, the frontal cortex (which is unique to humans) Aah, god is good (from the memory banks of indoctrination—our belief)

“Beliefs originate from what we hear – and keep on hearing from others, ever since we were children“—Indian Journal of Medicine

I have no evidence it rained that day, but I felt it, I know it. The news said there was no precipitation, but I know—I even heard it gently censure me from near slumber.

This is exactly the evidence for god—because it was trained and ingrained. Did it rain and did I hear the drop coming, or in my hypnogogic, near-sleep state, did I dream it? My first response is proof something is off—I don’t even believe what still lingers from all those years, but like habits are—in the neurons like a ping-back from a children’s blog you quit enabling many years ago.

Springtime Oregon Grape. Mahonia aquifolium in juvenile yellow.

Contemplating Existence—The Why is in Asking

The human mind is easily misdirected and manipulated. The simple question has now been hammered into a science—the number one tool of the salesman, psychoanalysts, politicos, and religiosos. Merely asking a question puts the asker in control of the conversation—and the human brain can’t help but go there.

“Questions trigger a reflex in humans known as “instinctive elaboration,” that is when someone asks you a question, the question takes over the brain’s thought process and you feel compelled to answer—and make it a good one.

The meaning of life is undiscovered to this day, but it all started long ago by three unanswered questions

• Why we are here?
• Where did we come from?
• Where are we going?

After millenniums of daydreaming answers on existence, now we are forced to answer “what if”—what if I’m wrong about what you’ve imagined to be so?

Here is my question; Are you certain your feelings, that combination of hormones, insecurities, bias, influences, hope, and consciousness—evidence of a god? Or is it simply evidence of an ever changing and susceptible mess of neurons, chemicals reactions, and underdeveloped controls?

“When our brain thinks about the answer to a question, it can’t contemplate anything else” (1)

We can generally think of only one thing at a time, while our limited ability’s and myopic mental focus practically force us to contemplate simply because of the suggestion—or the question. “Do you believe in god” has been a question that has lingered at the forefront throughout my lifetime and a thousand generations before. Why no, I don’t believe in an imagination what has puzzled even the best minds in history. A question that deserves no answer, but is an irresistible consideration nonetheless, because it was asked.

With all that is known about our psychological discrepancies and deficiencies, do you think it would be wise to proceed with caution before believing anything without evidence. Any of it? Why should I believe anything at all without it?

What makes one so sure that the potpourri of impressions and feelings about every aspect of life is a god, considering all of his presence and “feelings” and your own intuitions can be duplicated in any laboratory study, even with outright lies? How do you know it’s god, not the neurons and hormones deceiving yourself—with yourself, practically by the force of the question? Isn’t it far more reasonable that the idea of a god is just as unreasonable? The ultimate force in the universe is not a god—it is the almighty question. And that is far more interesting than settling for a thought. There are no answers. That, is evidence I can live with.

The End of Religion—How Long the Free-fall?

The collapse has come and gone. “He” never came back, but hope and pride won’t fess up to the fact—so the ever extending goal posts. Christianity is so far removed from its roots it can’t even dig one up. Buried in a wash of now speculative jargon, still looking for what was an obvious, imminent prediction forever prolonged under the hubris of hopeful generations. Is it that hard to admit they were wrong? Fooled? Maybe read too much in to it? It’s fundamental precepts have dissipated into the stratosphere—of longing. Reveling in what might have been, the big promise of the hero’s return is just too tempting to let go.

We are now in a world where belief has no utility. No ritual, no improvements, but only words masking the wishful’s true behavior. Every believer is on the same diverge in the yellow wood, following the road most traveled by and marked in the sod like an old wagon trail, seeking an ideal that brings peace and eternal life—a promise that no man can resist.

Islam is the last hope, where they still have the stomach to do things that no man cares for—kill things to appease God.

Western man has now turned to machines to do their killing, far removed from that distaste the moment they have the opportunity. Barely even able to kill their own food while those that do often ritualize it and thank their god for the life they’ve taken. Religions have moved on from blood sacrifice to the sacrifice of personal growth—for no greater purpose than self deprecation.

The goalposts have shifted and stretched from generation to generation. The failed prophecies have been too numerous to measure, but hey, who really cares? That, would be some kind of evidence. The beginning of the end—again.

Like balking a-top the high dive, it’s time for bungee-jeesus to come down from the cross.

Can we really and truly believe, or can we only decide to pretend to believe. Deciding to believe a non-ordinary, supernatural delusion is a choice, which makes it a charade of pretense mixed with hope.

Control Through Confusion—

Maintaining the flock has never before been so muddled. It used to be as easy as swordplay and torture. Now that there are laws against that tactic (and the internet) so the leadership has resorted to volumes of big worded, incoherent rambling confusion. Who but the professional preacher has the time to sift through it all? Never mind that, they can tell you what it all means.

Victor Hugo writes in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, “the priest were in fear because they thought the printing press would replace the pulpit”—people could now read their own bible. But, as Jean Meslier so astutely pointed out, “not only should the Bible have been withheld from the commoner, it should’ve been withheld from the priest as well”.

The only way to hang on to the few threads they have left is to keep it confusing with forty thousand sects making up their own versions with a million volumes of commentary—per year.

“They muddy the waters to make it seem deep”—Fredrick Nietzsche

Here is a list of Starter Words you need to know to be Christian these days; after all, being ecclesiastical takes practice, for simplicity in the gospel is for everyone.

• Ontology
• Epistemology
• Dystheism—personal favorite
• Ecumenical
• Existential
• Misotheism
• Eschatology
• Asceticism
• Emanationism
• Epigenesis
• Maltheism—God of the Bible

No longer do you need to know thee, and thou art—but you have to be versed at a scholarly level to keep up with “The New Theists” and their codespeak, then remember the old as well—words like imagination, pretending, and circuitous. But this will suffice for a brief introduction, if ye are willing.

I do have a question—can we decide to believe, or can we only decide to pretend to believe. Deciding to believe is a choice, which makes it a charade of pretense mixed with hope. After all, the proof is in the pondering, or so I’m told.

If we have to choose belief with (or over) reason, that is nothing more than pretending.

Improvements I’d Like to See

1. Faith insurance. As part of a nationwide tithing settlement, a portion of every donation would fund mental health counseling and current believer vertigo
2. Graduation from church. Mandatory time limits for your church to meet its objectives. A good church would cut you loose but they depend on your tuition to ruin you
3. Get out of religion free cards. More or less a monthly hall pass to get your bearings
4. Tithing refunds—For those of us that saw it for what it is—and isn’t. We want our money back!
5. Reparations to deconverts funded by a tax on religion
6. Post traumatic religious syndrome: federal recognition that the duping you received caused you trauma.
7. 4D vision-proof glasses. For looking beyond the veil to see there isn’t one.
8. Religious Life-lock for identity reconstruction. Find yourself again on the church’s dime.
9. Prophet sharing [sic] on religious revenue. Every good investment gives revenue sharing and dividends. Religion isn’t one of them.
10. Warning signs on chapels and a two verse limit. Religion served on the premises, no children allowed.
11. Minimum age limit (21) for baptism or any contractual membership.
12. Embarrassment—that goes with the territory when the charade is over—sorry, only time will heal your chagrin

Finding your life groove outside of the myopia of belief.

Abortion Laws—No Help Yet for the Forcibly Born.

My Daughter came home from high school today ready to fight! Anti-Abortion laws are religious laws and have no place in state constitutions. However, 20 states are attempting to pass ridiculous “heartbeat laws.” Georgia and Ohio’s just passed theirs. Ohio’s new law prohibits rape and incest victims from having an abortion. In Georgia, having a miscarriage could result in an investigation. Is this really true? Or reasonable?

Ohio governor Mike DeWine signed the state’s Human Rights Protection Act, which bans abortions as soon as doctors can detect a heartbeat—about six weeks. A law that protects 1/2 of the parties involved, one of which is not yet alive.

The fact that many women do not yet know they’re pregnant is irrelevant to the good governor. Actually, that’s part of the plan—ignorance is embedded in the design of the legislation.

Also from the religious right of contradictions; isn’t it odd how financial and pro-life conservatives generally don’t support government assistance to mothers that can’t afford children, yet do everything in their power to make sure they have the baby anyway. Born baby born! What happens after that is if no concern.

Fear Play—

A healthy amount of fear is normal. Skepticism allows us to make our way in the world without being suckered, while religion attempts to alleviate those fears, then ersatz the trivial everyday with existential death anxiety—not terribly afraid to die, but afraid of what will happen after you do—and a fear of separating from loved ones you never knew before life happened.

On advisement we relax and let Jesus take the wheel, then fear is directed at our performance and we’ve taken the bait. We all have fears—which ones, seem to make all the difference finding personal peace.

“Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom“—Luke 12:23 KJV

Have I got a deal for you! Do you want to see my puppy? I have ice cream—any flavor you want—like the taste of hell… Even as a believer this made me a little squirmy, but few seem to be able resist it.

I was having a conversation the other day and the gentleman said, “we get the most out of religion when we allow our faith to be vulnerable“—in a sense, letting down your guard in belief.

Allowing your faith to be vulnerable is like lowering your expectations to be happier. After all, getting a C- when you were expecting a D can give a lot of hope, but it doesn’t take us anywhere meaningful. I know, I grew up being suckered.

So how does one go about deciding the right amount of vulnerability? It can be comforting to be a part of a flock full of deception you can trust—until you no longer think like they do.

Christianity—Holding on to the past while hoping the future ends—until it’s their future.

Why should I fear death?
If I am, then death is not.
If Death is, then I am not.
Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?”

Epicurus, letter to Menoeceus

Evolution—From Hunter/Gatherer to Fat

Our food is now served on a plate with very little caloric effort on our part (and we wonder how we got so fat) We love the gadgets and endless, idle entertainment while unavoidably hanging on to a genetic past that doesn’t mix well with this sedentary way of life.

Obesity and diabetes (among others) are epidemics. Our bodies have not changed over the last 300 years to keep pace with endless sugar and foreign foods filled to the brim with calories—while Americans sit. Sit for work, sit for play, sit for worship, and sit to travel—proudly sharing a Fitbit status for simply moving of what used to be normal behavior. The hardest part of a normal day may be opening packages.

Religion too, is now served on a plate and we just ingest it with no effort about it. We’re spiritually flat, out of tune with nature and gather our info from big-box, turn-key religious experts or their break-offs.

If any of it were reality and you believe your Bible, there is not one true believer on planet earth. For “greater signs than these follow them that believe“—Jesus. No matter how much you say you believe, you really don’t.

What of life used to be an adventure for each new child, an exploration of the world before us, is now doled-out cookie-cutter style epidemic spiritual and physical sedation from birth to death, with our own intuitive, individual attuning suppressed or hereticized by those same religions that offer nothing but hope. No results, no growth, no bliss, while pretending to be happy in this way of life until it kills us.

The promised enlightenment now tips scales on stagnation and stress from endlessly pretending to be happy. But really, pharmaceutical stats don’t lie. The most religious segments of the country are on the most prescription. Quite possibly the most unhealthy, longest living, over-medicated society in the history of the world. Happy, happy, happy. Have Xanax—and a soda.

Trust In You, Ye Prisoners of Doubt

The world is full of people who have stopped listening to themselves—Joseph Campbell

For many years I felt like I was just supposed to trust those that said they knew what they were talking about. I was a prisoner of doubt—accepting another’s belief over my own ability. What’s really crazy about that—it was never even my own belief, but the beliefs that others believe others believed. I trusted people to be truthful. That is a sin worthy of cursing.

 “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man—Jeremiah 17:5

From whom do we get the stories? Yep! God is a no show.

What’s even crazier about that is what we decided to believe was all written about a desert nomad thousands of years ago (a myth) It really is something to put so much credence in the very old tale, while we ignore our own present abilities to serve the genes of a goat herder.

I now have no religious beliefs and the vast majority of the people in the world don’t have their own either. I don’t believe in god, but they don’t believe their own story either—but that of another. Who but a few animists, spiritualists, and atheists actually listen to themselves and tune into the world around them right here, right now?

Hope puts believers at enmity with the inevitables of life and the placebo is hope that someone else will change it for them”.

The way to insure a life of faith is to sacrifice your integrity for hope. So, it boils down to faith without evidence is the most exciting story, then spending the rest of your life defending that hope with an argument.

Critiquing Faith—Understanding the Blowback

Three very important things to remember when scrutinizing faith.

First of all it confronts the validity of hope which triggers an adrenergic response. It can certainly be startling when faced with the fact no god is coming to the rescue. “Wait, I’m on my own here?” No worries mate, you’ve been living life on your own the whole time (with a little help from your friends) Nothing is going to change only you don’t have to wait around talking to yourself to see if a prayer was answered. You’ve done ok so far, but holding that much power can be frightening at first. But, you’ll get used to controlling you own path.

Second, criticizing a belief is a trigger warning to resist temptations to even consider alternatives—for god (friends and family) is measuring your devotion at that very moment. Considering better-than-belief alternatives you might fall into sin, or regress to your old self and return to your own vomit (Proverbs 26:11) All those things “god” did for you won’t come undone. Relax. No need for knee-jerking. Its called moving on—maturing through faith.

Thirdly, you directly insult imagination. Humans have terrific imaginations—religion is a great way to kill time when your brainpower exceeds opportunity, activity, or motivation. But don’t be fooled—just a nudge in the right direction and bang! You can express this runaway imagination through achievement.

Our imaginations make up a huge portion of who we are, or think we can become. A personal affront to imagination is a direct insult worthy of stoning and death. It even has a name—blasphemy.

Blasphemy—a: the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God 

b: the act of claiming the attributes of a deity for man to imagine that he was divine could only be viewed as blasphemy.

“Suggesting you have the ability to chart your own path puts those in power in an awkward position to justify their own arrogance”. This is a most heinous sin. It’s treason, really.

And fourth but not least, reducing self-deprecation as a worthless sinner isn’t putting you in dangerous territory, but it may release how good you can really be without having to put your own foot on your own neck in the name of belief.

A good thing to remember—arguing with faith is debating reason against physiology. Through repetition the neurons are hardwired and the inability to connect the dots and to embrace contradiction is now a physical phenomenon.

Agenda Driven Faith—Why Hide the Good Stuff?

Since the earliest days of the Bible, many controversial aspects of faith have been buried in the annuls of omissions? Wouldn’t that be a great book? But that wouldn’t make us feel good. Book of Omissions (BOOM) 1:1—Know ye not that these sayings of old contradict and dismay the user? For with what is promised is never delivered, but pray always in compassion, for peace never shall come by way of faith.

Verse 2—According to the gospel of truth, “Know ye not the key to the kingdom of heaven is like unto this illustration authorized by its creator”?

With its abundance we have no need to concern, but when lacking it’s pleasures will seek out liars and easily fall prey by those who effortlessly and continually seek this organic chemical compound themselves—and know ways to find it.

The name of god has been in dispute for quite some time (but by popularity the English translation version is the most correct) but reality speaks a different language. The name of god is actually the catecholamine C8H11NO2—or dopamine for short. Oh, there are lesser gods; Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Norepinephrine, but these triune gods work incessantly in unity with the big boss to make sure you go to heaven—or at least occasionally visit it.

Our own hormones have been the self-source of conversion for millions. When that fails, the tip of a sword has proven just as effective. At least for the holder.

Thoughts I Think

On life…

Live simply and beautifully. Find a groove being yourself before regret settles into mediocrity—

Be content exploring the natural world in respectful ways—

Be curious, but not a fool. The majority of the world believes in an invisible guardian and have applied the quirky perceptions of human neurology and endocrinology to meaning something it doesn’t—

Investigate the world with this knowledge—you have been deceived since birth by susceptible people who are easily impressed upon and ruled by those hormones and quirky neurology. They attach easily to bad ideas you’ll fight for and defend—

The attempts to accumulate many things gives you no right to pollute my breathing space or my water—

Nurture a little bit of beauty in the community. Plant something. Be a friend—

Disconnect from others once in a while to nurture at least one idea of your own observations—

Eat less, wear less, and work less. Feel the bare earth under your feet—

Respite somewhere off the beaten path along a babbling stream, or deep in the woods near a meadow—

Nothing is certain. The difference between your birthday and deathday is a dash—

—don’t waste it living someone else’s ideals.

Write your own epitaph. Tomorrow, write it again—Watch this four minute video if you need inspiration today. It is reality.

Be a better person each day—

Maturing in Faith

America’s True-Christian submits to lasting faith, line upon crooked, twisted line. Precepts that turn, juke and spin until acclimation settles in to accepting his eastern religion merry go round as the one true faith. He is now a foreigner in his own mind estranged from reality, celebrating human sacrifice over the unblemished ram. It all makes perfect sense.

The trouble spots he noticed along the path burrow deep in the back of his mind, ignoring to recall. Like a smoldering trash fire he saw on the news years ago, occasional flames are fanned but retreat to smolder under the help of reason (ah, the explanations) the same reason surrendered at the door of faith.

Like eyes blindfolded at night—unable to see the light of day, he hopefully presses on to find the meaning of it all. At daybreak the blindfold tightens under a mask beguiling self. Light tries, creaks in, but now it is only a disciplined annoyance distracting briefly from the human needs to be herd—and find meaning he never knew he lost until it was so astutely pointed out.

Has he ever the courage to risk all his effort and walk away? Rarely, although he wants to. But he has found solace pretending to believe. Pretending to get it. Pretending this faith matters—then do and behave however he wants? That is the true Christian—following the example of the Bible god.

The reality is there are no true believers. Each has his own market cornered on his own brand of delusion. Reasoning their own judgement away one must construct just the right wording to find any possible way it could make perfect sense. Acquiescence

Atheism is the manifestation of integrity. Or should I say, accepting your atheism is the foundation integrity. Saying out loud what everyone already knows.

Having enough courage to say what is rightfully so, we have now matured in the faith. The red words of the Bible have trained us up to be men of honor in all areas but one. And we are now supposed to dishonor truth by pretending. I don’t believe there is a god, but we can do it for the kids.

Without Religion There Would be Less Sin, not More.

Reverse psychology is a tool for the young and feeble minded? Not really. It works well on nearly everyone (do you want to go to hell) “Don’t do this, and don’t do that, do what they tell you to, don’t want the devil to come out out your eyes”—Roger Hodgson Religion makes me think the founders just wanted to get their freak-on by making everything a sin, creating even greater allure. “We value people and things unavailable to us—things we can’t have”.

“Lord give me chastity—but not today—Saint Augustine

In order for god to pursue the maximum pleasure by proxy of things he cannot have, forbidding a natural occurrence produces miles of pay-dirt for his viewing pleasure—it increases the things he observes. And he watches everything—things he cannot touch or experience in this vile world.

Want to populate a world with eight billion people to revel in the ensuing madness? Forbid a natural act, keep it taboo to even talk about—and control it. Christianity has not produced any moral behavior. It produces cunning behavior and shortens the joys of life by regiment—but in fact produces more mischievousness and anxiety.

Without the institutions of religious and legal marriage there would be less broken homes, not more. Contracts make people feel fidgety and confined, often taking for granted the contracted companion. There would be less people and more personal responsibility, less mystery and more fact—equals stability. Religion has thrown a wrench in the natural flow of life—it’s brand of morality has made an interesting lure making waiting to live as you wish contrary to commandment, instead of a personal responsibility.

“Atheism does not constitute an end in itself, but a beginning, a necessary base, an ethical foundation“—Jean Meslier

Christianity doesn’t produce better behavior. I’d say a little less talk and a lot more action, but the end game is the destruction of the world. It’s an odd wish, clinging to the past and Hopi g the future ends. There is no amount of belief that will save them from hypocrisy. It will take the joy out of life. A life that passes you by waiting til regret plant it’s ass on your doorstep.

I’ve had countless encounters with believers stating I just don’t believe so I won’t feel guilty for sinning. The fact is, most of the things that were intriguing lost their curious luster after losing faith. It ain’t no big deal.

Thought Convictions—We Believe

Parroting religious commentaries as a expression of faith is matter of lazy economics—what would you do or think if nobody told you what you believe? “We believe” is the easy road well traveled.

Fostering the thoughts of other believers “we believe” in the attempt to justify the harmful outcomes of the gospel message, biblical immorality and contradictions of scripture is a cheap attachment to faith—the easy-economy of thought transfer to a faith that was inculcated by the same source that details what “we”, the group believes.

We believe what you truly know of faith can only come from your own observations, not lifting quotes and cleverly worded circuitism from the concept of religion from those that have a vested interest in your belief. The true measure of faith can only be viewed through a lens of unbelief—the third party observer. To an unbeliever it’s quite obvious the whole setup is a scam. Tis a fact. Not from the group mantra of “we believe”, but in–spite of your indoctrination can you openly measure the worth of an idea—and in spite of your groups stimulated dopaminergic machinations.

We believe one can’t simultaneously believe the wordy coercions of others and objectively evaluate who god is, or even who they really are. At that point we believe you have effectively allowed the persuasion of others to hijack the person you will now never come to know outside the influence of the herd. The same herd that will betray you the moment you desist believing the way they do.

What you or anyone else decides we believe, doesn’t change it into a truth. Mimicking popular sayings and catchy phrases should actually be a trigger warning your mind has been hijacked.

Challenging ones belief stimulates their fight or flight, solely for the arguments sake is belief defended. It has no substance but a hope. Challenging someone’s hope puts fear and adrenaline in overdrive.

Belief is not even that important to mankind, but it cannot be helped. Many hate the fact they are tied to it.

Even after the onset of unbelief the doctrine lingers against your will.

I attended seminary four years so someone could teach me what to believe—then I became the teacher, letting other young minds know what they believe.

They were all as I, in it to win it for the parents sake, for their lack of faith and their constant prayers that a child might believe what they believe. That weirdness all seems like a lifetime ago.

Revising Revisions—Ontology or Aesthetics

Pastor Mel was quite pleased with himself. He finally figured out a way to word his ontological quest into a way he can accept and shout how he now gets it—this is what it all means.

“We were the perpetrators of a heinous crime against God by unjustly killing the innocent Son of His love. WE were the ones with the angry murderous hearts, saying “Crucify Him!”

“To summarize, in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ we see God’s restorative justice beautifully on display”.

“First, God heals, forgives, and restores the perpetrator—us”

For twenty years he had it all wrong. Isn’t this post high euphoria just going to be the biggest hangover ever? Now what? Where does he go from here?

“O Happy Day! What a glorious Day!”—Mel Wild

Grading On The Curve—Tests From God

“But God is faithful; He will not suffer you to be tempted beyond that which ye are able to bear, but with the temptation will also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it—1Cor 10:13 KJV

Imagine yourself surviving in Auschwitz while your family was maimed during experimental medical butchery. After losing your faith in a god that never answered your plea, you are now judged worthy of eternal hell and torment.

Johnny good-boy however, kept his faith. Raised in the confines of a religious community in the 50s and 60s of middle America, has earned a gold star for his enduring faith—even calling to Jesus on his deathbed. What a good boy he was. But, not so fast. Even that is no ticket to heaven—only if he was chosen. Even in our best moments the gospel is a gospel of wondering self-doubt.

Meanwhile in the Sudan and Burundi…people are being lovingly schooled on starvation, disease, and political corruption—lessons they need to test their faith. If they only had heard the blessed word of god, only then can they be saved. But not now—for now they must suffer.

“God has shown through atheism those “tested” by his non-participation in crimes against humanity for his own will and pleasure, that many, many people are tested beyond what they can bear” No answer is not an answer to be analyzed.

Enter Atheism—Unbelief is truly evidence of errant scripture. God (the writers) have proven time and again their god cannot be trusted to come to your aid or answer a prayer. Like any other relationship based on trust, two or three—then shame on me. Give faith one chance one time in your time of need and see where that gets you and be done with it. Even if god were real he has not proven dependable. Perhaps there isn’t one? Perhaps…

A Good Verse

With the tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in God’s likeness“. James 3:9

This could be a scripture about jealousy, but it’s not favored that way among believers. If you want to know the best part about being a god, look to those who the writers curse. The nature of those most like god—it is those that make their own ideas and choose for themselves how they will live, then live well beyond the framing limits of religious obedience.

We are despised for charting our own path. We are despised for plucking off the fruit of knowledge. Dogmas are meant to service those that rely on others for guidance and inspiration. This is quite offensive to James who believed everyone should have to have their brain sucked out through intangible thought convictions—through faith and submission.

Ruminating on Belief—

Belief holds only a temporary benefit until a premise has been proven, not a goal in itself—when do we move on?

Understanding your human nature is an important key to resisting the patterns that sustain anchoring bias—that deep tendency to adhere to the first information acquired on any given subject. Ruminating that first morsel—a lifetime of informational cud chewing. How hard is it to change what you’ve been taught in ignorance of the subject, then believed? It takes a miracle, but let’s face it, in those first moments of exposure we’re all ignorant—and gullible to the authority, whether it be parents, professors, or pastors.

Then comes the backfire effect, a near universal, automatic reaction to repudiating evidence of your mere faith, which strengthens your beliefs in spite of better solutions—digging in, protecting those little nuggets wrapped up in your skull when new ideas or evidence is counter to what you believe. Norepinephrine is released in the brain when facts are presented counter to what we believe, creating a fight or flight (or stubbornness) to adopt new information. Religions grow from this stubbornness of human hormones and hardwiring.

Take Darwin for example; He himself was attuned to this phenomenon and lamented his discovery, struggling to procede openly with the Origin of Species because of the effect it would have on everything and everyone he knew—very aware that the reception his evidence would bring a fight.

No matter the spiritual belief, people take great comfort in what they already understand—even if it is a garbled mess to everyone else. Replaying their same old themes—reruns that are familiar and predictable. In today’s world we have to adapt quickly to keep up with technology, processes, and the devices. But belief is a special carrot, hampering progress with archaic, inerrant faith—the comfort zone, the one tool of the devil that keeps you enslaved to your biggest weakness—that overburdened ability to believe what you are initially told, even when it’s obvious it isn’t true.

Just believe. Convincing your mental self by answering your own prayers (you know that talking to yourself thing where you reason away your own mind) and making excuses for the writers inadequacies and failed promises.

Give up and let god? That is the literal example of human damnation—Abrahamic religions ability to stop the flow of actual growth and progress through mandated belief (then we defend it out of hormonal response).

Our perceptions are much more faulty than accurate. It’s no wonder the majority of the world believes something that can’t be seen, measured, or heard—craving that super hero to comfort their struggles—simply because they were told one exists and we are obligated to say yes to a fault.

Faith is pretending not to trust your poor judgement—which is using your own poor judgement to allow someone else to chose your path for you. Understanding your physiology is the key to moving on.

Abortion is Biblically Moral

God ordains the governments of nations (especially here in the USA) God instructs us to follow the laws of the land and to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.

Romans 13:1 “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God.

So when the government passes a law it is ordained of god and we have no fundamental right to fight that law on religious grounds—It is our duty to comply. We clearly have the government god selected. They have clearly and repeatedly said Trump is gods guy. That made Obama gods guy. Nixon and the Supreme Court of his time ruled, in a 7-2 decision, that a woman’s right to choose an abortion was protected by the privacy rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S.—which came from Gods anointed and appointed. He is in control.

Legal abortion is a god-ordained law of the land—Jesus Christ!

Dissuading Consciousness

Faith has no bearing on if we endure as a species, but it does have an impact on if we don’t. Belief is an arrogant default, distorted, misdirected void of reality, deceptive and skewed observations in favor of overreaching abundance and waste—this latest brand of hominids imagine great and unprovable things.

Somewhere in our past a neuron misaligned or is being used in an untoward affect—a synesthesia or other genetic misfortune hooked to ego and fear, then egotistic salvation and false-worth bred complacency—no one is coming to rescue us.

Unless a change is made the earth will one day be void of the chatter of men, void of human beauty and love—millennia’s of blank pages to be rediscovered in our fossil record by the next batch to rise aboriginal in the resilient and resurgent pools of DNA—life.

Consciousness transudes (1) from the living earth and directs DNA to build hospitable, organic environments driven by various levels of its potential—each one mapping out a resemblance to its capacity. Once an entity is no longer hospitable, the consciousness must leave the organism and death of that body occurs (this is easily observed). Equilibrium and the collage of consciousness recycles itself again and again, often shelved for myriads of time, dissipated into the atmosphere and elements—stored until conditions for organic life are met. Genetic epidemics like autism, cancer, and diabetes bear this out when skewed conscious determination maps a new life into forming with polluted potential.

Now the earth is overflowing with inhabitants struggling over a fixed amount of consciousness, with the dominant energies depleting the earth of its nature—not in its danger, but inflicting ourselves within this delicate, yet massive earth that will once again absorb its most acumen (2) nature shortly after our own bodies are no longer a suitable host to carry its potential—as we change our environment to become inhospitable to life, it will take millions of years to restore the balance for the rise of the next species.

While searching for the meaning of life outside of ourselves has been futile for thousands of years (and worth abandoning) through every rise and fall of hominids, one thing observable is true—the physical earth perpetuates and nurtures lifecycles—but only within a specific balance. We are sickly and getting worse. Is that any wonder?

Phylogeny tells us many lines have existed before. Human-like remains from the late Miocene period and the Pliocene era (7.5 and 5.3 million years ago) are not likely our ancestors, but different lines of hominid civilizations that appeared and disappeared, materializing at different places and times all over the globe—then gone. We too will be fossilized then followed by a resurgent, autonomic force that eminates from this unique speck in the galaxy. With some care we can make this ride last as long as we want—or not. Sapiens 2.0 may get the opportunity sooner than later.

(1) Transudes—to pass through a membrane or permeable substance 

(2) Acumen—ability to reason, keenness, depth of perception, discernment, or discrimination especially in practical matters.

Reading Atheism

I should probably read an atheist Bible. Being a Twain fan I intentionally read “Letters from the Earth” (thanks Mak and Mary) and have since amassed a small collection based on many of your recommendations. But, like any top-notch Christian who has not read his scripture, I claim full hypocrisy. I ably became a complete non-believer without reading the text.

This exercise from belief to atheism had to be my own. From the beginning I steered away from the publications, videos, only reading a few blogs and having discussions with everyday Christians and “common atheists”, science articles, psychology, and google scholar—and by strict observation of the outcomes of faith vs the teachings. Turned out it was easier than I expected. There is no objective measurement that agrees with religions versions—on anything.

How is it possible to become an atheist without reading the material? How could one have the audacity to break ranks with the masses and see the contra-everything in its entirety? Atheism is natural when you don’t have someone breathing down your neck telling you what it all means.

It’s nice to read the commentary (that’s what most believers do) but by carefully listening to what we are told and comparing it to outcomes—what we see in real life, atheism is a shoe-in. It turns out the god charade is well funded, propped up by laws and defended by the sword. Who but a religion could commit genocides and have its followers defend them? Not just a few missteps when it comes to reality, but every single point. Jots and tittles are important enough to be mentioned in the Bible—so they must be important and investigating them should dissuade anyone from believing anything at all.

God is incomprehensible but they just know he exists 😵 (justify that one) merciful, just, moral, righteous, perfect, and so on, are presupposed propagandas that any good PR man can repeat enough times pull the wool while their guy is just an everyday oppressor.

Look at what good PR did for Mother Theresa. She’s a claim to fame but never funneled her money to the poor. Instead she jet-set and collected $millions and members to the Catholic Church. That is the true measure of sainthood—not what she actually did to alleviate suffering, which was nothing—but what she said.

What you say virtuously is vastly more important than what you do. Professing faith is the golden ticket to public acceptance while living life by your own rules anyway.

Any religious belief, no matter how silly, is more respected than unbelief. This is enough to know the game is rigged.

Faith—Allowing Chance to Rule Over You

Procrastination pays off when it comes to finding a church. Finally the years roll by and life is good. Those in the churches find it hard to believe happiness could come so fluidly without faith—but it does.

Belief in your own abilities can produce astounding results, while faith in deities—the perpetual waiting game, the continued respite from reality in hopes for enlightenment and good fortune ends right where you started—imagining.

Ode to another—

Faithfully following one

Fruitless endeavor—

How long shall we wait to to find the desired results before just moving on? Even Dr Seuss new better.

“You’ll get so confused that you’ll start in to race, down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace, and bring on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed I fear to a most useless place—the waiting place”—Oh the places you’ll go—

You’d think after thousands years that common sense would say enough—but the search goes on…the wait continues. There’s nothing to find.

Each of us, whether religious or not, creates outer own meaningful life—or not. If your happiness revolves around a belief that had millennia’s to iron some answers but has only created more questions—have at it.

Wait around another 5000 years if you like, but I think it’s time for a change. “How long do we give religion to fulfill its premises? Shall we wait, allowing chance to rule over us, or take control into our own capable hands?

When Life is Discovered

If we discover another planet hospitable to humans, would it be likely they would have evolved the same as us? If Jesus (the creator of the universe) made all the worlds and inhabitants in his image, surely they will have known of his death on the cross.

Besides, the sacrifice for sin is eternal and would encompass all his creations. No inner-planetary missionaries would be needed for they will already have the WORD. If they do worship other gods, I wonder whose god will kick butt over the other. I’m sure it will be the ones with the highest level of revealed advances designed with the sharpest steel, the farthest bullets, and the best bombs. The god with the best guns will be THE GOD—same as always.

Imagine if they are a bit primitive how much success we could have preaching to those poor burdened souls that have never heard of Jesus. We could make them super happy—like us—and the Muslims of course. Sharing our economic models would be a real treat for them too.

Having the Need to Believe—Breaking the Faith Trap

Religion—only valid for those with emotional/physical needs and of course, those who desire status and dispense it. But for people normally adjusted and naturally content—the confident, it holds no truth at all. Need itself makes religion real, then, obligation perpetuates it long after confidence is restored by the group and belief refrains its senses. Those who need it cannot understand how a meaningful life can exist without it. Them that seek out religion due to overwhelming cultural pressure but don’t need it, continue to search from church to church, finally finding their way in the fringes of belief in their own, underwhelming way. It can be uncomfortable for a species expected to believe in something—to not believe in anything at all. Humans generally will believe nearly anything, so belief of any kind is more culturally acceptable than non-belief.

Christianity is now adamant is has the answers to life’s questions—questions they readily admit they have no answer for. Now relegated to god-opting scientific claims and ultimatums with no proof—but convinced we must join with them to have wisdom from a god they cannot know nor comprehend.

Christianity’s use of the endocrine system to manipulate feelings along with the subtle nuances of human neurology, perception, and need—into an almighty god whose opiums for the masses conjures naivety. The organizations that offer you hope dispenses the drug. Addiction is now propagated by a meaningless entity, no longer relevant to the whole.

How much time do we honor belief—the mere agreeance to an unfounded idea? How long shall faith be revered and cultivated as a quality, celebrating ignorance by claiming mere belief as sacred?

You are the meaning. Holding on to purpose through religion only leaves you conceited with a surety that shortchanges discovery. Your true escape from the doldrum of life naturally comes by way of accomplishment. Accomplishment that is thwarted in reliving the ills of perpetual worthlessness week after week, year after year. We have the ability to create a more meaningful existence than anyone can do for us. But those confronted with poor conditions of existence look for anything transcendent to make lives worthwhile.

Now the religion that gave people hope in their once hopeless situation has become a generational crutch, self serving its own existence in spite of the fact that it’s people have moved on.

The unproven idea of a savior is truly relegated to a set of neurons and thought. No physical change has been made, but thought is the key—and the proof that the power is generated—then manifest in and by you.

An honest religion would counsel you to leave it behind when it’s objective is met, empowering you to live your own meaningful existence on your terms. Religion is only true until you’ve found your worth and no longer need it, but they would never admit that.

An Enemy to God—The Natural Man

Being judged and sentenced by believers of god for a passive decision—a process of random inputs, neurons, billions of synapses interacting, perceptions weighed, likes and dislikes and cultural influence considered, simply for not believing a story—merely thoughts.

After having to process this information against my own choice, the ticket has popped out unbelief. What can I do to change that? What should be done to appease the masses…conform to become a natural man—gullible, trusting, yielding, herd instinctive, and fearful since birth? The desire to belong clouds judgement while the powerfully placed men of words and their yes-men apply pressure to consider the supernatural—by coercion.

A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised—1 Corinthians 2:14-15

Au contraire! A neat trick of religion and the biblicants is defining terms to suit their purpose. The natural man is actually the believing man as evidenced in the obvious. Everyone wants a belief. Since birth we are lied to, fearized, pressured, goaded—and though living in a society of liars we believe nearly everything that we are persuaded to believe. That, is the natural man. Either the believer is the enemy of god as the Bible says, or the Bible has decriminalized our natural tendencies and labeled the unnatural, independent-minded as the enemy. I am not the natural man. Having eyes that have opened through a struggle of librarial pursuit and observation, followed by the unpleasant task of unbelief, integrity will not undo this fact.

The strongest faith can’t protect us once we know the truth. Protection comes through conformity and abandoning honest virtue—integrity comes at a price. We now sit on the fringes of society writing anonymous blogs. Natural man? I’ll leave that to the churches where it’s modern version originated.

Mere unBelief—The Most Heinous Sin

Simply believe the abstruse and become a trusted member of society. The fact that one does not believe “the story” turns them an immoral criminal with shifting values, no? Worse—simple unbelief is the grossest of moral crimes and self decay.

Meanwhile, belief in something not seen—ever, in prayers answered—never, and confessing allegiance to a cause that has failed its objectives—forever, is the highly honored tradition. Am I missing something here?

Yesterday I realized how wrong I must be when Ryan (Dolphinwrites) stated “to prove a point is not as important as really seeking” This is like warming yourself by thinking about a fire, sunning your mental self from the dungeon of faith by an imagined beach, where thoughts are only valued by belief in ideas that have never grown the body of Christ to fruition—ever!

Each dream of fulfillment dying at the last breath of life never to be realized—consummation zero, with bliss the dying wish of every faithful—but to seek is the important part—and it must be a search within the defined parameters of religion to be of value. How has this become the gold standard of honor? Oh how the easy and absurd has become the respectable, the permissible, where foolish is the pinnacle of promise.

Pick any religious system of any kind—and it is belief that is respected and protected, while evidence be dammed and agendized—with belief nigh unto death erasing the checkered past and offers love and acceptance by the believers themselves, while mere unbelief of the decent is a ripening for hell.

Making Your Way

‘How do we make sense of the world without a guiding myth like religion?—Alan Watts

—By making our own way, not cut from the cloth of big-box corporate religion or political ideology, where billions get a handful of choices. Evidence of this truth is ever displayed among all Christianity. Everyone chooses what suits them, but in lacking real answers they go, trying to incorporate every single thought into a new god—their real god—themselves. Or, by complete submission (where we find another book) that compels one to enforce many.

We are not born to be decided upon, to be guided upon, to be swayed upon by others interpretations of life’s completeness, especially among the religious who have closed their minds to the endless possibilities of fulfillment. Oft blinded by their narrow view from what might be genuine delight.

“Ideology is a poor guide because it’s not your story”—Joseph Campbell

What is the story of life? Where is the deepest meaning and fulfillment? We are alone finding our way among the crowds and impetuous, pushy religiosos that think in their narrow book of parables and horror are the answers for everyone that ever lived. How conceited. How dare they, really.

“Mythology is psychology, misread as cosmology, history, and biography.“—Joseph Campbell

The Modern Lucy—Ancient Survival Manipulated

Peering carefully, cautiously behind every corner…slowly, quietly, intently approaching every closet, while maginations hide under every bed—every time, chills of air send pilos erect, pupils dilate, blood pressures rise. Skin sensitivity doubles…with caution…ready to flee, or to fight, only to hide in worry another night. After arranging the room carefully—so no objects come alive in their darkened states, can a moment of peace descend dreary into sleep.

Why is this acute imagery laying in wait, alive beround every corner? Where did all this ritual come from? Survival. Who is it that survived the ages to become us? Where did we arrive to this overdeveloped sense, particularly at night?

It is this inherent caution, this fear, that is easily manipulated by religion. Playing on millions of years of survival instinct, the preacher paints a picture of a loving father figure to protect you from evil. If you can only imagine…just a bit more

Since the industrial revolution and the formation of modern survival, we have leaped beyond our multi-generational evolution. Changes that took 100’s of thousands of years are now shoehorned into a century. The preachers gold is our lumbering evolution. Fear is still a best seller…

Where Thoughts Come From

It takes a long time to sound like yourself—Miles Davis (then it may take a year or two to get used to it)—Jimoeba

I have to wonder if any of my own ideas are mine, minds, or an amalgam of the matrix. Here’s where the dividing line emerges between acceptance or rejection of a thought—heavily influenced by religious and politicus “men of words” and passionate believers in belief. How do we break from traditions of old to think for ourselves? By unbelief…

Is an idea mine, or submitting to authority of a majority influence? Was the idea put there by an unknown source, or a known source? As Dan Dennett might say, who has hijacked your mind? Who have you allowed to influence you? Either by passive learning, genuine curiosity, or indoctrination, we acquire information, often through chasing rabbits, but the thoughts we nurture or entertain—initiated often by suggestion from an unknown, is our choice. Where we go from there is up to us.

Trying to go somewhere while focusing on the past, hoping the future ends, leaves religion in a muddle of mediocre progress. It hasn’t gone anywhere, produced any results, or fulfilled its promised bliss—ever. We’re still waiting…

Scientific studies of natural history and origins is used to advance the knowledge base, while religion seeks a beginning to justify current and past behavior—then clings to it. All the answers sought by religion have been answered quite nicely. Only by faith—the absence of knowledge, can belief thrive or is considered. The greatest challenge to modern belief is the greatest of all time—to continue faith in the face of fact.

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask”—Jim Morrison

Your own thoughts often come out of the blue, even if our core is in disagreement with those thoughts. This Psychology Today article offers more to ponder. Who you allow to have voice in your life certainly influences you’re decisions, but also much of religion and racism is based on evolutionary defenses.

Whether an idea is yours or not, one big idea can change the course of humanity. Waiting for god to return to fix our problems is a free pass from acting responsibly now.

Boobies and Faith Traps—By Concensus

The history of boobies and sailing have made their way through the ages. The fearlessness of the seafaring booby bird has made it an easy capture, and even inspired the term booby-prize and booby-trap for the unsuspecting pranked.

The history of humanity runs a close parallel, which now brings us to Švejk, the towering idiot of Czech literature who distinguished himself with an odd way of communicating—he agreed with everyone on everything.

Being agreeable doesn’t make one right, but it can make one comfortable—fitting-in can be the most tasteful, tasteless state in the human condition, when your facade makes your inner a fool, but as a survival tool—agreeing is safe. Švejk is part history lesson, part type and shadow of the common Christian—the, backdoor, subtle bully system where agreeableness gets you friends, at least until you don’t.

Here’s the catch: To believe (or at least say you do) is harmonious in today’s actually post-religious world. “I have compelling reasons to believe in god. My parents are deeply committed Christians and would be devastated were I to reject my faith. My wife and children believe in god…abandoning belief would be disruptive, sending my life completely off the rails”—Karl Giberson

There you have the root of modern belief. We know better…all of us do, but the status quo and the stigma of unbelief can be too great to contemplate—even though we know the stigmas are inaccurate. Believers are boobies—easily trapped and continuously fooled by their own choice. Because it pacifies. It’s easy, and it’s comfortable.

How We Evolved to Belief—

Hard to dispute that belief is a common thread of war, contention, oppression, division, and hate, but I’d have to take two minutes to prove it. Seein’s I only get a minute here, godspeed is of the essence. To scrutinize and thoroughly plow-over any belief based faith is a noble and quite moral thing to do—and easy…

There are those that claim to have found god in their dreams, visions, NDEs, traumas, addictions, and so forth. He’s also been found in G-force testing, neurological studies, chemical enhancements, CO poisoning, anesthesia, seizures, end-zones, and outright lies. This spectral evidence (except for the lying, of course) is the root of all faith, and beliefs based on such evidence are totally unreliable and 100% subjective. To believe them has caused pain and suffering and outright murderous genicide throughout religions storied past. Putting all religion into past-tense would actually be wise—based on its performance…its own demonstrable evidence.

Humanity’s beauty is our obligatory nature to our fellows in-kind, basically feeling compelled to believe when presented nearly anything—to be compliant, agreeable, simply because we are asked to merely believe and trust. Belief is about the stupidest trait mankind has somehow maximally developed in a society of liars.

To believe based on another’s belief statement, who also heard it from another, who never witnessed anything— is not only foolish, but irresponsible.

Where in our evolution and why, did we become so believing, so trusting, yet raised in a predominantly dishonest society of liars? Raised in deception like it’s a running joke of some kind, how this serves our survival—I just don’t know.

In a nutshell—“if the existence of God is up for debate, he doesn’t exist. Belief/faith in something is not necessary if that something actually exists”—Ben

Even With Gods—Haiku Challenge

I Write Her weekly photo challenge with Susi Bocks. Photo—Ash D Soloman—Lucid Being

#1—Sinful God

In the Gaelic wind—

God repents a wistful glance—

At earthly pleasure—

#2—The Unfolding

Impetuous acts—

Reveal true characters—

Confronted by strength—

#3—Strength

Thunder recoils—

As the hedge-witch reposes—

Confronting spirits—

And one bonus haiku at no extra charge—

#4—Weakness

God himself travails—

Broken from his own restraint—

To glimpse wild beauty—

————————————————–

The image of god caste by the writers as a ‘perfect innocent’ of any wrong doing is in fact a type and shadow of the men of power. Who but the aspiring and entrenched ‘men of words’ can declare their innocence time and again from the same breath that inflicts? Who but god (the writers) can tip their hand in blood and horrors and and call it good? Even very good—Taking a stand against this entrenched deception is in fact the absolute morality the religious seek.

Bending your mind to appease a nefarious belief and honoring atrocious behavior through faith is an obvious sleight of hand played on the trusting minds of humanity.

Feeding Turkeys—A Model in Proselytizing

“Long awaited news presses against the nervous silence of worry—to know is better than to guess, to believe is more folly than friend, for the tidings of faith piques naivetés vice—belief has no boundary nor moral”

Winters are pretty hard for the wildlife here on the mountain, so we feed the turkeys and the deer—just enough to get them by. On occasion a lone turkey comes looking for whatever they can find, but when I throw out some bread, they immediately calls all their buddies—sounding their turkey food bell and in comes the rafter. They then spend their time fighting over the purported good news…”the wintery wheat and rye appears like manna on the crusted snow” I guess they just can’t help themselves. It’s natural. The biggest difference I see between turkeys and Christianity—the bread turkeys fight over actually has a health benefit—not the poisoning, cankerous imaginary bread infecting the planet. The ‘bread of life’ is to embrace willful ignorance. Whole wheat is much less circuitous and boring.

How Belief Underperforms

I am curious to know how the universe happened, I’m just not convinced—in any way it was a who that made it happen—therefore there is no why it all happened. Once you realize there is no god, the simplicity of life brings peace—and how it all happened loses its urgency. Although I am quite curious and will someday have more answers, I’ll wait rather than believe in a god to simply satisfy an impatience to want answers with no effort, then act like I found something special by being controlled by a plug-n-play corporate religion. “I believe” is a foolish notion lacking quality of character and discipline. How does this happen?

Sales 101 plays on the trusting, gullible mind of the human. Controlling the conversation is as easy as asking a question, then filling the psyche with so many bullshit points that the ill-prepared are not prepared to answer. Ray Comfort uses this technique on natural atheists in his exposé videos. How come the banana man never asks one of us?

What I Believe—

I believe that mere belief without evidence has been unjustly elevated to the gold-standard of ones knowledge and character.

I see intense belief in anything is a seedbed of tribalism—

That belief undermines real academics and embraces mediocrity.

I know when belief is required to be part of group, the group will betray you over unbelief.

I’ve observed and experienced the key to understanding the mysteries™️ is unbelief.

I understand the universe is a diverse array of energies and dimensions where some people are attuned more so than others to it.

I believe the foibles of human neurology, perception, and bias need to be understood at a grade school level to promote tolerance of difference and friendship—all of us!

I notice that religious beliefs need to be protected by law because they cannot stand on their own merits.

I observe herd instinct, peer pressure, indoctrination, and impatience supplants reason.

I believe the ability to hand-wave contradiction and fallacy hardwires neurons through repetition and submission. The problem is now in the physiology.

I believe faith should never be the end-goal of intellectual achievement.

I found that submitting your will to belief in god/allah, or any other godform disempowers the best part of human nature, delays intellectual advancement and personal achievement.

I would wager belief should never be intended as a solution and should be the least respected of all professions.

I believe that mans impatience has allowed him to be conned by men of self importance. Now the prisoners drive the ship.

I think that humanity is much older than we realize, that man has appeared on the scene several times in multiple generations of geologic time—things are much stranger in the past than we realize. We are much more capable than we realize too.

I believe that any belief should be able to provide some empirical data, and transition from belief to pure knowledge in a reasonable amount of time.

I’ve observed that big box religion and one-size-fits-all dogmas are inadequate to provide the needs of nearly 8billion differing physiologies—evidenced by each member choosing for himself the parts of morality and teaching (s)he already knows.

I believe people’s beliefs are merely hunches, feelings, intuitions—guesses, if you will, they’ll divide their families and friends over. I also believe that is immoral.

I believe coffee was the second greatest product of plant evolution.

New Ways of Seeing

Back in the day I had every explanation there was to show how god did it. I could mend and coerce any thought into a bible verse and show the connection to gods love. I’m quite puxxled and alarmed by the process now, but what religioso today is interested in research when it counters his presupposed, indoctrinated upbringing—opening that mind to legitimate answers doesn’t really go hand in hand. The answers come through unbelief, not the other way around.

Abraham had it easy. He was tested to see if he would kill his only son in a time of brutality. A violent sociality that was already laden with superstition. He heard voices, and followed the (accepted by the day) promptings, and at the last second had woken from his trancelike state and withheld his hand. So what? In a time where little was understood about disease or science, the gods accounted for everything from illness, rain, floods, lightening, and drought and movements in the earth. Gods were interwoven into the psyche and dreams of everyone for every thing. His perceived command to kill his son was difficult, but acceptable to him as a means to appease a god. We know enough now to get help, or offer it when things like this manifest.

I would say emphatically, no! Get someone else to do your evil, but mental illness has no limits when left untreated. Can one truly be tested, not knowing it’s just a test? Of course. That’s what makes Abraham all the more worrisome. The father of many nations, revered by all abrahamic faiths, was willing to kill his son by a hallucinatorial perceived command. How is this heroic?

Ah…it’s a type and shadow of the Christ. A metaphor of the sacrifice to come— shinbexamoke alutarristaskas—which is tongues for spectral evidence, spiked with ergot poisoning, famine, draught, superstition and temporal lobe seizures. Noitanicullah is tongues for hallucination spelled backwards, but no matter how you spell slice it (foreskin and all) today Abraham would’ve been committed, not celebrated.

“To continuously evaluate whether a being is good requires moral judgment, which requires moral autonomy
8. Therefore it is not possible to continuously evaluate if a being is good while also worshipping it
9. Therefore, worshipping necessarily requires abandoning one’s moral responsibility, which is immoral
10. Therefore, no being is worthy of worship”—James Rachel “God and Moral Autonomy”—Quote mining officially through the offices of TheCommonAtheist™️ and its subscribers, with special thanks to JZ (2018)

Urracá—The Power of Unity

The Indigenous Peoples March in Spokane happened over the weekend. Latinagem (my wife) was invited to attend, while others from tribes across the US, Latin America, and the world marched for indigenous preservation and awareness (D.C. we witnessed how far we have yet to go).

On the way home, she stopped by the grocery store wearing her Ngäbe-Buglé native dress from Panama 🇵🇦 and the seas parted. People opened doors, paid respect, made way, complimented her politely, and extremely courteous—like a royal. That, got me to thinking (of course) about the colonials need to assimilate the natives and erase their histories. Other than outright theft of wealth, but because they naturally commanded respect in their own element—a threat.

Post script: The man I encountered was a magnificent-looking fellow—John Dunbar – Dances With Wolves

I realize that’s a book and movie, but the words ring true—only propaganda of the ‘savage redskin’ relegated them to sub-human.

The attack on an encampment of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians by Colorado volunteer soldiers that left an estimated 200 dead in 1864. In 1890, the Seventh Cavalry butchered 300 Native Americans at Wounded Knee—and on and on it went.

In Latin America it was no different. Propagandizing and stereotyping among humans is as old as religion. Justifying your cause by demonizing the “enemy” gets volunteer recruits to do your killing.

Atrocities too numerous for a blog post, Bartolomé de las Casas recorded—”We can estimate very surely and truthfully that in the forty years that have passed, with the infernal actions of the Christians, there have been unjustly slain more than twelve million men, women, and children. In truth, I believe without trying to deceive myself that the number of the slain is more like fifty million”.

“They brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned… . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features...They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane…They would make fine servants…With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want“—Christopher Columbus

This weekend the plight of the American Natives continued. A history, culture, and language erased, with permanent cultural and genetic erasure on the horizon through DNA testing. We all share 99.9% DNA. It’s .1% that separates us all. With Native American sampling’s extremely low (distrust) it is in the near future that, because the history of mankind is one of migration, eventually it comes full circle and there will be no classified native anything. Now the tribes are fighting for their identity and land based on culture and tradition. They know who they are, we just have no use for that any longer.

“Crows, they are fearful. Mighty warriors too. In my opinion Crows is the handsomest Indians there is”—Bear Claw – Jeremiah Johnson

“They strive after a sincere honesty, hold strictly to their promises, cheat and injure no one. They willingly give shelter to others and are both useful and loyal to their guests. . I once saw four of them take a meal together in hearty contentment, and eat a pumpkin cooked in clear water, without butter and spice. Their table and bench was the bare earth, their spoons were mussel-shells with which they dipped up the warm water, their plates were the leaves of the nearest tree, which they do not need to wash with after the meal, nor to keep with care of future use. I thought to myself, these savages have never in their lives heard the teaching of Jesus concerning temperance and contentment, yet they far excel the Christians in carrying it out”.—Francis Daniel Pastorius, founder- Germantown, PA (1700)

The conquest of Panama was more political tale. After beating back of the Spaniards for several years by Urracá (who succeeded in making alliances with tribes that had been traditional enemies) Bought the Ngäbe-Buglé enough time to relocate to the mountainous regions of Panama to preserve their way of life. Only in In 1997, after years of struggle with the Panamanian government, the Ngäbe were granted a comarca, or semi-autonomous area. The majority now live within its boundaries with about 250,000 native speakers. A success story how one mans ability to unite, was able to hold back the tides of assimilation for 500 years. Finally captured by conquistadors and heading out of port on a Spanish ship, Urracá escaped heroically to continue the struggle to preserve old Panama.

This is my wife’s heritage surviving and thriving on the Azuero Peninsula where Urracá called home. This is my home. The fortitude, tenacity, and genius of the men and women is still amazing as it was 500 years ago. American natives south, central, and north—a heritage worth preserving.

Slave Ship Haikus

Wet clad irons shackled—

Chains rattle through scuttles grate—

Peering through portals—

Mephitic mass longing thirsts—

Vanishing homeland—

Ten Reasons To Question Belief—In Anything

A lot has been said here over the past year. 352 posts and over 13,000 comments (thank you) since this all started. I have learned a lot from all of you ‘common atheists’, and that was my goal; To find the truth, not be told what to believe. To share with you all what I’ve learned, not what I’ve been schooled by professionals with a stake in it. With deeper understanding comes change, and with that change I’ve learned that exposing the blatant inadequacy of religion and the faith/belief numbing that has enveloped the human family is built on ten psycho-neuro premises. There are more, but these will do to persuade any reasonable person of the gullibility and delicate nature of human neurology and perceptions of truth.

We have traveled but a short distance in a great journey. We have honed our skills and perfected reason beyond the walls of religion. We have hammered on the fallacy of faith, fallibility of scripture, where it comes from, how it starts—the tricks of the preachers trade—while the duped are now running the con, and against all reason by way of contradiction, it’s a societal expectation…to believe. Why? What is the pressure inside most everybody to rush to believe—anything!

But, it is with little understanding of their own condition that they perpetuate the hoax on the unsuspecting gullibles, newborns, children, adults taking sides, and those human-herd tendencies that condition us to follow. To fit-in to a group based on belief that will turn on us over mere unbelief. It’s borderline c.r.a.z.y (sometimes you just gotta spell it out)

We don’t believe because we want to. We just do—everything! Always just believing what we are told (look at the success of fake news) Humans aren’t trustworthy with their own minds! Here they are in no particular order—for everyone, not just the other guy!

1. Cognitive Dissonance

2. Illusory Truth Syndrome

3. Confirmation Bias

4. Pluralistic Ignorance

5. Logical Fallacies

6. Neurotheology

7. Contradictions

8. Fear Appeal

9. Dunning-Kruger

10. Reason.

Please be aware of your own human condition, including the foibles and quirks of perception and neurology—before believing anything! (including shadow people). We can break the faith trap through awareness of humanism.

Palinopsia—The Aftertaste of Imagery

The human brain is a fascinating organ, but is very susceptible to input based on your output (what you already think you know). We see what we are programmed to see, what we expect to see, often seeing what is not there at all. The quirks of human perception must be understood before one decides where they stand—on any subject. Palinopsia is when you see that residual image after you remove the original from view. Most of us have seen these demonstrations at one point or another where you stare intently at an ink blot or photo, then take it away and close your eyes. The image reappears.

Below is the checkerboard illusion. Look at squares A and B. They are in fact the same shade of grey, but your preconditioned expectation of what the checkerboard looks like, will not even allow you spot see it correctly, even when it’s pointed out to you.

Look closely. Your brain is playing a trick on you, but the puzzle is cleverly designed to do just that. Here below, a strip in the same color is laid between the two squares. This bridge confirms the illusion, but look at the top pic again and the trick remains.

This is just the tip of the neurological iceberg when it comes to perception.

“Attention is what steers your perception, it’s what controls your reality, it’s the gateway to the mind. If you don’t attend to something, you can’t be aware of it”—Apollo Robbins, The Art of Misderection (9 min TED)

But if you only attend to it, you miss the best of reality—Enter religion

Christianity and Islam demand all your attention, all your devotion “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might—not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord”

My attention today is to open your mind to the possibility that that focus is a misdirection. A hijacking of your self empowered life.

Brainwashing or Conversion?

I recently read a blog where a woman was asking the audience if she should join Islam, the religion of her boyfriend of six years—his family didn’t know she was an infidel, and they were scheduled to meet the parents in a few weeks. Should she join with the Muslim faith to appease her boyfriend? I reviewed these steps to religious conversion after posting my reply.

In no precise order, and often overlapping:

1. New Identity—Although not always mandatory, a name change is required if her given name was an affront to Islam (Christina) It is common in many religions to assume a new name after conversion. Catholics, muslims, mormon, Hindus, and more. If no new name is officially or ritually given, aligning with the group is done voluntarily. Christian, Catholic, Muslim, Mormon, etc. Giving up your old identity and assuming a new, is just part of the program.

2. Guilt—You are bad. You are born a fallen sinner. Your sin is so grievous in fact, is as though your sin is driving the nails in Jesus’ hands and feet. As a sinner you are eternally separated from the presence of god. Your body is a temple that you have defiled with the ways of the world. You continue to make the lord suffer by your disobedience. He loves you.

3. Self-betrayal—Agree with me that you are bad. Once the prospect agrees that they are worthless without god, they can begin to see their own dilemma before the lord—not a highly evolved organism, but a child of god. Don’t you know what you are? You want to come from monkeys?

4. Breaking point—I am a sinner. I am not a good person nor could I possibly live a peaceful life knowing I am worthless. I need to be saved.

5. Leniency—You can be forgiven of all your sins if you simply believe, confess your sins, repent and be baptized. You want to be forgiven, don’t you? You want to return to god.

6. Compulsion to confess—Confess your sins, often to a clergy member, or authority. I am a sinner lord.

7. Channeling of guilt—the investigators guilt has lost all meaning—he’s not sure what he has done wrong, he just knows he is wrong. Things he didn’t know were wrong, are now wrong. This confusion creates something of a blank slate that lets the teacher fill in the blanks.

8. Releasing of guilt—It’s not me; it’s my beliefs. The embattled soul is relieved to learn there is an external cause of his wrongness, that it is not he himself that is inescapably bad—he was born this way because of the act of another. This means he can escape his wrongness by escaping the wrong belief system, or lack of one. All he has to do is denounce the people and institutions associated with that belief system, and he won’t suffer guilt anymore. The investigator has the power to release himself from wrongness by abandoning his old belief system. With his full confessions, the convert has completed his psychological rejection of his former identity. It is now up to the teacher to offer the prospect a new one. Scapgoating…placing your burdens on another to make you whole. Relief and salvation. I am saved, and I will now be a faithful follower.

9. Progress and harmony—Friendships and alliances form. New family, friends, phrases, I belong here. This is good. Backslapping, hugs and joy. You’re in!

10. Final confession and rebirth—I choose good. Contrasting the agony of the old with the peacefulness of the new, the convert chooses the new identity, clinging to it like a life preserver. He rejects his old or non-belief system and pledges allegiance to the new one that is going to make his life better. At this final stage, there are often rituals or ceremonies to induct the converted target into his new community. This stage has been described by some brainwashing victims as a feeling of “rebirth.”

You may have guessed by now, but these are not conversion tactics listed in the numbered headings, but brainwashing techniques discovered by Robert J Lifton used on POWs in N Korean and Chinese camps. Conversion merely follows the same steps.

Here is one version of the sinners prayer. Don’t worry, I’m not fooling you into salvation…but it contains the elements.

Dear God, I know that I am a sinner and there is nothing that I can do to save myself. I confess my complete helplessness to forgive my own sin or to work my way to heaven. At this moment I trust Christ alone as the One who bore my sin when He died on the cross. I believe that He did all that will ever be necessary for me to stand in your holy presence. I thank you that Christ was raised from the dead as a guarantee of my own resurrection. As best as I can, I now transfer my trust to Him. I am grateful that He has promised to receive me despite my many sins and failures. Father, I take you at your word. I thank you that I can face death now that you are my Savior. Thank you for the assurance that you will walk with me through the deep valley. Thank you for hearing this prayer. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Measuring Prayer—A Model in Physics

In physics observable is defined as something that can be measured. The basic realities in life also can be measured. Outcomes can be predicted based on experience, consensus, repeatability, and yes, our eyes (usually). Only what a person can observe, measure, and demonstrate can be deemed as truth.

We all know the commutative law—take two numbers x and y. Multiply them and you can see that xy = yx. Always, no exception. But not so fast in quantum mechanics. If A and B are two matrices, then AB is not always equal to BA. Thus you cannot simultaneously determine the position and momentum of a particle. Both are incompatible (strange, but that’s how it is) and harnessing this discrepancy is leading to quantum computers, where you can watch it work even though it’s hard to understand how or why (even for physicists).

This is where religion steps in. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is foundational to matrix mechanics and where religion gets its primordial root in the prehistoric, basic operations of the quantum world. A sort of…subtle inheritance from our humble, elemental beginnings. Immeasurable, unverifiable, always changing positions of electrons doctrine, faith, and prayer. But now, not by defining particle behavior, but by splitting hairs.

Outcomes of prayer and faith cannot be predicted based on faith, experience, consensus, or dependability. Therefor, the attempts at faith and prayer is not truth. But, based on the known laws of quantum mechanics we can make a guess to where all those unanswered prayers wound up…waiting, somewhere between time, space, and subjectivity. Quantumly entangled with the prayers sender, but the missing, immeasurable electron (god) needed to complete the circuit has been uninterested, missing, hidden…forever.

Fundamental to understanding unanswered prayer, HERE is a fine new blog I stumbled across that illustrates the point, only better—Say hello to WOG

Galloping Girdie—Built in Flaws

The historic Tacoma Narrows bridge, about an hour away from my old home has a storied, but short history. Lasting only five months after it’s completion in 1940, it collapsed in a 40 MPH wind. The bridge became a case study in frequency vibrations (aeroelastic flutter) that changed bridge engineering forever. It wasn’t necessarily the force of the wind, but the wind at its matching vibration to the bridges natural frequency. WWII interrupted reconstruction, and ten years later the bridge was completed a second time with design flaws corrected.

Correcting the design flaws of religion is taking a bit more time. Monumental collapses in reasoning are shrugged off and reconfigured using the same plans—at will, ignoring religiolastic flutter with the skill only developed by experted faith. Tuning out frequencies and ignoring bends and wobbles, religious professionals deflect contradictory high winds and resonance with a hand-wave. The main reason it survives is the onslaught of new customers, born susceptible and willing to tolerate the wobble only because others have chosen for them to do so.

We can all agree religion is man-made. Like a bridge it claims to safely escort us from here to there, to greener pastures and eternal life in pure bliss—or pure hell. I think I’ll just take the long way home.

2000 years of searching, dead-and-gone promised relief, and still no answers. 1000 year near-monopoly and what has changed for the better? Secular advances in fairness, equality, and laws limiting religious intervention in government.

Now there are two

Racist or a Product of Survival?

Am I a racist? For as long as I can remember I have just kept quiet when people vented their hatred of my skin color at me. Being quiet meant being safe in the sense that I’m not allowing the situation to escalate further.

Being spat on and having the people spit on the floor and tell me to eat their mucus as they called me a spic, beaner, wetback amongst other names. Called a dog and chased down hallways at high school, bullied for having brown skin, eyes and hair. Enduring the hate in the eyes of extremists as I help them at the local emergency room. Being overlooked and when noticed, looked down on and dismissed at my local church for being the “Latina” by my “sisters in Christ”. Being spoken down to, spoken over and dismissed while presenting new ideas as I Co-chair a local coalition that is completely Caucasian. I feel like the brown speck in the white chicken crap. Should I shoulder on and stand my ground—or just accept the invitation to join my brothers and sisters at the local Reservation?

I did not understand what my offense was. When I walk out the door at home I don’t check my skin color. I just am—soy yo.

Now I’m older, still have my skin color and ethnicity. Those insults that I endured all my life may have affected me.

I chose to marry and have children with Caucasian men. Divorced by 22, widowed by 36 and finally at peace with final husband. My question is why did/do the men I chose have green eyes, fair skin and light hair? Was I hiding my DNA or an unknowing product of my evolution? Did I want to spare any potential children from enduring what I have lived with?

I’m glad to be who I am. An Asian/Latina with many talents and gifts. I will no longer hold my civil tongue as those who chose to throw venom at me continue their ways.

Treppenwitz der Weltgeschichte

“I can resist anything except temptation“—Oscar Wilde

Some languages just have the right word to explain a host of thoughts that require full sentences. “Treppenwitz is German referring to events or facts that seem to contradict their own background or context. “Treppenwitz der Weltgeschichte” refers to a staircase joke of world history—or the paradox of history. Being an irreligious writer, the next logical step is “Treppenwitz Christentum” or the paradox of Christianity—

While I’ve struggled deciding to use paradox or oxymoron in analyzing religious doctrine, why not use both?

Paradox is just so well laced with religious synonyms. Absurdity, ambiguity, contradiction, enigma, I thought I had enough adjectives to delve into any scripture, including context. But, oxymoron says a lot too. Malapropism, hyperbole, all with the adequate adumbration. Here is my question. I have struggled to find a single biblical verse or religious fact that doesn’t break into pools of irony or sophistic contradiction the moment they are scrutinized—It must be by design. Can you name one or two? “Lord, help my unbelief”—Mark 9:24—Or should I just say, help my unbelief?

The Treppenwitz Christentum is a multifaceted wonder, that is no wonder through the gift of unbelief.

Agua Buena, Tonosi—Panama, en mi casa

Creatio ex Cultus—Sokal Art and Religion

“Every act of creation is first an act of destruction—Pablo Picasso

During 1917 Marcel Duchamp entered an upside-down toilet signed, R. Mutt, into an art exhibit. The Society of Independent Artists’ salon in New York—which claimed that they would accept any work of art, so long as the artist paid the application fee. The toilet was initially rejected as a hoax, but then admired, lauded as “groundbreaking”, when the true identity of the artist was discovered. Duchamp’s Sokal style hoax had worked. “Whether Mr Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view—created a new thought for that object.” Others who had followed Duchamp’s work closely, recognized the groundbreaking power of the work.

Other comments and editorials—

“It also doesn’t mean that we can’t revel in the Unsolved Mystery-like scenario of Fountain’s mysterious disappearance: To this day, no one knows what became of the “original.” We only have 17 copies that Duchamp created in the 1960s“.

“The nebulous origins of the fountain only add to its many layers and complexities”.

“If the genesis and meaning of fountain remain elusive, it has provided countless artists with something of a starting pistol for the idea of art-as-concept in the 20th century, underscoring the fact that the definition of art itself is up for grabs“.

Enter ontology religion—

Though Cubists began breaking toilets, reassembling, bronzing, and selling them in the style of Picasso, the fact is, because of the Artists name, a new religion of crap/art gained a foothold in monetary value and influence. My guess is the original was put back into use and is once again a toilet. Here’s hoping religion too, finds a useful purpose—a history lesson

Every positive value has its price in negative terms… the genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima—Pablo Picasso

And the genius of Sir John Harington, and Thomas Crapper leads to art—in the style of religion.

View From a Horse—

Sometimes you miss the best scenery watchin’ where you’re going—Frank

Riding a horse on the trail is near like bein’ a truck driver on the road—a bird’s eye view down into places most folks think ought to be private. I told LT this piece when I dropped by his place—I think he actually peed himself. I won’t do that again. Bein’ careful who you talk to is important, and he may just remind me about this the rest of my life—plus everyone else. He knows how I was raised in the strict confines of religion—and so do I—most of the time.

I’ve hiked nearly the entire Pacific Crest Trail within the Washington border and a thousand other miles between, and never saw what I’ve seen riding half that time on a horse. Walkin’ you spend a lot of time checkin’ the trail and watchin’ your footing to keep you upright—like one time I was on an eight day backpack from Darrington to Stevens Pass. I’d been into it about sixty miles or so when I stepped off the edge and rolled down about fifty feet. I crawled out of it ok, but one second of distraction at the wrong time can be a catastrophe in the back county. Riding a horse alleviates a lot of that—it also makes me about nine feet tall which allows me to see, and seein’ too much in the pejorative sense can make you go blind, according to my mother.

A lifetime of parental warnings does not necessarily protect you from anything, sometimes goin’ blind can be a real eye opener—Frank

My first time seein’ nature happenin’ in the human sense was from the trail, and it looked like more of a scuffle than I had imagined it would. A hiker would’ve never seen it bein’ too short, and that particular part of the trail was a little bit technical, so watchin’ your footing was important—I caught a glimpse of a red blanket down my the stream, so I backed up my horse just a touch to see what was going on, peering over the brush I aimed to solve this curious eye catching red amidst the greenery. Nature was taking its’ course in the wild—two buck naked souls in a passionate tussle. I sat back in my saddle for a spell and watched. I decided I’d better move along…but then I watched some more. I thought for a minute there something was wrong ’cause she was hittin’ him on the back and makin’ a lot of painful noise, but after they were done doin’ what they were doin’ she gave him a big hug.

It wasn’t at all what I expected, but I did find myself pressing my toes hard into the stirrups. Maybe I was gettin’ my footing there a little bit too. The year before I was in Jamaica and we went to a nude beach—optional, but the only people that had no clothes on were the ones that should’ve. This wasn’t like that at all. I thought about it quite a bit over the next few days, then I thought about it again…and then some more—hell I was seventeen, what was I supposed to do?

Some people aren’t so subtle or sneaky about their nudity. I was headed down to Deroux from Gallagher Head Lake and there was a female hiker coming alone up the trail—topless. She stepped up on the high side to let me pass, said hello, and I said hello back—but what I was thinkin’ was a whole lot different. Keepin’ eye contact is not as easy as they say it is, and back to nature was takin’ on a whole new view for my wanderin’ ways—and eyes.

Changing your thinkin’ is hard…especially when you don’t want to—Frank

I reminded myself of Saint Augustines prayer when he was a young man. “Lead us not into temptation Lord, give me chastity,” he prayed, “but not yet”. I did a lot of thinkin’—and even more thinkin’ after this happened.

Bein’ on my way to base camp one day I came up to Lake Ann and stumbled into another situation once again, but things aren’t always the way I’d been raised. I was heading up from Van Epps, and from that direction the lake is just appears in front of you with no warning—a bit of a nice surprise. Coming in from the top you get a bird’s eye view and you can see what’s ahead of you, but not this way.

It doesn’t matter where you are, only the direction your headed—Frank

I wasn’t payin’ close attention and rode right up to the lake to see two guys standing there on the boulder naked, holding hands looking at the water. They heard me, and when they saw me they just looked over their shoulders and said hello, then the taller one jumped down and walked over to me to ask a couple questions. We talked a little about the area, then I let them know that the ridge on the trail to the west had the best view of Mount Rainier anywhere—it’s amazingly close as the crow flies, and breathtaking to see, to say the least. My household growing up was a modest bunch, so after contact of this nature I had some thinking to do, and somehow nudity didn’t equal shame anymore. When I told the story to LT he said I looked like I’d seen a ghost. And that ain’ all I’d seen, that’s for sure, but un-seein’ is a whole other story. That makes two things I know.

If you look around and cut through all the deception, things are rarely what you’ve been told—Frank

I guess if you spend enough time anywhere you’ll find oddities and different ways of life. Funny it was the open wilderness where I slowly started to see life from another point of view, although a bit of it was a little too “up close” at the time.

Things aren’t always what they seem, even after they seem like it—Frank

Aluna—The Conscious Earth…And Us

The Kogi of Columbia eluded the spaniard invasion, hid in the mountains and for over 500 years have been caretakers of the earth. They understand the Earth to be a living being and see humanity as its “children.” They say that our actions of exploitation, devastation, and plundering resources is weakening “The Great Mother” and leading to our destruction.

The film, Aluna, takes us into the world of the Kogi. At the heart of the tribe’s belief system is “Aluna”—a kind of cosmic consciousness that is the source of all life and intelligence and the mind inside nature too. “Aluna is something that is thinking and has self-knowledge. It’s self-aware and alive. All indigenous people believe this, historically. It’s absolutely universal.”(1)

Coincidence? Consciousness and our self awareness is in the mind of all nature. Self awareness, according to the Kogi is inherited from the self awareness of the earth. The deep, human neural processing ability seems to be the one, over-evolved specimen willing to kill the very thing that insures its ability to thrive, all along with the awareness that we are doing it.

The modern disconnect with nature is problematic. Can we at least try to feel what the Kogi see as plain as the nose on our faces? With all the attempted research on consciousness, maybe we should be looking backward instead of forward.

The Slave Bible—The Trick Inside the Trick

For quite some time I have been baffled by the devotion of the black church. I understand the sense of community and unity, but…

Using deception is nothing new to religion. Tampering with the words and chapters of the Bible, even in their own book is grounds for a trip to hell (another neat invention).

“A new exhibit at a Washington, D.C., museum featuring an abridged version of the Bible sheds light on how Christian missionaries converted enslaved Africans to Christianity by teaching them the Gospel… except the parts about freedom, equality and resistance”.

Today’s Christians do the same. Cherry pick a few feel good parts and bear testimony, manipulate emotion and herd instincts, declaring any positive emotion god-sent, while leaving out the ugly. Like I said before, compile the relevant parts of the Bible and you could produce it in a pamphlet.

It amazes me how an oppressed people can celebrate the rule of their past and present. Why there is one Black Christian on the planet strikes incredulity and head scratching. A host on another blog, Harry, told me one reason; it was a black man that carried jesus’ cross—another propaganda—Cyrenes were Jews and Greek) Welcome to the faith! The next life will make it all worth the prison sentence your mind has endured. Once the culture and language and history was destroyed, they are now set to assist the mental oppression through faith.

The church will use any omission, wordbending, or outright lie to convert, coverup, or enslave any person. Thank humans for secular humanism to fight this nonsense.

We’ve seen the tradition continue today. There is nothing the apologists won’t hide or deflect or defend to bring one to Jesus. From the point of a sword to deleting points in the word, no deception is out of bounds—for Christ sake!

Feminisms

“It is not in the shallow physical imitation of men that women will assert first their equality and later their superiority, but in the awakening of the intellect of women—Nicholi Tesla

Nicholi Teslas understanding of the electrical world in which we live gave him vision of the possibilities of progress. From the innermost workings of the human brain to the most basic of elements, everything is electrical. The idea that half the population requires men to allow women equal opportunity is from the get-go an expose’ on how far we have to go. Women’s equality in our societies must be as natural as water rolling down a hill, but to get there, women will have to forge ahead through excellence. Only then will humanity achieve its maximum potential.

Demanding gender equality through legislation is quite possibly the one of the grandest of illusions. In countries with greater gender equality, women decline in science and math. In more oppressive societies women are thought to accelerate in science and math because it is the fastest route to financial independence STUDY

Then of course there is page two

“Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment and merging of races, and we are still far from this blissful realization—Nicholi Tesla

Universal enlightenment will only truly come when all of our senses are activated, of our matters resolved, all of our colors united, and all of our women absolved from their pigeonholed stations in life, not only by men, but by women awakening their intellect.

It may or may not be men’s to give, but it will require continued effort on the part of women that no legislation will evenly compensate.

Fostering Ideas—Free Will

Having thoughts come into your head by a long chain of incidental contact, can give one the strangest ideas, sometimes harmful, sometimes brilliant. It is then our responsibility to either foster the idea, or reject it. How do we do that if free will is at such a premium?

Is it a good idea to foster an idea that has no proof in reality, but is seen by many as an overall benefit to the species?

Religion is the idea that keeps giving (and taking) with unintended outcomes, that, not only don’t work for the skeptic, but they don’t work for the believer either.

• There are no miracles
• Prayer is never answered by a god
• The idea of peace on earth has never materialized even with a majority citizenry and leadership.
• Love is still at a premium
• Where’s the bliss? Isn’t it time to show me the money, after taking so much of mine for so long?

Collaboration outside of your circle of belief is critical to sound reasoning. Occasionally I’ll throw out an idea to the group to get validation. Sometimes the post gets a lot of comment, but nothing directed at the idea itself (you’re all too kind sometimes) but when that happens I go back to the drawing board to adjust my thinking.

We may not have the free will to generate our own ideas, but do we (I hope) have the ability to foster them, or filter them? Do we have that choice? Is this filtering ability the difference between a skeptic and a true believer—or psychopath?

Recalling, computing, pondering, is overwhelmed by the datas you foster. Those conscious choices, what you read and watch, have a profound impact on our output. One can rarely consider something they’ve never heard of. Choose wisely my fiends.

Sandcastles In Real Time—Geologic Time vs Intelligent Design

Intelligent designers often use ridiculous metaphors to prove a need for god. This conversation happened on Steve Ruis (excellent blog) if you want to wade through it

JohnBranyan— “Do you believe sandcastles appear on the beach without an explanation”?

Jim—See my first answer. Don’t be ridiculous. Please.

Branyan— You didn’t answer the question, Jim.
If you believe brains come about by unguided, natural processes, why can’t sandcastles?

Jim—They do form naturally under the right circumstances given time (see pics)

Branyan—So your answer is, “Yes. Sandcastles appear on beaches without explanation.”

Branyan—This topic actually came up a couple of years ago when during a conversation with my 5-year old granddaughter. She was asked how sandcastles get on beaches. Her response was, “Somebody put it there.” We asked a clarifying question, “Can the waves build sandcastles?” She said, “No.” (this story is a lie)

I’ll tell her that you disagree and see if becomes an atheist. (She would already be one without your overt brainwashing)

Jim—You asked for naturally occurring sandcastles. They appear all the time in geologic time. You want to rush the process, but like the brain (apples to apples) it took a long, long time. You defining negligent parameters doesn’t fit anywhere and you know it. No species evolved in the time it takes to go to the beach. You want to guide the question to suit your answer. Doesn’t work in evolution or geology—only religion….Weird

Branyan—”Well done, Jim.
You have thoroughly debunked the sandcastle argument—”No species evolved in the time it takes to go to the beach.”
Boom”.

He then backpedaled to add some old and irrelevant switching of goalposts, moving from sandcastles to televisions on the beach.

Jim—Actually john, those sandstone mesas used to be in the very ocean, battling the very waves of which you speak. It actually fits perfectly—in evolutionary and geologic time. And as far as the tv on the beach, that too, is proof intelligent design only comes after evolution—of the human brain.

Why Learn Evolution

Comments that should be posts—Thank you Swarn.

1. First understanding our true origin means a great deal as opposed to stories that focus on things like original sin. In Judeo Christian thought, the idea that we are all born sinners because of this creation story matters a great deal.

2. The idea that evolution is both non-divergent and is iterative over a long timescale has numerous benefits to us as a people:

a) Evolution wasn’t trying to create us. Intelligence is just one other way to adapt to an environment. We are not the most successful species or the pinnacle of evolution by any means. Human conceit is a big problem and this is largely built the idea that there is a divine reason for our being here that does not apply to the rest of the universe.

b) Because evolution is iterative, we know that as a species we are part of a continuum, not some large gap above every being. This relates to a) above, but the fact that evolution allows us to recognize that all creatures, plants, microbes, other animals have a right to life is extremely important. It also helps us understand how best to preserve conditions that are going to prevent creatures from going extinct before their time to allow for a more natural adjustment of ecosystems. But beyond a) knowing that we are a continuum allows us to study other organisms and their behaviors to help us understand ourselves. It also might allow us to forgive ourselves a little more for our imperfections.

c) The fact that evolution is a slow process is something that helps us understand the vast well of time that it takes to make life as complex as ourselves and gives a sense from where we fit into the history of the Earth and of the universe. It is humbling to say the least and that’s important. Humility. I find contemplating this span of time to also be more awesome than a magical wave of God’s hand and a 6000 year history. And if awe and wonder is important to you, than the ways in which evolution works are filled with much to contemplate and awe at. Understanding the longer story of evolution and human development gives us a better sense of what we can expect out of ourselves for the future.

3) Evolution has also had an enormous impact on our understanding of the brain, and helped bust through the paradigm that our mind is somehow separate from our body. This is something that was built on the human conceit. The brain is an organ like any other, and evolved along with the rest of our organs and thus we can understand much about how the brain works by understanding past environments that we spend much of our time in surviving. This has enormous impacts on understanding human behavior, helping people overcome thought patterns which may not be very helpful, and again by seeing ourselves on this spectrum with other life we can see that our brains aren’t vastly more special than some of our closest relatives. Without evolution we would not have bust through the notion of free will which has enormous implications on how we practice justice. More than that it can increase our empathy for those that are our worst actors in society to see them as sick and not intrinsically evil.

Understanding evolution has increased my empathy, made me more forgiving, gives me more hope for the future, and fills me with a sense of awe and wonder that the spiritual world could not even come close to. Perhaps that’s not your experience, but to suggest that it tries to be some sort of pillar against religion or that people who have studied evolution had some goal to take down religion seems ludicrous to me. Trying to understand the world is a fundamental curiosity and evolution is the truth. It serves us far better than the illusions. Global and social problems can be addressed through an acceptance of evolution. Not only by the contents of the theory, but the acceptance that there is a better way to acquire knowledge about the universe than just make guesses, and believing in things real hard to convince yourself that you’re right. Evolution isn’t obvious, as are a lot of things that science has discovered. They are nuanced, you have to look carefully, you have to be systematic in your observations and you have to check in with others to make sure those observations are sound. This is actually really really important to solving problems. To suggest that we ignore one of the most meaningful and important scientific theories because it doesn’t help us solve the problems of today is just simply untrue.

—Swarn Gill

The Hand of God Withheld—Necessary Restraint

The argument for an inconceivable and unimaginable, all powerful god. One that is without parts of physical matter as we could even comprehend. Consider a character so foreign to our nature, that his eternal compositions could not be seen, felt, or tasted, for our matter is not compatible nor can mix with his attributes (No wonder the psalms are so many) in any way.

All god can do at this point is watch, for historically when he has interfered or tinkered with the deeds of men (parting seas, global floods, Israelite armies laying waste to entire regions) are a horrible affect of mixing his perfect nature with this synthetic world. His attributes and ours—immiscible. Simply looking at the LORD, his foreign composition is too different, too toxic to be presenced by human neurons, optic nerves, or flesh—or are we too toxic to his, in this artificial scape, to mingle outside our petri-dish? A mite of dust cast to the outer reaches of creation as isolated, contained contaminants whose only purpose of matter holds the little interest of an out-of-state trash-dump, where when only goes to visit creates more carnage?

By merely dipping his finger into the stratosphere of our world—cutting stone tablets and etching stone walls. Presenting his hand—regional, if not global catastrophe, churning the elements, like adding ammonium perchlorate to a mixing bowl of “earthly” matter of which we are so crudely formed. That god, by pressing his arm into the ionosphere, simply splits atoms starting chain reactions of global upheaval. Are we but a plant that withers upon touching it? How long will he withhold his finger…his hand? His holy arm? What if he were to present his whole self? The world would melt as a sea of molten glass, where any man-thing that peeks at his composition withers and consumes itself. To this god, the total power in the world is but a firework sparkler, hardly a threat to ourselves, let alone an immortal. Splitting atoms is as natural for him as spearing your flattened, pointed hand into a bucket of air, or water. We are nothing but .02% solid waste, not even worthy of his attention—but to open the lid carefully contaminates our meager world with carefully placed attributes of cataclysm, tectonic shifts, and drought, while we maintain our only sense of order in the heavens by his leaving us alone for a blink of an eye.

“And the Lord said unto Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish.” Exodus‬ ‭19:21‬ ‭KJV‬‬

“And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?” Daniel‬ ‭4:35‬ ‭KJV‬‬

“In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.” Daniel‬ ‭5:5‬ ‭KJV‬‬

“That birds may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.” Revelation‬ ‭19:18‬ ‭KJV‬‬

Setting aside your contradictions for the moment to complete this thesis, for what will it matter in a moment or two what we achieve, or what we do when the world will soon be rolled together like a scroll? This man-create has been an interesting exercise, and man has proven quite genius with his teaspoon of dirt and a dash of consciousness. While we have been watched long enough and the experiment nearly over, GOD is ready to roll up his experiment and head off to yonder galaxies to admire his handiwork. It doesn’t matter—our world of refuse unfit will be dispersed when the meeting of the gods conclude, and victoriously he’s showed he can create something living out of a thimble full of hardly anything, as long as it is left alone long enough to generate order. It doesn’t matter that however dismal our minds and actions may seem to him, that our collective consciousness will sit on a shelf for forthcoming eons. It may not matter to him that our struggles and achievements have been fought and won with nothing but handicaps and soulful soil, but it matters to us, the lowliest of life-forms. So, a god of mercy? A god of compassion? A god of love? We shall see.

Hard Not to Believe—Maybe Not…NDE’s

Up until the point you no longer believe, it can be hard not to believe what we want, or have been conditioned to believe. Doubts come and go, prayers go up and in spite of our efforts…Nothing! But everyone can’t be wrong, can they? Did I miss something? Then, along comes spectacular proof!

Take the The near death experience of the 4 year old son of a preacher who left his body during surgery, a year later said he went to heaven during the procedure, sold a million books and got a movie deal. Heaven is for real.

Another 6 year old said he went to heaven, sold 5 million books then recanted, says it never happened—after the money came flooding in. Theologians still debate the boys descriptions of heaven in The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, NYT Best seller.

While the first story is very easily dismantled due to inconsistencies and leading questions to a never-dead, sedated, 4 year old preachers son HERE. (Psychology Today- great read, excellent analysis) but believers aren’t asking.

It’s amusing to see the “real and authentic” theologians disputing these “fake” accounts and insisting that their own understanding of the unknowable is superior to the “real” accounts of the unknowable. Nearly identical stories. Both never happened, but hey, if you can take money from fools, is that a sin?

The best new term of the 21 century —HeavenTourism. Millions of gullible Christians line up to get a glimmer of what they know is not real, but believe it anyway.

Horrible Ideas Inspire The Most Philosophy—Faith

The simplicity of the gospel has publishers rolling in cash generated from Christian publications.

Before self publishing access boomed in the early 2000’s, about 7500 new Christian titles every year crowded book stores shelves in USA English with cluttered explanations on every jot and tittle. This is when publishers could filter out the weak from the sellable versions. Now the numbers are around 786,935 English language books published are assigned a catalog number per year in the U.S. on Christianity alone. Finding new and improved ways to exonerate the confusion and simplicity of the gospel is a competitive cash-cow of cleverly worded conjecture.

One publisher stated, “Most of our (traditional) publishers are trying to figure out how to get more out of fewer books“. It’s the same story over and over—good luck with that.

We often turn to the Greeks for their wisdom and eloquence in presenting wordsmithing sense into religion using philosophy. Remember, it is a cleverly worded failure from a collapsed society that mixed religion and politics with the grandest, most beautiful of explanations. We still look to anything scribbled in Greek to conjure up validation. They were so eloquent in their words that even fiction has spawned archaeology hunts.

If shear volume of religious commentary are any indication of another society in the brink, Christianity today is ripe for collapse. And someday, hopefully, we’ll all write about surviving that blessing. The most declinitive words to ever influence the numbing of human thought, leading whole civilizations to their celebrated stagnation—Do you believe in god?

The Bible in the Barrel

Fall, 1988—While surveying nearly 800 miles north of the 49th parallel in Canada’s wilderness, time swallowed an abandoned homestead. Vacant sounds that once teemed the soil and timbers—like a still-shot from a ghost town, a lonely and staggered cabin held on from memories of a past love and dead dreams. No sounds of children nor echoes of ranch-work, only a flutter of birds escaping the hollowed rafters broke the silent still as we approached. The crew, focused and shuffling lodes across the the clearing slowly woke the silent void of near twenty years.

Behind the try, a rusted steel barrel leaned un-statuesque, gently yearning for the earth to bring her home. I loosened the ring and pounded off the rusting lid to look inside.

My survey crew was a pretty rough bunch at the time. José, our resident Latino catholic thought it was left by god—for us”. He said, (in his Mexican accent) “no matter where you go jefe, no matter how far, Dios lo ve todo, mal jefe!” “It’s probably still there because they ran out of matches”, I fired back! Either way (or maybe another) we were in the possession of the holy bible for the night. We made camp and the crew passed a bottle. Chuck had mothering duties for the day, so he got a fire and some food on the grate as darkness fettered us in a cloudy, moonless night. It was cavern black looking beyond the fire—we faded to sleep.

Hoards of black crows broke the morning silence at dawn. We all stumbled around to get our bearings, stoked the fire and coffee’d up for what was supposed to be a long day, but, curiosity piqued us into a more human task, and by chance, or maybe drawn-in by an unsettled past, we started our day with a quick look around the homestead. Chuck, still half unzipped in his sleeping bag, shouted, “hey boss-man, look at this”. He was thumbing through the Bible looking for a good passage to quote me—he liked disingenuous humor at my expense, but this didn’t seem too funny by the look on his face. Flattening the creases he unfolded a paper in his hand and started to slowly read, like a translator.

“This cabin and 40 acres is claimed by me, William Granger. I came here in the summer of 1964 and built this cabin with the tools I could carry. In ’65 I returned with my wife Carol, our son Eli and daughter Caroline. Abandoning my loves and home is cowardly hard to do, but all that is left for me is to save my own life from one last unknown tragedy. My boy disappeared in ’66. We never found him. He would be 14 today, if this is September 14, the day of my departure”.

“We all came here with a trust in god. I and my colleagues convinced my wife of the lords providence—by faith we would thrive. This book you are holding is the last thing on earth I would impart to a decent man. Its only task now is holding this note in hopes it can at least do that until somebody finds it, should I fail to return. While many of the words are poetic and wishful, the promise of healing and signs that follow them that believe with the lords bounties are false premises only an untested fool would believe. You all survive down below because of people. Nothing more. My horse was killed by wolves while he was on the line. Then my hogs. My wife and daughter I love are in deep graves just east of the clearing. I moved them out after the spring thaw to their permanent rest. Look east between the two tallest cedars if they’re still standing. Two small rock piles mark the spots. I leave them here and plan to return as soon as I can. W. Granger, 1970″.

Humanity took over our crew. We looked around for the day, found some odds and ends, toys and tools and tack, but nothing of importance—That, lies between the cedars that stand guard. We cleaned up the grave sites and packed our gear for a short move. Another 20 years it will all be forgotten. I took it Mr. Granger got sidetracked, lost, or died in his failure to return—I guess the road home has forks in it too—I’ll see if I can locate this Mr Granger.

Undeveloped Film

I read a book when I was a teenager called The Tracker, by Tom Brown. I still have a copy and my 7 year old daughter is a big fan of identifying tracks we find out on our hikes.

Anyway, I was living in the mountains working as a wrangler, guide, and packer for an outfit called High Country Packers and I read The Tracker. There’s a section about stalking deer, and if you’re patent and do it right, you can walk right up to them. So I gave it a try. There was a two point mule deer enjoying a salt-lick we had near camp to attract wildlife and I started after him. I guess it took an hour or so to walk up to him. He kept staring, dipping his head, and shifting his ears with a curious look on his face. Deer are reactive to movement, sound, and smell, so the trick is to be downwind, only moving when the deer isn’t looking—and be patient (and try not to laugh). I got to within ten feet and I gradually knelt down, took my little 110 out of my shirt pocket and took a whole roll of pictures. When I was done I moved a little hand wave and said “boo”. That deer bolted with an ass-over-tea-kettle stumble and off he went. Boom! I got back home when winter came and the film was missing. It’s a great story but I have no proof.

One difference between my story and religion; you can test the story for yourself and I am confident many if you could have similar results. Christianity has a story too, and if you test it you will see that it doesn’t add up in even one category or catch phrase.

I would like to find that film someday but no worries, I have honed the craft pretty well over the years. Unlike religion, it can be tested and demonstrated without excuse. Religions deferred method of responsibility is killing the planet. Nobody is coming to fix this, but unlike the deer, it won’t seem to go away with a hand wave and a boo. But like the deer, their colorblind to the obvious standing in front of them.

Simplicity of Non Belief

I am curious to know how it all happened, I’m just not convinced in any way it was a who that made it happen. Therefore, there is no why it all happened. Once you realize there is no god, the simplicity of life brings peace, and how it all happened loses its urgency, although I am still curious and will someday have more answers. I’ll wait rather than believe in a god to simply satisfy the impatience to want answers with no effort, then act like they’ve found something special in a plug-n-play religion. “I believe” is a foolish notion lacking quality of character.

The Way it Was

I, Having been indoctrinated and guided carefully into belief and faith most of my life, and having studies most lengthy and focused in one particular area of religion I have come to the point where the things I believe, even though preposterous, I believe are true. They will stand the test of time and scrutiny, for my knowledge of these beliefs is vast and as solid as the very foundation of reason and right. I cannot be swayed in my faith, for god has shown me through revelation and feelings and the persuasion of his servants the truth, and now it is my obligation to share that truth with you. To push and persuade you to believe as I believe because I am right! My singular disciplinary approach has not given me the “well rounded” preposterous man made knowledge base to blend experience of the world and science causing a man made “common sense”, but my knowledge is directly linked to god through his prophets by his holy word. How can you doubt the truth when it is the most useful thing in the world to maintain order and peace? Through fantastic miracle, god has used regular men to convey his word in a most uncanny and unlikely fashion. He has used deplorable sinners, forgery, and money grubbing lying preachers to pass his truths and to preserve his words for all the world. Who could do this but a god? Who could circumvent the physical world and the learning of men in such a way as to bind their very tongues with his absolute truth and authority and perfection? My presuppositional truth will dare to challenge your very existence with an ambiguous, morally elastic, fraudulent piece of imperfect, infallible literature that causes the entire world to endless conjecture and debate. You will believe this “one” all perfect god has revealed himself, not to all his subjects, but to only those few that believe in him without any proof of existence. Neither spiritual nor physical evidence is needed. You will believe based on my word and the confusion the words create. You will believe in spite of doubt because of fear and persuasion of the most loving kind. This is the blindness of faith in gods. This is where a person stays without careful scrutiny of the facts and an ounce of self awareness. This is the prison of fear to peek outside the lens if faith and see the world is not as they said, and the courage to see inside the faith is not what they said either. This is the nonsense of being raised in faith. Professing wisdom they remain fools.

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” -Aristotle

“You have the right to defend the belief that you are right, but in the end belief is not truth. Why is appearing to be right and self validation more important than truth?” You have nothing to offer to the discussion when all you have is belief. Jim

Family Farm

I know some of you are animal lovers. For 3507 years now my family has been keeping a pretty big flock of a mixture of special animals. We saved them as kind of a hobby. When the book of Job came out, Behemoths became the rage. My dad bought one at an auction and he’s had it ever since. He said it may be a collectible some day. Man he got that right. I don’t think it will ever die. The thing is cursed or something. Our hay bill is outrageous, but since we feed it instead of tithing it’s probably cheaper in the long run. I did some sketches since they don’t like being photoed. Ever since dads daguerreotype caught on fire they hide from the camera.

He also bought a Leviathan as a baby. We kept it in a small pool so it didn’t get big. They’re like goldfish and stay small if you hold back the food and keep the pool small. It’s a nasty little thing but dad likes it since it talks a lot. I’m pretty sure this would be the beast from revelation, so keeping it small is probably the best thing.

When dad was just a kid he picked up a serpent looking thing in the garden. He says it used to talk to him, but sometimes I just think dad talked to it a lot when he was little. It’s about as smooth as a used car salesman though.

His pet dragon is the coolest of them all. Frickin thing is ancient and still lays eggs. I was raised on them. We never need matches or anything. I tried to get dad to convert its stall to a thermal breathing heater but he never did. All that energy wasted all these years. He says he bought it from a guy on Patmos Island? Where is that any way?

Well, there’s more but I have to go out and feed. I lost a finger last week to that fuckin cockatrice so I feed it last just to piss it off. Little bastard!

Gods Morals versus Humanist Morals

“The greatest insult to humanism is that man needs a god in order to have a moral framework. The moral framework that comes from god is always tested against mans own morals and the idea that we don’t know right from wrong. But then we have to take it from words dictated from a rather hot-headed neurotic desert tribe is just insulting” -Stephen Fry. It’s so easy even a comedian gets it!

The humanist morals compared to the morals of the nomadic tribe? Hmm

Secular humanism. “The philosophy or life stance of secular humanism embraces human reason, ethics, social justice, and philosophical naturalism while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, pseudoscience, and superstition as the bases of morality and decision making”.

It is painstakingly ridiculous to sift through an archaic and divisive text dictated by a cruel nomadic desert tribe thousands of years ago to determine which is moral or immoral for our time. Theirs was an immoral and violent time that would not pass any litmus test of decency today.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.” ~Albert Einstein

But imagination with knowledge……Unimaginable–TCA

What would you say if asked on TV and had ten seconds to say: