16 January 2011
Repost - Cars vs OSes
***ORIGINALLY POSTED 21MAR08***
Author's note - I realize this is dated and since this post I've since started using Linux and this description is less accurate now.
So I got to thinking tonight. Computers and their users are similar to cars and their drivers. Now please keep in mind that these comments are extreme in their generalizations and there is not really any reason to message me and tell me about it because I likely already know. But here goes.
I’ve recently come into possession of a shiny new Macbook Pro as most of you that pay attention already know. Having been forever a Windows user, I jumped at the chance to add Apple experience to my repertoire and résumé, so here we are. I’m noticing a lot of things that make me understand why they call Mac users "snobs". In Windows most of you know that every time you open up a folder you get a smattering of icons on a nice white background. There are ways to hack this, I’m sure, but the average user does not have the know-how or the desire to do this. Hell I am sure even most of your Windows geeks don’t even think about this possibility. On the Mac I can change the background to any image or color I could possibly want. And I can do something different for EACH folder. I mean that is just at the very basic level. There are so many little things that you can do that make this OS far and away more simple and creative to use. I could spend days lauding them and not be done. Does this mean I am no longer a Windows user? Far from it. There are still things I can do on Windows that I can’t do on my Mac. But that will soon change when I use Boot Camp to install a dual boot with XP. But on with my comparison.
OS X is like a Lexus and XP is like a Ford. Ford drivers are staunchly against anything else. Probably because they don’t know any better. Sure they know the comparisons but they have likely never driven a Lexus. Lexus drivers know better and try to point things out, but most of the time they just drive along with their heated seats and voice guided navigation systems installed standard, and let the Fordies preach what they will. Sure the Ford can have a navigation system and heated seats, but they know that they didn’t come up with it and now all they are doing is playing catch-up.
And then there’s Linux. Linux is like a Ferrari that has no backseat, no trunk, a 25 speed gear shift and the engine has to be rebuilt every time they get gas. But it looks damn sexy and purrs like a kitten. As long as you can figure out how to rebuild the engine and learn to shift while holding in the clutch and tapping the gas and brake alternately while honking the horn and rolling up the window.
Author's note - I realize this is dated and since this post I've since started using Linux and this description is less accurate now.
So I got to thinking tonight. Computers and their users are similar to cars and their drivers. Now please keep in mind that these comments are extreme in their generalizations and there is not really any reason to message me and tell me about it because I likely already know. But here goes.
I’ve recently come into possession of a shiny new Macbook Pro as most of you that pay attention already know. Having been forever a Windows user, I jumped at the chance to add Apple experience to my repertoire and résumé, so here we are. I’m noticing a lot of things that make me understand why they call Mac users "snobs". In Windows most of you know that every time you open up a folder you get a smattering of icons on a nice white background. There are ways to hack this, I’m sure, but the average user does not have the know-how or the desire to do this. Hell I am sure even most of your Windows geeks don’t even think about this possibility. On the Mac I can change the background to any image or color I could possibly want. And I can do something different for EACH folder. I mean that is just at the very basic level. There are so many little things that you can do that make this OS far and away more simple and creative to use. I could spend days lauding them and not be done. Does this mean I am no longer a Windows user? Far from it. There are still things I can do on Windows that I can’t do on my Mac. But that will soon change when I use Boot Camp to install a dual boot with XP. But on with my comparison.
OS X is like a Lexus and XP is like a Ford. Ford drivers are staunchly against anything else. Probably because they don’t know any better. Sure they know the comparisons but they have likely never driven a Lexus. Lexus drivers know better and try to point things out, but most of the time they just drive along with their heated seats and voice guided navigation systems installed standard, and let the Fordies preach what they will. Sure the Ford can have a navigation system and heated seats, but they know that they didn’t come up with it and now all they are doing is playing catch-up.
And then there’s Linux. Linux is like a Ferrari that has no backseat, no trunk, a 25 speed gear shift and the engine has to be rebuilt every time they get gas. But it looks damn sexy and purrs like a kitten. As long as you can figure out how to rebuild the engine and learn to shift while holding in the clutch and tapping the gas and brake alternately while honking the horn and rolling up the window.
Repost - Adam, Eve, and "The Fall"?
***ORIGINALLY POSTED 20APR08***
Author's note - This is probably one of my favorite posts, ever.
As I write this, my mind is swirling with concepts and feelings that I have had for longer than I can remember, but never been able to cogitate into a detectable pattern and put together as they are meant to be. Now, upon completion of His Dark Materials they are finally going on the path they were meant to. A quick side note: As I started these books I wondered why it took finding out about the movie to spark an interest. I had never seen nor heard of these books when they came out and I felt that there was something wrong with that. But having completed them today, I realize that had I come across them any earlier, I may not have seen what I needed to see. Back to the dissertation.
As I was growing up, I became intimately familiar with the story of Adam and Eve, as I grew up with a Christian mother whose life was The Church and it's teachings. She has since realized the error of her ways and come to a greater understanding, for which I think several of us are grateful. But this isn't about her; it's about Adam, Eve and what Christians refer to as "The Fall". For those of you largely unfamiliar with the story, I will attempt to tell it quickly to give a basis for my musings. Now keep in mind that this is biblical, not factual. In the beginning God created the world. He created all the animals and then he created Adam. (Now here there is some debate because some scholars believed God created Adam and Lilith --Adam's first wife-- at the same time.) However, the majority of people believe that God created Adam and then when he saw Adam was lonely, he created Eve from Adam as a companion. (A point I have trouble understanding is that if God created Adam in his own image, and God wasn't in need of a mate or companion, why did he create Eve? But I digress.) God told Adam and Eve that they could do pretty much anything they wanted except eat from this tree that grew in the Garden, the Tree of Knowledge (aka Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil). There was another tree, the Tree of Life, that gave them their gift of immortality, but this one doesn't seem to be as important to the story (although later in Christian development, it became more important than the ToK, but that isn't where I am focusing).
Fast forward a bit: Adam and Eve had lived in the Garden of Eden since the Creation (do you like my liberal use of Capital Letters?). They were naked and felt no shame. They had everything they needed, wanted for nothing. One day Eve was out walking in her nudity and stumbled across a Serpent. He convinces her to eat of the fruit of the ToK and she does. She then takes and gives this fruit to Adam, and Adam --knowing full well what it is and that it's forbidden-- eats of it as well. Supposedly they then become aware of their nakedness and clothed themselves. Later when God was walking through the Garden, he sees their clothes and knows that they have disobeyed him. He then banishes them from the Garden, denying them the fruit of the Tree of Life (thereby denying them their immortality) and forces them to live by their own labor. This "Fall" is the origin of what Christians refer to as "original sin". This is the concept that all humans are born into sin and if they die before accepting Jesus as their personal Lord and Saviour, they will go to hell. (Want to have an interesting and lively debate? Ask someone that believes this concept what happens to a baby if they die at birth and then question their logic.)
Now begin my musings. As a kid I had some questions with this story that seemed to get me into trouble. The first one was, if Adam and Eve weren't supposed to eat the fruit of the ToK, why was it there where they could get to it? The answer to this, I was told, is so that they could have free will. My question from this was, if they were supposed to have free will why were they told not to eat from the Tree in the first place? Because God told them not to and they obeyed God. If they obeyed God, what made them disobey him? The devil. Why did the devil want Adam and Eve to disobey God? Because he was jealous of them. Yeah, this raised a whole lot more questions, but we wont get into those here.
Now I was about 5 or 6 when I learned this and at the same time I was learning that God was all knowing, all powerful, and able to be everywhere at once (omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, respectively). This confused me when I compared it to the story of the Garden of Eden. If God was all knowing, didn't he know that they were going to disobey him? If he knew they were going to do it anyways, why tell them not to do it? If he was omnipresent then how did he go walking in the Garden? If he was omniscient, why didn't he know they ate the fruit the second they did it? Instead he learned of it when he saw their clothes. How did the devil even get INTO the Garden if there were angels guarding the place? Things weren't adding up for me, but no one was willing to answer these questions. Indeed, when I asked them, I was told in no uncertain terms that children were to be seen and not heard.
These are not all the questions I have had about the stories I was told from the Bible, but they are the earliest I remember having. A few years ago I turned my back inexorably on the Christian faith. It had been coming for a long time, but I finally made the decision and did it. No, I didn't make any pacts with the devil (mainly because the devil seems to be a completely Christian concept and it seemed silly to me to make a pact with something or someone created by the very stupidity I was trying to escape), nor did I sacrifice any small children or animals. I simply made the decision that I was not going to let fear be the deciding factor in my faith anymore. Fear of screwing up, fear of hell and fear of God. These are the things that Christians teach. Sure they give lip service to loving God, but what they spend far more time talking on is about Fearing him. The Fear of God. That is a popular sermon topic, let me tell you. They also talked about him being my Heavenly Father. Well this helped me to understand the Fear of God because I had Fear of my earthly father as well. Fear that he would find fault with me or the things I did, fear that I would be punished for doing wrong, fear of failure. These were things that I was taught at home and at church, so I thought that was all there was. When I broke those ties to Christianity, I realized that fear was something created to control us. I realize as a parent and as an adult observing other people that fear is a tool that we use far too often. If you fear your boss, you won't screw up, you'll do your job. If your kids fear you they will supposedly listen to you more. If you fear the police or prison, you will be less likely to commit crimes. We live in a society based on this concept of Fear. Read Michael Crichton's novel "State of Fear" for a fantastic example of what this fear can do for an environmental movement. (Global warming, anyone?)
I discovered today what the opposite of fear is. Love. Wait isn't hate the opposite of love? Well let me ask this: what creates hate? Fear. Think about it. It's been proven time and time again that the root of every hate crime is fear. Fear of homosexuality, fear of oppression, fear of repression, fear of a culture or an ideal. Why did the Catholics burn witches in the Inquisition? Fear of the damnation of their souls and fear of what the witches "could make them do" and what the witches knew about them as told to them by the devil himself.
So lets go back to the story of Adam and Eve. Before they ate of the Tree of Knowledge, they were naked. They had no children. The Bible is very specific that they had their children AFTER leaving the Garden of Eden. So it isn't a leap of faith (no pun intended) to see that there was probably no sex either, seeing as how the pill wouldn't come around for another few thousand years. And what is sex but the greatest expression of love between two people. Sure sex can be perverted or used for purely physical satisfaction, but anyone who has ever been in love can tell you that the sex with someone you are truly, deeply in love with is FAR more satisfying and pleasurable than any number of meaningless sexual liaisons. So looking at it from this perspective, lets look again at the eating of the fruit. Eve ate the fruit of the ToK and became aware of Good and Evil, and I believe at the same moment became aware of something else as well. Love. Overcome with this love she took the fruit and offered it to her companion, who then ate of it and became aware of the same sensation. Supposedly they then became aware of their nudity and became ashamed. Why would they have been ashamed simply after learning of Good and Evil? Nudity is not evil. Nor is it good. It is neutral. It is only how we PERCEIVE the nudity that makes it what it is. For example, look at Africans. Their women go topless. There is nothing wrong with that. It is only in Christian-centered countries like America --where 85% of the population claim some faith in the Christian God-- that there is something wrong with a woman's breasts and that they need to be covered. And they take this to ridiculous extremes. Only in the last couple of years has it no longer been a sex crime to breast-feed in public. Before that, if a woman was reported for breast-feeding in certain states, she would actually have to register as a sex offender! All for feeding her baby in public where someone might ::Gasp:: see a nipple! Interestingly enough in non-christian-centric countries, sex and nudity are far less restricted, is this because they are Evil? Or is it that the concept of nudity being shameful is purely Abrahamic? (For those of you unfamiliar with the term, I am referring to Christians, Jews, and Muslims) In those cultures women must be covered in public at all times, even to the extreme in the case of Muslims. Why? If God and the christian religion truly is not the creation of Man why isn't all mankind in the same understanding of sex and nudity? That it is shameful.
Ok back to the story. So they supposedly became shameful and had to clothe themselves. I believe that they discovered something else. Something that the Christian church cannot come to terms with. Sexual love. The Unification church is of the mind that the ToK symbolizes Eve and that the ToL symbolizes perfected Adam. The "fruit" of the tree is Eve's love. Her offering of that love to Adam is implying a sexual relationship before they had the permission of God. Thus the "fall". Although this is a physical fall instead of a spiritual fall. The temptation of Eve by Lucifer is the spiritual fall. Although the Unificationists go so far as to say Eve had a sexual relationship with Lucifer first.
Now the question is, why did God not want them to have this awareness? I mean, WHY did he not want them to eat of the ToK? Was he just being a parent and forbidding something just to test them? Or was there a real reason for it? What doesn't make sense to me, again, is if he is omniscient, why the whole ruse in the first place? He knew that Adam and Eve were going to fall, so why the games? Setting the omniscience aside for a moment since that makes even less sense, why then does he not want them to have this knowledge? Is it because he, himself, is incapable of love? All love is based from sexual love. Love for our children comes from the sexual union that created them. Love for our families again came into being because of that sexual act. So isn't it possible that sex itself is the foundation of our love? They say you can have no love without sex, but you can have sex without love. Is that really true? Can you? I am starting to doubt that. Sure, maybe on the surface you can, but truly, the reason for the sex is a love of SOMETHING. The love of orgasm, of ecstacy, maybe not love for the person you are having sex with, but love nevertheless. Since God has no one else, is he even CAPABLE of love? The bible gives lip service to this, but nothing really definitive in any of his actions. If anything he seems like a pretentious child king. He kicks Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden even though --since he's omniscient-- he KNEW they were gonna do it. He turns his back on pretty much all of his children. He tells Isaac that he has to sacrifice his own SON to him, and does he stop Isaac? Nope. He has an angel do it for him. Supposedly he loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son to save us all, but if he hadn't been a jerk in the first place he wouldn't have HAD to send his son. And what the hell is up with the begotten crap? I mean he didn't even impregnate Mary himself. He sent the holy spirit and she was suddenly "with child". At least Zeus had the balls to do it himself. Repeatedly.
So is this incapability for love what causes the church elders to label what Adam and Eve felt as shame? Since God didn't write the bible himself, and he just dictated it to somebody, how did that go?
"So, wait, they started having sex so you threw them out? Why the hell did you do that?"
"Just write it down"
Now lets look at what this shame --oh, and by the way, shame is the FEAR of being viewed as less in the eyes of someone you respect or care about-- has done to us. Let's start with the Catholic church. Because of Eve's fall, the female form is seen as shameful and sinful. Hell, even the CONCEPT of "original sin" is because of Eve. Because of this the church sees women as evil. Priests are not allowed to wed. They are not allowed to know love in it's physical manifestation. Because of this we have scandals that "rock the foundation of the Church" when priests try to find that love where it is closest to them, the altar boys. (Amazingly enough these same priests are the ones that vocally detest and denounce homosexuality stronger than almost anyone else, hypocrisy knows no bounds in the Church) Anyone who does magick knows that when you are done with a working you have to release that power. The best and most satisfying way is with sex. Again this goes back to love. And priests work magick every time they hold mass, whether that is how they want to refer to it or not, that is what it is. They are calling the power of their chosen deity to manifest itself in a form they choose through their commandment (communion through transubstantiation). That's magick, folks. Every magickian on the planet aims to reach closeness with their form of deity through their own power or commandment. Aleister Crowley, arguably one of the greatest magickians of all time, calls that Greater Magick. Another way he describes that is "pursuit of the beloved". There's that love word again. Crowley also teaches "Love is the Law, Love under Will".
Love is the Law. That is a concept I have been struggling with for quite some time. As many of you know, I have a problem with loving my fellow humans. I really don't like them. Frankly they tend to disgust me. Other than the few I choose to share my life with, I can't stand to be around them. Why is that? As I finished His Dark Materials, I was challenged to confront that. I always disdained the New Agers when they went on touting Love and Tolerance for All Mankind. "Fuck tolerance" I have said many times in the past. I always thought that love was one of those things reserved for my wife, kids and family. Because of the truly hypocritical nature of Christianity, I thought love for everyone else meant I would be doing the same thing they are. Namely giving lip service to a concept that they want you to believe they practice. But I came to the realization long ago that love is NOT the name of their game. No matter how hard they want you to believe it, it's not what their religion is based on. Like I covered before, their religion is based on Fear. And you cannot have both Fear and Love be the focus of your thoughts. They are mutually exclusive. If you think I am wrong, prove it. In my experience people whose badge and banner is Christianity are truly miserable people inside. Why is that? As I go through life, I have found that the people who truly seem to be happy and in love with life have nothing to do with religion what-so-ever. Sure I see people who on the outside seem to be loving with their Christianity, but when you truly get to know them, you discover how spiteful they are of everyone but their "God". In my hatred of Christianity and God, I have really been doing what they wanted me to do all along. I have alienated myself from others. Because let's face it, those are the true teachings of Abrahamic religions: God above all else, including self and others. I have simply replaced that concept of God with another, but I am still doing the same thing.
Does this mean that I will all of a sudden be a different person? No, unlike Saul in the biblical story, I have not had a hallucination that alters my complete frame of reality. I have, however, had my eyes opened to a new concept. One that I hope can begin to change my life in a more positive way. Love is the Law. Love for everyone. Does this mean I have to LIKE everyone? Absolutely not. But love accepts the humanity, not necessarily the actions of the human. Our lives also need to be filled with the love of things around us. The trees, the birds, the earth, our families, our friends. We cannot focus on trying to fix everything wrong with everyone else, we simply need to accept and love what we can. I think that is the point of this. Where Christians claim to love everyone but are truly only motivated by fear of their God, humans need to actually LOVE.
Author's note - This is probably one of my favorite posts, ever.
As I write this, my mind is swirling with concepts and feelings that I have had for longer than I can remember, but never been able to cogitate into a detectable pattern and put together as they are meant to be. Now, upon completion of His Dark Materials they are finally going on the path they were meant to. A quick side note: As I started these books I wondered why it took finding out about the movie to spark an interest. I had never seen nor heard of these books when they came out and I felt that there was something wrong with that. But having completed them today, I realize that had I come across them any earlier, I may not have seen what I needed to see. Back to the dissertation.
As I was growing up, I became intimately familiar with the story of Adam and Eve, as I grew up with a Christian mother whose life was The Church and it's teachings. She has since realized the error of her ways and come to a greater understanding, for which I think several of us are grateful. But this isn't about her; it's about Adam, Eve and what Christians refer to as "The Fall". For those of you largely unfamiliar with the story, I will attempt to tell it quickly to give a basis for my musings. Now keep in mind that this is biblical, not factual. In the beginning God created the world. He created all the animals and then he created Adam. (Now here there is some debate because some scholars believed God created Adam and Lilith --Adam's first wife-- at the same time.) However, the majority of people believe that God created Adam and then when he saw Adam was lonely, he created Eve from Adam as a companion. (A point I have trouble understanding is that if God created Adam in his own image, and God wasn't in need of a mate or companion, why did he create Eve? But I digress.) God told Adam and Eve that they could do pretty much anything they wanted except eat from this tree that grew in the Garden, the Tree of Knowledge (aka Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil). There was another tree, the Tree of Life, that gave them their gift of immortality, but this one doesn't seem to be as important to the story (although later in Christian development, it became more important than the ToK, but that isn't where I am focusing).
Fast forward a bit: Adam and Eve had lived in the Garden of Eden since the Creation (do you like my liberal use of Capital Letters?). They were naked and felt no shame. They had everything they needed, wanted for nothing. One day Eve was out walking in her nudity and stumbled across a Serpent. He convinces her to eat of the fruit of the ToK and she does. She then takes and gives this fruit to Adam, and Adam --knowing full well what it is and that it's forbidden-- eats of it as well. Supposedly they then become aware of their nakedness and clothed themselves. Later when God was walking through the Garden, he sees their clothes and knows that they have disobeyed him. He then banishes them from the Garden, denying them the fruit of the Tree of Life (thereby denying them their immortality) and forces them to live by their own labor. This "Fall" is the origin of what Christians refer to as "original sin". This is the concept that all humans are born into sin and if they die before accepting Jesus as their personal Lord and Saviour, they will go to hell. (Want to have an interesting and lively debate? Ask someone that believes this concept what happens to a baby if they die at birth and then question their logic.)
Now begin my musings. As a kid I had some questions with this story that seemed to get me into trouble. The first one was, if Adam and Eve weren't supposed to eat the fruit of the ToK, why was it there where they could get to it? The answer to this, I was told, is so that they could have free will. My question from this was, if they were supposed to have free will why were they told not to eat from the Tree in the first place? Because God told them not to and they obeyed God. If they obeyed God, what made them disobey him? The devil. Why did the devil want Adam and Eve to disobey God? Because he was jealous of them. Yeah, this raised a whole lot more questions, but we wont get into those here.
Now I was about 5 or 6 when I learned this and at the same time I was learning that God was all knowing, all powerful, and able to be everywhere at once (omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, respectively). This confused me when I compared it to the story of the Garden of Eden. If God was all knowing, didn't he know that they were going to disobey him? If he knew they were going to do it anyways, why tell them not to do it? If he was omnipresent then how did he go walking in the Garden? If he was omniscient, why didn't he know they ate the fruit the second they did it? Instead he learned of it when he saw their clothes. How did the devil even get INTO the Garden if there were angels guarding the place? Things weren't adding up for me, but no one was willing to answer these questions. Indeed, when I asked them, I was told in no uncertain terms that children were to be seen and not heard.
These are not all the questions I have had about the stories I was told from the Bible, but they are the earliest I remember having. A few years ago I turned my back inexorably on the Christian faith. It had been coming for a long time, but I finally made the decision and did it. No, I didn't make any pacts with the devil (mainly because the devil seems to be a completely Christian concept and it seemed silly to me to make a pact with something or someone created by the very stupidity I was trying to escape), nor did I sacrifice any small children or animals. I simply made the decision that I was not going to let fear be the deciding factor in my faith anymore. Fear of screwing up, fear of hell and fear of God. These are the things that Christians teach. Sure they give lip service to loving God, but what they spend far more time talking on is about Fearing him. The Fear of God. That is a popular sermon topic, let me tell you. They also talked about him being my Heavenly Father. Well this helped me to understand the Fear of God because I had Fear of my earthly father as well. Fear that he would find fault with me or the things I did, fear that I would be punished for doing wrong, fear of failure. These were things that I was taught at home and at church, so I thought that was all there was. When I broke those ties to Christianity, I realized that fear was something created to control us. I realize as a parent and as an adult observing other people that fear is a tool that we use far too often. If you fear your boss, you won't screw up, you'll do your job. If your kids fear you they will supposedly listen to you more. If you fear the police or prison, you will be less likely to commit crimes. We live in a society based on this concept of Fear. Read Michael Crichton's novel "State of Fear" for a fantastic example of what this fear can do for an environmental movement. (Global warming, anyone?)
I discovered today what the opposite of fear is. Love. Wait isn't hate the opposite of love? Well let me ask this: what creates hate? Fear. Think about it. It's been proven time and time again that the root of every hate crime is fear. Fear of homosexuality, fear of oppression, fear of repression, fear of a culture or an ideal. Why did the Catholics burn witches in the Inquisition? Fear of the damnation of their souls and fear of what the witches "could make them do" and what the witches knew about them as told to them by the devil himself.
So lets go back to the story of Adam and Eve. Before they ate of the Tree of Knowledge, they were naked. They had no children. The Bible is very specific that they had their children AFTER leaving the Garden of Eden. So it isn't a leap of faith (no pun intended) to see that there was probably no sex either, seeing as how the pill wouldn't come around for another few thousand years. And what is sex but the greatest expression of love between two people. Sure sex can be perverted or used for purely physical satisfaction, but anyone who has ever been in love can tell you that the sex with someone you are truly, deeply in love with is FAR more satisfying and pleasurable than any number of meaningless sexual liaisons. So looking at it from this perspective, lets look again at the eating of the fruit. Eve ate the fruit of the ToK and became aware of Good and Evil, and I believe at the same moment became aware of something else as well. Love. Overcome with this love she took the fruit and offered it to her companion, who then ate of it and became aware of the same sensation. Supposedly they then became aware of their nudity and became ashamed. Why would they have been ashamed simply after learning of Good and Evil? Nudity is not evil. Nor is it good. It is neutral. It is only how we PERCEIVE the nudity that makes it what it is. For example, look at Africans. Their women go topless. There is nothing wrong with that. It is only in Christian-centered countries like America --where 85% of the population claim some faith in the Christian God-- that there is something wrong with a woman's breasts and that they need to be covered. And they take this to ridiculous extremes. Only in the last couple of years has it no longer been a sex crime to breast-feed in public. Before that, if a woman was reported for breast-feeding in certain states, she would actually have to register as a sex offender! All for feeding her baby in public where someone might ::Gasp:: see a nipple! Interestingly enough in non-christian-centric countries, sex and nudity are far less restricted, is this because they are Evil? Or is it that the concept of nudity being shameful is purely Abrahamic? (For those of you unfamiliar with the term, I am referring to Christians, Jews, and Muslims) In those cultures women must be covered in public at all times, even to the extreme in the case of Muslims. Why? If God and the christian religion truly is not the creation of Man why isn't all mankind in the same understanding of sex and nudity? That it is shameful.
Ok back to the story. So they supposedly became shameful and had to clothe themselves. I believe that they discovered something else. Something that the Christian church cannot come to terms with. Sexual love. The Unification church is of the mind that the ToK symbolizes Eve and that the ToL symbolizes perfected Adam. The "fruit" of the tree is Eve's love. Her offering of that love to Adam is implying a sexual relationship before they had the permission of God. Thus the "fall". Although this is a physical fall instead of a spiritual fall. The temptation of Eve by Lucifer is the spiritual fall. Although the Unificationists go so far as to say Eve had a sexual relationship with Lucifer first.
Now the question is, why did God not want them to have this awareness? I mean, WHY did he not want them to eat of the ToK? Was he just being a parent and forbidding something just to test them? Or was there a real reason for it? What doesn't make sense to me, again, is if he is omniscient, why the whole ruse in the first place? He knew that Adam and Eve were going to fall, so why the games? Setting the omniscience aside for a moment since that makes even less sense, why then does he not want them to have this knowledge? Is it because he, himself, is incapable of love? All love is based from sexual love. Love for our children comes from the sexual union that created them. Love for our families again came into being because of that sexual act. So isn't it possible that sex itself is the foundation of our love? They say you can have no love without sex, but you can have sex without love. Is that really true? Can you? I am starting to doubt that. Sure, maybe on the surface you can, but truly, the reason for the sex is a love of SOMETHING. The love of orgasm, of ecstacy, maybe not love for the person you are having sex with, but love nevertheless. Since God has no one else, is he even CAPABLE of love? The bible gives lip service to this, but nothing really definitive in any of his actions. If anything he seems like a pretentious child king. He kicks Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden even though --since he's omniscient-- he KNEW they were gonna do it. He turns his back on pretty much all of his children. He tells Isaac that he has to sacrifice his own SON to him, and does he stop Isaac? Nope. He has an angel do it for him. Supposedly he loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son to save us all, but if he hadn't been a jerk in the first place he wouldn't have HAD to send his son. And what the hell is up with the begotten crap? I mean he didn't even impregnate Mary himself. He sent the holy spirit and she was suddenly "with child". At least Zeus had the balls to do it himself. Repeatedly.
So is this incapability for love what causes the church elders to label what Adam and Eve felt as shame? Since God didn't write the bible himself, and he just dictated it to somebody, how did that go?
"So, wait, they started having sex so you threw them out? Why the hell did you do that?"
"Just write it down"
Now lets look at what this shame --oh, and by the way, shame is the FEAR of being viewed as less in the eyes of someone you respect or care about-- has done to us. Let's start with the Catholic church. Because of Eve's fall, the female form is seen as shameful and sinful. Hell, even the CONCEPT of "original sin" is because of Eve. Because of this the church sees women as evil. Priests are not allowed to wed. They are not allowed to know love in it's physical manifestation. Because of this we have scandals that "rock the foundation of the Church" when priests try to find that love where it is closest to them, the altar boys. (Amazingly enough these same priests are the ones that vocally detest and denounce homosexuality stronger than almost anyone else, hypocrisy knows no bounds in the Church) Anyone who does magick knows that when you are done with a working you have to release that power. The best and most satisfying way is with sex. Again this goes back to love. And priests work magick every time they hold mass, whether that is how they want to refer to it or not, that is what it is. They are calling the power of their chosen deity to manifest itself in a form they choose through their commandment (communion through transubstantiation). That's magick, folks. Every magickian on the planet aims to reach closeness with their form of deity through their own power or commandment. Aleister Crowley, arguably one of the greatest magickians of all time, calls that Greater Magick. Another way he describes that is "pursuit of the beloved". There's that love word again. Crowley also teaches "Love is the Law, Love under Will".
Love is the Law. That is a concept I have been struggling with for quite some time. As many of you know, I have a problem with loving my fellow humans. I really don't like them. Frankly they tend to disgust me. Other than the few I choose to share my life with, I can't stand to be around them. Why is that? As I finished His Dark Materials, I was challenged to confront that. I always disdained the New Agers when they went on touting Love and Tolerance for All Mankind. "Fuck tolerance" I have said many times in the past. I always thought that love was one of those things reserved for my wife, kids and family. Because of the truly hypocritical nature of Christianity, I thought love for everyone else meant I would be doing the same thing they are. Namely giving lip service to a concept that they want you to believe they practice. But I came to the realization long ago that love is NOT the name of their game. No matter how hard they want you to believe it, it's not what their religion is based on. Like I covered before, their religion is based on Fear. And you cannot have both Fear and Love be the focus of your thoughts. They are mutually exclusive. If you think I am wrong, prove it. In my experience people whose badge and banner is Christianity are truly miserable people inside. Why is that? As I go through life, I have found that the people who truly seem to be happy and in love with life have nothing to do with religion what-so-ever. Sure I see people who on the outside seem to be loving with their Christianity, but when you truly get to know them, you discover how spiteful they are of everyone but their "God". In my hatred of Christianity and God, I have really been doing what they wanted me to do all along. I have alienated myself from others. Because let's face it, those are the true teachings of Abrahamic religions: God above all else, including self and others. I have simply replaced that concept of God with another, but I am still doing the same thing.
Does this mean that I will all of a sudden be a different person? No, unlike Saul in the biblical story, I have not had a hallucination that alters my complete frame of reality. I have, however, had my eyes opened to a new concept. One that I hope can begin to change my life in a more positive way. Love is the Law. Love for everyone. Does this mean I have to LIKE everyone? Absolutely not. But love accepts the humanity, not necessarily the actions of the human. Our lives also need to be filled with the love of things around us. The trees, the birds, the earth, our families, our friends. We cannot focus on trying to fix everything wrong with everyone else, we simply need to accept and love what we can. I think that is the point of this. Where Christians claim to love everyone but are truly only motivated by fear of their God, humans need to actually LOVE.
Repost - People can GPF, too
***ORIGINALLY POSTED 13JUL08***
So the family and I went out for dinner at the OG the other night for Piggy's birthday dinner. We went in and told them we needed a table with two high chairs. The girl just kinda stood there dumbfounded for a bit. So I explained to her that we had a two year old that needed to be restrained and a 9 month old. She started to understand and then the wife said "Or you could just put us at a booth with one high chair instead." I shit you not the girl fuckin' blue screened. For those of you not familiar with a blue screen (read: someone living in a technological black hole for the last 13 years... or someone that uses Macs exclusively) it's when Windows craps out on you. You get the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death" or BSOD which is an error that is unrecoverable. The only thing you can do is shut down and reboot. Apparently people can do this as well, since that's what happened to the poor thing. As she was trying to reboot one of her coworkers happened to come up. I explained the same thing to her and she said no problem and we got a table in short order.
This got me thinking. How many times have you been dealing with someone and seen them do this? Or had it happen to you? As we get older, our brains fill up with more shit and we don't really have an adequate Temp file cleaner. Sure you can get amnesia, but this generally isn't advisable because it doesn't usually delete the files you want. This is why older people have slower reactions, their processors are older, not as much RAM as the younger models, and then they fill up with spyware and viruses and it starts taking a toll on their system performance. Microsoft recommends wiping your harddrive annually and reinstalling. You can back up your data first so you don't really lose anything, but this gives you an opportunity to get rid of programs you aren't really using anymore and to get rid of any malicious software that you may have picked up from limewire and what not. Why can't we do that to our brains? You know, back up the pertinent info like name, family, decent memories, and then reformat and reinstall. This also helps get rid of potentially unwanted memories (I mean who really wants to remember walking in on their parents trying to make them a sibling when they were three years old?) and allows for reorganization of pertinent data. We at least need a defrag option. This would help those "absent-minded professor" types, neh?
Although this brings to mind other operating systems. Clearly Windows is the OS of choice and if you look at the masses, the large majority of them blue screen or GPF (general protection fault, a lesser error) on a regular basis and need to reboot quite often. However, since it is the most common OS, more users are compatible with it and you can install and run more software on them. Then some people are running OS X. These are usually your tree-huggers and the like. Usually more intelligent, eloquent and generally more aesthetically pleasing. But they clearly are not for all users. Then you have Linux, these are your young, techie types. They generally still live at home, but some have split off from their Parent Tree and are successfully creating their own tree directories. They go against the status quo, like tinkering with shit, and generally muck about where they shouldn't. They can be greatly successful if they are ever motivated beyond playing their WoW or other MMORPGs and get off their asses and do something. Then you have your UNIX users. These are the older folks who just don't understand all that new-fangled technology. Powerful in their own time, now they just can't keep up and resent the younger crowd that can.
I could go on for days on this, but I will leave it at this for now since I get bitched at about my "novellas".
So the family and I went out for dinner at the OG the other night for Piggy's birthday dinner. We went in and told them we needed a table with two high chairs. The girl just kinda stood there dumbfounded for a bit. So I explained to her that we had a two year old that needed to be restrained and a 9 month old. She started to understand and then the wife said "Or you could just put us at a booth with one high chair instead." I shit you not the girl fuckin' blue screened. For those of you not familiar with a blue screen (read: someone living in a technological black hole for the last 13 years... or someone that uses Macs exclusively) it's when Windows craps out on you. You get the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death" or BSOD which is an error that is unrecoverable. The only thing you can do is shut down and reboot. Apparently people can do this as well, since that's what happened to the poor thing. As she was trying to reboot one of her coworkers happened to come up. I explained the same thing to her and she said no problem and we got a table in short order.
This got me thinking. How many times have you been dealing with someone and seen them do this? Or had it happen to you? As we get older, our brains fill up with more shit and we don't really have an adequate Temp file cleaner. Sure you can get amnesia, but this generally isn't advisable because it doesn't usually delete the files you want. This is why older people have slower reactions, their processors are older, not as much RAM as the younger models, and then they fill up with spyware and viruses and it starts taking a toll on their system performance. Microsoft recommends wiping your harddrive annually and reinstalling. You can back up your data first so you don't really lose anything, but this gives you an opportunity to get rid of programs you aren't really using anymore and to get rid of any malicious software that you may have picked up from limewire and what not. Why can't we do that to our brains? You know, back up the pertinent info like name, family, decent memories, and then reformat and reinstall. This also helps get rid of potentially unwanted memories (I mean who really wants to remember walking in on their parents trying to make them a sibling when they were three years old?) and allows for reorganization of pertinent data. We at least need a defrag option. This would help those "absent-minded professor" types, neh?
Although this brings to mind other operating systems. Clearly Windows is the OS of choice and if you look at the masses, the large majority of them blue screen or GPF (general protection fault, a lesser error) on a regular basis and need to reboot quite often. However, since it is the most common OS, more users are compatible with it and you can install and run more software on them. Then some people are running OS X. These are usually your tree-huggers and the like. Usually more intelligent, eloquent and generally more aesthetically pleasing. But they clearly are not for all users. Then you have Linux, these are your young, techie types. They generally still live at home, but some have split off from their Parent Tree and are successfully creating their own tree directories. They go against the status quo, like tinkering with shit, and generally muck about where they shouldn't. They can be greatly successful if they are ever motivated beyond playing their WoW or other MMORPGs and get off their asses and do something. Then you have your UNIX users. These are the older folks who just don't understand all that new-fangled technology. Powerful in their own time, now they just can't keep up and resent the younger crowd that can.
I could go on for days on this, but I will leave it at this for now since I get bitched at about my "novellas".
Repost - A New Church
***ORIGINALLY POSTED 04SEP08***
So I've decided to start a new church. Yup, you heard right. It's called the Goat of the Heathens Church. Or the GotH Church. Hehe. So here are some laws for my church. The Satanists have 9, the Xians have 10, I have 8. More efficiency I say.
The Eight Laws
1. Think for yourself.
This should be obvious, but as is evidenced by the billion Abrahamists out there - Christians, Jews and Muslims - it isn't practiced.
2. Treat others correctly.
Everybody always says to treat others as you want to be treated. This is crap. Treat others as THEY should be treated. If they have no regard for themselves or those around them, you need not have regard for them. If they go out of their way to disturb you, destroy them. Likewise, if they treat you with respect, return the gesture unequivocally.
3. Keep Silent.
Nobody wants to hear about your bad day. Or that your dog died on Tuesday. Cold? Sure. True? Absolutely. Unless someone specifically ASKS you to give them details, keep it to yourself. Along the same vein, you do not need to give all your qualifications to everyone you encounter.
4. Treat children with reverence.
Again, should be obvious. But too many fucktards out there make this law necessary. If they cannot defend themselves then you are worse than a monster if you prey on them.
5. Respect the land.
Until we move to Mars this is all we got. Respect it and take care of it. This doesn't mean you have to buy into all the Global Warming horseshit (see Law 1) but it does mean you need to stop trashing it.
6. Put no other gods above yourself.
YOU are your god. Regardless of whether you worship another form, that god is you and is a part of you. If you want something done, do it. If you want something done for someone else, do it. Do not sit back and say "it's God's will" or "God has a plan". If there IS a real God, then he/she stopped giving a shit a long time ago, now there is no Fate but what we make.
7. Conform to no one.
Maintain your own beliefs. If you like Pentacles, wear them. If you want to have sex while hanging upside down from the rafters, feel free. Do not let religionists dictate what you can and cannot believe and do.
8. Zealots need not apply.
Let the nuts stay in their Houses of the Holy. We don't need them here. Simple enough?
I think these are a good start. Some are similar to ones I've seen elsewhere, I just agree with them enough to include them here.
More to come.
So I've decided to start a new church. Yup, you heard right. It's called the Goat of the Heathens Church. Or the GotH Church. Hehe. So here are some laws for my church. The Satanists have 9, the Xians have 10, I have 8. More efficiency I say.
The Eight Laws
1. Think for yourself.
This should be obvious, but as is evidenced by the billion Abrahamists out there - Christians, Jews and Muslims - it isn't practiced.
2. Treat others correctly.
Everybody always says to treat others as you want to be treated. This is crap. Treat others as THEY should be treated. If they have no regard for themselves or those around them, you need not have regard for them. If they go out of their way to disturb you, destroy them. Likewise, if they treat you with respect, return the gesture unequivocally.
3. Keep Silent.
Nobody wants to hear about your bad day. Or that your dog died on Tuesday. Cold? Sure. True? Absolutely. Unless someone specifically ASKS you to give them details, keep it to yourself. Along the same vein, you do not need to give all your qualifications to everyone you encounter.
4. Treat children with reverence.
Again, should be obvious. But too many fucktards out there make this law necessary. If they cannot defend themselves then you are worse than a monster if you prey on them.
5. Respect the land.
Until we move to Mars this is all we got. Respect it and take care of it. This doesn't mean you have to buy into all the Global Warming horseshit (see Law 1) but it does mean you need to stop trashing it.
6. Put no other gods above yourself.
YOU are your god. Regardless of whether you worship another form, that god is you and is a part of you. If you want something done, do it. If you want something done for someone else, do it. Do not sit back and say "it's God's will" or "God has a plan". If there IS a real God, then he/she stopped giving a shit a long time ago, now there is no Fate but what we make.
7. Conform to no one.
Maintain your own beliefs. If you like Pentacles, wear them. If you want to have sex while hanging upside down from the rafters, feel free. Do not let religionists dictate what you can and cannot believe and do.
8. Zealots need not apply.
Let the nuts stay in their Houses of the Holy. We don't need them here. Simple enough?
I think these are a good start. Some are similar to ones I've seen elsewhere, I just agree with them enough to include them here.
More to come.
Repost - How does one foster genius?
***ORIGINALLY POSTED 30NOV08***
So my son, the one who is in speech therapy because he doesn't speak English, the one who will probably have to be put into a special preschool so that he can start kindergarten on time, shocked the crap out of me today. He was running around playing in the living room and looked up and noticed that my desktop was being used. I was remoted in from my laptop so I could manage some files and he could see what I was doing on the screen. He immediately ran over to me and looked at my laptop screen and could see that I was controlling the desktop. He looked at my monitor then pointed at the desktop and said something. It sounded important, but I don't speak his language. He then ran off doing whatever he had been doing before the interruption.
What stunned me was that he recognized that something was going on on the computer and that someone had to be controlling it. How does he have any frame of reference for this? How does he know that it's not just another "TC"? (His word for TV. Since he can't seem to close his mouth to form words, he alters them to sound close enough to the actual word but so he doesn't have to close his mouth.) How did he know that because something was happening on the desktop and his Mommy wasn't sitting there doing it that someone else had to be doing it?
More importantly how do I foster this? It's apparent that my kids are above average smart. Aurora sees patterns in things almost as fast as I do, and I see them faster than anybody I know. I'm not trying to be a braggart, I am genuinely concerned. My parents did a pretty decent job raising me. When I was younger they both worked with me to learn reading and math. Interestingly my Mom taught me to do things quite a bit differently than they taught in school, and it worked better. I got in trouble for doing math the way my Dad taught because I could shortcut out the work. My teachers would get pissed because I didn't show them HOW I got the right answer. It didn't matter that the answer was right, they wanted to see me get there. But when I was older, ten or eleven on up, they really couldn't spend time working on that kind of stuff. My brother was in the picture and they were getting divorced. Hell, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have done them any good even if they HAD the time. I did some stupid shit when I was younger and it saddens me to realize that I am just now beginning to realize the potential I once had. Hindsight is 20/20 they say. It's too bad foresight isn't at least 20/30. I see parents who stay at home and do nothing but push their kids, constantly teaching them new things, constantly testing them. And their kids are smart. But my kids are almost as smart (actually smarter in some areas) as they are and they don't have the benefit of the wife and I staying home and pandering to their every desire. Although you look at those kids as they grow up and you see that they may have book smarts, but not much else. What is the right mixture of teaching them intellectually and then teaching them about life? I saw a comic where the character said "Hold on a second... my common sense is tingling." The caption underneath - "Common sense: so rare it's a god damned super power." And it's really quite true. I've got a lot of common sense, but my wife makes me look like a dunce in that department. However, I've got her beat hands down in the intellectual stuff, generally speaking. I think that our kids will have the perfect mix of the two. Although Aurora sure has some problems with the common sense stuff sometimes. But then again, what six year old doesn't?
Another interesting thing to take from this. I talked to my Mom about what happened and she said something that gave me pause. "Kids are way more perceptive and intuitive than we give them credit for. Unfortunately we dumb it out of them." It's really true. When I was but a young lad one of my favorite games was Trivial Pursuit. I just barely met the minimum age required and I didn't really do great when we played, but I loved playing it. I learned so many things from those questions. I could beat the pants off anyone my age or even a few years older, but my parents generally won. I also became a walking encyclopedia of useless trivia. (Although I am learning that trivia isn't nearly as useless as I once thought. But I digress.) The point of this little side note is that I was watching "TC" the other night and saw a commercial for the "All new" Trivial Pursuit.... with Easy, Medium, and Hard questions. From a marketing aspect I guess it makes sense for them to do that. Nobody is smart anymore, in fact you are hated and feared if you are smarter than the status quo. But it just goes to show how we are dumbing this country down more and more. Have you watched that show "Are you smarter than a fifth grader"? It's truly sad how stupid some of the contestants are. Now some of the questions are a bit unfair (how many of us need to know the capitals of every state in the U.S. anymore?) but in general they go to show what a sad state of affairs we are in. What is causing this? On the outside it appears that our schools are getting better. My daughter comes home with homework in first grade that I don't remember doing until third or fourth grade. Yet she is missing some of the most basic steps in learning. Our kids are being bombarded with learning so much so fast that they are missing the foundational blocks needed to truly *understand* what it is that they are learning. They are taught to recognize words by sight instead of learning things like phonics so that they can learn HOW to pronounce the word. While this is fantastic at first, you realize later that when confronted with words they haven't seen before, they have no idea even where to begin trying to figure out the word. But they can program their DVRs to make sure not to miss a single episode of Spongebob Squareshorts. How do we get back to the fundamentals yet keep them abreast of the changing times?
I sure don't know the answer, but I am going to find out. Let me know if you've got it figured out.
So my son, the one who is in speech therapy because he doesn't speak English, the one who will probably have to be put into a special preschool so that he can start kindergarten on time, shocked the crap out of me today. He was running around playing in the living room and looked up and noticed that my desktop was being used. I was remoted in from my laptop so I could manage some files and he could see what I was doing on the screen. He immediately ran over to me and looked at my laptop screen and could see that I was controlling the desktop. He looked at my monitor then pointed at the desktop and said something. It sounded important, but I don't speak his language. He then ran off doing whatever he had been doing before the interruption.
What stunned me was that he recognized that something was going on on the computer and that someone had to be controlling it. How does he have any frame of reference for this? How does he know that it's not just another "TC"? (His word for TV. Since he can't seem to close his mouth to form words, he alters them to sound close enough to the actual word but so he doesn't have to close his mouth.) How did he know that because something was happening on the desktop and his Mommy wasn't sitting there doing it that someone else had to be doing it?
More importantly how do I foster this? It's apparent that my kids are above average smart. Aurora sees patterns in things almost as fast as I do, and I see them faster than anybody I know. I'm not trying to be a braggart, I am genuinely concerned. My parents did a pretty decent job raising me. When I was younger they both worked with me to learn reading and math. Interestingly my Mom taught me to do things quite a bit differently than they taught in school, and it worked better. I got in trouble for doing math the way my Dad taught because I could shortcut out the work. My teachers would get pissed because I didn't show them HOW I got the right answer. It didn't matter that the answer was right, they wanted to see me get there. But when I was older, ten or eleven on up, they really couldn't spend time working on that kind of stuff. My brother was in the picture and they were getting divorced. Hell, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have done them any good even if they HAD the time. I did some stupid shit when I was younger and it saddens me to realize that I am just now beginning to realize the potential I once had. Hindsight is 20/20 they say. It's too bad foresight isn't at least 20/30. I see parents who stay at home and do nothing but push their kids, constantly teaching them new things, constantly testing them. And their kids are smart. But my kids are almost as smart (actually smarter in some areas) as they are and they don't have the benefit of the wife and I staying home and pandering to their every desire. Although you look at those kids as they grow up and you see that they may have book smarts, but not much else. What is the right mixture of teaching them intellectually and then teaching them about life? I saw a comic where the character said "Hold on a second... my common sense is tingling." The caption underneath - "Common sense: so rare it's a god damned super power." And it's really quite true. I've got a lot of common sense, but my wife makes me look like a dunce in that department. However, I've got her beat hands down in the intellectual stuff, generally speaking. I think that our kids will have the perfect mix of the two. Although Aurora sure has some problems with the common sense stuff sometimes. But then again, what six year old doesn't?
Another interesting thing to take from this. I talked to my Mom about what happened and she said something that gave me pause. "Kids are way more perceptive and intuitive than we give them credit for. Unfortunately we dumb it out of them." It's really true. When I was but a young lad one of my favorite games was Trivial Pursuit. I just barely met the minimum age required and I didn't really do great when we played, but I loved playing it. I learned so many things from those questions. I could beat the pants off anyone my age or even a few years older, but my parents generally won. I also became a walking encyclopedia of useless trivia. (Although I am learning that trivia isn't nearly as useless as I once thought. But I digress.) The point of this little side note is that I was watching "TC" the other night and saw a commercial for the "All new" Trivial Pursuit.... with Easy, Medium, and Hard questions. From a marketing aspect I guess it makes sense for them to do that. Nobody is smart anymore, in fact you are hated and feared if you are smarter than the status quo. But it just goes to show how we are dumbing this country down more and more. Have you watched that show "Are you smarter than a fifth grader"? It's truly sad how stupid some of the contestants are. Now some of the questions are a bit unfair (how many of us need to know the capitals of every state in the U.S. anymore?) but in general they go to show what a sad state of affairs we are in. What is causing this? On the outside it appears that our schools are getting better. My daughter comes home with homework in first grade that I don't remember doing until third or fourth grade. Yet she is missing some of the most basic steps in learning. Our kids are being bombarded with learning so much so fast that they are missing the foundational blocks needed to truly *understand* what it is that they are learning. They are taught to recognize words by sight instead of learning things like phonics so that they can learn HOW to pronounce the word. While this is fantastic at first, you realize later that when confronted with words they haven't seen before, they have no idea even where to begin trying to figure out the word. But they can program their DVRs to make sure not to miss a single episode of Spongebob Squareshorts. How do we get back to the fundamentals yet keep them abreast of the changing times?
I sure don't know the answer, but I am going to find out. Let me know if you've got it figured out.
Repost - Obama's Inaugural Speech Pisses of the Xians
***ORIGINALLY POSTED 23JAN09***
So during Obama's inaugural speech, he actually said something that gave me a modicum of respect for him.
"For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers."
Holy rusted metal, Batman! This sent the Xians (specifically African-American ones, interestingly enough) into a fucking tizzy. They are repeating that our country was founded on Christianity alone. Last I checked (which was right now) the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence says nothing about the Christian religion. The Declaration refers to a Creator and Nature's God. Neither of those are specifically Judeo-Christian, lots of religions - in fact almost all of them - have a creator of some sort. The words God or Christ(ian) do not appear anywhere in the Constitution. Oh, and the Pledge of Allegiance? Yeah, the words "under God" weren't added until 22 April 1951 and it wasn't done by the gov't, it was done by the Knights of Columbus (a Catholic fraternity of wannabe Masons). It wasn't made law until 14 June 1954. LONG after the founding of our country.
I'm also pretty sure that this nation was specifically founded so that it's people could be free to practice religion they way they saw fit, which includes not at all. Not just Christianity. If that was the case, Catholics wouldn't be allowed either (seeing as how it was the Catholic church they were running from). Although it's funny that they make comments like this:
The Rev. Cecil Blye, pastor of More Grace Ministries Church in Louisville, Ky., said the president's reference to nonbelievers also set off major alarm bells for him. "It's important to understand the heritage of our country, and it's a Judeo-Christian tradition,"’ period.
The heritage of our country was actually non-Judeo-Christian. About as far from J-C as you can be, as a matter of fact. Apparently it's easy to forget that our "founding fathers" were actually immigrants to begin with. The original heritage of our country is Native American and they worshiped their ancestors and animal spirits. Some worshiped a "Great Spirit" but it sure as fuck wasn't the Judeo-Christian "God". It was probably a lot friendlier and less narcissistic. So before we start spouting off about the "heritage of our country" lets try to remember the truth of the matter. It was your God in whose name the conquistadors and the puritans enslaved and destroyed indigenous peoples from Canada to Argentina and back again.
Oh, and that was just this continent. Let's not forget St. Patrick. Or the Inquisitions, any one of 'em. What about the holocaust? Yeah, Hitler tried to eradicate the Jews in God's name, too. Actually, pretty much every atrocity and major war since the origin of your religion has been done in God's name. So before you get all sanctimonious about this country having a Judeo-Christian heritage, why don't you think about what that has wrought. Hell, maybe we need some non-believers running things for a while, we might actually get something worthwhile accomplished. Look what happened the last time we had an Evangelical in office. Oh yeah, that was Bush and we've been at war pretty much his entire tenure... interesting.
So during Obama's inaugural speech, he actually said something that gave me a modicum of respect for him.
"For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers."
Holy rusted metal, Batman! This sent the Xians (specifically African-American ones, interestingly enough) into a fucking tizzy. They are repeating that our country was founded on Christianity alone. Last I checked (which was right now) the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence says nothing about the Christian religion. The Declaration refers to a Creator and Nature's God. Neither of those are specifically Judeo-Christian, lots of religions - in fact almost all of them - have a creator of some sort. The words God or Christ(ian) do not appear anywhere in the Constitution. Oh, and the Pledge of Allegiance? Yeah, the words "under God" weren't added until 22 April 1951 and it wasn't done by the gov't, it was done by the Knights of Columbus (a Catholic fraternity of wannabe Masons). It wasn't made law until 14 June 1954. LONG after the founding of our country.
I'm also pretty sure that this nation was specifically founded so that it's people could be free to practice religion they way they saw fit, which includes not at all. Not just Christianity. If that was the case, Catholics wouldn't be allowed either (seeing as how it was the Catholic church they were running from). Although it's funny that they make comments like this:
The Rev. Cecil Blye, pastor of More Grace Ministries Church in Louisville, Ky., said the president's reference to nonbelievers also set off major alarm bells for him. "It's important to understand the heritage of our country, and it's a Judeo-Christian tradition,"’ period.
The heritage of our country was actually non-Judeo-Christian. About as far from J-C as you can be, as a matter of fact. Apparently it's easy to forget that our "founding fathers" were actually immigrants to begin with. The original heritage of our country is Native American and they worshiped their ancestors and animal spirits. Some worshiped a "Great Spirit" but it sure as fuck wasn't the Judeo-Christian "God". It was probably a lot friendlier and less narcissistic. So before we start spouting off about the "heritage of our country" lets try to remember the truth of the matter. It was your God in whose name the conquistadors and the puritans enslaved and destroyed indigenous peoples from Canada to Argentina and back again.
Oh, and that was just this continent. Let's not forget St. Patrick. Or the Inquisitions, any one of 'em. What about the holocaust? Yeah, Hitler tried to eradicate the Jews in God's name, too. Actually, pretty much every atrocity and major war since the origin of your religion has been done in God's name. So before you get all sanctimonious about this country having a Judeo-Christian heritage, why don't you think about what that has wrought. Hell, maybe we need some non-believers running things for a while, we might actually get something worthwhile accomplished. Look what happened the last time we had an Evangelical in office. Oh yeah, that was Bush and we've been at war pretty much his entire tenure... interesting.
Reposting
Hey, so I'm going to be reposting some of my favorite blogs from my MySpace... er My[____]. I'm closing that account and I'd like to have them around, so if you've already read these, my apologies. And if you haven't, well, they're new to you, so enjoy! ^_^
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