The Other People
In case you haven't seen this one (thanks, Oberon Zell!):
"We Are the Other People"
by Oberon Zell

"Ding-dong!" goes the doorbell. Is it Avon calling? Or perhaps Ed McMahon with my three million dollars? No, it's Yahweh's Witlesses again, just wanting to have a nice little chat about the Bible...
Boy, did they ever come to the wrong house! So we invite them in: "Enter freely and of your own will..." (Hey, it's Sunday morning, nothing much going on, why not have a little entertainment?) Diane and I amuse ourselves watching their expressions as they check out the living room: great horned owl on the back of my chair; ceremonial masks and medicine skulls of dragons and unicorns on the wall; crystals, wands, staffs, swords; lots of Goddess figures and several altars; boa constrictors draped in amorous embrace over the elkhorn; white doves sitting in the hanging planters; cats and weasels underfoot; iron dragon snorting steam atop the wood stove; posters and paintings of wizards and dinosaurs and witchy women, some proudly naked; sculptures of mythological beasties and lots more dinosaurs; warp six on the star-filled viewscreen of my computer; a five-foot model of the USS Enterprise and the skeleton of a plesiosaur hanging from the ceiling; very, very many books, most of them dealing with obviously weird subjects... To say nothing of the great horned owl perched on the back of my chair and the Unicorn grazing in the front yard. You know; early Addams Family decor.

And then, of course, it being late in the morning, you can expect Morning Glory to come wandering out naked, looking for her wake-up cup of tea. Morning Glory naked is a truly impressive sight, and the Witlesses look as if she'd set titties on stun as they stand immobilized, hands clasped over their genitals. With the stage set and all the actors in place, the show is ready to begin.

Their mission, of course, it to save our heathen souls by turning us on to "The Word of the Lord" - their Bible. I guess they figure some of us just haven't heard about it yet, and we're all eagerly awaiting their joyous tidings of personal salvation through giving our rational faculties to Jesus. Every time they come around, I look forward to trying out a new riposte. Sure, it may be cruel and sadistic of me, but hey, I didn't call them up and ask them to come over; they entered at their own risk!
This time should be pretty good. After letting them run off their basic rap while lovely Morning Glory serves us all hot herb tea, I innocently remark: "But none of that applies to us. We have no need for salvation because we don't have original sin. We are the Other People."

"Hunh? What?" they reply eloquently. It's clear they've never heard this one before.

"Right," I say. "It's all in your Bible." And I proceed to tell them the story, using their own book for reference:
Genesis 1:26 - The [Elohim] said, "Let us make humanity in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild beasts and all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth."
Elohim is a plural word, including male and female, and should properly be translated "Gods" or "Pantheon."
27 The Gods created humanity in the image of themselves, In the image of the Gods they created them, Male and Female they created them.

28 The Gods blessed them, saying to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all living animals on the earth."

Now clearly, here we are talking about the original creation of the human species: male and female. All the animals, plants, etc. have all been created in previous verses. This is before the Garden of Eden, and Yahweh is not mentioned as the creator of these people. The next chapter talks about how Yahweh, an individual member of the Pantheon, goes about assembling his own special little botanical and zoological Garden in Eden, and making his own little man to inhabit it:
Gen 2:7 - Yahweh fashioned a man of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath of life, and thus the man became a living being.

8 Yahweh planted a garden in Eden which is in the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned.

9 Yahweh caused to spring up from the soil every kind of tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, with the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden.

15 Yahweh took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden to cultivate and take care of it.

Now this next is crucial: note Yahweh's precise words:
16 Then Yahweh gave the man this admonition, "You may eat indeed of all the trees in the garden. 17 Nevertheless of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat, for on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die."
Fateful words, those. We will refer back to this admonition later.

Then Yahweh decides to make a woman to go with the man. Now, don't forget that the Pantheon had earlier created a whole population of people, "male and female," who are presumably doing just fine somewhere "outside the gates of Eden." But this setup in Eden is Yahweh's own little experiment, and will unfold to its own separate destiny.

21 So Yahweh made the man fall into a deep sleep. And while he slept, he took one of his ribs and enclosed it in flesh.

22 Yahweh built the rib he had taken from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man. Right. Man gives birth to woman. Sure he does. But that's the way the story is told here.

25 Now both of them were naked, the man and his wife, but they felt no shame in front of each other.
Well, of course not! Why should they? But take careful note of those words, as they also will prove to be significant . . .

Now this next part is where it starts to get interesting. Enter the Serpent:
Gen. 3:1 - The serpent was the most subtle of all the wild beasts that Yahweh had made. It asked the woman, "Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?"

2 The woman answered the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden. 3 "But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, 'You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death'"

4 Then the serpent said to the woman, "No! You will not die! 5 "God knows in fact that on the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil."

What a remarkable statement! "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil." The Serpent directly contradicts Yahweh. Obviously, one of them has to be lying. Which one, do you suppose? And, if the serpent speaks true, wouldn't you wish to eat of the magic fruit? Wouldn't it be a good thing, to become "like gods, knowing good and evil"? Or is it preferable to remain in ignorance?

6 The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and that it was desirable for the knowledge that it could give. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She gave some also to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.

7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized that they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together to make themselves loincloths.

The author makes an interesting assumption here: that if you realize you are naked you will automatically want to cover yourself. Further implications will unfold shortly...
8 The man and his wife heard the sound of Yahweh walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from Yahweh among the trees of the garden. 9 But Yahweh called to the man. "Where are you?" he asked. 10 "I heard the sound of you in the garden," he replied. "I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid." 11 "Who told you that you were naked?" he asked. "Have you been eating of the tree I forbade you to eat?"

And so the sign of the Fall becomes modesty. Take note of this. The descendants of Adam and Eve will be distinguished throughout history from virtually all other peoples by their obsessive modesty taboos, wherein they will feel ashamed of being naked. It follows that those who feel no shame in being naked are, by definition, not carriers of this spiritual disease of original sin!
12 The man replied, "It was the woman you put with me; she gave me the fruit, and I ate it."

Right. Blame the woman. What a turkey! 13 Then Yahweh asked the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman replied, "The serpent tempted me and I ate." So of course she blames the serpent. But just what did the serpent do that was so evil? Why, he called Yahweh a liar! Was he wrong? Let's see...

21 Yahweh made clothes out of skins for the man and his wife, and they put them on. Out of skins? This means that Yahweh had to kill some innocent animals to pander to Adam and Eve's new obsession with modesty!

And now we come to the crux of the Fall. Yahweh had said back there in chapter 2:17, regarding the fruit of the tree of knowledge, that "on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die." The Serpent, on the other hand, had contradicted Yahweh in chapter 3:4-5: "No! You will not die! God knows in fact that on the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil." So what actually happened? Who lied and who told the truth about this remarkable fruit? The answer is given in the next verse:
22 Then Yahweh said, "See, the man has become like one of us, with his knowledge of good and evil. He must not be allowed to stretch his hand out next and pick from the tree of life also, and eat some and live forever."

Get that? Yahweh himself admits that he had lied! In fact, and in Yahweh's own words, the Serpent spoke the absolute truth! And moreover, Yahweh tells the rest of the Pantheon that he intends to evict Adam (and presumably Eve as well) to keep them from gaining immortality to go with their newly-acquired divine knowledge. To prevent them, in other words, from truly becoming gods! So who, in this story, comes off as a benefactor of humanity, and who comes off as a tyrant? THE SERPENT NEVER LIED!

This story, to digress slightly, bears a remarkable resemblance to a contemporary tale from ancient Greece. In that version, the Serpent (later identified as Lucifer, the Light-Bearer) may be equated with the heroic titan Prometheus, who championed humanity against the tyranny of Zeus, who wished for people to be mere slaves of the gods. Prometheus, whose name means "forethought," gave people wisdom, intelligence, and fire stolen from Olympus. Moreover, he ordained the portions of animal sacrifice so that humans got the best parts (the meat and hides) while the portion that was burned to the gods was the bones and fat. In punishment for this defiance of his divine authority, Zeus condemned Prometheus to a terrible punishment for an immortal: to be chained to a mountain in the Caucasus, where Zeus' gryphon/eagle (actually a Lammergier) would devour his liver each day. It would grow back each night. Zeus promised to relent if Prometheus would reveal his great secret knowledge: Who would succeed Zeus as supreme god? Prometheus refused to tell, but history has revealed the answer...The interesting thing about all this is that the Greeks properly regarded Prometheus as a noble hero in his defiance of unjust tyranny. One may wonder why the Serpent is not so well regarded. On the contrary, snakes are loathed throughout Christiandom.

23 So Yahweh expelled him from the garden of Eden, to till the soil from which he had been taken. 24 He banished the man, and in front of the garden of Eden he posted the cherubs, and the flame of a flashing sword, to guard the way to the tree of life.
So that's it for the Fall. But the story of Adam and Eve doesn't end there.

Gen 4:1 - The man had intercourse with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain...
2 She gave birth to a second child, Abel, the brother of Cain. Now Abel became a shepherd and kept flocks, while Cain tilled the soil. 3 Time passed and Cain brought some of the produce of the soil as an offering for Yahweh,
4 while Abel for his part brought the first-born of his flock and some of their fat as well. Yahweh looked with favor on Abel and his offering. But he did not look with favor on Cain and his offering, and Cain was very angry and downcast.
Well, why shouldn't he be? Both brothers had brought forth their first fruits as offerings, but Yahveh rejected the vegetables and only accepted the blood sacrifice. This was to set a gruesome precedent:
8 Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let us go out;" and while they were in the open country, Cain set on his brother Abel and killed him.

Accursed and marked for fratricide, 16 Cain left the presence of Yahweh and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
We can assume that the phrase "left the presence of Yahweh" implies that Yahweh is a local deity, and not omnipresent. Now Eden, according to Gen. 2:14-15, was situated at the source of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, apparently right where Lake Van is now, in Turkey. "East of Eden," therefore, would probably be along the shores of the Caspian Sea, right in the Indo-European heartland. Cain settled in there, among the people of Nod, and married one of the women of that country. Here, for the first time, is specifically mentioned the "other people" who are not of the lineage of Adam and Eve i.e., the Pagans.
So let's look at this story from another viewpoint: There we were, around six thousand years ago, living in our little farming communities around the Caspian Sea, in the land of Nod, when this dude with a terrible scar comes stumbling in out of the sunset. He tells us this bizarre story, about how his mother and father had been created by some god named Yahweh, and put in charge of a beautiful garden somewhere out west, and how they had gotten thrown out for disobedience after eating some of the landlord's forbidden magic fruit of enlightenment. He tells us of murdering his brother, as the god of his parents would only accept blood sacrifice, and of receiving that scar as a mark so that all would know him as a fratricide. The poor guy is really a mess psychologically, obsessed with guilt. He is also obsessively modest, insisting on wearing clothes even in the hottest summer, and he has a hard time with our penchant for skinny-dipping in the warm inland sea. He seems to believe that he is tainted by the "sin" of his parent's disobedience; that it is in his blood, somehow, and will continue to contaminate his children and his children's children. One of our healing women takes pity on the poor sucker, and marries him...
17 Cain had intercourse with his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. He became builder of a town, and he gave the town the name of his son Enoch.

With both of their first sons not turning out very well, Adam and Eve decided to try again:
25 Adam had intercourse with his wife, and she gave birth to a son whom she named Seth...26 A son was also born to Seth, and he named him Enosh. This man was the first to invoke the name of Yahweh. Now it doesn't mention here where Seth's wife came from. Another woman from Nod, possibly, or maybe someone from another neolithic community downstream in the Tigris-Euphrates valley. But her folks also, cannot be of the lineage of Adam and Eve, and must also be counted among "the other people."

But whatever happened to Adam? After all, way back there in chapter 2:17, warning Adam about the magic fruit of knowledge, Yahweh had told him that "on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die." So, when did Adam die? Gen. 5:4 - Adam lived for eight hundred years after the birth of Seth and he became the father of sons and daughters. 5 In all, Adam lived for nine hundred and thirty years; then he died.

Hey, that's pretty good! Nine hundred and some odd years isn't bad for a man who's been told he's gonna die the next day! Well, the story goes on, and maybe next time the Witlesses come to visit I'll tell more of it. But suffice it to say that those of us who are not of Semitic descent (i.e., not of the lineage of Adam and Eve) cannot share in the Original Sin that comes with that lineage. Being that the Bible is the story of that lineage, of Adam and Eve's descendants and their special relationship with their particular god, Yahweh, it follows that this is not the story of the rest of us. We may have been Cain's wife's people, or Seth's wife's people, or some other people over the hill and far away, but whichever people the rest of us are, as far as the Bible is concerned, we are the Other People, and so we are continually referred to throughout. Later books of the Bible are filled with admonitions to the followers of Yahweh to "learn not the ways of the Pagans..." (Jer 10:2) with detailed descriptions of exactly what it is we do, such as erect standing stones and sacred poles, worship in sacred groves and practice divination and magic. And worship the sun, moon, stars and the "Queen of Heaven." "You must not behave as they do in Egypt where once you lived; you must not behave as they do in Canaan where I am taking you. You must not follow their laws." (Lev 18:3) For Yahweh, as he so clearly emphasizes, is not the god of the Pagans. We have our own lineage and our own heritage, and our tale is not told in the Bible.

We were not "made" like clay figurines by a male deity out of "dust from the soil." We were born of our Mother the Earth, and have evolved over aeons in Her nurturing embrace. All of us, in our many and diverse tribes, have creation myths and legends of our origins and history; some of these tales may even be actually true. Like the descendants of Adam and Eve, many of us also have stories of great floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other cataclysms that wiped out whole communities of our people, wherein "I alone survived to tell the tale." Nearly all of our ancestral tribes (and especially those of us who today are reclaiming our own Pagan heritage) lack that peculiar obsessive body modesty that seems to be a hallmark of the original sin alluded to in the story of the Fall. We can be naked and unashamed! Why, our Goddess even tells us, "as a sign that you are truly free, you shall be naked in your rites." Not being born into sin, we have no need of salvation, and no need of a Messiah to redeem our sinful souls. Neither heaven nor hell is our destination in the afterlife; we have our own various arrangements with our own various deities. The Bible is not our story; we have our own stories to tell, and they are many and diverse. In a long life, may you get to hear many of them..

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU LOSE SOMEONE TO RELIGION

It’s a hard thing to face; that your long-time friend or family member is now under the control of a religious group. Your first instinct may be to argue with them over dogma or doctrine they’ve begun quoting, but that only makes it worse. So how do you know that it’s no use arguing? How do you know they’re – to be frank – not worth arguing with?

1) They state their case in loaded terms unnecessarily. “Trumped up” instead of “false.”
2) They now find murder, even mass slaughter, acceptable and even necessary in certain cases.
3) They refuse to answer direct questions, instead answering with repetitions of memorized phrases. This will escalate into personal insults pretty quickly.
4) No appeal to reason will be considered. They may say they don’t need to think about it; they know.
5) They continually state that you don’t know what you’re talking about, without providing any examples or actual information.
6) Their only source is a sacred text and they feel that is sufficient.
7) They take any disagreement or questioning as a personal insult and affront.
8) They drag previous arguments and past punishments or judgments into the discussion.

The reason you shouldn’t argue with such a person is because it’ll increase your frustration without accomplishing anything. Any reasoning, any facts, any logic you try to use to clear up what seems like a simple failure of thought may brand you as an enemy of their true faith. They’ve been soaking up rote phrases, a feeling of belonging to a group of people they perceive to be like themselves, and the idea that they’re special and on a sacred mission. They’re feeling complete bliss knowing they’ve been chosen by god. They’ve probably been told that people will try to dissuade them and you’ve just become that enemy.

Now what? There are myriad sites full of advice about how to begin deprogramming, but these are of no use until the persons themselves desire to use them. If you try to trick them or slip some facts where they’re sure to see them, they’ll only become further alienated and reject your overtures more forcefully. It’s important to remember that many religious groups will defend these new members with threats and actual violence to prove their commitment and loyalty. It would be unwise to stir up that possibility. If you’re prepared to storm the castle (as it were) and rescue this person, be prepared for reprisals from the group and from the rescuee. They won’t thank you for dragging them away from what they see as the best thing that ever happened to them; in fact the only meaningful thing that’s ever happened to them. They’re getting a religious high, and your actions, to their mind, are pulling them right out of heaven. The resentment can run deep. Because of the possibility that the group may be dangerous, you have to assume the worst and go in with all the manpower and all the legal backing you can get already in place. It’s up to you whether to take this step, but if you’re thinking about it get some expert advice first. It’s not something you can undo if it doesn’t work out.

The one thing you shouldn’t do is make it clear that you’re cutting them out of your life forever. This only reinforces the indoctrination which says the world is against them. Part of the strategy for keeping their convert is for the group to attempt to isolate them from former friends and family. The best strategy may be to ignore the whole thing, avoid talking about any hot-button issues, and remain calm and reasonable throughout. It may still be possible to share meals, just stay away from the news. At some point you will have to decide whether the friendship or family tie is wise or even possible to continue. Sometimes a convert sees their mistake and seeks escape. Should that happen, you’ll want to be the person they’ll turn to. If you decide not to wait it out, make sure the cut is clean and complete. For your own safety, don’t give either the convert or the group any reason to seek reprisal.

THOUGHTS ON GOD AND CHRISTMAS

So you have this idea about a Great Being. You can’t prove it, you can only show that a lot of people agree with you. On this basis, you’re willing to murder people for disagreeing. Not just murdering, but torturing innocents such as children and even pets! Because of something you can’t prove, and they have the gall to disagree with you? Really? And you call that moral?

And if they disagree with your views on anything else, the same curse applies – they should be killed. If they think marriage is different than you say, or slavery, or sex, or they disagree about which foods are “proper” (though none of them is poison), or any damned thing at all, they should be killed. If their skin is a different color, if they speak a different language, DEATH. And you think you are more moral?

You build mega-churches, pull in mega-crowds, and collect mega-bucks on this basis, all tax-free. You spend this money on alcohol, drugs, sex and prostitution, and you call that moral superiority. When a monkey cheats on its spouse, it hides that fact from its spouse and from the whole community, just as you do. You aren’t even morally superior to a MONKEY.

You do not have the right to any of these behaviors. You should not be exempt from taxes just because you’re exempt from obeying the moral law. 84% of prisoners in the U.S. are religious – only 3% are atheists. Even if such statistics are way off – the difference is astronomical. Tell me now, who hold the moral superiority card?

Why is it that when faced with a terminal illness, Christians are generally filled with dread (though they believe they’re going to ‘join with’ their magical deity), and atheists are filled with peace? Why have atheists never started a war, nor started pulling down the monuments of your religion? Only other religions do that!

There’s an old saying, “I swear there ain’t no heaven, but I pray there ain’t no hell.” Yet, when they come to peace with the fact that neither of these exist, the atheist’s morality does not change. The Christian, full of devotion and prayer, hides his amorality unless he can get the group to agree with his immoral acts, then celebrates them as if they were holy. They will rob, murder, and con their way through this world without the tiniest regret. They believe in a Satan; is that why they BECOME him? Their “moral” behavior is not only evil and insidious, but omni-present, omni-powerful, and self-congratulatory.

Never ask why I despise religion; I’m likely to answer you.

If there were a magical, all-powerful being who was the source of love and morality, he would have destroyed the religious centuries ago. Imagine if all the damage done in the name of religion were suddenly reversed; THAT would be paradise! An increase in your “faith” brings the opposite. Having faith only proves that you’re willing to suspend your disbelief infinitely; Jimmy Jones’ followers gave up everything they had and moved to South America to live in his “utopia” and ultimately took their own lives, still apparently believing that only he spoke the Truth. Congratulations! You’re one of those guys!

I never experienced real awe and wonder until I gave up on the notion of God. When one is religious, everything is a test, a trial, a competition. One doesn’t have the right attitude to see the beauty of the Earth, the sky, the stars, life itself. When you study the Bible you come away confused, confounded, and contrite. When you study reality, you come away with astonishment, appreciation, apprehension at the marvel of it all. If there is a God who created all this, then surely the petty little crimes and imaginary superstitions of the tiny carbon life-forms are of the least possible importance. Our thoughts cannot condemn us before He who made us! There is no such creature, but if there were, he would have to be at least as magnificent and astonishing as his creation; not a jealous, homicidal, genocidal egotist who wants – then doesn’t want – our blood sacrifices, who does and then doesn’t command and condemn us! What an absurd notion! Let go of that idea and be free to study and know and wonder at all the mysteries we can behold, all the beauty we can comprehend, all the love we are capable of without need of laws or threats of eternal damnation.

As a child I asked questions no one in my religious community could answer. Because the logic of their religion – even if you suspend your disbelief – won’t hold together. The facts don’t add up! On the one had they say the most beautiful, loving being who ever existed, made this amazing, wonderous universe, but only ever showed Himself in a few square miles of desert. He’s existed for all eternity, but chose to speak only for a few thousand years. No matter that this was a god of Jewish nomads, now everyone considers themselves the Chosen. They preach the commandments, but are the first to break them. They stand in their billion-dollar “churches” and scream into the microphone that one should only pray in private. They claim to cure people but it’s always a hoax, and whatever they preach, however much they say they follow the philosophy of a Jewish man who lived in utter poverty, they still want more and more of your money, and will try to get you to mortgage everything you own to get more for them. There were many preachers in my family, and I got to see their behavior first-hand. There was nothing there to respect, nothing there but shame.

I was about 55 years old when I discovered there was a name for what I am. I had thought I was an atheist, but that is too mean a term. I finally found Humanists, and realized tha that’s what I am. I believe all people – all beings – are equally sacred. I don’t harass the religious, or try to convert them, I just get so weary of having this God shoved down my throat all the time. “God bless you,” “I’ll pray for you,” and things like Christmas music which blares in my brain for months…I don’t mind getting a day off, but to me every Friday is equally “Good.” But most of all, I get tired of Christians and Muslims hating each other, and mis-interpreting their own holy books. Show me, in your holy book, where it says it’s good to hate people! Stop judging me by criteria you yourself can’t meet, and saying it comes from the Holy Bible which you haven’t even studied! Stop claiming a thing is Holy when you don’t even know where it came from, who wrote it, rewrote it, who decided what would go in and what would be kept out. If it were truly written by an all-knowing God, how is it He doesn’t know that stars will never fall to earth? How is it that He advises that livestock fed from a trough containing a striped stick will give birth to striped offspring? It won’t! If He wanted to guide us, help us, wouldn’t he have been clear in what He said, not dress it up in “metaphor” which has to be “interpreted!” Even in the first portion, chapter, of this so-great book defies itself! It proves it’s falseness by contradicting its own tale. Even as a child I could see this wasn’t possible, couldn’t be the work of a Being who was omniscient. How can – and why should – anyone believe in anything this book – this God – says, when he constantly contradicts himself, advises and assists in genocide, and doesn’t appear to know how the universe He supposedly made works. Further, if there were such a Being, why would he punish us for our nature when He created us this way? Why would he threaten and curse these little creatures who are clearly doing their best with what He’s given them? Then He supposedly appears on earth In the form of some holy human, dies like anyone else, and threatens His creatures with eternal torment for having a wrong thought!? Yet He lets evil thrive, grow rich and fat, allows them to torture innocents and murder their fellow creatures, while the devout, the good-hearted, the innocent starve, die of horrible disease, and suffer abuse all their lives? Whoever this Being is, He’s clearly not worth of worship He should be judged by His own rules and suffer the condemnation He threatens these little creatures with.

My constant thought, recurring all my life, is “How can people believe in this?” “Why?” In an age when we know perfectly well what the stars are, and how truly astonishing Infinity is, and how small and petty we are, people are still preaching from their palacial churches and playing the oldest con games in the world on millions of people. In a time when people speak openly about how corrupt and dissolute the clergy is, when the internet makes it possible for anyone to study what the Bible is and how it came to be, the same cons are still being run. The followers of this God must be unbelievably stupid, gullible, and maliciously judgmental. We know for a fact these are cons, these claims are not true, these saints are fakes.

“Merry Christmas?” Do you even know what that holiday is? It’s not a celebration of the birth of your prophet, it’s a continuation of winter feasts which have been held since the beginning of civilization, and has been used to celebrate Jupiter far longer than Yaweh. Your Messiah wasn’t born on this day – read it in your own Book! The “reason for the season” celebration is because this is the time of year when, if there weren’t enough grain to support them until spring,

And at no time did this Messiah advocate giving each other gifts on this day. It has no connection with the Magi who brought gifts to God, and by the way, not to each other. This Messiah advocated poverty and purity, and true charity – not things Christians practice. Spare me your Easter greetings as well – Easter is called so because it’s a continuation of ancient spring rites dedicated to the Goddess Eostre who has been around much longer than this Messiah. Eggs have nothing to do with the Christian mythos, they’re a celebration of Spring bringing life after a long winter. These pagan festivals were hijacked by Christians, and commercial interests have twisted them into the biggest profit-making machine in the history of the world. You spend billions every year on Christmas gifts, and maliciously subject non-Christians of any kind to blaring religious music, decorations, and rituals we have no desire to participate in or celebrate. Yet, if we speak a word against Christianity we’re labeled as rabid, malicious atheists who try to convert the world. That’s not the case. We just wish that if you must believe in this completely illogical, commercially-profitable, fantasy myth, you keep it to your fucking self. If you trust God so much, why do you need police? And why should they proudly display “In God we trust?” Where’s the trusting part?

You go ahead an believe in this Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, but just leave those of us who don’t believe it ALONE. You have no right to subject us continually, from cradle to grave, to your ridiculous con-game myths. What we believe can be PROVEN, will work every time. What you believe is – even after 2,000 years – unprovable, illogical, inaccurate, and torturous. No one is stopping you from believing all that, just stop tormenting us with it. We’re not evangelizing, we’re just standing our ground. You want us to shut up? YOU FIRST.

HUMANS!

I don’t care what your reason is for how you believe it happened, because no matter what you believe the fact remains that you are human.

Given that you are human, certain fairly concrete rules apply. You’ll need oxygen, you’ll need clean water, you’ll need food, you’ll require shelter much of the year, you have little in the way of natural defenses so you must outsmart predators, and last but not least, you will require sex. There’s a reason for this last one; the human race is not possible except as an ongoing process. If a single generation fails to reproduce, that’s the end of us. All of the things on this list are pretty much equally important; you can’t just take out a couple of them – not even for just a few days – without killing the experimental subject.

Maybe you believe that a super-intelligent, super-powerful supreme being created humans. If so, he or she appears to have put some pretty definite rules in place for you, as noted above. Honestly, these aren’t the kind of rules you can break. If someone created you, he or she intended very much that you live within these requirements. To think otherwise is to assume you were made in error. And no super-intelligent, super-powerful being would make such a glaring error.

Maybe you believe we evolved by chance, and if so, the same observation applies; apparently it’s pretty important that we take care of these things, these human requirements. So why is there this constant battle to deny being human?

It’s very popular to say, “Oh, I don’t have sex, that’s the source of all humanity’s problems, and I’m above all that.” And we give people who claim this an all-expense-paid life of leisure. Many are also fond of the, “Oh, I have no material needs” gambit. Again, while denying they require anything, they don’t do a day’s work, they just get an all-expense-paid life free of effort. But even then, I don’t see them going without oxygen. And it often turns out that although they’ve claimed to live without sex or without material goods, in the end we discover that actually they did the same as the rest of us – they just talked a better con.

Most mature people would agree that it’s a waste to spend your life hating or in anger. As one saying has it, “Hatred is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.” That’s exactly what happens. Our hatred has absolutely no effect on the one who earned it, it just poisons US. Regret is the same. If you spend all your time moaning and groaning about what might have been done better or where everything went wrong, then nothing will ever go right again. You’re turning all your energy against your own self. Don’t be so busy looking back and finding fault and laying blame that you fall off the cliff in front of you. Now listen, here is a great truth; the same is true in denying your humanity. You can spend all your time denying that you need these things and punishing yourself for failing to get by without them, or – here’s an idea – accept that you’re a human being with certain needs, and work forward from there. This is the only way that progress is possible. End the self-flagellation; you’re only hurting yourself.

Being human needn’t be a struggle, you’re making it that way. It’s Nature to need these things and there is no shame in it. Sex is only dirty if you decide it is, otherwise it’s a perfectly natural function which should be practiced, like anything else, with due care. Moral imperatives, like the tendency to enjoy music and dance, are part of being human. If you do what harms others, you are – in the end – harming yourself worst of all. Let other people do whatever they want! Don’t you have enough to worry about in your own life that you need to control and resent other people? Keep your eyes on your own path; that’s the only way ahead.

Make allowances for yourself; you know you’re going to need oxygen, so don’t venture into places without any available oxygen. If you think some god or gods made you this way, or you evolved by chance, makes no difference; you are here now. You are living in this body, which has certain needs. You can spend all your time fighting that and punishing yourself for failing to achieve what others appear (and only appear) to be able to do without. Or here’s a suggestion; accept your humanity, deal with it, celebrate it even – and then decide what this one particular human being is going to do with his or her life.

PROOF

I have no patience for anyone who says God has spoken to them. If He has something important to say, let Him say it to everyone, all at the same time, each in his or her own language. THAT will be proof. The fact that someone I don’t know says something is true is not only unbelievable, it’s laughable. People will say whatever gets them the most money, the most attention, and the most power and pride. To expect me to pay them to hear their “message” of my inadequacies is unspeakably ridiculous in light of their own.

It’s really tempting to say I’m a humanist because I’m not an idiot, but it’s too simplistic. The fact is that even the most intelligent among us can easily fall prey to such manipulations. We crave acceptance, nobility and hope. We crave group approval and forgiveness for our failures. We feel we “fall short” and need to be punished. But we believe all of these things come from God only because that’s what we’ve been taught. Rigorous questioning reveals it isn’t true. God is not the source of our morality, or chimps – who have no churches – would have no morals. Paying someone to tell you that a magical being loves you – but also hates you – is folly.

Anger against “the Unbeliever” proves nothing but “the Faithful’s” inability to mount a coherent argument to the contrary. The fact that they’re willing to kill very effectively proves their inability to mount even a flimsy defense.

EVOLUTION - 'INTELLIGEN' DESIGN

Creationists seem to feel that humankind is so perfectly made that his creation couldn’t possibly have been an accident. I take issue with that. Here are some things about humans which are NOT perfect:
1) Our teeth wear and out fall out before we’re done needing them to eat with. Many species have teeth which are replaced all their lives; doesn’t God love us?
2) Our joints wear out long before the need to walk and grasp does.
3) Our bodies age and make it impossible to do things, right when we’re wise enough to know what to do.
4) Our bones are thin and fracture easily.
5) We have no natural defenses against predators – all other creatures do. We don’t even have stink-bombs or cautionary coloring.
6) Wisdom teeth, the appendix, the pinky-toe, male nipples, the blind spot.
7) Since we eat and breathe through the same esophagus, we frequently choke to death.
8) Outside a very narrow temperature range, we die. There are temperatures much greater and much cooler than we can bear, right here on our perfect world.
9) Our eyesight is poor, our sense of smell is abysmal, we have no claws, flat, useless teeth, our jaws aren’t even able to open nuts.
10) We require vitamin C and will die without it, but vitamin C is not abundant in nomadic society, and unlike most animals, we’re unable to synthesize it. Once again it seems God doesn’t love us.
11) Sweet, salty, and fatty foods are bad for our health, but we find them irresistible. Irrationally, vegetables, roots, nuts, legumes and thistles are good for our health, but we find them extremely resistable.

And how to explain the wings of flightless birds? Is that meant as a joke? The “Argument from Perfection” assumes a perfection which is not in evidence.

Creationists have a very hard time with math. When evolutionists say that mutations occurred over many millions of years, they think this means within the last 5,000 years. Since there’s a lovely old tree in Sweden which is 9,500 years old, this thinking is a little out-dated, not to mention it fails to consider the geological evidence for a 13 billion year old earth. But most crucially, they fail to realize that evolution assumes thousands of generations, each one just the tiniest bit different than the last through our own genetic selection by choice, and that of Mother Nature. Viewed from the correct perspective of time, evolution’s arguments hold up, and the timing is supported by all the evidence (with the singular exception of calculations by a medieval monk who decided how old the earth was, based on the Bible, miscalculating even the birthdate of his Savior). The fact that some found fossils have turned out to be fakes is no more relevant than the fact that some children who are prayed over instead of taken for medical care manage to survive. It neither validates nor invalidates either side of the argument. The fact is, only about 5% of the earth’s surface has been subjected to archeological search, so keep watching! Science makes findings and adjustments constantly.

Another argument of creationists is that because the earth is “perfect” for us, the moon is just right, and the sun as well, this means the universe must have been created for us. But actually, the reverse is true. Because the sun was just this distance, we evolved to survive it. Because the moon was exactly this distance, life on earth evolved to take advantage of it. I find it obvious that if the sun were a little farther away we simply would have evolved a little differently. It’s not a miracle of design, but merely a function of design.

CONTRADICTIONS IN THE BIBLE

Contradictions in the Bible are impossible, aren’t they? Aren’t they the “revealed Word of God?” And won’t every jot and tittle remain until the end of time? Then why……there are almost too many contradictions in the Bible to count, but it’s roughly 63,779.

Why would an all-knowing God create human beings in His image, and them punish them for sinning? And didn’t he foresee the need to hide the damned tree? Or is it all part of His plan that we should suffer such hardships and if we fail to live up to His standards (which are unclear, but certainly include never eating shellfish), we will suffer eternal damnation? What kind of God is that? And if His people need a place to live, why doesn’t he just create one, instead of wiping out entire civilizations, man, woman, child, cattle and even pets!? This God is puny and vindictive.

If God wanted us to walk around with him in the Garden, he could have arranged that. If He wanted us to know beyond a doubt that He exists, he should have been able to arrange that, too. If He wanted His followers to be good and kind, just and tolerant, He really might have said so. Instead, Judeo-Christian religions are preaching His peculiar, unreasonable – and changeable - commandments so loudly you almost can’t hear the sound of their constant, immoral betrayals. Show me a Christian, a Muslim or a Jew who has never worn clothing made of more than one fiber, has never walked more than 12 steps on a Sabbath, and has never tasted shellfish. That’s all. Leave out the hard ones like “not to covet,” which is vague and hard to prove. Forget about pedophilia, they can’t even do these very simple things; there is no such person. They happily violate their own commandments regularly.

They love it that the End of the World is nigh, and even pray for it to hurry up, and try to make it happen by killing people. But actually, Jesus (in the Holy Bible, the True and Revealed Word of God) said that under no circumstances would the generation who was alive when he lived pass away before the world would end. Deadline missed by a mile.

And how they love to talk about “The Rapture,” an event never mentioned in the Bible itself. It seems to have gotten tangled up with an annunciation of humanity’s judges to the top of Mt. Sinai, where there are a few interesting things to note:
1) Only 12,000 will be taken up, out of all those who have ever lived (approximately 108 billion at the time of this writing; that’s 12,000 out of 108,000,000,000),
2) They will all be Jewish
3) They will all be males
4) They will never have sinned (no mention of forgiveness here),
5) They will all be virgins.
I picture it as a sort of Yiddish Nursery School, and can’t wait to hear their judgements. Nothing about pilots disappearing from the cockpit or drivers from their cars. Even if a few of these 12,000 are alive on that day, probably God could catch them in a quiet, non-emergency moment. If he’s a nice God. But He’s not, is he?

There is no historical evidence of a Jesus, or Jeshu, or Jeshua (as he would have been called in his time and place) ever existed. There were many itinerant preachers roaming the countryside at the time. The fact that someone hit on the brilliant idea of using one’s “message” to get people to cooperate with the Romans instead of fighting them was pure, completely Roman genius; a conversion of brilliant – even blinding - convenience. Such preachers weren’t even noticed by Roman authorities, much less did the Romans consider them worth arresting and killing publicly. And to make a martyr of one would be the height of foolishness. The preacher’s message was a good, peaceful one which had already been making the rounds for generations. The Roman’s had no incentive to quash it. Rather, one of their own moved in to run the thing, very successfully.

The one thing the teachings of Jeshua emphasized above all was that there’s no need for a priesthood – no need for a church. Ironic and deeply sad that more churches have been built on him than on any other man in history, and more people killed by that church in his name than anyone else. If the story weren’t so contradictory as to invalidate itself, I’d find it very moving. His church these days denies he was Jewish, which he clearly was – even being called “rabbi,” and that he was Middle Eastern. If they have so much faith in this man, shouldn’t they at least acknowledge his existence? And as for the “virgin birth” story, that one’s been around as long as human’s have, and people still claim it happens today. The figure of Christ is also a mythos in use since far before “His” time. Saturn - just as one example - is exactly the same god-ish figure.

LIFE AFTER DEATH - THE 'NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE'

If there is any life after death, the one thing we can be certain of is that it has no effect at all on this physical world. If it were possible in any way, our brother [name withheld] would have made us billionaires by now; I know that with all my heart. My grandmother would make my life a happy little breeze. No such thing is going to happen. If there are ghosts – and you should feel free to believe in them if you like – they can have no effect at all on this reality except to scare you shitless, and they can only do that if you let them. And if Mediums were able to bring us messages from our loved ones, why don’t they ever tell us where they hid the money? No, it’s always the same message; all is forgiven, he/she is happy now, he/she loves you. Great. So no cash, then.

There are many, many stories about people who, due to modern science, have been declared brain-dead and yet been brought back to life. Some of these stories are told by doctors, so they seem very believable. But it turns out that if you look closely, these Near Death Experiences are not all alike; not remotely so. It’s just like encounters with aliens from outer space; the story seems the same, but only in general. Not only is there no proof of either one, but their own stories aren’t consistent. To me, that dooms them right there; if you’re going to tell a story, at least get it straight in your mind, and stick to it!

THE MAGIC OF MIND

The most important information we have about life after death and also about human consciousness is that we have no information. Subjective experiences, even when run through a bias filter guaranteed to make them sound alike, are actually not alike at all, and citing the uniformity of the reported experiences as proof of life after death is unwarranted.

We know the body dies. It wears out, shuts down, rots away; we can see that happening. We can see that there’s no longer any response from within. The thing we don’t know is what exactly happens to the mind. It seems to keep operating for at least a few moments after the death of the physical body. We don’t know if the brain just takes a minute to shut down, or if it’s being re-routed elsewhere, and there’s no way to prove it either way. In fact, we’re not really sure what the mind IS.

Brain scans reveal that being in the presence of a real rose and simply remembering the presence of a rose show up in brain activity as identical. So who’s deciding which is real, and which is a memory? THAT is the mind. It appears to transcend the physical structure of the brain.

My husband has a distinctive voice, and when I think of something he’d say, I “hear” it as if he’d said it. This doesn’t mean he’s actually speaking. You might “hear” the voice of a loved one who is dead, but it’s very likely just the same phenomenon. Having a sudden thought of that person can also happen whether they’re living or dead, and doesn’t mean they’re trying to communicate with you. More likely, your mind has made some association between the loved one and the present circumstance which brought them suddenly to mind, perhaps even “speaking” pretty clearly. It’s still just your own mind talking.

Someone very close to us died, and we know what he wanted out of life – and didn’t have time to obtain – and what he would want for us. If there were any way he could cause events in this reality, he would absolutely do so. But it doesn’t happen. He (nor anyone else) has the power to affect our reality in any way. My grandmother and I were very close, and when I went into labor with my first child – an event she wasn’t here to see – I had a dream about her. Now, that’s very touching, but it’s far more likely I dreamt of her than that she visited me from the Great Beyond. She hasn’t visited my dreams again, though I’ve been through many changes she would probably have loved to advise me on.

I don’t believe in ghosts, and I don’t believe in Life after Life. If it happens, I’m open to it, but I’m not living my life in expectation of or preparation for that. Whether there’s life later or not has no effect on this life, this world. We will die, only that is certain. In the end, someone will have to go through all the material possessions we’ve accumulated, and decide which ones are trash, which ones are worth selling, and which ones should be given to charity. Yeah, those were good shoes, but now that they have the imprint of our feet, no one will want them. By the time this sorter reaches the end of your junk, they’ll just start throwing everything away. THAT’S life. Don’t spend all your time accumulating junk for someone to go through. But it’s no use spending all your time doing things for people, either. They’re vicious sons of bitches, and no matter how much you give they’ll turn around and bite you HARD. No, the only person who’ll ever appreciate your gentleness and generosity is your own self. If you adopt an animal, they’ll at least be loyal, and many of us settle for that, albeit somewhat different, love. Intelligence isn’t good for much; if you’re smart, you realize all of this, realize the hopelessness of trying to figure things out or trying to do good in this life, try to help people but with the knowledge that they won’t appreciate it, and that’s not a good thing to know. If you want to do something nice for someone, do it! But don’t expect anyone to appreciate – or reward – your sacrifice. Ask any parent who’s lovingly surrounded a child with nurture and care and every material comfort only to have them spew such bitterness and hatred back that they wish they’d never even been born, much less had children. No one is ever going to thank you one-hundredth part of what you deserve, so if you do good, do it for its own sake, then walk away and never, ever look back.

I don’t accumulate much in the way of material possessions, but I often pity the person or program who’s one day going to have to go through all the bits of crap I’ve collected online and delete it all. Even worse is the thought that it won’t get deleted, but float around out there for eternity, without the context (which is me) attached! Aren’t we, in this sense, already immortal? The things I’ve collected, information, hacks, photos, things which make me FEEL, things I've written, photos I've taken, aren’t they some part of my mind? And won’t they exist out there in the electronic dimension pretty much forever? I can’t figure out whether that’s comforting or frightening! If you come upon a meaningful post which seems very timely and relevant to your own life, and it turns out it was posted by someone who’s dead now, aren’t you hearing their ghost? Discuss.

MIRACLES

There are many unexplained phenomenon in this universe, and spontaneous remission of disease is one of them. Sometimes although a disease seems to be following a common progression from bad to worse, it suddenly just ups and disappears. That doesn’t make it a miracle, even if you were doing something meaningful at the time. People who have no faith in God or angels or anything spiritual at all have spontaneous remissions just as often as the devout. We don’t know why, but it has nothing to do with faith. Maybe some day we’ll figure it out.

There are sites and people and the bones of saints purported to perform healing miracles, but take a moment to consider. Are there three or four “cures” a year? Out of how many visitors? At a guess, let’s say there are 1,000,000 visitors to this site per year. Out of so many, let’s say a whole ten are cured (an uncommonly high number). That’s .001% of visitors cured. Cases of spontaneous remission are 10 in 100,000. That’s ten times more likelihood of spontaneous remission than the chances of a miracle cure. Visiting such places is not only expensive, but leads to unnecessary disappointment and even seems to decrease your chances of being cured. Not to mention the damage done to people who think they are inadequate because their prayers aren't answered! How that failure stings.

As for holy relics, I’ve heard it said that if you gathered all the fragments of the “true cross” you’d have enough lumber to build Noah’s arc. There aren’t any existing pieces of the “true cross” that we know of, nor any other verified authentic relics from the time of Christ. Yes, we’ve found some, and no, they weren’t authentic. Yes, that includes the Shroud of Turin.

Let’s examine a common faith healer. If he or she can cure disease – let’s take arthritis, for example - by the power of their hands or faith or prayer, then instead of building a multi-million dollar chapel and starring in their own TV show, why aren’t they traveling in an ever-widening circle starting at their own home, and visiting every elderly care center in the world to end the residents’ suffering? If I could cure arthritis, that’s what I’d do – I’d cure arthritis. Not become my own corporation, pressuring my faithful followers for “donations” to enable me to buy a bigger jet. If this “healing” is a gift from God, don’t you think He’d prefer that way? Do you believe in the kind of God who gives someone such a gift so that they can make the maximum possible profit out of it? And they won’t just stop and heal anyone on the street! No, to perform their miraculous acts of healing, they require a primed audience, a few shills, a postulant who’s a good actor, and some false x-rays or other “medical evidence.” They need a microphone and a back-up choir. (See also “Good And Evil” and “Statistics”)

While we’re on that subject, the same is true of someone who purports to tell you the future. It’s easy – and probably accurate as well – to say that you’re misunderstood, that there’s a romantic relationship in your future, that you’ll get a better job, finally be appreciated, and come into some money. Plus these are all things you want to hear. But why pay to hear them? If this psychic could really tell the future, why don’t they stop asking you for money and pick the winning lottery numbers? Simply because they can’t see the future. It’s that simple. If they tell you they have a message for you from the “other side,” that “someone has been trying to reach you,” and that message is that someone close to you has died, that they’re happy, that there was no pain, and that they love you and forgive you, again, it’s easy to guess that you’d want to hear that.

Night club acts may make it seems as though a blindfolded person knew what was in their assistant’s hand from across the room – such item being totally random – but actually, the words they use to say “You can guess now” contained the information about what they should “guess.” It’s a trick; very clever, but not magic. Look up debunking psychic tricks.

Everyone feels unique, everyone thinks they’re an excellent driver, everyone thinks they have a great sense of humor, everyone has felt misunderstood at times, everyone has hoped for a better life, career, relationship. Most people have always wanted to travel, to be rich, famous, successful, loved and happy. All a mind-reader has to do to part you from your money is to convince you that they see all this in you, and will gladly tell you more for a fee. Everyone has lost someone they loved, and can be brought to tears by being told that person is always with them, has forgiven everything and forgotten nothing, is happy, and is watching over them. Everyone knows someone with an “M” in their name, everyone has a keepsake or souvenir they treasure, everyone has lost a pet sometime in their life. I could go on and on.

One of the oldest cons in existence is a trick called “cold reading” where a “psychic” looks at your aura or holds an object you own, or gazes into a candle or crystal ball, or uses some other little pretext to get your curiosity going, then “read” your responses to general questions to gage what you want to hear. Using general observations like those listed above, they proceed to watch your reactions very carefully and subtly proceed to say what startles and pleases you the most. The same con is run on people who’ve lost a loved one and hope to communicate with them from beyond the grave. Don’t you think that if the dead could communicate with us, they’d have told us long ago what life is all about? But they don’t. All you’ll hear are general soothing platitudes; no actual information is forthcoming at any price.

When someone seems to know things about you that “no one could possibly know,” just know that yes, it IS possible for someone to know that. Especially if you’ve filled out an “audience participation card” in advance, or spoken of private things while waiting in line or waiting for the program to begin; someone could be listening to all that. Or maybe you were referred by a friend, who doesn’t even realize how much they gave away about you. Alternatively, any general phrase such as those listed above and credited to fortune tellers can be used here as well. Is what they’re telling you really so private, or really so unique? Do you have a ring you play with when nervous? If so, it’s sure to come into the conversation.

Just to round things off nicely, there’s no such thing as “magic” either. There’s sleight-of-hand, which can be very convincing. Real magicians are rare, and unbelievably clever. They use charm, misdirection, imagination and using your assumptions to trick you into seeing things which aren’t really there or see processes you don’t really see but only think you see. The tricks professionals use have been exposed and can easily be studied online. One of the most famous is pulling a rabbit out of a hat, and as it turns out there’s no magic to it at all. But the fact that they can make it SEEM like magic is the magician’s joy and his or her real trade. Some sleight-of-hand tricks are centuries old, and they still seem magical even when you know how they’re done. Their tricks can be very polished, and even though you think they did something on the spur of the moment, I assure you, it was very well planned. It’s just not actually magic.

Sometimes our intuition makes a leap without us being aware of why. Sometimes we hear a word we’ve never heard before several times in one week. Sometimes there are coincidences which seem like synchronicity, usually just because we happened to notice them (the same thing could have happened on any day, but today – like the unknown word we keep hearing - we happened to notice). The likelihood of coincidences and seeming synchronicities are greater than you think. If you use statistics to study the probabilities, you’ll probably be surprised to find that it’s not at all unusual for you to have spoken to someone on a plane who knows someone who knows someone you know. It’s not magic, it’s just kind of amusing that you managed to identify the contact you have in common; it means you had to make a bit of an effort, that’s all. You were both flying from the same place to the same place, you are of the same economic class, you are of a near enough social class that you felt comfortable having a conversation, etc. It’s not a miracle. Maybe you’ll come to believe that this person came into your life for a reason, and maybe they did, but it wasn’t due to angelic, psychic, or astrological magic.

Scientists would love to get hold of a real psychic and study their effectiveness, how they came to have that gift, how it works, whether their brain looks any different, etc. In fact, former magician James Randy has offered a million dollars to anyone who can prove they’re psychic. That million has gone unclaimed for decades. As Tim Minchin puts it: “Throughout history, every mystery ever solved, has turned out to be... not magic.”

HUMANISM

The Holy Bible is true. Because it says it is true, right in there. True? But it was originally just a collection of stories from many different Jewish tribes, cobbled together later by those who were not eyewitnesses nor had any relationship to events within. Then it was voted on by Catholics who culled out the bits they didn’t care much for, translated, re-translated, updated, and modernized before becoming “Holy.” Religious fanatics know they can handle poisonous snakes without coming to harm because God told them so. So why do they die? The fact that someone says God said something means nothing. The evidence is in, and it’s not favorable.

My personal brand of humanism I’d describe thus; I believe every religion started out as a profound personal experience of awe which was copied imperfectly and over time ultimately taken to such extremes that the meaning of the original experience has not only been lost, but been turned on its head, such that it now performs the reverse of the original intention.

Why am I a humanist? Long story….

Let me tell you about the dancing pigeons: The Skinner box is a device that was first developed by B. F. Skinner in his work on operant conditioning. A subject was placed in the box, and the mechanism gave small amounts of food each time the subject performed a particular action, such as depressing a lever or pecking a disk. With the operant conditioning chamber attached to a recording device, Skinner was able to discover schedules of reinforcement. These patterns are the basis for organismic interactions with the environment and are explored extensively in Schedules of Reinforcement and elsewhere.

But wait, here’s where it got really, really interesting: Skinner's research discovered many fascinating examples of animal behavior. One of the most interesting was Skinner's work on superstition. Instead of giving a reward for a specific action and training a specific behavior, Skinner would take a hungry pigeon and place it in a box that would release a food pellet at random.

What happened was the pigeon would receive the food pellet while it happened to be performing some action, and rather than attributing the food pellet reward to randomness, it would assume that the appearance of the food pellet had something to do with its behavior. So it started doing whatever that action was, over and over again, and sure enough, it was eventually rewarded with a food pellet again. The pigeons developed all kinds of complex behavioral responses such as bowing, scraping, dancing, and neck turns. Since the pigeon is increasing the amount of time spent performing a particular action, it is also increasing the number of times it is "rewarded" for that action, even though the reward is random.

When I was 28 years old, I had a girlfriend who was 32. She had crow’s feet from the corners of her eyes right up into her hairline. I thought, “Oh my god, when I’m 32, I’m going to have that?” I was horrified. As it turned out, she was from California and had the habit in her youth of sunbathing. It was a hobby she practiced daily. This accounts for the skin damage. When I was a teenager, I found a great soap from China; sandalwood. I loved the smell, and I’ve used that soap ever since. Now, is it a fact that because I use sandalwood soap, I never got crow’s feet? No! There are too many factors. There’s the fact that my grandmother told me when I was a child, “Don’t squint, it’ll give you wrinkles.” I was probably only 10 years old at the time, but I remembered. I learned not to squint. So is it that why I still have no crow’s feet, at 61 years old?

I have a good friend whose maiden aunt told her that the reason her hair had never gone gray was because she took brewer’s yeast every day. Now the girlfriend does the same. But it turns out that when you gray, even whether you gray at all, is determined by genetics alone. No yeast of any kind can change it.

The fact that I use sandalwood soap and have no crow’s feet is not necessarily cause and effect. Both are true, but neither has anything to do with the other. Superstition and sympathetic magic doesn’t work. It may be that food comes when you hold your head a certain way, but it doesn’t mean that you have to hold your head just that way to make food come. Stop spending your life with your head bent that way! Instead, try to figure out how that feeding mechanism works, and learn to operate it for yourself.

In the Dark Ages, they knew that their crops needed water. If rain didn’t come in time, they started sprinkling the crops with blood. This did not, in any way, affect whether it would rain. Yet they believed it did, because if they kept on doing it faithfully, eventually rain would come. And if the field you’ve been watering with blood has a better yield than the others, it’s probably because it got a lot of extra vitamins out of that blood. And so did the flies who came, attracted by the smell. Sprinkling the crops with blood DID have an effect, just not the effect they attributed to it. We often think that people then were stupid. They weren’t. And the same psychology drives people today to see causation and patterns where none exist. They were only as stupid as we are.

There was a Pacific island where some planes landed during a world war, and the crews handed out free supplies. The islanders had never seen anything like these marvelous things; canned food (even the cans themselves!), exotic flavors, such amazing things. When the planes stopped coming, they cleared more runways, built plane-shaped objects out of sticks, prayed, worshipped, lit fires, and called upon the gods to come again. This strange occurrence in their lives had no natural explanation they could conceive of, and so it became their supernatural religion. They were correct to keep a runway clear, and even to light fires, but it didn’t cause anyone in a distant land to suddenly decide to send more supplies. They may have spent many years and a lot of resources trying to get the planes to come again – time and resources they could have used to their own advantage if they hadn’t been busy with these things. You’d think that after a while they’d give up, but they didn’t. It’s sad to think they spent so much effort in such a useless task, but even sadder to think they may judge and condemn each other for the failure.

I don’t know whether the Cargo Cult (as the islanders above are known) developed a priesthood, but most religions do so. Priests interpret the desires of supernatural being(s) and convey them to the populace, including how much of their wealth should be given to the priests themselves. The priests get a very good living out of this. Not only is their own occupational success guaranteed, but the careers of their children are also assured. They are not only wealthier, but considered much wiser and much holier than ordinary people. They have access to the best of everything, enjoy power and positions of importance all their lives, are respected, and have a guarantee their children for every future generation will have the same. Naturally, they will do anything – anything at all – to ensure that this remains the case. They’ll interpret things however needs be to ensure the continuation of their lucrative livelihood. They encourage people to pray (in other words, do nothing but wish very sincerely), to give tithes (percentages of their income), to make sacrifices (sometimes of their own children’s lives), and if the faithful postulant still doesn’t get what the priests have promised him, they declare that obviously the postulant’s faith was inadequate, or some kind of wealth was held back. Now, in addition to having given up his time, wealth, and maybe even his child, he is shamed and blamed for the failure. The priesthood is preserved, the fleecing continues. When a certain Nazarene came onto the scene in ancient Judea, why was he turned over to the courts and his execution requested? Surely a dirty, barefoot preacher who wasn’t even a member of the priesthood, wandering the countryside and performing little miracles was no threat, or not such a threat that he must die publically? But he WAS that threatening. He was telling people they didn’t need the priesthood; he was preaching an end to their way of life. It was the one thing no religion can tolerate.

The idea that I should take on “faith” such people’s opinion of my morals, my obligations to the universe, my outlook and the ultimate salvation of my eternal soul, I find laughable. I know right from wrong without any holy book (and we only know it’s holy due to its self-perpetuating sacredness). In fact it is provable to my satisfaction that every mammal on earth has a moral code, without benefit of any stone tablets.

By simple observation, one can see that the priesthood doesn’t practice the morals they drill into their postulants. Long-term observation will show them convicted of not only violating their own precepts, but fleecing their followers with a truly chilling greed. As tempting as it is to believe that someone with a terrible illness can be cured by the simple act of a priest laying a hand on them, or by strong enough belief, as magical and merciful and noble as it is, it’s simply not true.

When you hear that a certain preacher or guru is doing something you can’t possibly approve of (like faking miracles, or using their position to obtain sexual favors, for example), you shouldn’t be surprised. This has been going on since the beginning of civilization, and it’s very likely to continue. Just let it continue without any backing from you.

Like our Christmas traditions, religious rituals originated in the dawn of time and have been usurped, manipulated, and warped out of all possibility of recognition today. The custom of having an “eternal flame” lit on a Christian altar at all times, for example, began on alters to Venus. Study your traditions before buying, please.

But just because I don’t believe in a god doesn’t mean nothing is sacred to me. In fact, the complete opposite is true; I believe everything is sacred, and every being is equally divine. I don’t mind bowing in respect to a Hindu avatar just as I don’t mind bowing to show respect to an ancient tree, or stopping to listen to the song of a waterfall or applaud a flight of playful birds. And I can’t fathom how it can be otherwise! If someone believes in a god, then don’t they believe that creature has made everything out of him- or her-self, that all things are the one thing, that everything must be made of this god? And if that were so, how can anything be profane? But enough about that, I’m not trying to start an argument! Please simply accept that my particular brand of humanism is a belief that I am the universe (= Aham Bramhasmi), the universe is me, and the divine fire of spirit is present in all things equally, even in the multitudinous and multifarious gods and goddesses of Hinduism. I’m perfectly happy to have a sacred Hindu ceremony. The vows I take will be sacred to me no matter what statue they’re done in front of.

EXCUSE ME, I HAVE A QUESTION…..ARE YOU A BELIEVER?

If you believe in God as creator of the universe, tell me, did he not make all men? Did He not make Man in all colors, all genders? Are you saying He did it wrong?

If you believe in God as omnipresent, tell me, is He not present in all things? And that being so, is he not present in every Man? And when you treat a fellow human badly, how are you treating Him? And do you think He will not know of it? Further, if you believe He is eternal, do you think He will forget it?

If men in different parts of the world use a different word for love, a different word for charity, a different word for faith, why can’t you accept that they might have a different word for God? Is not the Eternal One the same, no matter what men call Him? And does it really make sense that He would speak in all of our history to only one man? And give that man no other evidence than his word?

If you believe in God as omnipotent, tell me, why would you think His existence is threatened by the inquiries of science? Is God not the source and foundation of all the laws of nature? If so, why should study of those alarm you? And does He not endow us with intelligence? How can it be a threat to Him to use it? Further, if all He wanted was fear and devotion, why didn’t He just make us sheep?

MONSTERS

You want to know where monsters come from? You make them.
You make them out of lonely people you won’t speak to, out of homeless people you look away from, out of abused children and beggars and the ugly and the mentally ill. You make them out of those you shun, laugh at, point at, make fun of, spit on, call names, and beat up.
You turn lonely kids into deadly adults who have no idea how to have a “normal” emotion, who domineer and ultimately destroy both you and those you care about. You turn them into over-achievers who can never be satisfied because they can never forget the taunting and inadequacy they’ve suffered. You teach them to say absolutely anything to be accepted, then wonder why they cheat you.
You turn heroes into street people; soldiers, parents, grandparents - who do you think these homeless people are? They’re the ones you kicked out. They’re the ones you resent providing health coverage for, crappy shelter, food stamps. They’re the ones you can’t be bothered to help or even visit. Where do you think they’ll go? And who do you think they blame? You’re surprised they steal from you? Really?
You torture people with rumor and innuendo. The chubby girl who always eats alone, the family you cut off, the friends who weren’t any advantage to you. You brushed people off because they got a divorce or declared bankruptcy or got cancer. But when they commit suicide, trying to end the suffering and isolation, you condemn them for that, too.
You want to know where monsters come from? You are the monsters.

ATHEISTS UNITE

Christians are proving themselves to have lower morals, less education, more exposure to Fox News, and a startling number of guns. They believe that if they have enough faith they can safely handle poisonous snakes. Unfortunately, although this is untrue, it’s taking far too long to rid the world of Christians that way. Since they believe all sins are forgiven, they put themselves in dangerous, illicit situations, and while this results in humiliation and possible injury, far too few die of it. They repeatedly sell everything and sit on mountaintops waiting for the world to end. But again, waiting for them to die of exposure is taking too long. It seems like the only solution to these problems is to give them higher incomes, better educations, and profound lessons in both morality and empathy. Obviously, Fox News has to go. Keep quoting the parts of the Bible they ignore – in fact try to get them to read the damned thing, try to keep them in school, but how can you teach morals and empathy? They say they get these things from their god, but he must be very frugal in handing them out!

Republicans are statistically-shown to have lower income, minimal education, lower moral standards, and again, a maximum number of guns. Republicans believe that white people are superior based on a complete lack of evidence, empathy or morals. They need better income, better education, but again, how to teach them empathy and morals?