WALKING THE WALK

I don't just write my convictions. 

I speak them also. 

It took some time to work up the gumption to freely acknowledge my anti-theist stance in personal contact, but it's like all other first time "frights."  Once you take the plunge, it gets easier.  I still remember the first time this backward North Dakota ranch kid picked up a phone to make a call.  I was literally sweating and trembling. 

On December 30, I went a couple of miles to another old couple's home to clean their carpets.  He was even older than I (84) and getting around with a cane.  They were nice people, and I enjoyed doing the job for them.

In the middle of the job, he asked me if I was a church going person.  Like many others, they want to build up the attendance of their little church located about half way back toward my house along AZ 260.

I didn't hem or haw or feel embarrassed.  I just stated that I was a "devout atheist." 

No argument, surprise or hosstility entered in, at least none I could detect.  In fact, he asked me for cards to hand out to friends before I left and again made an overture for me to stop into their church if I ever had the urge to do so.

That, of course, just isn't going to happen.  I have better uses for my time and the few dollars I have in my pocket.

GOOD QUESTION

There was a very interesting quote on Pharyngula this morning.  Every day, P. Z. Myers publishes an essay by someone who explains why he or she is an atheist. 

This morning, the essay was by Jessica from Australia.  I like getting to the root of things, and one particular statement caught my attention as being the best sumation of the whole question about a god existing.  It came out of the mouth of a babe.  Here it is:  "What sealed the deal for good with me not really believing in a deity was my innocent 6 or 7 year old cousin saying 'If god put us here, who put God there?'”

My former close creationist friend of eighty-plus years contents himself with the assurance that god has just always been.  He can't see the contradiction in his assurance that the creation could not exist without a creator but the creator who would of necessity have to have been even more complex could just magically exist.

I will never cease to marvel how we brainy apes can be so logical about so many things but swallow the assurance of faith mongers so gullibly and placidly.  I did for decades.  I devoted my life and sacrificed good life and well-being to help promote that intellectual madness to others.  Yes, I was once a faith monger too.  Many I knew, worked with and loved still are.

THE DEVINE NOT-SO-COMEDY

According to Bible Chronology, man has been around for at least six thousand years and got almost totally wiped out by a great flood and had to start all over again a few centuries into his tenure.   The archeological and geological facts prove man has been around for at least a few hundred thousand years, with not even a hint of a planet-encompassing, all life destroying flood.

Rather than dwell on the provable facts, let's take a look at the mythical story that's still being bandied about from every communication device available.

Apparently, the touted "god" of scripture had a great stake in mankind -- so great that he lost his temper and wiped most of them out once.  (It is even stated he was going to wipe the slate completely clean at one point but relented and let Noah and his family survive.)   His reputation as a "loving god" would seem hard to maintain against that kind of history, what with our now believing he loved mankind so much that he sent his own son to sacrificially die for them (about two-thirds of the way into the concocted history up to now).

What took him so long to soften up?  Did he not care about all those people who went salvationless for four millennia?

If the salvation of man is so important to him, why did he wait about four thousand years of the spurious scriptural history to bring in his plan of salvation, according to the story touted by christianity?  Did he not give a damn about all those humans condemned by "original sin" going to hell?  Maybe he's a "super Roman" with a devine Colisseum called hell where he can revel in all the mayhem, suffering and screaming and laugh as demons spear agonized souls with flaming pitchforks.

Seems to me that kind of barbarous thing would get a bit old after a few thousand years.  Maybe that's why he came up with a plan of salvation, but he still had to satiate his dessire for blood and gore by having his own son horribly martyred.

Why?  Because, we are told, there is no expiation of sin without the shedding of blood, supposedly devine blood in this case.   Seems there are some things even god is not capable of doing.  One of them is simply saying, "I forgive you."

That would be much too simple and logical.  It wouldn't give priests and ministers (means servants -- what a laugh) a source of food and income from their fearful adherents.  It wouldn't provide "mysteries" to tout to the gullible masses who just stumble along in blind obedience -- and stultifying ignorance.

THEOCRACY ON THE MARCH

I was astounded this morning to read that a front ranking candidate for the Republican nomination for president of the USA, publicly advocated arresting what he called "activist judges."  Read about it here:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/18/gingrich-judges_n_1156405.html.

What is truly frightening is what he singled out as examples of "activist judges."  I quote:  "...he singled out the 9th Circuit, once more, for determining that it was unconstitutional for public schools to require the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and Biery for outlawing prayers in graduation ceremonies."

Now, as always, the bone of contention is the old saw about this being a Christian nation when it clearly was not established as such.  The majority of the founders were Masons, Unitarians and Deists.  Some were outright atheists, like Thomas Paine.  The dedicated Christians were in the minority.  Great pains were taken by our founders to guarantee that religion could never become state sponsored in this country.

Loud mouthed ignorant liars and prejudiced non-thinkers like Gingrich, will never be satisfied with that.  They are addicts to unfounded belief and faith, and they are determined to saddle the people of this country with the stultifying fascism of blind religious dogmatism by any underhanded subterfuge and misuse of public power open to them. 

Most of the citizens of Germany in 1931 never dreamed their enlightened and progressive society could, within a short year, be plunged into the fanatic abyss the Nazis brought.  Most of them never dreamed how quickly and thoroughly their rights, freedoms and civilized humanity could be stripped away from them.  A great number of them shrugged it all off and went blithely along with their everyday lives.  A lot of Jews and other minorities did too.  Let's never forget that we free, clear-thinking atheists and non-believers are also a hated minority in much of this nation.  If you don't believe it, try coming out about your true beliefs in Alabama or Tennessee.  You'll be lucky if you escape outright violence against your person.

I, for one, don't take such comments lightly and pooh pooh them.  Gingrich is very serious.  Just as serious as Robertson, Falwell and a host of others who salivate at the possibility of turning the USA into a brutal theocracy.  It has been the dream of christo-fascists for generations. 

I listened to the news this evening, and on the CBS network, this comment was hardly mentioned.  It should have been trumpeted and condemned in the strongest terms.

I wonder why it wasn't.  I think I have a clue.  Do you?

ANTI-THEISM ON THE MOVE

As a free-thinker, I'm tired of being marginalized and feeling like I'm relegated to a closet and the sidelines.  As you may have noticed about a year ago now, I started lending my voice to the task of making clear and free thinking much more openly available.  I started this blog.

I still had that isolated feeling here in Cottonwood, Arizona.  There seemed to be few, if any, like minded people around.  There was plenty of wooo, wooo in nearby Sedona.  You could take your pick of any superstition that appealed to you from vortexes to psychic and aural readings.

Finding clear thinking science-minded fellow anti-theists seemed to be close to impossible.  Through Meetup a few of us found each other and had our first meeting this afternoon at a nice home in Sedona.  We'll hold a few more meetings to determine exactly where we want to go with our newly formed association.  It's a start for Sedona and the Verde Valley.

I'm very encouraged to see more and more blogs by free thinkers and more and more determination on the part of us non-believers to no longer be the silent wall flowers off in the philosophical corners of the world.  We're tired of being relegated to the back seats of society like negroes were relegated to the back seats of buses not too long ago.  We're fed to the teeth with imbecilic myths having the limelight in society.

I've also found and have been reading an excellent book I found online at the Jovial Atheist website.  Thomas Blaylock, Jr. is the author of this website and book.  The book's title is: HONEST MAN'S PHILOSOPHY.  It's a very thorough treatment of the subject of clear and honest thinking in every area of human existence.  I highly recommend it to anyone interested in erradicating the myths of this world from their lives and minds.  Go to this address:  http://www.jovialatheist.com/hmpindex.html.

YOU TELL 'EM, ELIZABETH

We need more Elizabeth Warrens!  She's universally hated by the one percent who have a death grip on our nation and threaten to destroy a century's worth of progress.  They've done everything they could in their hateful opposition to her and any other proponent of sanity they could denounce to the gullible American electorate. 

Here's the quote of her "right on" recent statement:  "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you! But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now, look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless! Keep a big hunk of it! But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."

I am so sick and tired of the privileged rich few pretending to be the real force behind America and "job creators."  What a bag of BS! 

They create very few jobs and most of those jobs are for their own self-agrandizement -- like servants and artisans to keep up their palacial properties.  Their whole aim, as a whole -- I recognize there are some who are not in the same category and are as appalled as am I, Warren Buffett for example -- is to build their own wealth and power and to hell with the "inferior" masses.  They are for the most part hoarding their great wealth and using it to buy politicians so they can amass even more at the expense of all of the rest of us.  They are squandering on multiple mansions in exotic parts of this nation and the rest of the world.  They lavish themselves with corporate jets, multiple luxury cars, fantastic trips and any opulence they can think of.

They have lap dogs like Grover Norquist and the Republican elite in their hip pockets.  See my blog on Norquist:  http://theageofreason--21stcentury.blogspot.com/2011/11/demagogue-cultic-dictator-rules-usa.html.

While they revel in hedonous ostentation, the middle class and poor are decimated and education and the nation's infrastucture goes to hell in that proverbial hand basket.  If the deluded American public had elected a Democratic majority to congress, we would now be well on our way out of recession.  We would have started renewing and expanding our infrastructure for the creation of our future wealth.

It makes me so mad I could spit tacks to hear lying republican asses blaming Obama for our economic mess.  He didn't start it, and they have systematicallty thwarted every attempt he has made to end it with their Norquist inspired intransigence.

Keep it up, Elizabeth!  Load up with the truth and keep on firing!

CLARIFYING AGNOSTIC ATHEISM

An old theist friend I've lost contact with because of this blog berated my choice of "agnostic atheist" as a description of my mindset as being a ridiculous term.  I guess he couldn't fathom the reasons for my choice of terminology, and many others might be confused.

I'm certainly not saying I think the kind of "god" most people claim to believe in could be true.  That fantasy is completely unreal. 

James, the editor of The Painful Truth, commented on a recent comment of mine and stated what I mean in a particulary good way.  Here's what he said:

"Its not if a God exists. Its about the wonder of the development of a human life.

If a god exists, “it” would be nothing that we can fathom. Hence the god of Gerald Flurry and the rest of the minions does not exist. Religion, as in ancient days, tries to explain the unknowable by contributing it to a god.

If there be a “creator” (if you want to call “it” that), it is not seeking the worship of the “created.”
We exist by some external source beyond us, the same force that relates to the link Ralph put up above. What is behind it? Don’t know, and I really don’t care. I am, therefore, I exist.

Religion has nothing to do with creation. Religion is, an invention of men to explain away the unknowable and to ensure that life continues after death.

Religion is about hope and driven by fear. At least in some people. Not all religion is bad. It serves a purpose of cohesion within societies."

I am agnostic because, as James puts it, there is some unknown force that led to existence existing.  I just don't know and can't define what that force is.  We may never completely fathom it.  At the same time, I know all the gods people have invented are impossible figments of people's imaginations.  That makes me anti-theist, therefore, an atheist.

I'm not waffling.  I'm just recognizing the "agnostic" fact that there is something I don't know and likely will never know.  It may be impossible for the existent to explain ultimate existence, but science can never stop its quest and resort to the stultifying certainty of delusional religions.

I hope that makes it a little plainer. 

A DEMAGOGUE CULTIC DICTATOR RULES THE USA

There is a mad, fanatic demagogue that has my nation by the "balls" -- and he's gleefully squeezing!  He's more insidious and dangerous than any communist dictator or Muslim mullah ever could have been or is. 

The enemy to be most feared is the enemy within who poses as a patriotic citizen, when he is anything but.

His name is Grover Norquist.  He has succeeded in getting 270 members of Congress to sign a pledge to never under any circumsetances raise any taxes, regardless of the needs of the nation and fairness to the 99% of Americans who are not in the privileged 1% aristocracy.

His insane program reminds me of the insanity of Herbert W. Armstrong, Rush Limbaugh and all the other extremist loud mouths who have taken this country and turned it into a bastion of ridiculous insanity.  He's a fanatic on a cult-style campaign and has succeeded in backing 270 members of congress into a corner where they can no longer use reason to represent the American people as they have sworn an oath to do.

Grover Norquist is the de facto dictator of the American government! 

His insanity is destroying everything thinking and principled Americans have established in the last seven decades!  He has turned the greatest nation on earth into a third world hellhole of advancing poverty and class inequality!  He has single-handedly brought back the age of the robber barons while being painted as some sort of hero!  And, dumb Americans are falling for it and voting for those spineless sell-outs who are under his fanatic thumb!  To the destruction of everything that made this nation the greatest nation in the history of mankind!

Here is the list of members of Congress who have sold out the American people in exchange for political support:  http://www.atr.org/current-list-taxpayer-protection-pledge-signers-a5597.

Let's make sure these congressmen never have the opportunity to darken the halls of congress again after their next stand for re-election.  That's a message they, and their replacements, will clearly understand.   

SPACE, NOT JESUS, IS THE ANSWER

Steven Hawking is making it plain that human salvation doesn't lie in a Jesus returning in the clouds of heaven but literally getting to the heavens by manmade technology.  He'll be delivering this message tonight on Discovery World HD.  I plan to be listening.

Hawking states:  "Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain lurking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space."

It's been apparent for more than half a century that the human race is toast if we are confined to this planet indefinitely.  Any number of manmade or natural disasters could doom us to extinction, or at least the destruction of civilization and the return of savagery and barbarism.  If our infrastructure collapses, we would soon be doomed to see our accumulated knowledge and progress not only halted but completely lost -- as lost as the knowldge and technological know how about how the pyramids were built.  

You may continue to place your faith in divine rescue if you wish.  As for me, I'll be listening and pushing for science and technology against the dumbass purveyors of faith in their sky god.

I WAS WRONG (PARTIALLY)

I'm always willing to own up when one of my conclusions have been wrong or partially wrong.  I'm speaking of my previous statements that Ronald Reagan was the beginner of the wholesale Republican give-away to the rich.  Turns out, that was at least partially wrong, as shown in this article this morning:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-the-gop-became-the-party-of-the-rich-20111109

Ronald Reagan started some precedents such as his pushing for "reforms" that started the ball rolling and gave us the original savings and loan crisis.  The mindset began then and steadily snowballed to where the top one percent of our population sits as the privileged elite in our society and the vast majority see only ruin and despair on the horizon.

Read the article for more details.

SOME GOOD NEWS -- FINALLY!

There was a heartening article on the Huffington Post this mornings:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/22/world-less-violent-stats_n_1026723.html. 

This article points out that violence and violent death is decreasing in the world and has been doing so for decades.

That fact is hard for people to accept with the sensationalism inherent in modern news reporting and the unbiquitousness of its presence in our lives, especially when considered in the light of 9/11 and America's involvement in two wars.

Nevertheless, violence in the world has been steadily declining as democracy and the United Nations has continued to exert it's influence and the rate of literacy has increased. 

I was very heartened in reading this article.  For once, a news report wsn't depressing and fear inducing.  The hopeless feeling induced by the hyping of scriptures about the "last days" was mollified.  The human race can improve and has been improving, despite all the hoopla and doom being preached by sensationalist prognosticators.

I urge you to read the article for a rare "upper."

CHOPPING MORE TRUNK AND ROOTS

I like to cut the BS and clever double talk about basically ridiculous assumptions and arguments and deal in basics. Many people don't like my approach. I guess it spoils their fun, or something. I have that annoying habit of stomping all over their sacred cows and erroneous assumptions.


There's a large segment of the Western world that regards Catholicism as a horrible spawn of Satan. They absolutely denounce the Pope and many of them view him as the antichrist. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church is to them an evil they fear and denounce.

Until charismatic John F. Kennedy broke the spell, no Catholic had the proverbial chance of a snowball in hell of becoming president of the United States. I find these mindsets kind of puzzling even though I once shared them in my devotion to the cult from which I escaped.


Here's what I find so puzzling and contradictory. It's based on the historical facts of where the Catholic Church and the New Testament originated and why.


The original Catholic Church was patterned after the imperial government of Rome (it was totalitarian fascist, pure and simple). The Catholic Church was just an extension (really the religious department) of Roman government (the "Beast" to many Protestants), established by imperial edict and intended to foster order in the empire -- everybody thinking, saying and doing the same things. You can read the basics of the history right here: http://www.nexusmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=70.  And here:  http://www.jovialatheist.com/hmpindex.html.


The New Testament all Christians say they revere wasn't delivered by some divine fax machine. Very little, if any, of it was written by any of the original disciples and followers of a Galilean Jesus. The real authors and editors came along decades and centuries later and a lot of them followed the common practice in that time of writing under famous people's names.


The average believing Christian doesn't spend much time even reading the Bible. Textual criticism and other deeper theological study is a foreign thing and concept. They just assume "the book" is genuine and to be trusted without question. Basically, they believe whatever they were told by their parents and other people with an aura of authority.

Luther rebelled against the religious "Caesar" (pope) but maintained the basic organization and approach and so did the other "reformers." With minor modifications, they're basically religious mafias with a “capo di tuti capi" of varying power at the top and lots of local “capos” and “soldiers” administering set territories and responsibilities throughout the organization. The manufactured catholic canon remains to this day and every time a modern christian bows down to and professes faith in it, he is in effect recognizing and bowing down to the pope in Rome.

This is a real conundrum when viewed in the context of churches that denounce the pope as an antichrist and false prophet. HWA about blew a fuse when a movie glorifying the pope was shown on the stage where he preached as entertainment for the congregation. Yet, he preached from a book that only existed on the authority of the popes and imperial Rome.


All Christians are united in their acceptance of the New Testament as a divinely inspired collection of books and letters. Yet, many of them totally reject the very popes and other prelates that determined and set up that canon. Somehow, the very individuals they denounce and refuse to recognize as legitimate come out as divinely inspired and guided when it comes to the fetish of their beloved Bible.

I used to gloss over this gross contradiction, but no more.


I reject the pope and I reject his book too.

WHAT IS REALLY REAL?

I've been reading and reflecting a lot lately.  It's something I'll never stop doing as long as I am mentally capable. 

My life has been a steady process of questioning and learning that was briefly interrupted by my stint in Armstrongism, but even then, questions I had to sublimate kept creeping into my mind.  Only the fear of damnation so insidiously planted into my consciousness kept me pushing those thoughts and questions to the back of my mind.

It has been a process of steady growth from the time I left WCG in my early forties.   I first realized that the "church" was a farce as it existed under Armstrong, but I was still sure that I was a bona fide part of the "body of Christ" and I was determined to remain there.  I didn't seek out a new COG, intent on deciding for myself what the real truth had to be. 

I studied and listened widely, delving into reincarnation and fundamental as well as non-fundamental christianity, even very briefly into Scientology.  I saw that the old legalism was pure nonsense and soon abandoned sabbaths, holy days, clean and unclean meats, etc., yet slowly and stumblingly.  It took many years before I could enjoy a luscious lobster tail, crab legs or butterfly shrimp and fry up a pan of crisp bacon for a blt.

The last thing to be seriously questioned in my mind was survival after death.  I suspect I'll have questions on that as long as I live.  Modern media is very adept at keeping the old superstitions and beliefs alive and well.  TV channels are "alive" with programs about the supernatural, NDEs, and psychic channeling.  All the editing and selection makes it all very persuasive and comforting.  It reminds one of the machinations of "cold reading."

The more I delve into it, the more I find that NDE experiences aren't as cut and dried as they are made to appear after all the selection and editing.  I'm sure the same goes into programs about ghosts, etc.

So, this is another area where agnosticism, at least for the present, comes into play.

I'd like to believe that I will survive past the moment of my death and that I'll be met by people I've loved on "the other side."  I also liked to believe at one time that a glorious "kingdom of god" was just a few years down the road.  I was going to be a king and/or priest of that kingdom!  What a blessing for the world that that never materialized!  Can you imagine a world under the control of fanatics like we once were?  The Third Reich would have looked like a utopia!

I honestly don't know what to believe in this area of after-death survival.  I'm just not going to worry about it, any more than Mark Twain did.  He commented that the billions of years before his existence were of no inconvenience to him, and he didn't expect ceasing to exist to be an inconvenience either.

If I continue on in some state in some other dimension, great.  If not, why worry about it?  Like George Burns, I love life so much I'd like to do it again (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh6saG57kPE&feature=related ). 

Will I get the chance? 

Is there reincarnation?

I don't know.  If this is all there is, I'm determined to make the most of the few years or months I have left.  I turned 77 in the wee hours of last Monday.  Is my mother waiting to greet me on the "other side?"

Maybe.  Maybe not. 

In any case, I'm damn lucky to be here at all.  One little sperm among billions and trillions my father produced united with one little egg my mother produced at the opertune time of the month and I weathered all possible hazards before and after my birth to make it to the point I occupy at the present as the unique entity I am.

Some people like who I am.  Most don't particularly care.  The vast majority of other humans aren't even aware of my inconsequential existence.  I'm an insignificant member of a not-so-significant species on a rather insignifant piece of rock, air and water in the suburbian fringes of a run-of-the-mill galaxy that is pretty much a grain of sand among the billions of other galaxies and who know's what else we haven't discovered or surmised yet.  When one looks at it that way, humility comes a little easier. 

If I cease to exist some day soon, I really don't think it's going to be a catastrophe to the universe.

Or, to me.

"IF GOD DON'T GIT YA, MY GUN MIGHT!"

(This was published on The Painful Truth website earlier this year.  I'm republishing it here on my own site.)

Why do some people seem to be compelled to take firearms to religious and political events, irrespective of any threat to them or any public need outside of their personal need for show and intimidation?

I brought this question up to my little comedienne wife. She commented that it’s just a macho extension of their penises – a “mine is bigger than yours” kind of thing. She has also often commented that men want to drive around in big trucks for which they have no utilitarian use because they think their “wienies” are too small.

She’s right!

It’s all about creating an atmosphere of superiority, fear and ultimately of control.

I’m no psychologist, but I’ve read enough on the subject to know that many things, from big hats to exaggerated shoulder pads are used in an attempt to project masculinity and superiority and intimidate anyone perceived as an opponent. Remember the recent commercial where the father-in-law said admiringly, “This is a man’s truck?” It shows up in the Texas saying, “big hat, no cattle.” Remember the cold war saying: “kill a commie for Christ?” Did you ever wonder why “Onward, Christian Soldiers” is such a popular hymn? We sang it more than any other in the old WCG. We probably should have sung “You’re In the Army Now!” A great religious organization is called “The Salvation Army.” We seem to want to equate Calvary with the cavalry. You can almost hear the query, “My neighbor doesn’t believe in God — Can I smite him?” Why does an “omnipotent” God want or even need hit men (or women)?

It’s not as common a syndrome in women, but they are subject to similar mindsets that usually revolve around things like big bosoms, dazzlingly smooth complexions and hourglass figures. As they become more of an equal force in business and society, that is changing. More women are thinking and acting much like men.

The desire to dominate, attract and intimidate is a basic drive in all primates and other evolutionarily advanced creatures. The more narcissistic one becomes, the greater the drive.

Two forces, religion and politics, like no others, lend themselves to the utilization of guns and super weapons as instruments of dominance and control.

It took the form of swords, spears, bows and arrows, etc. until the advent of firearms. We see it in action in the blood soaked accounts of the Old Testament. Most of the great heroes of scripture were mighty warriors. Jesus is painted returning as a conquering king wielding a devastating sword and a rod of iron.

There is nothing human society and religion pictures as more manly than the conquering hero, whether it’s on the battlefield or the college gridiron. Many of our presidents became presidents because they were military heroes. That includes our first president. Patton was right when he said Americans (really all humans) have no respect for losers.

The purpose of military power is to be able to call the tunes to which other nations are compelled to dance. Multiple billions are spent in an unending struggle to maintain our military supremacy. Area 51 really does exist. It has always been so ever since one family or tribe cast covetous eyes on the territory and resources of the family or tribe next door and realized their aspirations could be accomplished easier if their clubs and sharp rocks were bigger and/or more lethal. Even our chimp cousins apparently go to war with neighboring chimp communities. We are not unique in our propensity for violence within our own kind.

Religions also jockey for dominance and dream of becoming the only accepted religion. Violence and the threat of violence often become the tool of choice in the hoped for attainment of their aspirations. For example, the administrative editor of this site doesn’t make his full name or his address known because he has received death threats over what is published here. Horrible things like Thomas Paine’s “The Age of Reason”  my book, “Believing the Unbelievable” the history of how the christian church and the Bible as we know it came to be and of course this, “The Painful Truth Blog.”

This emphasis on real and threatened violence has fallen to the lunatic fringe in the background of most of Christianity, but it comes to the fore quite easily when extremists take over causes like anti-abortion. Then, we hear talk of things like “the Phineas priesthood.”

Violence is very much at the forefront of Islam. They have never renounced their doctrine of spreading Islam by the sword. They can’t renounce it because they dare not admit their great prophet said or wrote anything that was wrong.

Guns are viewed as convenient “equalizers.” If a 90-pound weakling who has always felt put upon and persecuted can avail himself of a firearm, he has the potential to turn the tables on those he regards as his enemies and tormenters. Usually, it amounts to only swagger and implied threats, like a chimp who finds he can make a terrifyingly intimidating din and enhance his standing in the group by rolling an oil drum around and beating on it with a stick.

When a serious mental pathology enters the picture, the results can be devastating. Witness what recently occurred in Tucson.  The wide-eyed booking picture of the assailant reminded me of the wild looking eyes of Marshall Applewhite, the Heaven’s Gate founder who led his followers into mass suicide. It will be interesting to read what qualified psychologists have to say about his mental pathologies.~

The Tucson assailant was definitely a “crazo” who should have been treated and probably institutionalized. The signs were everywhere and such deranged people are all too common as local authorities struggle against budgets and the need to maintain individual civil rights. It’s a thorny problem.

Outlawing guns for our population would accomplish nothing in stopping the “weirdos” among us. They would just resort to black market firearms, homemade bombs and craft their own “zip guns.” Or, they’d use crossbows or something else. Even a fireplace poker and kitchen knife can be used to kill. In the meantime, the average citizen would find himself helpless against the home invader and a myriad of other criminals who would always find ways to get guns.

Every sane law abiding citizen should be able to own guns for hunting, sport or protection. There are many utilitarian, practical reasons to own guns. Those common sense reasons are why we have the second amendment to our constitution.

When World War II descended upon the unprepared democracies, we were all at a preliminary disadvantage as far as our decimated and ill-equipped military readiness was concerned. The British were especially at a disadvantage because their gun laws prevented most of their citizenry from owning guns. We not only had to brave the submarine wolf packs to help them arm their military, but also to provide arms for their home guard militias.

The US, although relatively unprepared militarily, was in a far different and far better position, which was a great worry to knowledgeable Japanese. Many of them had been students in American universities. They had been guests in American homes and had seen the well stocked gun cabinets full of everything from side arms to shotguns and big game rifles. They knew we could field armed citizen’s militias in a matter of days and hours.

Invading the mainland USA would have been a tactical nightmare!

Hitler basically “waltzed into Poland” in 1939 because the Poles had outlawed private ownership of guns and had allowed their military to deteriorate so far that they basically had no air force and had to oppose panzer tanks with mounted cavalry. The Swiss, by contrast, were armed to the teeth and were never threatened.

I remember the day World War II began. I was five years old at the time and had ridden to town with my grandfather who was delivering a load of grain. The elevator operator announced that Hitler had just attacked Poland. My grandfather thought a moment, then said: “Well, we whipped the bastards once; we can do it again.” We did and fought a two front war on opposite sides of the world to do it. As Churchill said, it was our finest hour and that was our greatest generation — so far, at least.

I no longer own a single gun. I sold them all and gave to my own son the .22 rifle my father had given me at the age of 14 so I could hunt rabbits and gophers. I had previously made use of a Daisy air rifle to hunt sparrows and other “varmints” on our North Dakota ranch. I no longer feel a need for firearms.

I won’t be going hunting anymore, and I’m not too worried about being burglarized or attacked in my home. My guns were just gathering dust and taking up space. Someone younger can shoulder the citizen’s militia responsibility, should the need arise. I’d fill in as a support volunteer which would be far more practical to my advancing age. Marching, drilling and combat wouldn’t fit very well with my current physical prowess.

The real problem is a psychological, philosophical and theological one. As long as religious and political extremists tell us that it is up to us to force others to see things our way, by means of possible violence, and hint at that violence, there will be the danger of even more Tucsons. There are a multitude of mentally unstable people out there just waiting for the opportune time and excuse to strike. They will feel like the godly successors to Phineas and/or patriotic avengers and feel no guilt in wiping out those they consider the enemy, and claim a few innocent bystanders as collateral damage while they are at it.

The “It’s going to be my way or it’s the warfare highway” attitude has to end. The “Hell no, you can’t” rants have to halt. Superimposing target symbols on political opponents has to be abandoned by all parties. Democracy doesn’t work the way such people want it to work – which is really tantamount to a monarchy, a dictatorship or a fascist theocracy.

They will loudly trumpet their love of democracy just so long as it coincides with their interpretation of what is right and proper and truly American. Many of them would want to run Thomas Paine and Jefferson out of town on a rail after they had been tarred and feathered, were they around today. They’ve already barred Thomas Jefferson’s writings from being taught in some places.

What’s next? I suspect even more enforced ignorance and pressure to conform – all in the name of Americanism.

Where’s the swastika? The hammer and sickle? The star and crescent?

Oh, that’s right, it’s the cross (and gun?) here.

GOOD QUESTIONS

Along the lines of my last blog, a good friend of mine wrote a very thought provoking blog of his own on the 9/11 anniversary.  It shows up what we rarely think about when we contemplate the usually sought after goal of eternal life. 

Rather than add my own musings on the subject, I'll just refer you to his blog:  http://manningtheneutralzone.blogspot.com/2011/09/would-eternal-life-be-eternal-living.html.

I will content myself with this quote from Mark Twain: 

"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."

WHERE IS "UP THERE?"

From little children on, most of us were assured there was a great supernatural being called "god" somewhere "up there" controlling and dictating everything.  The concept is rather universal in the Western World.  It has become such a set part of our thinking that even atheists like myself find our minds reverting to the concept that was drummed into us early on in our lives when we aren't on guard.

This illusion has held sway in the world from ancient times.  The Greeks envisioned it all as a pantheon of gods and goddesses (a divine family) residing invisibly on Mount Olympus.  Other nations and tribes had equally fanciful ideas about deities inhabiting holy parts of the earth and the heavens and showing up as planets, constellations, etc.  It was not too hard to imagine these things prior to our modern technological and scientifically advanced age.

We tend to imagine souls floating off into the ether and continuing to surround us unseen.  I still find the thought comforting, but it is most likely a complete illusion.  It's probably just the last vestige of my former superstitions still trying to assert themselves in my mind.

As I asked in a previous blog, just where is "up there?"  Certainly not Mount Olympus, nor any of the planets and celestial bodies we now know about and have studied ever more thoroughly.

Go to Google or some other search engine and type in "maps of the cosmos."  You will be amazed at what you find.  Surrounding us in every direction, more than thirteen billion light years in all directions, is an "up there" that is totally unfathomable.   Among all the galaxies, stars, nebulae, black holes, etc., there is no "up there" one can point to as the abode of any fantastic being like "god."  The vastness and the distances boggle the mind.  Billions of galaxies, each containing billions of stars and attendant planets and  multitudeness wonders yet to be discovered.

The "faith slaves," are absolutely convinced that some magnificent, super-intelligent and utterly omnipotent anthropomorphized being created it all, but they never try to explain where such a being could have originated, or where, exactly, he resides.  Of course, he has to look like us because we are the pinnacle of earthly creation.  We have to be a mirror of the source.

It wasn't too long ago that people thought lightning was Thor (or some other god) hurling his hammer.  We now know better, but many people will still think someone struck by lightning was being punished by god.  We still view diseases and natural disasters as instruments of punishment wielded by "god." 

Superstition survives intact in this enlightened modern age. 

We aren't that far removed from our superstition-ridden ancestors.

OF LIES AND LIARS

Rick Perry came out and labeled Social Security a "ponzi scheme." 

In this world there are "lies" and "damn lies."  Perry's statement is a "damn lie," and he's a "damn liar."  I think he knows it, too.

If Social Security is a ponzi scheme, your life insurance policy (if you're wise enough and employed enough to have life insurance), car insurance and homeowners insurance and any other type of insurance you carry is a "ponzi scheme."

I carried life insurance for many years.  I never collected a dime because I was lucky enough to escape the "grim reaper," until the present anyway.  Somebody else got a share of my premiums when someone in their family or business suddenly and unexpectedly died. 

Do I consider myself a victim because I personally didn't get my money back?  Was I "ponzied?"

Of course not!

I had the protection of that policy during the time I carried it to protect me and mine against the vagaries of happenstance.  If I had suddenly died, those dependent on me would have had something to fall back on while they got on with their grieving lives.

I've paid out a whole lot more in auto insurance premiums than I have ever collected.  Same with homeowners insurance.  I don't resent or feel victimized when I pay my premiums and I hope I never have a future claim.  What I pay in goes into a big pot that protects a huge pool of policy holders against possible future disaster--including me.

Social Security is a national insurance policy everybody pays into.  A certain number are never going to collect on that policy because they won't live that long.  But, if they do, the protection will be there, and I can tell you from personal experience that it means a great deal to me.  I would be destitute and homeless without it.

Social Security will be solvent for a long time.  It has had to be tweaked in the past, and it will need tweaking in the future to keep it viable.  Do you still pay the same auto insurance premiums you paid a decade ago?  Of course not.  Why would you think Social Security won't need any adjusting?  Economies don't stay static.

This is just more of the push to return us to a Dickensian world of robber barons and basically destitute masses of underprivileged serfs who have nothing to protect themselves from total penury.  It would be nice if we could all be as lucky as Rick Perry who can look forward to a comfortable future as he continues to drink and eat from the public trough--with guaranteed retirement, medical coverage, and a host of other perks that would be a "ponzi scheme" if they were directed toward common citizens.

RICK PERRY, YOU'RE A LYING, DISGUSTING HYPOCRITE!

SCIENCE IS TRUE AND SCIENTISTS ARE NOT GREEDY

The spinmeisters will attack anything and anybody that publishes inconvenient truths, especially if it has any perceived effect on their privileged position, economic welfare and status.  To hear the corporate spinmeisters tell it, science and scientists are part of a greedy lie fest where climate change is concerned.

Al Gore made this graphically plain in his latest rebuttal, which you can read about and listen to here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/30/gore-climate-change-deniers_n_940802.html

The very idea that scientists as a whole would propound false information and statistics to enrich themselves is preposterous, but the charge is constantly being made by those with a vested interest in the status quo. 

As Al points out, scientists aren't rich individuals.  Most of them can live comfortably but they are not able to hire expensive lobbyists to "spin" their self-serving (and supposedly falsified) views.  That role falls to the corporate tycoons who have a very real vested interest in things staying just as they are -- and have oodles and boodles of cash lying around.  Scientists have to be content with occasionally getting an article published in some peer reviewed and criticized journal few will ever see or even hear about outside the scientific community.  Their sharpest critics will be their fellow scientists who will be looking for any inconsistency or skewed fact and ready to pounce on it if they find it.

If I'm going to believe anything, it will be those carefully studied, researched, documented and peer reviewed pronouncements -- not some spinmeistered denial by a pseudoscientist in the pay of and beholden to the corporate establishment.

IRENE -- THE BIG DISAPPOINTMENT

The prognosticators and religious nuts and the "hype mongers" had another field day.  The East Coast was for sure heading for an overwhelming disaster.  God was finally going to "get" them.  "Them" being anyone of a contrary opinion to that of the minister, prognosticator, etc. 

Irene has gone her merry way northeast and will finally rain itself out over the North Atlantic.  New York survived just fine.  There was some damage, of course, all along its path, but much less than all the doom and gloom prophesied led one to believe was in the offing.

Hurricanes don't take that route very often, but they do once in awhile.  When they do, they usually lose a lot of zip by the time they hit those colder waters around New York and New Jersey and the rest of New England. 

Surprise! 

It was just a "tropical storm" when it finally arrived at the "Big Apple."  Lots of rain.  Lots of wind.  Some storm surge.  That certainly causes a lot of problems, but I really think the "snowpocalypse" (it also had to be sensationalized someway for ratings sake) New York experienced last winter was worse.  Most people have forgotten it already.  At this writing, Irene was responsible for only 18 known deaths.  In a path that took it all the way from North Carolina to southern Canada!

Earth and its inhabitants experience weather.  Hurricanes and tropical storms, blizzards, droughts, tornados, etc. are all weather.  If there's something you don't like about the weather today, just wait a while and it will change. 

I spent about a year and a half in Flushing, New York from late 1960 to early 1962.  They had a drought while I was there, and I never even experienced one of those famous New York thunderstorms.  I did hear about the remnants of a hurricane that happened a few years earlier and made quite an impression on the local gentry.  Was "god" upset that I was there and witheld the rain?  I really don't think so. 

Nor do I think he was mad at the nation as a whole because the mythical guy doesn't exist.  There's no one "up there" to get mad.  Did you ever take a look at the maps of the cosmos that have been published lately?  Take a good look at one.  Then, try to define "up there" for me.  Over thirteen billion years worth of "up there" in all directions!  And, you think earth and the solar system are something great?  What's so far been discovered "up there" makes us look like a fly speck on the Great Wall of China!

"God" seems to get judgmental and punishing every so often, the way a lot of superstitious people view it.  They'll figure out something they don't like that their "god" is also upset about.  Since they created him in their images, it follows that he has to be mad about the same things they're mad about. 

Instant explanation for the "disaster!"

Earthquakes and volcanos are also a constant on this earth.  Go to any center where there are seismographs and you will see the evidence of hundreds of tremors, some volcanic, most unfelt and unnoticed, taking place all over the earth every day.  Earth looks solid and stable but it's constantly in motion and once in awhile those motions get downright noticeable.

Because such "disasters" are intermittent and usually years go by with very little in the way of outstanding events in any local region, the religious nuts and sensationalizers have a field day when the usual norm is breached.  They have their moment in the sun and revel that their insane shouting gets noticed and taken seriously -- at least momentarily.  The credulous just never seem to learn and will listen again next time around and get all excited all over again.

Hype, hype, hype.  There's no end to it. 

NEW SITE

Just this weekend, I became aware, through Greta Christina's blog, that there is a new and very promising website out.

I am very excited about it and have already taken steps to join in.  Check it out:  http://www.weareatheism.com/

THE ETERNAL CON JOB

I have to admit that I feel a bit discouraged this evening.  I look at the world around me and at all the lies and deceptions, the con games and the crass using of human beings for the agrandizement of those in ultimate power, and I tend to despair.

I look at the political sphere and I see an ignoramus like Perry proclaiming that God explains why we are here, and the blind ignorant masses cheer his ignorant stupidity.  Properly trained theologians know better.  They know what a contrived mass of pishtwaddle the Bible and the Christian God is.  They just don't let the masses who ultimately pay their generous salaries know what they know.  They soothe their consciences by any number of psychological machinations to convince themselves that their deception is for the good of the people.  The few who publish the facts don't get much press and their books and articles are given no front page prominence.

The masters of Banking and Wall Street and the corporate lords know they are taking everybody for a "ride."  They just don't care.  They're chuckling all the way to the bank!  The masses who are suffering and will suffer are just unfortunate collateral damage

The fact that we are destroying our planet through runaway climate change and bringing on a greater extinction than has been seen for millions of years is denied and pooh poohed.  If billions of people die, too bad.  We're over-populated anyway.  So what if multitudes of species die off.  We'll figure out how to adjust.  Keep those profits high and our taxes minuscule.

I could go on, but much of it would be redundant to what I've said in other blog entries.  I'm just going to get ready for bed.  Maybe I'll feel better in the morning.  I doubt it.

TRICKY, TRICKY BLACK BOY

I have to hand it to Obama.  I've been very disappointed with him over his seeming weakness and what appeared to be total surrender to the opposition. 

Yes, I'd like to see more confrontation and fight, and I'm still hoping to see it.  It has to come if he's not going to be a one-term president and this nation isn't going to be even more savaged than it now is by ending up in total Rethuglican/Tea Party control.

My wife, who is quite the analyst, pointed out something this morning.  She remembered an old episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, in which a colored lady got one up on conniving Raymond and labeled him a "tricky, tricky white boy."

She pointed out how Obama is very craftily outflanking his opposition on the immigration issue, giving much of the "dream act" benefits through legal executive action and winning points with Hispanic voters in the process.  He did some crafty maneuvering on the don't ask don't tell front as well.  She said it made her feel like saying, "Oh, you tricky, tricky black boy."

I may be more confrontational in my approach, but Obama isn't just lying down and letting his enemies roll over him.  He has a few "tricks" up his sleeve, and I'm sure that's driving the enemy nuts.

WHAT DOES THE TEA PARTY "SPIKE" THEIR TEA WITH?

Never, since I abandoned Armstrongism have I heard so much insane nonsense coming out of human mouths as I have heard since the founding of the "Tea Party!"  A few of my one-time friends and fellow cultists are now staunch members of that bewildering aberration.  They just can't get away from extreme approaches and simplistic (read godly) thinking.

I know they're not smoking marijuana.  There's nothing "mellow" about them.  Too angry.  Too extreme.  Too know-it-all dogmatic.  Not at all tolerant of anything else but their extremist dogmatism.

So, maybe they're putting something in their tea.  Could it be mushrooms or LSD? 

Something is causing them to be wackier than Tasmanian Devils in a bee's nest.

I guess it's just the same old thing that afflicts the Republicans in general but carried to an extreme.  They want that "Old-time Religion" and all the other old-time Dickensian crap that goes with it. 

Down with Social Security!  Down with Medicare!  Down with anything that made America great for a few, now endangered, decades! 

Up with the aristocracy and the robber barons!  Up with self-agrandizment and self-centeredness! 

Down with public schools -- they teach "evulooshin!"  Down with any sense of public concern and welfare or helping hands for those who are poor and weak!  If they aint rich, it's their fault.  But, we're gonna make sure our kids git a good private, or (gasp), home schooled education and know how to properly kiss the asses of all the Bible thumping Jesus pushers.

Ah! 

That's the answer!

THEY'RE HIGH ON RELIGIOUS CRAP!

WARREN BUFFETT -- A REAL AMERICAN PATRIOT

I have a great deal of admiration and respect for Warren Buffett.  He's a very rich man and he's a real patriotic American who tells the truth.  That's rare among the wealthy of today and practically unknown to their powerful cohorts in politics.

I don't begrudge anyone wealth if they earn it honestly.  Warren always has from the time he took savings from his youthful paper route and bought a farm.  He doesn't look upon his wealth as something that makes him special and privileged.  Read up on him and you will find that he lives a simple life and doesn't put on airs.

He created quite a stir today with an op-ed in the New York Times.  It's summarized here:  http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/15/news/economy/buffett_tax_jobs/.  I'm sure it will be available rather widely soon. 

He recognizes the fact that the rich in America are being coddled and given breaks no one else is given.  I've been pointing that out for quite some time, and it's refreshing to know that there is one simple, honorable and truthful rich man who is willing to risk the wrath of his peers to tell it like it is.

Hurray for you, Warren!  You're a good man!.

GO, GORE

Some of my self-righteous, once-upon-a-time friends don't like my plain speaking when I get upset with the crap religionists, the Tea Party and other ultra-conservatives shovel our way. 

One chided me for "naughty language."  I retorted by challenging him to sue me.

When we are subjected to outright lies by sanctimonious deceivers with an agenda to confuse and obfuscate, there is a time to call them out and drop the nicey nice facade they like to put forth. 

Every conman is nicey nice!  That's how they worm their way in and breeze by your defenses!

Al Gore got riled up and outspoken at the Aspen Institute last Thursday.  Hear it here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SfWdDP5v_A

The "rant" was labeled humorous on You Tube.  No, it isn't!  It's much too serious a subject to be called "humorous!"

It was "plain speaking!"

It's time to call out and thoroughly expose all these pseudo-everythings.  They're everwhere!  They're in climate science.  They're in Paleontolgy (creationists).  They're in economics.  Anywhere you find the corrosive influence of any rabid religionists and ultra-conservatives, you are going to find pseudo-somethings with their insidious lies and misinformation!

Bullshit is bullshit.  It's time to label it for the crap it is and be plain and unapologizing for doing so. 

Hats off to you, Al. 

Keep it up!     

EVERYTHING ENDS SOMETIME

Telling the truth as you see it sometimes costs a person.  My recent blog in which I labeled the Tea Party for the ignorant, religious and fascist minded thugs they are just cost me one of my last friends from the past.  He labels me the fascist, along with Obama, etc.

I know this old friend is not knowingly fascist.  He doesn't have a mean bone in his body.

However, he is caught up in the Tea Party from its inception, in creationism and is absolutely dedicated to Christianity -- now, mainstream instead of Armstrongist.  There is no penetrating that armor without a non-existent intellectual anti-tank rocket. 

Of course, what I say is automatically dismissed as lies.  He says I'm no longer the man he loved as a dear friend for about 60 years.  That's for sure true. 

Gone is my youthful naivete and gullibility.  It is replaced by stone cold reasoning power that came by a hard route.  I no longer stand in awe before a fictional god and his totally fictional supposed scriptures.  I care not what any god supposedly says through some ecstatic, over-impressed-with-him-or-herself revelator.  Paul, the originator of Christianity, is to me a mentally deranged con-artist.

So, I bid farewell to this longtime friend and fellow traveler.  I wished him well in what remains of his life.  He's several years older than I, so I'll probably be around longer.  I did ask him to give my regards to the various members of the Elohim if he can locate them in this vast evolutionary creation.

WHY POLITICS MATTERS

Why am I spending time talking about politics and economics when the subject of this blog is agnostic atheism?  Am I getting off subject?

In a simple one-word answer, NO!

In twenty-first century America, politics is religion and religion is politics.  They are so intertwined that it is virtually impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins.

The Tea Party branch of Republicanism is especially intertwined with religion.  Bachmann, for example, got her advanced (?) education at an ultraconservative religious school that is far more pernicious than Ambassador College ever was.

You really cannot be a tea partiest, and to a lesser extent, a Republican without passing a religious "litmus test."  Only in the Democratic or Libertarian party, or as an Independent, can a non-religous person find a true haven.  That's why the Democratic party's support throughout the "Bible Belt" is so low.  Voting Democratic is seen as being unchristian.

Religion has taken over and corrupted politics in this country, and it's hard for me to understand why.  We once were the most progressive country in the world.  Now, we are mired in superstition and faith-based nonsense and fast becoming the laughing stock of the enlightened Western world.

There is no real separation of church and state in the US today.  Ronald Reagan started it off and the Bushes continued it with their insidious "faith based" preaching.

UNBALANCE IN OVERDRIVE

The reason why the US is in economic trouble was made clear by an article I just read:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/04/irs-incomes_n_918458.html

This article reveals the fact that more than 1,400 certified millionaires (that's people who make -- I refuse to say "earned" -- more than one million dollars) paid no income tax at all in 2009.  Many of those millionaires sat in a plush chair before a computer screen and used any number of devious schemes to move fiat money around, contributing absolutely nothing tangible to the national welfare and producing the economic crisis they then contrived to be bailed out of to the tune of multiple billions that were added to the national debt. 

Nice "job" if you can contrive to get it.

For several decades now, those at the economic apex have been lobbying to make this grossly imbalanced and unfair scenario a reality.  Meanwhile, the rest of us have been picking up their share of the tax burden.  They have a headlock on the economy and things can only get worse. 

How long will the average American be hoodwinked into accepting and voting for this farce.  Just as long as they are stupid enough to fall for the BS being shoveled their way by the Rethugs and the "Tea Party."

The stupidity of the average American seems to know no bounds.

MORE ON STUPIDITY

Few are alive who remember the Great Depression.  I was only five years old when Hitler marched into Poland and set us on the course out of it.  Being on a farm, we usually had food, but I remember being hungry a few times when the cupboard got a bit spare.  Refrigerators were something in the post-war future.

Roosevelt tried hard to get us out of the Depression, but he was sabotaged by near-sighted Rethugs in 1937 and there was a second dip.  We probably never would have recovered if we hadn't had to fight for our very existence in World War II.  Desperation shut the mouths of the stupid rethugs.

Everything boomed.  America's industrial might came to the fore and we emerged from the war as a much richer nation.  Luckily, there were progressive minded people in Congress and the White House who could see the need for the GI Bill and expanded infrastructure.  Even a Republican like Dwight Eisenhauer saw the need for our wonderful interstate highway system which is now being neglected and going to hell in the proverbial handbasket.  (I remember that he had a problem deciding whether he was a Republican or a Democrat.  I still wonder why he chose as he did.)  Johnson brought in rural electrification.  Kennedy ramrodded the space program. Etc.  Etc.

Yes, it took some borrowing -- which has since been paid off because the presidents and congresses recognized the need to levy compensatory taxes to pay for it all.  Customers paid off rural electrification.  There were still plenty of millionaires, even billionaires, and the wealth thus created is inestimable.  At the same time, ordinary citizens enjoyed an economy in which they could found and grow their own businesses and prosper.  Yes, they griped about the tax burden.  That's only natural. 

The point is that the borrowing and taxing created the greatest economy the world had ever seen and put us on top of the world.  We could have stayed there. 

However, the selfish, short-sighted rich and powerful can't stand for the average citizen to have a fair shake.  They have always chafed at Roosevelt's folly.  Only their children deserve a top quality education that guarantees them a chance at a high paying job and a decent retirement.  It's the lower classes' fault that they don't advance by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.  They all too often have the attitude so condemned by the Apostle James, as mentioned in my previous blog.

Wake up America.  You're being sent back to the age of the robber barons on a greased slide and being lied to every step of the way.  Quit voting for your sworn enemies who snicker under their uplifted noses as you fall for their BS.  

The Rethugs are your enemies! 

Always have been! 

Always will be!

USA--THE REGRESSIVE RELIGIOUSLY CONTROLLED STUPID NATION

The leading article on the Huffinton Post this morning headlined desperate American college and university students prostituting themselves to rich "sugar daddies" in a desperate attempt to pay their college debts and living expenses:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/29/seeking-arrangement-college-students_n_913373.html.  I was so disgusted and horrified by page one that I had to take a break.

I am outraged and filled with shame that such a condition can exist in twenty-first century America.

Meanwhile, the Tea Party may still hold the nation hostage to their insane demands and may plummet us into a financial abyss worse than the one idiots like Boehner were already contemplating. 

We led the world for about forty years after WWII.  We no longer lead the world -- in anything -- except individual and corporate greed and military adventurism.  From leading the world in democracy, technology and humanitarianism, we have descended to the status of "bully on the block."  Do it our way, or we'll kick the "shit" out of you is our not so subtle message.

The rich and privileged are also intent on kicking the "shit" out of, and in actuality, enslaving anyone who is not in their elitist class.  They claim, at least most of them, to be ardent followers of the mythical Galilean carpenter.  They are very selective in what aspects of his teachings they follow.  They conveniently overlook that they claim to worship a man who said:  "a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven."

I'm surprised there isn't a movement afoot in the Tea Party to have the book of James expunged from the Bible.  Let me quote a little of it:

"Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you....Ye have reaped treasure together for the last days....the hire of the laborurers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth...ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter."

I didn't read, "Greed is good," anywhere in there.

Sounds like a perfect description of our corporate-dominated Wall Street and Banking society.  If what I am seeing on the news doesn't qualify as a wanton "slaughter" of everyone and everthing that made this the greatest nation on earth, then I am totally blind.

Oh, how pious Bachmann is as she spouts her hate filled vitriol based on the same kind of religious hypocrisy Herbert Armstrong, the disgusting, ravenous old hypocrite, used to spout.  She, nor any other tea partiest or Republican gives a fucking damn about the welfare of the United States of America, the nation that once put a man on the moon and now has to hitch rides to the space station on Russian rockets.  We should hang our heads in shame!

We should have had a base on the Moon by now!  We should be tooling up to put men on Mars!  What an economy that would have spawned!  Instead, we promise the disgustingly filthy rich that they can keep on economically -- and literally -- raping everybody with total impudence.

We had a budget surplus before George Bush entered the White House.  He and the other Republican idiots couldn't wait to cut already ridiculously low taxes and borrow money to pay for their military adventurism and their gifts to already rich, but politically supportive, buddies.  No need to worry about those lazy peons out there who either had to give up on college or mortgage their futures (and then prostitute themselves to those rich, disgusting bastards who precipitated the situation). 

And, we cluck our self-righteous tongues over the postitution in places like Thailand!

It's natural and human to want to pay out as little as possible in taxes.  I fully admit that the welfare state got a bit out of control at one time.  It certainly needed fixing, but it shouldn't have been totally gutted!  And, concern for the future welfare of common citizens totally abolished!

There is a need and a place for proper investment in the future.  That investment has been stolen and raped away by those who want to bask in hedonistic luxury while using anyone under them in any degrading way they choose. 

We no longer are the undisputed superpower of the world.  Soon Brazil, China and a host of others will ascend to the place we once occupied, and the wall street bankers who only know how to manipulate fiat money aren't going to do a damn thing to stop it.

YOU AINT SEEN NOTHIN' YET

What's been happening on the domestic scene has kept me glued to MSNBC, The Huffington Post, Keith Olbermann, etc. for interminable days now.  I care about my country and its future.  I am terrified by what I see.

This was all brought more forcefully than ever to my attention by an Alternet article I read this morning:  http://www.alternet.org/story/151837/%24230%2C000_for_a_guard_dog%3A_why_the_wealthy_are_afraid_of_violence_from_below?page=entire

Republicans, and especially that insane "Tea Party" bunch of extremist, mostly religious, idiots, are hell bent on a path that can only lead to violent revolution and the destruction of everything we have built in this nation, especially since 1945.

I'm reminded of Benjamin Franklin's reply to a lady who asked what kind of government he and the other founders had given us.  He replied, "A republic, if you can keep it."

Most republics of the past had not survived more than two or three centuries.  I fear ours is destined for the trash heap, along with the rest. 

You can't imitate monarchist France or czarist Russia by snotilly proclaiming, "Let them eat cake," and survive as a democracy or anything else very long.  Desperate people are going to do desperate things.  History proves that.  But, most people have a "yawner" attitude toward history and don't study it very much.  Those of us who are fascinated by the subject are terrified at what we see.

Anything progressive has been demonized as "socialism" and systematically resisted and destroyed and the common everyday American has been savaged by destructive cutbacks and preferential to the rich taxation and deregulation to the point where nothing but despair looms on the horizon. 

Gone is our technological greatness and our vibrant middle class.  It has been replaced by a class of the super rich riding rough shod over the masses, living in their multiple mansions in multiple exclusive and opulent areas of the world and jetting off in their private jets any time they feel the urge to have lunch in Paris or New Orleans paid for by their over twenty percent pay hikes in already obscene compensation last year alone while millions of others wonder where they'll find the money to pay the mortgage and put food on the table -- not to mention how they can fill the gas tank to look for that non-existent job that won't pay the bills if they do miraculously find one.

The "Tea Party" is nothing more than a collection of fascist minded, ignorant, "amen" shouting extremists, educated often, like Bachmann, at extreme religious schools that make the old Ambassador College look intellectual.  They literally don't care that their nation is standing on the edge of an abyss that leads to nothing more than overwhelming catastrophe.  Mainstream Republicans aren't much better, but some of them still have a semblance of a brain left.

Dare I still have some hope?  I'd like to be optimistic.  That's becoming harder and harder.

THE ROOT OF THE TREE

There was a blog entry this morning on Banned by HWA about people being caught up in the seventh day sabbath argument and doctrine.  I agree that it is a foolish argument, but not for any theological reasoning involved.  As I stated in one of my aricle comments, theology and theological arguments no longer impress me and I'm loath to spend much time on them.

There is no end to theological debate.  All the gods of theology, Christian and non-Christian, are fictional coneptual idols hatched in the minds of men.  I've pointed that out repeatedly in several blog articles:  http://www.hwarmstrong.com/god_factory.htm; http://www.hwarmstrong.com/al_dexter.htm#BORN; http://theageofreason--21stcentury.blogspot.com/2011/02/its-all-about-famn-damily.html

My goal is to get back to the root and the trunk that supports the fictional tree.  Chop it down and dig up the roots if you want to be truly free. 

The same is true for all the fictitious gods and scriptures of  Hinduism, Taoism, Islam, Mormonism or any other religious ism extant.

I'm sure I frustrate some of my fellow bloggers by constantly calling attention to the root facts that the Bible is a ridiculous fictional book about an impossible fictional god.  I'm not going to waste time on their theological arguments and musings.  Read my biographical book if you want to understand my approach more:  http://www.hwarmstrong.com/believing-the-unbelievable.pdf

HAS THE "MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS" GONE SOUR?

I grew up in a rural North Dakota community where neighbors were really neighbors.  In my early years, my family never locked their doors because they had no fear of being robbed or harmed by anyone in the community.  Neighbors looked out for each other. 

My grandfather told pioneer-day stories of people being saved from winter blizzards by happening upon a claim shanty abandoned for the winter and holing up there until the storm passed.  It was a frontier code and nobody begrudged someone using their shelter, fuel or their food stores to preserve their lives.

Many a Sunday morning, my grandfather climbed to the hayloft and found someone burrowed in the hay, sleeping off a Saturday night hangover.  Likely as not, the woozy neighbor got invited in for coffee and breakfast.  No one worried about letting their children roam the prairies unsupervised all day long.  The thought of anyone harming them would have been unthinkable.  Children walked or rode horses to school on their own.

Things changed a bit as I was growing up.  My parents took to locking their doors and padlocking their gasoline storage drum.  People began to find tires stolen during the night and other thievery.  The world was changing.  Not for the better.

I haven't lived on those plains for more than fifty years now, but I know that, compared to many other places I've lived, they are still comparatively safe and secure.  A good breed of people, for the most part, still lives there.

Today, as a member of the local Cottonwood, AZ Lions Club, I did a two-hour stint for our White Cane Day at the local Safeway, gathering in donations for our community services (sight, hearing, etc.). 

During this time a clean and nicely dressed man of 75 happened by and gave a $1 donation.  He revealed that he was homeless, having lost his three hundred thousand plus home when the recession hit.  He lives and sleeps as best he can and a friend lets him shower, shave and do laundry at his home.

He gets a little over seven hundred dollars a month from Social Security.  He used some of that to buy two tents to live in but no longer bothers. 

Why?

Cities don't like to have homeless people around so the police in one of the local cities slashed his tents to ribbons with jack knives, trying to force him out of the area.  He dares not try to camp anywhere in Sedona.  He has been warned that he will be jailed.

A minister friend of his in Santa Monica, CA is trying to get him placed in HUD housing, and I'm hoping that will be successful.  The man certainly needs it.  How long HUD can continue to function is a good question.

I understand the problem cities have, but I also understand human need and human compassion.  It seems to be ever more lacking in our society.  While millionaires and billionaires are lavished with tax breaks and subsidies and live a life of luxury in their multiple mansions in multiple parts of the world, the down on their luck multitudes are ever more looked down on with disdain as if it is always their fault that they aren't situated comfortably.  In some cases, it may be, but not most of the time.  Treating them like no account animals who should simply slink off quietly and die is hardly worthy of our great nation, its traditions and its heritage.

Every time "cut" comes up in the political discussion, the first thing targeted is the already woefully inadequate provisions for those among us least capable of fending for themselves.  I'm not talking about lavish handouts.  I'm talking about making provision for those who absolutely cannot solve their problems without a helping hand.  I've been there a few times in my own life and was very thankful that there was a caring individual who extended a hand when I needed it so desperately.



     

THE GOD FACTORY

Want a "God" that agrees with you in everything? 

Just go out and find him or simply manufacture him to your own specifications.

Everybody else does.  It's been going on for millenniums.  As long as humans have existed in their super aware state.

If reincarnation happens to be true, perhaps I was there when some of what I am about to recount went on.  However, I could have no conscious memory of it, as no USB cord comes with at least most of us to access such things, so I can only claim a limited level of accuracy in what I am about to put forward.  It's all based on the history and archaeology we are aware of and observations of human proclivities and habitual thought processes.
Our distant cousins in the rest of the animal kingdom just take life as it comes.  They have no real awareness of past or future.  They just exist for the present in a world limited to themselves and whatever they interact with.  The concept of something beyond right now and beyond this life, especially other possible dimensions, doesn't bother them because they don't have the mental capacity to grasp such concepts.

Man does.

Humans worry about the future, plan for it, know death will come at some point and have the intellectual capacity to wonder what it's all about, why things are as they are.  Where did it all come from?  What happens when we die?  We find it hard to grasp the idea that it's all chance, that our existence might be finite, that no one is in control.  It's hard to imagine not existing past this fleeting life.

It didn't take long for our ancestors to notice that they could make things with a little thought and effort.  It was easy to conclude that somebody must have made them and everything around them, but WHO?

When children asked their parents, they told them some great being, or beings, must have done it and soon gave him/her and them names that differed from group to group.  Sort of like the "boogie man" people invent to keep children from venturing into dangerous places and situations.

This being, or beings, also served to explain and bring order to sometimes capricious aspects of nature, like storms, lightning, earthquakes, illness versus health, plenty versus famine, etc.  To explain the seemingly malevolent aspects of the natural world, they had to conclude that there were some expecially unsavory kinds of supernatural beings that became known as devils and demons.

Way back in prehistory, when our ancestors existed in roving hunter-gather bands and small tribal units, each little group had its own way of explaining what creation, life and ultimate reality was all about.  The brainiest, most outgoing and most imaginative individuals came up with stories they thought explained it all.  There was the usual cross-fertilization that led to similar myths and legends spreading from place to place with localized modifications being thrown in along the way.  That's how things like the Bible account of creation started out in Mesopotamia and ended up in a revised form in Jewish accounts.

At first, since the female is the life-giver, most imaginary deities took on a female guise.  Thus, many of the first archaeolodgical representations of imagined deities took the form of mother goddesses.  These were somewhat benevolent, mothering-type imaginary beings and representations of them often appear in a pregnant state.

Political power was not a very prominent aspect of those early societies.  They just tried to get by and only looked to deities for hoped for support and sustenance.

This state of affairs soon gave way to larger established villages and city states. 

This was a man's bailiwick!

Men, being stronger and more aggressive, soon rose to positions of political power in these expanded societies.

Men had always, because of size and strength, taken on the natural role of protector and defender that women had to depend upon.  Because of their compartive weakness and the necessity of caring for children, the ascendancy of men to this protective role was inevitable.

If a woman had one child at her breast, another on her knee and a third "in the oven," she was at a great disadvantage when smilodon (saber toothed cat) came looking for an easy banquet.  She and her little munchkin's certainly filled the bill.

Many of the wily, seductive female traits we all recognize became set in the evolutionary fabric of our kind back then.  Those most adept at attracting and holding some macho hunk of a man were the ones most likely to survive, along with their offspring.

Men are aggressive.  They get things done.  Their goal is hegemony.  The most aggressive, impressive and seemingly superior indivuals became "top bananas."  They set the rules for everyone to follow and organized small armies to defend against anyone and anything that posed a real or imagined threat to them and the community.

What had formerly been household gods soon morphed into community gods that they prayed to and feared to anger.  Gods soon replaced goddesses at the forefront of these pantheons because a male deity would be more in keeping with the attitudes and goals of the male leaders.  Shamans soon morphed into full time priests to lend better organization to religion.  Settled theologies began to develop.

It wasn't long before one city state ruler decided his little territory was too confining.  He wanted more territory and resources and could see the obvious advantages in getting rid of a lot of competing, warring little fiefdoms.  The most aggressive and tactically superior "capo" eventually succeeded in forcefully uniting a whole bunch of little fiefdoms into one big nation.  He became the "capo di tuti capi," otherwise known as a pharaoh, king, emperor, etc.

Finally, real wealth and power!  That's what it was really all about.

The priests also profited.  They banded together or eliminated their rivals and set up standardized religions that blended together regional differences and created one unified religion for the whole nation.  Differing gods and goddesses soon filled well-defined niches and presided over set aspects of life and the afterlife.  As writing entered the scene, it became easier to develop and codify standardized theologies.

The power grab drive kept on growing.  Soon nations began eyeing neighboring nations and lusting for their wealth and power.  Nations morphed into empires.

Religion went along for the ride.  Often, the political leader was just the useful figurehead.  The real power behind the scenes was the priesthood.  This was certainly true of the Holy Roman Empire.

Along the way, some thoughtful individuals concluded that this great pantheon of gods and goddesses didn't add up. 

Monotheism was born.

As ususal, when humans differ in opinion, conflict was the result.

One Egyptian Pharaoh became so convinced of the monotheistic concept that he tried to stamp out polytheism.  This didn't sit too well with a lot of disenfranchised priests who bided their time until the demise of that Pharaoh and came charging back into power under his successor.  They tried to expunge that Pharaoh's record from history.

The monotheistic philosophy caught on with a fairly large segment of the world population and led to centuries of argument and outright strife.  The desire to deify outstanding individuals, even in supposedly monotheistic societies has never ended.  It shows up as saints in Christianity.

It was amusing, after Elvis Presley's tragic death, to see the plethora of ecstatic reports by his idolizers that he was really still alive and they had seen him.  In a prior age, he would have probably been added to the pantheon.  I'm rather certain some ecstatic individuals actually talk to him, like Christians talk to saints.

In the final analysis, much remains the same as it did centuries ago.  Humans are still humans, and there is no end to the mental quirks they can exhibit.

Although the gods of conquering kingdoms tended to come to ascendancy in subjugated areas, the ancients were usually rather tolerant in their attitudes toward their neighbors' deities.  Even Solomon didn't demand that his foreign wives and consorts give up their ancestral gods and goddesses.  Ancient Irael wasn't the strictly monotheistic society most people imagine it was.

As monotheistic concepts gained ascendancy throughout most of the western world through the power of totalitarian rulers and the military they controlled, tolerance pretty much fell by the wayside.  There is no room for competing philosophies in an authoritarian monotheistic setting.

The concept of freedom in religion is a fairly new concept that had no chance until the advent of democracy and free thinking.  It has never prevailed anywhere in the Middle East, except in Israel, a democracy surrounded by monarchies and dictatorships.  If you would advocate religious freedom in those despotic nations, your life would be in serious jeopardy.

So, we now live in a fractured world that is in a constant state of tension and potential warfare over mental concepts put forth as ultimate truths by opposing camps that are all convinced they have the one and only revealed truth.  Choices are pretty well limited in most of the world.

Here in the Americas and in Western Europe, its pretty much a "the skies the limit" situation where religious faith is concerned.  New sects and denominations spring on the scene with wild abandon.  So do contrary organizations defending atheism, agnosticism, deism, etc. That situation drives pople like Muslims nuts.  They can't abide people being able to decide their own beliefs and opinions, especially if it's total unbelief.

As confusing as it all is, the only really acceptable situation to a truly rational thinker is the one existing in the Western world.  As long as human beings seem by inborn nature to have a need to create gods as psychological adjuncts, the more freedom the better.  It is easier to avoid the horrors of state sponsored, religiously backed terror.  Men can think freely and science can flourish.

Without the Western approach, modern science could never have carried us to the technological heights the world now enjoys.  The oppressive Muslim world would have never allowed it.  Yes, they were at one time the main center of learning after the western Roman Empire disintegrated.  That was primarily due to the fact that they inherited and preserved the Roman and Greek knowlege partially preserved by the Byzantine Empire they conquered.

So, if you have a psychological need for a "faith" and live in the free part of  the world, I have good news for you.  Just about anything that would appeal to your own concepts and psychology is already available or can be easily created by none other than YOU.

You probably won't have to go to that kind of effort.  Numerous others have been very busy for centuries creating and promoting a dazzling array of differing opinions, doctrines and prejudices.

People who feel uncomfortable or guilty about sexual desire and expression will often be Catholics, even priests, monks or nuns.  that doesn't mean they will be successful in shedding the drives and desires they are running from, but it does allow them to put up a "front" that looks good to those they are trying to impress.  Behind the scenes, what can and often does take place is both shocking and revolting.

We're all aware of priests who don't succeed in sublimating this overwhelming drive and molest little boys and also girls.  One of my ancestors left the Catholic Church when he found out a priest had taken liberties with one of his daughters.  Since he lived in Minnesota at the time and not in the Bavaria he was born into, there was no societal judgment on his decision.

In the mid-1800s, along came the Seveneth Day Adventists to appeal to those who just knew Christianity had to adhere to everything the Bible contained, including Saturday sabbath.  Ellen G. White's insistence on vegetarianism didn't sit too well with some people, so there was plenty of opportunity for splinter, like the Church of God Seventh Day.  Out of that organization came Herbert Armstrong, Ambassador College and his Worldwide Church of god.

Herbert never denounced sex as such but got very vehement about things like necking and masturbation.  In private, he himself was "jacking off" regularly and kept detailed diaries that became known as the "flog log."  In his latter years, in the guise of "sex education," he would invite college students over for dinners and show lewd pornographic films that deeply embarrassed a lot of female students.

There's a psychological quirk that often leads people, especially those who are seeking to put themselves forth as some kind of special or godly example, to vehemently condemn some of the things they are secretly doing but feel deeply guilty about.  They hide behind a facade and project an aura of special reghteousness and morality.  I don't know what it's labeled in psychiatry, but in religious terms, it's hypocrisy.

This has created a great deal of psychological suffering for untold generations through the condemnatory teachings of many misisters and churches.  Masturbation, for example, is a normal and thoroughly natural release of sexual drive and tension that members of the animal kingdom engage in all the time as a matter of instinct.  Many societies openly accepted it and some of their gods were said to practice it.  These malevolent and pernicious teachings debase what should be a thoroughly natural, beneficial and harmless part of private life and turn it into something evil.  To cover up their private "lapses," the condemnation is magnified and the feelings of guilt with their attendant psychological damages are perpetuated.  It's a vicious cycle.

Those who think only seriousness and austerity are godly and that rather trivial pursuits like card playing, dancing, etc. are an improper and sinful waste of time will turn to some sect with a "god" that shares a similar opinion.  One such minister once said that dancing was wrong because a man couldn't hold a woman that closely without having sinful thoughts.  To his mind, the natural sexual response to members of the opposite sex was a sin.  It was lust to him, and lust was evil.  Anything that might trigger it had to also be evil.  Thanks to that "evil" being a part of inborn nature, you and I are here and the human race continues.

Some of the "church fathers," like Augustine, felt so guilty about their youthful debauchery that they concluded sex was evil for anything outside reproduction.  Thus, we have millions of Catholics going through life feeling guilty and in constant fear of venial sin because they have thoroughly natural desires and sometimes fulfill them.  Many Catholic husbands and wives sleep in separate rooms to minimize their temptation to engage in non-reproductive sex.  Catholic families are often thrust into unnecessary poverty through a surplus of children because practicing birth control would result in that very "sin."  The only acceptable birth control, according to Catholic doctrine, is abstinence, although they will grudgingly allow the rhythm method.  Practicioners of that method are usually known as "parents" (parents with big families).  "Viva Papa!"

Those who think every hour should be spent groveling before a despotic deity and using his name like a mafiosi uses the f-word will be attracted to Islam.  It's clear that Mohammad had some psychological quirks and hangups. He certainly was a "control freak" and "male chauvinist pig" who wanted everyone saddled with a strict regimen of prayer and groveling.  It's brainwashing, pure and simple.

Do you like money and power, what people refer to as "success?"  There are plenty of gurus out there promoting that kind of "god" and ready to tell you that "greed is good."  You can do it too.  Just think of a unique new wrinkle or steal what someone else teaches, reword and rearrange it and make it your own.  It's done every day.

You get the idea.  All the great religious organizations and the families of offshoots that arose from them were set up by people or groups of people with a particular belief or concept they were convinced was the only belief or concept pleasing to "God."

If there is a human  attitude or quirk some lonely or domineering person wants to find support for in a group, there usually will be something out there for them.  If not, or if they just want to be the big authority and are determined enough, they can create it for themselves and usually be able to find numerous others with a similar bent to join them.

The easier mass communication becomes, the easier it is to do.  Things like the worldwide web, desk top and e-book publishing and Facebook make the old methods of print, radio and television of just the recent past look like ox carts by comparison.  The acquisition or manufacture will be easy.  Nothing material and tangible need come into play.  The idol is totally conceptual.

EARTH IS JUST ONE BIG "GOD FACTORY!"