"Begin at the beginning,and go on till you come to the end: then stop." (Lewis Carroll, 1832-1896)
Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked."Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat."I don't know," Alice answered."Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."
"So long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation. "Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
"All right," said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone. "Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin," thought Alice; "but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!"
I am diagonally parked in a parallel universe. Like Arthur Dent from "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy", if you do not have a Babel Fish in your ear this blog will be completely unintelligible to you and will read something like this: "boggle, google, snoggle, slurp, slurp, dingleberry to the power of 10". Fortunately, those who have had the Babel Fish inserted in their ear, will understood this blog perfectly. If you are familiar with this technology, you will know that the Babel Fish lives on brainwave radiation. It excretes energy in the form of exactly the correct brainwaves needed by its host to understand what was just said; or in this case, what was read. The Babel Fish, thanks to scientific research, reverses the problem defined by its namesake in the Tower of Babel, where a deity was supposedly inspired to confuse the human race by making them unable to understand each other.
Beepbeepitsme has been added to The Atheist Blogroll. You can see the blogroll in my sidebar. The Atheist blogroll is a community building service provided free of charge to Atheist bloggers from around the world. If you would like to join, visit Mojoey at Deep Thoughts.
"Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat." - Sir Julian Huxley
"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes and ships and sealing wax; Of cabbages and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot; And whether pigs have wings." - Lewis Carroll
"Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?" Alexander Pope
"The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal." Ann Oakley
"Some treat their longing for God as proof of His existence." Mason Cooley
"The god of the Christians, as we have seen, is the god who makes promises only to break them; who sends them pestilence and disease in order to heal them; a god who demoralizes mankind in order to improve it. A god who created man 'after his own image', and still the origin of evil in man is not accredited to him." Johann Most
"In love, we worry more about the meaning of silences than the meaning of words." Mason Cooley
"My philosophy is such that I am not going to vote against the oppressed. I have been oppressed, and so I am always going to have a vote for the oppressed, regardless of whether that oppressed is black or white or yellow or the people of the Middle East, or what. I have that feeling." Septima Clark
"Secular humanists suspect there is something more gloriously human about resisting the religious impulse; about accepting the cold truth, even if that truth is only that the universe is as indifferent to us as we are to it." Tom Flynn
"If the question is put to me would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means of influence and yet who employs those faculties and that influence for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion—I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape." Thomas Henry Huxley
Project Gutenberg is the oldest producer of free ebooks on the Internet. The collection was produced by hundreds of volunteers.
"Give the right man a solar myth, and he'll confute the sun therewith." James Russell Lowell
"Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone. Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon. Show me slowly what I only know the limits of. Dance me to the end of love." Leonard Cohen
"If God is male, then male is God. The divine patriarch castrates women as long as he is allowed to live on in the human imagination." Mary Daly
"If the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish - if a little more enlightened, religion would perish." Robert Green Ingersoll
"In other words (so to speak): not two and also not not two." Magellan's Log V
"History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology." W.H. Auden
"Archaeology is the peeping Tom of the sciences. It is the sandbox of men who care not where they are going; they merely want to know where everyone else has been." Jim Bishop
"To excavate is to open a book written in the language that the centuries have spoken into the earth." Spyridon Marinatos
"Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed." Thomas Henry Huxley
"The place has changed but little since Diana received the homage of her worshippers in the sacred grove. The temple of the sylvan goddess, indeed, has vanished and the King of the Wood no longer stands sentinel over the Golden Bough." Sir James George Frazer
"Babylonian king (1792BCE–1750BCE) who made Babylon the chief Mesopotamian kingdom and codified the laws of Mesopotamia and Sumeria." The American Heritage
"We are ourselves history and share the responsibility for world history and our position in it. But we gravely lack awareness of this responsibility." Hermann Hesse
"Astrology: do we make a hullabaloo among the stars, or do they make a hullabaloo down here?" Mason Cooley
"Readers are plentiful: thinkers are rare." Harriet Martineau
"The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the Sun, in which they put a man whom they call Christ, in the place of the Sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the Sun." Thomas Paine
"Zoroaster was thus the first to teach the doctrines of an individual judgment, Heaven and Hell, the future resurrection of the body, the general Last Judgment, and life everlasting for the reunited soul and body. These doctrines were to become familiar articles of faith to much of mankind, through borrowings by Judaism, Christianity and Islam; yet it is in Zoroastrianism itself that they have their fullest logical coherence.†- Mary Boyce
"My esoteric doctrine, is that if you entertain any doubt, it is safest to take the unpopular side in the first instance. Transit from the unpopular, is easy ... but from the popular to the unpopular is so steep and rugged that it is impossible to maintain it." William Lamb Melbourne
"With reason one can travel the world over; without it it is hard to move an inch." Chinese proverb.
"Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. Bribery and corruption are common. Children no longer obey their parents. . . . The end of the world is evidently approaching." Sound familiar? It is, in fact, the lament of a scribe in one of the earliest inscriptions to be unearthed in Mesopotamia, where Western civilization was born. C. John Sommerville
"The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago ... had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands." Havelock Ellis
"It (myth) expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values... Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one." Ann Oakley
"Starry, starry night. Flaming flowers that brightly blaze, swirling clouds in violet haze, reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue." Don McLean
"NOT from the stars do I my judgment pluck, and yet methinks I have astronomy, But not to tell of good or evil luck, Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality..." William Shakespeare
"Moreover, the universe as a whole is infinite, for whatever is limited has an outermost edge to limit it, and such an edge is defined by something beyond. Since the universe has no edge, it has no limit; and since it lacks a limit, it is infinite and unbounded. Moreover, the universe is infinite both in the number of its atoms and in the extent of its void." Epicurus
"Most people today still believe, perhaps unconsciously, in the heliocentric universe every newspaper in the land has a section on astrology, yet few have anything at all on astronomy." Hannes Alfven
If Christianity just focused on the actual teachings of Jesus as opposed to the supernatural elements, it wouldn't be all those things in the list, and would be a lot easier to live with. The Christianity that is imposed on a lot of the world, reflects the conservative worldview of its adherents. Change the worldview, and you change Christianity.
It is always the supernatural idea of either jesus or any other human like figure that I have a problem with.
RE KA
I am sure that gandhi had his faults, one of which may have been racism. Luckily for me, I am no hero worshipper, either of the visible or the invisible kind; so it is easy for me to accept that people can be a mixture of "good attributes and bad ones."
Hi Beep...I would just add one more to the list...the frightens me the most these days. Even more than the homophobes who are always trying to kill me. And that is that by making people believe that they are going to a better world they make saving this one less important.In fact some of them even want to see the planet burn because they think their hallucinatory "messiah" will come down and save them. The biggest pig homophobe we have in Canada...who is the head of a "Christian" college...believes the Rio Earth Summit declaration is a "pagan document." It seems to me we are getting pretty close to the time when humanity is going to have to choose between the hateful superstitious nonsense of religion,and its very survival....
I agree, there seems to be an anti-intellectual and anti-science push by the religious rightwing. Popularist movements have historically been antagonistic towards these elements.
The absurdity seems to know no bounds. I have spoekn to people who are vehement about banning books like "Harry Potter" - my guess is that they do not see themselves as part of an anti-intellectual mobement, but part of "god's police" - they will fit in nicely with a police state mentality, I think...
RE KA
I wouldn't be surprised. I never use spell check. Which probably accounts for the many and varied spelling mistakes on my blog. lol
RE simon
I can understand your fears. I was speaking to a young man I know (in person) who came out about 10 years ago. He was lamenting how he would NEVER have come out, if he had known how much recent public opinion was going to turn him into a pariah.
He no longer feels safe, nor a respected member of the community - even though he has a good career and a loving long term partner.
Greeting to you too. I must say you style has improved.
I am also quite curious about your political views concerning such things as humantarian aid and North Korea. You should add a little variety to you posting.
P.S.
"I see you are know limiting yourself to comments about comments."
With regard to the coming out thing, I'm against it. I mean, the whole concept is just that of conforming to our heterosexist culture. I guess I'm technically "in the closet," though I don't exactly refrain from admitting that certain guys are attractive or sexy.
17 Comments:
I find it hard to believe that none of your regular trolls have left anything here yet.
RE dikki
Maybe my regular trolls are too busy praying for my salvation? Either that, or wishing hellfire upon me.
If Christianity just focused on the actual teachings of Jesus as opposed to the supernatural elements, it wouldn't be all those things in the list, and would be a lot easier to live with.
The Christianity that is imposed on a lot of the world, reflects the conservative worldview of its adherents. Change the worldview, and you change Christianity.
Hey, Mahatma was no saint, either.
Watch Penn 'n Teller's 'Holier Than Thou' segment.
Gandhi had a...problem w/black folk.
RE deacon
It is always the supernatural idea of either jesus or any other human like figure that I have a problem with.
RE KA
I am sure that gandhi had his faults, one of which may have been racism. Luckily for me, I am no hero worshipper, either of the visible or the invisible kind; so it is easy for me to accept that people can be a mixture of "good attributes and bad ones."
Just mention that George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard are Christians. That surely is enough to convince any sane person that religion stinks!
Cheers and hope to hear from you soon!
I can relate to your take on "hero worship", Beep!.
Good list. Great song!
Hi Beep...I would just add one more to the list...the frightens me the most these days. Even more than the homophobes who are always trying to kill me. And that is that by making people believe that they are going to a better world they make saving this one less important.In fact some of them even want to see the planet burn because they think their hallucinatory "messiah" will come down and save them. The biggest pig homophobe we have in Canada...who is the head of a "Christian" college...believes the Rio Earth Summit declaration is a "pagan document." It seems to me we are getting pretty close to the time when humanity is going to have to choose between the hateful superstitious nonsense of religion,and its very survival....
to me, the one that I see affecting our country the most today is the "anti-intellectual" and "anti-scientific" aspects. truly, truly scary
Psst!
There's a typo towards the bottom.
RE l
I agree, there seems to be an anti-intellectual and anti-science push by the religious rightwing. Popularist movements have historically been antagonistic towards these elements.
The absurdity seems to know no bounds. I have spoekn to people who are vehement about banning books like "Harry Potter" - my guess is that they do not see themselves as part of an anti-intellectual mobement, but part of "god's police" - they will fit in nicely with a police state mentality, I think...
RE KA
I wouldn't be surprised. I never use spell check. Which probably accounts for the many and varied spelling mistakes on my blog. lol
RE simon
I can understand your fears. I was speaking to a young man I know (in person) who came out about 10 years ago. He was lamenting how he would NEVER have come out, if he had known how much recent public opinion was going to turn him into a pariah.
He no longer feels safe, nor a respected member of the community - even though he has a good career and a loving long term partner.
"The absurdity seems to know no bounds."
True.
Regards,
-Troll
Welcome back under. I do enjoy the presence of a troll or 2. :)
I see you are know limiting yourself to comments about comments. Oh well, my your "trollness" improve - we like a bit of action around here.
Greeting to you too. I must say you style has improved.
I am also quite curious about your political views concerning such things as humantarian aid and North Korea. You should add a little variety to you posting.
P.S.
"I see you are know limiting yourself to comments about comments."
Nope.
RE under
You cannot imagine how ecstatic I am knowing that the recent quality of my posts meets with your approval.
Thanks for the link. I created a blog entry about it myself.
With regard to the coming out thing, I'm against it. I mean, the whole concept is just that of conforming to our heterosexist culture. I guess I'm technically "in the closet," though I don't exactly refrain from admitting that certain guys are attractive or sexy.
RE keith
Thanks for the blog entry. It is a shame, I think, that people have to state overtly their homosexuality or their heterosexuality.
But this is the influence of an extremely anti homosexual agenda pushed by various religious groups.
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