As much as I hate religion- and I do, it really sticks in my craw, I find myself more and more leaning towards embracing the moderate faction of U.S. Xians as a means to negating the influence of the Dominionists, the Ron Luces, and the plain vanilla fundies that have brought us twelve years of a Repiglickin-controlled Congress and eight years of the awful Bush administration.

On that note, Senator Barack Obama(D-IL), spoke to the Sojourners recently.

Full article is here.

‘”If we don’t reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons will continue to hold sway,” Obama said, naming two outspoken right-wing Christian figures.”‘

snip.

‘”I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people.

“After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan,” Obama said.“They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness — in the imperfections of man.”‘Now, I’m not so big on any kind of acknowledgement of faith, least of all it’s power, but he does seem to suggest that the “indifference” and the “callousness” might be best attacked from a moderate religious viewpoint- a christlike viewpoint for a change? This makes sense, or sense enough for me to bite my tongue in a political context about my enmity towards all faith. He goes on;

Now, I’m not so big on any kind of acknowledgement of faith, least of all it’s power, but he does seem to suggest that the “indifference” and the “callousness” might be best attacked from a moderate religious viewpoint- a christlike viewpoint for a change? This makes sense, or sense enough for me to bite my tongue in a political context about my enmity towards all faith. He goes on;“It is doubtful that children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase ‘under God;’ I certainly didn’t.”‘

All along, I’ve thought Newdow’s campaign against the god mention in the pledge was just retarded, same with the currency. It’s just, I don’t know, insignificant in the grand scheme of these Dominionists. I campaigned for Paul Hackett here in Ohio, an oh-so-close loss to “Mean” Jean Schmidt- the woman who called Jack Murtha a “coward.”

In that campaign, I wasn’t shy about belittling the religious even among the campaign staff and I’m starting to think that was the wrong approach. You?

Forget all that Adam and Eve crap and the rest of Genesis. Assume that the tales of Exodus may or may not be true and it matters not in the least if they are. That leaves us at the troubling Leviticus. I’m game, how ’bout you?

LEVITICUS

1:1

And the rules shall be simple, concise, and not subject to interpretation.

1:2

And killing shall be done only in self-defense- defined as immediate threat to one’s own life- or to stop the perpetration of a grave offense to humanity such as genocide- or ethnic cleansing.

1:3

And turning the other cheek is the preferred method of dealing with conflict but sometimes the person doing the initial striking needs his ass handed to him.

1:4

And guns are for cowards who are unable to defend themselves mano a mano or for hunters who, unless the meat is needed for survival, are pretty much the same thing.

1:5

And they who would declare War must first offer up all their age eligible kin to man the trenches, as it were. Flesh in the game, you know. You hear me, Bush twins?

1:6

And thievery shall only be mitigated by the need to feed one’s family, not one’s habit nor one’s accustomed lifestyle and it must be done without bodily harm to any.

1:7

And all those ridiculous “kosher” or “halal” laws are hereby rescinded. Go have a lobster wrapped in bacon, you know you want to.

1:8

“And the men who hold high places must be the ones to start to mould a new reality, closer to the heart…”

1:9

And all mind-altering drugs shall be legal, quality controlled, and taxed by the government, with the proceeds going to a state of the art national treatment system.

1:10

And they who perpetrate cruelty on animals shall have the same cruelty performed on them.

1:11

And they who commit crimes of hatred shall also have the same done to them.

1:12

And marriage shall be the joining together of two consenting adults, regardless of their gender, in celebration of their love for one another.

1:13

And Rick Santorum shall marry a male Irish Wolfhound named “Woody”. And John Cornyn shall marry a Box Turtle named “Speedy”.

1:14

And those who neglect, abuse, or rape children shall be physically castrated and branded on the forehead with the letter “P”. This will make NAMBLA a circus sideshow eunuch troop.

1:15

And those who claim to have spoken with me are lying because I am not here and I do not speak.

1:16

And Iiiiiieeeeiiiieeeeiiiii will always love youwuwuwuwuwuwuwu.

1:17

And, since there is no such place that is a “holy land”, what is now Israel shall be razed flat, irrigated, and sewn with cedar trees. The Vatican shall become a museum with all it’s hoarded treasures on display and the pope as your friendly fascist tour guide. And that big, black rock at Mecca shall be hurled into space strapped to a Saturn rocket.

1:18

And you may call me anything you like but “late for supper”.

1:19

And none are my “chosen” people.

1:20

And all the Muslim and orthodox Jewish laws pertaining to a woman’s manner of dress shall be thrown out.

1:21

And prostitution shall be legalized everywhere it isn’t already.

1:22

And gun crimes will also be charged to the owner of the weapon used if they be different from the actual perpetrator. If the piece be not legally registered, ownership shall revert back to the last holder of the gun in question up to and including the manufacturer.

1:23

And Charlton Heston’s “cold, dead fingers” shall be deposited in Charlton Heston’s cold, dead ass for posterity.

1:24

And the word “god” on currency or in pledges and songs shall be replaced with “Boogie-boogie!”.

1:25

And numquam ubi sub ubi. NSFW!!

Those are the rules I, your Lord Almighty God, can think of right now. Please post further laws as though I had spoken them in your ear or appeared in your burning bush(see 1:25).

One of these two images is a famous medieval icon of Mary and Jesus, the other is a bronze statue of Isis nursing Horus dating from the Ptolomeic era of Egypt

Some scholars argue that aspects of Isis worship have influenced the practices of some Christians in regard to the Virgin Mary and especially her relationship with her son, Jesus. There is a strong resemblance to the depiction of the seated Isis holding or suckling the child Horus and the seated Mary and the baby Jesus. It has been suggested by these scholars that the reason Isis worship abruptly ends, despite the vast number of its adherents, is due to her having been identified as Mary, and her temples having been merely renamed in consequence. If this is true then it could be said that, in a way, Isis is still worshipped today, and has been for at least 5000 years.

Many Egyptologists however disagree with the claims, stating that by the time the cult of Virgin Mary arose, the worship of Isis has greatly evolved from the Egyptian myths, and her relationship with Horus was no longer a major factor. These egyptologists consider that the goddess whose worship was replaced by Christianity was a merged Isis-Aphrodite hybrid, with sexuality and magical aspects much more important to the cult. By this time she was almost never depicted as a mother with baby; she was mostly depicted alone, often lifting her dress to expose her genitals. Nethertheless, the resemblence between early christian images of Mary and those of Isis are sometimes striking, providing an explanation for the somewhat awkward position of Mary’s arm - breastfeeding that was later censured by the addition of clothing.

Isis’ son, Horus is an ancient god of Egyptian mythology, whose cult survived so long that he evolved dramatically over time and gained many names. The most well known name is the Greek Horus, representing the Egyptian Heru/Har, which is the basic element in most of the other names of Horus. Horus was so important that the Eye of Horus became an important Egyptian symbol of power and even to this day is represented on the U.S. one dollar bill.

Horus and Jesus
A connection between Jesus and Horus-Osiris is frequently raised by critics of the historicity of Jesus. Superficially, the death and resurrection of Horus-Osiris, and Horus’ nature as both the son of Osiris and Osiris himself, appear to be a template for the idea that this occurred in Jesus.

Deeper similarities between Horus and Jesus, which are not at all obvious to those who are not completely familiar with ancient Egyptian mythology and linguistics, have been said by some to mean that certain elements of the story of Jesus were embellishments, which were copied from the Horus as syncretism. Indeed, according to a few more radical scholars, Jesus was copied from Horus wholesale, and made into a Jewish teacher. In particular, it is said that Horus is the basis for the elements assigned to the M Gospel (the bits in Matthew which are not in the Q Gospel or Mark) and the L Gospel (the bits in Luke which are not in the Q gospel or Mark), especially the infancy narratives.

Jesus brought salvation. Osiris brought salvation 1,400 years earlier. Osiris’ followers knew their fate after death depended on the morality of the life they lead before death. The ancient Book of the Dead pictures resurrected believers standing in the presence of Osiris as their judge. If they could recite a list of their good deeds in life, Osiris rewarded them with eternal life. When initiates into the mysteries of Isis and Osiris died, their souls traveled to Heaven and Osiris became their king. How do we know this? The ancients tell us so. Here’s Plutarch [who lived from about 45 to 120 AD] And it wasn’t just Plutarch who wrote about salvation through Isis and Osiris:

“The keys of hell and the guarantee of salvation were in the hands of the goddess, and the initiation ceremony itself a kind of voluntary death and salvation through divine grace.” Apuleius, Metamorphosis, Book 11, 21]

And, “Be of good cheer, O initiates, for the god is saved, and we shall have salvation for our woes.” [Firmicus Maternus, The Error of Pagan Religions, 22.1]

Quoting the Goddess Isis: ” I have come with solace and aid. Away then with tears. cease to moan. Send sorrow fleeing. Soon through my providence shall the sun of your salvation rise.” Apuleius, Metamorphosis 11.5]

Wikipedia Links: Isis, Osiris, Horus

Link: Pagan Origins of Christ Myth

I came across one of those stories where you shake your head and say “glad that wasn’t me.”

OPERATION REMOVES LIGHTBULB FROM MAN’S ANUS

MULTAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Fateh Mohammad, a prison inmate in Pakistan, says he woke up last weekend with a glass lightbulb in his anus.

The doctor treating Mohammad said he’d never encountered anything like it before, and doubted the felon’s story that someone had drugged him and inserted the bulb while he was comatose.

Ok, so he’s in jail because he was making some hootch, which his religion forbids, gets sent to prison for four years for doing so, gets a lightbulb shoved up his ass, and his first response is “Thank Allah!!!” Uh, dude, maybe next time find a religion and country that doesn’t mind if you knock back a few cocktails and while you’re at it, you might want to ask your gawd why he landed you in the clink in the first place, letting you be violated by a 60 watt.

Okay. My last post about Carl Sagan tonight, I promise.

Did you know he has a MySpace page?

http://www.myspace.com/carlsagan

Okay, it’s not really him, of course, but what a fun way to remember him.

Carl Sagan’s Blurbs

Who I’d like to meet:
Those who are involved with the fight against myelodysplasia, which is the illness that I succumbed to on December 20, 1996 at the young age of 62.

And how cool is this?

Carl Sagan has 409 friends.

And I love the fact that they give his age as it would be now:

Male
71 years old
Seattle, Washington
United States

Check out all the comments from Carl’s friends. Kinda chokes ya up a bit.

I think I’ll grab my copy of Broca’s Brain and head to bed.

For those who have not read it, this article by Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan’s widow and partner in the pursuit of knowledge of many years, is what I like to call inspiration. I have been thinking about ol’ Carl a lot lately and I have a few things to post about him tonight. Please, take the time to grab a laptop and a cozy seat or (gasp!) print this one out and enjoy it at your leisure. A gem.

A bit of a taste:

I’ve been thinking about the distorted view of science that prevails in our culture. I’ve been wondering about this, because our civilization is completely dependent on science and high technology, yet most of us are alienated from science. We are estranged from its methods, its values, and its language. Who is the scientist in our culture? He is Dr. Faustus, Dr. Frankenstein, Dr. Strangelove…

… I think the roots of this antagonism to science run very deep. They’re ancient. We see them in Genesis, this first story, this founding myth of ours, in which the first humans are doomed and cursed eternally for asking a question, for partaking of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

… It’s puzzling that Eden is synonymous with paradise when, if you think about it at all, it’s more like a maximum-security prison with twenty-four hour surveillance. It’s a horrible place. Adam and Eve have no childhood. They awaken full-grown. What is a human being without a childhood? Our long childhood is a critical feature of our species. It differentiates us, to a degree, from most other species. We take a longer time to mature. We depend upon these formative years and the social fabric to learn many of the things we need to know.

So here are Adam and Eve, who have awakened full grown, without the tenderness and memory of childhood. They have no mother, nor did they ever have one. The idea of a mammal without a mother is, by definition, tragic. It’s the deepest kind of wound for our species; antithetical to our flourishing, to who we are.

… Their father is a terrifying, disembodied voice who is furious with them from the moment they first awaken. He doesn’t say, “Welcome to the planet Earth, my beautiful children! Welcome to this paradise. Billions of years of evolution have shaped you to be happier here than anywhere else in the vast universe. This is your paradise.” No, instead God places Adam and Eve in a place where there can be no love; only fear, and fear-based behavior, obedience. God threatens to kill Adam and Eve if they disobey his wishes. God tells them that the worst crime, a capital offense, is to ask a question; to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. What kind of father is this? As Diderot observed, the God of Genesis “loved his apples more than he did his children.”

… Perhaps Genesis should be read as an ironic story. Here’s a god who does not give us the knowledge of good and evil. He knows we don’t know right from wrong. Yet he tells us not to do something anyway. How can someone who doesn’t know right from wrong be expected to do the right thing? By disobeying god, we escape from his totalitarian prison where you cannot ask any questions, where you must never question authority. We become our human selves.

… I think we still have an acute case of post-Copernican-stress syndrome. We have not resolved the trauma of losing our infantile sense of centrality in the universe. And so as a society we lie to our children. We tell them a palliative story, almost to ensure that they will be infantile for all of their lives. Why? Is the notion that we die so unacceptable? Is the notion that we are tiny and the universe is vast too much of a blow to our shaky self-esteem?

… t has only been through science that we have been able to pierce this infantile, dysfunctional need to be the center of the universe, the only love object of its creator. Science has made it possible to reconstruct our distant past without the need to idealize it, like some adult unable to deal with the abuse of childhood. We’ve been able to view our tiny little home as it is. Our conception of our surroundings need not remain the disproportionate view of the still-small child. Science has brought us to the threshold of acceptance of the vastness. It has carried us to the gateway of the universe. However, we are spiritually and culturally paralyzed and unable to move forward; to embrace the vastness, to embrace our lack of centrality and find our actual place in the fabric of nature. That we even do science is hopeful evidence for our mental health. It’s a breakthrough. However, it’s not enough to allow these insights; we must take them to heart.

… [Losing our sense of centrality in the universe] made us sick. In our souls we cherished a myth that was rootless in nature. What we actually knew of nature we compartmentalized into a place that could not touch our souls. The churches agreed to stop torturing and murdering scientists. The scientists pretended that knowledge of the universe has no spiritual implications.

It’s a catastrophic tragedy that science ceded the spiritual uplift of its central revelations: the vastness of the universe, the immensity of time, the relatedness of all life and it’s preciousness on this tiny world.

… When I say “spiritual,” it’s a complicated word that has some unpleasant associations. Still, there has to be a word for that soaring feeling that we experience when we contemplate 13 billion years of cosmic evolution and four and a half billion years of the story of life on this planet. Why should we give that up? Why do we not give this to our children? Why is it that in a city like Los Angeles, a city of so many churches and temples and mosques, there’s only one place like this Center for Inquiry? And that it’s only us here today? Fewer than a hundred people in a city of millions? Why is that? Why does the message of science not grab people in their souls and give them the kind of emotional gratification that religion has given to so many?

This is something that I think we have to come to grips with. There’s a confusion generally in our society. There is a great wall that separates what we know from what we feel.

Anyway, go give it a read. There’s so much more. And the ending, about Carl’s death, is beautiful and bittersweet.

Please excuse the interruption, but I thought this science story was way cool.

When Ants Go Marching, They Count Their Steps

Snippets:

Ants use an internal pedometer to find their way home without getting sidetracked, a new study reports.

Desert ants on foraging expeditions use celestial cues to orient themselves in the homeward direction, but with few landmarks in the barren land, scientists have wondered how the insects always take the most direct route and know exactly how far to march.

The new study reveals that counting their steps is a crucial part of the scheme…

… [The researchers] glued stilt-like extensions to the legs of some ants to lengthen stride. The researchers shortened other ants’ stride length by cutting off the critters’ feet and lower legs, reducing their legs to stumps.

By manipulating the ants’ stride lengths, the researchers could determine whether the insects were using an odometer-like mechanism to measure the distance, or counting off steps with an internal pedometer.

The ants on stilts took the right number of steps, but because of their increased stride length, marched past their goal. Stump-legged ants, meanwhile, fell short of the goal.

After getting used to their new legs, the ants were able to adjust their pedometer and zero in on home more precisely, suggesting that stride length serves as an ant pedometer. More

Just another reminder that reality is always more awe-inspiring than any mumbo jumbo people invent to try to fill their lives with wonder (or to wrap themselves in a big fat security blanket, more like it).

A religion that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by traditional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.
– Carl Sagan,

Again, sorry for the interruption. You may now return to your heathenous bashing of religious nuttery.

My first somewhat lame attempt to set the GifS Sunday Bible Passages to video.

Popular Christian Rocker Jeremy Camp Teams Up With the Book of Leviticus to teach you What You Should Kill People For.

Had a little problem with the low-res Quicktime in Final Cut Pro. It came out sortta smallish. Oh, well, even God fucks things up once in a while. I’ll be sure to make a slicker one next time.