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?

A FRIEND IN NEED – A GREAT LIFE HACK

What can you do if a friend needs you, but you’re stuck far away? Someone needs comfort, reassurance, cheering up, a hug – and you’re not there! Here’s what to do:

Send them photos of happy things. If they need to cheer up, send them photos of people and animals smiling. If they need a hug, send them photos of hugs. If they need comfort or reassurance, send them photos of things peacefully sleeping. If they’re depressed, send beautiful nature photos. Just looking at a long series of photos like these not only changes their thoughts, it actually changes the brain chemistry for the better! I like to put a series of 10 or more photos in an email so they can be viewed as a “slide show.” All my unhappy friend has to do is click on “Slide Show” and it’s a done deal.

Because the human mind automatically empathizes with images, it’s impossible to look at so many happy, pleasant things and NOT be influenced. Try it on yourself; it really works. In fact, if you’re feeling bad because you can’t be there, you’ll find that as you collect these photos/cartoons/whatever of happier things, you also cheer up. It’s magic!


I shamelessly steal photos from all over the web. My defense of these thefts is a question; “To what better use could they ever be put?”

THOUGHTS ON LIFE AND DEATH
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.

THOUGHTS ON GOD

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!