Hello Class,
Racism is a terrible consequence of ignorance and the hatred that it can create. While we are still dealing with racism today in many forms, I think it is still important to remember how far we have come. It is remarkable how humankind can change when they are given new information and new education. The biggest problem with racism, at its root, in its earlier manifestations, and in its lingering effects today, is that people are taught to see themselves as different from people who look, or talk, or act different than themselves. I do not believe that people are born racist. They are brought up and are taught racism by the ignorance of their society or their culture, or on a smaller scale by their family group or general community. As we have come far as a world, with an almost universal consensus against sanctioned slavery or segregation, we still have a long way to go to eradicate the roots of these terrors. It is an amazing thing to think that only 50 years ago people of color could not have lunch in certain restaurants, sit in certain seats on buses, or could not even drink out of the same water fountains as people with a light enough skin color, and today there is a person of color in the White House. Yet there are groups of white supremacists, many who even call themselves Christians out there in this country training with guns and ranting and raving about racial purity.
I went to the Museum of the African Diaspora today in San Francisco with a group from PSR and one of the first things that the lady who took us on a tour made clear was that every one of us, every human being on earth no longer in Africa, is a member of the African Diaspora. She asked where the human race began, and pointed out the Great Rift valley to us on the map. That is where our entire race is from. It was pointed out that there is more genetic diversity among human beings in Africa than there is between human beings (the rest of us) outside Africa, because there was such a small group that first left and those of us who have covered the earth outside of the home continent are all descended from them. There is more genetic diversity between two neighboring groups of chimpanzees than there is between any two human beings on earth. Every single one of us human beings on earth are 99.99(and probably a few more 9's) genetically identical. Race is a social construction. We are one human race, and depending on how far our later ancestors moved from the equator, how far north or south they went, what they ate, what sort of climate they lived in, and who they were mating with, determined their shade of color. If we want to eliminate racism as people of faith, in religions, and to foster social justice, we simply need to teach this truth. So long as we look to history we will find someone to blame. They did that, they did this, and the truth is, we are they. We are all relatives if you go back far enough, and nobody is from anywhere, we have been so busy identifying with the illusions of society and culture, we are so habituated to a tribal mentality, that we have become addicted to the ignorance of the fact that we are all one tribe. If racism continues we will destroy ourselves, because we will continue to act out of ignorance if we are incapable of acting on the new information we have at hand. Can we transcend an addiction to thousands of years of ignorance which has kept the truth hidden from us? If religion and people of faith will update their ideology with the information we have at hand, that we are one human race, one people, living on one small fragile planet that we are highly interdependent with, then we will make great headway in eliminating racism. To combat racism and racist groups, we must teach, preach, and spread this new knowledge with every ounce of energy we have, to become free from the fetters of a history of ignorance.
As Paul wrote:
You, my brothers [and sisters], were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful [we might replace this word with ignorant] nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other." Gal. 5:13-15
all the best and many blessings,
Andrew Scott
Friday, April 16, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Friday, April 09, 2010
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Response to question of violence in society in relation to Gandhi for Religious Autobiography class
Well,
In regard to this question... I think we are still at about the point MLK described when he said:
"This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists. Our planet teeters on the brink of atomic annihilation; dangerous passions of pride, hatred, and selfishness are enthroned in our lives; truth lies prostrate on the rugged hills of nameless calvaries; and men do reverence before false gods of nationalism and materialism." MLK
That was in 1963. Violence, non-violence. It almost seems impossible to imagine a world without violence, because ever since our species learned to write things down it appears we've been murdering each other. Maybe ever since we got booted from the "garden of eden" we've been acting like a bunch of savages. At least that appears to be the story we have told ourselves. The story of mankind, written by mankind, is a violent bloody affair, interspersed with love and beauty.
We are all going to die. Is death itself violent? If it is, then we are by our very nature violent. If death is something we are taught to fight against, then we are trained for violence to combat the ultimate inevitable violence.
From birth, here in Western patriarchal Christiancentric universe, we are raised from birth with the implicit idea that we are violent by nature, that we are born sinful, and that a man had to die to get our sins forgiven. And yet as a people, we have not stopped sinning. So it seems his death was in vain.
To be transformed non-conformists in the words of Rev. MLK, maybe we need to radically alter even our basis for ideological understanding. If we want to create peace, maybe we need to tell ourselves a different story. Instead of teaching ourselves that we are inherently violent and that we need to resist our true natures and ask some higher being to help us not be violent, maybe we should begin teaching ourselves that we are by nature perfect, loving, divine, glorious creations of God, who at our core are non-violent. It would actually be closer to the truth. because if we actually look at the world, especially considering 70,000+ nuclear weapons sitting around out there, the millions of guns, bombs, fighter jets, racism, sexism, hatred, you have to admit, we are surprisingly non-violent as a species, at least to each other. If that wasn't true, if we really were such savage murderers, how can we explain that the human population doubles on earth at this moment every 50 some years. In 1950 there were 2.55 billion people on earth. Today there are 6.84. So we really aren't that violent. At least to each other, especially considering that the overwhelming ideology in the west is that people are not inherently good. We worship "the perfect man" as if He was really so different from ourselves. I'm just not sure that's what he was telling us. But if we look at Considering that by 2067 we'll have over 13 billion people on earth. Maybe true non-violence, at least to our mother earth and fellow species, will be for us to figure out a way to cut our population down and reduce our numbers, which some might argue is violence.
If I see every other human being on earth as a reflection of myself, as another manifestation of God, it becomes difficult for me to legitimate killing them. Maybe non-violence as articulated by Gandhi can be understood in terms of offering himself as a sacrifice for the greater good, like Jesus, he could not defend his life with violence because he had so much love for his fellow man.
he said: "non-violence implies as complete self-purification as is humanly possible [which suggests that he understands our pure being as non-violent] Man for man the strength of non-violence is in exact proportion to the ability, if not the will, of the non-violent person to inflict violence."
So maybe it comes down to, "love each other, or else..." "be nice, or prepare to be thrown into the volcano."
Sorry I went on so damn long. Interesting exercise. I guess I fall into the non-violent category. But we may have to drink the cool-aid to be ultimately non-violent.
In regard to this question... I think we are still at about the point MLK described when he said:
"This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists. Our planet teeters on the brink of atomic annihilation; dangerous passions of pride, hatred, and selfishness are enthroned in our lives; truth lies prostrate on the rugged hills of nameless calvaries; and men do reverence before false gods of nationalism and materialism." MLK
That was in 1963. Violence, non-violence. It almost seems impossible to imagine a world without violence, because ever since our species learned to write things down it appears we've been murdering each other. Maybe ever since we got booted from the "garden of eden" we've been acting like a bunch of savages. At least that appears to be the story we have told ourselves. The story of mankind, written by mankind, is a violent bloody affair, interspersed with love and beauty.
We are all going to die. Is death itself violent? If it is, then we are by our very nature violent. If death is something we are taught to fight against, then we are trained for violence to combat the ultimate inevitable violence.
From birth, here in Western patriarchal Christiancentric universe, we are raised from birth with the implicit idea that we are violent by nature, that we are born sinful, and that a man had to die to get our sins forgiven. And yet as a people, we have not stopped sinning. So it seems his death was in vain.
To be transformed non-conformists in the words of Rev. MLK, maybe we need to radically alter even our basis for ideological understanding. If we want to create peace, maybe we need to tell ourselves a different story. Instead of teaching ourselves that we are inherently violent and that we need to resist our true natures and ask some higher being to help us not be violent, maybe we should begin teaching ourselves that we are by nature perfect, loving, divine, glorious creations of God, who at our core are non-violent. It would actually be closer to the truth. because if we actually look at the world, especially considering 70,000+ nuclear weapons sitting around out there, the millions of guns, bombs, fighter jets, racism, sexism, hatred, you have to admit, we are surprisingly non-violent as a species, at least to each other. If that wasn't true, if we really were such savage murderers, how can we explain that the human population doubles on earth at this moment every 50 some years. In 1950 there were 2.55 billion people on earth. Today there are 6.84. So we really aren't that violent. At least to each other, especially considering that the overwhelming ideology in the west is that people are not inherently good. We worship "the perfect man" as if He was really so different from ourselves. I'm just not sure that's what he was telling us. But if we look at Considering that by 2067 we'll have over 13 billion people on earth. Maybe true non-violence, at least to our mother earth and fellow species, will be for us to figure out a way to cut our population down and reduce our numbers, which some might argue is violence.
If I see every other human being on earth as a reflection of myself, as another manifestation of God, it becomes difficult for me to legitimate killing them. Maybe non-violence as articulated by Gandhi can be understood in terms of offering himself as a sacrifice for the greater good, like Jesus, he could not defend his life with violence because he had so much love for his fellow man.
he said: "non-violence implies as complete self-purification as is humanly possible [which suggests that he understands our pure being as non-violent] Man for man the strength of non-violence is in exact proportion to the ability, if not the will, of the non-violent person to inflict violence."
So maybe it comes down to, "love each other, or else..." "be nice, or prepare to be thrown into the volcano."
Sorry I went on so damn long. Interesting exercise. I guess I fall into the non-violent category. But we may have to drink the cool-aid to be ultimately non-violent.
Thursday, April 01, 2010
Happy Easter... Good Friday, Crucifixion day, and the people go to Church.
Everyone is walking around bewildered, because we don't know what we're doing here, what we are teaching here. We don't know if we are part of the problem or part of the solution. So we want to hide. So we seek pleasures of the mundane, and we try and worship something outside us to get relief as we have been taught to do. Are we teaching that Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God, separate from us? If we are teaching what so many religions, especially Christian Religion has taught us, we are really teaching a blasphemy of what Jesus really taught.
He was an enlightened master who tried to wake everyone around him up, tried to challenge institutional religion, which kept man in bondage by making God something separate from him, separate from Mother Earth. They raped and killed the Goddess, to subjugate spiritual man and fortify institutional religions, governments, nations. This is the Devil, darkness incarnate. Jesus came to teach that God is within you, that you are the spirit, that you have every potentiality of the universe within you. He told us to love each other.
He came to teach that what we have been taught by our religious leaders is a lie, and that they are just as lost as the rest of us. Isn't that what you are discovering here? So he spoke out, rejected the lie all around him, and he was crucified for it. Then the Church told a story about how Jesus was God, the god who was separate from us, from Mother Earth, who was judgmental, part of something angry, who had been punishing us for thousands of years for eating the fruit of knowledge. But this was the lie. Because this is still the Garden of Eden.
This is what Jesus taught, that this is the Kingdom of God. Here and now. God loves us and gave us life, and death is part of life, not some punishment we receive from an angry God. So they killed Jesus, the enlightened one, the Messiah of the Jewish faith. They did not want to be forgiven.
The darkness, the "devil" delusion, was too powerful, so we killed Jesus. Then we were told a story about how he is part of that God who he was trying to liberate us from. I and the Father AM ONE. They set Jesus up on the most High to judge us. They put him in a position he would never take, because Jesus forgives! He would not punish. He would die before he killed. And even when we killed him, he begged for our forgiveness.
So we were told this story, and 2000 years later we are still in bondage, still unconscious of our divinity, the divinity and the love of our Mother the Earth, and the infinite love of our Father in Heaven, manifest in the SUN. 2000 years later and we are still killing each other, still lost in thousands of years of the lie that we are separate from God, that God is not all around us, our very nature, that which made us, and that which we are made of.
Science is just as lost. They are looking for the smallest particle, they too are searching for God. But they will destroy us all in the process, because the power they are searching for, in their ignorant, spiritless hands, will destroy the very gift of God, our mother earth, our life giver, our sustenance. They work also at the dark power of ignorance, just like the Church itself. Nietzsche tried to tell us this in the Anti-Christ, which simply illuminates the Church built up in Jesus name, the false teachers using his name to continue our bondage and make us weak.
We must free ourselves. We must ask ourselves what we are teaching here? We must search for our own divinity, free ourselves from mental slavery. The Kingdom of God is within you, as it is also all around you. This is the great self we have to realize. There is nothing to fear.
The underlying message of Christianity, the implicit teaching, is that if you confront the institutions which subjugate you and lie to you, you will be killed. But we need not be afraid, we are already dead, and eternal life is not something that can be taken away. You are made of infinite material. You are a creature of the Light. Stop killing each other, love each other. Stop hiding from yourselves. And if you go to Church to find yourself, stand up in that Church and refuse to celebrate the murder of the innocent man who came to save you, not with his death, but with his life.
He was an enlightened master who tried to wake everyone around him up, tried to challenge institutional religion, which kept man in bondage by making God something separate from him, separate from Mother Earth. They raped and killed the Goddess, to subjugate spiritual man and fortify institutional religions, governments, nations. This is the Devil, darkness incarnate. Jesus came to teach that God is within you, that you are the spirit, that you have every potentiality of the universe within you. He told us to love each other.
He came to teach that what we have been taught by our religious leaders is a lie, and that they are just as lost as the rest of us. Isn't that what you are discovering here? So he spoke out, rejected the lie all around him, and he was crucified for it. Then the Church told a story about how Jesus was God, the god who was separate from us, from Mother Earth, who was judgmental, part of something angry, who had been punishing us for thousands of years for eating the fruit of knowledge. But this was the lie. Because this is still the Garden of Eden.
This is what Jesus taught, that this is the Kingdom of God. Here and now. God loves us and gave us life, and death is part of life, not some punishment we receive from an angry God. So they killed Jesus, the enlightened one, the Messiah of the Jewish faith. They did not want to be forgiven.
The darkness, the "devil" delusion, was too powerful, so we killed Jesus. Then we were told a story about how he is part of that God who he was trying to liberate us from. I and the Father AM ONE. They set Jesus up on the most High to judge us. They put him in a position he would never take, because Jesus forgives! He would not punish. He would die before he killed. And even when we killed him, he begged for our forgiveness.
So we were told this story, and 2000 years later we are still in bondage, still unconscious of our divinity, the divinity and the love of our Mother the Earth, and the infinite love of our Father in Heaven, manifest in the SUN. 2000 years later and we are still killing each other, still lost in thousands of years of the lie that we are separate from God, that God is not all around us, our very nature, that which made us, and that which we are made of.
Science is just as lost. They are looking for the smallest particle, they too are searching for God. But they will destroy us all in the process, because the power they are searching for, in their ignorant, spiritless hands, will destroy the very gift of God, our mother earth, our life giver, our sustenance. They work also at the dark power of ignorance, just like the Church itself. Nietzsche tried to tell us this in the Anti-Christ, which simply illuminates the Church built up in Jesus name, the false teachers using his name to continue our bondage and make us weak.
We must free ourselves. We must ask ourselves what we are teaching here? We must search for our own divinity, free ourselves from mental slavery. The Kingdom of God is within you, as it is also all around you. This is the great self we have to realize. There is nothing to fear.
The underlying message of Christianity, the implicit teaching, is that if you confront the institutions which subjugate you and lie to you, you will be killed. But we need not be afraid, we are already dead, and eternal life is not something that can be taken away. You are made of infinite material. You are a creature of the Light. Stop killing each other, love each other. Stop hiding from yourselves. And if you go to Church to find yourself, stand up in that Church and refuse to celebrate the murder of the innocent man who came to save you, not with his death, but with his life.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
911 Jones Street, Berkeley CA. 1:18 AM 2010
Well, this mindstem, rough shod and tragic
lifts its clod face knife wise once again
A rejection of the soft leash hanging round my neck
with smoky vine and branches
Another day of sludge
waiting for the crispy vegetables
to ripen
lifts its clod face knife wise once again
A rejection of the soft leash hanging round my neck
with smoky vine and branches
Another day of sludge
waiting for the crispy vegetables
to ripen
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
A Short Note
In regard to my previous post, offensive as it is, while I am sitting here not studying for my New Testament exam tomorrow, I wanted to say that God (DAO) (The Great Is) (Allah) (The True ONE) is a glorious, wonderful, IS. And all those names are of course trying to, as we all are, get at the Great Being that is the source of this life and consciousness that we are down here experiencing. I can't fault all the religions for trying, and I can't take away from the truth which lies in all of their articulations, yet, as can be noted in my previous post, I have a hard time accepting the totality of their books because they seem to have led us to this present moment, and I think we all agree that we could be doing a better job getting along as a human race and taking care of our Mother earth, so I do admittedly get a little over enthusiastic in my desire for us to move forward and leave some of the limited beliefs of the past where they belong, in the past. In the future may we find light, love, hope, faith, honesty, joy, and truth. Iwachupa. Wetaha.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
What Are You Doing In Seminary Mr. Scott?
Well, I guess one way to think about it, would be to say that I'm a missionary for the Church of the Open Mind, trying to convert Christians to the ONO-Truth faith... We are all on the same boat here ladies and gentlemen, there are more than 7 billion of us. Half way through my first semester in seminary, I'm only getting a firmer conviction that these "Christians" (not to say that they are any crazier than any of the other groups who profess faith to some outdated "truth") are running around trying to get everyone to believe, along with them, that the murder of an innocent man (or the sacrifice of the lamb of god as they would prefer we call it) somehow got us all off the hook, even though 2000 years since we crucified Jesus Christ (who told us to love each other, to not be angry with each other, who told us to turn the other cheek) we are still murdering each other, still acting like bloody fools, serving the master of the Old Testament who JC was trying to liberate us from...
Just to make sure nobody thinks I'm getting converted here.
I have an open mind people.
I know that I am human, I am finite man living in the realm of infinite spirit, I'll never be able to articulate the whole truth. But I can tell you, and let me tell you, it's time for us to stop believing these lies we've been told for thousands of years. It's time for us to move toward the light, to stop murdering each other and serving the demons of selfishness, self-centeredness, fear, and guilt which are shoved down our throats the minute we are born into this hegemonic patriarchal reality, so very apparent in the Tanakh (Old Testament) which Jesus Christ may very well have been trying to liberate us from (I don't think they killed him for nothing, he must have been saying some radical things), but we killed him, we who are still under the yoke of that Satanic book, the Bible, and once we murdered Christ, the Messiah, the King who had come to set his people free (we're all Jews here in this scenario in case you didn't notice), well once he was dead, just fast forward and see that everything that he preached against sandwiches the story of his "resurrection," you have that judgmental, angry, juvenile, petty little God, a real brat in the world of Gods, who shows up over and over again in the Tanakh playing little games on earth and trying to control people with less effect than a truly omnipotent God would have, and then you get Jesus coming and saying something so radically new that it got him killed, and then you get the "Bible," which is mostly Old Testament, followed by some stories about Jesus, and finally closed out with The Revelation which sticks Jesus (mr. forgiveness himself) up there next to Asshole God #1, ready to Judge people at the end times, and blah blah blah. Anyways, my point is that my point has not changed, GET OVER IT EVERYBODY! STOP KILLING EACH OTHER! STOP KILLING ME! LOVE EACH OTHER! LOVE EACH OTHER! LOVE EACH OTHER!
Jesus Christ. Is it really so complicated? www.openmindchurch.com.
lots of love,
The Goose Wrangler
Just to make sure nobody thinks I'm getting converted here.
I have an open mind people.
I know that I am human, I am finite man living in the realm of infinite spirit, I'll never be able to articulate the whole truth. But I can tell you, and let me tell you, it's time for us to stop believing these lies we've been told for thousands of years. It's time for us to move toward the light, to stop murdering each other and serving the demons of selfishness, self-centeredness, fear, and guilt which are shoved down our throats the minute we are born into this hegemonic patriarchal reality, so very apparent in the Tanakh (Old Testament) which Jesus Christ may very well have been trying to liberate us from (I don't think they killed him for nothing, he must have been saying some radical things), but we killed him, we who are still under the yoke of that Satanic book, the Bible, and once we murdered Christ, the Messiah, the King who had come to set his people free (we're all Jews here in this scenario in case you didn't notice), well once he was dead, just fast forward and see that everything that he preached against sandwiches the story of his "resurrection," you have that judgmental, angry, juvenile, petty little God, a real brat in the world of Gods, who shows up over and over again in the Tanakh playing little games on earth and trying to control people with less effect than a truly omnipotent God would have, and then you get Jesus coming and saying something so radically new that it got him killed, and then you get the "Bible," which is mostly Old Testament, followed by some stories about Jesus, and finally closed out with The Revelation which sticks Jesus (mr. forgiveness himself) up there next to Asshole God #1, ready to Judge people at the end times, and blah blah blah. Anyways, my point is that my point has not changed, GET OVER IT EVERYBODY! STOP KILLING EACH OTHER! STOP KILLING ME! LOVE EACH OTHER! LOVE EACH OTHER! LOVE EACH OTHER!
Jesus Christ. Is it really so complicated? www.openmindchurch.com.
lots of love,
The Goose Wrangler
Sunday, March 14, 2010
A Little Response for one of the classes, I'm a little afraid it might offend the Episcopal Minister who teaches the class.
"Do you feel these bodies should continue this practice of female exclusion from ordained ministry? If yes, explain why. If no, what can be done to effect change in these bodies that refuse full inclusion of women in the life of the Church?"
"Then I saw an angel coming down from Heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and locked and sealed it over him, so that he would deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be let out for a little while." (Revelation 20:1-4)
Unfortunately I'm not sure he was ever put away. If women are called to preach, I say preach. I'm a feminist, which is to say that I believe in equality of the sexes, and beyond that, I am a radical feminist, which is to say I believe that we aren't going to solve the problems of the patriarchy by making small adjustments in the patriarchal system, such as allowing women to become CEO's or Bishops or Pope's, as a liberal feminist (according to the common definitions I learned about feminism studying Women's Studies from 2003-04) would suggest. Giving women access to the already warped structures of patriarchal capitalism just forces women to take on roles of unhealthy socially constructed patriarchal masculinity. You want access to the rat race? Have at it, and welcome to hell. Women are entering the competitive, emotionless world of power and control which dominates patriarchy. It used to be just men competing with men, and women were capital in the game, but now women are entering the game and competing just the same, sacrificing their emotions, their, humanity, as men have been doing now for hundreds of years, pitting themselves against each other in a selfish, individualistic, reality, right out of the Bible.
And that's really the problem. The god of the Bible created each one of us, and judges each one of us, separately, and when we are rewarded, it is often at the expense of someone else, or they are being punished for being bad, and we are being rewarded for being good. It's a competition, and it is fear based, and it's about power and control, control of a destiny after death based on actions in life. We try to control our behavior, not because we care about our fellow man, our tribe of mankind, and our mother earth, but because we want the individualistic rewards of God for ourselves. So we think that we, the individual, matter, and very often our benefit it is at the expense of someone else. And BANG, welcome to present day reality, as we rape Mother Earth, and try to keep her performing like some drugged up baby momma, popping out oil and food just as fast as we damn well expect her too, hence depleted oceans, overpopulation, completely exhausted top soil, drought, starvation and lack of potable water in huge portions of the world population, while we buy Evian bottles over here in the "1st world" at a higher price per weight than we pay for gasoline.
"Thus the LORD said to me: Make yourself a yoke of straps and bars, and put them on your neck." (Jeremiah 27:2)
We've kept that yoke on far too long. The Bible is full of it, from Genesis 3:16, when God curses woman for her little forbidden meal, "in pain shall you bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you," all the way to Paul's words on the matter which classmates have discussed.
What I don't understand is why women would want anything to do with representing any church which calls the Bible their sacred book. As Adam and Eve were forced "by God" to leave the garden and toil the fields and eat bread, so have we continued over the past few thousand years murdering and forcing native people's who still lived in the Garden, in harmony with their Mother Earth, off of their land, and into the same curse we have been living out, all for a little snack and becoming "like one of us" (Gen 3:22). Maybe it's time to close Pandora's box. Jesus had some great things to say, but me thinks he was trying to liberate people from the curse, but instead what once was only the curse of the Jews, has become, through a whole lot of missionary work, the curse of mankind. You could cut down the teachings of Jesus to a nice small pamphlet, and ladies and gentlemen who want their humanity back could preach that.
But hey, I'm for equal rights, so if women want to join "the church," have at it, and may God have mercy on our souls.
best,
Andrew
"Then I saw an angel coming down from Heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and locked and sealed it over him, so that he would deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be let out for a little while." (Revelation 20:1-4)
Unfortunately I'm not sure he was ever put away. If women are called to preach, I say preach. I'm a feminist, which is to say that I believe in equality of the sexes, and beyond that, I am a radical feminist, which is to say I believe that we aren't going to solve the problems of the patriarchy by making small adjustments in the patriarchal system, such as allowing women to become CEO's or Bishops or Pope's, as a liberal feminist (according to the common definitions I learned about feminism studying Women's Studies from 2003-04) would suggest. Giving women access to the already warped structures of patriarchal capitalism just forces women to take on roles of unhealthy socially constructed patriarchal masculinity. You want access to the rat race? Have at it, and welcome to hell. Women are entering the competitive, emotionless world of power and control which dominates patriarchy. It used to be just men competing with men, and women were capital in the game, but now women are entering the game and competing just the same, sacrificing their emotions, their, humanity, as men have been doing now for hundreds of years, pitting themselves against each other in a selfish, individualistic, reality, right out of the Bible.
And that's really the problem. The god of the Bible created each one of us, and judges each one of us, separately, and when we are rewarded, it is often at the expense of someone else, or they are being punished for being bad, and we are being rewarded for being good. It's a competition, and it is fear based, and it's about power and control, control of a destiny after death based on actions in life. We try to control our behavior, not because we care about our fellow man, our tribe of mankind, and our mother earth, but because we want the individualistic rewards of God for ourselves. So we think that we, the individual, matter, and very often our benefit it is at the expense of someone else. And BANG, welcome to present day reality, as we rape Mother Earth, and try to keep her performing like some drugged up baby momma, popping out oil and food just as fast as we damn well expect her too, hence depleted oceans, overpopulation, completely exhausted top soil, drought, starvation and lack of potable water in huge portions of the world population, while we buy Evian bottles over here in the "1st world" at a higher price per weight than we pay for gasoline.
"Thus the LORD said to me: Make yourself a yoke of straps and bars, and put them on your neck." (Jeremiah 27:2)
We've kept that yoke on far too long. The Bible is full of it, from Genesis 3:16, when God curses woman for her little forbidden meal, "in pain shall you bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you," all the way to Paul's words on the matter which classmates have discussed.
What I don't understand is why women would want anything to do with representing any church which calls the Bible their sacred book. As Adam and Eve were forced "by God" to leave the garden and toil the fields and eat bread, so have we continued over the past few thousand years murdering and forcing native people's who still lived in the Garden, in harmony with their Mother Earth, off of their land, and into the same curse we have been living out, all for a little snack and becoming "like one of us" (Gen 3:22). Maybe it's time to close Pandora's box. Jesus had some great things to say, but me thinks he was trying to liberate people from the curse, but instead what once was only the curse of the Jews, has become, through a whole lot of missionary work, the curse of mankind. You could cut down the teachings of Jesus to a nice small pamphlet, and ladies and gentlemen who want their humanity back could preach that.
But hey, I'm for equal rights, so if women want to join "the church," have at it, and may God have mercy on our souls.
best,
Andrew
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
the hawbag strikes again
No rough draft on this old friends. I'm just shooting from the hip and decided to jump right in this blog and start writing. Now I should be studying mind you. Scottypants is engaged in graduate school and all, studying religion (HAH!) at the GTU, but i'm not studying, nor have I been studying lately, at least not as much as I should be. I have barely been exercising either. I have been feeling like my feet are stuck in thick weighty jello, and I can't move. This has been going on for awhile now. I go and go, like moving across the country two months ago from New York City to Berkeley California, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, cutting across the country in my trusty car Blondie like a genius on fire, and sober to boot; and so long as I'm running, I seem to have enough energy, but as soon as I stop for a second, boom, the sludge returns.
So here I am in Berkeley, knee deep in sludge, hawk jawed and fooled. I really want to drink some wine to boost my spirits. That's what it does. Wine or herb to my trusty gullet or lungs and right to the brain and I'm right as rain. But it's a lonely mans game. See I'm trying to do it differently. I'm trying to make the decisions which will lead me down a more deep and meaningful road, like finding a good wife, and having kids and being a good dad, and maybe sharing some holy emptiness with a crowd outside of drunkenness, but my loneliness just wants me to take a sip, pack the pipe, and relax. That feels better. Maybe not in the long run, but don't they say to just live in the present? Well, my favorite way (maybe the only way I know how) to get into the present is to take a drink from the glass of timelessness, or a smoke from the Green Goddess home. Earth, a crisp fresh death, a return to the ground, a delicious sip from the grave. The liquid or smoky infinite, the illusion breaking potion of Now. Hard work and meditation in a glass. Comfort all alone.
For the moment all I have is this sobriety, (well I give myself caffeine and a touch of nicotine, but give me a break, they are very ineffective drugs. I guess that's why they don't get you drunk or stoned). So here I am. Empty. Empty. Empty. I am the emptiness, but this world doesn't seem to want to be saved. I'm already dead, should I just take a break in the meantime and inhale myself in time? The drug is the drug is the drug. Where is the love? I am the drug, drink of me, drink this mystery, stop me wasting time. Who is the fool? I can tell you all about nothing. It means everything, nah. Just tell me to shut up and give me a glass of wine. Another line. And we'll all wake up in Hell. Aloha.
So here I am in Berkeley, knee deep in sludge, hawk jawed and fooled. I really want to drink some wine to boost my spirits. That's what it does. Wine or herb to my trusty gullet or lungs and right to the brain and I'm right as rain. But it's a lonely mans game. See I'm trying to do it differently. I'm trying to make the decisions which will lead me down a more deep and meaningful road, like finding a good wife, and having kids and being a good dad, and maybe sharing some holy emptiness with a crowd outside of drunkenness, but my loneliness just wants me to take a sip, pack the pipe, and relax. That feels better. Maybe not in the long run, but don't they say to just live in the present? Well, my favorite way (maybe the only way I know how) to get into the present is to take a drink from the glass of timelessness, or a smoke from the Green Goddess home. Earth, a crisp fresh death, a return to the ground, a delicious sip from the grave. The liquid or smoky infinite, the illusion breaking potion of Now. Hard work and meditation in a glass. Comfort all alone.
For the moment all I have is this sobriety, (well I give myself caffeine and a touch of nicotine, but give me a break, they are very ineffective drugs. I guess that's why they don't get you drunk or stoned). So here I am. Empty. Empty. Empty. I am the emptiness, but this world doesn't seem to want to be saved. I'm already dead, should I just take a break in the meantime and inhale myself in time? The drug is the drug is the drug. Where is the love? I am the drug, drink of me, drink this mystery, stop me wasting time. Who is the fool? I can tell you all about nothing. It means everything, nah. Just tell me to shut up and give me a glass of wine. Another line. And we'll all wake up in Hell. Aloha.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
I Blew it on Posting this USS New York Post when it was more timely
The USS New York, made with steel from remnants of the World Trade Center, launched a few months ago, and is an amphibious assault dock (sounds menacing).
7.5 tons of WTC steel. It's like a phoenix of war rising from the ashes of terrorism; a giant steel bastion of potential violence floating on the seas. The lesson we failed to learn from the Sept. 11th attacks is that having huge weapons doesn't always keep a center of the American Capitalist universe from getting flown into and blown up by a bunch of terrorists who are willing to blow themselves up in a battle against our greed.
They may be mislead, just like our own young soldiers, into thinking that there is justice in killing. The terrorists are also trained, like us, to believe that their war and its means are just. They are often mislead by leaders who use religious zealotry to feed their power. Some are motivated by genuine spiritual seeking, but in their violence they are completely off track.
To us they are terrorists. To them, we are terrorists. Until one of us gives up fighting, there will always be war. They may never give up, so we have to. The righteous turn the other cheek. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
The USS New York is a floating bastion of violence and represents our history of violence, and the slavery on which our capitalism was built. The boat represents our righteousness no more than it represents our violence, fear and greed.
What are we so afraid of that we need such a big army to protect us from? Have we built up this force to protect the greedheads more than ourselves? Is the average American, sitting at a desk in an office building, laboring for the profits of some huge corporation, or the man in uniform who is defending this nation which defends those corporations, victims of a savage individualism, inculcated greed, violence, and licentiousness, propped up and called freedom?
Friday, March 05, 2010
Suffering on a Thursday or Another One For Jenn
Everything and nothing exist concurrently
Nothing is true at the same time as everything
The middle way is just as true as all the way and no way
It's all nothing and everything
Emptiness and form
Finite and infinite
It is what it is and it is what we make it
I'm so tired sitting at my desk
I get in bed and I can't sleep
Stacy was so right
I could have stayed in New York and got a firmer foundation
Now I'm all the way here
and there is no turning back
Forward Ho said the Goose faced bandit
sliding burnt from an ungreased pan
Oh well, I had a paradise apt. in NYC
and I ran like hell
Now I have a train honking every few hours making sure I never really sleep
and no good delivery and no real heating
and no Donaldo sitting in his wheelchair
outside 245 West 25th street smoking cigarettes and singing about the Kingston Baby
Too many realities all existing at the same time
Everywhere and nowhere
The Madman on parade
Listening for God and studying Buddhism and trying to save the world
Where am I going? Nowhere
Endlessly rushing nowhere
It's all right here.
Everywhere and now.
I'm wide awake
Just as soon as I get in bed
Oh fool
Empty glass of dilapidation.
Wet meat.
A sliver of decay.
I am crab.
Flem shnort
plus rag
flor hound
Glaz drop
yep. that about sums it up.
Eat my taco
Flag heads
Eat shrimp
Can't you see?
Zarathustra mouths
Eyes covered over with throat grass
stump eared and glazy
Tie tongued and easy
Drunk on steam.
Flesh eaters at the greed trough
munching in the weeds
Skinning naked Children on your motorcycles
flame broiled with lazy breath
Oh wrench people
Hot bed wetting video games
Sucking on TV
Jessica Simpson Tits
floating on a spewing vagina coughing lava from the depths of the Earth
Eat my flea house.
It's just me and my dog.
He wears a tuxedo and his name is Kingston.
We live on Jones street next to black people
who are the same race as me,
color of my dog,
born real tan while I get my worthy skin cancers removed and reconcile death.
This ship shrinks every day
and we all same tribe
See the Mezuzah on my blue door frame
We are all to blame.
Nothing is true at the same time as everything
The middle way is just as true as all the way and no way
It's all nothing and everything
Emptiness and form
Finite and infinite
It is what it is and it is what we make it
I'm so tired sitting at my desk
I get in bed and I can't sleep
Stacy was so right
I could have stayed in New York and got a firmer foundation
Now I'm all the way here
and there is no turning back
Forward Ho said the Goose faced bandit
sliding burnt from an ungreased pan
Oh well, I had a paradise apt. in NYC
and I ran like hell
Now I have a train honking every few hours making sure I never really sleep
and no good delivery and no real heating
and no Donaldo sitting in his wheelchair
outside 245 West 25th street smoking cigarettes and singing about the Kingston Baby
Too many realities all existing at the same time
Everywhere and nowhere
The Madman on parade
Listening for God and studying Buddhism and trying to save the world
Where am I going? Nowhere
Endlessly rushing nowhere
It's all right here.
Everywhere and now.
I'm wide awake
Just as soon as I get in bed
Oh fool
Empty glass of dilapidation.
Wet meat.
A sliver of decay.
I am crab.
Flem shnort
plus rag
flor hound
Glaz drop
yep. that about sums it up.
Eat my taco
Flag heads
Eat shrimp
Can't you see?
Zarathustra mouths
Eyes covered over with throat grass
stump eared and glazy
Tie tongued and easy
Drunk on steam.
Flesh eaters at the greed trough
munching in the weeds
Skinning naked Children on your motorcycles
flame broiled with lazy breath
Oh wrench people
Hot bed wetting video games
Sucking on TV
Jessica Simpson Tits
floating on a spewing vagina coughing lava from the depths of the Earth
Eat my flea house.
It's just me and my dog.
He wears a tuxedo and his name is Kingston.
We live on Jones street next to black people
who are the same race as me,
color of my dog,
born real tan while I get my worthy skin cancers removed and reconcile death.
This ship shrinks every day
and we all same tribe
See the Mezuzah on my blue door frame
We are all to blame.
Inverted Nonsense
Hey plow horse
What gravy you belching from your glazed fags?
Hot butter in your fireplace, monkey man?
Go shovel worms you foul mouthed sucker
I'll eat your fresh caught trout on a french BBQ
In Colorado mountains riding horses by the lake
Suck my train horn you savage!
You bunch of gay fags with your women sex and multicultural affinities!
Aha, now I caught you in your queer theory class
when I had sex with self-identified lesbian on my couch
studying white lesbian feminist womens studies
Only to get cock jabbed in Christian Education class by a womanist mujerista
rejecting gay whitey as a rag doll racist
unperspectivized with generalizations
Oh, they are all so wrong
We are all so trapped in our own lenses
With our ME MOUTHS
Pushing steam with our butt cheeks
Suck my Craw felch fuckers
We're all the same.
Take your PC pussy dicks and yank them inclusivity
invert revert poopy heads-
I know Green Man-
Suffering weehaw cause his rich girl stole his smoking children from his Rasta mouth
Everybody's suffering in this claw horse beast called Bank of America run by nobody getting dumber by the day
What gravy you belching from your glazed fags?
Hot butter in your fireplace, monkey man?
Go shovel worms you foul mouthed sucker
I'll eat your fresh caught trout on a french BBQ
In Colorado mountains riding horses by the lake
Suck my train horn you savage!
You bunch of gay fags with your women sex and multicultural affinities!
Aha, now I caught you in your queer theory class
when I had sex with self-identified lesbian on my couch
studying white lesbian feminist womens studies
Only to get cock jabbed in Christian Education class by a womanist mujerista
rejecting gay whitey as a rag doll racist
unperspectivized with generalizations
Oh, they are all so wrong
We are all so trapped in our own lenses
With our ME MOUTHS
Pushing steam with our butt cheeks
Suck my Craw felch fuckers
We're all the same.
Take your PC pussy dicks and yank them inclusivity
invert revert poopy heads-
I know Green Man-
Suffering weehaw cause his rich girl stole his smoking children from his Rasta mouth
Everybody's suffering in this claw horse beast called Bank of America run by nobody getting dumber by the day
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Somebody tell the physicists at CERN that their job is already done... leave the Higgs Boson (GOD) alone, its already a part of us, don't blow us up.
"Science is nothing but the finding of unity. As soon as science would reach perfect unity, it would stop from further progress, because it would reach the goal. Thus Chemistry could not progress farther when it would discover one element out of which all others could be made. Physics would stop when it would be able to fulfill its services in discovering one energy of which all others are but manifestations ... All science is bound to come to this conclusion in the long run. Manifestation, and not creation, is the word of science today, and the Hindu is only glad that what he has been cherishing in his bosom for ages is going to be taught in more forcible language, and with further light from the latest conclusions of science." Swami Vivekananda (1893)
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Class Discussion Response on Question of Free Will and Judas' Necessitated Betrayal of Jesus for One of Scotty Pants Seminary Classes.
Boy oh boy,
isn't this a tough one?! Free will is a real conundrum. First I have to ask myself, who is the I whose will could be free? Is the soul, which would choose a body to be born into and a life to lead, as Shannon's position suggests, a free enough being in the first place to be able to choose its destiny? This suggests that there is some higher realm with higher beings of our selves who act something like humans in our disconnected earthly reality, up there somewhere still separate from each other, and from God, making free will decisions about being born, lives to live, parents to raise them. And then we become those beings down here in the flesh, and still live separately, still make free will decisions, still determine our own destiny?
My mom has frequently shared this view with me, that no matter how miserable she is, she knows that she chose this life, chose these situations, and is sort of stuck down here, by her own choice. This always struck me as a fairly depressing way to look at things. I mean, I do tend to love my life, but when I don't, I rather like having something other than myself to blame for my circumstances. Choosing to think that I or some higher form of myself has chosen every idiosyncratic little detail of my reality really puts things in an oddly self-centered perspective in the first place. Putting myself as the determinator of both my physical birth circumstances and my life choices brings up some odd questions, and seems to me to lead to a very dark opinion of our species. If we are all in charge of everything, individually, we sure have screwed things up royally, not just for ourselves, but for everybody else, and for many of the life forms we share this planet with. But in such a broad world, with so many infinite possibilities, and billions of years behind us, and billions of years before us, with our physical homo-sapien-sapien present realities as just a blip on the radar of physical existence in this infinite universe of non-physical energy, we really aren't such a big deal, and seems to me, we really don't have quite as much control as we think, or as much power as our free-will dogmas might lead us to believe.
Free will, in these temporary bodies, in this world of instantaneous limitations, of time, gravity, and bathroom stops, is true, but only so far as it goes. It's like saying you have free will within a prison, you can do what you will, but only within these parameters. Someone can go out and kill someone else, but there are consequences. Hitler was responsible for the murder of millions of human beings, but in the end he really just ended up killing himself, literally. We can kill each other in these bodies, but our bodies are going to die even if we don't. Choosing love, life, and hope, using our free wills to their highest potential, does not change the fact that we are going to die. What happens when we die is all just speculation, no matter how convenient we may find putting our faith in some story written at the hands of man. Divinely inspired or not, it is still limited by the hands of authors in the midst of dilapidation.
In regard to Horace' question on the perspective that God needed Jesus' mission fulfilled by Judas' betrayal of him, I can only wonder, did He? What kind of God would send his most beloved son down to earth as a human sacrifice, to pay for the sins of His own creations? I have to admit, it is the kind of thing an Old Testament God would do. It fits in the context of many of his Acts as documented in the Tanakh. He liked sacrifices and could be a ruthless killer, even His own. But I wonder, did the authors of the Book, telling the story the way they did, really have a choice? I think maybe the guilt of having the blood of such a perfect and innocent Man on our own hands had something to do with Judas' betrayal. We say that Judas did it. It was part of greater plan, it wasn't even his fault, it was part of God's plan. It takes some of the responsibility off ourselves. Maybe we had to tell the story that way, to keep from killing ourselves like Hitler. Maybe all this responsibility, in relation to our own ignorance and our potential, was just too much to bear. Nietzsche, one of the fathers of existentialism, certainly went nuts thinking about it.
Blessings,
Andrew S.
isn't this a tough one?! Free will is a real conundrum. First I have to ask myself, who is the I whose will could be free? Is the soul, which would choose a body to be born into and a life to lead, as Shannon's position suggests, a free enough being in the first place to be able to choose its destiny? This suggests that there is some higher realm with higher beings of our selves who act something like humans in our disconnected earthly reality, up there somewhere still separate from each other, and from God, making free will decisions about being born, lives to live, parents to raise them. And then we become those beings down here in the flesh, and still live separately, still make free will decisions, still determine our own destiny?
My mom has frequently shared this view with me, that no matter how miserable she is, she knows that she chose this life, chose these situations, and is sort of stuck down here, by her own choice. This always struck me as a fairly depressing way to look at things. I mean, I do tend to love my life, but when I don't, I rather like having something other than myself to blame for my circumstances. Choosing to think that I or some higher form of myself has chosen every idiosyncratic little detail of my reality really puts things in an oddly self-centered perspective in the first place. Putting myself as the determinator of both my physical birth circumstances and my life choices brings up some odd questions, and seems to me to lead to a very dark opinion of our species. If we are all in charge of everything, individually, we sure have screwed things up royally, not just for ourselves, but for everybody else, and for many of the life forms we share this planet with. But in such a broad world, with so many infinite possibilities, and billions of years behind us, and billions of years before us, with our physical homo-sapien-sapien present realities as just a blip on the radar of physical existence in this infinite universe of non-physical energy, we really aren't such a big deal, and seems to me, we really don't have quite as much control as we think, or as much power as our free-will dogmas might lead us to believe.
Free will, in these temporary bodies, in this world of instantaneous limitations, of time, gravity, and bathroom stops, is true, but only so far as it goes. It's like saying you have free will within a prison, you can do what you will, but only within these parameters. Someone can go out and kill someone else, but there are consequences. Hitler was responsible for the murder of millions of human beings, but in the end he really just ended up killing himself, literally. We can kill each other in these bodies, but our bodies are going to die even if we don't. Choosing love, life, and hope, using our free wills to their highest potential, does not change the fact that we are going to die. What happens when we die is all just speculation, no matter how convenient we may find putting our faith in some story written at the hands of man. Divinely inspired or not, it is still limited by the hands of authors in the midst of dilapidation.
In regard to Horace' question on the perspective that God needed Jesus' mission fulfilled by Judas' betrayal of him, I can only wonder, did He? What kind of God would send his most beloved son down to earth as a human sacrifice, to pay for the sins of His own creations? I have to admit, it is the kind of thing an Old Testament God would do. It fits in the context of many of his Acts as documented in the Tanakh. He liked sacrifices and could be a ruthless killer, even His own. But I wonder, did the authors of the Book, telling the story the way they did, really have a choice? I think maybe the guilt of having the blood of such a perfect and innocent Man on our own hands had something to do with Judas' betrayal. We say that Judas did it. It was part of greater plan, it wasn't even his fault, it was part of God's plan. It takes some of the responsibility off ourselves. Maybe we had to tell the story that way, to keep from killing ourselves like Hitler. Maybe all this responsibility, in relation to our own ignorance and our potential, was just too much to bear. Nietzsche, one of the fathers of existentialism, certainly went nuts thinking about it.
Blessings,
Andrew S.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Berkeley Smells Like Flowers
Or gad flen mare
the right glenn flee rag
righ crow nee mad
flen mare ree shaw
I saw mee dad
not on righ schmee
not in my life
all lone slad fair
so crow haw
go nigh flee shmay
folk a don rad in your belay
ars felch
my graw heart slime
makes earth wise full rage
see heart crime wee shaw
float down right head cheese
dawns eye
and saves the world
the right glenn flee rag
righ crow nee mad
flen mare ree shaw
I saw mee dad
not on righ schmee
not in my life
all lone slad fair
so crow haw
go nigh flee shmay
folk a don rad in your belay
ars felch
my graw heart slime
makes earth wise full rage
see heart crime wee shaw
float down right head cheese
dawns eye
and saves the world
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Hey Craw
My psychiatrist is a loony bird
if I can rant and rave when I'm crazy on this bloog
well then dammit all if I can't rant and rave as a sober graduate student at the Pacific School of Religion
yep
that's right folks
your Goose Wrangler is getting a higher education, and he's not even getting high anymore!
But my fellow students
Stoned
Drunk
and they call themselves Christians...
and still sucking on the lie of separation from GOD
Well they must be High
because this place is a JOKE
Seminary!?
It's Kindergarten
I'm taking a New Testament Class from a Franciscan at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (an Episcopal Seminary next door), and we don't even have to read the Gospels beginning to end! IT'S a JOKE! ARE they afraid that if they make the students read the whole document the students might realize what a bunch of BULLSHIT it is?! I've been reading it now, over and over, and Scottypants has been making notes...
and here is what it looks like:
The Old Testament just goes downhill after Genesis 1. After the 6th day God looks down and sees his creation and it was most excellent. That about sums it up. Why didn't they just leave it alone? Well instead we got hundreds upon hundreds more pages of a jealous, racist, angry, insane God, perpetrating atrocities, punishing the innocent, ordering the deaths of women and children, swallowing his own chosen up in floods and chasms, and just being an ordinary average prick.
Well, there is your God, and you can have him. Then this Rabbi Jesus came along to liberate his people from their sin, he came to forgive them in the name of a kinder version of God, but his people really didn't want to hear what he had to say so they had him hammered up on a cross to die. So the real lesson of the New Testament is don't question authority, don't knock over the money changers in the temple, don't challenge the higher ups, unless you want to get killed. So there is your story, but somehow this forgiving guy, by the time we get to the end of the New Testament, has been set up next to God in Heaven ready to Judge people and send some to everlasting condemnation, and some to eternal salvation. Well what the hell were they thinking? The Church survived. Judaism survived to keep it's people in the bondage of separation, in the illusion of separation from their fellow man by way of their supposed chosen status, even though we all know that we are all of us human beings god's chosen, Abraham was supposedly a direct descendant of Adam and Eve, just like the rest of us. There were only two to begin with right? Well that makes us all one big, discombobulated, and terribly confused family. And that big Jewish text (the Tanakh, AKA the Old Testament) survived with a tiny little addition called the New Testament, so the rest of the world could inherit this wonderful message of an angry, punishing, insane God, who needed to send his own son as a sacrifice, to die for the sins of his own creations. Thanks.
Once again, we are all Jews. Mislead, entrapped, fooled. God still wants us to stop killing each other. You can put any label on us you want. We are ONE HUMAN RACE.
Aloha.
if I can rant and rave when I'm crazy on this bloog
well then dammit all if I can't rant and rave as a sober graduate student at the Pacific School of Religion
yep
that's right folks
your Goose Wrangler is getting a higher education, and he's not even getting high anymore!
But my fellow students
Stoned
Drunk
and they call themselves Christians...
and still sucking on the lie of separation from GOD
Well they must be High
because this place is a JOKE
Seminary!?
It's Kindergarten
I'm taking a New Testament Class from a Franciscan at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (an Episcopal Seminary next door), and we don't even have to read the Gospels beginning to end! IT'S a JOKE! ARE they afraid that if they make the students read the whole document the students might realize what a bunch of BULLSHIT it is?! I've been reading it now, over and over, and Scottypants has been making notes...
and here is what it looks like:
The Old Testament just goes downhill after Genesis 1. After the 6th day God looks down and sees his creation and it was most excellent. That about sums it up. Why didn't they just leave it alone? Well instead we got hundreds upon hundreds more pages of a jealous, racist, angry, insane God, perpetrating atrocities, punishing the innocent, ordering the deaths of women and children, swallowing his own chosen up in floods and chasms, and just being an ordinary average prick.
Well, there is your God, and you can have him. Then this Rabbi Jesus came along to liberate his people from their sin, he came to forgive them in the name of a kinder version of God, but his people really didn't want to hear what he had to say so they had him hammered up on a cross to die. So the real lesson of the New Testament is don't question authority, don't knock over the money changers in the temple, don't challenge the higher ups, unless you want to get killed. So there is your story, but somehow this forgiving guy, by the time we get to the end of the New Testament, has been set up next to God in Heaven ready to Judge people and send some to everlasting condemnation, and some to eternal salvation. Well what the hell were they thinking? The Church survived. Judaism survived to keep it's people in the bondage of separation, in the illusion of separation from their fellow man by way of their supposed chosen status, even though we all know that we are all of us human beings god's chosen, Abraham was supposedly a direct descendant of Adam and Eve, just like the rest of us. There were only two to begin with right? Well that makes us all one big, discombobulated, and terribly confused family. And that big Jewish text (the Tanakh, AKA the Old Testament) survived with a tiny little addition called the New Testament, so the rest of the world could inherit this wonderful message of an angry, punishing, insane God, who needed to send his own son as a sacrifice, to die for the sins of his own creations. Thanks.
Once again, we are all Jews. Mislead, entrapped, fooled. God still wants us to stop killing each other. You can put any label on us you want. We are ONE HUMAN RACE.
Aloha.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
We all have the same ancestors. Every single human being on earth. Why don't they teach us that in Kindergarten? You practically have to get into college and take Anthropology to get that simple little nugget, and even then you often have to read between the lines. One human race. Ain't that a novel concept.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
discussion response for one of the classes... on question about God's presence in relation to Dietrich Bonhoeffer's WWII situation
I have enjoyed reading the conversation thus far; very thought provoking. I have to be another voice of agreement that God is present even in war and atrocity. This Autotheism Kent brings to the conversation is also interesting, especially from the perspective of Jesus's comments on being one with the Father. If we are living in the creation of a Creator, and are therefor part of it, then mustn't we be of the Creator? Jesus may not have been separating himself from us with his description of his relationship with his Father, but rather, as I think Kent is indicating, have been pointing us toward a new understanding of our own relationship with that Father. In being conscious beings in the midst of our own limited perception of creation, we may be little eye balls of creation itself, looking at a limited form of the image manifested by the great Creator. As actors in the manifest realm, we may be the ones we are calling on when we pray for God's intervention. Bonhoeffer chose one path of resistance to engage a dark power he saw acting in the world around him. He saw suffering and he acted in the best way he saw fit to stop Hitler, a figurehead of wrathful violence, cruelty and horror of his time. Where is God in death and dying, cruelty, rape and murder? God is infinite, but we are temporary. Yet we have eyes to see and bodies to experience creation with (and we use them to all these terrible ends sometimes). God, as far as we can see, is not of this world, flesh may be no more his, than ours. So God can be present in death, as God is in life, in that death is the portal to infinity (immortality, heaven, call it what we will), but death is also the price of playing the game. To physically witness infinite creation we have to be separate from it, we have to become temporary to catch a momentary glimpse of timelessness (maybe). To live in the physical realm could be the greatest gift, but death is the price we have to pay for receiving it. Can we stop killing each other and be more God like? Damn good question.
best,
Andrew S
best,
Andrew S
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
well...
OK, well after two days of orientation at seminary I have to admit I'm pretty exited about my schedule and this upcoming insanity. My big problem at present is that I'm torn between this Life and Teaching of Buddha course at the Institute for Buddhist Studies taught by this awesome old monk Seelawimala, and this RAST-2332-01 (12091) DEATH/JUDGEMENT/HEAVEN/HELL class with this awesome Dominican professor who also teaches way cool film classes, and also fills one of the requirements I need. They are both at the same time. I'll inform you which I choose and of the other one's I'm taking, looks like 12 hours is the normal course load here, but I may just go nuts and take 15 since it looks like it's the same price.
Know what BS stands for in the course schedule at seminary? Here's a hint, there are a whole lotta BS classes. Like BS 1025, Patrisic greek, or BS 1128, biblical Hebrew, or how bout BS-2740-01 (13382) SWEDENBORGIAN EXEGESIS. BS, can you guess?
much love,
Goose Wrangler
Know what BS stands for in the course schedule at seminary? Here's a hint, there are a whole lotta BS classes. Like BS 1025, Patrisic greek, or BS 1128, biblical Hebrew, or how bout BS-2740-01 (13382) SWEDENBORGIAN EXEGESIS. BS, can you guess?
much love,
Goose Wrangler
Monday, January 25, 2010
Off to see the wizard
Well today I go to orientation at the Pacific School of Religion at the Graduate Theological Union to begin my 3 year master of divinity program, embarking on a subversive journey that God only knows where will lead. I woke up agitated, already anticipating being at intellectual and spiritual war with my contemporaries. Probably the wrong attitude to begin with for a guy who started the Church of the Open Mind. But I woke up thinking about how religion is so often sacrilege.
If God is perfect and all loving, would he send Satan to test Job? Thinking about this confused and lost old book called the Bible that is followed by so many confused and lost people, I felt lost myself. My school is a hub of Gay and Lesbian Christianity, which itself doesn't make much sense, because even the New Testament has plenty declaring homosexuality somehow morally wrong. I don't believe that to be true, as I'm of the it is what it is opinion; but I do believe in commitment, love, and ideals of purity and truth, (falling short plenty myself to be sure), but if you are attracted to the same sex, then great, God loves you just the same, but anyway, I digress.
To say that God sent Satan is to make Satan part of God, which He is, but only so much as we are part of God, because we Created Satan, not God. We fell from the Garden, we wrote the story, not God. We, creatures of infinite potentiality, got lost, we chose the low road. God is ever present, ever loving, ever true and universal. We are the ones who have limited God, not the other way around. We defined God, like perfect little egotistical imbeciles, when we had even begun by saying that God created everything, including us mortals. But how can mortal define infinite?
They assigned me a young adviser, a professor of art and religion who has only been at the school since the fall. How exactly is she going to advise me through an MDIV program if she has never even been through one? My ego is insulted, but I'm just another mortal, what do I know? How quickly I forget my IT'S GOING TO BE OK rule.
Well, here I go, entering the Matrix. Let's see if I can break it, and crush these limited belief systems and help us escape from all this delusion (of course it's all just in my mind), with my perfect imperfection, street found St. Francis pendant, my two and a half months resistance to a strong taste for wine and herb, my dreams and love for the Jew, my mad love for humanity, and all my own insanity. The lunatic on parade. Welcome to Mindhead, it's a brand new show.
lots of love and aloha,
Goose Wrangler
If God is perfect and all loving, would he send Satan to test Job? Thinking about this confused and lost old book called the Bible that is followed by so many confused and lost people, I felt lost myself. My school is a hub of Gay and Lesbian Christianity, which itself doesn't make much sense, because even the New Testament has plenty declaring homosexuality somehow morally wrong. I don't believe that to be true, as I'm of the it is what it is opinion; but I do believe in commitment, love, and ideals of purity and truth, (falling short plenty myself to be sure), but if you are attracted to the same sex, then great, God loves you just the same, but anyway, I digress.
To say that God sent Satan is to make Satan part of God, which He is, but only so much as we are part of God, because we Created Satan, not God. We fell from the Garden, we wrote the story, not God. We, creatures of infinite potentiality, got lost, we chose the low road. God is ever present, ever loving, ever true and universal. We are the ones who have limited God, not the other way around. We defined God, like perfect little egotistical imbeciles, when we had even begun by saying that God created everything, including us mortals. But how can mortal define infinite?
They assigned me a young adviser, a professor of art and religion who has only been at the school since the fall. How exactly is she going to advise me through an MDIV program if she has never even been through one? My ego is insulted, but I'm just another mortal, what do I know? How quickly I forget my IT'S GOING TO BE OK rule.
Well, here I go, entering the Matrix. Let's see if I can break it, and crush these limited belief systems and help us escape from all this delusion (of course it's all just in my mind), with my perfect imperfection, street found St. Francis pendant, my two and a half months resistance to a strong taste for wine and herb, my dreams and love for the Jew, my mad love for humanity, and all my own insanity. The lunatic on parade. Welcome to Mindhead, it's a brand new show.
lots of love and aloha,
Goose Wrangler
Monday, January 18, 2010
If God Could Talk.
Guys listen I’m sorry. Sometimes it seems like I’ve forgotten about you, but I haven’t. Listen, it’s hard to be everywhere at once. Try to imagine what my job is like, OK. Like try juggling 7 billion lost angels run amok on earth. I mean, it’s not easy. Let me introduce myself. This is I Am. When I introduced myself in Exodus, I was talking to Moses, at the time talking to the Jews. So I was like yea, I’m the God of Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac. The thing is, and this is why it seems like I forget about you sometimes. So the thing is, well, I’m actually everybodys God. I hate to burst any bubbles. But come on. Seriously. I gave you guys Buddha, Jesus, Mohamed, Bob Marley, Krishnamurti. What do you want? Some folk see me as twos and threes, some conceive me as nothing, some even worship me as the devil, but they’re really just worshipping themselves. Truth be told, I’m all over the place. I’m Nothing. Like emptiness. So forgive me if I’m not around all the time to save the day. I’m nowhere. But if you look, you will also find that I am now here. I’m everywhere. But the big decisions are always left up to Mom.
Here are a few updates:
Stop Killing each other! (Jesus Christ, how many times do I have to say this?)
Find the Light within you. Say a prayer. Thank G-d you’re alive.
And I have to get a little serious here. Because it really bums me out when my children don’t play nicely with each other.
I want to talk about Israel, and this idea of a chosen people. Seems to me that somewhere along the line somebody missed the point, and this topic speaks to the broader issue of a divine humanity dividing themselves, and falling into ignorance. This just makes me crazy. In the first place, Israel means “he who wrestles with God.” Jacob was given the name Israel by an “angel of God” who he wrestled with in the night. Why was he wrestling with an angel, you might ask. Well God only knows, and I’m coming up blank at the moment. According to the book, the angel told Jacob to let him go because it was getting to be daytime. Jacob said he wouldn’t let him go till he got his blessing, so the angel gave him his blessing and the name. Why you want a name and a blessing of an angel who is afraid of daylight is beyond me, and Jesus Christ, I’m God. So get real! Now seriously. It’s over now.
I Am loves Jews, but it’s time you started marrying and uniting with your Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Atheist, Agnostic, and Rastafarian brothers and sisters, because you seem to be missing the point. The tribe of Israel is the tribe of Mankind. All people are your brothers and sisters, may all these limited beliefs be damned! All people are the children of God. And you all seem to wrestle with God. Nobody is perfect. Let it go. You guys got the spot at the appropriate time, after the Egyptian affair, and that’s all she wrote. Now share it with your neighbors, and share yourselves. Everyone wants to be the chosen people, and telling them that you are chosen while they are not has not exactly served your tribe well, people pick on the one they are jealous of. But listen ya’ll, they have nothing to be jealous of, I love them just as much as I love you, because they are all your brothers and sisters, they are you, and you are them. This goes for Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Zoroastrians and the rest, none of you are better than anyone else. You are all just trying to articulate the same thing. There is ONE TRUTH, and it is infinite, just like my love for all of you. But you are finite, in these human bodies at least, so you cannot articulate infinite truth, try as you might. So easy does it. Take it easy on yourselves, and on each other. Love each other.
You are all forgiven. The light of God is in your heart. There is only one tribe now. Mankind. All people are my children. I have no name. I AM each one of you. Within you, is Everything and Nothing. I AM BOTH.
The Tanakh is Old News. It’s out of date. As are most all of your books. It’s time for the literature of the ONE. You are all one, and you have figured it out for yourselves with your own science, limited as it is. The people of Israel are my chosen people, and so is everybody else. Israel is not a state on a map. Israel is a state of mind. You are all Israel, and you don’t have to keep wrestling. Just believe. You can’t separate the holy land from the holy land. The whole planet is holy. Get a new name. And if you are going to let an angel name you, let it be an angel who is not afraid of the light. Names are unimportant anyway. The infinite cannot be fully articulated by the finite. Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Rastas and the rest, you are all one. You are all on the same boat. Open your eyes.
Here are a few updates:
Stop Killing each other! (Jesus Christ, how many times do I have to say this?)
Find the Light within you. Say a prayer. Thank G-d you’re alive.
And I have to get a little serious here. Because it really bums me out when my children don’t play nicely with each other.
I want to talk about Israel, and this idea of a chosen people. Seems to me that somewhere along the line somebody missed the point, and this topic speaks to the broader issue of a divine humanity dividing themselves, and falling into ignorance. This just makes me crazy. In the first place, Israel means “he who wrestles with God.” Jacob was given the name Israel by an “angel of God” who he wrestled with in the night. Why was he wrestling with an angel, you might ask. Well God only knows, and I’m coming up blank at the moment. According to the book, the angel told Jacob to let him go because it was getting to be daytime. Jacob said he wouldn’t let him go till he got his blessing, so the angel gave him his blessing and the name. Why you want a name and a blessing of an angel who is afraid of daylight is beyond me, and Jesus Christ, I’m God. So get real! Now seriously. It’s over now.
I Am loves Jews, but it’s time you started marrying and uniting with your Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Atheist, Agnostic, and Rastafarian brothers and sisters, because you seem to be missing the point. The tribe of Israel is the tribe of Mankind. All people are your brothers and sisters, may all these limited beliefs be damned! All people are the children of God. And you all seem to wrestle with God. Nobody is perfect. Let it go. You guys got the spot at the appropriate time, after the Egyptian affair, and that’s all she wrote. Now share it with your neighbors, and share yourselves. Everyone wants to be the chosen people, and telling them that you are chosen while they are not has not exactly served your tribe well, people pick on the one they are jealous of. But listen ya’ll, they have nothing to be jealous of, I love them just as much as I love you, because they are all your brothers and sisters, they are you, and you are them. This goes for Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Zoroastrians and the rest, none of you are better than anyone else. You are all just trying to articulate the same thing. There is ONE TRUTH, and it is infinite, just like my love for all of you. But you are finite, in these human bodies at least, so you cannot articulate infinite truth, try as you might. So easy does it. Take it easy on yourselves, and on each other. Love each other.
You are all forgiven. The light of God is in your heart. There is only one tribe now. Mankind. All people are my children. I have no name. I AM each one of you. Within you, is Everything and Nothing. I AM BOTH.
The Tanakh is Old News. It’s out of date. As are most all of your books. It’s time for the literature of the ONE. You are all one, and you have figured it out for yourselves with your own science, limited as it is. The people of Israel are my chosen people, and so is everybody else. Israel is not a state on a map. Israel is a state of mind. You are all Israel, and you don’t have to keep wrestling. Just believe. You can’t separate the holy land from the holy land. The whole planet is holy. Get a new name. And if you are going to let an angel name you, let it be an angel who is not afraid of the light. Names are unimportant anyway. The infinite cannot be fully articulated by the finite. Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Rastas and the rest, you are all one. You are all on the same boat. Open your eyes.
Friday, January 08, 2010
soft landings
Antonio Banderas writing poetry in the sun
Curled black hair and wires coming out his ears
This was the end of poetic art
Singing reggae music.
The fool had found his stump
Walked up and crunched in
On a blind wagon train
Looking at an orange parking cone on top of a mobile home
It was a miracle.
He breathed in a yellow bicycle helmet and sat alone
A live tree reached out to him
Leafless and kind
Alien lampposts watched over him
And little purple flowers said hello from January California ground
There really is nothing wrong
Banderas thought
It's not my job to save the world.
I'll just stare into this computer screen
And exhale the universe
Curled black hair and wires coming out his ears
This was the end of poetic art
Singing reggae music.
The fool had found his stump
Walked up and crunched in
On a blind wagon train
Looking at an orange parking cone on top of a mobile home
It was a miracle.
He breathed in a yellow bicycle helmet and sat alone
A live tree reached out to him
Leafless and kind
Alien lampposts watched over him
And little purple flowers said hello from January California ground
There really is nothing wrong
Banderas thought
It's not my job to save the world.
I'll just stare into this computer screen
And exhale the universe
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
shoes from 2001 collection
There's nothing wrong with wearing shoes
your feet still touch the ground
the light of the earth still fills the soul
when Kwanza and Christmas are left behind
and Groundhog day on the beach
the new year starts with a new moon
when the light is waning away
you can leave your shoes on
because the light will really stay
the stars and the moon make no sound
sound has wasted away
and you can leave your shoes on
when the ground is gone
some moon will still remain
when the earth,
its ocean,
land and life
are dust
and the crashing waves and thunder storms
no longer make a sound
when the only sound is a cosmic wind
you won't be wearing shoes
your feet still touch the ground
the light of the earth still fills the soul
when Kwanza and Christmas are left behind
and Groundhog day on the beach
the new year starts with a new moon
when the light is waning away
you can leave your shoes on
because the light will really stay
the stars and the moon make no sound
sound has wasted away
and you can leave your shoes on
when the ground is gone
some moon will still remain
when the earth,
its ocean,
land and life
are dust
and the crashing waves and thunder storms
no longer make a sound
when the only sound is a cosmic wind
you won't be wearing shoes
Monday, December 28, 2009
Acirema
My first reaction to reading about the Israeli Defense Forces recent killing of two unarmed Palestinian militants in a raid was judgmental anger. Then I stopped myself for a moment and considered the new fad in American military policy, namely, using unmanned drones to blow up houses full of human beings because they are “plotting” against us. That’s right, think twice before you huddle with your buddies in a hut to talk dirty about the great Satan because the great Satan may well be listening and circling above you in an unmanned drone. This policy is executed here in America within the public sphere and seems to go off without a hitch of moral dilemma. They are terrorists we say, high level terrorists, and sure, sometimes their wives or children are home, but that’s just collateral damage, justified in the name of protecting the American people. One of the most remarkable things about this whole unmanned murder of human beings from the sky thing is the lack of public outcry amongst us. This is a policy that Barack Obama has been accelerating, and we seem to just swallow it as if it is another necessary evil in a broader war to protect the American “way.” But the more we participate in such behavior the less justified we are claiming that we have any legitimate “way” to protect. It’s time to turn the gun, the pen, and the camera back in on ourselves because we are expanding our role as global bad guy with each passing day. I’m glad we are making some progress in moving toward health care for all our citizens here in the USA, but the policies of our country are making each of our lives less valuable. We all have blood on our hands. Safely encapsulated in this FOX News bubble, it’s easy to forget to turn the critical eye on our own behavior, but a quick look at our actions as a country over the last few years will reveal the terrifying fact that we have only further justified the bulls eye they have on us. Since the attacks on September 11th, 2001, when the sympathy of almost the whole world was with us, any higher ground we might have had has been eroded by our own economic and military hubris. It is easy to criticize the policies and actions of a distant nation, like Israel or Uganda, or even Venezuela, because from a distance their actions are on the face of them wrong, yet when those actions are reported from those countries, they are often reported in a matter of fact way which indicates that from within them the actions seem justified. So we have to ask ourselves, how do so many of our actions, matter of fact as they may be from within, appear to the nations of the rest of the world? What does America represent to the rest of the world? It is a bit easier to see how we generally view ourselves as a country. Americans are trained in the meaning of America. We are the city on the hill, the global policeman, protecting the principles of freedom and democracy, equality and justice. As individuals it is hard to know what perception others really have of us, because we are so blinded by our own perception of ourselves. This is also true of nations. We get caught up in our own identity and it becomes difficult to even tell the true from the false. How might the rest of the world perceive the American Nation, and how might that differ from our American National Identity? These are scary questions to ask. We are sold this line about being justified in committing acts that from the outside could easily be discerned as war crimes. When the next attack comes against us on American soil, there will not be more sympathy and shock from around the world, there will be less, because our response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 have made us worthy of more attacks, not less. Instead of becoming a more peaceful, just, righteous nation, we have become more economically criminal, more terrorist militarily, and less aware intellectually. We have painted a bigger target on ourselves in the international consciousness by living, as a matter of fact, contrary to the ideals of our national identity. Our government policies have, therefore, put us, the American people, at more risk of terror attacks, and have stolen more of our innocence. We have engaged in war, we have done it knowingly, as it has been advertised all over our media, and we have bought it, hook, line, and sinker. So when the war returns to our soil, we should react rationally, not shaking our heads in wonder and asking why, but holding our leadership accountable and not letting them engage in more war in response to war that we have for nine years now been engaged in. If we want to make any progress in ending the violence, ending this cycle of wrongs done to remedy wrongs, eyes for eyes making us all blind, we need to turn away from what they have done to us, and start addressing our own policies and actions as a nation and as a people.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Don't give up.
"There is a legend of a hermit who had such a great desire to find the true path that he climbed a mountain of swords and threw himself into fire, enduring them because of his hope. He who is willing to risk the perils of the path will find a cool breeze blowing on the sword-bristling mountains of selfishness and among the fires of hatred and, in the end, will come to realize that the selfishness and worldly passions against which he has struggled and suffered are Enlightenment itself." The Teaching of Buddha, pg. 124.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
The Belly Button of the Universe of Man
Yet more evidence that our ancestors evolved in the holy land. Yep, go back far enough and it becomes maddeningly apparent that we are all one family. Call us all Jews if you want. The northern part of the Great Rift Valley (oh, right around the north of present day Israel) is the birthplace of anthropos. Race, religion, culture, language, and all the other walls built up between us are but illusions. Hold on to them at your peril people.
"Lifestyle of our Holy Land ancestors makes scientists think again
By Yuval Azoulay
Scholars and scientists long believed that people started eating fish "only" 40,000 years ago, but new archaeological findings have revealed that hundreds of thousands of years before that, human ancestors were catching and consuming fish in the Hula Valley, which is known even today for its fish ponds - albeit artificial ones.
Giant fish inhabited Lake Hula 750,000 years ago, and the hominids who lived there - believed to be the first species ever to create fire intentionally - grilled and ate them, Hebrew University researchers have concluded. The evidence was found at archaeological digs near the Bnot Yaakov Bridge over the Jordan River.
Laboratory studies in Israel and abroad have confirmed that the hominids caught catfish, tilapia and carp that were more than a meter long.
Advertisement
The team of archeologists was led by Hebrew U. Prof. Naama Goren-Inbar and assisted by Prof. Mordechai Kislev of the Bar-Ilan University life sciences department.
The findings were published this weekend in the journal "Science."
They found many tools to light fires and more, including basalt tools for cutting meat and cracking nuts. This led to the conclusion that nearly 1 million years ago, the ancestors of humans were living in communities comparable to modern societies - half a million years earlier than archaeologists had thought until now.
The findings were well preserved for 750,000 years, says Goren-Inbar, because the damp conditions prevented the formation of bacteria. The community inhabited a site about three kilometers square.
"We found many fish skulls, teeth, fins and bones, as well as crab claws, and not far away the remains of fires," she says. "With the stone tools and the other findings, we understand that the community was fully aware of the space they inhabited. They were familiar with the plants and animals, they knew the properties of the stone, and they were capable of planning long-term moves. Ancient man was far more advanced than we had thought," Goren-Inbar told Haaretz.
The researchers concluded that the inhabitants of the site roasted their nuts before cracking them open and eating them. The nutcrackers consisted of two stones, one with a hollow to hold the nuts and another to crack the shell.
No hominid remains were found, however. Researchers are not sure what they looked like, but some believe they were of the species homo erectus, which lived in Africa 1.8 million years ago and migrated outward.
"The homo erectus looked a lot like we do today, except his legs were shorter, his arms were longer like an ape's, his brow was heavy, and his brain volume was 900 cubic centimeters. Human brains are on average 1,400 cubic centimeters," says Dr. Gonen Sharon of the Hebrew University, who was involved in the research.
Despite the findings, the scientists still have no idea where the Hula community lived, since the site has no caves or other natural shelters."
From http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1136757.html
"Lifestyle of our Holy Land ancestors makes scientists think again
By Yuval Azoulay
Scholars and scientists long believed that people started eating fish "only" 40,000 years ago, but new archaeological findings have revealed that hundreds of thousands of years before that, human ancestors were catching and consuming fish in the Hula Valley, which is known even today for its fish ponds - albeit artificial ones.
Giant fish inhabited Lake Hula 750,000 years ago, and the hominids who lived there - believed to be the first species ever to create fire intentionally - grilled and ate them, Hebrew University researchers have concluded. The evidence was found at archaeological digs near the Bnot Yaakov Bridge over the Jordan River.
Laboratory studies in Israel and abroad have confirmed that the hominids caught catfish, tilapia and carp that were more than a meter long.
Advertisement
The team of archeologists was led by Hebrew U. Prof. Naama Goren-Inbar and assisted by Prof. Mordechai Kislev of the Bar-Ilan University life sciences department.
The findings were published this weekend in the journal "Science."
They found many tools to light fires and more, including basalt tools for cutting meat and cracking nuts. This led to the conclusion that nearly 1 million years ago, the ancestors of humans were living in communities comparable to modern societies - half a million years earlier than archaeologists had thought until now.
The findings were well preserved for 750,000 years, says Goren-Inbar, because the damp conditions prevented the formation of bacteria. The community inhabited a site about three kilometers square.
"We found many fish skulls, teeth, fins and bones, as well as crab claws, and not far away the remains of fires," she says. "With the stone tools and the other findings, we understand that the community was fully aware of the space they inhabited. They were familiar with the plants and animals, they knew the properties of the stone, and they were capable of planning long-term moves. Ancient man was far more advanced than we had thought," Goren-Inbar told Haaretz.
The researchers concluded that the inhabitants of the site roasted their nuts before cracking them open and eating them. The nutcrackers consisted of two stones, one with a hollow to hold the nuts and another to crack the shell.
No hominid remains were found, however. Researchers are not sure what they looked like, but some believe they were of the species homo erectus, which lived in Africa 1.8 million years ago and migrated outward.
"The homo erectus looked a lot like we do today, except his legs were shorter, his arms were longer like an ape's, his brow was heavy, and his brain volume was 900 cubic centimeters. Human brains are on average 1,400 cubic centimeters," says Dr. Gonen Sharon of the Hebrew University, who was involved in the research.
Despite the findings, the scientists still have no idea where the Hula community lived, since the site has no caves or other natural shelters."
From http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1136757.html
Monday, November 30, 2009
One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for End of the World Machine (Tree of Knowledge anyone?)
Is it me, or did they take the design of this bugger straight out of Star Wars, giving it that Darth Vader Death Star touch and adding a little color to make it seem refreshing?
These little fools are just so exited. The faster they blast their particles into each other, the more exited they get, all in the name of finding this tiny little thing called the Higgs Boson; but of course, if they do find the Higgs Boson, and it proves the elements of string theory that they are seeking to complete their latest little web of scientific BS, they will discover (as happened with the discovery of the atom) that they'll need to keep searching for the next thing, they'll find that even within the Higgs Boson is more empty space, and on and on into infinity because impermanent man can never discover the true nature of infinity, hence that old adage about never looking directly at God because it will consume you and burn you up. We are well on our way.
This is certainly one of the most significant wastes of time and money in the history of the universe.
"CERN announced early Monday that the Large Hadron Collider has become the world’s highest-energy particle accelerator. The LHC pushed protons to 1.18 TeV (trillion electron volts), surpassing the previous record of 0.98 TeV held by Fermilab’s Tevatron...
Now, 10 days after it turned on again, scientists are celebrating with their fingers crossed that the machine is safely on its way to the physics experiments they plan to begin next year when the LHC has reached its target energy of 7 TeV." (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/lhc-sets-new-world-record/)
click title for an interview with one of the know-it-alls who supports this terribly dangerous crap. How these people can say that what they are doing is not utterly threatening to life on earth, I can't understand. We have "scientists" and inventors to thank for nuclear weapons, guns, every other type of bomb, genetically modified foods, increasing incidence of cancer and on and on and on. They always say "don't worry, we're just trying to help, check out this cool thing we invented... watch this." Kaboom.
Reminds me of the passage that Robert Oppenheimer is reported to have recited after the Trinity Atomic bomb test in the Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death) desert:
If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky,
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...
I am become Death,
The shatterer of Worlds.
The Bhagavad-Gita
I'll say it again, our race would be wise to get dumb before the boxes we are opening swallow existence all together.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Letter to my Dear Friend Glenn
Dear Glenn Beck,
You seem so afraid. You seem so intent on making us all so afraid. Why are you so afraid Glenn? What is this information you have which you are striking fear into our hearts with? The national debt you say. The end of the American dream you say. Everything is changing, we are heading for trouble and we need to build an arc you say. We can’t afford to give everyone health care you say. The national debt is skyrocketing and our grandchildren are going to suffer you say. Well Glenn, I can’t disagree with you that our country is in trouble, but my god man, go to a meeting like the recovering alcoholic you always say you are. Take a few deep breaths and let me tell you, it’s going to be OK.
Glenn, we’re all going to die, arc or not. That’s life. It always ends in death, and if the twelve steps you say you’ve worked have taught you anything, I hope they’ve taught you that all we have is today. That means you shouldn’t worry too much about judgment day. If your left foot is in yesterday, and your right foot is in tomorrow, then you are pissing on today. Isn’t that what they say, Glenn? Will you please quit pissing on today, Glenn. There is no giant conspiracy Glenn. If there is, then you’re just as much a part of it as the rest of us. That brings me to Christ, latter day or not. Glenn, do you really think that Jesus Christ would be against universal health care for all? You call yourself a Christian, Glenn. You claim to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Your estimated earnings for the last 12 months is over 20 million dollars, big G. What was it that Captain Jesus said about the rich? Hmm… let me think, I know you took one theology class at Yale before you dropped out. Something to this effect, my good man: it’s easier to thread a camel through the eye of a needle, than for a greedy little piggy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Hopefully you aren’t worried too much about that though, because acting good today because you are afraid of what might happen when Jesus flies in on a golden winged chariot to flood the land you are building an arc to protect yourself from tomorrow is just going to piss off Captain J all the more. That would simply indicate that you aren’t really living for today. The fires of hell may await you Glenn, no matter how big an arc you build for yourself. But I wouldn’t worry too much about it. If you want the reward Mr. Glenn, you have to be good because you have found goodness in your heart. But when I listen to your fear, to your anger, to your vitriolic paranoia and self-aggrandizement, me thinks you are one of the hypocrites that Jesus so frequently rallied against, Glenn. But here I go starting to sound like you. Let me take a moment to remind myself it’s OK. Three deep breaths, and we’re all going to die. Breath in. Breath out.
Glenn, we can work this out. You are worried that we owe over 300,000 dollars per capita because of this tremendous national debt. You are telling us dedicated viewers of your show that our children are going to inherit this debt, and that we cannot afford to give everyone health care on top of it all. Well, it just so happens that your income over the last 12 months should cover the debt load of about 66 people to begin with. If the government were to simply tax 80% off the top of the income of some of the little piggies who make more than a million dollars a year, we could recoup our government expenses lickety split. I mean, you are always talking about how much you care about America. Thank goodness this great country of ours has so many little piggy banks like yours. Let’s just say we take only 80% of your 2 million dollar yearly salary at FOX News, this wonderful station that does so much to help save the planet from getting saved; that would still leave you 400,000 dollars to live on. You might have to start flying first class instead of taking a private jet, maybe sell a yacht, but I know you care about the people, and I have no doubt that it is a sacrifice you would gladly be willing to make, because you are a true patriot, aren’t you Glenn? You are a good Samaritan, aren’t you Glenn? You have love in your heart, and you care. I believe that to be true. Sometimes the love in our hearts is just hidden from us.
Personal responsibility is dead, get responsible, accept responsibility you say. We’re neighbors you say. When the people lead the leaders will follow you say (quoting a bumper sticker you just saw). You say that if the government will get out of our business we’ll all start taking care of each other. Well that hasn’t really happened, Glenn. In fact, the rich are getting richer, just like you, while the national debt, which you constantly rant about, rises. As you have often pointed out, the job market is barely recovering, while the stock market has rebounded. The people don’t have jobs but we are still trying to get them to go shopping. What do you think that the commercials between your rants are trying to get us to do? According to the numbers from Black Heart Friday, they seem to be working. I can’t remember the last time I saw a commercial for a soup kitchen for the homeless.
There is something wrong with this idea that multi-millionaires need to keep getting richer, Glenn, and not give more back for the greater good. Warren Buffet said it best when he pointed out that his secretary pays more taxes than he does. That’s right Glenn, you can just give your taxes to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to get your name put on some temple wall or on a Bringham Young University building and write it off, while the national debt keeps on rising. No, you are a good Samaritan, and you wouldn’t think of doing that, would you Glenn? No, you will fight for universal health care, not for Insurance companies, won’t you Glenn? You will fight for equal wages for number of hours worked by workers, rather than fighting for the rights of the bulging pocket books of the rich and famous, right Glenn? You care. Don’t you? May God bless you Glenn, and bring you peace in your heart.
Best Wishes,
The Goose Wrangler
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
nothing better to do.
Does it have to be the human race? I mean does it have to be a race? Couldn't it just be like an experience? Does it seem like we are rushing to the end? Like in a race? 2012 movie and all, I mean we really seem like we are rushing to get this race over with. I mean, like a race, maybe it did really start with a bang. But can't we just be here now, no end in site, and nobody rushing to get there? All just passing through? Like we could just have a human meandering rather than a human race.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
well this needs editing, but i'm just going to publish the whole puppy here for the moment... there may be something here...
If everything is god then even business is also god at work, even capitalism must somehow be god at work.
The pains of life are necessary
To teach people badly is to teach people that they are criminals and that they need to suppress their nature in order to be good people, when the opposite is actually true. They need to discover their true nature, because at the bottom of themselves they will find love, not violence. Love is stronger than violence. The loving expression of violence is non-violence. Before violence existed there was no violence. There was a void. The genesis of violence was the ripping apart of the void, when it was separated from itself, and what was emptiness became existence and non-existence.
It sure is difficult to write a book in the days of facebook when you can just say everything live. I’m not all that motivated to make money, despite the influence of my vigorous American Capitalist upbringing and education. Somehow I just want to communicate. I’ve never really thought of myself as a loner. I’m very much a people person. But in New York City you have to work to get people to even look at you, let alone smile or actually say hello. It’s like everyone is just in their own little bubble ignoring everyone else around them, acting as if they are the only people in the world, attached by their faces to their phones and walking around as if they are reading a map as they go. They don’t even see their surroundings, just a screen between their fingers. This may seem a bit anti-social at the moment, but these people are just connecting in a new and different way, and while one thing is hidden from them, another is revealed.
What is this internet? What are we discovering in this digital universe, which is able to distract us from our immediate neighbors and our surroundings? Is it something we found lacking in them? Whatever it is, it must be significant because NOW is the moment we have never experienced before. Of course this has always been true. It always will be.
This connectivity is a silent revolution. The people are in touch as they have never been before. We may still feel powerless as members of this society, of this police state, but the power itself must take heed, because the common man now has access to universal connectivity. The common man is the police. The common man is the military. The common man is Al Qaeda. The common man is Iran. The common man is Pakistan. The common man IS America, even when he is oppressed by it. I AM is the common man, and the force of the universe is in him.
We are in a new age. This is the age of interconnectivity. This is the age where man discovers that he is everyone else. We are all eyes attached to a screen. Whether we are holding a digital screen in our hands, or are looking at the living reality surrounding us. Have we tapped into an alternative universe? Is it possible to separate the universe of screens and letters of virtual communication from the molecules of living matter themselves?
The internet is like having a connection into the heads of everyone else who is connected to this virtual world. TV is not a dissimilar phenomenon, but television is more about receptivity, about taking in, and it is not interactive the way the digital world of connected computers is. There are human eyes staring into the net, building the computer, inventing the reality. What are we staring into? Who are we talking to? Have we only found ourselves as we stare into the screen before us? Who invented the screen and who gives it meaning? Who is the perceiver of creation? Aren’t we seeing with the eyes of creation?
So are we talking to ourselves? When we talk to each other, who are we really talking to? If we are connected to everything around us, then are we talking to parts of One? Isn’t that what our science has taught us? Isn’t that what our spiritualities are trying to tell us?
One thing that’s sure is that I’m a rambler.
In the beginning was the void, but the void was whole. Was the void encapsulated in the smallest molecule of existence? Inside this molecule was every potentiality in the universe. The void was God. Before it became everything, god was nothing. Then suddenly our science tells us we had a big bang. This is when the void split in two. Like how splitting the atom makes a big bang. Yea. Like that. That’s what that science project was about. OK, so that’s about as close to the discovery of creation as we can get without total desctruction. This makes the Large Hadron Collider unnecessary, and possibly life threatening. {Let’s not open another Pandora’s box here people. Existence is not something to pass up and we don’t want to get swallowed by a black hole of our own creation.}
So with the separation of One into light and dark, positive and negative, male and female, there was suddenly everything, existence itself, and it was expanding. All we knew is that we were here, looking out at existence. I never could understand why we have been trying to shoot ourselves into space with rockets. I guess maybe it’s because somebody really wants to look at existence objectively, and it can’t be done from in here, in this atmospheric bubble.
The problem with this scientists’ little project is that there is no out there out there. He’ll still be looking out there from in here. You can’t be alive and truly get out of in here. Enlightenment is still here. No matter how high you go you are still here. In fact the highest you can get is right now. That’s what existence is. It’s in here. Non-existence is out there. That’s heaven. That’s empty space. That is nothing. Enlightenment is the experience of being fully connected to everything. But only in non-existence is everything whole again. There is no existence in infinity. It just is ever after.
Existence is the experience of being temporary. All things that are alive exist because they will cease to exist. Existence doesn’t exist without non-existence. Nothing is the void.
In the beginning was the void, and to the Void we shall return. Behind the computer is just more void. Behind our selves is the void. In this void we are angels. In here is love. Out there is love. Everything else is just the illusion of separation.
The pains of life are necessary
To teach people badly is to teach people that they are criminals and that they need to suppress their nature in order to be good people, when the opposite is actually true. They need to discover their true nature, because at the bottom of themselves they will find love, not violence. Love is stronger than violence. The loving expression of violence is non-violence. Before violence existed there was no violence. There was a void. The genesis of violence was the ripping apart of the void, when it was separated from itself, and what was emptiness became existence and non-existence.
It sure is difficult to write a book in the days of facebook when you can just say everything live. I’m not all that motivated to make money, despite the influence of my vigorous American Capitalist upbringing and education. Somehow I just want to communicate. I’ve never really thought of myself as a loner. I’m very much a people person. But in New York City you have to work to get people to even look at you, let alone smile or actually say hello. It’s like everyone is just in their own little bubble ignoring everyone else around them, acting as if they are the only people in the world, attached by their faces to their phones and walking around as if they are reading a map as they go. They don’t even see their surroundings, just a screen between their fingers. This may seem a bit anti-social at the moment, but these people are just connecting in a new and different way, and while one thing is hidden from them, another is revealed.
What is this internet? What are we discovering in this digital universe, which is able to distract us from our immediate neighbors and our surroundings? Is it something we found lacking in them? Whatever it is, it must be significant because NOW is the moment we have never experienced before. Of course this has always been true. It always will be.
This connectivity is a silent revolution. The people are in touch as they have never been before. We may still feel powerless as members of this society, of this police state, but the power itself must take heed, because the common man now has access to universal connectivity. The common man is the police. The common man is the military. The common man is Al Qaeda. The common man is Iran. The common man is Pakistan. The common man IS America, even when he is oppressed by it. I AM is the common man, and the force of the universe is in him.
We are in a new age. This is the age of interconnectivity. This is the age where man discovers that he is everyone else. We are all eyes attached to a screen. Whether we are holding a digital screen in our hands, or are looking at the living reality surrounding us. Have we tapped into an alternative universe? Is it possible to separate the universe of screens and letters of virtual communication from the molecules of living matter themselves?
The internet is like having a connection into the heads of everyone else who is connected to this virtual world. TV is not a dissimilar phenomenon, but television is more about receptivity, about taking in, and it is not interactive the way the digital world of connected computers is. There are human eyes staring into the net, building the computer, inventing the reality. What are we staring into? Who are we talking to? Have we only found ourselves as we stare into the screen before us? Who invented the screen and who gives it meaning? Who is the perceiver of creation? Aren’t we seeing with the eyes of creation?
So are we talking to ourselves? When we talk to each other, who are we really talking to? If we are connected to everything around us, then are we talking to parts of One? Isn’t that what our science has taught us? Isn’t that what our spiritualities are trying to tell us?
One thing that’s sure is that I’m a rambler.
In the beginning was the void, but the void was whole. Was the void encapsulated in the smallest molecule of existence? Inside this molecule was every potentiality in the universe. The void was God. Before it became everything, god was nothing. Then suddenly our science tells us we had a big bang. This is when the void split in two. Like how splitting the atom makes a big bang. Yea. Like that. That’s what that science project was about. OK, so that’s about as close to the discovery of creation as we can get without total desctruction. This makes the Large Hadron Collider unnecessary, and possibly life threatening. {Let’s not open another Pandora’s box here people. Existence is not something to pass up and we don’t want to get swallowed by a black hole of our own creation.}
So with the separation of One into light and dark, positive and negative, male and female, there was suddenly everything, existence itself, and it was expanding. All we knew is that we were here, looking out at existence. I never could understand why we have been trying to shoot ourselves into space with rockets. I guess maybe it’s because somebody really wants to look at existence objectively, and it can’t be done from in here, in this atmospheric bubble.
The problem with this scientists’ little project is that there is no out there out there. He’ll still be looking out there from in here. You can’t be alive and truly get out of in here. Enlightenment is still here. No matter how high you go you are still here. In fact the highest you can get is right now. That’s what existence is. It’s in here. Non-existence is out there. That’s heaven. That’s empty space. That is nothing. Enlightenment is the experience of being fully connected to everything. But only in non-existence is everything whole again. There is no existence in infinity. It just is ever after.
Existence is the experience of being temporary. All things that are alive exist because they will cease to exist. Existence doesn’t exist without non-existence. Nothing is the void.
In the beginning was the void, and to the Void we shall return. Behind the computer is just more void. Behind our selves is the void. In this void we are angels. In here is love. Out there is love. Everything else is just the illusion of separation.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
So I went to do yoga tonight, but toward the end of class I was losing the present moment, I had thoughts interrupting that nice white light, but what's funny is what was disturbing me. I've lost my copy of The Teaching of Buddha which I've had since I "acquired" it from a bedside table in Tokyo almost 11 years ago. I was in savasana wondering where it was. I think it may be sitting in a motel bathroom in NC. Damn impermanence. I had all my favorite pages marked. oh well, does matter moving from here to there really matter?
Now, I'm not saying i'm pious or anything. Now i'm sitting here drinking a glass of nice cheap Spanish wine, taking my evening one b.r. at a time.
As always, I'm wondering what's going on. Latin music is playing on the radio, and the whole universe is breathing in on itself.
24 hours later I'm sitting here having another glass of wine, procrastinating departure to live reggae music. This young man will soon be on the move. Am I crazy? I don't think so, but things are becoming hauntingly magical. They always have been. But suddenly things are starting to look as tripped as trip without the trip. The tangled lines are untangled and all the lines suddenly lead up the same mountain. What is truth but another illusion? The truth itself is infinite, incomprehensible, it is before time, the Alpha and the Omega, and we are only little wriggling lines on the pages of time in the midst of timelessness.
Aloha
See you at the show?
Now, I'm not saying i'm pious or anything. Now i'm sitting here drinking a glass of nice cheap Spanish wine, taking my evening one b.r. at a time.
As always, I'm wondering what's going on. Latin music is playing on the radio, and the whole universe is breathing in on itself.
24 hours later I'm sitting here having another glass of wine, procrastinating departure to live reggae music. This young man will soon be on the move. Am I crazy? I don't think so, but things are becoming hauntingly magical. They always have been. But suddenly things are starting to look as tripped as trip without the trip. The tangled lines are untangled and all the lines suddenly lead up the same mountain. What is truth but another illusion? The truth itself is infinite, incomprehensible, it is before time, the Alpha and the Omega, and we are only little wriggling lines on the pages of time in the midst of timelessness.
Aloha
See you at the show?
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Friday, October 02, 2009
We're all God
The irreverent craw
Soft bagging the lime
Eating itself
As the biscuits and antelope
Mate on the prairie
In violent ecstasy
Alternately raping each other
innocently
Shrimp people!
Squealing with glee
Living in fear,
guilt and sin
A celebration
A religion
Yippee!
Soft bagging the lime
Eating itself
As the biscuits and antelope
Mate on the prairie
In violent ecstasy
Alternately raping each other
innocently
Shrimp people!
Squealing with glee
Living in fear,
guilt and sin
A celebration
A religion
Yippee!
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Fighting for Your Right to Die
Does it seem odd that American citizens are protesting in the streets, not demanding universal health care, but rather demanding not to have it? Why are we the most powerful nation, with the biggest economy on the planet, yet the only developed democracy which does not provide health care to all its citizens? Well, it seems to me, what with how much sense Glenn Beck makes, that it’s just not how our little model works.
The fear of death is almost primordial. No sooner do we discover our mortality than do we begin to fear it. Some degree of fear in the population is essential for productivity. It is essential for creating order. Hence, Hans Morgenthau’s rule, about the necessity of having a monopoly on all means of violence in creating a nation.
We can’t beat workers like we used to, but if the threat of being uninsured is constantly held over the head of every individual, the dog eat dog, never ending quest for wealth (our ideal mindset for US citizenry), is reinforced, because, in our society, the closest thing to a fountain of youth is an unlimited bank account. Just ask Steve Jobs and his brand new liver.
Our version of cutthroat, free-market capitalism may very well fall apart if the proletariat is no longer in such literal fear for their lives. Is that what the conservatives are worried about? Is it less about profits for insurance companies and an out of control national debt, and more about the worry that cutthroat consumerism might be threatened if the sheep are a little less afraid for their lives?
If you are trying to create a selfish, money hungry, rat racing, capitalist, consumer, there is no better way than to start by making his health care dependant on his success in the rat race. Is it not logical that an employee will be more accommodating and easier to manipulate and control if his health care is dependant on his job? Won’t the uber-rich be more willing to keep outrageously accumulating wealth and clawing for a higher position on the masters of the universe list, like Oprah Winfrey, if the possibility of more surgical procedures is dependant on more money and if you know the government won’t pay for you to be frozen, cast in pure gold, and shot into outer space to live forever with Walt Disney and L. Ron Hubbard?
Many American politicians argue that providing universal health care is an ethical issue. Well that may be. But in the USA, the very foundation of our capitalism, a primary quest for wealth, and an obsession with getting higher on the social ladder, is ethically questionable.
If the whole cultural ideal rests on having more than the next guy, and individuals are entitled to accumulate billions of dollars while the next guy has to go into debt just to go to college, it’s not surprising that we don’t provide health care to everyone. Why would we? It might undermine our very way of life: our selfish individual pursuits of more stuff to distract ourselves from our impending demise and our powerlessness to stop it; even with all the plastic surgery, tubes, needles, and breathing machines. We all have to die.
I hope that doesn’t seem morose. Yet here we are, in a dilemma. Our present condition leaves questions unanswered. As rich as we are, it turns out our formula has left us a couple trillion dollars in debt, uninsured or not. The FDIC is looking to the banks it insures because it needs to borrow money. Yep, you read that correctly. If the banks don’t lend the money, the FDIC will be going to the US Treasury for cash, yet the US Treasury is just a touch beholden to China at the moment. It seems our quest for more has left us at a few trillion less than zero.
I go to Glenn Beck for the best information out there; and one thing is sure, Beck is protecting the American way. None of this sissy, lets try to take care of all our citizens, stuff. No. The greed must stand. So if we are not going to tax 100% of all wealth above 100 million dollars for those individuals who are worth that much, in order to build a green infrastructure, provide health insurance to all citizens, and pay off the national debt, then what should we do?
I suggest a purchase quota. This would be something akin to what Christopher Columbus cleverly devised when he was governor of Hispaniola in the early 1500’s. Convinced there were vast amounts of gold beneath the island, he required that each native deliver a certain amount of gold, or off with a hand. Well it turned out that there wasn’t much gold, so a lot of hands got chopped. Hands are important in sustaining a population, and sure enough, it wasn’t long before the native population of Hispaniola was nearly extinct. What lesson does this provide us in discussing health care? Dead folk don’t require health care.
One plus one equals Glenn Beck. So to avoid the terrible burden of keeping an aging population of hard partying baby boomers alive and Viagra’d on the government dime, we could impose consumption minimums. This is the way to keep the American way alive. If you are too old to be a good consumer, the plug gets pulled. Pay to play baby. It’s the American way. Spend to live. Simple. Thank god those folks are protesting in the streets. “Don’t give us health care!” “Let us die if we can’t afford health insurance!” “Stop trying to take away our rights!” Keep standing up people. Don’t give in. Don’t let the government provide you health care. Private corporations are the ones who really care about you. If you aren’t working and spending, and you don’t have enough accumulated wealth to pay to stay alive, then you can just keep fighting for your right to die.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Well
What's so interesting about the Bible is how God wrote all this stuff down for Himself to read so He would remember to not be such an Asshole in his human incarnations. Too bad God doesn't even speak his own language anymore down here on earth. God is so confused down here because He's busy being 7 billion different people at the same time. He keeps teaching Himself all this funny business making Himself feel guilty for being who He is [a fallen angel]. So he yells at himself and says "Stop Killing Each Other!" He is God. He is Christ. He is Anti-Christ. He is Buddha. He is Mohamed. He is Hitler. It's the same Dumbass, experiencing existence, again, and again, and again, just like He sent Himself down here to do. Sent down to Be His Own Servant. Incarnate. It's just hard for Him to remember. He also forgets He's Her.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
stealing from facebook
Eating Chinese food delivery in Aspen and pretending I'm hiding in New York and writing. I have to admit, this is better Chinese delivery than any I had in New York, except the delivery I had to my apt. on my first night there. I had no silverware, and they included no chopsticks or plastic fork or knife. I used two sanitized pens as chopsticks. That was the best.
Monday, September 07, 2009
Ecology and Religion joining forces... or all the forces are already joined!
click title to check out this interesting article Prof. Stewart and the Carnegie Council so kindly shared with us. Is it Ecoligion? Religecology? Who split the first atom? I don't think it was Adam. Maybe when the first Atom split it made a big bang, and suddenly there was light and dark, male and female... and we've been colliding or just call it banging ever since. bunch of separate pieces of One trying to come together. God bless us, every One.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Relax
Relax. It's Aspen. Hah. Relax. It's planet Earth. And the sun keeps on shining. Amy Goodman said recently that if we don't do something about global warming soon it will become irreversible. Yea, thanks hun. I'll give you a big capital Duh on that one. Until the next ice age. Mother Earth is in control baby. Sure we can do better. But dammit, stop fucking scaring people so much. Relaxing is important.
a new day again
hey ya'll. I'm listening to Warren Zevon's "I've got to roll with the punches." It's late at night and i'm not quite channeling Hunter S. Thompson. I'm sending out Hunter's best vibes. His happiest dreams for a better future, the future he dreamed of and the future his limited perspective thought was trampled on by the reelection of George W. Bush. I was pretty bummed myself when we gave GW his mandate after 4 years of idiocy. I was sober at the time, and I think it drove me to drink, and I hadn't had nearly the come down that Hunter experienced.
We may have lost Hunter as a result of George W. Bush. But maybe his suicide saved some of our lives. Do we want to go that high, and stay that high, when we know the rules? Hunter taught us the result, what goes up, must come down. If you keep going up and up and up, you must eventually come down. If you go too far up, the landing will be too much to bear. As the caption on an old plastic plate of mine with Winnie the Poo falling into the arms of his friends, catching him in the midst of his fall, says: "and the coming down is the hardest part." Ain't that the truth?
For those of us who see reality as it is and choose to live in it consciously, the only logical reaction is insanity. The logical reaction to insanity is insanity. Those of us that are normal "functioning members of society" are the ones who are really insane. The bums and the patients in the insane asylum are the one's who are sane. The poverty that we are at "war against" is our salvation. We are at war with ourselves. With our true nature. We are trying not to die, when dead is what we all already are. Death is the rebirth of life. Life feeds on death. Decay and resurrection. But if those of us who are awake to this beautiful reality don't come down periodically and remember our impermanence, we are doomed to jails, sanitariums, and death, as the AA lingo tells us. Those of us who are attracted to the spirits, indeed we who become addicted to them, when we have tapped into the infinite "God" consciousness of which we are all a part, if it is not grounded in the foundation that we are all One, when we are still attached to an "I" which is separate from you, the I which can kill, which is God and Satan incarnate, which is the infinite potentiality who has defeated all the other species on earth in single handed combat and also killed our brother and sister humans as a result of the illusion that we are separate, you will start screaming you're fucking head off, because people aren't living up to the God consciousness of which we are all a part, and that you have realized, and you will think you're god, and you are, but if we are still a part of the illusion, attached to the "I" which is separate from "you," if we don't come down periodically we will go "nuts."
But the key is to remember that everything is OK. That we are all connected, and that because of what is, so It must be. How could it be any different? How could we change this moment where i'm writing this foolishness at 3:45 in the morning Colorado time, which has nothing to do with real time, because the sun never actually sets, and the full bright moon tonight is just the Sun's reflection. And if I die from taking too much of the white illusion tonight, it was only because of my own foolishness. Let us thank the Lord for his Mercy. Give thanks to the moon and stars that rule by night for his mercy which rules for I. But that's the reggae music that helps me be grateful for this life that I am so lucky to be living.
Every life that I live is a miracle. We are the eyes of God looking out at the this chaos of perfect order. We are all part of the Great IS. I've been searching for a Bible. Been meaning to buy one for awhile, but today looking through my Grandmother's incredible library, on the top shelf I found a whole collection of Bible's. I was attracted to the one that was covered in Silver first. I pulled it out. It is that old, sacred, wretched book, full of God and Satan and the illusion of Sin and the fear of Death, and it is engraved with my grandparents names. It was their bible, from 1965, with love notes and commitments to their marriage. But that marriage came to an end. Which is sad. But they are OK. My granddaddy is out in the midst of the universe now. His molecules are in existence. He has lived, will ever live, and is invisible to us now, just as our true natures are mostly hidden from us in our daily lives. This is to keep us sane. It's all good. That's the key message.
I hope Michael Franti and Spearhead keep pumping some positivity. We are all the same out here. We are all connected. I'm so grateful to be alive. The thing I kept opening in the Bible was Matthew 4, 4, when Jesus is being tempted by "Satan," which is simply the fear of death and decay, but... "Then Satan took him to Jerusalem to the roof of the Temple. "Jump off," he said, "and prove you are the Son of God; for the scriptures declare 'God will send his angels to keep you from harm.... they will prevent you from smashing on the rocks below.' Jesus retorted "It also says not to put the Lord your God to a foolish test." And here I was opening to this page after Satan flew up my nose, testing the Lord, and thank God I am alive to tell the tale. Twice I opened to the same page today, in two different bibles.
Rasta man vibration yea. higher man vibration yea. Thanks Bob Marley, who also died. Are we all the same person seeing reality through our own limited perspectives? But Bob says, make way for a positive day... oh what a new day. Are you picking up now? Who is I am? Who is I am that I am? Who is everything and nothing? Who is God and the devil incarnate? Who is the creator and the destroyer?
We are all on the same boat here, folks. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Love is Emptiness and Emptiness is Love. Love is God and God is Love. God is emptiness and God is form. May our form and our emptiness be blessed. If we want to save the world, all we need to do is let go and realize that the world is already saved. Aloha, crew.
We may have lost Hunter as a result of George W. Bush. But maybe his suicide saved some of our lives. Do we want to go that high, and stay that high, when we know the rules? Hunter taught us the result, what goes up, must come down. If you keep going up and up and up, you must eventually come down. If you go too far up, the landing will be too much to bear. As the caption on an old plastic plate of mine with Winnie the Poo falling into the arms of his friends, catching him in the midst of his fall, says: "and the coming down is the hardest part." Ain't that the truth?
For those of us who see reality as it is and choose to live in it consciously, the only logical reaction is insanity. The logical reaction to insanity is insanity. Those of us that are normal "functioning members of society" are the ones who are really insane. The bums and the patients in the insane asylum are the one's who are sane. The poverty that we are at "war against" is our salvation. We are at war with ourselves. With our true nature. We are trying not to die, when dead is what we all already are. Death is the rebirth of life. Life feeds on death. Decay and resurrection. But if those of us who are awake to this beautiful reality don't come down periodically and remember our impermanence, we are doomed to jails, sanitariums, and death, as the AA lingo tells us. Those of us who are attracted to the spirits, indeed we who become addicted to them, when we have tapped into the infinite "God" consciousness of which we are all a part, if it is not grounded in the foundation that we are all One, when we are still attached to an "I" which is separate from you, the I which can kill, which is God and Satan incarnate, which is the infinite potentiality who has defeated all the other species on earth in single handed combat and also killed our brother and sister humans as a result of the illusion that we are separate, you will start screaming you're fucking head off, because people aren't living up to the God consciousness of which we are all a part, and that you have realized, and you will think you're god, and you are, but if we are still a part of the illusion, attached to the "I" which is separate from "you," if we don't come down periodically we will go "nuts."
But the key is to remember that everything is OK. That we are all connected, and that because of what is, so It must be. How could it be any different? How could we change this moment where i'm writing this foolishness at 3:45 in the morning Colorado time, which has nothing to do with real time, because the sun never actually sets, and the full bright moon tonight is just the Sun's reflection. And if I die from taking too much of the white illusion tonight, it was only because of my own foolishness. Let us thank the Lord for his Mercy. Give thanks to the moon and stars that rule by night for his mercy which rules for I. But that's the reggae music that helps me be grateful for this life that I am so lucky to be living.
Every life that I live is a miracle. We are the eyes of God looking out at the this chaos of perfect order. We are all part of the Great IS. I've been searching for a Bible. Been meaning to buy one for awhile, but today looking through my Grandmother's incredible library, on the top shelf I found a whole collection of Bible's. I was attracted to the one that was covered in Silver first. I pulled it out. It is that old, sacred, wretched book, full of God and Satan and the illusion of Sin and the fear of Death, and it is engraved with my grandparents names. It was their bible, from 1965, with love notes and commitments to their marriage. But that marriage came to an end. Which is sad. But they are OK. My granddaddy is out in the midst of the universe now. His molecules are in existence. He has lived, will ever live, and is invisible to us now, just as our true natures are mostly hidden from us in our daily lives. This is to keep us sane. It's all good. That's the key message.
I hope Michael Franti and Spearhead keep pumping some positivity. We are all the same out here. We are all connected. I'm so grateful to be alive. The thing I kept opening in the Bible was Matthew 4, 4, when Jesus is being tempted by "Satan," which is simply the fear of death and decay, but... "Then Satan took him to Jerusalem to the roof of the Temple. "Jump off," he said, "and prove you are the Son of God; for the scriptures declare 'God will send his angels to keep you from harm.... they will prevent you from smashing on the rocks below.' Jesus retorted "It also says not to put the Lord your God to a foolish test." And here I was opening to this page after Satan flew up my nose, testing the Lord, and thank God I am alive to tell the tale. Twice I opened to the same page today, in two different bibles.
Rasta man vibration yea. higher man vibration yea. Thanks Bob Marley, who also died. Are we all the same person seeing reality through our own limited perspectives? But Bob says, make way for a positive day... oh what a new day. Are you picking up now? Who is I am? Who is I am that I am? Who is everything and nothing? Who is God and the devil incarnate? Who is the creator and the destroyer?
We are all on the same boat here, folks. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Love is Emptiness and Emptiness is Love. Love is God and God is Love. God is emptiness and God is form. May our form and our emptiness be blessed. If we want to save the world, all we need to do is let go and realize that the world is already saved. Aloha, crew.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
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