Warning: This Post Contains Objectionable Material If You Object To Reality

Last night I watched a PBS show about stress.

Stress.

But just before the show began, words on the teevee screen and an announcer announced: "This program contains material some viewers may find objectionable."

I watched the show. Didn't see a single bare breast -- nor any exposed genitalia -- nor hear a single swear word. So no nudity, no "bad" words (as though words can, in and of themselves, be bad. Here's this: Fuck. The F-word. I just typed it, you just read it. Did it hurt you? What's wrong with it for fuck's sake?), not even talk of sex (which people spend their lives trying to have and having, but can't stand to have discussed on their televisions).

So their were none of the usual things that cause American teevee viewers to get mad.

...The show focused on how stress affects a certain group of baboons, and reveals that this stress is caused by the extremely hierarchical system the baboons lived under. As one of the researchers on the show put it: Baboons only need to spend three hours a day finding food, so they spend the rest of their time giving each other grief. This "grief" is doled out to establish and maintain their society's hierarchy.

Then the show discussed Britons who worked in the Civil Service, where every worker knows exactly where he/she stands in the hierarchy. Workers are even labeled with numbers: so a two in a certain function knows a three can give them shit, while they cannot give the three shit, but the two can give ones shit.

So Britons in the Civil Service are very neatly analogous to the baboon society.

The baboon researcher concerned himself with the levels of stress hormones in the baboons, and found that the lower the rank, the higher the stress. And the higher the stress, the worse that baboon's health would be. This is exactly the same for the Britons in the Civil Service and humans in general.

...After viewing the program in its entirety, I realized that the "material some viewers may find objectionable" is the fact that humans can learn a hell of a lot from baboons because we're so closely related, genetically, to them. And that this fact is incontrovertible.

The program asked, toward its end: "Are humans brave enough to learn from baboons?"

I interpreted this to be: Can we get religious people who, in Western society's religions, believe in human exceptionalism out of science's way? Will we be able to, one day, run a show about the incredible similarities primates (including humans) exhibit without having to take a bow to religion?

Succinctly: Are humans brave enough to discard religion (or at least completely banish it from the scientific realm because it has absolutely nothing to offer) in the pursuit of scientific truth -- aka truth -- and to allow teevee programs to present this fact: that humans are just another member of the order primates?

And can we grow the fuck up enough to the point where humans don't give a fuck about the casual use of the word "fuck"? Right now there are adults who are afraid to use to use certain words because they are "bad." Grow the fuck up!

...But the above was a way-off tangent. This question is more important to humanity: Can we admit that religion adds nothing to our understanding of the world? Can teevee programs that deal with how life and humans really are be freed from warning people not to watch them because they present the truth? ...Getting rid of these warnings is important because idiotic parents may use them to prevent their children from being presented with the truth of the human condition. Children must be freed from their parents' ignorance.

And we need to admit that our religions have only ever served to obstruct an informed and intelligent understanding of humanity and the world and universe of which we are a part. ...For god's sake, it took until the year 1992 -- nineteen ninety-two! -- for the Catholic church to apologize to Galileo for ruining his life. And he lived circa 1600! Therefore, it took the Church about four hundred years to say that it was OK for Galileo to have posited that the earth revolves around the sun -- which members of the Vatican must have verified for themselves with their own telescopes (since they had the money for them), yet still condemned!

All of which is to say (write): Humans -- especially children with ignorant parents -- should not be warned that they are about to be presented truths that oppose their religious beliefs. These beliefs need to be challenged so they can subsequently be discarded. Religion has no place in the presentation of knowledge since its only object is to hinder it, as it has done since humans invented it.

Hundreds of years ago Galileo proved the utility of the telescope and how inutile religion is. If only the world subsequently kept the telescope and discarded religion. But we wanted to have out cake and the Spanish Inquisition too.

Are we brave enough to accept that baboons are more intelligent than their human primate cousins, in that they haven't invented religions to torture themselves with (literally and figuratively)?

PS regarding my last post: I'm already over getting tired from taking Methadone. And am in extreme fucking pain.

...Of note: Humans knew methadone to be an effective painkiller through its being tested on animals, most importantly non-human primates. And it's the way we evaluate all drugs before their use on humans is OK'd. If humans were exceptional compared to the rest of animals, we wouldn't learn a goddam thing by testing them for safety and efficacy on these non-human animals before using them on humans, because humans would be so radically different from our test subjects.

PPS: I apologize that this post is all over the place. I'm in too much pain to concentrate and put together a cogent argument for or against whatever I'm for or against here.

But there's an argument made somewhere in this post. it's up to you, dear reader, to put it together. It's like a jigsaw puzzle! The parts are there... Even if there are a surplus of them...

Take what's needed, toss out what isn't, until you have a coherent argument!

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Dear USA: You Embarrass Yourself (and, Worse, Me)

I was watching OPB -- Oregon Public Broadcasting -- yesterday. Specifically, "Rick Steves' Europe."

The show was a treatise on how they make the show, which I'm a fan of, in large part because Steves is such a dork and does a lot of walking around a lot of beautiful places, which I'm unlikely to be able to do -- the "lot of walking" being the sticking point.


To paraphrase something Steves said during the show: "When we're shooting all this art, which people have enjoyed for centuries, we have to take into account whether it can be shown in the States." He went on to say that he meant breasts and genitals and/or the depiction of people using or enjoying same can't be filmed because America is in denial of the fact that all humans have sex organs and use them. (Even Catholic priests; hence the Vatican's rapist-defense fund. Which reminds me: If you go to Catholic Church on Sundays and contribute to the collection plate, you're helping sick-ass rapists get away with their crimes and you're complicit in them. ...Perhaps Church isn't the best place to cleanse your soul...)

OK, so I editorialized the slightest bit toward the end of that last sentence. (The one before the one in parentheses... But that goes without saying, because we all know that putting a sentence in parentheses makes it a weird kind of sentence-that-isn't. So you're reading this sentence, here, and not-reading it at the same time. ...Yowzah!)

...Back to the main: Sex is the best part -- or always should be, anyway -- of the human experience. And that's coming from someone who takes 130 mg of Oxycodone and 6 mg of Klonopin a day. That boobs carved in marble can't be shown on TV -- or television fit for people of all ages, anyway -- is just fucking mortifying.

Jesus, America, I'd say grow the fuck up, but kids know they have genitals and how to use them and run around naked without shame Until their parents' religion gives them the gift of being ashamed of what god created in his own image.Which makes sense in some parallel fucking universe. ...If we're to be ashamed of our very selves -- our naked selves -- made in god's image, then when we all meet god are we supposed to feel boundless shame for god's appearance?

So: Jesus, America, get the Jesus outta my goddam teevee! Some of us can appreciate The Birth of Venus without getting a sinful erection from a marble statue!

Apropos of nothing: Take a listen to Starfucker. One of the best bands that, due to it's name, may never be allowed on television. Good thing we have the Internets. ...Where most people in America are checking out porn which they would, presumably, enjoy having on TV but won't let themselves have on TV.

Great. Now I have a mammoth headache from thinking about how goddam silly and twisted about itself this country of ours is. Dancing at architecture ain't easy.

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Faithlessness Is the New Black

The fastest growing religion in the US:

None.

From 1990 to 2001, people who have no religion/are atheists/are agnostic grew 6.6 percent, from 8.4 to 15.0 percent of all Americans. The number of these people increased 105.7 percent.

This is according to the American Religious Identification Survey performed by the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. For the survey people were asked only: "What is your religion, if any?"

The survey found that "the greatest increase in absolute as well as in percentage terms has been among those adults who do not subscribe to any religious identification; their number has more than doubled from 14.3 million in 1990 to 29.4 million in 2001."

Note: This post cites ARIS (despite my desire for more current data) because "statistics on religious adherence are difficult to gather and often contradictory; statistics for the change of religious adherence are even more so, requiring multiple surveys separated by many years using the same data gathering rules. This has only been achieved in rare cases, and then only for a particular country, such as the American Religious Identification Survey in the USA." (Wikipedia)

Which is to say (write): I used ARIS because it's the only reliable source available.

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Sex Is Medicine

...And our sick and wrong world with its sick and wrong religions considers celibacy, chastity and especially virginity to be virtues.

...Deadly Virtues (ominous bum-BUM).

For the gods' sakes', Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders lost her post because of the following:

"In 1994, [Elders] was invited to speak at a United Nations conference on AIDS. She was asked whether it would be appropriate to promote masturbation as a means of preventing young people from engaging in riskier forms of sexual activity, and she replied, 'I think that it is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught.' (Wiki, of course)

In fact, masturbating like a fiend is being linked to myriad benefits.

Bu sex is better.

(The citations below are from this Wikipedia page.)

"In 1997, Forbes Magazine reported on 'one of the most credible studies correlating overall health with sexual frequency'. [sic] Queens University in Belfast tracked the mortality of about 1,000 middle-aged men over the course of a decade. The study, published in 1997 in the British Medical Journal found that 'men who reported the highest frequency of orgasm enjoyed a death rate half that of the laggards'; that is to say, those that engaged in sex more frequently enjoyed longer lives. The report also cited other studies to show that having sex even a few times a week may be associated with: improved sense of smell; reduced risk of heart disease; weight loss and overall fitness; reduced depression (in women); the relief or lessening of pain; less frequent colds and flu; better bladder control; better teeth; and improved prostate function. The report cited a study published by the British Journal of Urology International which indicated that men in their 20s can reduce by a third their chance of getting prostate cancer by ejaculating more than five times a week."

And you just have to love Bush II, who will leave office having done irreparable harm to the US and not a single good thing to/for it.

At least the below action wasn't evil:

"In 2006, the George W. Bush administration expanded abstinence programs from teens to adults, by introducing programs to encourage unmarried adults to remain abstinent until marriage." (italics mine)

At what age did Bush II swim up from decades of alcohol and drug abuse? And what goes with alcohol and drugs like alcohol with drugs? Sex.

Why does a piece of advice always have to come from someone who did fine without it him-/herself? What worth is such advice to be given?

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AN ERUDITE COUNTERPOINT TO MY '10 COMMANDMENTS' POST!

[This is a comment from David at the LifeTrek blog re my 10 Commandments post that needed to be more visible than it is in the Comments section, followed by my response:]

By no means am I deeply religious, but I did do some online research.

Typically much of Galatians (try 3 and 5 for starters) explains some of what you're asking.

It appears to be a common misinterpretation when questioning the bible piecemeal, but that is answered throughout the New Testament.

Here are some summaries online of the bible in whole:
The coming of Christ made parts of the Mosaic law unnecessary.

In order to understand this, we must realize that the Law is made up of three parts: ceremonial, civil, and moral.

The ceremonial law related specifically to Israel's worship. Since its primary purpose was to point to the coming Savior, Jesus made it unnecessary. He did not abolish it, in the sense of destroying it; he fulfilled it. Nowhere do we read that Jesus thought that the ceremonial law was wrong. The principles behind the ceremonial law are still applicable to us today -- that is, the principles of worshiping and serving a holy God.

The civil law prescribed rules for the Israelites' daily living. These laws separated the Jews from the Gentiles, and gave the Gentiles the example of how a holy people should live. Since much was given to the Jews, much was expected. But God gave a new covenant in Christ, and there is now no distinction to be made between Jew and Gentile. We are still to follow the requirements of this law as God's people, but the punishments are not for any nation to impose on its people, because we are no longer separated by nations but by God's grace (Christians and non-Christians).

The moral law is basically the Ten Commandments. We are still bound by these laws, not for salvation, but to live a holy life. Jesus not only desired that His followers adhere to these commandments, He wished that they would go above and beyond them. He said, "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment..." He desired not only an outward observance of these laws, but an inward observance as well.
---
"If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law" ... "therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath day -- things that are a mere shadow of what is to come," and "For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under Law but under grace."

Keep in mind who Paul's talking to: young churches, mostly of Jewish backgrounds. When he speaks of "the Law", he's referring to Mosaic Law. When he speaks of "the law," he refers to state law. (I say this so nobody thinks I'm claiming Paul says to disobey all laws.) Jesus clearly states in the the Gospel of Matthew that He came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. He didn't destroy the Law of Moses, he completed it. He fulfilled the prophesies of the coming messiah, He became the very essence of the suffering servant.
---
The Ritual Decalogue is the list of commandments in Exodus 34:10-26. They are generally viewed as having minor significance compared to the Ethical Decalogue. Although the Ritual Decalogue appears in the text at the point where the Ten Commandments are inscribed into the second set of stone tablets, and it is them, rather than the Ethical Decalogue, which are there identified as the Ten Commandments (Exodus 34:28), it is the Ethical Decalogue which is commonly believed to have been inscribed on both sets of tablets.
---
I also read in one of my searches that the reason for the differing translations for commandments, but I can't remember where I found that and am lucky to have kept these straight through the fibro fog.

So, maybe we aren't all going to hell. Hope that helps.
David


My response:
Re your comment on the "10 Commandments" post. Put simply: you got me!

Ha!

From a strictly Christian standpoint, you've got me dead to rights. The only thing I would point out is that it is Christian tradition that makes the ethical commandments those written on Moses' tablets. I maintain that the commandments I list in the post are, in fact -- based on reading the Bible alone -- the ones that actually went on the tablets.

However, your comment goes on to make the above point... pointless.

Since I am a former Catholic, you reminded me of what I already knew: That Jesus fulfilled certain parts of scripture, and went so far as to remind the people that certain laws were to prepare them for the coming of the Messiah, and that those specific laws no longer needed to be followed in his presence which, it can be argued, Christians remain.

I'm also very happy that your comment is so erudite and learned, when usually the kind of bile I spit in that post (I admit it: I wrote it in haste and with with a certain gleeful meanness) only causes more bile to come forth from readers. Which would be my fault, of course.

But you took a much higher road, and I say well done.

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THE REAL TEN COMMANDMENTS!:

[I got into a hyper-religion-investigating mode yesterday and thought I'd post this instead of my own ranting. And I also promise to get on some other topic after this post.]

From Exodus 34:

1. Behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee: But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves

2. For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a-whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice; And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods

3. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods

4. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt

5. All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male. But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty

6. Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest

7. And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end. Thrice in the year shall all your menchildren appear before the LORD God, the God of Israel. For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy God thrice in the year

8. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning

9. The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God

10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk

There are twenty-one or twenty-three edicts given by god in all, but these are the only ten called "commandments" in the bible. Therefore, these are the ten commandments.

Christians, you'd best start to observe passover! Also, what the hell is with the faithful no longer making sacrifices? God nothing more than the smell of burning animal entrails! Observe the feasts! (Maybe the fact that you do not is the reason god obviously did not keep the promise he makes in this commandment.) On to numbers eight and nine: Get with the freaking sacrificing, you're pissing god off! Finally, keep kosher!

It's good to know that I'll see everyone in hell because they fail to keep the real commandments.

Feel free to blubber and make lame excuses as a way of sliding yourself through the closed pearly gates, but by doing so you're basically saying "god didn't really mean it." But sorry: God meant everything, and literally, in Exodus -- and he killed and ordered to be killed a hell of a lot of people for much much tinier infractions than not keeping the commandments.

We're all lucky we haven't been struck dead already.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

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ONLY GOD CAN MAKE A RAINBOW!

[I know the proper saying is "...tree." The reason I modified it will become clear.]

I was sent an e-mail that had a bunch of cool pictures of rock formations that looked like animals. After the pictures was this plea: to take ONE MINUTE to say the lord's prayer, to not be ashamed of your love for god, and to show it by passing the chain e-mail along.

My response to the sender:

[The creation of every formation is] explicable by natural phenomena. Cool though.

I take this e-mail as an attempt to illustrate that god is the creator of all things, and only god could make the rocks, etc look the way they do. And that its creation is beautiful.

The flip side being: If god is the creator of all things we must also give ONE MINUTE to god for the Holocaust.

We can't just give god credit for the beautiful things; it has to be given credit for everything. Otherwise it is not god because it is not all-powerful.

One can make an argument that god is unknowable, and all the evil that is done is done for a purpose only god can understand; the beauty must be taken with the horror. And one cannot lay blame for evil on free will -- on people choosing to do evil -- because mankind was created in god's image and likeness.

Further, just as people are capable of wrong, so is god. A reading of the Old Testament (Torah, Hebrew Bible) shows that god is capable of error -- it admits to erring on a few occasions (oops! Hundreds of thousands dead!). Ergo, he is not all-knowing. God endorses wholesale slaughter of entire cities and the men, women and children within them. It endorses slavery. On and on.

God made a rainbow, and rainbows are beautiful things. Before it made that, though, it wiped out almost every single living thing on earth, without remorse. The people drowned to death -- one of the worst ways to go.

The foundation of my life is, irrefutably, my parents, and I give thanks to them for my life. I don't have god's genes.

And you'll excuse me for being ashamed of a mass-murderer. I'm ashamed of Ted Bundy, and he killed far fewer people than god ever did.

You can choose to divorce the Old Testament (Torah, Hebrew Bible) from the New Testament, but then you are not following the god of Jesus, the Jew, who gathered followers through his superior understanding and (strict) interpretation of the Torah.

Either god has done it all or he has done nothing. We can't pick and choose.

To quickly sum things up and give you the short version of the argument against the existence of the Christian god:

1. If evil exists and God is omniscient, then God knows about it.
2. If God knows about evil and is omnibenevolent, then he wants to prevent it.
3. If God wants to prevent evil and is omnipotent, then he can prevent it.
4. Therefore, if God is omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipotent, then evil should not exist.

The Christian god is defined as being omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent. He is everywhere, he is all-good, he is all-powerful. But he cannot be all these things if evil exists, which it does.

But if "evil" is really "good" -- a necessary part of god's giving mankind free will, etc -- then there is no point in worshiping such an entity, for why kneel to something that allows us to suffer? That makes us suffer?

And if the devil causes evil, then god is not omnipotent, for he cannot defeat the devil. If god chooses not to defeat the devil, then he is not omnibenevolent. If god is unaware of the devil, then he is not omniscient.

Sorry to belabor the subject. I added this last piece because I needed to address specifically Christian conceptions of god, and not just the god of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible/Torah, who was undoubtedly evil (commanding the rape of 32,000 women from one city, for just one example).

Still, to not-love the god of the Old Testament is to not-love the god of Jesus, the Jew.

And to love the god of the Old Testament is to love a dictator/fascist who commanded the slaughter of hundreds of thousands, the rape of hundreds of thousands, the enslavement of hundreds of thousands, to love a being that did not frown upon the incest committed by Abraham's (the patriarch of Judeo-Christianity) daughters, and on and on.

Personally, I'm incredibly relieved that such a god does not exist.

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