Now mmmaaybe....

....there could be some sort of afterlife, but it wouldn't be anything religion has on offer, because of the inconsistencies I've pointed out.

And mmmaaybe there's a universal intelligence, but if so, it doesn't write books, least not lousy ones like the Bible, or Quran.
It'd have to be a vague Deist sort of God to be sure.

But I'd need evidence to believe in it.

But the faithful admit none will be on offer, so...

But given that, we come to the intersection of religion and politics.

I had a rant all cued up for this, but it was sort of sloppy, and Steve Zara just summed it up more precisely and succinctly than I was going to.

Link. Read More......

Facing the horror.

So anyway, when you lay the whole picture out for people, they react to it in any number of interesting ways....

....there is of course, attack/undermine the messenger, and that's the most boring and predictable, and to me is a white flag of surrender, because it doesn't prove any of what I've pointed out wrong, or fix the problems I've pointed out.
To me it reads as denial from fear, and fills me with pity.
But a bored irritated pity. Not worth conversing with those people.

Then you get your Richard Morgans, who run sucking their thumb back to the safe security blanket of their old illusions.
Which is saddening by itself.
But infuriating if a David Robertson type is leeching on that misery, and really showed me the stakes of the whole mess, and gave me resolve.

Then you get those who've already long ago seen the horror, and have made, to my mind, bad decisions about the whole thing.

Of course, there's the pre-emptive retreat into religious superstition, and if all it did was cradle people, I'd be saddened, but I might leave it alone, but the way they're all constructed, the bullshit always comes along with it, because they were written by the L. Ron Hubbards and Joseph Smiths of their day.
And those fuckers only gave a fuck about themselves.

And that leads right to the next stripe, that decide the world is shit, so why not look out for number one, and cash in; and these poor gullible saps are going to be sheep for someone, so why not be the one taking their money.

And that's how you get your Joseph Smiths, and L. Ron Hubbards.

And then you get the subset of that group, who while they do what they do, think they're doing you a big fucking favor.
These are typically also political animals, and it's where your Leo Strausses, and Dick Chenys come from.
They think they're "playing in the big leagues", and that they're big fucking heroes no matter how much blood, guts, brains, and eyeballs they get on their hands, but it's bullshit, and their crashing failure exposes it.

Then you get the subset of that group, who propagandise for the world of bullshit, and try to get you to love it, and like the Strausses/Chenys, think that's a big fucking favor.

Of course, you have to manage never to think too hard, or it falls apart.
Like religion.

So...critical thinking becomes evil in their little world that they've made for ya.

And I was almost persuaded for awhile, that maybe, just maybe, too much skeptical inquiry in the tender spots might break the machine, and turn everyone's little lives upside down, and chain react a blast wave of horror.
And a lot of authority figures and intellectuals have worried about that.
But, again, their failure exposes the bullshit.

Because if humanity really is in that bad of a way, and really is teetering on that fragile of a house of cards, all it takes is the fuckup of the self-apointed minority eletes just once in the right way to bring it all crashing down, and such a thing would be inevitable.

Well, IMO, it's happened, and we're all still here alive and breathing.
So, I'm plowing ahead with my little lecture series.

Next group of folks, is those who think they're doing you a favor, and also sincerely buy into what they're selling.
That's where you get your nicer more liberal clergy-folk.
But, sweet and well intended as they are, they sell a defective product, and the home office knows it.

The authors of the old Abrahamic faiths, are a strange mix of that type, the Strauss type, and the Hubbard type.
People didn't know as much back in those days, so it all kind of blended together.

But that the Bible was binded by pure politics at Nicea, means it all cancels out into Hubbard/Strauss types, because what went in suited their agenda, and has ever since.

Then there's the really disturbing type, the egomaniac who poses as the sweet/caring type, and that's where you get your David Robertsons.
The clergy is loaded with these guys.
It's very hard to tell if they buy their own bullshit, and think they're doing someone a favor, or know they're assholes, and never drop the act, but either way, their behavior makes it not matter so much.
They're just unpleasant.

Then you get those of the Strauss mentality, but are average shlubs who think they're part of the big club somehow.
I think they must've bought the whole chicken/Colonel deal.
This is where you get your cable news pundits, and just plain message board douchebags.

These folks are the ones that almost had me bullshitted to the "bullshit makes the crops grow", mindset, but, clearly it didn't take, and here we are.

And these are the types who in a pitched and heated debate, will go for attack/undermine/obfuscate.

Boring.

Ah, then we get to the group of people, who, seeing the horror, become bitter, and cynical, and consciously decide to become part of the horror.
There's no illusions at all with this type like the Strauss type, they're just straight ahead sociopaths.
These are the ones that the religious apologists try to tell you all atheists are, or will somehow become.
But, when you look at the world, it's typically these fucking business and government assholes.
And the powerless ones of that stripe, again, are message board assholes.

Then, of course there's the subset of those types, who had no cynicism or bitterness about it, and took gleefully to the evil.

And they're virtually indistinguishable from the former type, because of the masks they wear, but you can decode it from their actions, and their bullshit.

I struggle over sometimes whether G. Gordon Liddy and those like him are the former or the latter, but at the end of the day, you've gotta go "fuck it, he's an asshole", and move on.

But you see, all of those really break down to just two groups, the criminal and the victim.

And there are starry-eyed idealists like myself, who rebel against the whole twisted abuse relationship.

But, a lot of us get bitter and frustrated with the whole thing.

Happened to Mark Twain, happened to Edgar Allen Poe, happened to George Carlin (blessed be his name).

Happens a lot.
And it's really depressing when one of us gets so cynical and bitter they join the horror.

That shit really gives me resolve.

Frustration, or identity death?
I'll take the former.

Anyway, that's the whole humanity package.

And that's the full scope of the mess.

And it's not new information, Twain knew it, Tom Paine knew it, a lot of great minds knew it.

And they warned us, and tried to show us a better way, and people don't fucking want it.

And I get discouraged, but...things HAVE changed, it's not indestructible.
Slavery is gone, the older religions are dead, tyrannies have fallen, the world changes, and will change.
We don't have to put up with this shit forever.

And that's what started me off on this little rant series.

But it started further back.
Everything in all these rants exploded simultaneously inside my mind after 9/11.
It was like that scene in ST:TMP when Spock mindmelded with V'Ger.
But, it wasn't an epiphany, because like that scene, it was painful, and scared the shit out of me.
The whole damned puzzle just popped apart all at once.

And I didn't see how to talk about it without getting destroyed, so that scared me too.

So I wanted it not to be true, and tried to crawl back to my illusions, and stuck with Deism, and tried to swallow the American-okey-doke, and dabbled with Randism, and sat on my doubts.

But, in the background, I was asking probing questions, testing people, harder than I should have probably, I caused a lot of upset, but I was trying to ring out of someone "give me a reason to believe this shit!! Give it to me!! GIVE IT TO ME!! YOU'RE HIDING IT!!! YOU ACT LIKE YOU KNOW SOMETHING SECRET!!! GIVE IT TO ME!!!!!".

Well, I gave it enough years, and did my own research, there was nothing.

There is nothing.

This is all there is.

These people that act like they know some "big secret", that gives them power, and they're all smug and smarmy about it?
Nothing there.
All gas.

And the "big secret", they think they know?
It's the "big plan".
And it's bullshit.
It's just the whole Strauss thing.
The whole "their puny little minds can't handle what we boys 'in the big leagues', know, so we'll make the world so they can have their tiny little lives", deal.

And then of course, the losers who think they're in that club.

Well, what do the boys "in the big leagues", know?
Unless it involves aliens, it's just that it's all fake.
But that's no big fucking secret.
Like I said above, all these great thinkers knew it.
The knowledge is out there.
Pretty unimpressive 'conspiracy', if it's all out there.

But let's say they're right, and the "big plan", does us all a favor.

Why am I still alive?

It's bullshit.

I've shown why.

So, fuck it, I had to lay it all out there.
That's my way of facing down the horror.

It's been a big fucking relief to do so.

Feeling pretty damned great.
Hope you do too.

So, I'm full circle back to that 9/11 mind-explosion moment, and I've unloaded it, I'm unburdoned, and now we move on.


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But they don't want enlightenment.

They don't fucking want it.

They want the world of chaos, and entropy, and the violent God of Abraham and Isaac, and the bullshit box-canyon promises of religion, politics, and consumerism, and somehow, they think the party will last forever.

Or not.

Maybe that's where the whole doomsday death wish thing comes in.

And perhaps that's why you can't seem to impress upon people that it's ticking down, and we really need to shape up as a species.

Or, sometimes they do see that, but when they see the antidote is what I represent, they react against it.

Because they've been bullshitted with more propaganda.

It's "un-American", or commie, or un-patriotic, and they have an arsenal of slogans to drill into your mind with, and the status quo keeps lurching morbidly along.

And part of the okey-doke, is they'll hide behind the Bible, and when you go after that with logic, there's an arsenal of bullshit for that too.
And when you go through all of that with logic, then there's the old appeal to faith.
And then back to the theology, then faith, theology, faith, theology, faith.
And you quickly figure out it's another ride at the carnival.

And again, it's all just to keep this minority of weasels in charge.
Always has been.

And the whole machine isn't even complicated.
Four or five gears to the thing.

Just a basic setup of fear and greed.

And greed boils down to fear.
Fear of not having enough.
And of course we've got merchants of that whole little "virtue".

And you tell people how to get off the ride, how to be free of the bullshit and fear, and that a better world awaits out the other end of the mess,...and they don't fucking want it.

Because of fear.

And you look at history, and people like me have been holding out the world of truth and enlightenment for centuries, and people just don't fucking want it.

It's like some kind of abused wife situation.

You beg her, and she just won't leave, and won't press charges.

It really is like that, because the world of bullshit doesn't even make people happy.
That's what all the drinking, and drugging, and religions selling death wishes in the form of awful books is about.

And that's "the human condition", for you.

That's the whole ball of wax.

Always has been.

Yet somehow we survive all this bullshit.

And along the way, we go to the moon, and probe the solar system.

But think how much quicker we could've gotten it done, if history hadn't been such a dead crawl, with the ankle weight of bullshit on us.

But again, that's the human condition.

God help us.
Oh, right...


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Okay, Mike, so it's all bullshit....

....what have you got for us instead?

Wheeeelll....

....let's start with science.

Science isn't just guys in white coats with test tubes, like in some corny old industrial film from the 1950's.
This separate thing in a box away from normal living.

At its core, it's the study of things that are real.

If magic were real, its study would be science as well.
This makes "supernatural", a meaningless word.
You'd be amazed how many people I've run into that either can't, or stubbornly refuse to wrap their heads around that premise.
It can be frustrating.

Here's a little film on the scientific method that cuts right through the bullshit that I've always enjoyed linking to....

Pretty damned basic huh? It's a bullshit filtering mechanism, it even keeps the scientist from bullshitting himself. And as the film shows in excruciating wiggle-proof detail, it can't be sabotaged by some conspiracy agenda. The theories would break down, and the technologies derived from them wouldn't work. And thus, it would be found out. And we don't just owe our modern civilization to it, but our very lives. Virtually everyone reading this has a parent, or grandparent, or great-grandparent who was saved by vaccinations, or some other form of modern medicine. So, the movement afoot to lash out at, defame, or hamstring science annoys me to put it mildly. And one of the religious attacks on science, is that it's cold, and uninspiring... These people have got to be fucking kidding me... The wonders of nature as revealed by science and technology make Moses's burning bush, or any other Biblical "miracle", look tiny, and insignificant. The Hubble telescope pictures, the microscopic structures of life, the daily illuminating powers of the internet we daily take for granted, I could go on. But vast heaps of National Geographic, and Popular Science have beaten me there. Why, look at life itself. Think of the millions of sperms and egg combinations that could have been born instead of you. And then add that up over all the generations in your family. Then add that up over all the people in the world. How unlikely your birth is. How lucky you are to be alive. That's way more miraculous to me than the paltry things that typically get called "miracles". "To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air into gold...". -Dr. Manhattan, Watchmen. And we wouldn't understand the full nature of sexual production, and the odds involved, without science. Cold and lifeless? Reality as revealed by scientific inquiry has incredible revelatory power, and tells a way more incredible and uplifting story of our origins and place in the universe than any holy book ever written. Real life is better. And acts of real imagination and myth-making absent the taking things literally, complete with "thou shalt nots", are better. Well, you get the idea, but that's what I'm stumping for. Seems odd to me that I'd have to stump for life, love, and western civilization. But, that seems to be where we're at. Yes, I prefer our way of life to that represented by say, the Taliban, or shit, even Pennsylvania Dutch counry, or Salt Lake City Utah. I'm not ashamed to say so. I find it deeply disturbing that I should possibly have to be. Hey, maybe I'm naively utopian, who knows? America was a utopian experiment, and despite some rough patches, it seems to have worked. Let's keep going, says I. Let's see if we can get to starships, let's see if we can get all the way to TARDIS-es. More of that, less of the Taliban crap, y'know? That's the source of my impatience with it all, given that life can be looked at and lived that beautifully, and our goals can be that beautiful, then the bullshit I've ranted about just smears crap all over that to me. All of it, not just religion in the form of creationists fucking with schools, but all the goofy shit in our culture and politics that inch us towards the world in "Idiocracy". I mean, yeah, if you like the things I like, you're on my side, life, love, hope, democracy, the whole shmeal. All I'm adding is you don't need religion in the salad to have those things. I'm tired of hearing how "bleak", atheism is, and how "cold", evolution is for pointing that way, and how you NEED eternity to not fucking shoot yourself. It's an insult to me, it's disservice to yourself. Keep religion if you feel you must, but fer crying out loud, don't war on science. It's really the only hope we have. And hope is what we need, and what I'm also stumping for. As I said in a previous rant, one of religion's disturbing components is the death wish. You see it most feverishly in the Islamic world, but do we need any droplet of what that nuttiness stands for on our shores? Let's live for life, for chrissakes. Not death. Can we manage that much at least? Read More......

"Miracles", why they don't impress.

They typically come in two varieties....

....you've got your hurricane that kills everyone but a baby in a shed, and that's called "a miracle!".

That type always horrifies, yeah, God slaughtered that whole family, messed up that baby's life, but what a miracle...

Also, excellence in human endeavor gets co-opted for this sort of retroactive pattern finding, and that just annoys rather than horrifies.

OR, you get the full out trippy ghost visitation deal.

But, when you really think about it....

....aren't the stories always boring?

The ghost, or saint, or voice in the head, never says anything the person didn't know, or couldn't have thought of.
It's usually some fortune cookie sentiment, or instructions to find some mundane household item, or advice to add more fiber to their diet, or...y'know, dull shit.
That it was a spook saying it is the only fantastical part.

And you can totally get the same effect from LSD, or schizophrenia, or if you have the right sort of chemical makeup, long bouts with sleep deprivation.

And have you ever sat through an LSD story?
Aren't those just as mundane?
Yeah, sometimes they can be hilarious, especially if they end with the dude tripping over their ottoman into the puddle of dog piss on the rug,...but have you ever heard anything of cosmic relevance?

How come Jesus, or Mary, or Saint Jerome, or Kloktar the Venutian, never give the formula for cold fusion, or the blueprints to warp drive, or the protein sequence for universal cancer remission...or, y'know, something really awsomely helpful to the world?

Never comes, always the fortune cookie stuff.

What kind of sick game is being played here by these damned spooks?

Yeah, give me science.

The new nano-scale MRI, now that's a freakin' miracle.

Imagine the medical advances, the cures, the new materials that will come from the knowledge that will unleash.

The liberation from disease, and therefore liberation from despair those cures will bring.

And why didn't God help us out with that? Human ingenuity keeps delivering on all of these promises God seemingly bails on. And wonder why I'm more into empiricism. Read More......

Why truth matters.

Or, "what the fuck do you care?", part 2.

And/or "the war on bullshit", part 2.

And/or "my Batman moment", part 2.

Well, I think I've hammered home clearly enough by now...

....that I no longer wants us to live in a world built on lies.

And there's a big lie that everything would fall apart without bullshit.

Bullshit.

Let's pick that apart.

Let's say we poof away all the bullshit, and the world fucking blows up.

What scenario would cause that?

Only thing I could think of, would be something like the end of Watchmen.
Where we were cornered into a situation, where if we told everyone the truth, the Russians would nuke us.

Are we in such a scenario?
I don't happen to think so.

But let's pick that apart.

Any scenario along those lines depends on some other faction of human beings being terrified.

And they'd be terrified, because they've been pumped full of bullshit.

So the forces of bullshit are claiming that they're spreading their bullshit to counter other bullshit.
So, they're terrified, and full of bullshit themselves.

So it's all human beings being afraid of each other.

There's no need of it.

Especially when you see it's all bullshit.

Okay, let's go along with the idea for the sake of argument, and say that at the political level, bullshit really is the glue that holds the house of cards together.

Well, why does that mean we have to put up with bullshit in daily American life?

We don't.

I don't, and I'm breathing.

Feeling fine.

Feeling better since I got rid of bullshit.

But, maybe I'm bullshitting myself.

But then, that would mean a good portion, if not all my friends in my blog list are too.
But, they seem like they're on the ball.

I'm gonna go with that we're healthy and sane.

So, okay, there's 20 or so people right off the bat, that survive just fine without an intravenous drip of bullshit.

And branch out everyone they know, and everyone who knows them, you've got thousands of people off the bullshit feed.

Now, all these dictators show that it only takes one asshole to really, really fuck things up, so, if us non-bullshitters, us rationalists/skeptics are that dangerous to "the big plan", and we're in the tens of thousands, you'd figure the world would be a smoldering husk by now.

Clearly it isn't.

So, clearly, if we can go off the feed, everyone can, and we don't need bullshit in our daily lives.

All the bullshit from politicians, clergy, and advertising can be tuned right the fuck out and avoided.
It's really simple to do.

But, if everyone would just do that, all over the world, then there'd be no need for the bullshit at the political level.
And all this fear would go away.

But knowing that, takes the fear away for me, and it should for you, and if it can for you and me, it can for everyone.

So, you can poof the bullshit all away, bullshit isn't the glue, and that's just more bullshit.

It's all about keeping a minority of rascals in power.
That's all it ever was.

And I don't think people are stupid for swallowing the bullshit.
They've just been fucked with.
I think I've made that obvious by now, I've beaten on it countless times, but I still get accused in some places of calling stupid anyone who doesn't share my views.

No, I'm saying the perpetrators of this bullshit think that of you.
That's why they do it.
And they'll keep thinking it so long as they get away with it.

You'd think the anger would go up to them.
But, killing the messenger is part of the web of bullshit.

And maybe this sounds like a big conspiracy, but it's not, unlike the bullshit conspiracies, the evidence is everywhere, it's right out in the open, no smoke filled room, in your face, every day, and everyone plays their part in it, hoping they'll be left alone, and then they're not.

You get 9/11, and the financial meltdown.
Playing along didn't work.
The world of bullshit failed.
Let's wake up now, what say, folks?


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Why afterlife fantasies irk me.

Well, there's of course, the injustice and horror of the idea of Hell, and how disturbingly casually that gets thrown around as a wish on people in our culture.

Then you've got the poorly thought out notion of Heaven (Thanks, Jonathan), and the disturbing lengths some people will go to to get there.

And you've got the disturbing mental contortions that result from this whole Heaven/Hell deal, and how it's barely ever questioned in our culture.

And you've got the equally disturbing mental contortion of the necessity of eternity, and how it tells people that their lives are bleak and meaningless without it, and how it allows them to culturally get away with the insult of saying YOUR life is equally meaningless, yet there's something wrong with *you* if you protest or argue in any way.

And then you've got how it's all shielded behind this idea of comfort.

And a lot of other bullshit hides behind comfort, but you're allowed to poke around and question those things....

....and it just points up how much inconsistency there is in this goofy culture of ours.

Like I said in another rant, when it's the other guy's superstition, no one has any trouble seeing what the problem is....

...this speech from South Park really nails it.

Watch more South Park videos on AOL Video

...now, when it's a horrible charlatan like John Edward, we have no trouble at all seeing the problem, and speaking up against it.

The problem is obvious with anyone with a brain.

This vulture is not only exploiting grief, he's replacing the real memories of a real loved one with a dopey voice in a room.

There's very little that's uglier than that.

And all these mediums and psychics ply in that nasty trade.

Houdini knew it, he devoted the latter half of his career to debunking those motherfuckers, and he was a fucking hero for doing it.

BUT....replace John Edward with a minister, and ghosts with angels, and the pseudo-palliative somehow becomes acceptable.

And there's no logical reason.
Just culture.
As I've ranted previously, our culture is in dire shape, mostly a heap of slogans and superstitions, and I think we deserve better.

There's another disturbing mental contortion, and it's also something we deserve better than as individuals, and as a society, and it's this craving for death, this wish for it all to go away, and how it manifests in this whole end times/rapture bullshit.

There's no other way to frame it that isn't bullshit, if you really sincerely want the world to end, you're in a death cult.

And the Left Behind (thanks, Baron Scarpia, excellent review) books are creepy death cult literature.
And it's more exploitation by cynical charlatans.

The movie (ditto, B) is a piece of shit too.

Case you didn't know.

But yeah, that's why it bugs me.
Why mediums bugged Houdini, why John Edward bugs every-fucking-one, and knowing we deserve better as a society, as a species, and as individual human beings that I care about.

I'd have to be such a cynical evil fuck not to give a shit.

I could be lazy, and let myself be, but then I'd be no better than John Edward, and everyone's better than John Edward, or should fucking aspire to be.


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The problem of "eternity".

I hashed out this argument with someone once, and it was a real bang-your-head-on-the-desk one for me.
Led me around in circles, with multiple reset-button pushes, like arguing with Dianelos on RD.net.
Anyway, the argument goes like this....

Given that all things die, and all people die, and all that remains of you is memories, and given that all the people who remember you will die, and someday, even the things like art, and writing, etc, that you leave behind will decay or be lost, and given that someday, the universe, and thus everything in it will disintegrate, then life is meaningless, and empty, and depressing....UNLESS...

There's a God who watches everything, remembers everything, will remember you, and all of your works, and that memory of you will carry on like some download of you, and live forever in, presumably, Heaven.

And given all that, life only has meaning if there is a Heaven.

Therefore, there has to be a Heaven, and therefore, a God to put us there.

Wow....so many reasons why that's a dopey argument...

First of all "it makes me happy, so it has to be true", gets you nowhere.
It doesn't work for anything else, doesn't work for this.

"I can't find meaning unless I live in a chocolate factory run by redhead hookers, so I must believe I run a chocolate factory run by red headed hookers", is equally absurd, and would also get me chucked into the loony bin.

That there's no loony bin for this sloppy argument for the afterlife doesn't suddenly validate its logic.

Secondly, if you have a hard time finding meaning in your life here and now, how the fuck is having it to do for eternity going to fix it for you??

Thirdly, is this really a daily concern of people?
As my friend Oystein once quipped "I just can't enjoy my coffee without the aspect of eternity. Forget milk or sugar, I need the aspect of eternity".

How does one get through their damned day?

Are they really biting into a peanut butter sandwich thinking "mmmm, eteeernity, good thing this is no atheism sandwich, it'd be so pointless"?

How about taking a shit?
Are they glad that's on God's permanent hardrive?
Are they thinking "mmm, boy that was smooo-oo-ooth! I can't wait to relive that one forever!"?

Would there even be shitting in Heaven?
Or would there just be the holodeck booted memory of shitting?
Y'know, for those rare moments when you start to kind of miss it?

And if so, will God know which special ones you'll want to remember, or will he have had to memorize for you every single one, and you pick, and all those other ones will be sitting in his server wasting bandwidth?

Or, will there be a sort of averaging process that will compile a sort of universal shit memory that all the other Heavenly shits will draw from?

And will we all get our own personal averaged out universal shit memory, or will that clever rascal God lump one together from everyone's most pleasant shits, and give it to all of us?

Socialized shitting?

I mean, it makes sense, because the alternative, is poor old God has to store all those shits for you, and then let most of them go to waste.

Ah, but, if God is going to play little software tricks with our shitting, then what about our eating, and drinking, and fucking, and the usual activities one associates with Heaven?

If he plays Winzip with those memories, what's so Heavenly about that?
The point is it'll be brought back to us with perfect fidelity, or what's the point of eternity?

So, either God remembers everything, including the shits, or God plays software tricks with memory, but that's not fidelity, and isn't eternity, or option three, God fiddle-fucks with some memories, and not others.

How does he decide?

Seems fairest that he stores the whole thing, and then you can debug it all after.

But you're not God, you're sure to fuck it up.

And what kind of Heaven is that, where you have to spend the first 50 or so years playing hardrive spring cleaning with your Earthly memories?

And whether you debug it, or God debugs it, what gets debugged?

Surely traumatic memories that would make Heaven un-Heavenly.

Abuse, rapes, your own death if you were murdered, especially if it involved torture and rape...

But why stop there?
Why not when your goldfish died, or a messy divorce, or something awful you said while drunk, or...

But how much editing until you're not you anymore?
And what the fuck is eternal about that?

So, editing will be necessary, but editing invalidates eternity, indeed your humanity.

Okay, let's say there's no editing, and you'll be spending your eternity with all your memories including every single shit, and thus you'll be shitting for eternity.

Think of how long some of us spend on the toilet, especially once we get old, then add that up over fucking eternity.

We'd be spending billions of fucking years just on the fucking toilet!!

Sounds an awful lot like like Hell to me.

And going back, what about the really bad stuff like the abuses, etc?
You wanna go back and relive that?
Surely not.
If not, that sits collecting dust, and may as well be deleted.

If it's not deleted, then there's going to be a lot of wasted cosmic hardrive.
And okay, God's hardrive is infinite, because he's magic.
But still, what a lot of wasted energy.
And okay, God's energy is infinite...
But wasted energy is wasted energy even in infinity.
A wild goose chase would piss you off just as bad in Heaven for wasting your time.
Unless you'll suddenly have infinite patience once you become immortal.
But, then you'd be radically altered, and couldn't be said to be you anymore.

Fourthly, what age will you be in Heaven?
The baby you were ceased to exist when you were a child, and that child ceased to exist when you were a teenager, who ceased to exist when you got to your 20's who'll cease to exist when you get old.

Did any of those stages of your life fret over their oncoming non-existence when they became you?
Did childhood-you think his play and playthings were bleak and meaningless because it would all end?

So why look at life that way?

And again, what age would you be in Heaven?
Would you pick?
Whatever age you pick, all your other ages will effectively cease to be.
No eternity for them.
And why do you get to pick, and not baby you, child you, teen you, etc?
Or do they all get to live?
Will anyone choose to be a baby for eternity?
How about a fetus?
I think not.

Well geez, isn't that like throwing your baby self in the trash?
If our baby selves are to be so casually cast aside, then why are babies held so sacred in this life?

Maybe you become some twisted transporter fusion of all your selves.
...yuck.
Sounds like a Hell torture to me.

Having cradle cap, gum ache, diaper rash, AND acne, and raging hormones, AND arthritis, and gout, and rheumatism all at the same time?
And would you have every scar and bruise you ever had?

Seems pretty twisted.

Only other way, is if all your development stages fragmented into a bunch of mini-souls.
But that's not eternity, that's a bunch of little slices.

Have I beaten this to death enough?

Eternity is Hellish, and illogical, and the arguments for it are poorly constructed, and thought out.

It's death that gives life its meaning.

Knowing you have only this life means you won't want to waste it on stupid bullshit.

Anyway, when I argued with this person, he finally whined "why are you arguing so hard, why do you care what anyone believes?".

First of all, he put it up for public consideration, why bring it up, and then gripe when you talk about it?
Second, again, here's why.

*Sigh* well, didn't get through to him, maybe it'll get through to folks out there in lurker land, who knows?
Read More......

"Well, what the fuck do you care?"

I've gotten that one a couple times.

Why do you care enough about what people believe to rant about it so?

Wheeell...


First of all, why care about anything?
And why talk about anything?
Why even have language? Why not let education and discourse as we know it crumble?

Well, we have these things, we have this discourse in our society, we have this damned internet gizmo, so, let's use it, I figure.

And if you cared enough to ask me that question with your little typing digits, we seem to agree that far.

And in this country, we seem to have no problem hashing out political ideas.
The right and the left have no problem at all smashing their skulls together.
It's almost expected.

Religion, however, verboten.

And no one can seem to tell me why.

"Just because".

Well, "just because", doesn't cut it for politics, or anything else.

Why just religion?

More "just because"?

I either get an infinite chain of elaborately worded just-becauses, or the person runs away.

Well, I can assume there's some cosmic answer, that no human being can strain their lips into forming into words, and I have to keep my mouth shut until I die in anticipation of it, or I assume there is no answer, and plow ahead with these investigations, and observations.

Clearly, I went ahead with option two.
Option one wasn't getting us anywhere IMHO, and as my first official blog rant showed, I think it's important enough to pry open and look at like any set of ideas.

And I think compared to the mud wrestling match of politics, I've been pretty damned mild.

Go to a political blog, you'll see right-wingers saying left-wingers have a mental disease, and vice versa, and on and on.
Sooner or later, Hitler will be invoked.

So yeah.
And given the books of religion say even nastier things than that about the non-believer, me trying to be delicate, and sneak up on the subject has been a courtesy on my part.

But, I realize now, as I supposed in that first rant, there's no real way to tackle religion where you won't get venom thrown at you.
But, as I also said in that rant, given where the world is now, it's a discussion, and a debate that needs to be had.

I think.
I could be wrong, I could be persuaded.
But even that relies on opening the discourse.

Well, anyway, that's why I care enough to even discuss the topic of religion, but then there's the "but why do you trash it so?", element of the question.

Wheell...I'm an atheist, and I've been laying out why I'm an atheist.
I don't agree with these ideas, I don't find them to be divinely inspired, and I think they're harmful.
And I lay out why I think that.
I could be wrong.
I could be persuaded.
But again, that relies on opening the discourse.

Anyway, given I think that, I think atheism is a morally and intellectually superior way to manage one's life.
Otherwise, I wouldn't be one.

And I've laid out why I think that.
I could be wrong, I could be...well, you get the idea.

Okay, but why not leave it alone, keep it to myself, etc?

I suppose I could....

But, I'd have to be very uninterested and uninvolved in the world to do so.

I've become interested in the goings on in the world, because the world has gotten too small to avoid.
There was this little thing called 9/11, perhaps you've heard of it?

And looking into that little malfunction, it was unavoidable for me, wired as I am, to not peer into the world hard, and deep, and thus it was unavoidable to conclude there's a lot of bullshit in the world.

Given that, it was unavoidable not to peer into the sources of bullshit, and see religion was one of them.

And given bullshit is an inescapable problem in our shrinking little planet, it was unavoidable that I see it as something to fight against.

And I had that epiphany moment that made it inescapable to me that it had to be fought, or I'd simply lose myself.

Oh, there are of course, the other sources of bullshit, and I've outlined them too.

You've got your sources of political mind control, you've got advertising, you've got the deep seated cultural insecurities that a lot of the other bullshit springs from, you've got the knee jerk bullshit people lash out with when you poke at that bullshit, and then of course, you've got the superstitions, that are at the core of the world's religions.

And I bet ya, I bet ya good money, if I hadn't thrown prayer into that last one, EVERYONE would've gotten on board for that one.

When it's the other guy's superstition, the religious person has no trouble bashing it.
Ghostbusters? Fortune tellers? Crystal wavers?
How ridiculous!
What ridiculous fools those people are!

Hell, if it's the unpopular religion of the cultural moment, you can really let it fly.
"Islam?
Why, it's a barbaric mongrel faith!
Let's use the Quran as toilet paper!
HAW! HAW! HAWW!!"

Hmm, maybe that's why there's no answer to my questions in regard to why it's a hands-off subject.

There's really no rational answer.

It's all emotion driven.
You just not supposed to discuss it.
And you're just supposed to know this.
And this just because reasoning is some sort of "wisdom".
But no one is allowed to tell you, because you're just supposed to know, and if you just don't know, you'll figure it out eventually, if we beat on you enough.

Yeah, there are a lot of things growing up that hid behind that veil.

Bullshit, all of 'em.
Every last one.
To a tee.

It's an unimpressive argument, and the big secrets it hid were equally unimpressive.

If there's a better argument than that, please inform me of it.

Maybe it ruins "the big plan".

Hmmm...I admit, I'd kind of like to ruin the big plan.
I could be talked out of it, but again, no one has persuaded me it's a bad idea.
Again, the discourse needs to be open for that to happen.

Present me with good arguments, please, or I'll crush the lightbulb, I'll do it.
I don't think it'll be the end of the world.
If it is, convince me.

Okay, that's why I rant and rail period, and that's why religion is in the mix, but why harp on religion all the time, even in other rants?

Well, again, because that's the protected one.

And all the other forms of bullshit connect together.

So religion connects to all of them.

And, because I'm a comedian, and much of my humor derives from odd human behaviors that violate my sense of reason.
And religion has an infinite supply of those sorts of things.
Holy books are a comedy goldmine.

I could harp on the government, but there's a set boring pattern to their bullshit.
Greed, and authoritarianism, and that's been beaten to death.

And I could bang on commercialism more, but that just sucks the life out of me for some reason.
How many ways can you go MST3K on the bitch in the Glade commercials until you just want to go fucking die in a corner, y'know?

So, those are my intellectual, moral, and emotional arguments for why I care.

But, in the end, I guess it comes down to that I care because I care.

And all the arguments for not caring don't add up for me.

And the above explains why.

Now, from now on, I can paste the link to this if the question comes up again.
Saves me a lot of wear on the fingertips.
Read More......

Then there's that whole kooky Old Testament....

Abraham and Isaac.

That story always creeped the shit out of me as a kid.

Never could figure out why that was supposed to be a laudable/wonderful story...


All right, let's say some random ordinary jackoff walks up to you, and tells you to kill your child.

You'd tell him to go fuck himself, right?

Okay, what if the asshole wore a stupid little crown, and called himself King?

Still tell him to go fuck himself, right?

Damned straight, and you'd tell him where to cram that crown too.

Okay, let's suppose said jackoff has super powers.
Let's say he's General Zod.
Superman wouldn't do that shit.
Not even the evil drunken Superman from part 3.

So okay, General Zod flies up to you, and for a lark, commands you to kill your kid.

You'd still tell him to go fuck himself, right?

Sure, just before you were vaporized, but at least you'd maybe give your kid time to run and hide.
Hopefully somewhere lined with lead.

Okay, would it make a difference if Zod had a little crown on?
Throne, scepter, robes?

No?

Okay, how about if Zod were zapped with a growth ray, and stood as tall as the Jolly Green Giant?

Okay, what if Zod had a Romulan cloaking device on his giant belt, and was invisible, and could only be perceived as a booming voice from a cloud?

Okay, what if you found out somehow that giant invisible King Zod was your dad?

What if he was everyone's dad?

Giant invisible King Zod got horny one night, slingshot-ed the sun, went back in time, and knocked up everyone, and he's everyone's baby-daddy.

Still not impressed?

Okay, so why is it this wonderful test of faith to almost kill your kid if you merely change Z to G?

Hmm?

See? It's an awful fucking story.
It's an awful moral.

No one sane would kill their kid on some voice's say so.

And no worthy deity would ask it.

Ah, but God bailed out on that one with a "Ha! Just kiddin!", at the end.
Right?

Ah, but Jephthah's daughter wasn't as lucky.
Same scenario, dead kid.

Still a lovely story? Still a lovely moral?

How about Andrea Yates?

That was some horrific shit.

I don't know anyone who thinks that was anything but horrible.
And the woman was clearly nuts.

But really, what would be the difference if the voice in her head had been real?

Wouldn't it be just as horrifying?

So explain to me again how The Binding Of Isaac is inspirational.
I really gotta hear this.
Or maybe I don't.

Anyway, that's just good ol' Abraham.

Let's not even get into all the children and babies horrifically slaughtered by God's Chosen People.
The Midianites spring to mind.

All those dead babies,....and yet it's Christians who are big on the whole "pro-life", deal.
No one's been able to walk me through the logic of how that works.

Are atheists the only ones reading the damned Bible inside and out???
It seems like it....

Ah, but allegedly, "Jesus fixed all that old testament stuff".
Despite saying "think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill".

Okay, let's say though that he did abolish the old testament.

Well, what's all the sobbing and hand wringing over the Ten Commandments in front of court houses then?
It's obsolete, it's abolished, let's move on.

Well, point is, no one REALLY gets their morals from the Bible.
No one stones their kids, no one stones adulterers, no one burns their daughters to death after giving her time to mourn her virginity.

Your morals come from somewhere else.
And wherever it is, it's the same place that I get them.
That is, if you're from a liberal democracy, in the western world.

You wanna see what a world under real old time religion looks like, check out Afghanistan.
Ah, now there's a happenin' vacation spot.

Anyway, sometimes, I think of saying all this stuff to the Jehovah's Witnesses door-knockers.
But...nah, it'd make them come back more.

Read More......

At what price comfort?? part 2.

One of the excuses for the existence of religion, besides the bare-bones fear of death sorts of comfort, is the whole "it's people trying to make sense of the world", and that that "making sense", gives comfort.

But that has a dark side, that makes me question if comfort justifies it.

This practice of every time there's a disaster, or horrible accident, to either blame the victims, or some random person, or group of people for it.

9/11 was because of gays and feminists, Hurricane Katrina was because of gays, and...I think the Tsunami was gays and abortion if I remember right....

My friend, Philip ranted about it more succinctly and clearly than I could...linky.

And here's the latest horrible article that started it off.

Well, I'm sure the blackhearted notion of God killing innocent kids that had nothing to do with anything to balance some cosmic scales somewhere comforts sick people like that, but is their comfort worth anything to you?

Not me.

I mean, I'm not saying she's glad the kids died, but the suffering of the survivors is clearly giving her an "I told you so", bit of smugness.

Clearly, this notion of the universe being in some sort of balance, of order, even if it's an unhinged scary totalitarian kind of order, seems to be the comforting factor, and seems to override any rational sense of decency in this person.

Well, the universe "making sense", may be comforting, but is it worth stepping over corpses?
Is it really that fucking important?
We're talking about dead kids here for fuck's sake.

And then there was the scumbag who blamed the Australian bush fires on abortion.

Does that warm the cockles of your heart that their cockles are warmed?

No?
I hope not.

If not, then "comfort", isn't the highest value, and I'm right to question it.

Is stuff like this worth being able to say "yep, you're going to Heaven, granny"?

Like I said in the last one, I'm no economist, but I'm not seeing the balance.

And speaking of imbalance, I'm the bastard for knocking comfort, but the comforted seem to be saying "fuck your moral disquiet, fuck dead kids, I need my comfort".

But...that's okay...culturally, we accept that...

Why, exactly?

Now, if you're religious, and stuff like what I've linked to offends you, join me.
Wash your hands of incidents like this.

I don't see enough of that happening.

The silence reads to me like if you go after stuff like this, your own beliefs might fall apart, and if that's the case with anyone out there reading this, then my point is made about the effects of religion.

Stuff like this is why I say it's bad for you.

And why I say "fuck comfort".

Heroin comforts.
Somewhere, someone is deriving comfort from fucking a corpse.

Nope, comfort doesn't cut it.

Fuck comfort.
Read More......

Oh, and...

...apparently, the finale of Battlestar Galactica was this weekend. I didn't watch, as I hate the show, and knew from the outset that it would drop the ball, as all shows with a big "mystery", at their core always seem to do, but I've been catching up on reviews, and there's a big wave of disappointment.

Disappointment I gleefully anticipated.

Yes, I'm prone to schadenfreude, sue me.

Well, turns out the answers to all the big questions were "goddidit!!", and ludditism.

HAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!

Swill.

Fuck you, Ron Moore. :)

Tolja so, BSG fans.
Ah, well.
Always the next pop culture abomination. Read More......

Ruminations of the day.

So, I did a bunch of navel gazing this weekend, about the nature of belief, and of faith.

In between, I watched a bunch of Star Trek episodes and movies.
Don't ask why, I don't even know.
Just what I felt like watching.
Anyhoo, had the impulse to see Star Trek 6 (TUC), and Star Trek 1 (TMP) back to back for a bookend effect, to see in one fell swoop how the movie franchise evolved, and to mentally compare it to the trailer and leaked materials for the new one, and yadda yadda....

Plus, Star Trek has tackled the whole religion & faith deal over the decades, so I was hoping for some insight.

TNG's "who watches the watchers", is as atheist an episode as you're likely to get.
Picard reveals himself to be an unabashed atheist in that one, looks right down his nose at supernatural belief.

"Horrifying... Dr. Barron, your report describes how rational these people are. Millennia ago, they abandoned their belief in the supernatural. Now you are asking me to sabotage that achievement, to send them back into the dark ages of superstition and ignorance and fear? No!"
- Picard


But, TMP is an odd beast.
Structurally, it's a total knockoff of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

So, the message is somewhat similar.
Something about logic not being enough, so some magic extra human ingredient is needed.
They're fuzzy about nailing down what it is, in one breath, it's "irrational human emotions", in another, it's the imagination needed to postulate other dimensions, and the way it's worded, you get the idea it's also faith.

But faith in what?

Gene Roddenberry was a Bible-bashing secular humanist, so...it certainly wasn't Jesus.

Anyway, that added to my pre-existing state of navel-gazing, and I got to thinking, y'know, that even if the fact claims of religion are total bullshit, maybe this "faith", ingredient is something the human brain needs, that even if the things it has attached to over history are either foolish, or horrible, maybe "faith", is that little oomph in the brain that gets you up over that hill, or whatever.

Maybe.

And if that's true, maybe, just maybe, the human brain is just not ready to be universally secular, and let the babies have their bottles, because who am I to fuck with their little hallucinations if everyone has them?

...and then I see shit like this and these particular people don't just want their beliefs crammed into school, they want to destroy education itself, and I'm like "nahhh, this shit needs to be railed against, and railed against hard".

And it takes me right back to "at what price, this comfort?", and the Batman moment, and at the very least, organized religion is a fucking mess that I wish would go away with a whimper rather than kicking and thrashing and damaging things like it is.

And then I'm right back to faith IS the problem.
Faith is swallowing certain ideas without evidence.
And that's how you end up in these little clubs, and then the clubs go crazy, and do shit like in the linked article.

And Roddenberry knew that, so what was he getting at in TMP?

No fucking idea, and in the 70's I don't think America knew.
I think "faith in faith", and this impulse for a hippie-dippie secular religion, was where we were at at the time.

And wait, when V'Ger makes the leap of faith, it transcends into the higher dimensions.
Well...there you go, physical evidence.
That's what us atheists want.
If there's proof, it's not faith.
V'Ger did that shit, Kirk, Spock, and Mcoy saw it.

*Sigh*...lotta drugs in the 70's, I think I'll leave it at that.

And I'll stick with Picard's take on religion. Read More......

The Batshit Files (audio version)

Ta daa.
My first audio blog!

Thanks to Sharon, Steve, and Margaret for bugging me to do it. :P

Yeah, audio quality is a bit crunchy, but..eh.

Here's the text to read along with if you like.
(The Batshit Files)

batshit3 - Read More......

Bullshit/batshit of the day.

Glenn Beck's crying routine.

I don't really need to say more, do I?

If you didn't know that Glenn Beck was batshit, or that the crying routine was bullshit, well, as Lewis Black would say, I want you to wear tinfoil, so I know where you are.

I was going to link to Youtube clips of this shit...but it was too fucking painful to watch.

I'd rather listen to "Frankie Teardrop", again than watch Glenn Beck fake cry.

Fuck it, here you go, Frankie Teardrop.

Happy nightmares, keeds.



Little note while you watch/listen, Bruce Springsteen loves this song, and has done a cover of it onstage.

So, if you find yourself at a Springsteen concert someday, shout out a request for it.
It's a catchy little ditty, he just might belt it out for ya.

Me, I've got it stuck in my head, and keep humming it at unwelcome moments.
Try it in line at the bank sometime. Read More......

"The American Dream", how they got the chickens to side with Colonel Sanders.

How did they get poor working families to vote Republican?
That was a neat trick.

Like getting slaves to be Christian.
That was a good one too.

A factory worker or farmer never invented modern conservatism.
No way in Hell that happened.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Come on.

Especially not the "parasite", rhetoric you see thrown around, or the class hatred, or the terror of poverty, and the hatred of the poor it morphs into, and on and on.

Y'know, that whole mentality we've got going on in this country.

Clearly it's propaganda handed down from the Rockerfellers and Hearsts of the world.

Fuck those people.

I think how they sold it, was this delusion that you can be one of them if you just put enough years in.
Or if you invent the right magic widget.

So, once they get you fantasizing you are Rockerfeller, you adopt his worldview, and identify with guys of his class, and then you get to think you're a part of their little team, and then you give them votes, etc, etc.

These people don't give a fuck about you.
You're not on their team.
You're not in their club.
Wake the fuck up.
They don't give a fuck about you.

And they're not "self made".

No one is when you dissect the hell out of it.
Everything in life is a web of complex interdependence.

Hell, that fucking market they worship kind of depends on it.

Hey, maybe you can build yourself up with hard work, or invent the right widget, and be the next Bill Gates, who knows?
Maybe.
Big maybe.
This is the sort of country where you can do that sort of thing.
Granted.

But there's this dark side okey-doke that comes with it that's a pile of bullshit.
That nasty bit of junkmail slipped into the brochure.

And you saw it bare its fangs in those terrorized bawling faces in the crowd when McCain lost.

Was there any need of that?

I don't fucking think so.

These attitudes in our culture go to nasty extremes, and there's no need of it, except to fuel this little fairy tale that keeps the real people in charge in power.

I dunno what the antidote to it is, but it's unpleasant, it holds us back, and it needs to stop.

I suppose it could probably boil down to that little corner that gets turned where ambition warps into greed, and confidence warps into narcissism.

Well, in a country built on capitalistic achievement, it's no accident that narcissism is the American disease.

And I could let it go, but it hurts people, and makes them swallow bullshit.
Then you end up with all this division, and anger, and fear, and that leads us to the exact opposite of what we set out to be.

Again, I don't know what the antidote is, but it's the 21st century, time to move on, folks.

Stop listening to The Colonel, chickens.
There isn't corn in there, it's a guy with an axe.

Look out, is all I'm saying.
You wanna march up that little walkway, just remember that I warned ya.

Read More......

My favorite Bible passages.

Timothy 1:4

Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies

Whelp, that pretty much does in most of the Bible, and so much for the genealogies in Genesis 10, Chronicles 1-9, and Matthew 1.

Job 7:9

As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.

Dead is dead.
So much for afterlife.

Psalms 88:10

Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee?

Ditto.

Well, there you go.
Even The Bible says The Bible is bullshit.
Thank God for that. ;)
I mean, who knows, someone might've taken that stuff too seriously, and all sorts of awful things might have happened. Read More......

History of the internet part 4- Shmegalamonga!

So, after awhile on RD.net, Sharon talked me into blogging, and I dragged my feet on it for a helluva while, but I caved in, and made this joint.

And, I'm glad she did, I've really enjoyed it so far. Good place to vent and express myself, hope everyone else has enjoyed it.

Blogs are great, you can start with pretty much nothing, pick away at it, and after a month or so have a pretty good little site going.
Heh, and when you look back at that first entry, nothing is what I had.

The one entry, the profile with no picture, a plain text title, and after the first couple days, one friend link.

So, yeah, I've enjoyed these first few months of this little blog.
It's come together quite nicely.
I'm happy with it.
Hope you folks are too.
:) Read More......

My Batman moment.

At least that's my term for it.

See, Bruce Wayne had that moment when a bat flew into his window, and he knew the costume would be a bat, and then and there, he knew he was going to be Batman.

At essence, it's that moment where what you're going to do, and how you're going to proceed becomes crystal clear.

The Batman moment.

I had mine at RD.net.

Long boring story, I'll try to condense it...



I guess we start with David Robertson.

He's the author of the anti-atheist tract, "The Dawkins Letters", and it's a crappy book, and he's a little crap weasel of a person who's trolled the board there since before I ever got there.

I could ramble on about the horrible crap he's said, and the lie after lie, but...crap weasel sums it up.

Well, the one instance that always jumps out at me was the time he claimed to have consoled some couple whose baby had died, and then used that to segue into saying atheists wouldn't care, because "atheism sees the child as a disposable survival machine".

Not a nice guy.

Okay, now we get to Richard Morgan.

Well, he was one of the regular posters when I got there, and he seemed like a nice likable guy.
He was fairly well liked, part of the circle, pretty popular.

Well, one fateful day, he starts posting at David Robertson's board, whining about what big meanies the atheists are, and he can't believe what awful treatment poor David gets, and blah, blah, blah, and atheism is so depressing, blah, blah, blah, but he just can't bring himself to believe in Christianity because of what he knows, but he wishes he could, and could somebody help him, blah, blah, blah, and wah, wah, waahh.

And we're all fucking gobsmacked back at RD.net.
We can't believe this bullshit is coming out of him.
Whining what big meanies we were to not just David, but HIM, when we were always awesome to him (Richard) and were the best of friends to him.
And David? He got back what he dished out, he wasn't no fucking victim of anything.

So, the next day, is where the worm really turned, next day, he posts at Robertson's site about how he's all filled with joy, that he had this mind-blowing epiphany experience, and he's rediscovered Jesus, and he was there all along, and la de da de daa, and kissing David Robertson's ass sloppily and noisily, thanking him for "being in the right place, and the right time", and of course, Robertson is happy as a pig in shit, like, this is the ultimate coup for him, so he's grinding it all in, and being a total smarmy grinning twat.

It was just disgusting.
But whatever.
Screw drama.
And drama was what I think he wanted making it a spectacle.

We were disappointed, but like, fine, this makes you happy, Richard, we wish you well, bye bye.
Y'know?

Well, dude didn't stay away, kept trolling, and pulling bullshit, and we ended up telling him off, and parting on less friendly terms than the first time.

He still pops up every now and then.
Never pleasant.

But anyway, after his epiphany, I had my epiphany.

It hit me like a bolt of lightning, a violently strong sense of resolve and certainty, that that's it, that's the line carved in reality right there, those are the stakes, that sad frightened old man, or sanity.
That's what crawling back to theism looks like.
No going back. Ever.
My atheism snapped into sharp focus.
There was never any doubt in my conscious mind, I was never gonna go back to Deism, or definitely not Christianity, but, it clarified for me, I couldn't even retreat into the comfort of the fuzziest of superstition, not luck, no saying "please please, please", with my fingers crossed, nothing.
Cuz I saw the perfect illustration of what that retreat looks like.
It looks like Richard Morgan kissing David Robertson's ass, and it's horrifying and gross.
Like a woman with two black eyes taking her man back.

And with that image in mind, I knew I had to oppose with my thoughts and words all forms of bullshit.
The whole ball of wax.

I've been called to it.
Not mystically, but however.
In my genes, my upbringing, my experiences, the fabric of who I am.

My destiny snapped into focus then.
And there was no going back.

Every time I doubt, I think of the alternative, the opposite, and it's always Richard Morgan.
No, *head shake* no fucking way.
No fucking way.
That gave me Rocky determination.
I'd rather die than run away from reality like that.

Cuz that's the stakes.
That's what the world looks like when you let superstition take over.
Richard Morgan.
A big fucking bowl of Richard Morgan with David Robertson standing over it laughing and counting money.
No fucking way.
Nuh, uh.
No.

And I not only have my days of doubt if it's a worthy mission, but I have my days of doubt if it's hopeless, and Quixotic, and that if the fatalists are right, and humanity is a piece of shit, and the status quo is indestructible, and just shut up, and keep my head down, and live my dumb little life, and live it selfishly, and scrape for money, and buy toys, and say "fuck it", to everyone else, like the fucking greed-mongers of our culture do.

*Head shake*
No.

I couldn't wake up in the morning.
I have to be stubbornly optimistic, or I just can't fucking live.
And that's just that.

If it gets rough, I just think of Richard Morgan, and the rest is easy.
It's a stare into a dark abyss that shocks me back on track every fucking time.

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At what price comfort??

Comfort.

Religion is good because it gives comfort to people.
Ya hear that a lot.

This comfort component to religion is why atheists typically get blasted in the face as some kind of soulless bloodless demons for trying to mess with it.

I dunno about mess with, I think I only lay out the case for why I believe as I do.

I dunno, maybe I could leave the thing alone, and let people have their warm little fantasies,...but...that's not all it ever does, all the other stuff always comes with it.

Especially the whole Hell mess, and I believe I made my thoughts and feelings clear on that whole bit of business.

So, holding that aspect in my mind, that always makes me ask the obvious next question...

At what price your comfort?



I mean, just think of all the fear Hell has caused throughout the centuries.

All the childhood nightmares.

All the tears.

Was your comfort worth the tears of one child?
I'm not seeing it.
Someone's going to have to explain that one to me.

I'm no economics major by any means, but it seems to me the price of Heaven is way too high.

A system based on fear of torture, that's wow...if it were any other ideology or thought system, the horror would be instantly obvious to anyone.

It ought to be obvious when it scares children.
That first tear back in whenever BC should've been the wake up call.

But..apparently, people are SO damned scared of death, and thus crave Heaven so deeply, they'll pay that price.

But how much is too much?

Where does it stop?

Clearly the tears of children didn't shake the idea free.

And the inquisitions weren't enough.
And the crusades, and the conquistadors, and the witch burnings, and....

At what price, this comfort?

Is death REALLY that mind-numbingly terrifying?
Well, as I've shown, I don't happen to think so.
Seems to me the process treats us just fine.

The process of dying is the bitch.
But Heaven doesn't protect us from that.

So what's really being feared?
Non-existence?
Why fear that?
You don't feel anything.
That's the point.
And it's inevitable.
We're all going to do it someday.
May as well fear going to sleep.
That's a little slice of non-existence.
Who could live fearing sleep?
Sounds like another one of those Hell things.

Maybe it's the final loss of control.
That people won't be exerting their will on their surrounding universe anymore.
Maybe that's why people have all these elaborate wishes for the removal of their remains.
Cremated in a viking ship, mummified, frozen, etc.

One more last thing to make people do.

Yeah, if it were even just stuff like that, I could leave it alone, and shut up.
Go get fat on pie or something.

But...it never is.
It never stops there.
Start with fear of death, then you get Heaven, then there's a price of admission to Heaven, then it expands into a little set of rules, and the writers of the rules are always the sort of people that want a big fucking burial structure after they die, and you have to build it, and it just goes from there.

And then different tribes have different Heavens, and different rules, and so they fight!

At what price your comfort?

You open a history book, or just watch CNN for an hour or so, and it just bites you in the ass.
"No, this costs too fuckin' much".

Aren't we better than this?
Aren't we better than a system that threatens torture?
That frightens our youth?

And for what?
Comfort?
Are you fucking kidding me?

I dunno, maybe there really is an equation that connects those two things together.
Funny that it's not taught in every school.
Seems like a useful thing to know.
Geez, could you imagine if that formula were applied to our economic system?
That would fix up a few things.

Yeah, I'm not going to wait for it to appear.

The price is too high, fuck comfort.
Fuck comfort.
I said it.

How about love? How about family? How about friends? Isn't that comfort enough?
And isn't life precious enough all by itself?
Why does there have to be this cosmic "meaning", bestowed by the universe?
Doesn't your life have meaning all by itself?
You can't love the people around you without this stuff?
Without this extra bit of magic dust?
This magic dust that costs a fucking fortune in blood by the way.

That's the part that sticks in my craw.
If it were just sad, baleful, wish-thinking, and fear, and insecurity, I could almost let it go.
I don't know for sure if I really would or not, it would still certainly make me sad, and frustrated, and disheartened.
But I could maybe let it go.
Maybe.
But that price tag, son of a bitch.
And we all pay it.
And no one asks.

And you're a bastard for piping up about it.

(Does scales gesture with hands)
Yeah, blood, war, fear, lies, shame, lies, lies, fear,....comfort.
Something's out of balance here.

Hey, maybe it's me.
Like I said, maybe someone could explain it to me.
No one has yet.
I begin to doubt anyone can.

But, maybe I peer into this stuff too much.
It is my nature after all.

Maybe you're supposed to "let life just wash over you", and don't worry about the puppetmasters.
I've thought about it.
Can't do it.
Ain't wired for it, there's no going back.
So, these are the thoughts I have, and this is what I see.

A world out of whack, out of proportion, full of bullshit, and I take notes on the whole thing.
And they accumulate in rants like this.

Rants with cheery messages like "fuck your comfort!!".

Why aren't I embraced to America's bosom?
Shocking.
;)


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Why the whole "Hell", idea perturbs me.

The whole idea behind the whole Heaven/Hell fantasy seems to be this primal notion of justice.

And most people who believe in Hell just imagine the little watered down cultural meme we've had drilled into us by movies, and cartoons, et cetera, of some dead guy who pisses us off, say Saddamm Hussein, getting a hot foot, and a pitchfork poke in the bum by a cackling dude in red pajamas, and we smile, and go about our day.

But...like most things in this doofy culture, when you really stop, and really think about it....what a bunch of bullshit.

When you REALLY think about it, there's no "justice", to be had with this little fable, and it erases even the alleged purpose for having the idea.

Justice?? Nothing of the kind.

Lemme give you a visual fix on the problem...



Imagine a solid steel ball in the middle of the Sahara desert.
Let's make it, oh, 10 miles in diameter let's say.

Big fuckin' ball.

And let's say every few decades to a century, the jet stream is just right, and sends a migrating bird off course, and into the path of this ball.

And let's say every few thousand times, a bird passes close enough to the ball, that it gently brushes the ball with the tip of one of its wings.

By the time this wing brushing action GRINDS THE BALL AWAY, it will only be the BEGINNING of eternity.

Now imagine a giant gumball machine dispensing new balls to continually renew the cycle.

Then imagine a giant trailer truck full of these gumball machines.

Now imagine a warehouse packed full of such trailer beds.

Oh yes, STILL only the BEGINNING of eternity.

And this is how long Hell fucking lasts.

Now imagine the worst crime you can imagine, eh, let's say The Holocaust.

Hitler was a pretty bad customer, let's go with the common Christian assertion "if Hitler doesn't deserve Hell, no one does".

All right, fine, Hitler in Hell.

Now, have you ever burned your finger on a candle, or a match, or a piece of hot metal, say a stove burner?
Remember how much that really, really, really fucking hurts??
Imagine that all over your fucking body.
It's mind blowing to try to fathom.
Some people don't need to struggle to imagine, there are a lot of burn victims out there.
It's really fucking horrific.

And this is what awaits in Hell.
None of this "in separation from God", bullshit, right there in the bible, "lake of fire", look it up.

Now, go back to those steel balls, that's how long you fucking burn.

Okay "Hitler deserves it", you say?

All righty then, how about your generic crime of passion murder?
Same as the holocaust?
Come on now.
We lose justice right out of the gate with that leap of illogic.
The convenience store robbery that goes wrong gets the same sentence as the fucking Holocaust?
Come on.
Okay, let's be really liberal, and say...a human life is so precious, that to take one equals...a thousand years of fire up the asshole.
Regardless of circumstance.
Accident, misadventure, cold calculated murder plot, no matter what, a thousand years of fire up the asshole.

Well, add up all the people Hitler killed, not just in the holocaust, but let's get greedy, and blame every death of WWII on the motherfucker, Soviets, Japanese, Brits, American, everybody, and round it upward, let's say he gets a sentence of 30 billion years.

Okay, my math is no doubt sloppy here, but let's just go with this number.

30 billion years of fire up the asshole for Hitler.

That ought to cover it, shouldn't it?

People change in regular jail for regular sentences.
I should think 30 billion years of fire up the asshole would be a fucking transformative experience for even Hitler.

After 30 billion years of fire up the asshole, I would think Hitler would be really, really, really, really, REALLY sorry.

Fuck, I bet he'd hit that point around week one of that shit, tops.
TOPS.
Probably MINUTE one.

But no, Adolph, you haven't burnt enough to slake our infantile bloodlust yet, roast for 30 billion years, then we can feel good about ourselves.

Okay, so 30 billion years, he's suffered enough by even insane mathematics, and he's pretty much forsaken his doofy ideas of national socialism, and Aryan blood purity, and he's really fucking sorry now.

Ah, but no, the steel ball clock awaits, and eternity still sprawls before him.

See what I'm getting at?

There's literally nothing a human being can do to deserve this.
It's injustice.
In it's most pure and smash-you-over-the-head-obvious fucking form.

And that's Hitler, just think of all the other regular shlubs who are supposedly going to this place.
The adulterers, the shoplifters, the fatasses, the chronic masturbators, and on and on.

Think of all the people day in and day out that are genuinely wished to Hell by some fundie nut.

Now imagine the mindset of the people that really do wish this on people.
For petty fucking shit.
Petty childish fucking shit.
Not returning the hedge trimmers for a month.
Not writing a "thank you", card for the Christmas fruitcake the person didn't even want because your fruitcake fucking sucks.
On and on, terabytes of wasted neural impulses poured into this Hell crap.

And if you call it lunacy....there's something wrong with YOU.

And this is where we're at in our development I guess.

But come on folks, when you reason it through like that, it just SCREAMS OUT so fucking OBVIOUSLY that not only is this is an idea that human beings thought up, but primitive humans, who didn't think this shit through too hard, and given that they were primitive, were governed by VERY childlike and vicious passions.

Heaven & Hell are not a system of justice, it's a loony tantrum-reacted revenge fantasy of a primitive people.
An angry suppressed people on top of that.

It's a nasty fable that has no place in the 21st century.

If you want justice, let's bend over backwards to have it here in this life.
Want everything Hitler stood for annihilated?
Make sure Nazism never rises to power again.
Cherish liberty.
Protect it.
And use it.
Speak your mind.
Don't let fear stifle you.
Especially not of Hell, or someone who threatens you with it.
And don't be emotionally blackmailed by the fear of others, that's just as bad.
That's the worst part, the control these ideas have become a self fulfilling prophecy of tyranny.
Cherish your liberty, and use it.
And don't bow to fear.

Who knows, something like Heaven might arise.

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