I Am The Cheshire Cat

Well, I must say that I am shocked and stunned. Who would have thought? This little quiz gem is courtesy of Texas Oasis.

Alice in Wonderland - "I'm Odd" - The Cheshire Cat

cheshire cat , alice in wonderland , lewis carroll , odd , quiz , atheist

Which Famous Feline Are You?

You're the Cheshire Cat. Your mysterious aura and your penchant for riddles keep your friends guessing. You dislike staying too long in any one place. Your advice is always sound, if somewhat enigmatic. The sum total of this is that people are always following you and you just WANT TO GET AWAY! Take this quiz! Quizilla Join Make A Quiz More Quizzes Grab Code

The Right Hand Of God

Click on image to enlarge

~*~

"And sittith on the righthand of god the father almighty, from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead." - Nicene Creed

~*~

Why was the righthand the "right" side and the lefthand the "wrong" side? The reason may go back to some of our earliest observations of the sky.

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In the Northern Hemisphere,the early thinkers and teachers noted that their own shadows moved from left to right, as does the shadow of a stick or a sundial move from left to right during the course of the sun across the heavens.

~*~

In that same northern hemisphere, however, if you want to check the path of the sun across the heavens, you have to face south, and the sun moves from your left to your right. Therefore, our preference for the right over the left may be based in ancient mythology, ancient astrology, ancient sun worship, where the sun was moving AWAY from the left towards the right.

~*~

Ancient sun worshippers in the northern hemisphere, (modern religions were probably influenced by these thoughts too), would have seen their god, the sun, moving steadily away from the left and towards the right. The same pattern can be seen when travelling southwards from the northern hemisphere in a ship.

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When the ship is travelling from the northern hemisphere southwards towards the equator, the sun appears to rise to the left (east), reaches its highest point almost straight overhead, and sets to the right (west). When the ship is far to the south of the equator, then the sun continues to appear to rise to the left (east), reaches its highest point due behind (north), and sets to the right (west).

~*~

That this was the path that the ancients believed their god took, as it moved across the sky, was probably enough reason for them to be suspicious of the left.

~*~

Exodus 15:6 "Thy right hand, O LORD, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O LORD, hath dashed in pieces the enemy."

Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Road Trippin" (Just a Mirror For The Sun)

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lefthand , righthand , superstition , bible , nicene creed , evil , sun worship , atheist , sunset , sunrise

CIRCUMCISION, AND THE EGYPTIAN FERTILITY CULT

(Click on image to enlarge)

Let's talk about circumcision. Why not? I discuss nearly everything else, so why not yet it all hang out, so to speak...


This article will be in reference to a couple of other articles dealing with what ancient people knew about procreation and the natural world and how their cultural and religious philosophies were influenced by this knowledge and lack knowledge.. So for any of you who want a background to this article, read here and here first.

The other point I would like to make is that I am reading and analysing the bible not from a position of faith. I am looking at it in the same way I would read any other book. I am allowing myself to not only doubt the claims that are made in it, but to ask where did these claims originate and why did people thousands of years ago interpret their world the way they did. In other words, I am examining the information they had which formed their worldview.

Now, to start with, I will accept for the sake of argument, that the hebrews were historically a group of people who left Egypt. So an exodus in this sense did occur. (Exodus 2:23 And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. 24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.) What was this covenant that the hebrews made with their god?

The covenant, or Abraham's Brit, occurred in 1714 BCE on the 13th of Nissan of the year 2048 from creation (1713 BCE). God supposedly appeared to Abram, changed his name to Abraham and commanded him to circumcise himself and all members of his household and all future descendents so that "My covenant shall be in your flesh, as an eternal covenant". Abraham was supposedly 99 years old at the time, and his son Ishmael, 13. Isaac, who was born a year later, was supposedly the first Jew to be circumcised at eight days.

To find out specifically what this covenant was, we need to look at Genesis 17: 2,9 and 10.

• Genesis 17: 2 “And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.”
• Genesis 17:6 "And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. "
• Genesis 17:9 “And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations.”
• Genesis 17:10 “This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.”
• Genesis 17:11 "And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you."

So the covenant with god was that god would multiply the hebrews exceedingly, that they would be fruitful if they performed the ritual of circumcision. This ritual was to be performed on every man who was a jew and in return god's promise was that he would make the hebrew people abundant and powerful.

Now where did this idea of circumcision originate? Many jews, christians and muslims will claim that it originated with the jewish traditions as that is where most people are familar with it as a religious and a cultural practice, but the oldest recorded evidence of circumcision is in Egypt. Tomb artwork from the Sixth Dynasty (2345 - 2181 BC) shows men with circumcised penises, and one relief from this period shows the rite being performed on a standing adult male. Evidence of circumcision abounds in ancient egyptian temple reliefs and egyptologists have found both circumcised and uncircumcised penises on the unwrapped mummies of pharaohs.

The egyptians seem to have been circumcising males for at least a few hundred years before the hebrews had circumcision as their covenant with god. So, why did the egyptians have male circumcision as part of their culture? What purpose did it have and what did it symbolise?

For a start, some historians have suggested that the priests of Egypt were circumcised as a sacrifice. As a way of forsaking "sinful pleasures". This sounds more like modern christian morality trying to retrofit itself into an ancient culture, because the concept of sex as sin, is not known to have been a part of the Egyptian religion. What is known is that the circumcised penis was a symbol of fertility, as can be seen in temple reliefs throughout Egypt. So, the origin of circumcision in Egypt, is more likely to be that the circumcised penis was seen as a fertility symbol.

"According to Egyptologist, E. A. Budge ('The Gods of the Egyptians'. Dover Publications), there was a very early God of Circumcision whose job was to maintain the fertility of the Nile banks. Another early Egyptian myth contended that God circumcised himself and the blood from his penis fell and created the universe. This myth is thought by some to be the progenitor of the blood cults, in which animals were sacrificed and the blood covenants in the modern Semitic religions. Another theory, quite unorthodox, holds that the Great Pyramid (Cheops) was not a tomb at all (it contained no artifacts, no mummies, etc.) but was a temple of initiation. The young initiates to the priesthood were, supposedly, led single file through the narrow passages receiving one initiatory degree after another and, reaching what is now called the "Queen's Chamber", they were circumcised and then proceeded up the Grand Gallery towards the "King's Chamber" and their final degree. The circumcised priests were the guardians of immortality; symbols of fertility and life everlasting." (From Ancient Egyptian Circumcision & Modern Day Practices in Males)

Whichever theory is correct, circumcision was seen as a symbol of fertility and power. I don't consider it to be a coincidence that the hebrews would ALSO see circumcision as a symbol of fertility and a symbol of power, as the most powerful nation in the world at that time, Egypt, practised this ritual. Now, to understand why the egyptians and the hebrews would see circumcision as a symbol of ferility and power we have to back up a bit further historically.

So HOW was circumcision associated with fertility? Now, if you lived in Egypt you were dependent upon the flooding of the Nile and the prosperity of crops and food resources that resulted from this annual event. The flooding of the Nile rendered the narrow strip of land on either side of the river extremely fertile. Intensive agriculture was practised on these strips of land by the majority of the peasant population. So, after the flood waters of the Nile receded, sowing and ploughing would have taken place using primitive wooden ploughs. Therefore, the fertility of the soil, which was built up through flood and alluvial deposits was crucial to the existence of Egypt.

Two of the major gods of fertility were Hapi/Hapy and Min. Interestingly, some of the major fertility gods were male. Hapi is often depicted as a male with female breasts and was the god who personified the flooding of the Nile. He was honoured as it was through his actions that the land was made fertile and ready for the sowing of seed. Soil, earth, and fields have in many ancient cultures traditionally represented the female. Hapi, as the flood god, represented the male force which makes the female soil fertile for the sowing of seed.

One of the other major fertility gods in Egypt was Min. Min was once again a male god who symbolized fertility and sexuality. He was also the patron of travelers through the eastern Sahara. He was depicted as a man with a large erect penis. He is most often depicted holding his penis erect in his left hand (a masturbatory reference to fertility), and wearing the attire of a pharaoh, a feathered crown and carrying a flail. (The way he holds his flail might be symbolic of sexual intercourse as the flail forms the V while his upraised forearm seems to thrust inside the V.)

Min wasn't just a fertility god, he was also a god of male fertility who could give the pharaoh (and other men) the power to father children. As a god of male sexual potency, he was honoured during the coronation rites of the New Kingdom, when the pharaoh was expected to sow his seed. This was generally thought to have been plant seeds, although there has been the suggestion that the pharaoh was expected to demonstrate that he could ejaculate and thus ensure the annual flooding of the Nile.

Therefore, the phallic god Min, (sometimes referred to as Menu), represented the sexual potency of the pharaoh, the Great House, an aspect of the Good God considered necessary to the fertility of the Nile valley. During the annual festival of Min, men engaged in public acts of masturbation in his honour. (From Masturbation Throughout History)

One of the symbols of Min was a bed of lettuce that the egyptians believed to be an aphrodisiac, as egyptian lettuce was tall, straight, and released a milk-like substance when rubbed. A characteristic similar to the penis. Min was always depicted with an erect and uncovered phallus, and thus, in later history, christians routinely defaced his monuments in temples, and Victorian egyptologists would take only waist-up photographs of Min, or otherwise find ways to cover his protruding manhood.

However, to the ancient egyptians, Min was not a matter of scandal, but part of their religious and cultural belief system. And he was obviously a very important part, that of male fertility. He was worshipped to not only ensure the fertility of the pharoah and other men, but also to ensure the flooding of the Nile. No flooding of the Nile meant no fertile fields. No fertile fields meant no crops. No crops meant no herd animals which meant starvation and eventual death. Farming was the life's blood of Egypt and the fertility of the land was paramount to its survival.

So what has circumcision as a fertility ritual have to do with this? Why would the egyptians and consequently the hebrews, see circumcision as a means to prosperity, abundance and power? What information did they have that would have led them to such a conclusion? But more importantly, I think, what information did they NOT have?

The ancient Egyptians saw fertility and the creation of new life as primarily a male responsibility. Afterall, they had evidence of the role that the male played in reproduction. They had evidence of ejaculation, which is often refered to as seed in ancient texts. The male penis was a symbol of fertility, for as the seed was sown in the soil and field to produce fruits, so was the seed of man sown in woman to produce "human fruit." The male seed held the "spark of life."

If you believe that it is the male who contains the seed necessary to create life, it stands to reason that your culture and religion mirrors this belief. So seed, (semen) and seed for crops, may have all been considered as originating from the male of the species. Seed, which was produced EXCLUSIVELY, by men. The earth, soil, fields and womankind, may have only been considered the depository for seed and where the seed would take fruit.

How do I know that the ancient Egyptians considered that the responsibility for fertility as the producers of seed was primarily a male responsibility? I know this because the ovum (female egg) was only discovered by Prussian-Estonian embryologist Dr. Karl Ernst von Baer in 1827. And that in 1843 Martin Berry discovered the fact that human conception occurs when the sperm enters the ovum. While people used to believe that the male implants life into the female, they now knew that both the male and female EACH contributed half the material needed to create life. This changed forever the way the world would see human reproduction. But it did NOT change the cultures and religions which grew out of male fertility cults.

Now, back to Egypt for a moment. It is highly probable that the egyptians, who revered the instrument of human production, and bore its image in their processions, conceived the idea of offering to their main gods, Isis and Osiris, a small portion of that organ with which these deities had connected the perpetuation of the human species. (From Voltaire - Philosophical Dictionary)

Afterall, if you have the belief that seed is produced exclusively by males and that women do not contribute genetic material in order to create new life, then you most probably create a ritual which symbolises the importance of this belief. If women and men were made from seed which man produced, then the male penis would take on special religious significance. I suggest that the ritual which was created to symbolize this male power was circumcision.

So, did the hebrews take with them the religious culture of circumcision when they left Egypt? I think so. And I think they practised it for the same reasons that the ancient egyptians did. The god of the old testament promised the jews the same things that the ancient egyptians believed they were getting from their religious ritual of circumcision. They were promised abundance and power. Lots of “fruit”, (descendents), through the sowing of "seed" means economic and political power.

Which brings me to the final part of this article. You really want to know why I think the ancient hebrews created laws about bestiality and homosexuality? Or why they believed that certain sexual practices were sinful? I suggest that they made the rules about bestiality and homosexuality because the covenant with god was to make them prosperous and abundant.

Genesis 17: 2 “And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.” That is, seed would be wasted if it was sown where it could not bear fruit. Therefore, there was to be NO wasting of “seed” on men or animals as seed sown there didn't bear “fruit.” All that “seed” was to be used for procreation, if a people wanted to become prosperous and abundant. Religions know that big groups are powerful groups. Lots of “fruit” (descendents) means economic and political power.

And your circumcision scar, (as small or as large as it might be), probably has its origin in Egypt, in a time when the penis was part of fertility worship. So, guys, what does it feel like to be part of an ancient fertility cult? ;)

The Bangles - "Walk Like An Egyptian"

(I had considered posting the track "The First Cut Is The Deepest" but I thought better of it. No point in rubbing salt into the wound. Oooops.. )

circumcision , egypt , covenant , bible , fertility cult , old testament , youtube , atheist , ancient history

To BEE Or Not To BEE - That Is The BUZZ

Most religious people claim that morality, or the group ethic is based in a religious origin. This is a common claim, made often and repeatedly by most people of religious faith. I don't see any obvious correlation between god belief and morality. Neither god belief nor the lack of it, guarantees moral or ethical human behaviour.

I think that people cooperate because it is mutually advantageous. We are capable of natural feelings such as empathy, sympathy, remorse etc. Our natural abilities to empathize with other humans forms the basis of what we consider to be moral or ethical. There are rare people who are termed sociopathic, who apparently are incapable of these emotions, but for the vast majority of us these human emotions allow us, by understanding our own needs, to understand the needs of others. So, I think that morality has as much to do with our genetic origins than it has with any hierarchial supernatural construct that we have devised in an attempt to keep people in line. (By hierarchial supernatural construct, I mean god belief.)

Primatologists like Frans de Waal have long argued that the roots of human morality are evident in social animals like apes and monkeys. The animals’ feelings of empathy and expectations of reciprocity are essential behaviors for mammalian group living and can be regarded as a counterpart of human morality. Marc D. Hauser, a Harvard biologist, has built on this idea to propose that people are born with a moral grammar wired into their neural circuits by evolution. In a new book, “Moral Minds” (HarperCollins 2006), he argues that the grammar generates instant moral judgments which, in part because of the quick decisions that must be made in life-or-death situations, are inaccessible to the conscious mind. It implies that parents and teachers are not teaching children the rules of correct behavior from scratch but are, at best, giving shape to an innate behavior. And it suggests that religions are not the source of moral codes but, rather, social enforcers of instinctive moral behavior. (From Atheist Girl)

I would also draw your attention to a recent study concerning bees and behaviour. Just recently scientists mapped the bee genome. They were interested to try and explain why it was evolutionary advantageous for worker bees to be sterile and to invest all their time and life caring for the eggs of a single queen bee. What they observed was that in some hives, a small percentage of bees which were usually worker bees and sterile, were actually laying eggs in the hive given the opportunity.

They called these bees "anarchist bees" because their behaviour conflicted with the usual reproductive and social pattern exhibited within the hive. By mapping the genome of a "normal worker bee" and that of one of these "anarchist bees", they were able to compare the differences in their genomes. What they found was that the "anarchist bees" did not have the reproductive indicators turned off which would have made them sterile. Instead they were fertile, just as the queens were. The scientists wondered why a small % of bees exhibited with genomes which expressed this physical behaviour.

They conducted an experiment whereby they seeded a hive with a queen and a much larger collection of "anarchist bees" than would normally be present in a hive. The result was inevitably disasterous for the hive. When nearly all the bees were trying to lay eggs, there were not enough sterile bees to do the work, and the social structure of the hive collapsed. It was always wondered what evolutionary advantage sterility might have considering that fertility is the key to passing on genes. And why would such a large population of bees bar one, the queen, invest all their energies and life into the rearing of another bee's young?

Essentially, sterility IS an evolutionary advantage for bee hives. Scientists refer to this sterility as "genetic altruism." "Altruistic" in the sense that the majority of bees have, through natural selection, waived their "rights" to breed, in favour of the continuation of the hive and the continuation of the species. This suggests that what we may consider as a moral behaviour or ethical behaviour, namely altruism, has been natural selected in bees and is expressed genetically.

I also think that natural selection in human beings has resulted in the genetic expression of moral traits and ethical traits. Many religions preach the code of selflessness, non-ego, putting others first etc (and however slse it can be expressed); however, the majority of people, even when they say they adher to such a code, find that it is extremely difficult to put this code into practice. Personally, I think it is an unrealistic code for a number of reasons.

Although I believe that conscious acts of “altruism” may be considered worthy and perhaps even noble, I doubt that it is possible to physically survive for extended periods of time if altruism didn't have a payoff for either the individual or the group to which the individual belongs. I think it is in contradition to our “genetic instructions” (yes, whatever that means - gene expression, perhaps) - to behaviourally demonstrate altruism which doesn't have a payoff.

Where does this concept of self sacrifice, or putting the needs of others first originate? Well, as an atheist, I think that these human attributes and predispositions are to be found in gene expression. For example, it is demonstrated in nature that many animal mothers will place themselves in considerable harm in order to preserve their family. It is also demonstrated in nature that male animals will fight off the attentions of other males in order to preserve the pride, pack, group. In both instances they are examples of what we may consider to be "altruistic behaviours." These supposed "altruistic behaviours" though, do include a payoff to the individual and also to the group. So, even though we may incorrectly label them as "acts of altruism," they are essentially acts of self interest.

So, animals and humans both has a sense of what it is preserve a group. But essentially, their interest to preserve the group through self sacrifice might merely be that of self interest. In other words, they are prepared to put self last only as an act of self interest. (Sounds contradictory, I know.) They have a vested interest in the preservation of the particular group to which they belong which may exclude their act of self sacrifice as being an act of altruism.

We define an altruistic act as an act or behaviour where we put the needs of others above the needs of self. But, as I have suggested, acts of altruism can just as easily be seen as acts of self interest. For example: Politicians regularly “fall on their swords” in order to preserve that which they consider to be the integrity, or worth of the party to which they belong. Religious fanatics regularly sacrifice their very lives in order to preserve (as they see it), the belief system of the religious group to which they belong. And of course soldiers of every nation have sacrificed their lives for the same ideal; the preservation of the group/nation/political ideology to which they identify.

In the example of the politician, the religious fanatic, or the soldier, the act of self sacrifice emulates the instinctual act in the animal kingdom. The political party has become the family/pride/flock. The religious group has become the family etc and the nation for which the soldier fights for has become the family etc. In other words, these groups have become for all intents and purposes, the families that we would like to preserve. If these groups (religious, political, cultural etc) become synonmous psychologically with the concept of the family or pack, are these acts ones of self sacrifice or are they an instinct to preserve self by preserving the group?

When the group that one identifies with becomes synonymous with the self, the case could be made that self sacrifice isn’t putting oneself last, it may just be putting oneself first. Preserving the group might become preserving self when personal identification with the group is so psychologically compelling. Perhaps the groups and the ideologies which human beings are capable of identifying with, tap into our naturally occurring, naturally selected predisposition to preserve self by preserving the group. Like the honey bee, the lion, and animals of other species, we may only be acting upon a naturally selected predisposition to enhance survival.

altruism , natural+selection , morality , ethics , gene+expression , naturalism , youtube , atheist

"BEE" Gees - "Stayin' Alive"

Were Adam And Eve Framed?

How could adam and eve know that it was wrong to disobey god if they had no knowledge of good and evil? Why would an omnipresent god, (one who is everywhere at once), allow the snake to tempt eve? Why would an omniscient god, (one who knows everything), allow eve to be tempted knowing that eve WOULD be tempted?

According to the bible this is the sequence of the relevant events.

Genesis 2:8-18 "And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. 18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.


Ok, that is the background. God created a garden called eden and he placed a man and a woman, who he also created in the garden and he commanded the man not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Now also in this garden was a snake or serpent, which god had also created. (Genesis 1:25 "And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.")

Adam, who was the first to be told not to eat of the tree of good and evil must have gone on to tell eve, because when the snake tempts eve, eve replies - Genesis 3:3 "But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." The snake then goes on to tell eve that they won't die but that they will be like gods as they will know good and evil. (Genesis 3:4-5 "And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."

Hang on. That means that adam and eve had no knowledge of what was good and what was evil as the bible states that it is AFTER they eat the fruit from the tree that they will know good from evil. So how could they know it was wrong to eat the fruit in the first place? And just as importantly, how could they know that it was wrong to disobey god and wrong to listen to the snake? Something isn't right here.


Adam and eve, after eating the fruit, realized that they were naked. Apparently being naked is a bad thing as they then proceeded to cover their "naughty bits" with a leaf or two. God gets a bit stroppy about this and says: - (Genesis3: 11 "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?") So, god now realizes that adam and eve have acquired the knowledge of good and evil AFTER eating the fruit, and that they did NOT know good from evil prior to eating the fruit.

So adam and eve only gained the knowledge of good and evil AFTER they had eaten of the fruit, they had no idea what good and evil was before that time. If they only gained the knowledge of good and evil after they ate the fruit, they obviously did not know that it was evil/bad to eat the fruit in the first place.

Let's now discuss the issue of an omnipresent god. If god is omnipresent, that is he is everywhere at once, god must have been able to see and hear the snake tempting eve. If that is the case, why didn't he just kick the snake out of the way before it could open its yap? Surely he wouldn't have wanted adam and eve to be tempted? I dunno. Maybe he was busy finishing off the fjords at the time and wasn't paying attention.

And why would an omniscient god, one who knows everything, NOT know that the snake was going to tempt eve and that he would be successful in this venture? An omnicient god should have known that the snake was going to successfully tempt eve, so why would he have put the snake there in the first place?

"In The Garden Of Eden" by - I. Ron. Butterfly



adam+and+eve , garden+of+eden , bible , god , genesis , talking+snake , atheist , omnipotent , omniscient

Five Things About Me

Kill The Afterlife has tagged me for the "Five Things About Me" meme. So, this post is all about me.

• 1. That is my real head.
• 2. That is a real car.
• 3. That is a real beach in Australia.
• 4. The song, "Drive My Car" by The Beatles, must have been written for me because it has my blogname in it.
• 5. That proves that either The Beatles were psychic or that Starsky and Hutch were. Take your pick.
  

Starsky and Hutch - "Drive My Car"

As tradition demands, I will now tag anyone else who reads this blog and would like to continue the "Five Things About Me" meme. A link back, would always be appreciated.

egoism , drive+my+car