A Christmas Reflection

Merry Christmas! May we all ever better mind our own business!

Walk with me a moment.

Yes, an atheist and a Buddhist of my own orientation, I can certainly celebrate Christmas. Especially having been raised with it as a Catholic. After all it was something that started out as a pagan celebration and was blended with Christmas and Christianity by the Catholic church in order to assimilate those pagan's lands they wished to acquire.

It certainly can be a pagan or secular holiday, too and has become one more and more anyway. And no we don't have to remember what it's roots are in order to celebrate it. But, it is wise to do so for several reasons.

Odd, I know. But true enough.

We can easily use it as a positive reason to treat one another with respect and love without needing to bring a deity into it. A strange consideration for a theist of that particular denomination but hey, there it is.

I think Jesus might just be more accepting of that than many want to believe, or his followers could accept.

Moses? Probably not so much either.. But then, he was a kind of an Old Testament sort of guy.

Muhammad? Well, let's face it. He had some pretty weird ideas and wasn't the brightest bulb in the pack and pretty much the same with anyone believing in all that.

I suppose Jesus had some odd ideas himself but he wasn't actually the one who turned his beliefs into magic. He wasn't the Buddha surely, but then according to the Dalai Lama, Jesus himself was a Buddha. And he taught some basic Buddhist beliefs in order to alter Judaism.

Perhaps Mohammed too was a Buddha, though I have my doubts on that.

Jesus had that need to blend with Judaism and the old Testament in order to build change into the nonsense he had grown up and into. Teachings that weren't so ridiculous back then before the advent of refrigeration and other advancements. Though he did as I said, incorporate elements of the Buddha Dharma to create his new Judaism (later, Christianity) and well, that was a very good thing.

But let's face it. In simply reading the record...we have Mohammed on the bottom, then Moses, Jesus and finally and foremost, Buddha, from least to most. It doesn't take a genius to see that's the order. Sad? Perhaps. But reality can be difficult. And besides, that is to be expected since Gautama Buddha, Siddhartha, was the best educated and least superstitious of all of them.

Still it matters little as all their legacies have been abused and subverted by some or many. It is after all what you pick and choose to believe. Sad as that is. It is much like trying to decide which is the best martial art. A foolish endeavor and does no one much good, for it is all about how you use what knowledge you have chosen, how you apply it, that is most important.

It isn't because I understand Buddha (not his descendants, not his followers, but The Buddha), makes more sense than all the rest of them combined. Consider, Jesus in his life had access to the teachings of the Buddha from travelers, if not from his own. He incorporated those teachings into Judaism and tweaked it so it worked to lead Jews into a more sane belief system. Just as Catholicism centuries later would incorporate paganism into their beliefs in order to assimilate new tribes and beliefs as they infected their world. These aren't wild beliefs. Just reality and history.

I read, I discussed, debated and analyzed and that's how it panned out. Look, don't get mad at me. If God supported anyone of those guys (and I don't think he does, or exists for that matter), then He would have made it quite obvious who was on top. Not much more to say after that, is there....

Yet that's not really what is important here, though. No, really. It's not.

First... allow me to wish you and yours a happy holiday season. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, a cheery whatever you wish you want to enjoy and celebrate at this winter solstice time.

But what is all this really? Let's lay off for a moment with what history, reality and tradition tell us and just think about what actually is.

You see, there is after all, magic in life.

It isn't the magic of religion or Gods or what we wished (or fear) exists. It's the magic of Humanity. Though we're mostly too humble to allow ourselves to accept that. As vain and greedy, terrified in the face of the universe and life as we are, we are still too humble to accept that we are it. That this is it. All of it.

Isn't that odd?

There is a movie that exemplifies what I'm trying to say here. A 2011 film with one of my favorite entertainers in it, Eddie Izzard. The film is Lost Christmas. It's not about religion but the magic that is Life. And if that doesn't work, here's some others who can explain Christmas a little better.

In life, we have who we have and the memories we have with them. We also have what we believe we will have and those memories that we will then have with them, whomever "they" will be. What we leave, after we no longer exist, really isn't what we will have ourselves at all. Though sometimes we act like it, but it is really what others will have after we are no longer there.

So all we really have is ourselves, our others, our memories. Then we're simply gone and it's the end.

It is hard for many to contemplate dying, or not existing. We don't relate to it as humans. And so we have invented ways, som rather bizarre ways, in our ancient ignorance to deal with it. Okay.

So now let's take a step beyond that and talk about....

Religion and Guns.

No, really, bear with me a moment longer.

Believe it or not, there is something familiar there between those two things.

I'm going to tell you a secret. Something people need to share. Something people need to not keep quiet about. In fact if you need one thing in life to shout to the world, this would be it.

Those who want to spread the "word" will tell you otherwise, but that is from their inside out. Possibly your inside out, too. But that is dysfunctional. It is dangerous. It is against the need of the many, the need of all. Here it is.

Do not share your religion with everyone. Please. Keep it to yourself. Share it with others of a like mind. Offer to those who inquire of you about it. And let that be it. For the benefit of us all. Be open to sharing. But be quiet about forcing the issue on others. You're only doing yourself and your beliefs a disservice. And a disservice to all the rest of us. Regardless what you religion or leaders tell you. Especially in the money grubbing  super churches and many of the evangelical corporate thinking type endeavors.

Evangelicism being one of the great banes America has infected the world and our nation with.

Although some of us do believe you should be ashamed to share your "faith" in these beliefs you hold, with anyone, you are welcome in my world to live your life as you see fit, to pursue happiness for the most part, as you see fit. This is America, still, and hopefully we will survive Trump and his minions.

And so everyone is welcome to their own delusions which we all have. Just be aware, if you bring down our most basic ideals of freedom in the  name of a faux freedom as designed by the greedy now in charge, you will eliminate not on that freedom but your right to your own personal delusions. In religion, in everything.

And you will have to begin to believe in what those in power want you to believe. Much as Trump is doing now, in forcing fakeness and diatribe upon us all in order to enrich both himself and his cohorts.

With only this exception.

For the good of all you should wear your faith under your coat, not on your sleeve for all to see. Signs of your Faith, quiet signs like jewelry, is fine. But the vocal part, you should wear just as you should wear your gun under your coat and out of sight. If you have a gun, and want to carry it around.

Though better it is best for all for you to leave it at home. Rather than forcing force by vigilante actions, force the government to apply funding and resources to protect us properly. THAT is a far better way. Hold our representatives to task to protect us so we do not have to protect ourselves to the degree tha is now perceived, many times incorrectly, but so many. And so many whoa re ignorant and believe whatever their favorite pundits say.

Faith extremists will tell you to preach the word to all and any! Spread the word to assure the continuation of your addiction! Shove your beliefs down the throat of any and all because your God demands it!

But no. That is the way of the immature.

As in religion they will say, propagate, raise your children up with your religion. Force religion down the throat of all humanity until they have no choice but to be subjugated to whatever your choice of religion is and to Hell with all others! Because they become indeed then, The Others.

But that is from within. Don't you see?

From without, from within the whole of humanity, we are many and varied. Diversity is good. But delusion not based in reality is of late, endemic and dangerous and could bring about our own demise.

We need therefore to coexist in order to be, together. That means we need to allow others to seek their faith as they see it. Even when it seems foolish or anti to your religion. Because your religion (even if it's guns) may seem anti to theirs.

Maybe you're right. Maybe, they're right. Because, what if you're wrong? But then, your religion doesn't allow for that, does it? Would it? No, because that is the design of religion in the first place. Isn't it.

And that is fine, I suppose. Mostly. For now.

I would say that in today's world it has now reached a point where we need to kill those who push their beliefs on others so that those who do not, who live to allow others their lives and beliefs, can be the ones in the end to survive and prosper.

Because we do not need those who will push their beliefs on others. Besides it will only, counterintuitively lead to the demise of those who are most obnoxious and pushy. As religion is on the decline globally anyway. It just seems like it's growing because any animal dying and in a corner, becomes louder and more dangerous, until it's dead.

For they are the troglodytes, those who push the ancient and archaic mythologies as reality. The proto humans who need to die off so the evolved humans can survive to propagate and replace them.

Just as children one day finally need to leave their childhood selves behind so that they too can become adults.

We all need to grow. But we do not all need to make others into our own image. Even if we believe that is the image of our God. We need... to all live together. Together in ways that will allow us all to live and prosper and be happy. Together.

And those who do not believe that?

They need to find their end. Quickly. And if they cannot then they need, they are asking us for, our help to end them in their difficult journey.

Hard words, right? Well? Life is hard. But it doesn't have to be. Global warming is real. To think that "God will save us" or "God will fix it", is ludicrous and childish.

We don't need to be making it any harder. Regardless what our beliefs are. We just need to get along. Believe what you will, but remember to treat others with respect and leave the judging to your God. Because if you don't believe your God will judge them, then you do not believe in your God. So either way...stop being demeaning to others.

So, a cheery winter's solstice to you and may you be happy and may you leave others alone, when they need it.

Sláinte!

I wish you all the best, the best of Life, Memories and the after...for your others.

One last thing....treat one another as if all you know was:

And you only have, one another.

Finally....

Cowardly Islamic Terrorist's Final Religion War

Yet another attack this past weekend by yet more alleged religious mental defects, murderers and criminals in London. Wishing all the best to those in London who have been killed, harmed, frightened or who have to repeatedly put up with the assholes who think their victim mentality, their need for relevancy through foolish banal religious mindsets, through the sick theistic belief system of fools, cretins and underachievers gives them any kind of license whatsoever to do harm to others.

First off, Islamic terrorists are cowards, pure and simple. Sort of, Not so much perhaps in many of their physical actions in combat or even suicidal actions, but most assuredly in their inability to be a part of human society and achieve change through means that do not harm or destroy others. Especially those innocents and members of their own religion.

However, suicide murder can also be considered a cowardly act in that once one disregard one's death in the event, there is clearly then no need, no strife, no efforts, no thoughts needed in achieving the difficult issues of evoking a movement through slower and more acceptable forms of political and social changes.

In that, they are pure cowards, lazy, stupid even and all those other things Republicans tend to label the poor and non Republican types with.

Is this going to be how the final global Religion War to end all religious wars begins? It may not start today, or next week, next year, or even ten years from now. But someone will one day have to ask, is today where it all started?

Will it end religions around the planet finally evolving us into the future? Finally? Actually one could call this the Reality Wars, except it's not a war against reality, it's a war against unreality. We have to start seeing the real world how it really is and not through a filter of unreality in religious thought and those who have taken that to their secular way of thinking. Yes, it's a hot mess.

Not these vastly silly Middle Eastern desert religions eschatological end of times crap. But the actual end to the childish religious beliefs that have infected this planet since we first pulled ourselves out of the muck and the slime, looked up at the sun in the sky and began to worship it's power and majesty out of fear. Because religion was indeed bread from fear of an ignorant and ancient people. One that I would submit, began before we could think clearly, through out ignorance and fear of things like darkness and being within the food chain, and not at the top of it for a very, very long time.

After all, how could religions not evolve in that environment?

Religious Wars that begin from what will start merely as a lash out at religiously spawned murderers? Then when all religious and religious, especially Islamic followers and leader do not stand up and take action in order to support their reasons to exist outside of realms of science, of facts, of objective reality, then finally the rest of the world in all it's rationalist and atheists, then in one religion against another, those who can finally simply no longer take it anymore, attack the fantasy cults of Islamic terrorists and other religions not their own, as we then all devolve into utter and murderous insanity?

Before that happens w all need Islam, as well as all religious believers and leaders in general to express an ever viral allergic reaction to their way of thinking in any of those cultures who might be leaning in the directions of fantasy beliefs systems and especially the death oriented religions such as the Middle Eastern Death cults of Judaism, Catholicism and Christianity and Islam.

Is this the beginning of the end of all religions worldwide? Do we really want to take these immature belief systems into the stars with us? Is this why no extraterrestrials want to visit this planet because religion in their minds is simply too childish, too dangerous a belief system to allow contact with or to allow to expand into the cosmos?

Getting back to the hard facts, do we allow religions to continue, to allow these sick cults like Islamic terrorism to continue to fester and grow like a mold on our minds around the world? Are we seeing the beginning of how religion on planet Earth, ends?

Humans have a basic sense of OCD, of Obsessive Compulsivity which when it gets out of control turns into a disorder. We see it time and against in systems and processes that break down in human culture and business. In believing things like religion, we give a nod and a smile to the potential for some very bad things to happen.

Humans will turn anything into a religion, merely by their OCD leanings of turning anything into a religion, into a ridiculous belief system that goes beyond rationality to the ethereal. Our desire to believe that if a little of something is good or great, then much much more is fantastic when in reality is is typically death, pure and simple.

Even one of our greatest forms of thought like Buddhism, which is not and should never have been a religion has, by those raised in many of those Buddhist cultures, striven to turn it too into a religion. We have done this with sex, with money and economies. With just about anything if you give us a chance.

Even calling it in the western sense, Buddhism, rather than Dharma, is in a sense trying to turn it into something it's not, merely out of our ignorance of what it was originally meant to be. And even some of that original thought on it from the first Buddha was out of some degree of ignorance which with time and knowledge we could have honed to a sharp basis of reality and betterment and yet, has been turned into a religion.

Question
What is Buddhism?

Answer
The name Buddhism comes from the word 'budhi' which means 'to wake up' and thus Buddhism is the philosophy of awakening. This philosophy has its origins in the experience of the man Siddhata Gotama, known as the Buddha, who was himself awakened at the age of 35. Buddhism is now 2,500 years old and has about 300 million followers world-wide. Until a hundred years ago, Buddhism was mainly an Asian philosophy but increasingly it is gaining adherents in Europe and America.

Question
So Buddhism is just a philosophy?

Answer
The word philosophy comes from two words 'philo' which means 'love' and 'sophia' which means 'wisdom'. So philosophy is the love of wisdom or love and wisdom, both meanings describing Buddhism perfectly. Buddhism teaches that we should try to develop our intellectual capacity to the fullest so that we can understand clearly. It also teaches us to develop love and kindness so that we can be like a true friend to all beings. Thus Buddhism is a philosophy but not just a philosophy. It is the supreme philosophy.
From Buddhanet

The argument about how great religions are, have been countered by how horrifying they have at times been. It's not just all about finding the disaffected, but in finding the veins of cancer in these communities, in their advocates and religions, in the religious and the criminal leaders overall, and in religions themselves.

How do you justify the criminals who run mega churches and do not do what their religions teach? How do you justify the slut shaming , gender shaming, and other types of shaming by religions and their religious against their own for merely having a human nature? One their are taught to hate, to hate the basics of being human.

Eliminating these religious terrorists is not just about eliminating these terrorists, but in eliminating the hold religions have in a growing force of unreality and in eliminating these religions themselves. We have to divest ourselves of religions before we can grow beyond this nonsense.

As we have seen the only way religions are any good is when they are diluted, when much of what their tenets teach are ignored, when humans, pick and choose what is best to believe in what their religion has taught since the beginning. The basis, the foundation, the history of which is so typically ridiculous.

When are we going to grow up and see clearly what the problem is here, and it is not just that of those who take the worst of their religion and run with it, leading to death and destruction. And as in Muslim terrorists, typically the death and destruction of there own?

Wake up and smell the religious mayhem, the theistic sadism, the fantasy idiocy.

We can do so much better. But we need a massive change and real understanding of our nature of that of our universe. But religion certainly is not IT.

Are we witnessing the death throes of Religion?

Will Islam be the religion that takes us from nation state world wars (2 so far) to ideological world wars (seeing anything fomenting around you yet?). Finally pushing religion over the edge from its last vestiges post dark ages to utter obscurity and mere historical research topic?

Sure it may not look that way to believers, but these things happen and when they do, at times vast changes can take place in a very small amount of time.

Many Christians, Muslims, Islamists, religionists, theists, conservatives and even Trump supporters suffer from the arrogance of ignorance.

In that ignorance they call others out for that same thing because they have information that feels foreign or unreal to them. That behavior is a mainstay of the Republican party. A party that is not ignorant itself but guilty of their own actions, of purposefully attack Americans through government, out of their ignorance, and their desire for power and money.

Some out of a skewed desire to do good, but cannot see that within the environment they have built and allowed to be built, around them. In their desire to be their own entity outside of one they despise, they have allowed themselves to be further encased in their detached ideologies. And so other than the few bigots and racists in their party, they are very much a party desiring the best for America. No matter how many may need to die to achieve that goal.

When you have a bad idea (think, self serving Islamist or even Christian terrorism, or American conservatism) and you push it on others to the point of hurting them, of even killing them, what exactly do you think eventually is going to be the backlash?

When do people feel they have finally taken enough and what will they do about it? I'm currently writing a horror sci fi story, "The Unwritten" (soon to be out in my book, Anthology of Evil II) in which a parallel universe has had the Religious Wars and then from the backlash of that came the Science Wars. Science wins out. Because truth always will in the end, it just takes time. Religion was squashed over that of reason. With the demise of religions came the demise of conservatism, or the rise of reasonable and rational conservatism for what it was intended to be and not what it has been absconded and transformed into. The rise of reason and humane attitudes toward one another and the planet then inevitably takes over.

I am not and have never been against people, but against stupid mindsets that lead to ignorant behaviors. Believing Trump is better than someone who is obviously a better quality person in either (take your pick) Bernie OR Hillary; conservative beliefs of ludicrous anti people doctrines; murdering over stupid ideologies based in pie in the sky ancient beliefs of fantasies from ancient and ignorant cultures, and then formed those beliefs in such a way so as to disallow updating that knowledge base...because it destroys those fantasies.

An extremely dangerous and destructive habit to be sure in ignoring reality, in beleiving what is not real to be real. Just be aware of what could be coming. Because we've been setting ourselves up for failure and allowing it to progress.

Religion is also the mindset that leads to denials and one has to be careful about that. It has led to the American form of political conservatism, a cancer on American society and government. It has devastated many of our citizens leading now to a Donald Trump type candidate and no president elect.

Where DO YOU think this current form of conservative political movement came from? Do you not believe it came from religion? Specifically, Christianity? From Christian Evangelicalism? From a mindset born of religion, from their belief systems, from practicing constant denials of reality for the sake of perpetuating religious beliefs in revealed religions, of fear. Fear of a greater power outside of oneself and one's community? Fear of reprisals by a divine force who apparently actually hates you and wasn't considering loving after thousands of years until a historical figure in Jesus of Nazareth come into religious literature because of a failing empire of Constantine the Great?

Fears which conservatism is based in? Fear of knowledge? One has to ask oneself, why does religion beg it's believers to study it only and not its origins? Why is educations anti religion? Why does many of its adherents advocate avoiding education? Why are conservatives in Republicans so anti education? Why do conservatives act one way, then deny their actions, blaming those who had nothing to do with the results of what they have done. Over and over and over again?

Doesn't it all fit together rather nicely and we're not suppose to notice?

All that being said I've never been anti religion through most of my life. I don't mind people having their beliefs if they keep them out of my personal reality, including my government in a country designed to allow for all and not for one to control which we're seeing now in some conservative Christians in government abusing their positions in the Republican party to abuse our citizens. It wasn't until them, until terrorists that I started thinking we need to get control of religions. Trouble being you can't just control one or two, or just their bad parts because of their design. I find it sad for all that so few are ruining things for so many, both believers and non believers alike.

IS the current individual groundswell of attacks based in religious beliefs, white Christian domestic terrorism which we've seen for years graduating to international Islamic delusion brought real, physical desiring death?

It IS interesting to note that the oldest of these three religions in Judaism doesn't seem to be really bothering the world, perhaps because it is the eldest of the three brothers in religion from that area of origin?

Is this the beginning of the end for death based religions (life is better after death in a heaven), capitalistic religions (if I do now, I will reap the rewards later in Heaven)? Why do these problematic religions all come from the Middle East? From the ancient and harsh environment of the desert? With multiple religions based in a single location leading to discord and bitterness?

One has to realize that a single mind worm in a large entity such as Islam, a belief perpetrated by a group, can cascade down into death and destruction before one even realizes it and it's too late.

One has to realize that the end of something long lived, tough, that refuses to die can exhibit a massive amount of pain and destruction as it dies in order to fight for survival that it is losing, in order to appear more alive than it is.

Is this the end?

And if so, just whose end will it be?

We're living in interesting times, to be sure....


#Religion #Islam #Christianity #DesertReligions

Special Edition: No one calls Mohammed an ahole. Why not, his Jihadists are?

No one calls Mohammed an Asshole, or any other ancient religious leader for that matter.

But why not? Fear of offending him? Fear of offending others? Why? Because they will try to kill us, possibly? There is no need to fear non believers. There is no need to fear the death of Faith. Faith is not dying. Religions are.

The reason we are seeing radical Islam is because religion doesn't work.

Frustration in politics and religion for many Muslims have brought simpletons like the members of groups like Al Qaeda and ISIL to fruition, to membership and action. Sad, disaffected people who join, or as in San Bernardino, who randomly strike out on their own, do so because they find their lives unsatisfactory. Their religion doesn't do enough or anything, for them.

They lash out at non Muslims and Muslims alike. But they also kill other Muslims in their complete and utter discare of killing their own because they know very well, although they are too stupid to recognize it, too blinded by their dysfunctional ideology, that Islam, that Allah, that their silly man made religion, is false and quite useless for their purposes as radical murderers and previously as inactive Muslims.

So they act.

Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Sikh, you name the religion, it boils down to a silly group of people congregating to worship and ideology of disaffected people. When they begin to realize what a load of crap it all is, they act. But rather than act against their beliefs, which acknowledges they have been duped, that they have been stupid, they lash out from that point into the world.

We all suffer for religion still existing.

Long after it has served any purpose it may have once had we all  continue to suffer for it. It's high time religion finally just bury itself, pull he dirt over its own head, so that finally once and for all, Humanity can move on into a brave new world where we depend upon ourselves, to move off planet into the stars above, where religion has no reason to exist.

Whatever purpose religion once had there are now (actually always have been) other, better forms to take its place.

Regarding Islam, just where did it come from?

Christianity was an attempt by Emperor Constantine to control his flailing empire through the Nicene Council in creating the bible to get a handle on things that were out of control because of a splintered form of religion, Christianity. What about Islam?

Haven't you ever wondered why, thought it rather odd that the three major desert religions or the Middle East, all have similar holy places, so close upon one another? Coincidence? If so, what a very odd one. Try this on for size (video):

How the Vatican created Islam

Think that's all nonsense? I agree, it IS all nonsense.

Now can we move on? And if not, isn't it because of people stuck in their beliefs, infected by this insanity, as benign as it can at times be. Yet we'd be really so much better off without it.

Regardless, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of religions. And high time it is, indeed.

Here is a video of a debate between one of my favorite people, the late Christopher Hitchens vs Islam via Prof. Tariq Ramadan. Here is also to be fair, a video of Chris vs Christianity via William Lane Craig (another with Cardinal George Pell), and lastly a video of Chris vs Judaism via Rabbi David Wolpe.

Mr. Ramadan is very erudite but it's still a matter of fact that people have to pick and choose what they believe in, for what their religion states in it's religious books. Which itself, makes it dangerous and allows for things like the Christian Crusades, and Islamic Jihad.

Is it odd Hitchens doesn't really oppose Buddhism? I don't think so, although Buddhism does have foolish humans trying to turn it into a religion. Because that is what we do, by way of our defects in our make up.

Also another video with some of his comments on religion in general beginning with a joke about Buddhism. Finally a video with Chris Hitchens 2004: Genocide, Bamiyan, Buddha, Taliban, Al Queda, Rwanda

Chris takes a harder line on religion than I do. I'm not anti Islam, Christianity, or any religion in particular. I just think religion is overall a childish past time that has caused us a lot of grief and as we become more evolved, ever more problematic. Especially when there are other, better ways to live your life that are far more productive. Without religion, would we have landed on the moon in the year 1500?

I wish no harm against Muslims who are decent people. Or theists who are decent. But there seem to be so much religious scum floating on top of the social pool anymore that we have to act to stop it.

Just to make it painfully clear... I have nothing against Muhammad, Jesus, or any of those types of people. Just those types of people that slimy people worship. THOSE are the Muhammad's I find despicable. The Jesus who sucks. And so on.

We are actually experiencing the evolution of Faith as it evolves beyond the stupidity we've placed upon it for thousands of years. The banal foolishness of ancient old men, their housewives and scared children. That of religion, of useless rituals, of imagination counter to being fundamentally productive in any real or even if you prefer, spiritual way.

Some people certainly deserve for us to offend their religion, from how those people act. Islamic terrorists show us all, even other Muslims how their Allah, how Muhammad are mere people put into or manipulated to be in extraordinary circumstances, not deserving of the excessive respect they are afforded, little or none of the attention they get, or all the vain shoutings of "Allah be praised" by the foolish, the delusional and certainly the murderous.

Whenever you mention anything too much, you must know that it becomes diluted. That it begins to lose its meaning. All the shoutings we constantly hear of Allahu Akbar! Just how much meaning does that really have in it for those people beyond an affectation? Beyond mind washing?

You might say as Arthur C. Clarke did in Childhood's End:

"You deceived us." But no. I didn't and those few others who can also see clearly, haven't.
"You have deceived yourselves."

Look. I have nothing against any religion or religious people. Yes, ritual and religions are pretty silly and run through all young races. I have in fact, high respect for people who are monks, priests, nuns or similar types in any religion, including Islam.

If they are good leaders, and not recruiting murderers, not spewing pure crap to their followers, but are finding the truth, giving their people something in life to make their lives more than it is with what little they may have in their lives.

Mohammed couldn't read. Ignorant as he was, the so called unschooled Prophet, he surrounded himself at some point with people smarter than himself. Which I'll grant you, is not stupid, building a religion of hero worship upon something as silly as the Jewish religion and so even more so. At least Christianity was a call to more sanity at the time, but there too it went seriously wrong along the way beyond its initial inclusions of Buddhists elements.

Early Christians and Muslims didn't have enough education or historical insight to start their own religions. So they ripped off Judaism. But they were up against worse issues and what they did in creating a new religion probably made sense at the time.

There once again you have yet another man made God or Allah and religion. If these were such great religions how come their sacred tomes (Bible and Quran) have allowed for things such as the Crusades, and Jihads? If they are the literal Word of Allah, of God, well...we won't even go into the Christian Inquisitions, the Dark Ages, recent Jihads, and so on.

No one wants to speak out against religions because people get upset if you call into question what they believe, what they have believed since they were born, what their parents and ancestors have mistakenly believed...and unbelievably, even for thousands of years. At least Mormons, as silly a religion as that is, or Scientology, are young, and can be excused in some ways.

But no, no they cannot and they should know better.

And we shouldn't call into question their silliness? Really.

Let's talk about Abraham nearly killing his son because, "God told him to."

Uh, right.

We know now that it was a test, at least according to the old texts. God just wanted to see if Abraham was loyal and followed orders. But maybe later, God in a weak moment was just being kind. What IF what God wanted to hear from Abraham, a rational rebuke?

In using this situation as a metaphor for so many other religious situations through time, for Abraham to have just listened to what God requested of him (albeit as a voice in his head I might add, it doesn't sound crazy at all in reviewing it through more modern filters, right?), and then, sanely, for Abraham to have a pair of balls and simply to have said:

"God, judgement is yours. Therefore even if it is you requesting it of me, I cannot take it on myself to kill one of your creations, and my son."

Now that, would be a test! To deny God's orders to not do what he commanded? Utter Awesomeness. Now that sounds more like a God testing someone, doesn't it?

But no. Abraham pussied out. Just like Mohammed and his modern Jihadist followers.

The biggest pussies in the universe are Jihadists because they do not have the balls to refuse their own stupid mistaken beliefs. Or to realize they are stupid. Or that they are stupid, petty people.

They just like killing. Face it. After all, it's easy. It's satisfying and yet it's stupid. Just as Mohammed was an ancient anachronism having little or no meaning and less value today as does Christianity or Judaism.

Okay to be fair, Mohammed may have had good reason to say some of the physically based things he said way back when. Though the spiritual stuff certainly as it plays out over time, was just pretty silly and useless. Like flicking a Bic lighter a thousand years ago. You get ooos and awwws but really, what is it? Butane in a plastic container with a spark.

Not to mention, spending that much time devoted to a spiritual consideration, praying that many times a day when you could be doing something useful? It's a huge waste of time and energy for normal citizens and should be partitioned to special religious individuals.

Not to mention, having a callous on your forehead makes you look pretty damn silly. But then, it let's the rest of us know your somewhat scary orientation in life and the real world.

Spend that time actually DOING something, affecting change maybe, dildo.

Now I'm not saying that meditation isn't good, it is. Sure.

To mistake meditation for prayer is ignorant and an utter waste of time. Not to mention when you tie it to idiots like Daesh, or the fools and criminals in Boko Haram well, you've earned the biggest "Chump in the World" award. Or the Jihadist Favored Idiot of Mohammed Award. May your 72 virgins have syphilis when you get to your heaven and all be ancient old virgin crones only as you deserve. Grow up.

Look. #Daesh, #ISIS, #ISIL, #BokoHaram, you're all assholes. Deal with it. Get a real job. Work to affect change for your people through the systems that exist. Or make better systems, but don't tear down the world because you're unhappy.

I know. It's too had for your tiny minds to do that.

Killing is so much more fun, rewarding, satiating, empowering, and easy. Right? It's not hard after all to use an AK47 on a woman, a child, or an unarmed old man.

Try to start acting like adults and realize that no one wants or needs your silly fascist styled, ridiculous fundamentalist juvenile religious beliefs.

Humans have a reason for their inherent, built in pattern recognition skills and OCD style behaviors that make religion seems so satisfying. We need as adults to rise above those base, childish instincts.

Humans like masturbation, be it in stroking their genitals or in stroking their beliefs.

Religious ecstasy is very similar to sexual orgasm, just slower, less immediate most of the time. Face the facts. You're not good theists, you're religiously addicted Onanists.

Some people like to have such an intense orgasm they pass out (some even dying through auto-erotic asphyxiation). But you choose to blow yourselves up or die in religious fervor in "battle". Blowing up women and children in a city square or on a bus or a plane is not battle asshole, it's murdering innocents. You even murder your own Muslim people, moron and rationalize it is good. Like you're so important that you can be a judge.

How very romantic you are. What a child you are. The Bible says you must see through the eyes of a child. I bet the Quran says that too, cuz, you know... derivative.

Religion says you must ignore reality for your religion. Don't you get it? Don't you see what foolishness you have bought into? What has been perpetrated upon you for hundreds, thousands of years and your entire civilization has bought into it? Out of fear and feeling good?

No. Obviously. You cannot see how much of a fool you have been made by those you have followed. That is the bane of the theist. Allow me to help you.

Rule number one. Humans do not kill humans.

No, it's not worshiping God. That was just something some guy had told you God had told to him. Come on. Seriously? You really believe that?

Start "worshiping" your God, through taking care of his creations not destroying them. By the way worshiping a Prophet is after all idolatry, and in its crassest sense.

And again, stop being such an asshole.

Fear. Fundamentalists. Conservatives. We have them here.

The reason for conservatives being so out of control regarding their fears, just occurred to me.
If you hear a tiger in the grass and you react appropriately but find it's nothing, you're fine.
If you hear that noise and you think it's nothing, but it IS a hungry tiger, then you're dead.
Using that built in human dynamic inbred though hundreds of thousands of years, and not tempering it through appropriate personal experience, trial and error of your own, then you will come out just as how paranoid conservatives react to everything.
And so you see why we have the situation we have.
An entire stratum of society is paranoid because they haven't live appropriate lives.
We are all living in a very superficial and synthetic social construct.
Those who haven't challenged themselves in the right ways, or not at all, will find a terror behind every bush, building and door.
How can scary immigrants NOT be terrifying to these poor people?
They don't deserve our admonitions. They deserve our care and compassion.
And they as well deserve our not allowing them to be in control of the most powerful nation in the history of the entire human race and this planet.

Let me give you a parable.

Let's say there are three men. One prays, one meditates, both doing all the right stuff and yet (like you) are still lowlifes. They do all the right stuff and yet, they are still not good people. Religion doesn't necessarily stop any of that from happening, in fact research is showing it props bad behavior up. It's wishful thinking much of the time.

Leaders of ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda 

There are many loser religious types. Again, just look at Daesh, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda....

There is this third guy. Remember? I said three guys. He seemingly does all the wrong things. He doesn't believe in God, doesn't pray or meditate. Maybe he parties too much. Doesn't take good care of himself. He doesn't prey on the weak though either. Why? Because he thinks it's just wrong. In essence therefore he ends up doing all the right things, just because he doesn't want to hurt anyone.

He believes if you are just a good and ethical person people will recognize you are trustworthy. Because of that he acquires people around him who support him, who also are attracted to the Golden Rule, or Karma if you wish. Which roughly speaking is:

"Do onto others as you would have others do onto you."

The answer is here:

Be a good person.

It's not that hard. There is no reward in some fantasy "heaven". How capitalistic middle eastern desert religions are. Pay into this life for rewards in the next. Really.

Here on earth is your heaven, or your (our) hell. They are the heaven or hell you make of your life and others.

And you jihadists, you have made hell on earth all because of your silly make believe deities in the sky.

Grow up or die. Soon. Either way we, the people of the Earth do not need you or your ridiculous religious nonsense.

You are spawning right wing, fascist nationalism around the world and that is good for no one but some idiots who believe in a religion that they think teaches human beings to be death rather than life oriented.

Stop associating with those who hate human beings. Stop the self hatred. Stop worshiping a concept inn a god that also seems to hate us and disingenuously attempts to teach us that life is after death and not now when it actually exists.

What kind of person believes in mental tripe, in mind worm beliefs?

Surely no thinking rational person. Surely no "God" would ever think up such crap, only a human being could, or would. Only those who are lost or seeking to control their tribe. And then in as destructive a way as possible in attempting to control others' tribes too. And if they cannot, then they feel chartered to send their believers to kill them because they do not believe the same.

Can you really not hear how demented that is?

It's the old "you're different than me, I kill you!", mentality. How unevolved you are still. You make other Muslims look very bad.

Think, people! Try to think! Use your mind! What little mind you have left after religion has rotted most of it away.

I just saw an extremely moving Fareed Zakaria​ GPS show (12/13/2015) where they interviewed a woman who escaped from Iraq to Syria and then when the civil war started, to Turkey.

All her family had hoped for was to immigrate to the US. They thought they had it sussed at one point and then they were denied through a letter, snail mail. Yes, the US sucks sometimes. You can see how she feels this to her core and we were the ones who turned her down. Her and her family, after the horror she's been through, that ISIS and others have put her through. Over what? Religion? Allah, Muhammad, a piece of land?

The photographer and author who was responsible for her being on the show was also on the air and he nearly broke down in tears in explaining her story and that of others like her. He had interviewed twelve families previously who were accepted into America. A PhD and family, cream of the crop types. But this girl and her family, though they are people we'd be proud to have as citizens, were denied.

We worry (well some do), about our letting in a terrorist who will attack us. Are we really worried about letting in a killer. Or more so about being seen as fools, a seemingly far more pronounced idiocy in some people's minds?

We also have to consider the flip side of thinking that way. Let's shift my ranting at ourselves now, at my people.

What about those we turn down who DO become radicalized, who do end up hating us. BECAUSE in their hour (year, decade) of need, we DID turn them down. When they knew themselves that they were highly worthy of our acceptance and yet, we shat upon them and their family, their love of our ideals, upon their dreams and their needs?

Who then is responsible? More stupid humans.

I reject anyone's comeback in saying to me that they'd have become radicalized anyway since after all, that can be true. But just because it's possible doesn't mean it is how it is or always will be for everyone. It is just as true that we can be our own worst enemies. As we have been in many ways in spawning much of what is transpiring now in the world against us.

Some of those reasons Jihadists have used against us are real, accurate, even reasonable. Where we were at fault for the slights those people are feeling against us surely not all are true. And no we cannot in the twisted situation we've placed ourselves in, allow anyone to attack us either, regardless.

Therein part lay the conundrum. At some point someone has to stop the killing, the madness.

Surely it won't be Jihadists as that term defines madness. Stupidity supported by religion, false and fake gods.

We also have a responsibility not to do those things that reasonably give people reasons to attack us. Surely we should not sow those seeds, almost begging for people to attack us someday because of our own actions of greed and national desires and at all costs to others.

We must all stop the madness, on all sides. But your Islamic tribes have been doing this to one another for thousands of years. And yet there was a time long ago when you were at peace. But not the uncivilized among you. And that is what this is, you are who we are against. The uncivilized. The barbarians. Ask yourselves, how did you allow yourselves to devolve in such a way and who can stop it?

Only you. Only you....

These are the things I've seen in the news in recent years. Had another country done to us what we did to others, WE surely would have fought back. If we didn't have a military to use, we'd surely have done as we could with guerrilla warfare, with terrorist actions. One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist, right? To fight back in anyway available?

Bullshit. One's murderer is yet another's murderer.

So be careful in hating.

Because as some like to say,

"There but for the grace of Allah, go I."

Or in this case, we.

So. Think.
Act, responsibly.
Do, the right thing. Stop killing.
Or at least, try to.....try something.

Religion in a Postmodern Multicultural World

Religion was mostly designed during a time of ego- and geocentricity. As a front against affronts by outside forces. As a buffer to live, a way to form cohesion among those of your own kind and, to help enforce reasonable laws of living for the benefit of all.

At some point it got out of hand, however. It always does.

UPDATE 4/26/20: Let me start here and you can come back to it. But you really want to know this information from C-SPAN:

The Power Worshippers

Journalist Katherine Stewart argued that religious nationalists are waging political war on American democracy and institutions. This was a virtual author program.

You can come back to it later. But if you're confused by Donald Trump and Republicans and what is going on, it snaps it all together pretty neatly.

Back to 2015:
Sure there are newer religions and the younger they are today the more ridiculous they seem to be.

From the older Indian religions, indigenous religions and the more notorious desert regions, the religions of Judaism, Catholicism, and Islam, to the babies of Mormonism and Scientology (a lie of a "religion" if ever there was one) and a "religion" who bullied US government officials into giving them tax-free and religious status. Something by the way, that needs to be addressed and rectified ASAP.

Religion was all fine and dandy thousands of years ago. Though not really. Constantine in Rome and the Christian leaders led to the Council of Nicaea, rebuilding things in that image so that an empire didn't fall. And of course, the religious leaders had their own agendas. Like eliminating anything making Jesus look merely and only human.

Well, it seemed reasonable at the time, to be sure. It did save the empire, for a while, anyway.

But nowadays it has become dysfunctional in this multi-cultural world where religions and cultures rub up against one another. Where ego- and geocentrisms hold very little weight in the overall scheme of things. Where transportation of people and information have lost the barriers once paramount in maintaining the stranglehold of religion.

Knowledge is the bane of religion and it is now everywhere, we are thankfully awash in it. We are also sadly awash in the ignorance of incorrect information that people believe to be knowledge and is one of the greatest dangers we face today. The individuals and the grouping of individuals with selective ignorance and low information.

 Low information in that it is shallow. We are the most information available and yet by ratio perhaps, the least knowledgeable humans in history. We scan on our cell phones all day long but only to a shallow degree.

So we know little about much, one might say.

That and thinking emotional beliefs circumvent or replace actual knowledge have crippled us at a time when we should be brilliant and doing amazing things. Far beyond still, what we are actually doing.

Knowledge is not power, wisdom is.
Knowledge can be wrong.
Wisdom by its definition, cannot be.
It is your choice which you wish to strive for.

Of course, the comeback from the modern theist to that statement is:

"Well, it's a personal thing and so, of course, it still works."

The problem with that is that, no, it's not and if you really look, it doesn't. Work, that is.

It has become more than a personal thing and in some as in the American evangelical Christian movement, it has become politicized, polarized and even exported to Africa. As it has in Uganda where rather slimy US evangelicals have talked locals into a mindset that has led to the killing of gay males and the open raping of gay women.

Why? How is that "Christian"? And yet as we know, it also very well is.

So it is still dysfunctional.

The religious (mostly Christians and Muslims, and no not all of them but those involved) need to pull it back, to make it merely personal once again where it belongs, so that all may live in peace.

Then, we're good again.

Christians too frequently confuse old and new testaments of the bible. Some Muslims today are confusing fundamentalism with literalism. Or political delusions with fundamentalism.

People really need to come first.

Any religion who is offended by Humankind, who inspires even some of their followers to act in such ways, merely because of who we truly are as humans with all our failings, frailties and difficulties, perhaps what they really need is to find a different race of beings, some other species to disdain and abuse. And just leave us all alone.

Any religion that teaches murder of another human, is not a good religion and is fundamentally flawed.

May I suggest, mosquitoes as an alternate species to abuse? And yet, they are also needed as food for other creatures.

Something that Jesus was pointing out and that so many of his modern followers now forget when they go back to the old testament... whenever oddly enough, it makes them feel good and more secure. When Jesus clearly came to close the book on the Old Testament.

But Jesus didn't teach secure. He taught to love thy neighbor.

He hung with the outcasts. How is that security?

It's standing up against the authorities to take care of others and yet, what do we see nowadays? Much turning of backs on the needy in Christianity down to the point even of murder, or dismemberment in Islam.

Look. If you are going to become belligerent and political, you also have to stand up for what is wrong in your religion. Or in what others are doing in your religion. You don't get a free ride for spouting ignorance, hate, and stupidity. The world is becoming too small for that anymore. The religious now need to grow a little, to grow up as a whole.

Politicizing your religion doesn't just mean you get to speak out for your beliefs. It also means you have to speak out when it makes you uncomfortable, to stand against injustices both outside and IN side of your religion.

Especially, INside your religion. Because that my friend is YOUR responsibility. Not mine, not ours. Yours and yours alone...your group's responsibility.

Why is it, why should it be that so often those outside of religion are the ones who have to fight the good fight for religion?

If you want your religion, fight for it. But fight sanely. Police yourselves and allow others to help. But don't put the burden on them when it's your arena. Your desire. Your need. Why do so many assume their need is that of others? Even when they do not know it. Or want it? And so some murder them because if they don't feel it, death.

It occurs to me that up until recent times, "God" was such a part of people's lives that it wasn't necessary to do things like put it on money, or write it into laws, something our Founding Fathers didn't want to begin with.

They didn't want it because they were wise, educated, and knew how badly legislating things like religion can be (please see Middle East, or American conservatives today). "God" used to be so inherent in daily life it was a nuance to conservation. But also people died over those considerations, something we generally believe today is ridiculous, if not criminal.

We've been hearing about this topic more and more over the years since "In God, We Trust" was first put on money back in 1952 sadly replacing "E Pluribus Unum", One out of many. Which had summed up our nation's orientation to be inclusive of all (if not in practice, surely, in theory, intent, and desire)?

As the concern and consideration of "God" has decreased over time those who are so close to it have felt a need to bring it more and more into our attention by doing things like putting it on money. Or more recently and insanely, trying to alter our politics, our citizen's rights hard fought for and legislate it into laws (not seeing the irony in their also hating and legislating against things like Islamic Sharia law).

People can have their religion, but forcing it into the national attention over and over is only in the long term going to cause a societal irritation that will eventually backfire. Throwing in another religion (Islam) which has literally been killing masses of people (as opposed to the self-proclaimed typically racist and unbalanced Christians who are killing ones-at-a-time), just makes it all the worse overall.

Think about it. That means that the concept of "God" has been decreasing overall for a very long time.

Legislating it will only speed that process.