Tag: Religion

a cross in the woods

During a scenic ride through the forest above the Flensborg Fjord I came to a cross in the road. A sign indicated it was forbidden to go to the left. Something about danger of loose ground along the cliff. When I turned the bike to the right to continue my ride, I noticed something in the short distance. I could make out the benches from afar but it wasn’t till I got closer that I saw a podium meant for my display. This was not a rest stop of the kind I thought I would encounter. But then again, what a coincidence. So I dismounted my ride, wet my lips, shook out my hands and I began. It was the perfect place to begin.  Oh, how my new flock was open and ready for my sermon. For posterity sake, I’ve taken the liberty of posting this pick of my flock, all seated with their backs to you, dear worst-reader. Of course, just in front of them, if indeed an image or the like… He has come.

Rant on.

-T

That Woman Syndrome

One last thought before heading back to the old country where rational thought (still) prevails in the confines of political discourse. I spent a lot of time joining my mother this visit to her various church gatherings. Whether it’s mass on Sunday morning or happy-hour at a local lodge, I’m there watching her, witnessing, taking in the carnage that is my beloved #americant–and its old people. The only problem I have with hanging out with mom and her “friends” are the staunch republicans that occupy not only her church but the entire community where she lives. Which is kind of odd because, well, at least at the church, the pastor is an obvious liberal type–liberal as in he’s a hippy. That combined with an open door policy towards minorities, gays and, goodness forbid, immigrants (there is a sign in front of the church that reads: “immigrants are welcome”), it’s a bit of a wonder that so many church goers are atypical republican followers. Or maybe not. Nonetheless.

I was sitting at a happy-hour gathering of Mom’s church goers the other day and an elderly couple started complaining about Nancy Pelosi. It was right out of the blue. They were chomping down on their tuna salad sandwiches and chips and sodas when suddenly the doors of TV propaganda hell opened up and Pelosi was the wrath occupying their mind’s eye. I assumed that since they had gotten rid of Hillary in the last election, Pelosi was next in line–which I guess, for them, made sense. But then I popped a question to the patriarch that lead the anti-Pelosi wrath.

“Why are you concerned about a Senator that represents California? Aren’t there more important things for a Marylander to be worried about?”

“She’s the worst. She’s gotta go. Trump’s gonna take care of her, too.”

Keep in mind, dear worst-reader, this conversation was right in the middle of Trump’s attempt at getting rid of Obamacare–which, btw, was on the brink of failure.

“Let me ask you a question, sir,” I said. “I’m fifty-three years old, can you name me a liberal policy in the last thirty years that has negatively effected your life?”

“Obamacare!” he said.

“But sir, Obamacare is Mitt Romney’s health care plan for the state of Massachusetts, when he was that states republican governor.”

“Oh, then I guess you know everything,” the old, wrinkled, spoiled rotten American said.

“So you can’t answer my question, then,” I asked.

Both he and his wife got up with their paper plates full of processed food and walked to the other side of the room. They sat with other old people and continued eating.

It was a disgusting moment as I watched all those old people, born around the end of WW2, filled with rage because, well, they weren’t able to take even more than they already owned to the grave with them. Shame. Shame. Shame.

Rant on.

-t

Anti-Theist vs Atheist In The Church Pew

doodle from a church pew

Anti-theist. There. I said it. (Pause.) It’s who I am. The only problem is I don’t feel any better by having said it. I mean, it’s obviously not the same as coming out as gay or purple or a hetero who likes pink. But my therapist said that by going public with it, it will help my self esteem and my posture. (Pause.) Yet this “coming out” most certainly isn’t helping with that alienating feeling I get after having talked to my therapist about it and/or that one visit to Curacao where I thought I saw a whale shark in the Willemstad harbour. It turns out that it wasn’t a whale shark at all but instead the backhand of a creole doll that thought little of my attempt at flirtation while practicing Dutch. (Short pause.) Ok. Whatever. §Here’s the thing, dear worst-reader. I’ve been to church (accompanying my mother) twice with this US visit. And it looks like I’ll be going one more time before I fly back to Eurowasteland. In fact, last night, at mid-day mass, I felt compelled to listen to the preacher talk about what he thought were the original songs sung during the Christmas celebration at the birth of Christ. They sang songs, I asked myself. Sure, why can’t the three kings, the shepherds and the guiding angels sing songs? I mean, there has to be something about our commercial Christmas that relates to the birth of Christ–other than his supposed birth date? It’s obviously not relevant that Jesus was probably born in July. Which is even more confusing when one considers that he was a Pisces. I mean, that’s why people put those fish symbols on their cars, right? Pisces the twins. Oh. And who was Jesus’ twin? Nomatter. And then there’s that thing with the tree. A Christmas tree is from a pagan, nordic ritual, ain’t it? Again–nomatter. §While sitting in the pew of my mother’s church, after the boredom set in once the preacher was done with whatever I thought interesting, I reached into the prayer/song book holder on the back of the pew in front of me. And what do I find? Someone left a nice little doodle (see pic above). Did they leave it for me? Did they forget it? If only I could figure out what it means. Not unlike trying to figure out virgin births, angels, metaphysics beyond the realm of nature, physics, etc. Oh well. At the least, it sounds better to be an anti-theist than it does to be atheist. I guess. Rant on. -Tommi

Link:

Antitheism | Wiki

By Definition We Are

psycopath v sociopath
Don’t worry. This pic is a modified cut & paste picture that worst-writer made while fiddling around on the Internets. So there!

psychopath |ˈsīkəˌpaθ|
noun
a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior.

sociopath |ˈsōsēōˌpaθ|
noun
a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.

In the wake of recent “mass” shooting in my beloved #americant, I got to thinking about one of the deeper issues involved in it that could also be considered a cause. This issue, of course, as with other mass shootings, is never addressed in a public forum. The reason for that is simple. If the cause for this or any other mass shooting were to actually be addressed in a public forum, I think the lights would go out and hysteria would be the new norm. (That’s right. There is lots of potential for even more hysteria!) Heck, things would be so bad that Americans might actually think twice about going out and buying something for holy consumer day–i.e. xmas or black monday or the last Tuesday before the vernal equinox. With that nonsense in mind… §The issue I’m worst-writing about is the fact that an already ignorant voting populace that consistently supports republicans, conservatives and neo-fascists, cannot differentiate between a sociopath, a psychopath and a snake oil salesman. And I’m not talking about knowing the difference between all the killers that are running around with their high-powered rifles, their extended clips and their semi-automatic hand guns. No. It’s now time for Americans to start seeing through the people that somehow, in their own perverse, self-righteous, amoral way, have stoked the crazies. Just get a load of what Cruz and Fiorina have said (see linked articles below). Carly Fiorina, a formative presidential candidate for 2016, goes so far as to equate #blacklivesmatter protestors with pro-life protestors. Now. I don’t know about you, dear worst-reader, but that blows my mind. Conservative and neo-fascists have been attacking abortion clinics, shooting people, blowing things up for years. What has #blacklivesmatter protestors ever done to anybody? But I digress. Good luck suckers. And. Rant on. -tommi

Links that motivated this post:

The Bigot Meter

ahmed clockTrillions of dollars have been spent. Habeas Corpus has been suspended–along with Bill of Rights. The government has the right to spy on you. You can be put on a no-fly list. We now have a government institution named homeland security. We also have a patriot act that cannot be dissolved which guarantees all the above. Seriously. Can it get more Orwellian? I’m sure there is plenty more to add to the list. But it all seems redundant at this point, doesn’t it? I mean, what has happened since that morning? That morning in September, 2001. I’ll tell you what has happened. They won. No, seriously. We might as well come out and admit it. The terrorists have won. The guys in those planes, the guys in Afghanistan, the Iranians, Hamas, ISIS/ISIL. Etc. All of ’em. They have won. Wanna know how I know they’ve won? Just look around. Look around as though you’ve never looked around before. Nomatter what you believe, what TV station you watch, what party you (think you) vote for, look around. The world has gone batshit. All there is, as ever has been, is profitability, greed, death, destruction and batshit. And that’s the ticket, dear worst-reader. The terrorists have won because, well, batshit rules. “But wait. Hasn’t it always been that way, worst-writer?” Ok. Maybe it has. But it seems to me that in the past, when the batshit got too thick, when the ammonia stench overwhelms, something came along to counter it. What that something is, I can’t get into here. It’s too broad, wide, over-reaching–and way too deep for worst-writer. Instead, all one needs to consider, look at, are the little things. Like how a 14 year old American citizen high school student, with brown skin, a muslim name and a small case with a bunch of wires and circuits in it, gets arrested–because batshit rules. Our minds have been so overcome with fear, so clouded with anger, so dimmed with wanton ignorance, that a boy’s science project MUST be a bomb. What! Wait. And that’s not all. Batshit is more than everywhere. You can see it in the way police departments across the country wield deadly force over communities, mainly aimed at people with dark skin. You can see it when presidential candidates get questions from “citizens” regarding the legitimacy of a dark skin president. You can see it when the Republican Party splits into factions of … Batshit. Indeed. The terrorists have won because we now officially live for batshit–thanks to them. And since we’re on the issue of thanking, I want to thank Ahmed Mohamed for providing #americant with yet another beacon of light to the truth–and for giving us the first ever BIGOT METER.

Good luck suckers. Rant on. -t

Links that motivated this post:

Separation Of Church And The Gullible

happy gullibleThere is a reason you can’t get divorced in a church. There is also a reason a church can’t issue a marriage license. Beyond the fact that worst-writer thinks marriage–as a state sanctioned institution–should be abolished, there is the age-old question of what came first: the chicken or the gullible? I won’t argue the issue of whether or not #americant is a nation born of religious faith–especially, in the eyes of timid sheep, born of Abrahamic faith. Instead I like to turn the conversation to puritanism and bidness. What most people have forgotten (or fail to recognise) is that America is a business. It is not a country. It is not a nation. It is a place of pure and unadulterated commerce. Period. Without belittling the pride so many feel for Her, that is not to say that there is no validity to the tears often shed when The Star Spangled Banner is sung–I choke up myself here and there. Yet none of that should hide the reality that there are two sides to any bidness transaction: there is the side that profits and the side that takes its seat among the gullible in order to enable and facilitate that profit. Obviously the experiment (that is America and has become #americant) has worked well for the profiteers. It’s even worked well for those that used to be close to the profiteers, i.e. the middle class, although that part is obviously waning. But, indeed, as is the case whenever the top trickles down to the bottom, at some point the top starts to feel cheated–as is the case post the new-deal. Now it’s payback time. Political conservatism in the United Mistakes has had a field day in the past thirty or so years getting some payback for what FDR, “liberals” and Democrats have done in an attempt to halt the top from taking everything. And I would even go so far as to say that the gullible have tried once or twice to wake up to the reality of this. But, instead of continuing to push for some form of top-down concessions, the gullible rest on laurels. In my lifetime Americans, in order to make sense of what has been done to them, i.e. the economy, wars on this or that, terrorism, guns, mass shootings, failing infrastructure, credit card debt, etc., etc., have sought answers where there are none–mostly because the wrong questions are being asked. How should the gullible, the stupid, ask the right questions? I don’t know and I don’t give a shit. The only thing I care about is the vacuum of/in the mind. Fear becomes your way of life. Threat becomes your daily dose. Neighbour becomes your enemy. Stupid is your survival. And so. I believe the founding fathers had an answer almost three hundred years ago for what ails #americant today. It is the answer to the ultimate question. And it goes something like this: the separation of church and state is what will set you free. The reason the founding fathers wanted a state separated from the church is because without the church (at least in the western world) there can be no king. How does a king gets his power, you ask. Through… Wait for it. Wait. A king gets his power the same way religion does. Faith. Belief. The gullible. People have to believe. But America has no king, you say. And you are right, dear worst-reader. But it has something that leads to a king. The faithful in #americant today have been wielded oh so brilliantly by the powers-that-be. Political conservatism has latched on to these believers like a leech. This is most obvious in the religious right and the gullible (believers) that somehow get jobs in state governments where they freely force (their) religion on others. Separation of church and state? Oh well. That’s ok. America was fun while it lasted. I guess. And so. I mean. Come on. A measly clerk in a Kentucky government office doesn’t perform her mandated job? And she’s even willing to go to jail for that? Seriously? That’s like saying a cop won’t arrest a bank robber cause he’s believes in his lunch break. But of course. After fighting this thru courts all the way to the Supremes, this is where the right side of history converges? Indeed it does. And with that in mind. Good luck suckers.

Rant on. -Tommi

Links that motivated this post:

Great Unknown Men

“The greatest men in the world have passed away unknown. The Buddhas and the Christs that we know are but second-rate heroes in comparison with the greatest men of whom the world knows nothing. Hundreds of these unknown heroes have lived in every country working silently. Silently they live and silently they pass away; and in time their thoughts find expression in Buddhas or Christs; and it is these latter that become known to us. The highest men do not seek to get any name or fame from their knowledge. They leave their ideas to the world; they put forth no claims for themselves and establish no schools or systems in their name. Their whole nature shrinks from such a thing. They are the pure Sattvikas, who can never make any stir but only melt down in love.”

-Swami Vivekananda, from the preface/citation of Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare