I was back in San Diego for another class, for another week. I was online trying to figure out what to do with myself during my free time (a common work problem for everyone, I suppose) and I stumbled across a thing called Salvation Mountain while researching the Salton Sea area.
Out in the middle of nowhere is a hill. And one day in the distant past, a crazy religious nut named Leonard Knight wandered by and decided to paint it. Actually, much of it he built with adobe clay and straw, and then painted over top of it. He's been bricking, baling, and painting this place every day since 1984. He estimates that he's used well over 100,000 gallons of paint.
You might think, given my history of anti-religious rants, that I came out here with the intention of being condescending and smug about such a massive, insane ode to religious fervor. Surprisingly, especially to myself, the fact that it was a huge glob of toxic, colorful paper-mache out in the middle of the desert was the irresistible draw, and the thought that it was dedicated to a God and a religion with which I disagree vociferously barely registered.
Also, the opportunity to take pictures, as always, completely overshadowed any thought of religion the whole time I was there. I often feel a sort of physical disgust when I go into lavish European or Salt Lake City cathedrals, for example, but that was not present here at all. Salvation Mountain is bizarre, it's insane, it's folk art, it's baffling, but it is not asinine in the same way that official religious locales are.
There are several broken down old vehicles scattered about, and it's obvious that in his off days Leonard was still under a compulsion to throw paint on whatever he happened to be sitting near. The image in his head of his love letter to God was obviously an obsession; up there he's painted a 2D representation of his vision. And down here, he apparently thought the desert needed a boat.
On the side of a painted tractor, I'm guessing that some visitor left these here as stiletto fuck-me shoes don't seem to fit in with his ideas. But it makes a nice contrast.
Ok, one last scope photo... before we go into the rabbit hole. In case you haven't picked it up from the photos, the mountain seems to be painted in a sort of waterfall motif, where the blue and white lines are the water representing God's flowing Love, I suppose.
There is a path going up the front of the mountain, which you are encouraged to tread along.
It's yellow. I'm supposing that's to represent the streets of Gold in Heaven. Or perhaps he's just showing some playfulness...
Yup, playfulness. A technicolor child's dream of Heaven, perhaps.
Sea anemones? But even if Leonard thinks that there are sea anemones on the path to God, the amount of attention to the details of his vision combined with the dedication of giving his entire life to the project are astounding.
Looking out upon his works.... And I was perhaps unduly fascinated by this next shot, having always wondered what the edge of the Universe might look like, or the other side of a painting or a mirror. In Leonard's Universe, it stops right over the lip.
So right next to the mountain is another project. He has created a hollow hill of hay-bales, propped up by trees and interspersed with old car windows. Front view:
Approach view from the top side:
Rear view:
And inside is a warren of painted bales, trees, and pictures. It's bonkers.
Did I think we were entering the rabbit hole before?
Pictures can't really convey what it was like to walk through here.
But I sure did my best.
When I couldn't take any more shots down tunnels, I pointed my camera upwards. It. Just. Never. Stops.
And then I would find more tunnels.
I spent about 2 or 3 hours at Salvation Mountain, taking shots almost non-stop the whole time. I can't begin to express how many pictures I'm actually sparing you from. It's odd how one loony-bin's obsession can become yours that way.
Here is an adobe cave he built for himself to live in; a nice place to escape the heat. Only he never moved in, opting instead to stay in his trailer because he couldn't not paint the hell out of everything he did.
Here's a random clatch of his sea anemones I found off to the side somewhere, for example.
So remember how I said I came without smugness or condescension? Well, that blissful state of photgraphic being was briefly shattered near the end of my stay. The whole time I was there, I was so in awe of the visuals, and obsessed with capturing them, that I hadn't really paid any attention to the words he was writing in paint. Until I went out and around for one last round of shots and I started way back out, by the mailbox.
Erm... poor choice of wording there Leonard. Maybe that's how it's written in the Bible, but some paraphrasing might have been beneficial. All this does is make me think that you wanted Jesus to violently prison rape you. Granted, I'm sure I'm more dirty minded than you, and I have been watching HBO's OZ on dvd lately, but you've got to think about your audience, after all.
The smugness and condescension went away fairly quickly though. I may be infantile about certain things but I have learned that remaining infantile beyond the shock moment is probably unhealthy.
The problem though is that once I started paying attention to the words, that's all I could see, and it admittedly became more difficult to ignore my anti-religious feelings.
At any rate, to distract my self from getting too snarky, I wondered what paint on the ground looked like up close after baking out in the California desert sun for years.
I took a seat at the makeshift viewing area before leaving, and found yet another photo op.
And one last distance shot, because I. Just. Can't. Stop.
Hundreds of photos, and I kind of wanted to go back at night and get some more in different light. But I didn't. If I'm back out that way again, then maybe. But with this post I'm glad to get this mountain of obsession out of my system.
Lately I've been splitting up posts about single trips into multiple posts, each showcasing a different leg. It allows me to have more blog content, stretching a very thin blog out to respectable proportions. However in reality my real reason for doing so is that now that I'm all into HDR photography, I take about a bazillion photos and have a serious issue with being able to cull them properly. Anyway, Salt Lake City! This is the Salt Lake Temple, home lair of the Mormons or Latter Day Saints or whatever they want to call themselves. Silly buggers.
But I will say that in some small way, walking around Temple Square pleasantly reminded me of walking through some small European town, what with the grandiose religious architecture and people walking around speaking gobbledygook. In Europe of course, the gobbledygook is merely another language which I don't understand. Here it was English, but spoken in a freakish religious dialect completely alien for all of that. I had fun telling a couple of pretty young Mormon girls who tried to bother me while I was taking pictures that I'm an atheist, and that their beliefs are based on nil evidence and a thorough brainwashing. This is the Mormon Assembly Hall.
I mean most religion-speak is nonsense, but next to the Church of Scientology, The Latter-Day Saints take the prize for wackiness without even counting the insanity of that whole golden plate thing. Check this out:
I mean, to a sane person, this reads as batshit crazy. But even looking at it within religion's own internal "logic", why did God have to restore the authority of Baptism? Given the baptismal habits of all of the other practicing sects of Christianity, it doesn't seem as though such authority was ever lost from the Earth. This is the statue in full.
Two guys go off in the woods, see John the Baptist, and found a religion. Man, I see stuff in the woods around my house all the time! Just this morning Jesus and I were all like, kicking back on a stump and smoking a bong. He told me to tell everyone that marijuana was the new sacrament of his coming reign, and ye shall recognize your brethren by the sign of "peace-out, man". Of course, you probably don't believe me, but why on Earth did anyone fall for these con-artist's similar bullshit?
Again, nonsense. If the power of God is manifest, shouldn't people be able to uh, notice it? That's kind of what manifest means. I belong to the priesthood of Messybastards. The power of reason is manifest in all my actions and therefore God has chosen me to lead the world in it's fight against the descent into madness. Can't you see the halo of God's atomic logic hovering over my head? Well, you just don't believe strongly enough, so you're going to the fiery nuthouse in the ground.
The main thing about these statues that gets me is the authoritarian motif. You're supposed to trust con artists like Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery because they are getting authority all conferred up on them by the wonky ghosts of ancient spiritual leaders. Says who? Says the con artists. And you know what? Even if any of those Ghosts appeared to me, and tried to confer authority on me, I'd tell them to take their little 2-inch authorities and shove them up their asses. I don't want their permission to tell people how to live their lives; I'd much rather people used their own brains to figure things out than just accepting the say-so of anyone, including mine.
So yeah, I suppose an anti-religious rant was inevitable. But I was pretty jazzed to go to the Mormon Tabernacle. Not that I'm a huge fan, but their music is pretty. Though I'm not sure what Exxon has to do with anything...?
There was a guy playing the organ, so I hung out for a while. Not a very ornate Tabernacle, but giant organs are cool.
The Mormons have the largest Genealogy library in the world. I went in to see if they could find my family roots in Europe, but when I told the confident library docent the story of how my great great great grandfather was a stowaway on a Portuguese ship who changed his name to Williams without ever revealing his real name to his family in the New World, his confidence slipped a bit. When I told them that my other ancestor was a horse-thief who named his oldest son after the judge who didn't hang him during the decade where all the census records burned in a fire, they gave up. Guess I really have to embrace this whole disreputable vagabond thing; seems to be a family heirloom. Here's the Salt Temple at night.
The rest of Salt Lake City was fairly uninspiring. It actually looks like a cool city to live in though. The surrounding mountains are pretty and there's stuff to do. And there are bars so it's not really a dry city, despite my misconceptions. Plus, the Mormons make up only a small portion of the population these days. Anyway like I said, I had a couple of other legs to my SLC trip so there's more to come.
I want to do a book report on Brian Greene's new publication in the worst way, but I'm not sure that I am capable of it. I used to read popular science books quite regularly, and I'd realized that it's been years since those days at about the same time that 'The Hidden Reality' caught my eye. As I was going through it I realized that reading, and keeping pace with, popular science texts is a skill which must be practiced, especially if one is not particularly well trained in physics.
That's not to say that he doesn't do a great job of explaining the concept behind 9 different types of multiple/parallel Universes quite engagingly; he does. It's more that, once I put the book down for a few minutes after every couple of pages to think about the implications of whatever mind-blowing concept he's introduced, the particulars begin to drain away because my poor little head is not lately used to holding on to the strange and complicated concepts behind Infinity, Relativity, Quantum physics, and String Theory.
However I'm going to try because I feel that my motive in writing about this book is more an effort to hang on as best as I am able to the understanding of a beautiful dream that fades quickly after waking than an attempt to convince anyone else to read it. Of course after completing that last sentence, I've sat and stared at the book cover for about ten minutes trying to figure out how to start. Sigh.
So here then; let's begin with the apology. Mr. Greene himself goes to great lengths in the book to make the reader understand that, at the moment, no versions of the multiverse which he posits are actually provable with hard data, and therefore may fall slightly outside the boundary of science. I say slightly, because though their detection may currently lie beyond our best detectors, they are in fact unavoidable outcomes of certain aspects of science which ARE scientifically sound, mathematically speaking.
As a comparison, when Einstein published his theory of General Relativity the technology available at the time was not capable of disproving his math. He came up with that theory using creative visualization, math and perspiration. And whatever other tools of genius he had at his disposal. But he himself did not go out and measure the Cosmic Background Radiation which ultimately helped to prove his theory correct. Now I'm not comparing Brian Greene or any other String Theorist to Einstein, (and neither was Greene in his book) merely the scientific process itself which is at work here. If you follow the math it leads to amazing places which, more often than you might think, describes the cosmos as it is in reality, even though it may also lead beyond all common sense. So this exploration of the side effects and the possibilities of infinity, string theory and math is extremely valid science, even if in the end it turns out that they've missed something and there are other things at work. You have to explore every avenue if you want to find out what's actually out there.
So why bother getting all excited over Parallel Universes if there's a chance it's inaccurate? Because it's exciting. And because, all things being equal, it's probably not inaccurate. It is currently science's best guess, much as Relativity and Evolution once were, and therefore worth a lengthy consideration.
So I'll start with the multiverse which I understand the most clearly, naturally. He calls it the Quilted Multiverse and here is how it works: There is some question in the cosmologist community whether the space that we inhabit is either very, very, very freaking large but ultimately finite, or whether it is in fact infinite. It all depends on the overall shape of the universe, which we don't yet know. (It's important to have a good grasp of the concept of infinity for this one, which I am lucky to have in some finite degree thanks to Rudy Rucker. His book 'White Light' is a rollicking exploration of infinity, and with extremely visual storytelling really helped me to glimpse what mathematicians actually mean when they use the term infinity. I highly recommend it.)
At any rate, If our Universe in fact turns out to be infinite (as the current trend of thought among cosmologists apparently believe is the likeliest scenario) then there is almost certainly another messiestobjects out there, writing up a book report about a publication by Brian Browne, (the last name of the author perhaps being the only difference between that Earth and this one) and positing some strange world where a version of himself is typing up a book report on a publication by a Brian Greene. In fact, there would be an infinite amount of Earths out there, that look just like ours. And there would be an infinite amount of other possible Earths as well. One, perhaps, that was solely inhabited by shrimp. Or one with no shrimp. Let your imagination go wild, like mine!
The reason why this would be so is simply statistical. Matter is evenly distributed throughout the visible Universe on very large scales. What that means is, you can take a really big box, say about 100 million light years cubed and chunk it down here, then weigh all of the matter in it. Then pick it up and chunk it down over there, again weighing all of the matter. Do this in several locations throughout the Universe and you will find that each box-full of matter will weigh in at about equal amounts, and it will be so all throughout the Universe. The idea here is that while matter may be evenly spread throughout an infinite Universe, there is a finite amount of forms that matter can take.
So the implication of this is that matter, as much of it as there is, can only arrange itself in so many ways. It's like a deck of cards; there are 52 cards in a deck, and 52 cards can be arranged in 1067 unique ways. That number fully written out is 80,658,175,170,943, 878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000 which is obviously a really huge number. However, once you have arranged those 52 cards in that many unique ways, the cycle will repeat and you will start to get duplicate arrangements. Of course, some arrangements are more likely than others, so you will have odd random assortments of cards duplicate more often than you will see the deck fall out completely arranged from aces to Kings in all four suits, but as unlikely as that is, it will happen eventually.
The same is true for the arrangement of matter. In the entirety of our visible Universe, there are about 1010122 possible particle configurations. Which again, is a totally inconceivable number yet is definitely a finite number. Once you've reached every possible unique combination, the patterns will begin to repeat, and repeat infinitely. Thus, messyobjects is out there, messierobjects, and even an evenmoremessiestobjects, all trying to say hi to me right now. Since our brains and life experiences are nearly completely identical and in some cases absolutely identical, I can say hi to them and they've received the message! I know this because I've received their message, having sent one myself. We're totally braintext messaging across the infinite light years right now. They say hi back, and ask how's the wife and pets and I say oh, the same as yours, pretty much. ad infinitum. (Of course it's not a very interesting conversation, having identical thoughts and all, but there's always a downside.)
Whew. That was the first and easiest version of a multiverse in this book, and believe me they get far more difficult to grasp. The existence of the Quilted Multiverse depends only on discovering the shape of the Universe we currently reside in without calling any of the more unproven forms of science into the matter, but it is important here to note that Brian Greene and other String Theorists did not go out looking for multiverses. They did not read some ridiculous New Age drama and say "Oy, how can we finagle the math to come up with parallel dimensional portal-thingies in order to dazzle the public?" No, the attempt to understand actual observed phenomena through the framework of String Theory led them mathematically all on its own to many other different types of possible multiverses.
The Inflationary Multiverse, which better fits the definition of a multiverse in my extremely humble opinion, is one in which bits of our universe break off and inflate into bubble universes of their own, our Universe having broken off from another "larger" one at its own birth. There are also the Brane, Cyclic, Landscape, and Quantum types of multiverses. I like the Quantum Multiverse; it basically goes back to the Schrödinger's Cat thing, and Quantum uncertainty.
(jpeg of a print by Jie Qi) In case you are not familiar with Schrödinger's Cat, it is a Thought Experiment designed to help one visualize how Quantum Particles behave. The way it goes is, you put a cat in a box, close the lid, and have a radioactive atom timed to decay and open a flask of poison. In the quantum world, there is an equal possibility of the decay happening and causing the cat to be dead or alive when you open the lid. Until you open the lid, the cat is actually in an uncertain state, being both alive and dead at the same time which would be an unsettling thing to witness, I'm sure. The traditional outcome of this little game is that when you open the box, the probability wave collapses and the cat becomes one or the other. Thus the very act of observation determines the ultimate quantum state. (For a more accurate and less confused rundown of the thought experiment in mid-twentieth century science nerd jargon, visit the wikipedia page on the subject)
This is weird. But this type of behavior has been observed in quantum particle physics, hence the Quantum Uncertainty Principle and it does not apply to the world of things of our size, only to the realm of the very, very small. There is a gap between the quantum scale and ours where Quantum Theory breaks down and reality then becomes guided by Newtonian physics and Relativity. If you add String Theory math to this experiment, you can bridge the gap and in fact the cat is actually both alive and dead for realsies, in two different universes! Long, complex, nearly-incomprehensible-to-a-non-String-Theorist story short, the reason that Quantum particles behave so oddly is that we are seeing them play out every possible state of existence across a multiverse.
As an interesting aside, that particular multiverse explanation is where the idea comes from that every time one makes a choice, universes diverge and a separate reality for each choice carries on it's course. It may sound a bit hippie or New Age-ish, but if String Theory turns out to be correct, this in fact may actually be happening, right now, right next to you.
Another multiverse is the Holographic Multiverse, which is conceptually easy, but also very hard to explain the whys and wherefores of. This one is due to the nature of information and how it is stored in the universe, and when looked at closely begins to look a bit as though all matter as we see it is actually a projection of another type of matter on a distant quantum dimensional surface. In this multiverse all of our actions, in fact all interaction between all forms of matter everywhere is a shadow play. We're hand puppets. Don't ask me to explain the science though. It has something to do with Black Holes, very tall drinking straws, and math. Beyond that, I haven't retained a thing. Damn it.
The final multiverse of the book is the so-called Ultimate Multiverse, a distinction earned due to a new twist on the Anthropic Principle, which is the idea that asking the question "How is it possible that our planet, our very universe have the conditions necessary to bring forth life?" is meaningless because life evolves in the place to which it is suited. In other words, we are here both to ask the question and be the answer. I like this one for purely philosophical reasons, as it's an (yet another) answer of sorts in the debate between religion and science, at least for a certain set of debate points. The religious often like to point out that the Universe, Life, and Everything are far too complex to have "just happened" which is about as far as their understanding of the sciences of Cosmology and Evolution usually go. A very sad, limited viewpoint indeed.
At any rate, the Ultimate Multiverse answers the question of why the Physical Laws of our particular Universe are just right in order for galaxy, star, planet, and life formation to "just happen". Because in an infinite multiverse, where every possible Universe that can exist does exist, one with our physical laws and conditions for life merely becomes an inevitability, not a miracle. Therefore there is no "why" of existence, merely the statistical likelihood of it. You'll note that the Ultimate Multiverse differs from the Quilted Multiverse in the sense that, with the latter, there may be an infinite set of volumes with repeating particle configurations, allowing for infinite versions of themselves, however they are all still set in the same Universe as we are and subject to the same physical laws, merely separated by distances too large for any technology to ever cross. The Quilted version answers the question of why there is life on Earth, but does not answer the why of the overall conditions in our Goldilocks Universe and its particular laws of physics being just right in order to allow life to come about in the first place. The Ultimate Multiverse does, however. It states that while there are Universes like ours with just the right amount of density for galaxies, stars, and planets to form, there are also an infinite amount of stillborn ones. Our Universe is the Royal Flush that comes along once in a blue moon... or rather once in a Blue Iteration.
There are solid mathematical underpinnings to the Ultimate Multiverse, as well as for all of the others, but I'm not going there. If you want to try to understand them, or any of the other concepts, I suggest that you pick up a few popular science books and get cracking. 'The Hidden Reality' is wonderful, but unless you've already attempted to come to grips with the ideas behind Relativity, Infinity, or Quantum Physics, you might want to get a more basic picture of the Universe first. 'Cosmos' by Carl Sagan is an excellent place to start for basic Cosmology, that Rucker book I already pimped for Infinity, and Brian Greene's earlier work 'The Elegant Universe' is a great introduction to String Theory. So get busy with the head scratching, braniac!
Another great way to contemplate infinity, by the way, is to obsessively-compulsively watch fractal zoom videos. I've posted about fractals before, here and here. I don't know how, but I'm sure that fractal math figures in to multiverses somehow. This one magnifies the Mandelbrot set 10275 times, and ends up at a copy of itself. Apropos.
"Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise, there wouldn't be religious people."
-Doris Egan, House M.D., The Right Stuff, 2007
I haven't done a nice long insane rambly sea ranty in a while, and tonight I inexplicably find myself in the mood. Perhaps being stuck in Fort Bragg for three weeks in a row where there is nothing much to photograph has something to do with it, but perhaps also I can lay the cause on the doorstep of religion, my favorite whipping post.
For those of you who are facebook friends of mine, this is no surprise; other than my photo of the day, about all I've been doing over there is posting links to anti-religious videos, blogs, and news items. I've been feeling up for a fight lately. The problem is that my adversaries, those who put authoritarian belief in front of rational discourse ain't got much fight in 'em. You can't have a dialogue with those people because they haven't got a brain to stand on. Perhaps that is not fair; they do actually have brains but they've been quite thoroughly trained not to use them. I should know, I used to be a member.
In order to believe in the existence of God, any God, one must have faith. Faith is the belief in something for which there is no evidence. Fine. When I wipe my bottom after disposing of bodily waste, I use the first knuckle method. Since you will never witness this yourself, you'll have to trust me that it's true. You might not even know what the first knuckle method is, but what's important here is that it exists. I know, because I made it up. BELIEVE me when I tell you, I've felt it's presence. So you see, I have belief in certain things which can only be witnessed by an individual on a personal basis. However, if you choose to ignore my account of my VERY personal ass-cleaning method, I'll completely understand. In fact, if you want to pretend I never said it, so much the better. That's exactly how I feel about your god damned religion.
So, by expressing a belief in God, for whom there is no evidence, you've put yourself in an awkward position. More awkward than the first knuckle method in fact, difficult as that may be to imagine (don't imagine it!). You've aligned yourself with those who wish not to believe in reason. Reason, of course, is the primary tool of the mind. But this is the nature of faith, the very definition of it. "Set aside your reason, saith the lord, and believeth in this shit in this book right here. And do this not by your own impulse, but because these dudes who got that book from some other dudes, who are now dead, tell you it's the truth." Can you feel the presence of the lord in that logic? Amen!
I must say that my own progress towards rationality has been long and hard. I believed, and the illogic of the Lord did not sustain me. I searched for the Lord, and did not find him. Instead I found some used book store philosophy which slaked my thirst better than vitamin water for a time, until that too became as coca cola. Then, after discovering Carl Sagan and Joseph Campbell, I settled into a comfortable agnosticism where science was the only possible language of God, if he existed. I spent a while there, but all it took was a logical argument by a friend I've never met to convince me of the liberating joys of atheism.
If there is one thing I've learned from all of this, it's that one side will almost never convince the other. An atheist speaks the language of reasonable discourse and the religious speak the language of authoritarian "knowledge". An atheist can be convinced to change his mind on a subject through strongly reasoned logic and hard evidence, and a theist can be convinced by an impassioned emotional plea and hypnotic crowd techniques. Never the twain shall meet, as reason and faith go 'round and around and around.
One of the most overused and incorrect arguments against atheism is that one is simply switching a belief in God to a belief in no God. This is a false understanding of the situation. Atheism, in it's strongest sense, is a lack of belief. Were actual, hard evidence to come to light that God truly existed, atheists would still not become believers-in-God, they'd become knowers-of-God. In other words, we don't believe in an all-knowing deity for the same reasons we don't believe that thunder is really Thor going bowling. Because it's nonsense and there is far more evidence against religious dogma and a creator than there is evidence for it. In fact, there is NO evidence for it.
When I was a member of the Christian cult, there was a lot of talk about "knowing God" and "feeling his presence" and "answered prayers". I always wondered why, as fervently as I prayed to Jesus and as badly as I wanted to be on the side of Heaven, why did I never feel or sense those things? Why did Jesus talk to the crazy old cat lady, or the Pastor who had an affair with his daughter's best friend's Mom, or the self important and exceedingly boring old usher guy, but never to me? I was earnest, I was in need, ready to be called to battle in the old "Onward Christian Soldiers" sense.
Finally I figured it out, when I reached a certain age and began to fumblingly learn how to utilize the logical part of my brain. None of those people feel or sense those things. They want to, they try to, they convince themselves with certain self-hymnotic techniques that they do feel them, and then they go to church and Praise Jesus or Allah or David Koresh or Fred Phelps loudly in order to continue to convince themselves and those around them that they are one of God's chosen. It was the biggest scam in history, perpetuated mostly in ignorance by it's own victims; the true meaning behind my favorite fable, The Emperor's New Clothes.
...The whip has weathered every whack, the prize we sought is won; The beer is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady march, the Krampus grim and daring"
-A Krampusization of the first verse of 'O Captain! My Captain!' by Walt Whitman
And so we come to it at last, Krampus fest 2010! For anyone who has been wondering just what the hell Krampus is, and why I've been making such a fuss over it for the last several posts, hopefully this one will explain our love for it. The last time I was at Krampus was in aught 6, so it was really great to hit it again at long last. Here's a distant glimpse of a pack of demons led through the lower part of town by St. Nick as they make their early house calls.
Krampus fest is awesome. In a nutshell, on every 5th of December many small mountain villages from the area around Berchtesgaden send a Krampus delegation consisting of a band of demons led by the village's St. Nick stand-in. St. Nick will usually have a couple of little girls dressed as angels following close to his side, ringing small chimes to warn of their approach. The demons come in a few different types. Some wear simple furs with a furry dog-face looking mask, and carry whips. Some wear furs with a more elaborate wooden hand-carved demon face mask, sometimes with cowbells strapped to their backs, and carry whips. And others are covered in straw, usually with the wooden masks, always with the cowbells strapped on their backs, and carry whips.
The delegations converge upon Berchtesgaden for the official Krampus opening ceremony. It was really crowded during the daytime this year, so we were unable to get close to the square where they had it, but I've seen it before so I can describe the gist of it. Basically what happens is that St. Nicholas, in an effort to make the human race behave more admirably than is it's wont, meets up with an old friend of his, a shady character named Knecht Ruprecht. St. Nicholas asks to borrow the demons that are under Knecht's control for two days and nights, that he might lead them into battle for the souls of children. The German Bundeswehr, a military outfit, supervises the handing-over ceremony. If negotiations go smoothly they promptly escort Knecht and themselves out of town, essentially handing control of Berchtesgaden over to the demons of St. Nick for the duration.
This is where it gets scary. So in order to wage war against the sins of mankind, St. Nicholas orders the demons to begin their rampage. Krampus demons, being demonic, are able to sense the sinful. Sniffing out their own kind, as such. They know if you've been naughty, and when they find you, they use the combined psychological warfare tactics of being damned scary looking, their towering Bavarian farmer-like sizes, and the maddening sound of the cowbells of hell in order to make you flee in terror. And when you flee, that's when they chase you, and use the whips.
You see they're no Disney whips, this is a serious business. They whap! you pretty hard with those things on the back of the knees or thighs, and it stings. The purpose of the whipping is to beat the sins out of you. St. Nicholas, being the kind saint that he is, wants to be able to give the little German children presents on Christmas morning and the only way to insure that he doesn't have to leave anyone out is by punishing them for the past year's sins first. It's quite an elegant system, if you think about it. No coal in the stockings, or wooden shoes or however they do it there. No child left behind. Whap!
It starts off fairly tamely in the late afternoon. The crowds of onlookers are thick, and the demon packs roam about town in fairly orderly fashion, whacking the occasional bystander who sticks out from the crowd a bit too much. The Krampus fest coincides with Berchtesgaden's Christkindlemarkt, so there are plenty of places to stop and grab a gluwein or a beer and some wurst or spätzle while shadowing a particularly fun bunch of demons. There's even a bit of time to... do... some... window... shopping?
Erm... I love it. I'm not sure if little armless goat/tree boy here has anything to do with Krampus, but for him to just sort of appear in a wood carver's window amongst other more standard shop fare is fairly indicative of how awesome Berchtesgaden is. Is he supposed to be vomiting twigs? Anyway. As the night carries on, things get a bit rowdier. The demons get drunker and start hitting harder, the crowds get thinner, and those who stay get numb from both the cold and the whippings. And drunker.
Gluhwein comes in those nice little mugs. The above scene is a demon showing a rare bit of selective craftiness. He'd reached over John there to grab the mug of gluhwein from the young lady in order to lure her away from the table, where he proceeded to whip the tar out of her. I sort of can't believe she fell for it, but she was pretty young, after all. Very young, John. [Ahem.] Shows you they do in fact know who needs a good whipping.
You may have noticed that the hands and arms of the demons are covered in a greasy soot. They tend to rub their hands over the faces of their victims, leaving a sooty hand-print. I'm not sure exactly why; logically I would guess they do this so as to leave a message for the other demons that this one has been taken care of, move along, but I haven't noticed that the demons leave previously-marked victims alone any more than anyone else. Indeed, sometimes it seems as though the mark is given to single out those who need more attention than usual, and may end the night having been beaten several times.
Young women in particular do seem to get singled out more often. But if I explore this thought it leads into uncomfortable examinations of German sexuality and the whole town seems to view this behavior as a healthy and normal outlet for the youth once a year so I suppose we'll leave it at that as no harm, no foul. Or rather; not too much harm other than a slight stinging and a few morning after bruises, no foul.
Creeeeepy. But then, this isn't supposed to be charming. It is an ancient tradition and despite the rather gleefully dark connotations of the whole thing, is actually religious in nature. As such, there are certain aspects of Krampus that should be taken seriously which, I am ashamed to admit, in my younger and more vulnerable years I did not realize. Pretty much anything goes at Krampus but the main thing is that during the festivities, the demons are in charge. It is not appreciated when some wise-ass American stands up to them. I know that sounds crazy; I mean look at these guys, who would have the nerve to stand up to them anyway?!
Well it happens. Some stupid drunk American thinks he's braver than most people and flits about, trying to steal a whip, or simply standing in the middle of the road forcing a confrontation just to display how unafraid of getting a whap! behind the knees he is. Sometimes the demon ignores him, but often, especially the later it gets, said dumb-ass American finds himself on his back on the cobblestones after having been the victim of a running tackle and shoved 15 feet through the air across the road. And then group-whipped repeatedly. Usually the victim is too stupid to realize this is a severe reprimand of his behaviour and instead mistakes it for "all in good fun". Sheesh.
One of the greatest of the worst-kept secrets of Krampus fest in Berchtesgaden is the Goldener Bär, (The Golden Bear) a solidly good German restaurant with an Italian restaurant upstairs. If you sneak through the Goldener Bär, then sneak upstairs, there is a balcony which overlooks a hidden courtyard behind the building. And in this courtyard is a sort of staging/pow wow/rest area for the Krampus demons. It is a very long, exhausting two days for these guys, dressing in heavy costumes and running around all day whipping people and ringing bells. They need the occasional break to rest up, drink some beer, howl like demons, and party it up on their own. And of course a place for me to get some good shots. Here St. Nicholas is basking in the worship of his demons.
And then, just to prove he's no prude, St. Nick instructs them to let the howl-down begin!
Austria has this brand of chocolates named after Mozart. They are dainty little bon-bons, and cardboard cutouts of Mozart displaying a box of them are ubiquitous in the Alps. Apparently, Krampus demons thought Mozart needed a good whipping this year. Off with his head!
And this seems a little dangerous to me but hay, if a demon needs his nicotine, I for one am not standing in his way. (misspelling intended, haw haw!) A flaming straw demon would have been pretty scary anyway, and I was ready, if disappointed, with my camera.
The balcony overlooking the courtyard is really a great spot. Next time we go I will try and borrow someone's video camera so I can catch all the action. The cowbells from hell, the chanting, the howling, the demonic singing. I love it! One of the demons needed to use the demon loo and came up and was trying to get by us. I think he scared Nimmer a little.
But at the end of the night, even demons need to tone it down and kick back a bit. Even from the demon pow wow, a rest in a normal pub with some human friends is occasionally needed.
As for myself, one of my favorite places to rest my whipped buns and weary feet with a beer is upstairs, at that Italian restaurant I was telling you about. They serve good European style pizza and of course wonderful German beer, but most importantly it's very warm and not usually too crowded. So Gerald, Julie and I took a break up there for some quiet replenishment when some of our friends came in for a quiet rest of their own!
The above photo was taken with Julie's camera by a demon, and believe it or not it was their idea! I don't think any of us had the courage to ask for a photo but it turns out this was a really friendly pair. They just came over and plopped down next to us and began a half-hour or so of friendly chat. Of course, they didn't speak much English and my German is minimal, but it was educational nonetheless. Julie took this one.
The demons were obviously friends. The one you've seen here is a giant Bavarian man, and would be extremely intimidating even without the getup. His friend was a much smaller man, and they made an amusing pair. Julie got this fantastic photo as well.
The smaller demon allowed Julie to try on his mask. I can't believe she asked him if she could; I was still terrified of them. Perhaps I have too many preconceptions about Krampus Nacht to be able to separate the guys wearing the masks from the traditions they represent.
When I tell people about Krampus, I get very mixed reactions. Some people think it sounds like the coolest thing ever but more often, people just think it sounds stupid. "Why would you want to let a bunch of scary men in costumes whip you?! You're weird and a little gay, dude." That always surprises me. It's an experience like none you'd ever be allowed to have in the States. I mean, people like the idea of running with the bulls, or going to that crazy tomato festival. This is along the same lines as those but much more fun in a way more primal.
Notice I got greased on the top of my head. I think they like to take advantage of such a landing deck when they can. Anyway, I hope I've managed to get across why Krampus is awesome and not stupid and a little gay to anyone reading this who might be new to the whole thing.
So that was Krampus 2010. It was awesome, and really great to see my friend Nimmer again and meet his girlfriend and his friend John, and it was great to have Gerald along as well; he was one of the few who thought it sounded awesome the first time he heard about it so it's nice to see it get appreciated. It wound up being a really fun group of people. I was bummed that other Krampus companions of years past were unable to make it, but maybe next time. However the best thing about Krampus this year was being able to share it with Julie, who has had to listen to me yammer on about it and Germany for the last 4 years and finally got to see for herself. She had a really great time and now when I yammer on about it, she can join in. She and I stayed in Berchtesgaden for two more days after Krampus in order to recuperate from three weeks on the road and a nasty bug. I'd never done that before but A) Berchtesgaden is a near ghost town after the fest and B) the perfect place to decompress at the end of a Honeymoon. The hotel Bavaria had a Turkish bath and sauna in their private spa room, and we took full advantage. And two more delicious German dinners at the Goldener Bär are nothing to pass up. Well, until next time, may visions of gluhwein and whip-bearing demons dance in our heads.
Kitt Peak was. Awesome. I had done Tombstone the previous day in what was originally supposed to be my only free time after a job in Fort Huachuca, but I couldn't get a plane out until Saturday so Kitt Peak was my overstay day two destination of choice.
Cartoon cactus! Kitt Peak National Observatory is about a 2 hour drive West of Tucson. It is the home of 26 telescopes, the largest array of them anywhere in the world. Included among them are one radio telescope dish which is a member of the VLBA (Very Long Baseline Array), the largest solar telescope in the world, and the first telescope used to search for near-Earth asteroids that could possibly strike us one day.
It was a holy pilgimmage. Only better, because the sense of holiness at the top of this mountain felt like something real, something tangible, and not simply mass superstitious willfull delusion. (That needs a better word; is there a word that describes The Emperor Wears No Clothes syndrome? Mass delusion, hysteria, or hypnosis don't really cut it because we need something to connotate the willfullness of it.)
There is always a very real sense of excitement when one visits such places, places where the advancement of the human race has occurred, is still occurring, and will always occur as long as there are those who use their minds rather than their emotions to peer into reality. Or at least engage in the attempt.
It's a feeling of utter joy and freedom, something I never did feel as a member of a certain religion. Perhaps, in light of my previous paragraph, I ought not to use the word 'feeling'. Obviously I don't mean that emotions are evil; though they do lead one into error quite handily, especially during investigations. One should feel one's emotions, take pleasure in them, even use them in any form of expression you might choose, but never be guided by them.
Well enough of traveller's philosophy. Suffice it to say, I prefer a big metal telescope on a mountaintop to a guru any day.
So getting back to the details of my pilgrimmage; having a whole day and night until my departure from the desert around Tucson, I decided to take part in the evening observation program which they offer nightly. It was awesome. First they take you on a brief sunset tour of a few choice spots on the peak.
Then they let us into one of the working telescope domes for a brief lecture and demonstration of stuff. You know, sciencey stuff.
But the absolute high point was of course actual observation. We got to play with one of the telescopes. A dinky one to be sure, as far as Kitt Peak scopes go, but certainly a more powerful one than I've ever had the opportunity to use before.
We got to see moon craters, a binary star system, and Jupiter's cloud bands. it was pretty freaking sweet. In the advanced observing program for amateur astronomers, they let you use their digital telescope cameras to take and keep pictures of stuff that you choose to look at. But that program costs like $500 and is a sleepover so, not in the cards for me on this trip. (Or should I say, not in the STARS for me on this trip? Yuk snort! No, no I guess I shouldn't.) Next time.
I also got to sit around and take cool night photos while other people got a turn at the eyepiece so, win win all around. I took a metric ton of these, but I'll spare you and post only the money shot.
And that's pretty much it. It was quite a hushed evening, meditative even; there's a stillness on an astronomer's mound at night, even among a group of other stargazers, that has to be experienced to be appreciated, hence all of my holy comparisons.
There was an infrared camera inside, and I couldn't resist a parting shot of myself in the monitor. Creepy right?
And now I am currently on my Honeymoon! You know, with that girl I married. It's been a great trip so far, but I just wanted to get these Kitt Peak pix up before the onslaught of European photos begin.
So God Jr. was recently struck by lightning. Jesus H.
Christ. If you haven’t heard about it, the article is here. This is a very
important event in world history, in the history of philosophy, and of religion.
You may scoff, but I believe that future scholars will refer to the burning of
fiberglass Jesus as a major turning point in the mental evolution of mankind.
Here’s why: It disproves everything that Christians hold dear, no matter
how you look at it. And before the outrage takes hold of you, if you’re a Christian,
I will allow that it only disproves everything that fundamentalist Christians
hold dear, and not necessarily the other, more middle of the road Christians.
And my argument for this case is thus:
God is sick of hearing about Jesus already.
If you believe that everything is controlled by God, and things such as
Hurricane Katrina are a sign that God hates Fags, then the striking of a statue
of Jesus by lightning is the clearest sign you can get that God hates Jesus.
Don’t like that conclusion? Well try this one:
2)There is no God, or God doesn’t talk to
you.
Why would a God who exists send such a confusing message? If you believe that
God is in charge of everything, and sends messages via lighting, hurricanes,
tornadoes and earthquakes, why would he confuse his followers in such a crucial
time in history? Well, he didn’t. Lightning strikes, i.e. Acts of God, are
random and purposeless in nature. At the very least, if this doesn’t prove that
there is no God to you, it should prove that he takes no hand in things and
lets the chips fall where they may. Therefore, fags, dikes, and liberals are
not to blame for Katrina. But wait, you still believe he sends you messages
through, not random acts of kindness but of destructive nature? Idiot. Well,
here’s really the only possible message:
God doesn’t like your rhetoric. If you
insist on believing in a God who controls everything, then this can only mean
that He hates your ugly religion, and is accusing you of worshiping false
idols. Stop pretending to know what he wants of you already. Perhaps instead of
trying to browbeat the world with Jesus, you should just try and be a good
person. Live and let live. So he struck down your false idol, i.e. your false
image of who and what Jesus was, in order to get you to consider the falseness
of your damned religion.
Whichever way it goes, it’s a sure sign that the Universe is
not what you think.
San Diego. Eh. I don't see what all the
fuss is about. I had a job there for 7 days the other week. Julie lived
there for a short time after college, so I used some miles to bring her
along to give me a tour of her old stomping grounds. The thing
about San Diego that sucks is that it's ALL highway. Want to go a
couple of blocks away for dinner? Get on the highway. Not because it's a
shortcut, but because the only roads are highways. But one thing we
found that was super cool in San Diego was the Geisel Libraryon the San Diego campus of the University of California.
Cool right? Because he once said that if he were to
ever design a building that it would look like that, it is named in honor of this guy:
The human, not the cat. You know, that one there with the hat. We happened to be there on the good Dr.'s 106th Birthday, and they had a few of his sketches on Display.
Apparently they were also going to have their annual birthday party for him out in front of the library, with punch and pie, but they canceled that this year due to some racial incidents that have recently plagued the University. It apparently began with the Compton Cookout, a frat party where guests were supposed to come dressed as racial stereotypes, and then someone put a KKK hood over the Dr. Suess statue's head, and then someone hung a noose in the library. It's all very weird and I don't understand it. I thought that California was supposed to be a bastion of tolerance? For different types of people at least, as long as they drive a hybrid, are vegetarians, and recycle, etc etc... Well I guess I was myth-taken. Between their unusually deep economic troubles, their recent vote against equal rights for homosexuals, and now this, I'd have to say that things are going downhill over there, and that's a bad sign for the rest of us, shall we say, less plastic liberals in the country. (Not to mention what's happening to public education in Texas; not that it's a surprise as such, just that every day our once great nation gets weirder and weirder and more willfully ignorant, and it's happening at an alarming rate. Dollhouse.)
All I can say is, if you're going to cancel the birthday party of the man who wrote 'The Sneetches' and 'The Butter Battle Book', well, the terrorists win again. I mean the racists! The racists win again. Whatever. Same thing. Bad people scaring good people into reacting ineffectually. (Thanks for stealing my thunder by the way, Miss Luongo. :)
Well anyway. We took a drive up the Pacific highway, which is "one of the good ones"... highways, I mean. Obviously. We stopped on an oceanside cliff in La Jolla.
Paragliding is cool. My friend Dirk, when we lived in Germany, used to snowboard all day, then strap on his paraglider and fly down to the river where his VW Van (which he called his toybox) was waiting with his kayak, and he'd kayak down the river into town. One of his less insane friends of course usually had to help him out with the logistics of that of course.
The last adventure of ours of note, besides lunch on Laguna Beach and a corona in Tijuana, was our visit to San Juan Capistrano. There's some famous mission there. You know, a church built by missionaries back in the early days of westward expansion for the purpose of bringing God's word to those stupid heathen Native Americans.
And how best to make these savages understand that God means business?
Why stand around and be all holier than they while making them do all the laundry, of course! And then make them build the building that honors your God through slave labor!
That will teach those stupid dumbbrain injuns to not have ever heard about Jesus. Everyone knows you can not teach an injun to be holy except by showing 'em how, with ancient European holy martial art; holy-shit-I'm-so-holy-stance!
I especially love how the present day mission museum was ashamed enough of these dioramas to shove them in a back corner that I was super lucky to find but not enough to, you know, get rid of them.
So what did I learn about the San Juan Capistrano Mission?
That priests love being in authority over children of ALL ethnicity. And are very holy fucking creepy about that fact. Isn't that right, Pope Friendly? Seriously! Look at this guy! He is the best Pope ever, because he gives the creepy shivers like no other! Hey Pope Child Molester! I have a funny religious joke for you: What do you call a pregnant virgin? A fucking liar!
"Repentance alone is of no help; grace cannot be bought with repentance; it cannot in any way be bought."
"If His churches and priests were like Christ Himself, there would be no need of poets." -Hermann Hesse
So speaking of religion, here's a fascinating little fact that just came across my desk. Ever hear of indulgences, or Johann Tetzel? Well, in point of fact, Johann was a German Dominican preacher who in the year of our lordy lord lord 1517 was trying to raise money for the construction of St. Peter's Basilica; Yes that's correct, an integral part of that huge, garish, ostentatious monument to man's power and greed known as the Vatican.
In order to fund this little project, Johann travelled around to towns and villages. Rather than to say to them, "Hey poor people, we're trying to build this monstrous church in Rome that will display Catholic power to the world, how about giving us your milk money to, you know, help a Friar out?", he instead went around singing a little ditty that is now known (by me, anyway) as the Indulgence Rag. It goes: "As soon as a coin in the coffer rings / the soul from purgatory springs."Yes, in point of fact, he created one of Satan's moste potente minde controlle gimmicks, the very first Advertisement Jingle. Basically the premise is that, if you've been less than good but not quite bad enough to go to hell, you can buy your way out of Purgatory, because the Pope had the authority to tell God who deserves to go to Heaven, and God had to listen. And the Pope would perform this small task for even the poorest meanest villiager out of the kindness of his cold black heart, and for a small, meaningless fee, of course. And not to forget, he would not have even offered the poor people this kindly ease of mind had he not needed cash to build his big crappity church. So there's Papal altruism for you.
I feel that there is something extremely poetic about the world's first ad jingle being composed and utilized by a Catholic priest trying to scam poor people into giving him their last copper in order to build the most gaudy, useless building in the world. On the one side, it's poetic because essentially, advertising in that respect hasn't changed; advertisers would love for people to still believe that buying stuff will save your soul, and in a sense they've continued to create this sense in people. The feeling that buying those shoes or my new Canon Xsi will make us happy, complete in some way. It's a gaping hole in every shoppers chest that can never be filled, and the only thing I'm not entirely sure of is how exactly it got there. My bet is that the Church created this need in people by selling them indulgences, and has continued to exploit it ever since, but even if it's always been there, an integral part of Man's nature, there is no denying that the Church first learned of it and exploited it through Johann Tetzel.
On the other side it's also poetic, because it helps to bathe the Pope and the Catholic Church in it's own ugly light. The questions that weren't thought about in 1517 by dirty uneducated villagers can be easily asked now. So, why does God, whose Son supposedly upended all of the money changer's tables in front of the Temple, give a rat's ass about 2 copper bits when it comes to men's souls? Of course he doesn't. This episode in the Church's history clearly shows what a corrupt, scamming pile of God Turd the Catholic Church really is. They thought they could get away with this because people were stupid and uneducated, but history didn't forget, and now we may still be stupid, but at least we're educated enough to recognize a hustle when we see one. This is what organized religion is really all about; Getting butts in seats by using the fear of eternal hell or purgatory and offering salvation through the application of a little magical formula, and don't forget to tithe on the way out, y'all.
Anyway, the wikipedia page on Johann Tetzel is here, and the article which turned me on to this very illuminating tidbit is here. I'm going to leave this rant with another picture I took during my visit to the Vatican a few years back. It's a shot of the escalator leading up to the Vatican Museum entrance, and it sure looks a lot like many Christain fantasist's idea of the stairway to heaven to me... wonder if that's what the Catholic church was going for? A little not-so-subliminal advertising? What do you think?
Ever wonder what really happened to the dinosaurs? Chick knows! Click on the comic to read more!
Chick is now online, and all of his wonderful messages in cartoon can be perused at your leisure! Chick tracts were around when I was really young, and I remember one in particular that scared the living crap out of me. Something about an MC 500 foot Jesus coming to rip my guts out. I love how evil all non-Christians are in Chick's fabulous brain.
Incest and murder are my things? Comedy gold. But there are many many other classics, including one about how to convert Muslims to Christianity by insulting Allah!
And one of my personal favorites about a rather testy old Evolution teacher. Those bad science professors sure need some calming Christ in their life, don't they?
Have you noticed how all of the main characters, both good and evil, in Chick tracts are white? Well, don't feel left out, people of color. Lest you think Chick might be racist, Chick made a tract for you, too! (I pasted the description onto the tract cover from the main tract listing page)
And not to spoil the ending of Oops! or anything, but I also think it's important to note that Chick gives black people a very important role in his mythos:
There are other tracts made just especially for the blacks too. There's Soul Sisters, (featuring black Adam & Eve and a black Angel! See? Chick's no racist!) Who Loves You?, and Chick even took the time to kindly redraw the Allah Had No Son tract just for them! He retitled it Who is Allah?
And no post about Chick would be complete with out a tract about the totalitarian rule of the costumed anti-Christ during the last days on Earth before Jesus comes to rule the world. Sadly, we don't get to see Jesus in a Batman-like costume come and pummel the joker here, but I guess the implication is enough to get Chick's message across.
A panel from this strip explains away all the contradictions about Christians who are anti-environmentalist, and who cheer on nuclear wars and unrest in Israel:
That's why I'm so excited? Christians are freaking scary sometimes, dude. Oh, keep this one on the down-low for now, but Chick doesn't like Queers much, neither... or maybe he's afraid of them? Hard to tell. Wonder why a straight guy is afraid of a couple of other guys holding hands?
Gulp! Gay Hippies! Or perhaps the implication is that all hippies are Jerry Garcia lookalike commie fags... not sure. All I know is, it's no big deal, it's all a joke to me! Proposition Hate? Nah... Proposition GREAT!
Another one of my favorites is an interesting piece of cartoon art titled Last Rites. It's theme is essentially how wrong Catholics are about God and his rules, and it starts off with, you know, an ordinary everyday non-Christian couple driving a car.
They accidentally run over a good Catholic man who dies and goes in front of God for judgment, who then informs the poor Catholic man that he's been doing it wrong and will therefore burn in Hell for all eternity. The Catholic man complains to God and says that he went to church, and did everything the Priests told him he had to do to go to Heaven, that this isn't fair! How was he to know that there was a better way? Well, says God, Chick Tracts would have straightened you out!
Apparently, Chick Tracts are so awesome that now even God is using them to witness to us and to save our souls. Jerry Falwell & Pat Robertson are out, Chick is in. I hope everybody got that memo.
I ran across this article on this guy because of email alerts I get from Google on any news out there relating to my imprisoned boss from Iraq. The article barely mentions my old boss, but this guy, Colonel Frank Wismer III, is a real piece of work. He's an Episcopalian Army Chaplain; you know, a believer in the Bible and Jesus and peace and love, and the article says this:
"Wismer, whose awards include the Bronze Star Medal and the Combat
Action Badge, passes on to readers many lessons he learned while in
Iraq. Here's one: "Going to war is an incredibly fantastic experience
if one lives through it…One year in Iraq revealed things about
community that the church was not able to reveal to me in 50-some
years. I say that not as a criticism of the church, but to highlight
the incredible bond that is established by individuals who survive the
horrors of war."
Going towar is an incredibly fantastic experience? Because of the bond soldiers get while protecting each other and killing the other guy? I think he's missed the point of his religion. I mean, I get the bond thing, I really do. I've been in several situations which can never be understood by anyone who wasn't there with me, and this certainly creates a bond, so I can maybe imagine what being in the life or death struggles of combat can do for friendships, though I'm not sure what that has to do with religion. But this is a supposed man of God, talking about how great war is without any sense of irony. I'm not sure that "Onward Christian Soldiers" was meant as a literal call to literal bloody war, dude. My understanding, from having grown up in the church, was that we were being called to fight a purely spiritual war to convert human souls to God, and I'm not sure how you can justify turning people into soulless meat product in even a just war, let alone the atrocious moral and criminal mess that has been Bush's campaign in Iraq, as a so-called man of God.
"The big picture, he suggests, are the strategic objectives that led to
the invasion of Iraq -- to fight the war on terror outside of America's
borders, to plant democracy in a part of the world that spawns terror;
to isolate neighboring Syria, influence a democratic movement in Iran
and give notice Saudi Arabia that it cannot tolerate a strict,
conservative brand of the Muslim faith practiced there and harbor
Islamic militants."
He's agreeing with the sentiments in this paragraph, by the way, calling the lies and misinformation that led to our illegal and immoral war in Iraq "strategic objectives." And he feels that his God is okay with fighting the war on terror, America's war on terror, outside of America's borders. This, to me, is a most horrific sentiment. That a supposed Christian man thinks it is okay to take our battles and fight them in someone else's home. We've taken our war on terrorism, which now we all know had absolutely nothing to do with Saddam Hussein, Iraq or terrorism, and destroyed those innocent people's lives and homes, and he thinks this is what we as God's army had a right to do.
I don't know. I've never understood how any church can justify Army Chaplains who are also war mongers for the church. In my mind, if an Army Chaplain were to be living up to his beliefs, he should only be there to encourage moral behavior among the troops, (Hey guys, when you're out there today, please don't rape and kill any Iraqi women and their families. They're God's children too, you know) and to do everything in their power to help end conflicts, not promote them.
If you really want an extreme lefty belief here, I'm pretty sure that, were Jesus everything the Bible says he was, he'd vastly disapprove of the very concept of Army Chaplains. Men of God have no business in war, except perhaps to be there independently, (not on the military payroll) and being compassionate to all people involved while doing whatever possible to end it. However, he's actually against withdrawing our presence in Iraq, mostly because of how he thinks it would make us look.
"To pullout our troops out of Iraq now would be a colossal mistake and
send that country to chaos," he says. "Strategically that would not be
helpful. We would be seen as a people only in something for a short
time, not for the long haul."
"I would like to see the Iranian government be able to manage, the
military be able to protect the country from without and the police to
protect it from within. Then there can be phased withdrawals, but that
needs to be done over time."
Iranian Government? I hope that was just a misprint and not a telling slip of the tongue, dude.
I haven't been around much lately, I know. My question is, have any of us? For myself, I've been consumed with fear and paranoia over the state of the economy. My 401k has less money in it now than what was put into it out of my original paychecks. My stocks... well, as I've said before; when in 2050 they are teaching schoolchildren in the most powerful Nation in the world (my prediction: Eurasia) about the great world stock market crash of '08, my picture will be in the book as the poster child for those who bought in at exactly the worst moment in history. Maybe. I'm sticking it out in case my fears are incorrect.
Also, I've been consumed with the fear that no matter how many nonsensical utterings of bullshit come out of Sarah Palin's mouth, we still might be forced to look at her pasty vapid psycho doll eyed face for the next four years. If that happens, it'll be the final nail in the coffin of our country. She's deeply stupid (yet thinks she's smarter than everyone and that no one can see through to her motivations) and masks it poorly with down-home stylings meant to fool the common man into thinking she's like one of them. She's playing on the irrational blue collar disdain of elitists, which is scary because apparently the present down-home version of an elitist is someone with an education who speaks with knowledge and authority on a given subject. Apparently, the people with whom Palin is trying to connect would rather the officials in charge of their government not understand how to answer basic questions and mask their ignorance with folksy exclamations which make no sense. I CAN NOT believe that people are being taken in by her and McCain, especially after realizing finally that they've been taken in by Bush for the last 8 years.
It's embarrassing to have these people on the world stage representing us, and if you're voting for Palin (to hell with McCain; he's irrelevant and will keel over soon) shame on you, dupe. Well, the polls do currently favor Obama of course, but not by a wide enough margin to quell my disbelief.
Another thing I'm afraid of lately is this Creation Museum in Kentucky. It's a museum. Dedicated to Creationism. And people are visiting it in droves. Creationism is the belief that the world was created by God around this time of the year on a Monday morning in 4004 BC. Dinosaur bones and all. Now, the belief in God, the Bible, and its literal truth, is a Faith. Faith, not Science. The line between the two concepts is under attack. Science is the search for truth, based on verifiable fact. Faith is the belief in something for which you have no proof. I have no problem with people of Faith going to Church and learning about what they believe in. I just wish they'd stop trying to force their beliefs into the schoolroom. It's dangerous and useless. Education in America is already severely limited these days. I met a Gas Station attendant in Germany who studied math for fun and spoke four languages. Most European students can talk intelligently and at great length about world politics, and know where Eritrea is on a map. There are people like that in the States, to be sure, but they get made fun of and called geeks. Something that modern day religious Americans seem to forget is that part of the reason why America is such a great place to live is that we once valued a secular education, and our prosperity comes from the application of our knowledge AND hard work. And on Sundays and at mealtimes, God was valued and thanked in many homes, sure, but at the end of the work day, God helps those who help themselves. Deceiving ourselves into thinking that faith needs to compete with science is not going to help anybody, because it's false. When it comes to science, religion tends to breed rather a hostile attitude of indifference because what difference does science make when Jesus is coming back to turn the Earth into blood soup and all the people who are looking forward to this disaster get to skip it and go to Heaven for candy and unicorns? They tend to forget that, even according to the Bible, we are Stewards of the Earth, and as such will be held responsible for it one day, one way or another.
Granted, science has caused a lot of problems on this Earth. Next to all the good things like medicine and movie theaters. But at this point, Science is also the only tool we have to save ourselves, and subverting it with Bible stories is NOT the way to go.
So now I come to the thing I'm actually afraid of this morning, the real reason behind this post. I get up and begin my routine as usual; perform the daily miracle of turning tap water into coffee. Eat breakfast. Drink some pre-miracled water, gulp down my daily plethora of vitamins with a big glass of more tap water, brush my teeth with tap water from the bathroom sink. I go sit down at my computer for my daily stock torture, notice I have a message on my phone. It's my landlord, Frank, telling me they put out a warning last night not to drink the tap water, not even after boiling it, and that it might not be safe to even bathe in until further notice; I listen to this as I'm taking another long sip of coffee. SO, I call Frank back to see if I need to go to the hospital, and he says he doesn't know; he's on his way up to the borough office to find out what's going on. Meanwhile, I wait here, typing out my ranty fears in this post, wondering how sick I can expect to be at any moment. I continue drinking my coffee because, what the hell, what's done is done.
I finally get a call back from Frank. Apparently, someone who lives next to the town Water Tower saw three guys hanging around the tower. Climbing it and other shady behavior. Neighbors called it in, water's being checked to see if terrorists poisoned it. I live in a very small town; that water tower probably supplies about 5 or 6 hundred people.
I make more coffee and drink a big fat glass of tap water. Laugh and shake my head. More disbelief, more wonderment at how afraid people are, and how much America is being ruled by their fears. I laugh as my stocks tumble. Screw it. It's only money. President Palin? Ha! Good joke! She'll only hasten the downfall of this abominable government we're stuck with! The terrorists have already won anyway. They've shown us how weak and vulnerable we've become, all on our own. Thank God I got to see Stereolab at the Fillmore in NYC before I died. Miss Luongo and I went up to see them last week with my friends Jeff and Steph. Pure aural pleasure.
"The United States is a Christian nation founded upon Christian principles and beliefs." -pres George W. Bush
"The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion." -PRESIDENT George Washington
"I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature." -PRESIDENT Thomas Jefferson
"The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my religion." -PRESIDENT Abraham Lincoln
"A just government has no need for the clergy or the church." -PRESIDENT James Madison
"I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday
end... where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the
church of his choice." -PRESIDENT John F. Kennedy
"I don’t know that atheists should be considered patriots, nor should they be considered citizens". -pres George "Daddy" Bush
"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand they do less easily move against him believing that he has the gods on his side." -Aristotle "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." -Seneca
"We admit of no government by divine right....The only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed"
-William Henry Harrison
"The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum" -Havelock Ellis
"Civilization will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest" -Emile Zola
"Nature and nature’s laws lay hid by night
God said "let there be Newton and all was light"
-Alexander Pope
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not Omnipotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is God both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
AND "Why should I fear death? If I am, then death is not. If Death is, then I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do? Long time men lay oppressed with slavish fear.
Religious tyranny did domineer. At length the mighty one of Greece Began to assent the liberty of man."
-Epicurus
"There is in every village a torch and an extinguisher: the schoolteacher and the priest." -Victor Hugo
"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the reasoning of a single individual" AND "To command their professors of astronomy [or even, gasp, evolution] to refute their own observations is to command them not to see what they do see and not to understand what they do understand." -Galileo Galilei
"All the religions are based on the concept of God as a senile delinquent." -Tennessee Williams
"The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but
the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not." -Eric Hoffer
"Those who seek consolation in existing churches often pay for their
peace of mind with a tacit agreement to ignore a great deal of what is
known about the way the world works." -Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshiped anything but himself." AND "Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause;
He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made
laws." -Sir Richard Francis Burton
"To believe in God or in a guiding force because someone tells you to is
the height of stupidity. We are given senses to receive our information
within. With our own eyes we see, and with our own skin we feel. With
our intelligence, it is intended that we understand. But each person
must puzzle it out for himself or herself." -Sophy Burnham
"What about the statue in California currently said to be crying bloody
tears? Why worry about the alleged weeping of a plaster effigy when so
many actual human beings have reason to cry?" -Anna Quindlen
"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things
and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil
things, that takes religion." -Steven Weinberg
"A cult is a religion with no political power." -Tom Wolfe
"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring." -Chuck Palahniuk
"There is in every village a torch and an extinguisher: the schoolteacher and the priest." -Victor Hugo
The Athiest’s Commandments from ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins. The first ten are from a website he found while researching his book, then XI through XIV are his own additions, and XV is mine, as well as the comments in brackets.
I.Do not do to others what you would
not want them to do to you.
II.In all things, strive to cause no
harm.
III.Treat your fellow human beings,
your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty,
faithfulness and respect.
IV.Do not overlook evil or shrink
from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely
admitted and honestly regretted.
V.Live life with a sense of joy and
wonder.
VI.Always seek to be learning
something new.
VII.Test all things; always check your
ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it
does not conform to them.
VIII.Never seek to censor or cut
yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with
you. [But don’t let them get away with faulty reasoning without a fight.
Besides, maybe they’ll prove you wrong and that’s good too.]
IX.Form independent opinions on the
basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led
blindly by others.
X.Question everything.
XI.Enjoy your own sex life (so long
as it damages nobody else) and leave others to enjoy theirs in private whatever
their inclinations, which are none of your business.
XII.Do not discriminate or oppress on
the on the basis of sex, race or (as far as possible) species.
XIII.Do not indoctrinate your children.
Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to
disagree with you.
XIV.Value the future on a timescale
longer than your own.
XV.Patriotism is a lie. Religion is a
lie. God is an unknown. [Patriotism and Religion are not even compatible, and
yet most Patriotic Americans are Religious too. Here, I’ll prove it:
a)Patriotism = My country is #1,
above and beyond all others, right or wrong.
b)My Country is run by old rich cowards
who want our young idealistic men to kill for their comforts
c)Religion says thou shall not kill.
[even if that commandment is the only part of the Old Testament which actually
says that, because otherwise God sanctioned quite a lot of killin’ and rapin’ in those days.]
d)Therefore,
Patriotism & Religion can not go hand
in hand. Yet somehow, when combined in the mind of deeply uncritical people, they
do.
I’m not saying I'm an atheist. But I am saying that I share a lot more in common with an atheist than with religious thinkers these days. And here's the reason. One time in Church, I remember my pastor doing that whole thing where he says that a lot of people out there in the world will try to tell good Christians that the Bible is full of lies and contradictions. His response to the congregation? "Well I'm here to tell you that the Bible is NOT full of lies!" Brilliant, carry on, Pastor. What? That's all you got? Huh. Anyway I think I related this story in somewhat more detail once before, here.
But the realization that I eventually came to is that belief in God is fundamentally, in the mind of religion at any rate, an insidious and lazy way of avoiding the issue of Life, The Universe, and Everything. What I mean is, one thing that many religious types use to try to convince people that evolution is bunk is the idea that the world is too complicated, too amazing, too wonderful to have all just happened by random chance, it must have been created. (Here's a YouTube I will NEVER get tired of, which is a prime example of that sort of reasoning. If, of all horrors, you find the banana argument compelling, please watch this one also. Thanks again, GoDrex! )
First off, anyone who has taken the time to attempt to understand evolution would never say that. Evolution is anything but random, which is part of its beauty and power. Secondly, all they've done by this argument is show a lack of logical thought. SO, you're saying that the Universe is too complicated and "well designed" to have just happened? So, there must be a Creator. Well then, logically, any possible Creator has to be larger and more well designed than the object of his creation. A hammer and anvil do not forge a blacksmith, for instance. Therefore essentially all that this argument has done is to push the question back a step and in reality, magnify it. Rather than believe in the apparent existence of a complicated and evolved Universe (based on verifiable fact), you'd rather believe in the apparent existence of an even larger and morecomplicated, magical Creator.
I'm not saying that definitively there's no God, which is why I'm not an atheist. (Although according to Dawkins' scale of atheism, I am a 5th or 6th degree atheist, with a 7th degree atheist believing absolutely %100 in the non-existence of God. I will always leave room for the possibility, if not the probability.) I'm just pointing out the weakness of logic in the Religious mind. And I AM saying that IF there's a God, he's not the God of that great work of fiction, the Bible. I think that IF there is a Creator, the only thing that he really gave us are our hearts and our minds, which are very effective tools when reason and logic are applied, and I think he'd be very disappointed in Religion.
For anybody who has read 'The God Delusion', it's apparent that I've used much of Dawkins' material here. In my own idiosyncratic way, of course. But I feel that it's a book which has provided me with a clear way of thinking about ideas which I've held for a while.
Basically what it all boils down to for me is this: Religious apologists have NEVER been able to prove the existence of God or the veracity of the Bible through either Science, logic, or reason. Which makes sense according to the Fundamental Religious version of "logic" anyway; it's all about faith, regardless of the facts. (Dinosaur bones were purposefully planted there to test our faith.) So why do they keep trying? Why do they want Creationism, sorry, Intelligent Design, taught in science classes? Science is about verifiable fact, religion is about faith. You don't see scientists banging on the doors of churches, trying to force Sunday school teachers to teach evolution. Although, the inevitable backlash has already begun with the likes of Dawkins. He's tired of Religion's interference in the world of reality, hence the book. It's time for the Religious to accept that faith is based on nothing verifiable, and that they are welcome to it.
And his main points are good ones; You don't need Religion to be moral, brainwashing children with religion is immoral (Christians don't call it brainwashing when they do it, but what else would you call it when, in a different religion such as Islam for example, brainwashed children grow up to steer planes into buildings in the name of their faith?), and he (and I) would be the first one to believe in the existence of God should there ever be proof of his existence. In the meantime, people should stop fighting, brainwashing, and killing each other over minor differences in opinion as to his nature. Something tells me that should your particular version of God turn out to be the real one, he'd still be very pissed at you for adhering to such nonsense and calamity. Unless of course you're Jewish. The Old Testament God was an asshole.
On a final note, I want to reiterate what I believe to be Dawkins' most imperative point in his book: There is no such thing as a Christian child, a Muslim child, an atheist child, or a Buddhist child etc. There are only Children of Christian parents, Children of Muslim parents, Children of atheist parents, and Children of Buddhist parents etc. Until children are mature enough to have weighed all the facts and decide for themselves, they are only children. After all, no one says that their child is a Marxist, or a Democrat, or a Communist. It's ok to wait until the child is of age to decide for itself what its political leanings are, and the same needs to be true of religion.
So remember that picture of the Dalai Lama that I found in that Rudy Rucker book from a few posts back? Well, I found out where the photo was taken! Sort of. Yesterday was my first real free day since coming to Atlanta, and they claim to have the largest aquarium in the world here so I decided that I'd go check it out. I love aquariums. I've been using that picture of the Dalai Lama as a
bookmark, naturally enough, and I brought my latest Rudy Rucker book with me to read when I stopped for coffee or some
such after I got tired of looking at big fish tanks.
Incidentally, I was talking to one of the guys in the class earlier, asking him about stuff to do in Atlanta, and he got real excited telling me all about the Coca-Cola museum. Yeah, that's right. He was nearly frothing as he told me that they let you try every coke flavor ever made, and that they had this display of coke cans from around the world! The Korean one was particularly sublime, apparently. The highest artistic commercial expression of design and functionality.
And people wonder why I think most of America is such a wasteland of consumerism.
Atlanta's other big attractions according to the hotel's brochure rack were the UPS museum and a grand tour of CNN's offices, and something called The Underground which is a historical area of the city with lots of "unique shopping". Also, a guided city tour... on Segways. Urgh. So, suffice it to say, I wasn't really expecting much out of my day there, other than the aquarium.
The aquarium was pretty sweet. Although, it made me finally realize that no aquarium is ever going to hold up to my childhood memories of going to the aquarium in Boston with my family. Whenever I remember it, it seems gigantic, bigger than any aquarium could possibly be, with a huge 6 level cylindrical tank which you walked up a spiral ramp around, looking at thousands of fish, sharks, and a blue whale inside. I know I know, very unlikely, but I said it was a childhood memory. Those kind of memories tend to grow up along with you. Anyway, the one in Atlanta has four whale-sharks, and they're fairly large. And hammerhead sharks, and those ones with a long saw for a nose. So I was happy. Oh! And Manta-Rays. I love Manta-Rays. They're my favorite aquatic animal.
Anyway, I finished up in the aquarium at around 2:00, and decided I would head over to the Underground, which sounded mildly more interesting than the UPS museum. The coke museum was right next door to the aquarium, but I couldn't bring myself to do it, I just couldn't. I thought about it for a minute, and started walking towards it, but when I saw the ticket line I realized that my soul would truly be damned to hell if I actually paid to go in the ... coca-cola... museum... So I backed away slowly and made for the Underground.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the Underground... I saw a sign, a very interesting sign, that said 'Dalai Lama. Free event. 3:00 - 6:00'. I saw some hippie-looking people standing around, so I asked one of them half-jokingly if that meant that the Dalai Lama was really going to be there. And you know, he was. So, I went and saw the Dalai Lama. He was making an acceptance speech in the Olympic Park there, because Emory University had made him a Distinguished Visiting Professor, or some such. On the way in, just before going through park security, there were some fundies hanging around across the street screaming at people that they were going to hell if they listened to the Dalai Lama, and trying to hide the Dalai Lama signs by standing in front of them. Fundies are soooo cute and adorable, with their childish ways and grammar, I just had to snap a photo.
So it seemed like there were thousands of people in the park, waiting to see the Dalai Lama Show. Being bored, and having a camera in my hand, I took a few gratuitous crowd shots.
The girls holding the flag there kept shouting "Free Tibet! Stop killing the monks!" And I kept thinking, "Nobody here is killing any monks, nor are we enslaving Tibet. What are they getting so agitated about? They should go to the Chinese embassy. Or if it's Americans they want to shout at, they can go to Washington and chant about leaving Iraq and to stop murdering innocent Iraqi people. That at least is something worth yelling at a large gathering of Americans about. Oh wait, I get it, we're on TV." Oh, and did I mention that it was pouring rain all day, right up until around noon? Atlanta was having a pretty serious drought until yesterday. So people kept being all smug all day and saying that the Dalai Lama brought the rain with him, but that it stopped long enough for him to speak, because the rain started up again at around 7pm. True enough as far as it goes, although all that really concerned me about it was how the buildings kept disappearing into the clouds. Atlanta is kind of pretty with low clouds.
Anyway, after a bunch of Tibetans playing music, a three piece Atlanta jazz band, then more Tibetans wearing those yellow half-moon hat things and doing that deep OM chant, the Dalai Lama finally took the stage. He's such a nice old man. He thanked Emory University for making him a professor, although he did say that they shouldn't expect him to be around teaching classes much because he's very lazy. Much laughter and applause.
Then he spoke for an hour or so, in his charming broken English, often stopping mid-sentence to ask his translator "Whatssa Name?", about world peace and all that. Since he's the supposed reincarnation of the Buddha of compassion, he had some nice things to say about that. He said that compassion is not a religious idea, that he did not learn these important values from Buddhism, but from his mother. Compassion is born into every human being because after you are born, your survival depends upon the care of another human being. Turtles, who are abandoned on the beach by their mothers, Salmon, whose mothers die after spawning, and some animals whose mothers eat them, insects and so on, they are likely not capable of compassion. Compassion is therefore a human instinct, not a religious idea. He made a very clear point to say that religion is really not so very important, but that compassion is. If you believe in God, that is wonderful, but it is more important to have love and compassion. I think I can get behind that.
After the Dalai Lama Show was over, I saw a bunch of Tibetan monks hanging out so I walked over to them and did the little bow thing that everybody does when those guys are around. Very friendly guys. I pulled out my Rudy Rucker book, and showed them my bookmark and asked them if they knew where the photo had been taken. They smiled and one of them said "Oh, very good picture of His Holiness. This look like when he was in Mambamaramamabakok India."
So there you have it. Some things that I learned today: People holding signs and chanting slogans generally ought to be mistrusted, but people holding children are beautiful, (The Dalai Lama also said that "It is everyone's duty to give maximum affection to their children.It is not my dutythough, because I'm a monk. Ha ha.") and that the Photo of His Holiness that fell out of Rudy Rucker's book was probably taken in Mambamaramamabakok, India. And I thought my trip was going to be boring. Sheesh. So the moral of this story is, if you avoid going to the easy, obvious things which commercialism would have you do such as cola museums, you get to see the Dalai Lama, have certain pressing photo-origin questions answered, and be condemned to hell for it by people who claim to follow Jesus, who, by the way, also preached a message of love and compassion. I flipped them the bird. A really fun day, as far as I'm concerned.
There's an old conundrum bandied about in philosophical and spiritual circles about whether or not our lives, the universe, and everything are driven by free will or are pre-destined. I believe the Catholics like to call it pre-determination, which is the specific opinion that God has chosen all of our destinies, made all of our choices for us.
Leaving out the existence of God or lack thereof argument for the moment, this has always struck me as an idiotic and short-sighted position on the matter for religious types. The whole point behind the oldest Christian moral, that of Adam and Eve, is about giving man a choice between happy-go-lucky gardening in Eden or the loss of their innocence in exchange for cold hard knowledge. In other words, the very first choice in the Bible that was given to man by God was to do as he will; ignore the fruit tree as commanded, or eat some and suffer. That's what I believe what the kids are calling free will these days is. God wanted to see what Adam was made of, so he gave him a choice. So I really don't understand where all this religious pre-determination nonsense comes from. Probably some crusty old robed dude with a superiority complex sitting in the Vatican thinking up ways to justify his job.
Leaving pre-determination behind as anachronistic and moving on to the more philosophical aspect of the question, known as pre-destination, we begin to tread more logical ground. Pre-destination makes more sense to me as an idea because of some of the revelations of modern science, actually. Namely, the fact that Einstein discovered that Time is in reality not something that hasn't happened yet, but merely a 4th dimension. In other words, Time is quite possibly all of a piece; what we consider the past, present, and future are extremely subjective and actually may conceivably exist in the Universe all at once, and we are like mites on a round table or cavemen on a globe, too small to see the shape of it, but destined to travel in circles while believing we walk in a straight line. In other words, everything that ever was, is, or will be, exists right here and now, but our little minds are not large enough to perceive more than a tiny bit of it at any particular instant, which we call the present. By this logic, our futures have already happened and there is no changing them, and this is where the more philosophical side of the pre-destiny of our lives argument comes from. And you can still blame God if you want, or shake your hand futilely at the sky and rail against unpersonified fate. Whichever tickles your angry fancy.
Of course, logically, this breaks down for me also. The fact that our futures have already happened, are happening, or will happen, doesn't really mean anything. In other words, even if the future is all laid out, so are the choices we made at those points in our destiny. If the future is as set in stone as our past, well, you made your choices then, you're choosing to read this now, (sorry about that), and you will choose in a moment to get up and get more coffee. I've never understood why pre-destination has to cancel out free will. Just because the future exists doesn't mean your mind isn't there also to perceive it and make those choices.
I think it's just an outdated religious question that got out of hand, and a good example of people who think that they are logical not being logical. There's no reason to think that just because the future exists means that we didn't get to choose how it unfolded, barring any more data on the matter.
If you're wondering why I seem to be using the word logic a lot (See? I can get it right from time to time!) lately, it's because I'm apparently an INTJ and that's allegedly just how we operate, according to Personality Theory. So, now that I know that, I've spent a lot (See? I did it again!) of time thinking about logical conundrums. So, do I think logically because I choose to, or pecause Personality Theory (or God, or Fate) dictates that I should, hmm? Am I even thinking logically? I think that most people think that they think things through, so, it's entirely possible that I'm deluding myself.
One thing that I think that I am fated, predestined, or just simply chose to be is the kind of person that likes to play Devil's advocate. I often like to argue with people whether I agree with what I'm arguing for or not. Usually I do it just to irritate my friend Scott, but I enjoy the argument for argument's sake, also. I'll never forget the time when I turned my Mom's face pastier white than snow could dare to dream to be; I must have been like 1 or 2 years old, tops. I realize that that is an awfully young age to have such a vivid memory of, but if you'd seen the look on my Mom's face, you'd never have forgotten it either. I remember thinking, in a vague sort of way, that I wanted to get a reaction out of her just to see what would happen. We went to church every Sunday, where there was a lot of talk about God, and Jesus, and all that, and being so young I liked it all. Good vs. Evil was a concept I appreciated and I liked Jesus well enough. But again, I was looking for a reaction, and I remember walking into the kitchen and very innocently stating to my mother in a sweet little 2 year old boy voice, "Mom, I hate Jesus."
Well, I got a reaction all right. I hadn't realized it would be such a controversial statement. I remember being shocked by her anger and by what I didn't recognize at the time as her own shock and fear; I believe I actually thought she would think it was a funny joke. You know, two-year old humor. It took a long time to convince her that I didn't really mean it, which was really hard because I don't think I had the words at my disposal to explain myself at that age. It was a very strict lesson that arguments about ideas are not always well-handled by others, and also taught me that I sometimes enjoy getting a reaction out of them, regardless.
I think I've got it aalllll figgered out, man. I know why stupid people always seem to win out in this world, why logic has left the building. It's really quite simple. Say two people are having an argument about something. Anything. For instance, who can run faster, Superman or the Flash? Or who would win in a fight, a Caveman or an Astronaut? Or whether Ann Coulter is a mutant or not. Anything. Say one of the people involved in the argument is an intelligent, logical being. A Rational, as a sop to Miss Luongo's personality theory obsession. Convinced that conclusions ought to be reached with actual facts taken into consideration, each step of the argument followed by the next logical step, based on actual evidence. Say the other debator is... well, less rational. A Guardian type. Convinced that little niceties such as good conclusions based on logical thought are less important than following what your gut says is right, because we all know that following your gut is always such a good idea. Passionate argument is proof enough for them. In the immortal words of Howard W. Campbell Jr.:
"The truth of your leader August Craptower, and those like him, will be with mankind forever, as long as there are men and women who listen to their guts instead of their minds." -From Mother Night
August Craptower was a leader in the neo-nazi community in Kurt Vonnegut's little morality play there. August Craptower, George Bush, same thing.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is that say these two are having an argument. The logical one states his case. He won't usually be all impassioned and heartfelt and all up in people's guts because he feels that the logic of his case, the obvious rightness of what he's saying based on rational thought, will shine through and people will get it, and as long as the people listening aren't totally evil they'll agree with him because he's right. I'm not saying that the logical person is infallible here, only that when he's thought things through clearly, he tends to firmly believe he's on the side of right, and based on fact and evidence, or lack of actual evidence of nuclear weapons in Iraq thereof, feels that any other course of action is insane. The Flash can run faster than Superman, because DC comics has made a point of that many times. The Flash can go so fast he vibrates through walls. Superman can fly faster than the Flash can run, but that wasn't the question. Ok maybe there is no logic there, really, but you get where I'm coming from.
So, the logical guy makes his case, and steps back, knowing that after the evidence he's presented, there can be no argument, unless new facts are brought to light which he then will have to deal with. Then the less logical, yet more impassioned Guardian type steps up. He is also convinced of his rightness, but not because of any facts or evidence, excepting perhaps the tidbit that of course God created the world because look at the banana! (It was made to fit a Man's hand (or a monkey's...) and has a natural pull-tab, like a soda can! You can't evolve something like that! (Except that actually, man has cultivated the banana for centuries, making it what it is today, somewhat showing how evolution can work at an accelerated pace, but never mind that bit of fact.))
No, he's convinced of his rightness because he feels it can't be any other way. Of course Saddam is evil and has Weapons of Mass Destruction. He's all dark skin toned and has an evil laugh, and besides, G.W.B. wouldn't lie to us, not the President! He's more than a man, he's God's chosen leader for the greatest nation on Earth! Of course God is on America's side, otherwise we wouldn't be so powerful! He's on our side, just like he was on the side of history's other greatest empires, like Rome, and Egypt... oh wait, they don't usually take the logic that far, you know, because then they'd have to change their opinion. No, the illogical side of this argument will do whatever it takes to win the argument, because he feels right. He'll use facts that are perceived, he'll even make shit up, take things out of context and use them to prove his view of things. And the other guy, the logical one, will tend to sit back and laugh at the other guy's antics, because obviously he's an idiot, and nobody's going to buy that junk... Except of course, that they do.
Why? Well, my rather simple theory is that, since the greater part of the human population are these so-called Guardian types, sheep in other words, they will believe whoever talks longer and louder. Look at that guy, they say, he is so heartfelt and he won't shut up. Obviously he believes what he's saying. That whistleblower over there, who used to be a weapons inspector in Iraq, only offered a cold assesment that he found no WMD. But this guy, he knows that there are weapons over there, if only we keep looking! And he's never even been over there, so that shows you the strength of his conviction!
Logical people don't seem to believe what they're saying, because they offer things as cold fact and then stop talking once they've reached their conclusion, because once an actual case has been reached based on facts, there's really not much left to say. Illogical people seem to believe what they're saying because they never shut up and get louder and louder and more O'Reilly about it, and because they never seem to reach an actual logical conclusion, feel the need to make up for it with volume and heart. And the sucker that is the human race eats it up.
It's all very sad, but based on this fact alone, I'd say that the human race doesn't have a whole lot of time left. As races go, that is. The inevitable conclusion to a race gone with the Pied Piper is extinction. Unless lemmings learn to actually use their minds and not only their guts.
While I'm waiting for inspiration on the eternally boring question of what to do next with my life to strike, as it has been so kind to do in the past, I am always on the lookout for new things to blog about. It helps keep my sanity, you see. In that rather pitiable spirit, here is something I woke up thinking about this morning; the why and wherefore of religion. So yes, if you are not in the mood for another rant on messiestobjects' tired, banal views on religion and why it's bad for you, feel free to bail now.
I often worry about publicly talking about my views on religion, because I know that my family, who are devout Christians, care about me and therefore worry that my soul is condemned to a fiery eternity for saying such brash things as I tend to do. The problem is that I know that no amount of discourse will ever bridge the gap between what they believe and what I believe, and so I tend to keep my mouth shut and avoid the topic. The fact of the matter is that people, once they reach a certain stage in their lives, and have given the matter serious thought and/or credence in their lives, are almost never capable of changing their minds. There's actually scientific evidence somewhere out there about the hardening of our minds as we get older, although don't look to me for details as it's something I read a long time ago. Something about our neural pathways being wide open when we're babies, gradually becoming more solidified or defined as we apply words to objects, and later becoming downright jungle elephant paths in our brains as we ascribe our beliefs to ideas. In other words, the more times you tread a path, the easier it is to follow that same path the next time you go that way. It's very hard for even the most open minded person keeping pre-set personal beliefs or perceived truths out of our rational observations as we get older. But that's really not the point of this.
I thought that this time, rather than expounding on why I think religion (Not God! I think I've been rather clear on the difference in my mind in the past.) is not only false but unhealthy, I would rather explain how I came to these ideas in the first place. Not that I'm special in regards to my beliefs; lots of people share them. I just feel I have a unique perspective, being a reformed religious type rather than the offspring of godless academics.
I was born and raised a Christian, and generally speaking I think that in some ways it did me good. Or at least, I believe I have a highly sensitive view of Good Vs. Evil, and I think that's a good thing. I also don't believe it's unhealthy to walk around with the constant feeling that somebody is looking over my shoulder, whether it's true or not. It can be a valuable mental trick. The first time I started doubting was at a Christian rock concert I went to with a church youth group. The performer was a guy that went by the name of Carmen, whose stuff I actually liked. I had a tape of his; I was probably 13 or 14 years old at the time. Anyway, we were at this concert and he had been singing his tunes, with no band... lip synching. But whatever; at the time I didn't know that was cheesy and nobody seemed to care anyway. But he would stop every once in a while and preach a little bit, and there were two things in particular that he said at one point that just kind of made me go, "ummm, really?"
The first was minor, as indicators often are, but it made me think a little bit. Apparently The Grateful Dead were playing that same night at another venue up the street, and Carmen was all like "Let me tell you, The Grateful Dead may be sinners who think it's cool to be dead, but tonight we here are grateful to be alive in Jesus!!" Much cheering ensued. But I was kind of like, and I didn't even know all that much about them, but I knew enough to know that they didn't actually want to be dead, at least not in the sense that Carmen was saying. He was saying it like they were willful emissaries of Satan or something. In their Wikipedia entry, it says that they chose the name in this manner:
The name "Grateful Dead" was chosen from a dictionary. Some claim it was a Funk & Wagnalls, others, the Bardo Thodol (Tibetan Book Of the Dead), but according to Phil Lesh, in his biography (pp. 62), "...Jer (Garcia) picked up an old Britannica World Language Dictionary...(and)...In that silvery elf-voice he said to me, 'Hey, man, how about the Grateful Dead?'" The definition there was "A song meant to show a lost soul to the other side."
So, it was really pure hippie bullshit, but hardly Satanic. This statement of Carmen's, when I thought about it later, made me begin paying attention to preachers and to begin the realization that most of what they say is off the cuff and full of assumptions. They often, especially at that time in the 80s, called things Satanic which they merely didn't understand or was associated with things which they found personally distasteful. It made me realize that they often didn't really know what they were talking about, which is a shattering blow to a religion that claims to have knowledge of the truth of the way of things. If you can't back up simple statements of fact, why should I take it on faith that you know what you're doing in other areas? Faith belongs to God anyway, supposedly, not preachers.
The second thing he said, later that night, was a larger issue for me. Towards the end of the show, when he'd just played his biggest hit to a crowd of young screaming christian rock idolators, (And I admit, I was one of them. I loved that song.) he bellowed out, "I can feel the spirit of Jesus here with us tonight! Can you feel the holy spirit in the room? He's speaking to all of us, can you feel his love, right here right now!!?" And, as my fist was in the air and everyone around me, tears of joy in their eyes and answering with a heartfelt "Yes! I feel him! I feel Jesus!", and I, about to join in and add my agreeing sentiment, had an odd sensation. I was still for a moment, and kind of quietly thought to myself, (and I'm paraphrasing, of course; it was a long time ago in a mindset far, far away. But I remember very well what was going through my head in spirit. Snicker.) "Jesus? Huh. Actually, what I'm feeling is awe for the rock star that just lip synched that awesome song and got my fist pumping and adrenaline rushing, and has even made me feel good about being a Christian since I'm in a large group of people that feels the same way and we're all cheering for Jesus, but one thing I don't feel, and have never felt, actually, is anything spiritual. It actually feels a lot like that time I got all excited and heart-full when Luke Skywalker blew up the Death Star. That made me SO happy, and that's the kind of elation I'm feeling right now, so, unless Jesus had something to do with the destruction of the Death Star, and said destruction was a spiritual event, I don't think that what I'm feeling right now is him in the room."
Now that I'm slightly wiser, I can add even more significance to that event. It was a rally, pure and simple. The theatrics and speeches that those guys use is no different than, say, Hitler's Nazi rallies. Or the Republican party rallies. It's a leader taking advantage of the psychology of mob mentality, and getting the crowd all worked up into a frenzy, and directing that energy in a desired direction. Jesus is not actually in the room, folks. The emperor is wearing no clothes. This doesn't in and of itself mean that what is being preached is bunk, (The Reverend Horton Heat, Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, The actual message of love preached by Jesus himself, (which you can hear if you you read closely between the lines) for some examples) but I think it's important to be aware when age-old crowd control techniques are being used on you. In other words, if the leader is being honest with his agenda in such a rally, he's trying to passionately convince you of the logic of his argument, not passionately trying to beat you over the head with a scary dogma.
Anyway, for some reason, that night my mind opened up a little bit to more rational thought and always afterwards I applied a much more critical eye to what was going on around me. It's not like all of a sudden I ceased being a Christian. In some ways I always will be; you can't really escape your roots, and anyway I have never confused the sins of men, even self-proclaimed spiritual men, with a failing on God's part. One of the facts of nature that I will always hold dear, in my slowly hardening neural pathways, is that men are quite capable of committing acts of good and decency without invoking God, and men are capable of choosing to commit the most heinous evils without needing Satan as a scapegoat. People make their own choices, plain and simple. Blaming Satan or thanking God, or vice versa, is a cheap and easy way of avoiding responsibility.
I remember, one time in church, I was listening to the pastor give his sunday sermon; He was addressing a germaine issue: "Some people say that the Bible contradicts itself. They say that the Bible was written by men, and is not the true word of God. Well folks, I'm here today to tell you that those people have been misled by Satan, and that they are liars! The Bible does not contradict itself! It is God's word, handed down to us by his prophets, and it is the truth!" I kept waiting for him to expand his argument, but that was all he had; a bald statement containing bold word stresses. I kept thinking to myself, That's it!?That's Christianity's argument for itself?! And for the record, there was no paraphrasing there. I remember very clearly that day, and what he said. It felt like an extremely disingenuous thing to say... basically he was saying, believe that the Bible is the literal truth and word of God, because I say so, AND so does the Bible itself. So there. Which struck me as rather circular and unproductive logic... That's pretty much what all the religious leaders are saying, all the time.
Another extremely revealing experience I had, I've already blogged about here.
Anyway, this is a conversation I've been having with myself for a very long time now, and I could go on and on, but those are a few of the more important moments which made me switch gears a little bit. Basically, I've come to the conclusion that in order to come to grips with God, the Universe, and Everything, one has to distance oneself from the religions of men, because they are a framework for misdirection, power, and corruption. If there is a God, then love and understanding come from him, not religion, and not men's inane preachings. If there is not a God, then love and understanding come from chemicals and neural pathways. If there is a God, then there is only one thing which he gave me in order to understand him. Not the Bible, not Pat Robertson, not even Jesus. Men took control of those things, and handed them down to me the way they wanted me to see them. No, what He gave me is my mind. We have this amazing tool which is capable of rational thought, and the application of that tool has yielded more knowledge about the nature of the Universe than any preacher or prophet ever has. If there is no God, well, thank evolutionfor my mind. If there is a God, He invented evolution. Either way, it's all good.
Now that I'm done preaching, for the moment, I'll leave you with a YouLube that I found of that Carmen song I used to love so much, as performed via Lipsynch by some church kids. I'm kind of cringing about the fact that I used to like this song... I remembered it as being much cooler. I can only offer extreme brainwashing as an excuse. Anyway, in this video, God is a bearded girl, so, enjoy! ... or not. I myself had to stop it just a few minutes in, or I was going to cringe myself into a fetal position.
While my brother is away at school, I've been temporarily occupying his room in my Dad's house until I figure out where to go next. After I get back from Thailand I'll have to seriously start thinking about that. Anyway my point is that on my brother's bookshelf is 'The Purpose Driven Life' by Rick Warren and the entire 12 book series of 'Left Behind' by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. This constitutes some of the scariest pop right-wing christian fundamentalist lieterature (misspelling intended) out there. I worry about my brother. I'd recently read a very good article about the series, and Revelation end-of-times thinking in general, by Joe Bageant, who I was turned on to by Heather and Miss Luongo... those ladies are always finding good stuff out there. But I was thinking about it, and I realized that I've never actually read any of those books, and we Godless perverts are always making fun of doltish fundie preachers who declaim against Evolution without ever really having actually read Charles Darwin's book, or tried to understand the theory in any useful way. One should always know what one is up against. While I have read the Bible, I've been out of the loop on the latest developments in advanced Christian thought, SO, I decided to start with what I consider the easier of the two, the 12 book fictitious series about Tim LaHaye's vision of a post-rapture world. Tim LaHaye is by the way, let me just say, a total freak, dude. Click on this super-scary picture of him shooting laser beams of evil out of his eyes to be led to his website where you will find a most entertaining intro before going to his main page, where you will find his very own voodoo version of that Myers-Briggs personality theory that Miss Luongo is so fond of, as well as vague descriptions of himself and all the books, ministries, and projects he's involved in, with links taking you to where you can buy his stuff, but nothing too personal, I'm afraid. He's got some nice jewelry, though, huh? Anyway, I'm almost halfway through the third book, but let me tell you that before the end of the first chapter of the first book I decided that I could easily devote a whole new blog to the reading of the series on which I post something every time I came across a statement that was either grossly mis-informed, ignorant, fallacious, or just plain made me laugh at it's own tunnel-vision certitude that it knew the truth based on no facts whatsoever. I realized by the third chapter that I would need a month for each book if I actually tried doing that, and I really want to get through them and be done with it. But, having made the claim, I will attempt to at least illustrate my point just a bit, here. Here's a quote right off of book 1 page 1, which may seem rather minor, but it illustrates something about the fundie mind which I feel is important to understand:
"God was OK with Rayford Steele. Rayford even enjoyed church occasionally. But since Irene [Rayford Steele's wife] had hooked up with a smaller congregation and was into weekly Bible studies and church every Sunday, Rayford had become uncomfortable. Hers was not a church where people gave you the benefit of the doubt, assumed the best about you, and let you be. People there had actually asked him, to his face, what God was doing in his life."
This is minor, but it is the first of many rather disingenuous statements made by non-Christians about Christians throughout the series so far. Rayford is surprised that fundamentalist Christians, after a sermon on sunday at a fundamentalist church, actually want to talk to him about God? Heaven forfend! That is so crazy that fundies, like, take their beliefs so seriously! In the Left Behind books, Non-Christians are constantly surprised by the honesty, forthrightness and vigor of a Christian's beliefs, excepting only those who are merrily skipping down the path to the Antichrist's side. Reading these books has made me remember my own thought processes when I was a younger church-going Christian myself. Christians, despite being the largest most powerful religious group in America, tend to feel persecuted and not listened to. For no apparent reason. It's as though they think that the only non-Christian, if you're not a direct servant of Satan, is one who has simply not thought it all through, or doesn't understand the horrors that will befall unbelievers when a vengeful bloody Jesus (long gone is the messiah of love) returns after the rapture. They can't conceive of someone who has read about and understood their religion, and despite being a good person, has decided it was all a load of crap. They think we don't understand what they have found to be the truth in their lives, that we are simply misguided. I would like to bet a LOT of money on the fact that at least %90 of fundamental religious types call themselves believers only because the idea of an MC 900 foot Jesus coming to rip their guts out if they don't become Born Again has scared the living shit out of them. (Or eternity in Hell, yadda yadda. It's all the same idea.) That and/or for the other self-evident reason that these books have reminded me of: Rapture and Tribulation are the ultimate infantile vengeance fantasy. Anybody ever get this taunt on the playground? "My daddy/big brother/whomever can beat up your daddy/big brother/whomever/you!" We all so desperately want to be right, on the winning side, the side that gets cookies for good behaviour. (Not that it means anything, but the authors of the Left Behind books have this weird fascination with cookies. Cookies seem to be around at some of the more touching moments a little too often. Cookies, and Robert Redford. The Antichrist is described in some seriously homoerotic terms more than once by different characters as a more dashing, sexier Robert Redford.) No one wants to be on the losing side of an argument. And these guys have found the biggest daddy and the most horrible retribution ever with which to side with, and are looking forward to the day when everyone who disagrees with them will get what's coming to 'em. This, make no mistake 'O ye who seek only spiritual comfort, is a religion of fear. It is not based on truth, or righteousness, or most importantly, love. They want to scare the hell out of you, literally, so that you will join their cause, give them money, and spread the fright to others. I'm not saying they don't believe their own crap; I'm sure they do. But they do not believe in Good. Another quote:
"Would it fade, her preoccupation with the end of the world, with the love of Jesus, with the salvation of souls? Lately she had been reading everything she could get her hands on about the rapture of the church. "Can you imagine, Rafe," she exulted, "Jesus coming back to get us before we die?" "Yeah boy," he said peeking over the top of his newspaper, "that would kill me." She was not amused. "If I didn't know what would happen to me," she said, "I wouldn't be glib about it." "I do know what would happen to me," he insisted, "I'd be dead, gone, finis. But you of course would fly right up to heaven." He hadn't meant to offend her, he was just having fun. When she turned away he rose and pursued her. He spun her around and tried to kiss her, but she was cold. "Come on, Irene," he said. "Tell me thousands would just keel over if they saw Jesus coming back for all the good people." She had pulled away in tears. "I've told you and told you. Saved people aren't good people, they're--" "Just forgiven, yeah I know," he said, feeling rejected and vulnerable in his own living room. He returned to his chair and his paper. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm happy for you that you can feel so cocksure." "I only believe what the Bible says," Irene said.
Notice that LaHaye's idea of a perfect Christian (Irene and others like her throughout the world are raptured right off the bat) is one who became a heartfelt born again believer over her obsession with rapture lieterature? (Again, misspelling intentional.) And of course the other important point, saved people aren't good people, they're just forgiven. i.e., they picked the winning side. Of course there's more to that dogma than just that, they believe in living good lives as well; Jesus demands more than just lip service. But their idea of good lives and, well, good-people-not-saved-people's ideas of what is right and wrong are very different. The unfortunate side-effect of believing in a world gone to hell and a Saviour who is going to come and trash the place anyway, is that the world is no longer worth saving; the only worthy cause is trying to convert people they like and condemning to a very scary end those they disagree with, even trying to keep an eye out for the Antichrist. (Henry Kissinger? Ted Kennedy? Barack Obama? Any liberal gay Jew that happens by?) Forget trying to save the environment, ending the war in Iraq, or approving of stem-cell research (which hurts no one, least of all the dead-end biological goo it comes from!) to help people, or a hundred other issues which, if the fundamental right had any concern for them, they could help to do a world of good. They look forward to the end of the world, and indeed, applaud anything that looks like it might bring the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse closer. Sign up for 'ol Tim "laser-eye" LaHaye's newsletter for timely messages on current events related to Biblical prophecy. He might as well gleefully rub his hands and echo one of our President's most foolish comments; "Bring them on!" I will end this by saying that there are certain things in the Bible that I believe to be true; even certain things in Revelations. Not simply because they are in the Bible, but because they are truths which are self evident to anybody who looks for such truths. Jesus' message of love and compassion, for example. But we are talking about end-time stuff here, and so something out of Revelations which I believe is that there will be many false prophets... can you guess who's at the top of my false prophet list?
I was over at Cosmic Variance yesterday and got into a small discussion with the guy who wrote this post about Richard Dawkins, and after going back and forth a couple of times (comment #s 66-70 & 72-73), was rather solidly given the "talk to the hand, buddy". I'm not sure if it's because I was not being clear enough in my argument, or if it's just that I'm an embarassing moron to have show up on your science blog and blather on about a subject which I have no degree in... The gist of it was that I initially posted a comment saying that I don't understand atheism any more than I understand religious certainty, and that I felt that the more reasonable philosophy for a rational person (which I assume scientists generally are) to assume is agnosticism. Atheism, to me, is every bit as much a belief based on no empirical evidence as [pick a religion] is. I've never understood how anyone, especially scientists who require proof of everything, can say that God does not exist, end of story. There is no proof that he does and there is no proof that he doesn't! How can you prove that God does not exist? You can't! And Mark (the writer over at CV) came back with a more delineated definition of what atheism meant to him: "Atheism means that you do not believe in god, not that you will say with absolute certainty that one does not exist." I looked up atheism on wikipedia, and sure enough, most atheistic philosophers assume that definition. Which really kind of throws me for a loop... that statement makes no more scientific sense than the idea of religious faith, which atheists spend so much time bashing. What that's saying is that you believe that God does not exist, not that you know. So then atheists, by that statement, really are the exact opposite side of the coin from religious wack-os, with about the same amount of rationality! Both sides are stating a belief about God or the lack of one, with nothing empirical backing either up. When I tried explaining that, and that agnosticism seemed a much more rational approach for a scientist, he didn't seem to get my point (which is likely my own fault; my reasoning seems clear to me but I'm sure it's muddier than I think it is, half the time) and didn't acknowledge that he, by using that definition of atheism, was stating a belief. Instead he said that he felt uncomfortable with "beliefs", and that on the subject of the currently unprovable, he'd rather state "I don't know" and then try to figure out the truth... Then I pointed out that that is exactly what agnosticism is! Agnosticism means simply, lack of knowledge. I said that we were actually in agreement, and that we were just approaching the same conclusion from different sides... then he never responded to me again. There are of course many possible reasons for this, the most likely that he was simply getting annoyed with me. I admit, were I in his shoes and some snot-nose was trying to out-comment me on my own blog, I'd snub him down right quick also. But it's a discussion which has many facets and I'm really intrigued, which is why I'm having trouble shutting up about it. The thing about agnosticism is, of course, that like atheism, it can also have a couple of different interpretations. I think that Mark and other sciencey smart-guy types tend to shy away from agnosticism because it does have certain religious overtones. Gnostics were an early sect of Christianity that purported to have an insider's spiritual knowledge; Agnostics chose the name for themselves precisely because they want to say that they do not have any such luck. However, some people that call themselves Agnostics believe very firmly in God, but that any knowledge of such a vastly superior being is currently unknowable to the likes of us hairless apes. That's probably why certain rationals prefer the moniker of atheism, because while they won't say with certainty that there is no God, they prefer to have the cloak of what seems more likely in this Universe to them as being the case, the disbelief in God, keeping all possible distance from any sort of religious flavoring whatsoever. To me, Agnosticism means that maybe there is, maybe there ain't. If he wants me to know, he'll tell me. If I don't hear from him, well, we will just have to wait until all the facts are in. Meanwhile, I don't need religion to tell me to be nice to other people (well, at least not to kill or actively harm them... being nice is often a tall order in the face of the ignorant) regardless of what they choose to say they believe the truth to be, and Agnosticism won't stop me from knowing that evolution is a fact or from eagerly awaiting any news about more great scientific discoveries that open more doors to the Universe for our tiny, hungry little brains. After reading about the many different types of agnostics on the wikipedia page, I'd have to say I'm a Weak Agnostic, but that I prefer the alt-term of Open Agnostic. As I said on CV, The Universe is God, science is his means of communication, and it is a scientist’s duty to follow wherever that may lead, whether it proves that God is intelligent or accidental. (Ok I just added a few bits there... I'm always editing myself. It's a problem.) I am willing to be wrong about any of this... I don't in fact have a degree on this subject and it's not like I've read anybody's thesis on atheism vs. agnosticism... chances are, they're identical viewpoints with different tones. Atheism just sticks in my craw (what's a craw?) because it seems to me to be an irrational viewpoint shared by a large group of people who are in most other matters extremely rational.
So, what with the fact that I have uploaded all of my pictures from Istanbul, Cappadocia, and my tour of the South Aegean region, and typed in descriptions of each one, not to mention the other day's post and now this one, you might think I seem to have more time on my hands than a traveller should. Well, I'm back in Istanbul with a few days to kill, and while I'm still making it out there everyday, I have seen most of the city, and so I'm taking advantage of the good internet and downtime to catch up on a bunch of stuff. One thing I've noticed online in the last few days is an upsurge in the scientific community against religion, starting with a really thoughtful post over at Cosmic Varience, and then today an article on NY Times which I just finished reading and is the cause of this out-of-travel rant. Of course, we've been hearing alot of this noise from Richard Dawkins recently since the publiction of his book, but it seems to be stepping up a notch in the rest of science-land as well. In the post on CV, Natalie Angier basically states her disatisfaction with scientists who wail about the whole Darwin/Creationism controversy, yet fail to step up to the plate against the scientifically ludricrous Virgin Birth. She feels that it's Science's duty to tackle all forms of such preposterous false beliefs. Have some balls, labcoats! Put Occam's Razor on Mary and see what theory you can dredge up there! Then today, the NY Times article discussed a forum that occured earlier this month at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., where a bunch of scientists brought out the idea of spearheading a movement to Evangelize science against religion. There were differing views among the scientists attending, with Dawkins and like-minded god-haters basically wanting to have Christian Concentration Camps along with Bible, Koran, and Book of Mormon burnings laughing all the way, while other more even-keeled scientists wish to press forward with the age old technique of testing hypothesis, re-testing, then showing the world proof of the veracity of science with cool toys like paved roads, penicillin, rubber gloves, and home theatre systems, and eventually staging a remake of the 'ol Baal vs. God play, where Elijah (I think it's Elijah, someone else will have to fact check for me 'cause I'm on a roll!) mocks the Baal worshippers and says ok, if Baal is so great, tell him to make it rain! So they pray to Baal and weep and gnash and of course no rain comes. Then Elijah says, "Yo! Yahweh! Bring on the water!" And it dumps buckets of water and the Baal freaks freak out, only this time the scientists will be all like, okay God and Allah freaks, you guys pray to your grand high poo-bahs for a better video digital compression format than DVD, and we'll apply our science, and see who gets one first. The reason behind all of this recent push for science to begin a more active fight against religion is, of course, due to the recent outbreak of the evils which religion has caused in the world, not to mention the very many evils caused by religion in the past. People like Dawkins think that if religion were done away with, the world would go all shiny and everybody would have spacecars and candy and live for a hundred years. Here's my problem with all of that. Now, I am a great believer in science. I will agree with Dawkins insofar that if you're not, you're retarded because even the Amish need to churn butter, a very scientifically advanced dairy farm achievement. Well okay, it was advanced several hundred years ago or whatever, but it's still science. If you really believe that science is evil, go live in Cappadocia, but away from the main population of more advanced cave-dwellers, please. The problem is, that in reality it is NOT religion which causes the larger of the world's evils. Oh sure, witch burnings, being afraid to sail off the edge of the flat Earth until thousands of years after the Greeks already knew the world was a ball, yeah. Totally religion. But the real problem isn't religion. Religions generally ask their followers to be nice to each other, it's just that their followers usually miss the point. "Each other" means, you know, everybody in the world, not this thing where it's taken as only your fellow Sunni muslims, and kill all the rest. The problem is people. People screw up religion, starting with people who only want to use religion as a means to power. The catholic church probably needs to be abolished. I despise the catholic church. Not because I hate god, but because the catholic church hates God; they've totally obliviated everything that Jesus had to say about real spirituality. They are the Pharisees reborn. I'm afraid that getting rid of religion, much as Jesus abolished the old rules of Judaism, and Mohammed made a few addendums, and then so did Joseph Smith... well you see my point. There will rise up a science cult and people will still kill each other for scientific heresies. As long as there are people in the world who desire power over other people, there will be a way for them to get it, and if not religion, than something else. Religion is a tool, just like Science or Democracy or Communism. They all sound good at the beginning, but they can be used however the user wants. It's a baser human nature to be very very nasty to other humans in order to get to what they want. I'm not saying that science shouldn't shed some light on some of mankind's fuzzier notions... Evolution is, I'm afraid, a fact, and I think it's important to teach it over Creationism... it's an old argument, but Evolution doesn't rule out God. I don't think that Science can or ever will. Science is the greatest, most effective tool we've ever come up with for understanding nature, but to a spiritual person, God is above and beyond the reach of nature. God's tool to make the universe could easily be Evolution. But a war against religion is sort of self-defeating. What science really needs to concentrate on is George Bush's brain, and how it got that way. Also the Pope's. Rush Limbaugh's. Osama what's-his-face's. Michael Moore's. And Richard Dawkins'. And how to weed this us vs. them mentality out of the human race, you know? Make sure everybody gets up above that spinal cord thinking thing which Einstein pointed out as our main problem these days. Or at least make the Us, smart, creative, compassionate people, and the Them, power mad, intolerant, blind freaks. Weed 'em out, yo.
You know what's really great about Turkey? Turkish Delight is what. When I was a kid, I was really into the Chronicles of Narnia. I must have read all seven of those books about a hundred times by the time I was eight. In the first one, the one they've made the movie out of, the White Witch asks Edmund if he'd like anything, anything at all, and he asks for Turkish Delight. I never really was able to figure out what that was; this was way way pre-wikipedia, remember. For a long time I had this notion that it was some sort of sweet turkey pastie kind of thing... Once many years later the subject came up and someone told me it was a sort of taffy, which is closer to the truth than sweet turkey pastie, but still not quite right. Turkish Delight is a cube of one of a hundred different types of flavoured goo, (sorry I can't expound further on actual flavours; I'm not really well-versed there just yet. I think some are fruitish, but others are certainly not. One is definitely mint, and another may be a chocolatey coconutty kind of thing. Beyond that I'm stumped.) sometimes with nuts, pistachioes usually, and coated with confectioner's sugar. It's pretty awesome, and it was radical to finally sample the stuff I'd been wondering about since the days when I would knock on the back of my closet, hoping to stumble into a snow coated world where animals said silly things. You know, wacky words like the Brits use, guv'nor. Another really awesome thing about Istanbul is the Whirling Dervishes. I've been to see them twice! They're not performances, per se, as they consider what they do to be a holy ceremony (a sema) whether there are people watching or not. They do charge admission, but if you try clapping, the one Dervish that looks the scariest will shake his head like you're a bunch of inbred oafs, and you don't dare clap again. The first time I saw them was definitely more of a tourist set-up, though. They perform once or twice a week at the Sirkeci train station, which was the terminus of the Oriental Express. It'll be funny if I take a train to Germany at the end of the month because I'll be approaching the famous rail route from the wrong way about! Anyway, I say it was more a tourist set up because they advertise on every street on the day of a performance there and it's just an unused hall in the rail station where they set their (whirli-) gig up. You hear about Whirling Dervishes, and you go, huh, that's a weird thing. And then you find out that what they're all about is spinning around in order to get closer to God and you think, Heh! I must have been really close to God all those times I made myself sick doing that when I was 5! But then you find out that they are a really non-violent peace-and-love-centric Muslim Sufi sect who don't really think of it as Whirling so much as Dancing and you're all, wow, we could use more Muslim sects like that these days. Then you go and see them, and you got nothin'. It's a really pretty thing, actually, and I've even got a favorite Dervish, although I don't know his name because they haven't got trading cards yet. I mean, don't get me wrong, ultimately they're just spinning around in circles, but they are very graceful at it and seeing a bunch of 'em whirl around like that is really something. The first time there were only five of them, and apparently it was a sema-lite because the second time I went to see them was at the Mevlevi Monastery, where they hang their hats (which supposedly represent the tombstones of their egos) and there was alot more involved. First off, there were eight, count 'em eight Whirling Dervishes! (I'm saying this in a Sesame Street sing-song, by the way, but you can't tell that because this is type. A really inadequate medium for getting your point across economically, sometimes, isn't it?) Secondly, the building was a rather dojo-like space, much more somber, and the guests didn't need Scowling Dervish to warn them off clapping this time, although he was there and looked ready to. Thirdly, there were two extra guys there besides the Whirlers; an old guy that wore a slightly different hat and seemed to be the head-priest- who-has-whirled-to-God -so-many- times-that- he-doesn't- even-need-to-turn-a- little-bit-any- more, and another younger guy that sort of wandered about in between the Whirlers as if to make sure they were spinning their share... not really sure what he was about, actually. Anyway, as flippant as I am, it really was something to see and I actually felt like I was in a holy ceremony in church, even if it was only the church of an evil Muslim God. (Just Kidding! Allah, God and Yaweh are the same God, I know. It's the people who worship him differently that are crazy. Not because they worship differently, but because they have a tendency to judge, if not kill each other because they don't worship exactly the same way.) Well anyway I of course got some video, which I would love to post but the internet here is so slow that I'd miss Krampus if I tried uploading any. I'll put a picture here that I'm really proud of, though, because it's a photostich! A real accomplishment when your subjects are human tops.
Other than those two things, Istanbul is fairly standard sightseeing fare. Alot of Mosques. Actually the only difference between big fancy Middle Eastern Mosques and big fancy European Churches, besides minor differences in décor, is that In the big fancy Churches they always make you take your hats off, but in the big fancy Mosques they always make you take your shoes off! They also encourage men to wear those not-yarmulke things and I would guess for the women to wear haijab, but I don't think they're allowed to worship with the men, so they like, stay outside and sweep the stairs or something. I haven't made it to the Bosphorous yet; it's cold and rainy most days. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny, though, and if it is I'm doing a boat tour... the Bosphorous is the strait that divides the European Continent from the Asian Continent, so you can walk across the Bosphorous bridge from one to the other, and I so have to do that, too. MajorHypertrekking points.
Dear Religious Right, The separation of Church and State is not a satanic anti-religious idea. It is a brilliant idea which protects the integrity of both institutions. Don't you see? Allow the recent Foley scandel to grant you the temporary stillness needed for reflective thought on the matter. It is a very good illustration. So is that whole deal where our "Christian values" government is actually trying to justify torture, while downplaying the actual severity of pain involved in their definition of what torture we should be allowed to practice. You see, the biggest flaw in current right-wing religious philosophy is the idea that you have the calling from above to take your moral values and make (your) God's law into man's law. I will ignore the obvious flaw for the moment, that you don't have the right to impose your belief system on others. Everybody knows that that is what is actually un-American, and is the reason why you never get invited to the cool kid's parties. The real problem is this: those people in the government who you've allied yourselves with are there because of power. If they truly valued God and a spiritual life, they would not be where they are. All you've done, by getting buddy buddy with the politicians, is given them a powerful tool with which to advance their own interests. They are not your friends! You thought that by using them to advance your interests in the government, that you could get what you wanted. But you are horribly wrong. They are using you, also, and what they want is power, and when they get that power, they do not truly advance a more spiritual country. They use religion to scare people and advance policies that will make them richer and more powerful. There are people pretending to be religious leaders to get you to follow them down this road. The separation of Church and State not only protects the people from having other's religious values shoved down their throats, but it also protects your religion from being warped and abused by power mad politicians. That separation protects the integrity of both institutions equally. Protect yourselves and get out of politics! Do not allow these twisted individuals to be false prophets! Do not allow them to claim that they are serving your agenda with one side of their face, and perverting it with the other! Give to Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar, and give to God what belongs to God; and in case Jesus didn't state that clearly enough, allow me to clarify further: DO NOT give to Bush what belongs to God, and DO NOT give to God what belongs to Bush!!! God has spoken to me and said that it is so! Boo kids. Sincerely, The Guy That Had His Country Stolen While He Was Out Fishin'
Oh man, I love finding out about stuff like this! It really reinforces my belief in an omniscient being watching over us... in order to get material for his stand-up act! It's not that Christians shouldn't be allowed to have sex toys; It's more that there's a group of them out there that wants to sell their own special Christian line of them, and their selling point is that they block out the images of naked people on the box which contains a now-Christianized jelly ring! It reminds me of the days when I listened to Christian Death Metal... boy did I feel silly when I figured out the inherent ridiculousness there. I think the thing that really gets to me about Christian merchandizing is that it so blatantly spotlights the hypocrisy in modern American Christianity... In an age of Christian video games, which promote the bloody annihilation of everyone who doesn't agree with their particular brand, Christian mega-churches in which people cocoon themselves, living out the majority of their lives among like-minded fellows, Christian camps, Christian Rock, Rap, and Country, Christian lunchboxes, and now Christian sex toys, it seems like rather than Christianity standing up for itself as a personal, individual strength, that a person comes to and stands up for on his own, it is being sold out as yet another fascist crusade, a pre-packaged group activity meant to separate themselves from the world and think of itself as superior to all the unwashed hellbound... I believe the actual edict is to 'Be in the world, not of it,' not 'Be apart from the world, and manufacture your own line of Christ-approved eveningwear.' In a lot of ways it's beginning to remind me of the Muslim fundamentalism you see over here, in which it's ok to kill a woman for not wearing her Mohammed approved, Moqtada al-Sadr stamped Haijab in public, even if she's a Christian and not, in fact, Muslim. Of course, Rick Warren isn't quite there yet, but give his movement time, a few hundred years or so.
About ten or fifteen years ago... I'm not sure exactly when, but my brother and sister were very young; maybe 8 and 6 respectively, or somewhere around there. Anyway, at the time I was sitting in our living room, probably reading, anti-social bookworm that I was in those days, and my sister Katie was sitting by the entryway playing with one of those mid-size inflatable beach balls. My brother Peter came around the corner through the entryway and inadvertently kicked the ball out of Katie's hands, sending it soaring down the hallway. They both went after it at the same time, and as they were running down the hallway it quite accidentally became a race and they began laughing hysterically because they both realized it had been an accident, and they'd reacted the same way to it... I don't remember who got to the ball first, or maybe I didn't see, but by the time they got there they were laughing so hard with the shared experience that it didn't seem to matter who "won". They had just invented the greatest game ever for the two of them to play together. So the next step of course was to re-create it. Once they finished falling all over themselves laughing, they gleefully ran back to the main entryway where Katie sat down with the ball and Peter went back around the corner. He "stealthily" came back and "accidentally" kicked the ball down the hallway again, and they both ran after it laughing. By the third or fourth time they played this marvelous new game, they began taking more serious note of who got to the ball first, which of course led to rules about what position Katie would be in when the ball was kicked, so that they had an equal chance of reaching the ball on time. By the fifth time they were no longer laughing, but still having fun, and another rule was added about no pushing or tripping, and perhaps another stating that once the ball was kicked, they had to each count to 3 seconds before running, and then the ball had to be thrown rather than kicked to better control the distance and final destination of the ball as kicking it could unfairly send it closer to one participant's side than the other's, or worse yet, break a lamp and get Mom angry. By the tenth time they did this, they were arguing about a questionable rule, and whether it had really even been broken, and it seemed that the fun had gone out of it, yet the competition to see who the ultimate beachball-chasing champion was drove them to keep playing. At some point around the fifteenth game, a real fight broke out as one participant had committed an illegal offsides and wouldn't admit it, at least according to one witness, but the ref had unfortunately had his head turned at that moment. When they realized they didn't actually have a referee, they asked me to settle their dispute, but I told them I was reading a very important treatise on 20th century literature and could not be bothered, although of course I was watching closely and was quite secretly amused. By the twentieth game, it became not so much a game, or even competition, as a full-out ice hockey-style brawl in the middle of the living room floor, at which time Mom came out, did a little yelling of her own, and sent them to their respective rooms. This is a true story, with little to no embellishment, and it is an event which has been stuck in my mind for most of my adult life. I don't mean to embarass my younger siblings, who were of course very young at the time and behaved in a manner identical to that of children all over the world... but it illustrates something about human nature which I've never forgotten.
So something you don't see in the news a whole lot about Iraq is the new fundamentalist trend. There is some really scary crap going on out in the streets of Baghdad, and I think the Bush Reich is trying to keep it on the down-low. There are roving gangs of fundamentalist Muslim bullies passing out fliers to Iraqis which state that any women wearing pants or men wearing shorts will be killed. All women must wear Haijab (those headcover things, so women's shameful hair remains covered). Men have to keep their shirts buttoned all the way to the top and must either shave their face completely or wear one of those Muslim-type beards, no mustaches or goatees or whatever. In other words, they are trying to impose strict muslim law, similar to what they have in Iran, upon a populace which has many secular muslims who don't believe in that strict an interpretation of muslim law, not to mention many smaller non-muslim populations such as the Christians, Jews, or Yezidis. I think it made the news last week about a team of Iraqi tennis players who were killed for wearing shorts, but one in particular that I know of has been kept silent. I only know about it because it happened in the neighborhood of one of my Iraqi friends; a 5 year old boy was gunned down in his front yard because he had on shorts and a tank top. This is so horrendous in so many ways that I think I'd be willing to murder the people that did it if I had the chance. There are many cases of women wearing pants being kidnapped off of the streets and being raped and killed. This doesn't lessen my desire to break one of the ten commandments at all. The hypocrisy involved in killing a 5 year old boy for something he can't possibly understand, or raping and killing a woman because she is so shameless a whore as to wear pants and let the world see her hair is... astounding, apalling, unbelievable, confounding, heart-rending, insane, incomprehensible, moronic, RETARDED! And I can't come up with enough other adjectives to make it clear how awful that is. According to my friends, the people commiting these atrocities are largely not even Iraqi: They are Iranian fundamentalist nutjobs taking advantage of the situation here. The situation being that the Iraqi government now in place has neither the resources nor, to all appearances, the drive to take back the streets. And where, ultimately, does the blame for this all lie? George effin' Bush and his warmongering cronies, that's what. Man, I really hate those people. Here is a quote from an artcle I pulled off of Yahoo news from Stephen Elliott's blog: "I
got a note from a friend today. An American who works in Baghdad and
does not want his identity revealed. He says women are being kidnapped
and killed for the clothes they wear. He says women are being hunted.
The country is in chaos. People are mourning the loss of Saddam
Hussein, convinced things were better before.
It's an awful
thing to think, that things might have been better under a murderous
dictator. But it seems to be accepted wisdom among the diplomats. And
even if it isn't true, still, if it is close enough that a sizable
percentage could think it, then we have failed miserably.
We
have failed miserably in Iraq. We have tortured prisoners in Abu
Ghraib, murdered civilians in Haditha. We turned our backs on the
Geneva Accords and American values, promising to build democracy in the
Middle East, and received only a failed state in return."
I stand behind what he's said here %100, based on what I've seen happen here in the last 3 years, from the American side of things and through my Iraqi friend's eyes. I am ashamed to be an American. Not because I hate my country, which I don't. I am ashamed of my government, and what it has accomplished toward making the world a lesser place to live in. I apologize if I seem to be soapboxing an awful lot in my last several posts, but the situation is deteriorating so fast over here it breaks my heart. There are so many things that America and Americans have done here in Iraq that, when the patriot blinders are lifted, can be called evil, it makes me crazy. PSD mercenaries and marines killing innocent Iraqi civilians who happen to be standing there is nothing new, I'm afraid. It's been going on all along, but only now, with Bush's approval rating at %29, are people daring to put it in the news. These cowboy-types over here tend to lump all Arabs together in the terrorist category, regardless of the option God gave them at birth to use their brains to make rational distinctions, and their regard for life can at times equal a Nazi's regard for life in a concentration camp. Sure, that's an extreme thing to say, and when out in a danger zone you have to make quick decisions... I can't speak to that, anyway. I've never been in that situation. But I've seen how good Iraqi people are treated by cowboys in a safe place like the IZ, and more times than not it leaves the Iraqis with an impression of Americans as cruel masters, which they understandably resent. I wish I had a constructive solution to offer along with all of my bilious criticism, but I don't. Just saying it's time for America to leave Iraq is not enough; we'd just be leaving them to the awful fate which we put in place for them. But staying only means a continuation of what we've been doing here all along: Nothing save serving our own interests and making their home worse for it.
I'm back in the U.S.S.R, boy.... You don't know how lucky you are (da na na, da na na da na na...) Sorry. Beatles. I'm in Moscow. Got here a couple of hours ago. Haven't seen much yet, except that they don't call it 'McDonald's' here, they call it 'MAKPOKKLOP' or something. I've figured out that the Cyrillic 'P' is pronounced like we pronounce 'R', but beyond that I'm totally lost. They have this whole other alphabet... one of their letters looks like a very large triangle squatting on a coffee table, and another looks like a neutered asterisk. I can see Red Square from my hotel room... for all that money I paid to Space Adventures, I bet half of it went to this hotel. Talk about overdone... well, I have internet finally, so I won't complain.
So I came out good on the EKG! Whew! No problems there. Except for that whole thing with the... well never mind. I won't bore you with my medical history. Suffice it to say, when I die, I WILL be famous in certain medical communities. At any rate, I am healthy enough to fly in a Mig-25. Yay me. Or, as my friend Jen might say; "I KNOW!!!" (2!)
So Jordan was okay...I got all my Dental, Cardio, and Optical stuff taken care of, (5 pairs of glasses! 5!! They're so cheap in Amman!) and then I took a couple of day trips. I went to Jerash, which is an old Roman Ruin city, and Ajloud, A castle that some old Muslim king (I want to say Saladin?) built on a big hill one day, and the next day I went to Jesus' Baptismal site, took another dip and mud coat in the Dead Sea, and went to Mount Nebo, where Moses gave up the ghost. Very nice. The next day I was supposed to go to Petra, but I had already been there before. As anyone knows who is well-versed in the rules of hypertrekking, (and if you're not, go here.) back-tracking is best avoided, as points can not be awarded twice for the same destination. So, having one day left before I had to catch my plane to Moscow, I threw all caution to the wind and headed to Jerusalem.
The border between Jordan and Israel is THE MOST HORRENDOUS BORDER EXPERIENCE EVER. I had a day, but I did not arrive in Jerusalem until noon, and I was lucky. I will pass some info on here, to anyone who finds themselves at that border in the future: pay the 100 dollars for the V.I.P. transfer service! I wouldn't have done it, except that I only had a day, and after seeing what happened to the poor slobs that decided to save a bit of money and go the normal route, I thank Jehovah on my knees every day that I did take the V.I.P. service, otherwise I'd still be waiting to have my colon searched, and thanking the border guards for the opportunity.
At any rate, without going into a full-blown book about it, I will give you my two largest impressions of Jerusalem from the 5 hours I spent there.
The First: It is the most multi-cultural, multi-religious place I have ever seen, and I am in awe that it hasn't exploded yet. The Jews bang their heads on the Western Wall (I was there on Sabbath) which is the only "truly" holy site that the Jews have in Jerusalem. Right on the other side of the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall, there is a Muslim Temple, which is the 3rd holiest site in the world for Muslims, which no one is allowed to enter, not even on the grounds, unless they are Muslim. This sucks for the Jews, because their Messiah won't be arriving until the Jewish temple is rebuilt there. I think that's why they bang their heads on the wall, but I could be wrong. My main thought here was, "Jews look silly enough with those funny hats, funny songs, funny dancing and really funny hairdos... banging their heads on the Wall probably isn't the best thing for them to be doing." But what's cool is that even though the Muslim Temple grounds are off-limits to infidels, I paid a guy 20 bucks to unlock the school door which abuts the temple grounds so that I could climb to the roof and sneak some photographs of the temple. I think that counts for some pretty good points.
The Christians don't really seem to have much of a presence in the city except for a few key spots... The stations of the cross of course, and a few churches. BUT... The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is located on the spot where, according to some long dead Greek Queen named Helena, Christ was whipped, nailed, hung, annointed, buried, and risen before Mary Magdalene, the church is a total Christian Denominational WARZONE! They have split the church into sections; The Greek Orthodox Christians have all of the good stuff, thanks to Helena, who built the Church in the first place. There is a particularly nasty fat bearded Greek priest at the door to Christ's tomb; I watched him grab a little old lady who was trying to cut in line to see the tomb and whip her around like a dead cat. There is a small section for the Coptic Christians; they have a piece of christ's original headstone, apparently, and burn lots of candles and incense. And you thought candles and incense was only for devil-people and pot-heads, shame on you. The Assyrian Christians have a small temple in the church, as well do the Ethiopian christians, perhaps more widely known as the Abyssinians. And the Franciscans... well, they seem to be the runts of the pack. They got Mary Magdalene's garden, where the angel appeared to her and told her to shut up, stop whinging, and go tell everybody that Jesus said "psyche!"... all of which brings me to the 2nd observation:
Christians like to take really spiritual, holy things from their own religion, and bury them in churches. In the space of about 100 meters, I saw from Golgotha to all of the other places I just mentioned, and aside from the rocky top of Golgotha, which was displayed in a glass cover, I saw only marble, candles, and other holy claptrap. It appears that once something significant happens in the spiritual realm, the old Christians felt an urgent need to entomb it. And this is not the only place, because I also did a little mandatory border-hopping....
... And went to Bethlehem! Which is in Palestine territory. Great story. I asked a guy in the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre if I could get to Bethlehem before it got dark... he hesitated a second, looked at his watch, and said, "Normally, no
way. But today you are lucky; you've met me. I have a cousin in Palestine. He has a
car. We will go to the border and sneak around the guards, hop in my
cousin's car, and he will take you to the Church of the Nativity, then
bring you back." Sweet! So we went and saw the Church of the Nativity. Same thing. The actual birthspot of Christ, the manger (5 feet away) and the altar of the 3 wise men, all buried fairly deep within a church. Nothing to indicate that the description in the Bible had anything to do with the reality you were seeing. Lots of Holy claptrap.
There is something deep and important in that idea, but I will leave it alone. Come to your own conclusion.
Anyway... I spent the night in Jerusalem, got up early and came back to Amman... the border crossing was a little easier, but not much, really.
Now I'm in Moscow, and this is no longer a blog entry, but a massmail. Sorry about that. I'll be posting pictures from these trips at my smugmug page real soon.
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