Here it is at last, the product of all my postponed projects and procrastination. And we're only on Chapter 3 of Genesis. Gah... Some quick notes first.
It should be clear to readers which comments I make as legitimate logical and moral claims, and which are just me dicking around with wordplay, etc. If I'm being uber-literal, chances are it's just me poking fun at a confusing document and making inappropriate and lame references to things. However, do keep in mind that many self-proclaimed Christians interpret the Bible literally. So while I'm probably missing the richer literary significance and undertones of the book, I'm also pointing out its inadequacies as a moral guide.
And it's also poorly written.
Also keep in mind that I'm reading this as both a work of fiction and a list of purported historical accounts. Mostly fiction, since no historian would take this seriously and themselves be taken seriously by anyone other than backwards patriarchal conspiracy theorists. When I'm referring to the characters of the Bible, they are just that, characters, not actual people. Just like in The Passion of the Christ. So when I call God a dick, I mean God the character. If the biblical God were to be real, he would be a dick. A dick of infinite, incomprehensible magnitude.
Thank God he doesn't exist.
Wait...
Oh! And we're in for a treat for this reading, since in this Bible (Douay-Rheims, for those of you who recall) Chapter 3's introductory lines tell us that the reading includes "the promise of a Redeemer". Oh, joy of joys! We're finally going to see how Jesus fits into this misogynistic jumbled cooked-up creation myth. I mean, this most holy creation account.
Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth which the Lord God had made... (Genesis 3:1)
As Ricky Gervais noted, "In my humble opinion, I think the snake was a mistake."
Really, what is the function of this snake if not to deceive people? Seeing as there's little good in deception during this (fictional) period of time, it seems the only thing this snake can do is be a bastard, since God created him to be a bastard. But then that would make God a bastard too, wouldn't it? Same goes for God creating psychopaths and the violently insane. If you ever get any high-minded ideas about free will and God's benevolence in creation, just remember there are people with neurological disorders that make it medically impossible to make morally good decisions.
Also note that this chapter never states that the serpent is actually the devil. It's heavily implied, I know, but then the punishment that follows for the serpent doesn't make much sense. This chapter also seems to suggest God made the devil a liar deliberately.
... And he said to the woman: Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise?
And the woman answered him, saying:... (Genesis 3:1-2)
"Holy shit, a talking snake, what the fuck??" Kidding, she never seems to question the presence of a talking snake. Maybe it was like a Disney movie and all the other animals could talk? I don't know. But it doesn't seem to matter, since humans at this point appear to have the IQ of a cup of noodles.
By the way, I didn't add those italics. I don't know why they're in the goddamn Bible.
... Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we do eat:
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die. (3:2-3)
Well why the hell put the tree there in the first place? What purpose is there in a tree that causes people to die? Or what point is there in arbitrarily punishing people for eating from a tree that's like any other? It's like having a door that's not broken, won't set off an alarm, doesn't lead to a prohibited area, and has no special designation, but still has a sign on it that says "Use Other Door". Just put a fucking wall there!
Consider the obvious fact that Adam and Eve - who, I remind you, represent all of the potential future for humanity - are dumb as bricks, since it's implied that they were just created a day or so ago. They don't even know what lying is, for Christ's sake. And as far as they can tell, each fruit is like every other, and there's no reason for them to think their beloved God would plant a tree there just to trap them into becoming mortal. So for a more apt moral comparison, it's like filling a baby bottle with arsenic and then warning an infant not to drink from that one bottle, which looks the same as the other bottles.
This doesn't bode well for God's reputation as the moral nexus of the universe.
And the serpent said to the woman: No, you shall not die the death. (3:4)
"You shall walk the walk."
For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil. (3:5)
I hate to bring this up, but... knowing the difference between good and evil is a good thing. Ignorance isn't virtuous, especially not as far as moral discrepancy is concerned. If you're wearing a blissful smile on your face while you're maiming and killing people... that's fucked up. God's word doesn't really have any input on that. And if you think it does, I'd like to stay as far away from you as possible.
Knowledge = gladness.
And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold: (3:6)
"Um... Eve, the... the fruit, you're supposed to go for the fruit. Don't look at the tree like that. Keep your eye on the prize, Eve. Honey? Hello?"
...and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat. (3:6)
So she didn't even have to bother tempting Adam, she just handed the fruit to him and he said "Yes, Dear". Didn't he know it was the forbidden fruit? If he didn't then he was suckered into damnation and God was wrong to judge him, and if he did know then he was a passive moron. Did God not create intelligence yet?
And the eyes of them both were opened: and when they perceived themselves to be naked, they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons. (3:7)
Okay, Christians, Jews, seriously, stop trying to pass off your prudishness as part of human nature, or from some unseen moral source. Human bodies can be pleasing to the eye. Oftentimes people want sex. We're not all suddenly going to become sex offenders if we admit that sex, even casual sex, can be nice. It's part of who were are. Get used to it.
Come to think of it, Adam and Eve were butt-naked back when they were without sin. And once they knew they had sinned they became ashamed of their nudity. So doesn't this mean that we can only be free from Original Sin if we're naked and not ashamed of it? The message is clear: all Christians must become nudists upon being saved. It's the only way to be sure.
Also, where did they get the thread and know-how to sew those leaves together? And were they really wearing aprons? That means their backsides were completely exposed, butt cheeks flapping in the wind.
Gah. I need goggles to read this thing.
And when they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise at the afternoon air, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God, amidst the trees of paradise. (3:8)
Oh, so God's voice was walking along in paradise. That makes perfect sense. What the fuck does that mean? Sure I'm being an anal literalist, but why don't you tell me what the correct interpretation is? Did God have a body that was walking? Did he say something? Did Adam and Eve just sense him? What could the writers possibly have been trying to say??
And yeah, I know that God is omnipresent and omniscient, so Adam and Eve are being idiots for trying to hide. But then how does God alarm people like that? Did he just say "OOGA BOOGA, I AM HERE, FLEE BEFORE MY GODLINESS"?
And the Lord God called Adam, and said to him, Where art thou?
And he said: I heard thy voice in paradise and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself. (3:9-10)
Clever dick, that God, asking where Adam was. Adam had not yet learned the first lesson of not being seen: not to stand up.
Gotta sympathize with Adam here, though. I know I'd be afraid if I was naked and out in the open. This is textbook psychology stuff.
And he said to him: And who hath told thee that thou wast naked, but that thou hast eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat? (3:11)
"Shouldst"? Quick posthumous tip for Olde English writers: if you can't pronounce it, don't write it. Can you imagine trying to contract the negative form of that word? "Shouldstn't."
And Adam said: The woman, whom though gavest me to be my companion, gave me of the tree, and I did eat. (3:12)
Adam: the world's first rat.
And the Lord God said to the woman: Why hast thou done this? And she answered: The serpent deceived me, and I did eat. (3:13)
Well, the snake asserted something that wasn't true. He didn't really go to great lengths to conceal his intentions. I know it's supposed to be the first lie in the history of creation, but where's the lesson in that? Were the writers afraid that Jews/Christians were so gullible as to believe anything a talking animal tells them? Then again, we are talking about people who take a fair amount of bullshit based on faith. If skepticism were the actual lesson then we'd all be a lot better off. Critical thinking does a clayman good.
We're all claymen, remember? We didn't evolve from goo, you know. God crafted us from clay. So instead of being treated like animals, we're supposed to be treated like... dirt... yeah...
I think you may have heard this before.
And the Lord God said to the serpent: Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle,... (3:14)
Good thing the snake isn't a cow.
...and beasts of the earth. (3:14)
Damn, spoke too soon.
Upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. (3:14)
I'm pretty sure snakes don't eat dirt, unless God is assuming snakes keep their mouths wide open as they crawl along the dirt. God is kind of dense, isn't he?
I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel. (3:15)
Hey, go easy on the snake, man. He's only doing what he does best. If you had just given him some legs, spats, and a top hat, he could have been a great entertainer. That would have been much more fulfilling (and awesome) than the cunning you gave him.
Also note the first instance where God creates hostilities where none existed previously. God's love at work, ladies and gentlemen. Just imagine how much suffering could have been alleviated if we were still at peace with snakes. Anti-venom would be obsolete. God must be pushing antidotes for profit.
I'm talking about living life on peaceful terms with snakes. Sometimes I think this book will drive me out of my damn mind.
To the woman also he said: I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband's power, and he shall have dominion over thee. (3:16)
Welcome to Misogyny 101.
About making childbearing painful... Did Eve have a wider pelvis before the Fall, and God shrunk her down a couple sizes? It's like a magical hereditary corset. This would also suggest that C-sections are sinful. Won't all our mothers be thrilled to find out.
Just going to interject an idea of mine, as if it's not what I've already been doing. What would have happened if Adam and Eve didn't have any kids? What if they told God "No, go fuck yourself" and lived the rest of their lives and died childless. That'd put God's panties in a bunch. He went through all this effort to create a universe to set himself up as master of the human race (Why?), and then the first generation just dies out uneventfully. What would he have done? Would he just say "Well, that happened" and start all over again? Would he try creating more humans? What if he did and didn't tell us? That'd be quite a story, I think. God keeps trying to make mortals to rule over, and evolution by natural selection beats him to it. God sounds like the kind of guy who could try over and over for 4 billion years without getting anywhere.
And to Adam he said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife,... (3:17)
Ohhh, so Adam's mistake was listening to his wife! That explains it. Nope, can't see where anyone gets any ideas of patriarchy from the Bible.
I think Adam should have said "Hey come on! The writers didn't even give me a chance to make an argument!" I know I'd be pissed if I were a character in a book that was this poorly written as to skip over a critical piece of dialogue.
...and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life. (3:17)
If hard labour in the field is supposed to be Man's curse, isn't smart agriculture cheating? Why did no one give any explanation once agriculture technology yielded massive surpluses? Shouldn't someone have said that we have to leave our fates up to God? But then, that'd mean a lot of theocrats going hungry. You see if it were a woman trying to use reproductive technology, then it's a different story. We can't have women making decisions about their own lives, there's a God to appease!
Speaking of women and agriculture, since men are supposed to suffer in the fields, what about when women till the earth alongside men? Does God get pissed?
Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth. (3:18)
Herbs? Do we have to? Can't we stick to fruit and meat? Next thing you know, you'll be forbidding us from eating bacon. But God wouldn't do that. Nope. That would be mighty stupid.
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread til thou return to the earth,... (3:19)
"And in the sweat of thy back shalt thou eat beef, and in the sweat of thy pant leg shalt thou eat butter..."
...out of which thou wast taken, and into dust thou shalt return. (3:19)
See? We're all claymen. Or dustmen. Whatever.
And Adam called the name of his wife Eve: because she was the mother of all the living. (3:20)
So Eve didn't have a name at this point? Did Adam just call her "woman" up until then? It seems so, since he's said a grand total of two things in his entire existence so far.
And I presume she's mother of all living humans, rather than other animals. And not the dead, fuck 'em.
And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins, and clothed them. (3:21)
It's good that they glanced over the part where God makes the animals come apart at the seams. I don't think we needed to see that.
And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now, therefore, lest perhaps he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever. (3:22)
What? What?? Wait, what?! They hadn't eaten from the tree of life yet?! Why?? They were allowed to before, and you didn't mention it? God is a cheating, selfish bastard. That means humans don't die because of Original Sin, it's just because God is a prick who didn't let them eat from the Immortality Tree. Then why create the tree in the first place??
And as for the extremely abstract Christian claim that "us" in this passage refers to the Trinity (three persons in one god and all that nonsensical nonsense), keep in mind there are angels that God appears to talk with routinely, including the devil. Or maybe he's just a schizophrenic.
And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure, to till the earth from which he was taken. (3:23)
Dick.
And he cast out Adam; and placed before the paradise of pleasure Cherubims, and a flaming sword, turning every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. (3:24)
Isn't it great proof for the Bible that we can't find Eden anymore? It must be under a spell, like Hogwarts. If one can claim that Eden exists somewhere, then I'm going to find a magical means of breaking in. You'd think someone would try by now, or at least that they'd mention such attempts in the Bible. Can't you imagine it, people trying to break into Eden, The Great Escape style? Just imagine how many tunnels Adam and his descendants must have dug.
The question that should be on all of our minds at this point is this: Where is the "promise of a Redeemer"? That's right! Abso-fucking-lutely nowhere. God just said "You fucked up, grab your shit and get the fuck out." The real point of this chapter is this: Don't piss off your boss.
This is supposed to be the epic story that is the prelude to the salvation of mankind. Let that sink in when doing further biblical readings. I expect better storytelling from The Office than I do here. This tale is flat, unsympathetic, and with no meaningful metaphors. Why this story? Why this creation story? There are better ways to communicate the Fall of Mankind than eating a piece of fucking fruit. Literally interpreted, the story sucks. Figuratively interpreted, the story blows.
So do you understand now why God needed to send his beloved Son to bloody himself for our own good? I don't. But hey, we're just reading it from beginning to end, so that we're always thinking in context, right? At some point it'll all make sense, right?
After all, we've just started page 4. Only 1,228 pages to go...
Showing posts with label bullshit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bullshit. Show all posts
Monday, March 15, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Please welcome our next sucker!
Game Show Network seems to be the only worthwhile television for the time being, and that's even taking into account the coverage of the earthquake in Haiti. If I want reliable news, I'll go to the BBC. In the meantime I'll watch mind-bogglingly stupid contestants make fools of themselves on unmemorable game shows.
These shows are idiotic by design, and quite obviously so. The prime example is Deal or No Deal, a show where nothing substantial happens and greed overwhelms what little sense these contestants have. Oh god... having Greed flashbacks... Chuck Woolery... No! Agh! Get away from me!
Where was I? Ah! Deal or No Deal, the show where 26 samples of eye candy present the player with 26 cases labeled with meaningless numbers that you can pick in any order without affecting the outcome of the game in any way. Each case contains an amount of money (okay, a tile with the number of the prize money on it) ranging from one cent to $1 million, and the contestant gets to choose one, since choice is the foundation of American life. Once you do the math and acknowledge the logic behind the design of the game, it becomes clear that your choice of a case does not affect your odds of winning for or against you. Which nicely sums up the impact of your case choices for the remainder of the show. The game proceeds with the contestant choosing and opening the remaining 25 cases, eliminating the hope that their case contains any of the revealed amounts. In other words, once you choose your case, if you open the case with $1 million, you know for a fact that you've lost the top prize. Isn't this a nice game? It tells you in advance that you're a loser the moment you started. Most game shows will bullshit contestants into thinking they can win more money than they'll earn in their whole lives, even though it's made perfectly clear from the moment of their introduction that all contestants are hand-picked for their blithering idiocy. For entertainment value, you see. Folks at home want to feel smart by comparison.
Despite this, many contestants on Deal or No Deal proclaim with very obnoxious attitudes that their case is indeed the million dollar case. Nooo, you don't know that, and you can't know that. You hope it's the million dollar case, but what you know is that odds are 25 out of 26 that you don't have it. In fact, your odds of having the million dollars are as good as your odds of choosing the penny. And even if you choose the right case, you have to play all the way to the end, eliminating alternate prizes until you decide to risk everything just to see if you got it out of sheer blind luck. In other words, there's no intelligent way to play this game. But chances are, if you're on the set, you're too stupid to know that. And it's great to watch. It appeals to the sadomasochist in all of us.
Oh, but there's more. Our host is Howie Mandel, a former comedian if you can believe it, and given his performances on the show, I find the "former" part highly plausible. Every so often the contestant must stop choosing cases so that Howie can pretend to talk into a ringing remote control, supposedly linked us with the "Banker", a man we can only see in silhouette in a booth overlooking the set. I'm sorry, but the Banker is not at all an effective villain, even for a game show, so stop acting like he's the biggest ass in the world. It has no impact on the show and he's not memorable at all. Although that lack of memorability does explain why they made Darth Vader the guest banker in a special Star Wars-themed episode...
Excuse me, a little part of me just died right there.
The Banker - who acts nothing at all like the respectable moneyholder all Monopoly players are familiar with - makes the contestant cash offers based on their odds of getting a better prize. The object of this is partly to tempt the players to stop, but mostly to expose them for the greedy fucks they are and later to taunt them mercilessly when they knock out all the big prizes and the offers drop. It is at the moment that an offer is made that a contestant can either say "Deal" and push the Deal button to accept the prize offered, or "No Deal" and close the plastic casing on the button to continue playing a mindless game of press-your-luck. Wait, no... Press Your Luck... Peter Tamarkin... Come on come on, Big Bucks Big Bucks Big Bucks, no Whammy no Whammy STOP!
Ack... I'm a very sad person...
So over the course of watching this show so many times, I and some members of my family have devised numerous ways to rob the show of any of its intended entertainment value.
1) Get rid of the cases. My father for once made a very wise observation: The cases choices are meaningless, so this game is essentially just offers with people declining them thinking they can somehow get something better. So if that's all the gameplay there is, then just get rid of the cases and the models and don't let the contestants choose any numbers at all. You could run this game with any random number generator. In fact, you don't even need a host or a Banker. That'd be quite the game show, wouldn't it? Just a contestant and a laptop, and a leering audience which finally gets to see just how much this game really amounts to on a personal level. The laptop assigns the contestant with a random unknown prize, then it eliminates prizes all on its own, only showing the results with the calculated offers for the contestant to say "Deal" or "No Deal" - represented in this case with the retro Interweb key placement of "Y" or "N". Basically the game will look like this:
Round one:
$18,000 - Y/N?
N
Round two:
$35,000 - Y/N?
N
Round three:
$22,000; You may no longer win $1,000,000 or $750,000 or $500,000 - Y/N?
N
Etc, etc. Reviting, isn't it?
2) Accept the first offer. When a contestant accepts an offer, they're asked what their hypothetical next choices of cases would have been if they continued to play, and the resulting offers are also displayed simply to mock them, before their own case is finally opened to reveal whether they made a "good" or "bad" Deal. Like it matters. So what if the contestant accepts the very first offer they get at the beginning of the game? For one, the audience and host would be baffled as something like that has never happened before and never will, since greed (not the show of the same name... >_<) is the driving force behind the whole show. The pointless involvement of a few of the contestant's family on the side will never have started. And best of all, all of the remaining cases would have to be opened one at a time. All of them. That's 19 cases after the first round to open. That's at least a half dozen hypothetical offers to blaze through. It would be the most pointless and tedious game ending of all, and I'd love every second of it.
3) Go with your case; play all the way through the cases without hesitation. This was my idea, and consequently my favorite. The best way to do this is to show how meaningless the order of case choice is, by choosing the cases in order. Your case is number 1, your next choices of eliminated cases will be 2, 3, 4, 5, etc, until the final two cases are your case 1 and the other case 26. The only way to thoroughly mock the game by playing in this way is to not even consider any of the offers. As soon as Howie raises the plastic casing around the Deal button, you have to slam it back down without giving any time to the offer or even for Howie to say "Deal or No Deal?" (I only recently saw someone do this after the first round. A contestant actually chose the cases based on random draws from a bag of numbered ping pong balls, and then when the first offer came up she closed the case before Howie could ask if she wanted to take the offer. I doubt I'll ever see how that show ends.)
So much of this game show is padding based on case selection and offers that you have to blow right past all of it and continue choosing the cases in order, despite all reason or force-fed tension. Since family members are asked to stand on the sidelines and cheer the contestant on, the family must also adopt this mindless mentality in order to shut Howie up and get the game over with. Contestant and family must all approach this without any hint of involvement or emotion (especially not humor, since cracking a smile ruins the dry feel of the joke being played on the show). Attempts at small talk should be met with direct monosyllabic responses (yes, no, etc), the face should be completely blank with the body giving no indication of disposition whatsoever, and whenever Howie tries to make the contestant or the family members stop and consider their odds of winning, all should give the direct and unthinking response of "Play the game, Howie." The facade must be complete, even for commercial breaks. The contestant should just stand there without saying a word until the game resumes and then they proceed selecting the cases in order and immediately declining all offers.
It would be a monumentally stupid occasion for all of television history. And I would bask in that moment of glory when pointless, mindless, boring game shows like that get contestants who treat the game in the same way.
All this is an excellent reason to move to Japan immediately.
These shows are idiotic by design, and quite obviously so. The prime example is Deal or No Deal, a show where nothing substantial happens and greed overwhelms what little sense these contestants have. Oh god... having Greed flashbacks... Chuck Woolery... No! Agh! Get away from me!
Where was I? Ah! Deal or No Deal, the show where 26 samples of eye candy present the player with 26 cases labeled with meaningless numbers that you can pick in any order without affecting the outcome of the game in any way. Each case contains an amount of money (okay, a tile with the number of the prize money on it) ranging from one cent to $1 million, and the contestant gets to choose one, since choice is the foundation of American life. Once you do the math and acknowledge the logic behind the design of the game, it becomes clear that your choice of a case does not affect your odds of winning for or against you. Which nicely sums up the impact of your case choices for the remainder of the show. The game proceeds with the contestant choosing and opening the remaining 25 cases, eliminating the hope that their case contains any of the revealed amounts. In other words, once you choose your case, if you open the case with $1 million, you know for a fact that you've lost the top prize. Isn't this a nice game? It tells you in advance that you're a loser the moment you started. Most game shows will bullshit contestants into thinking they can win more money than they'll earn in their whole lives, even though it's made perfectly clear from the moment of their introduction that all contestants are hand-picked for their blithering idiocy. For entertainment value, you see. Folks at home want to feel smart by comparison.
Despite this, many contestants on Deal or No Deal proclaim with very obnoxious attitudes that their case is indeed the million dollar case. Nooo, you don't know that, and you can't know that. You hope it's the million dollar case, but what you know is that odds are 25 out of 26 that you don't have it. In fact, your odds of having the million dollars are as good as your odds of choosing the penny. And even if you choose the right case, you have to play all the way to the end, eliminating alternate prizes until you decide to risk everything just to see if you got it out of sheer blind luck. In other words, there's no intelligent way to play this game. But chances are, if you're on the set, you're too stupid to know that. And it's great to watch. It appeals to the sadomasochist in all of us.
Oh, but there's more. Our host is Howie Mandel, a former comedian if you can believe it, and given his performances on the show, I find the "former" part highly plausible. Every so often the contestant must stop choosing cases so that Howie can pretend to talk into a ringing remote control, supposedly linked us with the "Banker", a man we can only see in silhouette in a booth overlooking the set. I'm sorry, but the Banker is not at all an effective villain, even for a game show, so stop acting like he's the biggest ass in the world. It has no impact on the show and he's not memorable at all. Although that lack of memorability does explain why they made Darth Vader the guest banker in a special Star Wars-themed episode...
Excuse me, a little part of me just died right there.
The Banker - who acts nothing at all like the respectable moneyholder all Monopoly players are familiar with - makes the contestant cash offers based on their odds of getting a better prize. The object of this is partly to tempt the players to stop, but mostly to expose them for the greedy fucks they are and later to taunt them mercilessly when they knock out all the big prizes and the offers drop. It is at the moment that an offer is made that a contestant can either say "Deal" and push the Deal button to accept the prize offered, or "No Deal" and close the plastic casing on the button to continue playing a mindless game of press-your-luck. Wait, no... Press Your Luck... Peter Tamarkin... Come on come on, Big Bucks Big Bucks Big Bucks, no Whammy no Whammy STOP!
Ack... I'm a very sad person...
So over the course of watching this show so many times, I and some members of my family have devised numerous ways to rob the show of any of its intended entertainment value.
1) Get rid of the cases. My father for once made a very wise observation: The cases choices are meaningless, so this game is essentially just offers with people declining them thinking they can somehow get something better. So if that's all the gameplay there is, then just get rid of the cases and the models and don't let the contestants choose any numbers at all. You could run this game with any random number generator. In fact, you don't even need a host or a Banker. That'd be quite the game show, wouldn't it? Just a contestant and a laptop, and a leering audience which finally gets to see just how much this game really amounts to on a personal level. The laptop assigns the contestant with a random unknown prize, then it eliminates prizes all on its own, only showing the results with the calculated offers for the contestant to say "Deal" or "No Deal" - represented in this case with the retro Interweb key placement of "Y" or "N". Basically the game will look like this:
Round one:
$18,000 - Y/N?
N
Round two:
$35,000 - Y/N?
N
Round three:
$22,000; You may no longer win $1,000,000 or $750,000 or $500,000 - Y/N?
N
Etc, etc. Reviting, isn't it?
2) Accept the first offer. When a contestant accepts an offer, they're asked what their hypothetical next choices of cases would have been if they continued to play, and the resulting offers are also displayed simply to mock them, before their own case is finally opened to reveal whether they made a "good" or "bad" Deal. Like it matters. So what if the contestant accepts the very first offer they get at the beginning of the game? For one, the audience and host would be baffled as something like that has never happened before and never will, since greed (not the show of the same name... >_<) is the driving force behind the whole show. The pointless involvement of a few of the contestant's family on the side will never have started. And best of all, all of the remaining cases would have to be opened one at a time. All of them. That's 19 cases after the first round to open. That's at least a half dozen hypothetical offers to blaze through. It would be the most pointless and tedious game ending of all, and I'd love every second of it.
3) Go with your case; play all the way through the cases without hesitation. This was my idea, and consequently my favorite. The best way to do this is to show how meaningless the order of case choice is, by choosing the cases in order. Your case is number 1, your next choices of eliminated cases will be 2, 3, 4, 5, etc, until the final two cases are your case 1 and the other case 26. The only way to thoroughly mock the game by playing in this way is to not even consider any of the offers. As soon as Howie raises the plastic casing around the Deal button, you have to slam it back down without giving any time to the offer or even for Howie to say "Deal or No Deal?" (I only recently saw someone do this after the first round. A contestant actually chose the cases based on random draws from a bag of numbered ping pong balls, and then when the first offer came up she closed the case before Howie could ask if she wanted to take the offer. I doubt I'll ever see how that show ends.)
So much of this game show is padding based on case selection and offers that you have to blow right past all of it and continue choosing the cases in order, despite all reason or force-fed tension. Since family members are asked to stand on the sidelines and cheer the contestant on, the family must also adopt this mindless mentality in order to shut Howie up and get the game over with. Contestant and family must all approach this without any hint of involvement or emotion (especially not humor, since cracking a smile ruins the dry feel of the joke being played on the show). Attempts at small talk should be met with direct monosyllabic responses (yes, no, etc), the face should be completely blank with the body giving no indication of disposition whatsoever, and whenever Howie tries to make the contestant or the family members stop and consider their odds of winning, all should give the direct and unthinking response of "Play the game, Howie." The facade must be complete, even for commercial breaks. The contestant should just stand there without saying a word until the game resumes and then they proceed selecting the cases in order and immediately declining all offers.
It would be a monumentally stupid occasion for all of television history. And I would bask in that moment of glory when pointless, mindless, boring game shows like that get contestants who treat the game in the same way.
All this is an excellent reason to move to Japan immediately.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
I'm mad as hell
And why shouldn't I be? Do you read the New York Post, or at least look at their headlines? Do you listen to talk radio constantly, or watch Fox News, or EWTN? Do you even know what EWTN is? Do your parents scoff at terms like "heterosexism" or such ludicrous left-leaning media outlets as... The New York Times? Does your whole extended family find nothing wrong with fundamentalists brainwashing little children into thinking their bodies are immoral vessels worthy only of contempt, except as baby-making apparatuses over which they have no right to control? Is your whole rational worldview persistently under siege by pestering about imperfections in the scientific method? Do you know what it feels like to be religiously proselytized by your own mother? Have you ever had your mind under constant siege from all of this bullshit at the same time for as long as a month or more?
Is it any wonder that I'm the psychological mess that I am today?
Goddamn, everything in this house seems like an insult both to my intelligence and to humanity at large. Think about what right-wing media does for a sec, and don't bother listing examples of left-wing bias either because all they ever do is highlight the icing on this shit sundae that is the religious right, and any way you put it they don't even stack up to what "Fox and Friends" do alone. Right-wing media is essentially telling America that half of Americans are irredeemable assholes who know nothing about anything and want to destroy America. Half. Anyone with a progressive or non-conservative idea in their head is presented as some kind of hippie/socialist/satanist. And that probably includes you, if you're reading this. How does it feel to have yourself collectively condemned with half of the nation for not being religious or nationalistic enough?
Do you realize what this means? It means that these media asshats are antagonizing conservative Americans into hating half of the nation's population, disregarding everything that half says and needs, and enforcing some loose form of authoritarian corporate theocracy. You may think that's an extreme take on the situation, but what the hell do you think the people who support this kind of garbage want? They want some idyllic perfection of the American dream, like some ultra-orthodox status quo middle class 1950's suburbia with not a tolerant or deviant thought in anyone's head. And since that Dream is impossible since half of Americans don't fit the standards to make that happen, the Right's failures will be continuously blamed on liberals until the right people are elected into office to implement enough of the right kind of control over people's lives so that the right people will be happy and the wrong people - people who, say, might think the idea of global warming might have some merit - are nicely marginalized into socioeconomic oblivion.
You don't fit the ideal? Into the loony bin you go. Because if you even think for a second that maybe gay people should be allowed to marry the person of their choice and adopt some kids, you're automatically lumped into the same category as pedophiles and incestuous devil-worshippers. (And where the hell are these secret enemies-of-the-state, these supposed gay atheist cultists who do nothing but devour fetuses and rape children so that they instantly become homosexuals? Do fundamentalists still believe that Dungeons & Dragons groups actually engage in witchcraft? And I have to wonder, where do these witches and sorcerers get their magical powers? From Satan? I didn't even know God let him give human beings any kind of powers, but that's theology for you.)
And I have to say here that the Right is very much concerned with controlling your life in particular ways. You can't get or provide an abortion, you can't get contraceptives, you can't be taught evolution without being told it has as much merit as 4000-year-old fair tales, you can't have any reasonable control over what substances go into your body, you can't trust scientists, you can't demand things of your government, you can't depend on anyone for food and shelter since that would perpetuate a "welfare state", you can't have dependable access to healthcare, you can't bring any charges against white-collar criminal pricks, you can't get married to the person of your choice, you can't adopt a child without the church's say-so, you can't demand better standards of living, and you can't care for the rest of the planet in any way whatsoever. But you can enlist in the army and fight wars nobody but a select group of people have interests in. You can mercilessly beat your children and force them to think the way you want them to think. And you can choose between a select range of expensive healthcare plans, low-income housing developments, and unhealthy fast food diets which a few big names in business and industry will be happy to oblige. And you're perfectly free to have no resources or choices or expression or freedoms of your own, as so many of our 3.5 million homeless do now.
But what can you do if the people closest to you since childhood (literally close in this case) actually believe this kind of bile that spews forth from the radio every minute of every day? What are you supposed to do? You can't very well get a new family, and you can't make a stand if you have to live under the same roof. But that's my situation, and it becomes more difficult to ignore all the time.
You know, it's not so much the ideological conflict that gets to me as it is the sheer offensiveness of the things being said. I can't help it if there's no reason to believe in God, so why am I condemned as if I'm some kind of anarchistic terrorist? I'm just a college student who's trying to find his own way in life, I can't be crammed into this picturesque world of religious devotion and political fervor. Hell, I don't ask the same thing of anyone else. I don't tell religious people to stay at home and not let me know what they believe, and I don't expect people to join the Communist Party or anything. I don't even expect anyone to like gay people. I just want to be left the hell alone, without having my ideas put into a forbidden category. I want people to coexist without fighting over the survival of their ideologies, as if their lives and their prospects at happiness depend on it. I'd rather people would learn how to manage their lives better and look at things a little more rationally and have more compassion for people who are just different and do no real harm.
I mean, seriously, it's the ideas that are corrosive and stupid. Not everyone who clings to them is stupid or intends evil on anybody. But I just get so fucking pissed off when someone says something so hateful and harmful, something that flies in the face of all established forms of logic, and so many people nod their heads and acknowledge their willingness to act on this kind of idiocy. Are you out of your fucking minds?
The New Jersey senate just said no to gay marriage. Why? Why? Why? What reason is there for denying people of the same gender to marry one another? Do they present any special threat to each other by nature of their relationship? No. Do they present any special threat to any children they intent to adopt? No. Do they present any special threat to the justice system or society at large? NO. Just NO. Okay? There is no social anarchy or "sexual madness" about homosexuality. How would allowing gay marriage lead to the breakdown of American society? Because Timmy will have two mommies?? No kind of marriage between two willing persons of different families could lead inherently to any level of social unrest. EVER. But who are we kidding here? It has nothing to do with what legalizing gay marriage will do to American law or the relationship between church and state (since churches can't be required to give anybody a marriage, and frankly I wouldn't want a religious wedding anyway.) It's just that certain people don't like homosexuals. Don't bullshit me with "It's not what they are, it's what they do". That's like saying "It's not that I hate you personally, I just hate the fact that you exist."
Okay, let's get more explicit about what we're talking about here. A man and a woman may hold, kiss, and have sexual relations with each other as they see fit. Well, okay, maybe they don't have that much freedom since some would say that the only kind of sexual contact allowed is conventional heterosexual intercourse within the context of marriage without the use of contraceptives. Ignoring for a minute the... utter strangeness of that level of authoritarian orthodoxy (don't pull any cultural relativist bullshit on me, it has nothing to do with what people should be allowed to do in reality), take a look at what is considered appropriate. A man can put his penis into a woman's vagina, and rub it anywhere around that general area, and in many contexts is allowed to put it (along with his fingers, tongue, etc) anywhere else on the woman as he pleases, and the woman is likewise allowed to fondle the man in any way that seems suitable to her.
Now, what isn't appropriate is for two men to put their penises anywhere on each other for the purposes of sexual stimulation, ever. They're not even allowed to use their hands, tongues, etc, for these purposes with one another. For some reason the act of placing the penis within another man's anus is seen as abhorrent, and I have to doubt it's for sanitary issues. And women are likewise expected to not couple with one another and stimulate each other's clitorises or vaginae for these same purposes. Even kissing and caressing man-to-man or woman-to-woman for the general purposes of romantic stimulation and expression is too much for some minds to bear. Why? There's nothing in biology that says you can't do that, since it's obviously possible to do it regardless of other people's discomfort at the idea. Religious texts hold no water on this issue since they elsewhere have no moral bearing on anything (unless you want to know how long a person may be kept as a slave), and saying "God says so" likewise has nothing to do with whether or not doing something to somebody is nice. Do conservatives simply not like thinking about homosexual intercourse? THEN DON'T THINK ABOUT IT! Nobody's holding you down and forcing you to watch people have sex, even if done in public! What does it say about social conservativism in general if the main driving argument is that homosexuality is icky? "Eww" should be the paraphrasing for any argument anyone makes against same-sex marriage.
What the hell am I still doing in Jersey? I don't want to be here, I want to be back at school learning shit and spending my time with people I care about. Dammit, don't you just get so fucking pissed off, just so fucking pissed off, that you can't even think straight anymore? Any semblance of daily life become impossible around this level of bullshit. Every day I'm wandering around going "It would be nice if this semester- FUCK, THAT'S STUPID!" God... you'd think that with all the time and energy that it takes to write something down and get it revised and get it produced and get it prepared to be put on the air, that a person would think to themselves "Wow... What I'm saying is really fucking stupid!" Somebody has to know! Somebody has to realize what's been happening with all this mass pandering to stereotypes and misconceptions and myths, all over the country. It's got nothing to do with people anymore, people are just treated as vessels for ideals, harbingers of American values, effigies of unpatriotic evil. And when people are acknowledged, the world is suddenly full of saints and demons, and it's okay to sling mud at one another like we're in a fucking zoo exhibit. Why don't we just pass out white hats and black hats and sort out who has to wear which hat so we know who's on which side? "Me? Oh, I'm against the death penalty, so I'll be over here with the abortionists, Wiccans, and necrophiles, thanks."
Doesn't anybody get that I'm not on anybody's "side"? There are no "sides", if there were there'd be 7 billion different sides right now, since nobody knows anything about what they stand for anymore. I'm either on everybody's side or I'm on my own side. I like to think I'm on my own side, and my side stands for helping everybody all at once. I don't care what they think about my methods, I'm just trying to accommodate everybody's needs and dreams. It makes no sense, since it's an impossible task, but none of this makes a lick of goddamn sense in the first place. Everything's screwed up, but some things work out, and that makes it worth trying.
Somehow that's part of the definition of doodlemastery. But that's just something that exploded into existence in my head one day.
I miss you <3
Is it any wonder that I'm the psychological mess that I am today?
Goddamn, everything in this house seems like an insult both to my intelligence and to humanity at large. Think about what right-wing media does for a sec, and don't bother listing examples of left-wing bias either because all they ever do is highlight the icing on this shit sundae that is the religious right, and any way you put it they don't even stack up to what "Fox and Friends" do alone. Right-wing media is essentially telling America that half of Americans are irredeemable assholes who know nothing about anything and want to destroy America. Half. Anyone with a progressive or non-conservative idea in their head is presented as some kind of hippie/socialist/satanist. And that probably includes you, if you're reading this. How does it feel to have yourself collectively condemned with half of the nation for not being religious or nationalistic enough?
Do you realize what this means? It means that these media asshats are antagonizing conservative Americans into hating half of the nation's population, disregarding everything that half says and needs, and enforcing some loose form of authoritarian corporate theocracy. You may think that's an extreme take on the situation, but what the hell do you think the people who support this kind of garbage want? They want some idyllic perfection of the American dream, like some ultra-orthodox status quo middle class 1950's suburbia with not a tolerant or deviant thought in anyone's head. And since that Dream is impossible since half of Americans don't fit the standards to make that happen, the Right's failures will be continuously blamed on liberals until the right people are elected into office to implement enough of the right kind of control over people's lives so that the right people will be happy and the wrong people - people who, say, might think the idea of global warming might have some merit - are nicely marginalized into socioeconomic oblivion.
You don't fit the ideal? Into the loony bin you go. Because if you even think for a second that maybe gay people should be allowed to marry the person of their choice and adopt some kids, you're automatically lumped into the same category as pedophiles and incestuous devil-worshippers. (And where the hell are these secret enemies-of-the-state, these supposed gay atheist cultists who do nothing but devour fetuses and rape children so that they instantly become homosexuals? Do fundamentalists still believe that Dungeons & Dragons groups actually engage in witchcraft? And I have to wonder, where do these witches and sorcerers get their magical powers? From Satan? I didn't even know God let him give human beings any kind of powers, but that's theology for you.)
And I have to say here that the Right is very much concerned with controlling your life in particular ways. You can't get or provide an abortion, you can't get contraceptives, you can't be taught evolution without being told it has as much merit as 4000-year-old fair tales, you can't have any reasonable control over what substances go into your body, you can't trust scientists, you can't demand things of your government, you can't depend on anyone for food and shelter since that would perpetuate a "welfare state", you can't have dependable access to healthcare, you can't bring any charges against white-collar criminal pricks, you can't get married to the person of your choice, you can't adopt a child without the church's say-so, you can't demand better standards of living, and you can't care for the rest of the planet in any way whatsoever. But you can enlist in the army and fight wars nobody but a select group of people have interests in. You can mercilessly beat your children and force them to think the way you want them to think. And you can choose between a select range of expensive healthcare plans, low-income housing developments, and unhealthy fast food diets which a few big names in business and industry will be happy to oblige. And you're perfectly free to have no resources or choices or expression or freedoms of your own, as so many of our 3.5 million homeless do now.
But what can you do if the people closest to you since childhood (literally close in this case) actually believe this kind of bile that spews forth from the radio every minute of every day? What are you supposed to do? You can't very well get a new family, and you can't make a stand if you have to live under the same roof. But that's my situation, and it becomes more difficult to ignore all the time.
You know, it's not so much the ideological conflict that gets to me as it is the sheer offensiveness of the things being said. I can't help it if there's no reason to believe in God, so why am I condemned as if I'm some kind of anarchistic terrorist? I'm just a college student who's trying to find his own way in life, I can't be crammed into this picturesque world of religious devotion and political fervor. Hell, I don't ask the same thing of anyone else. I don't tell religious people to stay at home and not let me know what they believe, and I don't expect people to join the Communist Party or anything. I don't even expect anyone to like gay people. I just want to be left the hell alone, without having my ideas put into a forbidden category. I want people to coexist without fighting over the survival of their ideologies, as if their lives and their prospects at happiness depend on it. I'd rather people would learn how to manage their lives better and look at things a little more rationally and have more compassion for people who are just different and do no real harm.
I mean, seriously, it's the ideas that are corrosive and stupid. Not everyone who clings to them is stupid or intends evil on anybody. But I just get so fucking pissed off when someone says something so hateful and harmful, something that flies in the face of all established forms of logic, and so many people nod their heads and acknowledge their willingness to act on this kind of idiocy. Are you out of your fucking minds?
The New Jersey senate just said no to gay marriage. Why? Why? Why? What reason is there for denying people of the same gender to marry one another? Do they present any special threat to each other by nature of their relationship? No. Do they present any special threat to any children they intent to adopt? No. Do they present any special threat to the justice system or society at large? NO. Just NO. Okay? There is no social anarchy or "sexual madness" about homosexuality. How would allowing gay marriage lead to the breakdown of American society? Because Timmy will have two mommies?? No kind of marriage between two willing persons of different families could lead inherently to any level of social unrest. EVER. But who are we kidding here? It has nothing to do with what legalizing gay marriage will do to American law or the relationship between church and state (since churches can't be required to give anybody a marriage, and frankly I wouldn't want a religious wedding anyway.) It's just that certain people don't like homosexuals. Don't bullshit me with "It's not what they are, it's what they do". That's like saying "It's not that I hate you personally, I just hate the fact that you exist."
Okay, let's get more explicit about what we're talking about here. A man and a woman may hold, kiss, and have sexual relations with each other as they see fit. Well, okay, maybe they don't have that much freedom since some would say that the only kind of sexual contact allowed is conventional heterosexual intercourse within the context of marriage without the use of contraceptives. Ignoring for a minute the... utter strangeness of that level of authoritarian orthodoxy (don't pull any cultural relativist bullshit on me, it has nothing to do with what people should be allowed to do in reality), take a look at what is considered appropriate. A man can put his penis into a woman's vagina, and rub it anywhere around that general area, and in many contexts is allowed to put it (along with his fingers, tongue, etc) anywhere else on the woman as he pleases, and the woman is likewise allowed to fondle the man in any way that seems suitable to her.
Now, what isn't appropriate is for two men to put their penises anywhere on each other for the purposes of sexual stimulation, ever. They're not even allowed to use their hands, tongues, etc, for these purposes with one another. For some reason the act of placing the penis within another man's anus is seen as abhorrent, and I have to doubt it's for sanitary issues. And women are likewise expected to not couple with one another and stimulate each other's clitorises or vaginae for these same purposes. Even kissing and caressing man-to-man or woman-to-woman for the general purposes of romantic stimulation and expression is too much for some minds to bear. Why? There's nothing in biology that says you can't do that, since it's obviously possible to do it regardless of other people's discomfort at the idea. Religious texts hold no water on this issue since they elsewhere have no moral bearing on anything (unless you want to know how long a person may be kept as a slave), and saying "God says so" likewise has nothing to do with whether or not doing something to somebody is nice. Do conservatives simply not like thinking about homosexual intercourse? THEN DON'T THINK ABOUT IT! Nobody's holding you down and forcing you to watch people have sex, even if done in public! What does it say about social conservativism in general if the main driving argument is that homosexuality is icky? "Eww" should be the paraphrasing for any argument anyone makes against same-sex marriage.
What the hell am I still doing in Jersey? I don't want to be here, I want to be back at school learning shit and spending my time with people I care about. Dammit, don't you just get so fucking pissed off, just so fucking pissed off, that you can't even think straight anymore? Any semblance of daily life become impossible around this level of bullshit. Every day I'm wandering around going "It would be nice if this semester- FUCK, THAT'S STUPID!" God... you'd think that with all the time and energy that it takes to write something down and get it revised and get it produced and get it prepared to be put on the air, that a person would think to themselves "Wow... What I'm saying is really fucking stupid!" Somebody has to know! Somebody has to realize what's been happening with all this mass pandering to stereotypes and misconceptions and myths, all over the country. It's got nothing to do with people anymore, people are just treated as vessels for ideals, harbingers of American values, effigies of unpatriotic evil. And when people are acknowledged, the world is suddenly full of saints and demons, and it's okay to sling mud at one another like we're in a fucking zoo exhibit. Why don't we just pass out white hats and black hats and sort out who has to wear which hat so we know who's on which side? "Me? Oh, I'm against the death penalty, so I'll be over here with the abortionists, Wiccans, and necrophiles, thanks."
Doesn't anybody get that I'm not on anybody's "side"? There are no "sides", if there were there'd be 7 billion different sides right now, since nobody knows anything about what they stand for anymore. I'm either on everybody's side or I'm on my own side. I like to think I'm on my own side, and my side stands for helping everybody all at once. I don't care what they think about my methods, I'm just trying to accommodate everybody's needs and dreams. It makes no sense, since it's an impossible task, but none of this makes a lick of goddamn sense in the first place. Everything's screwed up, but some things work out, and that makes it worth trying.
Somehow that's part of the definition of doodlemastery. But that's just something that exploded into existence in my head one day.
I miss you <3
Sunday, January 10, 2010
The most meaningless term in the world
Okay, maybe next to "doodlemastery".
But "faith" is the most empty and uninspiring concept I've ever had to confront.
When I was younger, this word meant everything to me ("faith", not "doodlemastery" you twit, keep your head in the game). Of course, remaining a Catholic would have been an unwise career decision for the 17-year-old I was when I finally came to the age of reason. So now the word has even less meaning for me than "tacorific".
That's a great word, by the way, I wish I had more use for it.
Every time the word is used it means something different, because everybody uses it in a personal way that reflects their beliefs. And everybody's beliefs are different by at least a small amount, even in a supposedly monolithic religion. Take God as an example. Some people think he's an invisible sky man, or woman. Or three people. Or several more. Some believe that he's the universe, or completely outside of it, or both (the hell does that mean?). Others will tell you that God is a sort of abstract concept encompassing the core nature of existence or morality. And others will try to snag you with the idea that God is anything that a person holds in their heart as being greater than themselves. One person on Penn&Teller's Bullshit! tried to imply that for an atheist, "God" could be a rock. So what, would an atheist be someone who believes that the rock doesn't exist?
Arockist. There's a new meaningless term for you. But still more substantive than faith.
So what does one mean by "faith"? Let's just say for the sake of argument that in a casual conversation mentioning the scientific theory of the expanding universe, your devout mother inappropriately posits that you need to accept that kind of belief based on faith.
Let's just say.
Well clearly in this case faith would be defined as something related specifically to belief itself. But it can't possibly be the same as belief, can it? I doubt that every little thing you accept to be true or probable would be considered by a religious individual to be an "act of faith". Although when you get in a prolonged conversation with just the right kind of rationally desperate mind, you'll find yourself confronted with the assertion that you believe the earth is round in the exact same way that they believe an invisible person sends hurricanes to collectively punish residents for housing those who wear feather boas and use nipple clamps.
So let us distinguish just what we mean when we say we believe things to be true. Yes, we are all the same in that belief means any one thing any one of us acknowledges as part of their personal worldview, something we really think of as part of reality. No, we do not believe in science and sandwiches in the same way as others believe in gods and ghost phalli, precisely because of the reasons we believe them. I'd wager that most of us believe most of the things we do for reasons in of themselves. Explanations, elaborations, facts, tidbits, data, hints, clues, signals, signs, patterns, consistencies, conclusions, necessities, and logic. This isn't just cold scientific shit either. I believe my girlfriend exists and cares for me since I can see and hear and feel her, and all my past experiences and all of the consistencies and logical conclusions in life would lead me to believe she's a person who cares for me. And she can use the same facts about me to realize that I'm a person who cares for her too. If I began to discount my senses (not question or doubt them, I do those all the time and I still get quite good results, thank you) then as far as I know I could be spinning ass-over-teakettle in a vat of tar, with no girlfriend and no sense of direction or reason.
Do people believe in the supernatural for reasons too? Well... yes... kinda... a lot of the time, I would hope. Although the reasons for religious and spiritual belief tend to be murky and vague at best and often using mixed data, if not precisely contrary to all available data. The belief in a creator God could be attributed to the rational conclusion that everything requires a beginning and an end, but this leads to the logical problem of where God came from and when he intends to end his existence. Where exactly do you leave a divine suicide note? Ah, but this problem was solved long ago, since we all know that God is beyond our rational laws of logic and so he can have no beginning or end. Then how can we conclude that anything else must have a beginning or an end? Why then does the universe need a beginning, and even if it had a beginning couldn't it also forgo the logic of requiring a creator?
How? Why? Because God says so, that's how and why. And who says God says so? Lots of people say God says so, including God, purportedly. And we all know how reliable the clergy and religiously orthodox are.
I'm not a big fan of the "just because" explanations, myself. I much prefer an individual to say "I don't know". I do it all the time. Does it mean I'm wrong, that I give up my beliefs? No, it means I'm not asserting anything for anyone else to believe and therefore am not the one who has to account for himself, so shut the fuck up, would you kindly.
So clearly faith is not synonymous with all belief. What is it then? Some beliefs? What is it about the belief in an expanding universe (a scientific fact) and the belief in a Jewish demigod (a not-so-scientific fact) that could lump both of them in the same category as beliefs taken on faith? Perhaps our purely hypothetical mother was implying that we don't personally know very much about either of these belief systems and therefore assume them both to be true for convenience's sake.
Before we get into just how belittling it is for religious people to be told their heartfelt beliefs about God are just an assumption, let's compare religious and secular assumptions, shall we? Of course we will, because it's my blog and my rules.
A layman can have a reasonable amount of confidence in scientific theories because science is a very rigorous process of eliminating erroneous notions in light of new data. Bullshit ideas are not highly publicized in scientific journals, and when they are they're quite open to review and revision. The same process of observation, controlled interpretation, experimentation, and calculation that tells you the universe is most likely expanding at an accelerating rate is the same one that's given you little things like medicine, atomic energy, modern engineering, information technology, fuel-efficient cars (well maybe not in America...), and ice cream. (Ice cream! Yay!)Science has an impressive track record and can only be improved with better science. You can't very well go about disproving scientific notions with half-baked ideas, random-ass guesswork, or "revealed knowledge". I have not yet seen a hypothesis being supported by the scientific method, then be disproved by some paranormal sort of gnosis. You'd think that someone could tap into the source of that knowledge and set everything straight, but apparently the money isn't good enough to convince "real" psychics and prophets to see daylight.
Religious belief, on the other hand, is assumed because of the overall weakness of the believer's original worldview. Do you honestly think it's a sign of strength for theism if it's just a convenient assumption? I'm sure that most religious believers would rather be certain that they have reasons for thinking there is a God. You know, like any other sane person. But if you just assume there is a God and then base your worldview on that, you've made your entire worldview completely fucking arbitrary. There's nothing to argue about or test with religious belief if that belief is already formed from an arbitrary baseless assumption. In science you can get things wrong, you can be disproved, unless you decide to forgo logic in favor of "faith". Isn't it beginning to sound like a vapid, insulting word already? Faith. "I don't need reasons, I have faith." Nobody wants to admit that they're stupid, but that statement comes close.
Maybe I'm being too harsh here and there's some other meaning to faith other than belief itself or assumed belief. Something more personal and heartfelt, like trust. Could that be what it means to have faith in something, to have trust in it? Possibly, sounds like a good match doesn't it? Aren't we faithful to our loved ones, and have faith in each other? We often mean it in the same way that we mean trust, personal trust. Which makes more sense, I suppose. After all, the devout are more likely to identify with a religion where you feel like you can trust whoever is on the other side of reality. Okay, so there's quite a bit that's still assumed in this relationship, like that the people on the other side (not to mention the other side itself) actually exist. But still, at least we have a definition that unites religious and secular worldviews, right?
There's only one problem. It doesn't work beyond that personal level of trust. Remember that in this case we're talking about the theory of the expanding universe, and by that connection the scientific method itself. Science has no personal identity, not even the scientists. What, is it implied that we have personal trust in the scientists collectively? I guess, but science isn't about authority, it's about facts and logic. If an idea has no reflection or base in reality, all of the scientific authority in the world couldn't make any more sense out of it. That's why science is so open to revision, so that nobody gets to declare a monopoly on truth, and bad ideas can be exposed and deconstructed and taunted, sometimes with pointed fingers and laughter. Creationists are still new to this sort of thing, so they think they're under selective treatment. But they're not, they're selectively intruding on science with no idea how it works, and accordingly they're surprised when they're ridiculed and their ideas are discounted as nonsensical nonsense.
Besides, there's one definition of faith that our not-at-all-real-life mother has neglected to consider, and this one's going to be a dandy when trying to apply it to "faith" in the expanding universe. When I was in high school, I was told by my Christian Ethics teacher that faith was a personal relationship that one had with God. Specifically this is referring to love. Thus it was explained to me the difference between knowing about somebody, and knowing somebody, biblically (Eww). Look, the universe and I have been through a lot together, we're virtually inseparable (what with me being made of matter and all), and it will continue to mean literally everything to me, but... I'm just not up for that kind of commitment on a cosmic level. And... there's someone else, a human girl I've been seeing for a few months. She means so much to me, and it may not seem fair, but I'm just not really into infinitely vast stretches of time and space. I'm really more interested in cute peeps, at a personal level at least. So this isn't goodbye to the universe, but I think that it would be best if the universe and I were just good friends.
And thanks, Bible, for making even the word "know" an inneundo.
"I knew it... three times."
The problem I always had with this definition of faith is that it's not exactly healthy to love someone you don't even know. Marriage arrangements on internet chat rooms are not encouraged, so why should anyone be expected to give unconditional love to some hyped-up ancient celebrity, a battered, bearded, tripped-out zombie man with an intellect from before the Dark Ages who no sane person has ever even met before? Unless you count rituals where celibate men in robes say some magic words over breakfast cereal and claim it's become the flesh of said zombie celebrity. Damn, this is some weird kind of kink. I'm not sure how eating one's flesh is an expression of love, but it's pretty sick, divine or not. You'd think that if a god wanted his "substance" - and I don't even want to know what the hell that is - to be put into a human being he would just will it, and not have to bother with this disturbing imagery. But then, that would make too much sense, and we've got a lot of irrational bullshit to accommodate. And the first time I heard this illogical definition of faith as love, I told my teacher "But I can only know a person if I at least know that they exist."
I never got a good reply to that. If I was manic enough, I'm sure I could think of something.
There's only one other definition of faith I can think of, and it's the one thing a religious mind would be holding onto at this point: hope. Faith defined as hope for something you cannot see. And it's at this point that the self-degrading of faith as a concept gets to truly pitiful levels. It's essentially admitting that there's no reason to believe in anything you claim to have faith in, so one can only hope that maybe everything will turn out alright in the end. This is stupid because if you have no rough guesses of the chances or the odds in your head, then you have no hope, it's all just completely random. If you have some idea of what your chances are, then you have that much hope to go on. None of this of course has anything to do with whether things will turn out the way you want them. This isn't Oprah, people. Hoping things will become so will not under any circumstances make it more likely to become a reality. You have to act if you want things to happen, and if everything in your mind tells you it's impossible, then you're just being stupid. I've heard of people acting with good reason while everyone else thinks they're crazy, but believing something you don't think you have good reason for? That's wishful thinking in a nutshell, and there is no genie in that nutshell. You get zero wishes. Divide those wishes by the chances that you're right and you get FUCK.
If a person is left without real chances of success, if they have nowhere to go, and things aren't likely to work out, then that's just sad. Can we accept that? Terminally ill patients, people under oppression, and people with very serious life-altering ailments are under unfortunate, often terrible circumstances, and that sucks. It's awful that bad things happen to good people, so can we just acknowledge that little fact? It's probably one of the more important things you'll ever learn, so don't pray for people, don't hope that Jesus will descend from the clouds and make everything picture perfect, DO SOMETHING. The only morally reasonable options are a) do something to give people hope b) if you have no hope, either try to fight all the way anyway or come to terms with it or c) cope. Being in a circumstance where you have no hope and can't do anything about it and can't even come to terms with it is probably the saddest thing conceivable, and you can only do what you can to get by until your suffering can be alleviated. But that is not how people who can act for the better ought to be thinking. Don't try to cope with the fact that there's no justice, no peace, no loving God in sight. Accept reality for what it is and work for the better.
So no, clearly-not-my-actual-mother, I don't have faith in the expanding universe, or anything else for that matter. I don't assume, trust, or hope that it is so. I'm what I call "reasonably certain with some degree of falsifiability". I'm also reasonably certain that regardless of the baseless, broad, insulting, stupid, offensive, demented, illogical, arrogant, authoritarian, high-minded, pseudo-philosophical, self-proclaimed to be "humble" bullshit claims that you have, that you're also reasonably certain about most things in life too.
I therefore have no use for the word faith, except to define that meaningless quality in certain religious contexts in which so many are still so intellectually preoccupied and so overly emotionally-invested. Belief, assumption, trust, love, and hope are all fine concepts all on their own. Faith has nothing to do with any of them.
Fuck faith.
"Faith is believing what you know ain't so." - Mark Twain
But "faith" is the most empty and uninspiring concept I've ever had to confront.
When I was younger, this word meant everything to me ("faith", not "doodlemastery" you twit, keep your head in the game). Of course, remaining a Catholic would have been an unwise career decision for the 17-year-old I was when I finally came to the age of reason. So now the word has even less meaning for me than "tacorific".
That's a great word, by the way, I wish I had more use for it.
Every time the word is used it means something different, because everybody uses it in a personal way that reflects their beliefs. And everybody's beliefs are different by at least a small amount, even in a supposedly monolithic religion. Take God as an example. Some people think he's an invisible sky man, or woman. Or three people. Or several more. Some believe that he's the universe, or completely outside of it, or both (the hell does that mean?). Others will tell you that God is a sort of abstract concept encompassing the core nature of existence or morality. And others will try to snag you with the idea that God is anything that a person holds in their heart as being greater than themselves. One person on Penn&Teller's Bullshit! tried to imply that for an atheist, "God" could be a rock. So what, would an atheist be someone who believes that the rock doesn't exist?
Arockist. There's a new meaningless term for you. But still more substantive than faith.
So what does one mean by "faith"? Let's just say for the sake of argument that in a casual conversation mentioning the scientific theory of the expanding universe, your devout mother inappropriately posits that you need to accept that kind of belief based on faith.
Let's just say.
Well clearly in this case faith would be defined as something related specifically to belief itself. But it can't possibly be the same as belief, can it? I doubt that every little thing you accept to be true or probable would be considered by a religious individual to be an "act of faith". Although when you get in a prolonged conversation with just the right kind of rationally desperate mind, you'll find yourself confronted with the assertion that you believe the earth is round in the exact same way that they believe an invisible person sends hurricanes to collectively punish residents for housing those who wear feather boas and use nipple clamps.
So let us distinguish just what we mean when we say we believe things to be true. Yes, we are all the same in that belief means any one thing any one of us acknowledges as part of their personal worldview, something we really think of as part of reality. No, we do not believe in science and sandwiches in the same way as others believe in gods and ghost phalli, precisely because of the reasons we believe them. I'd wager that most of us believe most of the things we do for reasons in of themselves. Explanations, elaborations, facts, tidbits, data, hints, clues, signals, signs, patterns, consistencies, conclusions, necessities, and logic. This isn't just cold scientific shit either. I believe my girlfriend exists and cares for me since I can see and hear and feel her, and all my past experiences and all of the consistencies and logical conclusions in life would lead me to believe she's a person who cares for me. And she can use the same facts about me to realize that I'm a person who cares for her too. If I began to discount my senses (not question or doubt them, I do those all the time and I still get quite good results, thank you) then as far as I know I could be spinning ass-over-teakettle in a vat of tar, with no girlfriend and no sense of direction or reason.
Do people believe in the supernatural for reasons too? Well... yes... kinda... a lot of the time, I would hope. Although the reasons for religious and spiritual belief tend to be murky and vague at best and often using mixed data, if not precisely contrary to all available data. The belief in a creator God could be attributed to the rational conclusion that everything requires a beginning and an end, but this leads to the logical problem of where God came from and when he intends to end his existence. Where exactly do you leave a divine suicide note? Ah, but this problem was solved long ago, since we all know that God is beyond our rational laws of logic and so he can have no beginning or end. Then how can we conclude that anything else must have a beginning or an end? Why then does the universe need a beginning, and even if it had a beginning couldn't it also forgo the logic of requiring a creator?
How? Why? Because God says so, that's how and why. And who says God says so? Lots of people say God says so, including God, purportedly. And we all know how reliable the clergy and religiously orthodox are.
I'm not a big fan of the "just because" explanations, myself. I much prefer an individual to say "I don't know". I do it all the time. Does it mean I'm wrong, that I give up my beliefs? No, it means I'm not asserting anything for anyone else to believe and therefore am not the one who has to account for himself, so shut the fuck up, would you kindly.
So clearly faith is not synonymous with all belief. What is it then? Some beliefs? What is it about the belief in an expanding universe (a scientific fact) and the belief in a Jewish demigod (a not-so-scientific fact) that could lump both of them in the same category as beliefs taken on faith? Perhaps our purely hypothetical mother was implying that we don't personally know very much about either of these belief systems and therefore assume them both to be true for convenience's sake.
Before we get into just how belittling it is for religious people to be told their heartfelt beliefs about God are just an assumption, let's compare religious and secular assumptions, shall we? Of course we will, because it's my blog and my rules.
A layman can have a reasonable amount of confidence in scientific theories because science is a very rigorous process of eliminating erroneous notions in light of new data. Bullshit ideas are not highly publicized in scientific journals, and when they are they're quite open to review and revision. The same process of observation, controlled interpretation, experimentation, and calculation that tells you the universe is most likely expanding at an accelerating rate is the same one that's given you little things like medicine, atomic energy, modern engineering, information technology, fuel-efficient cars (well maybe not in America...), and ice cream. (Ice cream! Yay!)Science has an impressive track record and can only be improved with better science. You can't very well go about disproving scientific notions with half-baked ideas, random-ass guesswork, or "revealed knowledge". I have not yet seen a hypothesis being supported by the scientific method, then be disproved by some paranormal sort of gnosis. You'd think that someone could tap into the source of that knowledge and set everything straight, but apparently the money isn't good enough to convince "real" psychics and prophets to see daylight.
Religious belief, on the other hand, is assumed because of the overall weakness of the believer's original worldview. Do you honestly think it's a sign of strength for theism if it's just a convenient assumption? I'm sure that most religious believers would rather be certain that they have reasons for thinking there is a God. You know, like any other sane person. But if you just assume there is a God and then base your worldview on that, you've made your entire worldview completely fucking arbitrary. There's nothing to argue about or test with religious belief if that belief is already formed from an arbitrary baseless assumption. In science you can get things wrong, you can be disproved, unless you decide to forgo logic in favor of "faith". Isn't it beginning to sound like a vapid, insulting word already? Faith. "I don't need reasons, I have faith." Nobody wants to admit that they're stupid, but that statement comes close.
Maybe I'm being too harsh here and there's some other meaning to faith other than belief itself or assumed belief. Something more personal and heartfelt, like trust. Could that be what it means to have faith in something, to have trust in it? Possibly, sounds like a good match doesn't it? Aren't we faithful to our loved ones, and have faith in each other? We often mean it in the same way that we mean trust, personal trust. Which makes more sense, I suppose. After all, the devout are more likely to identify with a religion where you feel like you can trust whoever is on the other side of reality. Okay, so there's quite a bit that's still assumed in this relationship, like that the people on the other side (not to mention the other side itself) actually exist. But still, at least we have a definition that unites religious and secular worldviews, right?
There's only one problem. It doesn't work beyond that personal level of trust. Remember that in this case we're talking about the theory of the expanding universe, and by that connection the scientific method itself. Science has no personal identity, not even the scientists. What, is it implied that we have personal trust in the scientists collectively? I guess, but science isn't about authority, it's about facts and logic. If an idea has no reflection or base in reality, all of the scientific authority in the world couldn't make any more sense out of it. That's why science is so open to revision, so that nobody gets to declare a monopoly on truth, and bad ideas can be exposed and deconstructed and taunted, sometimes with pointed fingers and laughter. Creationists are still new to this sort of thing, so they think they're under selective treatment. But they're not, they're selectively intruding on science with no idea how it works, and accordingly they're surprised when they're ridiculed and their ideas are discounted as nonsensical nonsense.
Besides, there's one definition of faith that our not-at-all-real-life mother has neglected to consider, and this one's going to be a dandy when trying to apply it to "faith" in the expanding universe. When I was in high school, I was told by my Christian Ethics teacher that faith was a personal relationship that one had with God. Specifically this is referring to love. Thus it was explained to me the difference between knowing about somebody, and knowing somebody, biblically (Eww). Look, the universe and I have been through a lot together, we're virtually inseparable (what with me being made of matter and all), and it will continue to mean literally everything to me, but... I'm just not up for that kind of commitment on a cosmic level. And... there's someone else, a human girl I've been seeing for a few months. She means so much to me, and it may not seem fair, but I'm just not really into infinitely vast stretches of time and space. I'm really more interested in cute peeps, at a personal level at least. So this isn't goodbye to the universe, but I think that it would be best if the universe and I were just good friends.
And thanks, Bible, for making even the word "know" an inneundo.
"I knew it... three times."
The problem I always had with this definition of faith is that it's not exactly healthy to love someone you don't even know. Marriage arrangements on internet chat rooms are not encouraged, so why should anyone be expected to give unconditional love to some hyped-up ancient celebrity, a battered, bearded, tripped-out zombie man with an intellect from before the Dark Ages who no sane person has ever even met before? Unless you count rituals where celibate men in robes say some magic words over breakfast cereal and claim it's become the flesh of said zombie celebrity. Damn, this is some weird kind of kink. I'm not sure how eating one's flesh is an expression of love, but it's pretty sick, divine or not. You'd think that if a god wanted his "substance" - and I don't even want to know what the hell that is - to be put into a human being he would just will it, and not have to bother with this disturbing imagery. But then, that would make too much sense, and we've got a lot of irrational bullshit to accommodate. And the first time I heard this illogical definition of faith as love, I told my teacher "But I can only know a person if I at least know that they exist."
I never got a good reply to that. If I was manic enough, I'm sure I could think of something.
There's only one other definition of faith I can think of, and it's the one thing a religious mind would be holding onto at this point: hope. Faith defined as hope for something you cannot see. And it's at this point that the self-degrading of faith as a concept gets to truly pitiful levels. It's essentially admitting that there's no reason to believe in anything you claim to have faith in, so one can only hope that maybe everything will turn out alright in the end. This is stupid because if you have no rough guesses of the chances or the odds in your head, then you have no hope, it's all just completely random. If you have some idea of what your chances are, then you have that much hope to go on. None of this of course has anything to do with whether things will turn out the way you want them. This isn't Oprah, people. Hoping things will become so will not under any circumstances make it more likely to become a reality. You have to act if you want things to happen, and if everything in your mind tells you it's impossible, then you're just being stupid. I've heard of people acting with good reason while everyone else thinks they're crazy, but believing something you don't think you have good reason for? That's wishful thinking in a nutshell, and there is no genie in that nutshell. You get zero wishes. Divide those wishes by the chances that you're right and you get FUCK.
If a person is left without real chances of success, if they have nowhere to go, and things aren't likely to work out, then that's just sad. Can we accept that? Terminally ill patients, people under oppression, and people with very serious life-altering ailments are under unfortunate, often terrible circumstances, and that sucks. It's awful that bad things happen to good people, so can we just acknowledge that little fact? It's probably one of the more important things you'll ever learn, so don't pray for people, don't hope that Jesus will descend from the clouds and make everything picture perfect, DO SOMETHING. The only morally reasonable options are a) do something to give people hope b) if you have no hope, either try to fight all the way anyway or come to terms with it or c) cope. Being in a circumstance where you have no hope and can't do anything about it and can't even come to terms with it is probably the saddest thing conceivable, and you can only do what you can to get by until your suffering can be alleviated. But that is not how people who can act for the better ought to be thinking. Don't try to cope with the fact that there's no justice, no peace, no loving God in sight. Accept reality for what it is and work for the better.
So no, clearly-not-my-actual-mother, I don't have faith in the expanding universe, or anything else for that matter. I don't assume, trust, or hope that it is so. I'm what I call "reasonably certain with some degree of falsifiability". I'm also reasonably certain that regardless of the baseless, broad, insulting, stupid, offensive, demented, illogical, arrogant, authoritarian, high-minded, pseudo-philosophical, self-proclaimed to be "humble" bullshit claims that you have, that you're also reasonably certain about most things in life too.
I therefore have no use for the word faith, except to define that meaningless quality in certain religious contexts in which so many are still so intellectually preoccupied and so overly emotionally-invested. Belief, assumption, trust, love, and hope are all fine concepts all on their own. Faith has nothing to do with any of them.
Fuck faith.
"Faith is believing what you know ain't so." - Mark Twain
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Doodlemastery Bible School: Part 2: God's Image = dirt
"If you're descended from monkeys, does that make you think you can act like one?"
No, the truth is much more hopeful. You see, our Lord God saw fit to craft us from dirt. Which means we should act like... dirt... human... things... with ghosts...
Yeah, I'm not sure how anyone can go through their whole lives and not notice that loop in logic. And also never care to learn the difference between monkeys and apes. Just to make it simple: monkey -> tail; ape -> no tail. Not to mention the denial of our nature as apes. Being an animal biologically does not imply anything about our behavior, no more than a cheetah can be expected to be a house cat.
Now with that little bit of ignorance out of the way, let's resume our reading with Genesis, Chapter 2.
So the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the furniture in them. (Genesis 2:1)
God's done some remodeling. The last time we saw creation it was an empty world that was somehow full of water at the same time.
And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his work he had done.
And he blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. (2:2-3)
This is the only time I've ever seen anyone create a holiday for not doing anything. How exactly can a celestial being "rest"? Does that just mean he refrained from doing anything? What about sustaining existence through his willpower? If that's not considered an action, then neither is creating anything since it's all done the same way, with God willing it to happen. And by that same token everything that ever happens is a direct result of God's will, so he's responsible for everything. That will be important to remember for later. Very, very important.
These are the generations of the heaven and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the heaven and the earth: (2:4)
Right off the bat we have a contradiction with Chapter 1. Right there, clear as daylight, it says that God created the heavens and the earth in a day. A single day. And it's on that day that he does all the things that follow in this chapter. Even though just a few verses ago we had this whole spiel about the six days of creation. Chapter 2 even begins by saying that God finished creation on the seventh day. This sounds a lot like two creations myths smashed together with a few verses left in the second chapter. Seamless transition, isn't it? Maybe I'm being too harsh. Let's see what else the chapter has to add to the account of our creation.
And every plant of the field before it sprung up in the earth, and every herb of the ground before it grew: for the Lord God had not rained upon the earth and there was not a man to till the earth. (2:5)
Apparently this is before God invented rain. He just held the water vapor up in our atmosphere with his magical firmament. I suppose that's easy for a theist to accept. The guy is God, after all. And good job pointing out that humankind predates agriculture. Even though agriculture also predates this creation myth, by a couple dozen thousand years.
But a spring rose out of the earth, and watering all the surface of the earth. (2:6)
In a more interesting creation myth, this is where the earth's water would break and the earth would have birth pangs before giving birth to the first life or a god warrior or some crazy shit like that. Amazingly what we get instead is even more distasteful than birth metaphors.
And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (2:7)
Ewww. Our first ancestors were made from slime? Say what you will about the human body and its reproductive system, making human beings out of slime from the riverside is pretty damn disgusting. Why did God see fit to craft us out of this naturally occurring smegma? He could have just, you know, conjured us up out of nothing. He did the same thing for the rest of creation, so why the all-natural sculpting all of a sudden? Why did he reserve this treatment for a species supposedly created in his image, complete with an immortal soul? You could say that this is God's way of making something partially divine out of something as simple as clay, but if God were said to have made us out of stardust would the interpretation have any different result? It's like the Barnum Effect. You could say anything about the way we were created and interpret it into something beautiful if you really want it to be.
Or you could interpret it into something that views humanity as being the equivalent of dirt, which some guilt-driven individuals would have no problem with.
And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning: wherein he placed man whom he had formed. (2:8)
Oooo, a paradise of pleasure? Ah not so fast, hedonists, no such luck in a story like this. There's nothing in this text that suggests pleasure includes anything, um... pleasurable. Apparently pleasure in this context entails having enough to eat and not dying. As much of an improvement as that would be for the many, many starving and dying people all around the world, that actually sounds pretty boring. How did God decide on this as being paradise? He couldn't even let us... you know... have fun? Eh? Know what I mean, know what I mean? Nudge nudge, nudge nudge, say no more.
And the Lord God brought forth of the ground all manner of trees, fair to behold, and pleasant to eat of: the tree of life also in the midst of paradise: and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (2:9)
I'd be an ass and say that trees were created before humankind, but it's probably just a way of saying that the trees were created beforehand. What's notable here is the addition of the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The footnotes at the bottom of the page describe the tree of life as giving anyone who ate of its fruit perfect health and continuous life. It's the biblical philosopher's stone. The tree of knowledge is simply described as being the one "To which the deceitful serpent falsely attributed the power of imparting a superior kind of knowledge, beyond that which God was pleased to give." If you've never heard of this creation myth before, you're going to be confused as hell when you first read that. "The deceitful serpent"? What deceitful serpent? In a few moments we'll get into the details of this particular tree and the nature of all the trees mentioned in this chapter.
This is just riveting stuff, isn't it? EPIC BOTANY.
And a river went out of the place of pleasure to water paradise, which from thence is divided into four heads.
The name of the one is Phison: that is it which compasseth all the land of Hevilath, where gold groweth.
And the gold of that land is very good: there is found bdellium, and the onyx stone. (2:10-12)
Gold doesn't groweth, my Lord God. It's not physically possible. Gold just sits there. It's probably a figure of speech describing plentiful reserves of wealth, but it's still a primitive way of putting it. Very precise point of gold being very good, too, because indeed, gold is awesome. Although it's next to useless in the hands of people who look on it as nothing more than a rare and shiny metal.
And I have no idea what bdellium is.
And the name of the second river is Gehon: the same is it that compasseth all the land of Ethiopia.
And the name of the third river is Tigris: the same passeth along by the Assyrians. And the fourth river is Euphrates. (2:13-14)
It's amazing that I still remember where these rivers are. At least the Tigris and Euphrates. These rivers run through what is now Iraq, formerly the site of the earliest civilizations. It was even called the "cradle of life" for its historical significance to humankind. A natural starting point for a creation myth centered on the Middle East. This does however tether this story to actual locations that can be traced geographically. And in case you hadn't noticed, the Garden of Eden, the paradise we're reading about here, simply doesn't exist. God's inspired authors said paradise lies somewhere in the Mesopotamian, and such a place doesn't and never has existed. If it did it would have left a trace. Or maybe God is being ever-so-sneaky again, obliterating earthly paradise to dust before we can inspect it. Ah well. On with the reading.
And the Lord God took man, and put him into paradise of pleasure, to dress it, and to keep it. (2:15)
Keep it how? It's paradise. It's supposed to be perfect. And you know men, they're just going to turn the whole place into a mess. But God will take care of that in a few moments.
And he commanded him, saying: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat:
But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, though shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death. (2:16-17)
Now, my mortal advice might not be worth much, but I think this might be God's first honest mistake here. There's a certain tree which causes those who eat of it to become mortal and die. Why put it there in the first place? It's not doing anything constructive. It's just sitting there, soaking up sun and water, producing fruit no one can eat, and just generally being evil. Does this tree serve any purpose other than to fuck with people? I've heard people trying to reinterpret this passage to refer to free will itself, and even then that's a really steep and unfair scenario to put someone in, especially if that person has existed for just a few minutes. It's like building a house in a nice neighborhood, selling it to decent law-abiding people, telling them how to live in it and make it their home, with one condition: that there is a button - in easy reach, in the living room - which they may not under any circumstances push or tamper with, since it activates a nuclear bomb built into the basement of the house. You can't say that's entirely the owners' responsibility. Any sane individual would move out immediately, call the authorities, and have those responsible for the death machine in the basement arrested.
Although in this situation, no one can prosecute God. With great power comes great responsibility, but with infinite power comes the ability to screw with people.
And what's with these magical trees? Are there only two of them? Is there a genetic sequence associated with the Tree of Life so that one could replicate its amazing health benefits? Or is the whole issue of trees just an extended metaphor for human actions? What were the other trees supposed to be if not ordinary plants that one could eat fruit from?
I think the Bible's message is clear. The sooner we realize that trees are all probably evil traps and just destroy every last one of them, the better off we'll be, really.
And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a help like unto himself. (2:18)
I didn't screw that up, it's in the edition I have. This was approved by the Catholic Church, by the Archbishop of New York in 1941. "Let us make him a help like unto himself." Speaks for itself, doesn't it?
And the Lord God having formed out of the ground all the beasts of the earth, and all the fowls of the air, brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: for whatsoever Adam called any living creature the same is its name. (2:19)
So all the other animals were made out of dirt too, huh? Does that put us on par with the animals, my neighborly biblical literalists? No, on second thought, I retract that question, since if I ask it then I'll get caught in a vacuous discussion about the difference between spiritual souls and non-spiritual souls. I'll bet you didn't even know of such a thing. Yeah, apparently animals have souls, but not immortal souls. So souls can die... Huh. Makes you want to just sit down and take biology again.
Oh by the way, the Adam in question is the first man we read about earlier. Didn't we mention that? No? Eh, fuck it.
And Adam called all the beasts by their names, and all the fowls of the air, and all the cattle of the field: but for Adam there was not found a helper like himself. (2:20)
A helper? Oh, you mean a help! Keep your grammar consistent, my biblical friend. So Adam named all of the animals that live on the land? Zoologists are still busy doing that today, so nice job, you ancestral ass-hat. Also, it's strange that God would think that animals would be suitable partners for the first human being. Very strange considering that bestiality will be explicitly forbidden later on, but we'll get into that another time. Better than nothing, I suppose. ... What? I don't... you know, I'm just saying that... someone, in that situation, might... Christ, nevermind. We can't talk hypothetically anymore, can we?
Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it. (2:21)
???
And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman: and brought her to Adam. (2:22)
...
This is a weird book.
And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. (2:23)
Okay, forgiving the skeletal reconstruction earlier, this is horseshit. Nothing other than patriarchal myths like this suggests that the human species can be derived naturally from full-blooded males. It's biologically impossible. Human beings and most other mammals have two chromosomes, one from each parent. About half inherit two "X" chromosomes, which generally makes that half of the population female; the other approximate half inherits one X chromosome and one Y chromosome, making that half male. The Y chromosome is a special genetic sequence only about half the population has. You can't get an XX pair entirely from an XY chromosome. That would be a hell of a mutation. Nearly everyone has an X chromosome, and having that chromosome paired alone technically makes one female. If anything, we are all derived from women. I say "technically" since God apparently fucked up in a minority of cases. An XX chromosome may still make one male, and an XY chromosome female. And there are still other chromosome pairs with various effects on one's gender. Sexuality and gender are very complicated matters. Many Christians would do well to remember that.
And the asserted origin of the word "women" is just as idiotic. I don't know about the original ancient Hebrew vocabulary, but English is a Germanic language. The German word for man or person, "Mann", comes from the gender-independent word for a human being, male or female, in an earlier form of German. The modern word "woman" comes from this older German, the original term being "Wiffmann"; for a man, the word was "Weremann". You know, as in "werewolf".
This is absolutely fascinating.
Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh. (2:24)
Yes! Haha! I knew there would be "pleasure"! Oh wait, this isn't talking about now instead of back then, is it? So being "one flesh" is still forbidden in paradise? Dammit! You know, if this was how it was going to be, I'd look forward to the Fall. What's living forever if you can't ever get it on?
I can't stand how this passage alone is considered enough for people to be convinced that only heterosexual sex should be allowed. You know, sex does more than one thing. It doesn't only make babies. It can be for pleasure, for health, or you could just do it out of sheer boredom. And if you're looking for a divine sanction for something you should be able to work out on your own, it'd better be in a far more impressive display than this bizarre ancient tale.
And they were both naked, to wit, Adam and his wife: and were not ashamed. (2:25)
Is that good or bad? I ask because in the next chapter ignorance and knowledge become key parts of the destiny of humankind. I'd say that being content and not at all repulsed by the human body is a good thing, but often you'll find Christians saying that you can't be going around strutting your stuff. Is that only because we're in the age after the Fall? Shouldn't we be striving toward better appreciation of ourselves? Or is ignorance a virtue, and knowledge something that makes our bodies unclean?
That's an interesting message: being ignorant of the world's workings will make the shame go away.
That explains why abstinence never brought me any closer to God.
No, the truth is much more hopeful. You see, our Lord God saw fit to craft us from dirt. Which means we should act like... dirt... human... things... with ghosts...
Yeah, I'm not sure how anyone can go through their whole lives and not notice that loop in logic. And also never care to learn the difference between monkeys and apes. Just to make it simple: monkey -> tail; ape -> no tail. Not to mention the denial of our nature as apes. Being an animal biologically does not imply anything about our behavior, no more than a cheetah can be expected to be a house cat.
Now with that little bit of ignorance out of the way, let's resume our reading with Genesis, Chapter 2.
So the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the furniture in them. (Genesis 2:1)
God's done some remodeling. The last time we saw creation it was an empty world that was somehow full of water at the same time.
And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his work he had done.
And he blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. (2:2-3)
This is the only time I've ever seen anyone create a holiday for not doing anything. How exactly can a celestial being "rest"? Does that just mean he refrained from doing anything? What about sustaining existence through his willpower? If that's not considered an action, then neither is creating anything since it's all done the same way, with God willing it to happen. And by that same token everything that ever happens is a direct result of God's will, so he's responsible for everything. That will be important to remember for later. Very, very important.
These are the generations of the heaven and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the heaven and the earth: (2:4)
Right off the bat we have a contradiction with Chapter 1. Right there, clear as daylight, it says that God created the heavens and the earth in a day. A single day. And it's on that day that he does all the things that follow in this chapter. Even though just a few verses ago we had this whole spiel about the six days of creation. Chapter 2 even begins by saying that God finished creation on the seventh day. This sounds a lot like two creations myths smashed together with a few verses left in the second chapter. Seamless transition, isn't it? Maybe I'm being too harsh. Let's see what else the chapter has to add to the account of our creation.
And every plant of the field before it sprung up in the earth, and every herb of the ground before it grew: for the Lord God had not rained upon the earth and there was not a man to till the earth. (2:5)
Apparently this is before God invented rain. He just held the water vapor up in our atmosphere with his magical firmament. I suppose that's easy for a theist to accept. The guy is God, after all. And good job pointing out that humankind predates agriculture. Even though agriculture also predates this creation myth, by a couple dozen thousand years.
But a spring rose out of the earth, and watering all the surface of the earth. (2:6)
In a more interesting creation myth, this is where the earth's water would break and the earth would have birth pangs before giving birth to the first life or a god warrior or some crazy shit like that. Amazingly what we get instead is even more distasteful than birth metaphors.
And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (2:7)
Ewww. Our first ancestors were made from slime? Say what you will about the human body and its reproductive system, making human beings out of slime from the riverside is pretty damn disgusting. Why did God see fit to craft us out of this naturally occurring smegma? He could have just, you know, conjured us up out of nothing. He did the same thing for the rest of creation, so why the all-natural sculpting all of a sudden? Why did he reserve this treatment for a species supposedly created in his image, complete with an immortal soul? You could say that this is God's way of making something partially divine out of something as simple as clay, but if God were said to have made us out of stardust would the interpretation have any different result? It's like the Barnum Effect. You could say anything about the way we were created and interpret it into something beautiful if you really want it to be.
Or you could interpret it into something that views humanity as being the equivalent of dirt, which some guilt-driven individuals would have no problem with.
And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning: wherein he placed man whom he had formed. (2:8)
Oooo, a paradise of pleasure? Ah not so fast, hedonists, no such luck in a story like this. There's nothing in this text that suggests pleasure includes anything, um... pleasurable. Apparently pleasure in this context entails having enough to eat and not dying. As much of an improvement as that would be for the many, many starving and dying people all around the world, that actually sounds pretty boring. How did God decide on this as being paradise? He couldn't even let us... you know... have fun? Eh? Know what I mean, know what I mean? Nudge nudge, nudge nudge, say no more.
And the Lord God brought forth of the ground all manner of trees, fair to behold, and pleasant to eat of: the tree of life also in the midst of paradise: and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (2:9)
I'd be an ass and say that trees were created before humankind, but it's probably just a way of saying that the trees were created beforehand. What's notable here is the addition of the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The footnotes at the bottom of the page describe the tree of life as giving anyone who ate of its fruit perfect health and continuous life. It's the biblical philosopher's stone. The tree of knowledge is simply described as being the one "To which the deceitful serpent falsely attributed the power of imparting a superior kind of knowledge, beyond that which God was pleased to give." If you've never heard of this creation myth before, you're going to be confused as hell when you first read that. "The deceitful serpent"? What deceitful serpent? In a few moments we'll get into the details of this particular tree and the nature of all the trees mentioned in this chapter.
This is just riveting stuff, isn't it? EPIC BOTANY.
And a river went out of the place of pleasure to water paradise, which from thence is divided into four heads.
The name of the one is Phison: that is it which compasseth all the land of Hevilath, where gold groweth.
And the gold of that land is very good: there is found bdellium, and the onyx stone. (2:10-12)
Gold doesn't groweth, my Lord God. It's not physically possible. Gold just sits there. It's probably a figure of speech describing plentiful reserves of wealth, but it's still a primitive way of putting it. Very precise point of gold being very good, too, because indeed, gold is awesome. Although it's next to useless in the hands of people who look on it as nothing more than a rare and shiny metal.
And I have no idea what bdellium is.
And the name of the second river is Gehon: the same is it that compasseth all the land of Ethiopia.
And the name of the third river is Tigris: the same passeth along by the Assyrians. And the fourth river is Euphrates. (2:13-14)
It's amazing that I still remember where these rivers are. At least the Tigris and Euphrates. These rivers run through what is now Iraq, formerly the site of the earliest civilizations. It was even called the "cradle of life" for its historical significance to humankind. A natural starting point for a creation myth centered on the Middle East. This does however tether this story to actual locations that can be traced geographically. And in case you hadn't noticed, the Garden of Eden, the paradise we're reading about here, simply doesn't exist. God's inspired authors said paradise lies somewhere in the Mesopotamian, and such a place doesn't and never has existed. If it did it would have left a trace. Or maybe God is being ever-so-sneaky again, obliterating earthly paradise to dust before we can inspect it. Ah well. On with the reading.
And the Lord God took man, and put him into paradise of pleasure, to dress it, and to keep it. (2:15)
Keep it how? It's paradise. It's supposed to be perfect. And you know men, they're just going to turn the whole place into a mess. But God will take care of that in a few moments.
And he commanded him, saying: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat:
But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, though shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death. (2:16-17)
Now, my mortal advice might not be worth much, but I think this might be God's first honest mistake here. There's a certain tree which causes those who eat of it to become mortal and die. Why put it there in the first place? It's not doing anything constructive. It's just sitting there, soaking up sun and water, producing fruit no one can eat, and just generally being evil. Does this tree serve any purpose other than to fuck with people? I've heard people trying to reinterpret this passage to refer to free will itself, and even then that's a really steep and unfair scenario to put someone in, especially if that person has existed for just a few minutes. It's like building a house in a nice neighborhood, selling it to decent law-abiding people, telling them how to live in it and make it their home, with one condition: that there is a button - in easy reach, in the living room - which they may not under any circumstances push or tamper with, since it activates a nuclear bomb built into the basement of the house. You can't say that's entirely the owners' responsibility. Any sane individual would move out immediately, call the authorities, and have those responsible for the death machine in the basement arrested.
Although in this situation, no one can prosecute God. With great power comes great responsibility, but with infinite power comes the ability to screw with people.
And what's with these magical trees? Are there only two of them? Is there a genetic sequence associated with the Tree of Life so that one could replicate its amazing health benefits? Or is the whole issue of trees just an extended metaphor for human actions? What were the other trees supposed to be if not ordinary plants that one could eat fruit from?
I think the Bible's message is clear. The sooner we realize that trees are all probably evil traps and just destroy every last one of them, the better off we'll be, really.
And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a help like unto himself. (2:18)
I didn't screw that up, it's in the edition I have. This was approved by the Catholic Church, by the Archbishop of New York in 1941. "Let us make him a help like unto himself." Speaks for itself, doesn't it?
And the Lord God having formed out of the ground all the beasts of the earth, and all the fowls of the air, brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: for whatsoever Adam called any living creature the same is its name. (2:19)
So all the other animals were made out of dirt too, huh? Does that put us on par with the animals, my neighborly biblical literalists? No, on second thought, I retract that question, since if I ask it then I'll get caught in a vacuous discussion about the difference between spiritual souls and non-spiritual souls. I'll bet you didn't even know of such a thing. Yeah, apparently animals have souls, but not immortal souls. So souls can die... Huh. Makes you want to just sit down and take biology again.
Oh by the way, the Adam in question is the first man we read about earlier. Didn't we mention that? No? Eh, fuck it.
And Adam called all the beasts by their names, and all the fowls of the air, and all the cattle of the field: but for Adam there was not found a helper like himself. (2:20)
A helper? Oh, you mean a help! Keep your grammar consistent, my biblical friend. So Adam named all of the animals that live on the land? Zoologists are still busy doing that today, so nice job, you ancestral ass-hat. Also, it's strange that God would think that animals would be suitable partners for the first human being. Very strange considering that bestiality will be explicitly forbidden later on, but we'll get into that another time. Better than nothing, I suppose. ... What? I don't... you know, I'm just saying that... someone, in that situation, might... Christ, nevermind. We can't talk hypothetically anymore, can we?
Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it. (2:21)
???
And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman: and brought her to Adam. (2:22)
...
This is a weird book.
And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. (2:23)
Okay, forgiving the skeletal reconstruction earlier, this is horseshit. Nothing other than patriarchal myths like this suggests that the human species can be derived naturally from full-blooded males. It's biologically impossible. Human beings and most other mammals have two chromosomes, one from each parent. About half inherit two "X" chromosomes, which generally makes that half of the population female; the other approximate half inherits one X chromosome and one Y chromosome, making that half male. The Y chromosome is a special genetic sequence only about half the population has. You can't get an XX pair entirely from an XY chromosome. That would be a hell of a mutation. Nearly everyone has an X chromosome, and having that chromosome paired alone technically makes one female. If anything, we are all derived from women. I say "technically" since God apparently fucked up in a minority of cases. An XX chromosome may still make one male, and an XY chromosome female. And there are still other chromosome pairs with various effects on one's gender. Sexuality and gender are very complicated matters. Many Christians would do well to remember that.
And the asserted origin of the word "women" is just as idiotic. I don't know about the original ancient Hebrew vocabulary, but English is a Germanic language. The German word for man or person, "Mann", comes from the gender-independent word for a human being, male or female, in an earlier form of German. The modern word "woman" comes from this older German, the original term being "Wiffmann"; for a man, the word was "Weremann". You know, as in "werewolf".
This is absolutely fascinating.
Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh. (2:24)
Yes! Haha! I knew there would be "pleasure"! Oh wait, this isn't talking about now instead of back then, is it? So being "one flesh" is still forbidden in paradise? Dammit! You know, if this was how it was going to be, I'd look forward to the Fall. What's living forever if you can't ever get it on?
I can't stand how this passage alone is considered enough for people to be convinced that only heterosexual sex should be allowed. You know, sex does more than one thing. It doesn't only make babies. It can be for pleasure, for health, or you could just do it out of sheer boredom. And if you're looking for a divine sanction for something you should be able to work out on your own, it'd better be in a far more impressive display than this bizarre ancient tale.
And they were both naked, to wit, Adam and his wife: and were not ashamed. (2:25)
Is that good or bad? I ask because in the next chapter ignorance and knowledge become key parts of the destiny of humankind. I'd say that being content and not at all repulsed by the human body is a good thing, but often you'll find Christians saying that you can't be going around strutting your stuff. Is that only because we're in the age after the Fall? Shouldn't we be striving toward better appreciation of ourselves? Or is ignorance a virtue, and knowledge something that makes our bodies unclean?
That's an interesting message: being ignorant of the world's workings will make the shame go away.
That explains why abstinence never brought me any closer to God.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
The hand of fate.
After walking past the ocean washing up on the boardwalk's edge and flooding the beach, the only thing more exciting would have to be connecting with the unseen and mysterious workings of the spirit realm. Or a trip to the local psychic's office would be good too.
I should probably avoid saying who this psychic is, but I will say that according to her information card leaflet thing, she's been using her "God given gift to help people through meditation and spiritual guidance" for over 45 years, and offers to "help you or a loved one in matters of love, business, divorce, depression, finding your life path or reuniting with a soulmate." Sweet. Oh wait, that's bad. It's a really bad idea to get personal advice from anyone other than a certified expert or a close friend.
But maybe I presume too much. After all she's been doing this for 45 years, which means she's either an expert in tapping into the fabric of the universe or she's pulling off the longest con I've ever taken note of. The decor of her boardwalk-side office no longer includes the smoke fountain I mentioned in the last post, but it does have religious icons from Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and just tokens of astrology bullshit. I didn't find out anything about my horoscope, or my zodiac sign, which is a month off anyway.
I only got one palm reading, as this particular psychic's services are rather expensive. Palm readings are $10 each palm. Playing card readings are $25. Tarot card readings are $35 for a half deck and $45 for a full deck. Crystal readings are $75. And life charts are a whopping $125. Jesus fish! No wonder there are plaques adorning her walls commemorating her business achievements. She gets the big bucks single-handed for giving no real services whatsoever. I love how the "crystal reading" is such a big deal, even though you're essentially looking intently at a big piece of naturally occurring glass. Why are crystals hyped up to such a lofty position in the New Age movement? There's no significant properties in them. Now I could afford either a palm reading and a playing card reading, a half deck tarot card reading, or I could just get the palm reading and get something to eat. And since I don't support this establishment in any way whatsoever, it would be better to save as much money on this inanity as possible.
After waiting for a short while, I was at last able to see the psychic herself. This was the first time I'd actually laid eyes on her despite seeing her office for years, since she keeps herself hidden from passerby in a separate room. A clever marketing ploy, much like Cloverfield. She was a middle-aged Hispanic woman. Spoilers. She proceeded to do the palm reading. I have no idea how this is supposed to work. She's looking at the folds in my hand and somehow divines future meaning in them. Is there some genetic disposition that leads to certain aspects of my life that also leads to certain creases in my hands? Do events in the future bend the fabric of time to make these folds in my hands appear? What exactly is going on here? It can't just be a guessing game, can it? No, it's more like a guessing game and cold reading. John Edward would be proud.
And so, the reading. First, she pointed out my lifeline. Apparently I can ask the audience. Actually what she pointed out was that I will live to be 80 years old. I'd make a joke about testing that out by trying to do myself in right away, but it's more appropriate to point out that anyone taking this proclamation seriously would take it to mean they're invulnerable to life-threatening harm until they reach that age.
Interestingly she said I could read other people's palms. Really? Is this a secret ability? Do I have to go to a university or get some special training to understand it? Or am I only able to do it intuitively? How come I'm able to do it and not others? Did God decide I should be given this ability? Or do I have a high midichlorian count that lets me communicate with the Force? Hell, maybe I should do my own palm readings. Save myself ten bucks.
She said I have the ability to see spirits. Fuck, why don't I just become a paranormal investigator or some real life equivalent of Edward Carnby? Well, other than possibly my dead cat (which I'm pretty sure was actually just a step ladder I didn't get a good look at), I haven't seen any spirits. Maybe I just need to believe. I mean, the sign to the entrance did say that the psychic "has the right to not do readings for anyone she does not feel positive with." That's fine, it's her business, she can choose who she works with. But what exactly does it mean to be "positive"? Hell, I was a skeptic and an atheist going in and coming out of that place. Surely she could sense the negative energies.
She said I would be living in Pennsylvania, then asked where I come from. Why bother asking me? She should know, she's a goddamn psychic. I said New Jersey, and she confirmed her previous statement that I would be living in Pennsylvania, or Delaware. First of all, that's a really easy guess. I come from New Jersey, so sooner or later I'm going to spend some time in Pennsylvania. But why in the hell did her mind take a detour to Delaware for a second? That's another state away. Why would she second-guess where my future home would be?
She said I had marks of writing in my fingertips. Signs that I've been writing, with my hands? Noooo! Evidently I'm supposed to write inspirational stuff. Well that would be nice, but so far I just write random shit on my blog making fun of irrational belief systems and reviewing entertainment and just anything that comes into my head. At least I still occasionally get messages from people on YouTube saying they were inspired by comments I wrote on a George Carlin video. Comments I wrote a year or so back. Some people have way too much time on their hands.
She said I had "a positive loveline". ... What the hell is that supposed to mean? That I can fall in love? That it's within my human capacity? That's great, she informed me that I'm not a heartless sociopath. What are the odds? She continued that I "just need to open up a bit more". I can see why she has such a shining record as someone who gives relationship advice. I paid $10 for that little nugget. She couldn't have sensed that I'm, you know, ever so mildly autistic. I know you can't tell that right away from talking to me, but that's my point. If she had any special advice to offer, I wouldn't have to tell her that I'm an aspie. Otherwise she's little more than an unqualified counselor.
She even asked me if I was in a relationship, and when I said not as of yet, she said I could expect a love interest this August or September, if I "opened up" of course. I'm a single college student, and a virgin. Obviously I'm looking forward to going back, and hoping for the best when it comes to closer relationships. So naturally the response to such a visitor is wishing them luck in finding love soon, but this is supposed to be more than just well-wishing. It's supposed to be actual love advice. And it's so bland and predictable, and easily falsifiable. Watch, nothing's going to happen that quickly. It would have been something if she said I was actually going to have to wait until February or something to meet the right person. Or hell, maybe a year or two. But we wouldn't want to be realistic, would we? No, we need to feed people's desires as we drain their cash.
Continuing to draw out my path in life, she said I should look into engineering. I said I had never done anything related to it, and she predictably told me to open up to it. I'm sure my own ambitions or the advice of my academic counselors pale in comparison to the wisdom this woman has offered as a result of her 45-year experience of making shit up. That ended the palm reading. $10. Before leaving I asked if there was any way I could discern one's star sign from their palms. Nope. Damn. I could have made $125 a pop from the horoscopes I could write from the palms I apparently can read.
So, off I went to get good food with the rest of my money, and some ice cream from the Chinese peeps working at the candy shop. I could have spent that $10 on something more meaningful and worthwhile. Like candy.
I should probably avoid saying who this psychic is, but I will say that according to her information card leaflet thing, she's been using her "God given gift to help people through meditation and spiritual guidance" for over 45 years, and offers to "help you or a loved one in matters of love, business, divorce, depression, finding your life path or reuniting with a soulmate." Sweet. Oh wait, that's bad. It's a really bad idea to get personal advice from anyone other than a certified expert or a close friend.
But maybe I presume too much. After all she's been doing this for 45 years, which means she's either an expert in tapping into the fabric of the universe or she's pulling off the longest con I've ever taken note of. The decor of her boardwalk-side office no longer includes the smoke fountain I mentioned in the last post, but it does have religious icons from Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and just tokens of astrology bullshit. I didn't find out anything about my horoscope, or my zodiac sign, which is a month off anyway.
I only got one palm reading, as this particular psychic's services are rather expensive. Palm readings are $10 each palm. Playing card readings are $25. Tarot card readings are $35 for a half deck and $45 for a full deck. Crystal readings are $75. And life charts are a whopping $125. Jesus fish! No wonder there are plaques adorning her walls commemorating her business achievements. She gets the big bucks single-handed for giving no real services whatsoever. I love how the "crystal reading" is such a big deal, even though you're essentially looking intently at a big piece of naturally occurring glass. Why are crystals hyped up to such a lofty position in the New Age movement? There's no significant properties in them. Now I could afford either a palm reading and a playing card reading, a half deck tarot card reading, or I could just get the palm reading and get something to eat. And since I don't support this establishment in any way whatsoever, it would be better to save as much money on this inanity as possible.
After waiting for a short while, I was at last able to see the psychic herself. This was the first time I'd actually laid eyes on her despite seeing her office for years, since she keeps herself hidden from passerby in a separate room. A clever marketing ploy, much like Cloverfield. She was a middle-aged Hispanic woman. Spoilers. She proceeded to do the palm reading. I have no idea how this is supposed to work. She's looking at the folds in my hand and somehow divines future meaning in them. Is there some genetic disposition that leads to certain aspects of my life that also leads to certain creases in my hands? Do events in the future bend the fabric of time to make these folds in my hands appear? What exactly is going on here? It can't just be a guessing game, can it? No, it's more like a guessing game and cold reading. John Edward would be proud.
And so, the reading. First, she pointed out my lifeline. Apparently I can ask the audience. Actually what she pointed out was that I will live to be 80 years old. I'd make a joke about testing that out by trying to do myself in right away, but it's more appropriate to point out that anyone taking this proclamation seriously would take it to mean they're invulnerable to life-threatening harm until they reach that age.
Interestingly she said I could read other people's palms. Really? Is this a secret ability? Do I have to go to a university or get some special training to understand it? Or am I only able to do it intuitively? How come I'm able to do it and not others? Did God decide I should be given this ability? Or do I have a high midichlorian count that lets me communicate with the Force? Hell, maybe I should do my own palm readings. Save myself ten bucks.
She said I have the ability to see spirits. Fuck, why don't I just become a paranormal investigator or some real life equivalent of Edward Carnby? Well, other than possibly my dead cat (which I'm pretty sure was actually just a step ladder I didn't get a good look at), I haven't seen any spirits. Maybe I just need to believe. I mean, the sign to the entrance did say that the psychic "has the right to not do readings for anyone she does not feel positive with." That's fine, it's her business, she can choose who she works with. But what exactly does it mean to be "positive"? Hell, I was a skeptic and an atheist going in and coming out of that place. Surely she could sense the negative energies.
She said I would be living in Pennsylvania, then asked where I come from. Why bother asking me? She should know, she's a goddamn psychic. I said New Jersey, and she confirmed her previous statement that I would be living in Pennsylvania, or Delaware. First of all, that's a really easy guess. I come from New Jersey, so sooner or later I'm going to spend some time in Pennsylvania. But why in the hell did her mind take a detour to Delaware for a second? That's another state away. Why would she second-guess where my future home would be?
She said I had marks of writing in my fingertips. Signs that I've been writing, with my hands? Noooo! Evidently I'm supposed to write inspirational stuff. Well that would be nice, but so far I just write random shit on my blog making fun of irrational belief systems and reviewing entertainment and just anything that comes into my head. At least I still occasionally get messages from people on YouTube saying they were inspired by comments I wrote on a George Carlin video. Comments I wrote a year or so back. Some people have way too much time on their hands.
She said I had "a positive loveline". ... What the hell is that supposed to mean? That I can fall in love? That it's within my human capacity? That's great, she informed me that I'm not a heartless sociopath. What are the odds? She continued that I "just need to open up a bit more". I can see why she has such a shining record as someone who gives relationship advice. I paid $10 for that little nugget. She couldn't have sensed that I'm, you know, ever so mildly autistic. I know you can't tell that right away from talking to me, but that's my point. If she had any special advice to offer, I wouldn't have to tell her that I'm an aspie. Otherwise she's little more than an unqualified counselor.
She even asked me if I was in a relationship, and when I said not as of yet, she said I could expect a love interest this August or September, if I "opened up" of course. I'm a single college student, and a virgin. Obviously I'm looking forward to going back, and hoping for the best when it comes to closer relationships. So naturally the response to such a visitor is wishing them luck in finding love soon, but this is supposed to be more than just well-wishing. It's supposed to be actual love advice. And it's so bland and predictable, and easily falsifiable. Watch, nothing's going to happen that quickly. It would have been something if she said I was actually going to have to wait until February or something to meet the right person. Or hell, maybe a year or two. But we wouldn't want to be realistic, would we? No, we need to feed people's desires as we drain their cash.
Continuing to draw out my path in life, she said I should look into engineering. I said I had never done anything related to it, and she predictably told me to open up to it. I'm sure my own ambitions or the advice of my academic counselors pale in comparison to the wisdom this woman has offered as a result of her 45-year experience of making shit up. That ended the palm reading. $10. Before leaving I asked if there was any way I could discern one's star sign from their palms. Nope. Damn. I could have made $125 a pop from the horoscopes I could write from the palms I apparently can read.
So, off I went to get good food with the rest of my money, and some ice cream from the Chinese peeps working at the candy shop. I could have spent that $10 on something more meaningful and worthwhile. Like candy.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Random thoughts.
I can't think of much else to write about since I'm still stuck at home. Stupid feral cats. Even personal matters are kind of dim in my mind, so I'll have to think it over. The next Bible review is a weekend away, I still haven't gotten an email from the college about getting a job there, and nothing else has really stirred my brains. There is one dvd I'm thinking of reviewing, but maybe I should keep it for a special occasion for friends in person. And I still haven't gone to the psychic's place for the novelty of seeing that kind of idiocy firsthand. So until something more interesting happens, here are some random thoughts of mine:
Why are ghosts always depicted as having clothes? I thought only people or living things were supposed to have souls. So shouldn't all ghosts be naked? It might be an indication that visions of ghosts depend entirely on what people expect to see. Or maybe only puritans care to come back to the land of the living.
How come no psychic has used their abilities to win the lottery? The "abuse of power" argument doesn't work since it's clear psychics have no problem with being greedy, and even if they weren't there are a lot of charities that could use that money. And why the hell would they keep any kind of special knowledge to themselves? Any kind of understanding of the paranormal could make for leaps and bounds in advancing the cause for humanity.
Are taxes good or bad? I've seen two separate articles published by the New York Post, both about Hillary Clinton. One says that she and Obama are going to destroy small businesses by raising the upper-class tax (to a more reasonable level, because it's seriously putting the rest of us - 90% of the population - at a seriously unfair disadvantage). Disregarding the fact that small businesses are not paid for out of one's pocket (and if they are then said person is not financially impaired in the first place), there was another article soon thereafter which claimed that Clinton had betrayed New York State by slashing the taxes for foreign dignitaries. But then by free market logic wouldn't that increase the amount of business taking place and make up for the tax cuts with a little extra? Not that I know anything about economics or that I'm not lazy enough to look any of this up, but I'd like some consistency in newspapers. Even in idiotic tabloids like the New York Post.
Seriously, what are symbolic days or years? I don't think anyone can adequately explain that.
How are zombies supposed to move around with no metabolism? They're obviously using some energy lumbering around feeding on the living, so they must be burning calories. But if they have a metabolism, how are they considered undead? That would put them in the same category as "the infected", people whose minds and bodies are deteriorating. Not even Max Brooks explained that one.
Why do bodies in Fallout 3 fly through the air in a ludicrous fashion? Oh wait, awesomeness factor. Nevermind.
Would it be considered offensive to point out in a conversation concerning western medicine versus traditional that traditional remedies just don't work on any level comparable to modern medicine? I only ask because several of my friends are Chinese nationals. I don't know how much of it is an issue of nationalism. It's somewhat like telling an American that prayer just doesn't work. I don't intend to be rude about it or anything, but if anything like that or astrology ever come up then I'm not really sure how to say something like that to an otherwise friendly and reasonable person. I do know it was more awkward when a girl I was interested in believed in astrology. That should have killed my interest then and there, but then again I am an idiot.
Yu-Gi-Oh. Just the show itself. Really, wtf. Card games? That's going to decide the fate of the world? A children's card game? And the "heart of the cards" can suck it. It's really sad that I know any of this in the first place.
Why does my family insist on quoting George Carlin only when particular bits reinforce their beliefs? Really, dad? Carlin? The same guy who was legendary for his awesome "Religion is bullshit" routine? Alright, if you want to go down that road. Let's take a look at some more Lewis Black while we're at it.
Does anyone else own a lightsaber? Ahhh I miss those duels. Even though the guys turned out to be jerks anyway. That's right. I'm too geeky for lightsaber duels and D&D roleplaying.
Why do we feel better leaving things up to chance only for certain things? Particularly for things revolving around birth. We won't fiddle around with DNA even if it means a better chance at avoiding genetic illnesses, and we won't give kids a fair chance when it comes to the environment they're raised in. No, we'd rather have our offspring done "all natural", which basically means setting the genetic mixer on high and letting God sort it out. Then we leave the kid to whatever destiny the parents have decided for them, about gender, about religion, about tradition, about freedom to change their mind about everything. I guess sooner or later we have to yield to a person's judgement, and just hope that person is especially caring for the next generation. Hasn't turned out too well so far, in my opinion.
Where do you get those hats, seriously? You know what I'm talking about. Those... hats! I know I'm not one for headgear, but damn there are some snappy hats out there. Where does one acquire those hats?
I'm all out of ideas, so I'm going to let this one go out as is. Hopefully next time I'll have something more interesting to talk about. Maybe it's time I finally payed "Madame Fatima" a visit.
"The deck! It senses my doubt!"
Why are ghosts always depicted as having clothes? I thought only people or living things were supposed to have souls. So shouldn't all ghosts be naked? It might be an indication that visions of ghosts depend entirely on what people expect to see. Or maybe only puritans care to come back to the land of the living.
How come no psychic has used their abilities to win the lottery? The "abuse of power" argument doesn't work since it's clear psychics have no problem with being greedy, and even if they weren't there are a lot of charities that could use that money. And why the hell would they keep any kind of special knowledge to themselves? Any kind of understanding of the paranormal could make for leaps and bounds in advancing the cause for humanity.
Are taxes good or bad? I've seen two separate articles published by the New York Post, both about Hillary Clinton. One says that she and Obama are going to destroy small businesses by raising the upper-class tax (to a more reasonable level, because it's seriously putting the rest of us - 90% of the population - at a seriously unfair disadvantage). Disregarding the fact that small businesses are not paid for out of one's pocket (and if they are then said person is not financially impaired in the first place), there was another article soon thereafter which claimed that Clinton had betrayed New York State by slashing the taxes for foreign dignitaries. But then by free market logic wouldn't that increase the amount of business taking place and make up for the tax cuts with a little extra? Not that I know anything about economics or that I'm not lazy enough to look any of this up, but I'd like some consistency in newspapers. Even in idiotic tabloids like the New York Post.
Seriously, what are symbolic days or years? I don't think anyone can adequately explain that.
How are zombies supposed to move around with no metabolism? They're obviously using some energy lumbering around feeding on the living, so they must be burning calories. But if they have a metabolism, how are they considered undead? That would put them in the same category as "the infected", people whose minds and bodies are deteriorating. Not even Max Brooks explained that one.
Why do bodies in Fallout 3 fly through the air in a ludicrous fashion? Oh wait, awesomeness factor. Nevermind.
Would it be considered offensive to point out in a conversation concerning western medicine versus traditional that traditional remedies just don't work on any level comparable to modern medicine? I only ask because several of my friends are Chinese nationals. I don't know how much of it is an issue of nationalism. It's somewhat like telling an American that prayer just doesn't work. I don't intend to be rude about it or anything, but if anything like that or astrology ever come up then I'm not really sure how to say something like that to an otherwise friendly and reasonable person. I do know it was more awkward when a girl I was interested in believed in astrology. That should have killed my interest then and there, but then again I am an idiot.
Yu-Gi-Oh. Just the show itself. Really, wtf. Card games? That's going to decide the fate of the world? A children's card game? And the "heart of the cards" can suck it. It's really sad that I know any of this in the first place.
Why does my family insist on quoting George Carlin only when particular bits reinforce their beliefs? Really, dad? Carlin? The same guy who was legendary for his awesome "Religion is bullshit" routine? Alright, if you want to go down that road. Let's take a look at some more Lewis Black while we're at it.
Does anyone else own a lightsaber? Ahhh I miss those duels. Even though the guys turned out to be jerks anyway. That's right. I'm too geeky for lightsaber duels and D&D roleplaying.
Why do we feel better leaving things up to chance only for certain things? Particularly for things revolving around birth. We won't fiddle around with DNA even if it means a better chance at avoiding genetic illnesses, and we won't give kids a fair chance when it comes to the environment they're raised in. No, we'd rather have our offspring done "all natural", which basically means setting the genetic mixer on high and letting God sort it out. Then we leave the kid to whatever destiny the parents have decided for them, about gender, about religion, about tradition, about freedom to change their mind about everything. I guess sooner or later we have to yield to a person's judgement, and just hope that person is especially caring for the next generation. Hasn't turned out too well so far, in my opinion.
Where do you get those hats, seriously? You know what I'm talking about. Those... hats! I know I'm not one for headgear, but damn there are some snappy hats out there. Where does one acquire those hats?
I'm all out of ideas, so I'm going to let this one go out as is. Hopefully next time I'll have something more interesting to talk about. Maybe it's time I finally payed "Madame Fatima" a visit.
"The deck! It senses my doubt!"
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Doodlemastery Bible School: Part 1: In the beginning was a godless heathen and a book...
So, here's what I'm going to do every Sunday. My mom wants me to "try", basically put aside all the logic and evidence I find convincing and delve into stuff that makes no sense outside of a believer's context. If that's what she wants, so be it. I'm going to read the Bible from beginning to end, starting today, and verse by verse I'm going to indicate exactly what about this book (more like a collection of heavily-edited loosely-related manuscripts) isn't as good as the nickname suggests.
It's not that I look down on religious people or enjoy controversy, it's just that there are very good reasons to believe that this is not a good book, for historical, literary, or moral value. As long as people are detached from reality there will be conflict, and as long as books like the Bible and the Koran are deemed "good" or even appropriate in the mainstream, there are going to be problems. You can't marginalize fundamentalists and literalists from mainstream religion just for trying to understand these texts as they are, and I'll try to include as much citation as my laziness will allow. For those of you who are curious, this is from the Douay-Rheims Bible. I'm not using the King James Bible because a) I highly doubt the highly poetic Anglican edition could be any more accurate in capturing the original meaning of the text, and more importantly b) I don't own a KJB and would rather save my money on more important things. Like video games.
Why am I including the readers in this? Well, I thought I would share with you what it's like to appreciate what this highly influential text actually contains. Yay? I'll go verse by verse but spare you going over each and every word by skimming over unimportant or uninteresting bits. To keep it in context, I'll give you a sum-up from the perspective of a believer and the real-life implications. Come on, it'll be fun!
(It's not going to be fun.)
Now then, let's settle in with Genesis.
CHAPTER 1:
"God createth the Heaven and Earth, and all things therein, in six days."
You knew this would be the first issue to come up in a review of the Bible, and that fact is probably inducing some moans from people who didn't want to drag creationism into the reading, so bear with me.
What do you think when you hear the words "creation in six days"?
I bring this up because almost everyone I speak to seem convinced that I'm implying a fringe nutjob group is representative of the mainstream. "No, of course the universe wasn't created in six days, that's ridiculous to ask, you're making a strawman argument, it's supposed to be symbolic, don't be so condescending to religious people," etc. etc.
First of all, it's not a fringe belief. It's a minority, but it's mainstream all the same. By that token, I think it's condescending to say anything to the effect of "No one could be that stupid. You're trying to make religious people look like idiots." If that's the reaction to taking creationism seriously as a problem, then said person has unwittingly referred to a large portion of the population as hopelessly idiotic. I'm not that blunt and hateful, since I believed in the creationism mess at one time in my life. You don't have to be an idiot to be fooled. It could happen to almost anybody.
Second, without even addressing the intention of the original authors, consider the symbolic interpretation. What exactly is a symbolic day? What does the day represent? Eons? How many years is a symbolic day? How many millions? Has anyone thought this through? And then there's the issue of this creation supposedly taking place only 6000 years ago. What's a symbolic year? How are the years shorter than God's days? I've heard the claim that time is insignificant to God, and so a day to him would be eons to us, and a year to us would be a microsecond to him. But even this is moot on its own terms. What's a finite amount of time to an infinite being? Next to nothing. In fact, an omniscient and omnipresent being would perceive time a lot like Doctor Manhattan, with time being simultaneous and interconnected, despite human perception of time as being linear. So it wouldn't be a day to God. All of time to him would be next to nothing, an imaginary point in the midst of infinity. And actually, the use of the word "imaginary" could not be more appropriate when dealing with a being that's supposedly the foundation for everything, for whom willing something to be is enough for it to become so. We'd all be figments of a greater being's imagination... This is starting to sound too existential for most religious people I've known. In fact that's the sort of vision of despair I've heard being paired up with disbelief.
We haven't even gotten past the subtitle of the first chapter. God help us all.
In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. (Genesis 1:1)
For the sake of religious moderation, I'll just assume earth means all of material existence and that the beginning is the beginning of existence rather than the beginning beginning, before there was even a universe for nothing to exist in.
And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved over the waters. (1:2)
What waters? I thought the earth was void and empty. A glass can't be empty and full of water at the same time. And how can the spirit of God - "spiritual substance" not bound by time and space - move? Maybe there's some literary devices or phrases I'm not picking up on.
And God said: Be light made. And light was made. (1:3)
Yoda in this edition, God is.
And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. (1:4)
I'd say that God arbitrarily deeming light to be good and dividing light from darkness would be unnecessary, but presumably these are things that needed to be spelled out before anything existed in the first place.
I'm just getting the gears out of this God thing while we're starting, it won't continue later unless there's a particular problem I've got with something.
And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night. And there was evening and morning one day. (1:5)
OK, now we're getting somewhere. The first day of creation is over. But isn't a day a measurement of time based on the sun's exposure to a particular location on the Earth's surface? I thought this was when everything was starting out, and the planets and the stars weren't properly formed yet. There couldn't have been days, much less evenings or mornings.
Speaking of which, where was the light coming from? Light has to have a source, so there would have to be energy before there could be light. If God wanted people to be aware of the making of the universe, shouldn't he have pointed out to somebody, anybody, that energy would have to predate light? But then that would be too much scientific knowledge for humans to handle, and who the fuck needs science when we can have mythology?
That brings me to the symbolic interpretation of this so-called origin. This does not in the slightest resemble the Big Bang Theory astronomers take as the most likely origin point for space-time and matter as we know it. I've seen so many attempts to retell Genesis that have the words "Let there be light" and then there's a big explosion that supposedly links the two explanations together. Theists everywhere seem so proud of the fact that science has shown that existence has a starting point, as if that were integral to the claim that God is necessary for sanity or morality, or the Christians' claim that Jesus was God incarnate. There's nothing to suggest that this means an infinite being caused it to happen, or even that the Big Bang needed a cause. I've actually heard arguments that use scientific principles to explain exactly how something can come from nothing. Common sense doesn't matter for shit if it doesn't make any sense in light of evidence.
We'll get more into the inadequacy of this particular story later. We've still got a whole chapter to read.
And God said: Let there be a firmament made amidst the waters: and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made a firmament, and divided the waters that were under the firmament, from those that were above the firmament. And it was so. (1:6-7)
Ah, the firmament. The wall dividing the waters on Earth from the waters in the sky. This doesn't sound like old nonsense, does it? What waters in the sky, exactly? The natural water vapor in our atmosphere? There's plenty of that here near the ground anyway. Sounds a lot like some primitive mojo explaining how water can fall from the sky by having a deity open up celestial floodgates to let the blue water from the sky fall down. I'm glad people believe in a God who was nice enough not to tell us about something as simple as water vaporization cycles. Or the fact that the Earth revolves around the sun.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and morning were the second day. (1:8)
God decreed that Heaven was literally in the sky, keeping the water from falling down. Anyone who's flown in an airplane should know this is not a good claim to make if you want to sound credible. Come to think of it, why do people still look up to Heaven and down to Hell? I'm pretty sure places that by definition can't exist in the material world don't... um... exist in the material world.
Then there's the separating of the waters on earth so that land could appear. Fine and good.
And he said: Let the earth bring forth the green herb, and such as may seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, which may have seed in itself upon the earth. And so it was done. (1:11)
Wait, this isn't trying to say that plant life was the first on the planet, is it? Not bacteria? No, of course not bacteria, since the writers couldn't have known about it. But then that would put this book on par with mortal writers rather than the inspired word of God, so what do we make of this?
Professor Andrew Parker, a research fellow at Oxford University, actually wrote a book on this matter, reinterpreting the Genesis account to match the scientific explanation of origins. He describes this particular passage as being the development of lifeforms that rely on an early form of photosynthesis. Yeah, bacteria. That spread seeds. And bear fruit in trees. Right.
So the third day was a total fuck-up in orderly creation.
On the fourth day God made the sun and the stars to rule the sky during the day and the night.... Wha?
And God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day: and a lesser light to rule the night: and the stars.
And he set them in the firmament of heaven to shine upon the earth.
And to rule the day and the night, and to divide the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good. (1:16-18)
So after God created plants (or photosynthesizing bacteria, whichever you prefer) he made the sun and the moon. Oh, and the vast majority of the stars in the universe. But mostly the sun and the moon. Even if we blatantly ignore the fact that this does not even come close to resembling the truth that the sun and the stars formed long before the Earth and the moon, and that the Earth and the moon formed long before any life; even if we ignore all that, how in the hell is plant life supposed to exist without sunlight? In fact, how are light itself, evenings and mornings, night and day, supposed to be possible without the sun and the moon and the stars? Where was the light from the first day of creation coming from? How could there be night and day with no sun or moon?
Oh right, because God says so. Checkmate.
This is something else Andrew Parker wrote about, suggesting that this period refers to the evolution of sight, enabling creatures to become aware of the sun and the moon and the stars. Okay, what creatures are we talking about? Because at this point in creation, the only living things on this Earth are plants. Or bacteria. Goddammit, this is stupid.
And then on the fifth day, God created aquatic animals and flying creatures. WTF?
And God created the great whales, and every living and moving creature, which the waters brought forth, according to their kinds, and every winged fowl according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. (1:21)
This presents another problem to the symbolic interpretation of Genesis: birds being created before land-roving animals, at the same time as sea-dwelling creatures. This is completely counter to everything human beings can possibly infer from the fossil record, which tells us that birds would have to develop from dinosaurs starting in the Jurassic period. Hell, I learned that as a kid from a Magic School Bus PC game. The "inspired" writers of this text could not have surpassed modern 1st grade level intelligence. Oh, and if we're going by Oxford fellow Professor Parker's logic, these animals came after plant-bacteria with eyes. I can see why he's so credible in religious spheres.
Also notice the use of the word "kinds". There's going to be some problems when making interpretations of this word later in Genesis. We haven't even gotten to the crazy part of this book. Yeah, this is the easy stuff. It's only going to get worse.
And he blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the waters of the sea; and let the birds be multiplied upon the earth. (1:22)
This little ditty will become an interesting counterpoint to a popular claim in a minute.
So, the fifth day: plants with eyesight evolve into whales and birds. Next.
On the sixth day God finally creates land-based animals, which should have gone before birds, but whatever, that's not even the stupid part. He also creates human beings on the same day.
And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness; and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. (1:26)
The word "us" here is interpreted as proving in the Old Testament that God is plural, that there are three persons in one God. Don't even get me started on this nonsense concept that is the Trinity, but even this verse has no biblical support for the plurality of divine persons. God seems to speak to his spiritual counterparts, the angels, on a regular basis, and it doesn't seem strange in an ancient Israelite context for God to speak with them as a group. Unless we're going to suggest that God "inspired" the Jewish authors to write about a trinity they didn't believe in, just to be sneaky.
And God created man to his own image; to the image of God he created them. Male and female he created them. (1:27)
I think this passage is trying to tell us that God created them. And that man and woman came about simultaneously, which from an evolutionary perspective is accurate, but from a biblical perspective... it's complicated. We'll see in Chapter 2.
What exactly is God's image, anyway? Apparently it's supposed to mean that we have reason and free will like him, but that's a stretch of infinite magnitude, literally. No mortal being could come close to comparing to an infinite being, at all. It's just not possible. On a scale of infinite standards, a saint is on par with both a sociopath and dirt. How exactly are we supposed to be in God's image? And how are we supposed to know what God's image is? Wouldn't an infinite being be impossible to comprehend? So then how can we talk intelligibly about it at all? The main reason why people try to talk about God's image in the first place is so that there's some objective standard of morality beyond what we perceive. I just don't see the point. Isn't happiness and contentment enough? Isn't altruism hard-wired into our minds enough to make us want to live together without appealing to impossible rationale from the sky? I guess not.
And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all the living creatures that move upon the earth. (1:28)
Anti-environmentalists bring up this passage all the time, as if we can't do a damn thing without consulting ancient myths written by ignorant men long before scientific knowledge. But I'd like to point out verse 22, which says that the animals should be able to multiply as they damn well please. So aren't we doing God a disservice by limiting their dominion and hunting and harvesting them for food? I know there's an obvious contradiction here, with both parties being told to multiply to no ends, but then what's this passage worth if there's another one within the same chapter saying the complete opposite? But that's something you get used to with the biblical perspective: contradictions are resolved entirely by personal preference, as long as you declare your personal preference to be the inerrant word of God. Brilliant.
Wait, if we're supposed to be fruitful and multiply, shouldn't we be having more open sex with everything and everybody? I guess with the Catholic Church the multiplying part is no problem. Just anecdotal evidence, but I'm from a family of 4 children. My father's one of 8. My mother's one of 11. Global responsibility pales in comparison to God's word.
And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all the trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat:
And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done. (1:29-30)
Wow! We're like kids in a candy store! We can have anything we want in this place! Every living thing on the planet can be used for our nourishment, and it's all for the taking! I'm sure that all of this stuff is edible and none of them are just dangerous and poisonous traps to catch many of us off-guard before we learn simple culinary techniques! And I'm most certain that none of the animals our God has created will suddenly be considered unclean and verboten under divine law! And I'm sure there isn't one tree in particular which will be placed inexplicably on the earth only for us to be forbidden under penalty of death from eating from it, essentially bringing the fall of our species into suffering and despair down to a decision about eating some otherwise harmless fruit, right?
Right?
And God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good. And evening and morning were the sixth day. (1:31)
See? It's not just good, it's very good! There's nothing on this earth which could inevitably result in the misery and destruction of countless lives. And even if it did, our Lord God has decreed it very good, which renders the concept of good meaningless, but don't question his logic! After all, God created logic! Which proves... I dunno, something.
So, for anyone who's been keeping track, according to the inspired authors of God's word on Earth, the creation of all existence is as follows:
In the beginning: The spiritual realm of Heaven and the empty realm of matter. And possibly the planet Earth, which is empty and filled with water.
Day 1: Light from no source in particular. Or all the mass and energy ever. Day and Night and evening and morning despite the lack of a sun.
Day 2: An invisible wall keeping the monstrously large amounts of water in our sky, and Heaven again.
Day 3: Dry land and oceans, and plant life. Or photosynthetic microorganisms, the first lifeforms are kind of implied.
Day 4: The sun and moon and stars, 3 days after the light they should have been emitting along with the day and night they make possible were created, and 1 day after the plants (or bacteria) that depend on sunlight were created. Or eyes evolved... on bacteria.
Day 5: Sea creatures and flying animals. 1 day after the eyes they should have had first developed, and 1 day before the dinosaurs they evolved from were created.
Day 6: All the other animals on the earth, and humans. Everyone's told to multiply like crazy.
Aren't you glad we have people insisting on teaching the controversy? Not the controversy of the science, but just based on the views of anyone with a book they haven't read from beginning to end. I'd like to hear your interpretations.
Although it'd be easier if we just said the writers were wrong. Regardless, this is probably a better Bible School then you'll find for your kids. The fact that this is being taught to kids as truth, and that people are trying to push it into the public curicullum, is actually pretty scary.
See you next Sunday!
It's not that I look down on religious people or enjoy controversy, it's just that there are very good reasons to believe that this is not a good book, for historical, literary, or moral value. As long as people are detached from reality there will be conflict, and as long as books like the Bible and the Koran are deemed "good" or even appropriate in the mainstream, there are going to be problems. You can't marginalize fundamentalists and literalists from mainstream religion just for trying to understand these texts as they are, and I'll try to include as much citation as my laziness will allow. For those of you who are curious, this is from the Douay-Rheims Bible. I'm not using the King James Bible because a) I highly doubt the highly poetic Anglican edition could be any more accurate in capturing the original meaning of the text, and more importantly b) I don't own a KJB and would rather save my money on more important things. Like video games.
Why am I including the readers in this? Well, I thought I would share with you what it's like to appreciate what this highly influential text actually contains. Yay? I'll go verse by verse but spare you going over each and every word by skimming over unimportant or uninteresting bits. To keep it in context, I'll give you a sum-up from the perspective of a believer and the real-life implications. Come on, it'll be fun!
(It's not going to be fun.)
Now then, let's settle in with Genesis.
CHAPTER 1:
"God createth the Heaven and Earth, and all things therein, in six days."
You knew this would be the first issue to come up in a review of the Bible, and that fact is probably inducing some moans from people who didn't want to drag creationism into the reading, so bear with me.
What do you think when you hear the words "creation in six days"?
I bring this up because almost everyone I speak to seem convinced that I'm implying a fringe nutjob group is representative of the mainstream. "No, of course the universe wasn't created in six days, that's ridiculous to ask, you're making a strawman argument, it's supposed to be symbolic, don't be so condescending to religious people," etc. etc.
First of all, it's not a fringe belief. It's a minority, but it's mainstream all the same. By that token, I think it's condescending to say anything to the effect of "No one could be that stupid. You're trying to make religious people look like idiots." If that's the reaction to taking creationism seriously as a problem, then said person has unwittingly referred to a large portion of the population as hopelessly idiotic. I'm not that blunt and hateful, since I believed in the creationism mess at one time in my life. You don't have to be an idiot to be fooled. It could happen to almost anybody.
Second, without even addressing the intention of the original authors, consider the symbolic interpretation. What exactly is a symbolic day? What does the day represent? Eons? How many years is a symbolic day? How many millions? Has anyone thought this through? And then there's the issue of this creation supposedly taking place only 6000 years ago. What's a symbolic year? How are the years shorter than God's days? I've heard the claim that time is insignificant to God, and so a day to him would be eons to us, and a year to us would be a microsecond to him. But even this is moot on its own terms. What's a finite amount of time to an infinite being? Next to nothing. In fact, an omniscient and omnipresent being would perceive time a lot like Doctor Manhattan, with time being simultaneous and interconnected, despite human perception of time as being linear. So it wouldn't be a day to God. All of time to him would be next to nothing, an imaginary point in the midst of infinity. And actually, the use of the word "imaginary" could not be more appropriate when dealing with a being that's supposedly the foundation for everything, for whom willing something to be is enough for it to become so. We'd all be figments of a greater being's imagination... This is starting to sound too existential for most religious people I've known. In fact that's the sort of vision of despair I've heard being paired up with disbelief.
We haven't even gotten past the subtitle of the first chapter. God help us all.
In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. (Genesis 1:1)
For the sake of religious moderation, I'll just assume earth means all of material existence and that the beginning is the beginning of existence rather than the beginning beginning, before there was even a universe for nothing to exist in.
And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved over the waters. (1:2)
What waters? I thought the earth was void and empty. A glass can't be empty and full of water at the same time. And how can the spirit of God - "spiritual substance" not bound by time and space - move? Maybe there's some literary devices or phrases I'm not picking up on.
And God said: Be light made. And light was made. (1:3)
Yoda in this edition, God is.
And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. (1:4)
I'd say that God arbitrarily deeming light to be good and dividing light from darkness would be unnecessary, but presumably these are things that needed to be spelled out before anything existed in the first place.
I'm just getting the gears out of this God thing while we're starting, it won't continue later unless there's a particular problem I've got with something.
And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night. And there was evening and morning one day. (1:5)
OK, now we're getting somewhere. The first day of creation is over. But isn't a day a measurement of time based on the sun's exposure to a particular location on the Earth's surface? I thought this was when everything was starting out, and the planets and the stars weren't properly formed yet. There couldn't have been days, much less evenings or mornings.
Speaking of which, where was the light coming from? Light has to have a source, so there would have to be energy before there could be light. If God wanted people to be aware of the making of the universe, shouldn't he have pointed out to somebody, anybody, that energy would have to predate light? But then that would be too much scientific knowledge for humans to handle, and who the fuck needs science when we can have mythology?
That brings me to the symbolic interpretation of this so-called origin. This does not in the slightest resemble the Big Bang Theory astronomers take as the most likely origin point for space-time and matter as we know it. I've seen so many attempts to retell Genesis that have the words "Let there be light" and then there's a big explosion that supposedly links the two explanations together. Theists everywhere seem so proud of the fact that science has shown that existence has a starting point, as if that were integral to the claim that God is necessary for sanity or morality, or the Christians' claim that Jesus was God incarnate. There's nothing to suggest that this means an infinite being caused it to happen, or even that the Big Bang needed a cause. I've actually heard arguments that use scientific principles to explain exactly how something can come from nothing. Common sense doesn't matter for shit if it doesn't make any sense in light of evidence.
We'll get more into the inadequacy of this particular story later. We've still got a whole chapter to read.
And God said: Let there be a firmament made amidst the waters: and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made a firmament, and divided the waters that were under the firmament, from those that were above the firmament. And it was so. (1:6-7)
Ah, the firmament. The wall dividing the waters on Earth from the waters in the sky. This doesn't sound like old nonsense, does it? What waters in the sky, exactly? The natural water vapor in our atmosphere? There's plenty of that here near the ground anyway. Sounds a lot like some primitive mojo explaining how water can fall from the sky by having a deity open up celestial floodgates to let the blue water from the sky fall down. I'm glad people believe in a God who was nice enough not to tell us about something as simple as water vaporization cycles. Or the fact that the Earth revolves around the sun.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and morning were the second day. (1:8)
God decreed that Heaven was literally in the sky, keeping the water from falling down. Anyone who's flown in an airplane should know this is not a good claim to make if you want to sound credible. Come to think of it, why do people still look up to Heaven and down to Hell? I'm pretty sure places that by definition can't exist in the material world don't... um... exist in the material world.
Then there's the separating of the waters on earth so that land could appear. Fine and good.
And he said: Let the earth bring forth the green herb, and such as may seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, which may have seed in itself upon the earth. And so it was done. (1:11)
Wait, this isn't trying to say that plant life was the first on the planet, is it? Not bacteria? No, of course not bacteria, since the writers couldn't have known about it. But then that would put this book on par with mortal writers rather than the inspired word of God, so what do we make of this?
Professor Andrew Parker, a research fellow at Oxford University, actually wrote a book on this matter, reinterpreting the Genesis account to match the scientific explanation of origins. He describes this particular passage as being the development of lifeforms that rely on an early form of photosynthesis. Yeah, bacteria. That spread seeds. And bear fruit in trees. Right.
So the third day was a total fuck-up in orderly creation.
On the fourth day God made the sun and the stars to rule the sky during the day and the night.... Wha?
And God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day: and a lesser light to rule the night: and the stars.
And he set them in the firmament of heaven to shine upon the earth.
And to rule the day and the night, and to divide the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good. (1:16-18)
So after God created plants (or photosynthesizing bacteria, whichever you prefer) he made the sun and the moon. Oh, and the vast majority of the stars in the universe. But mostly the sun and the moon. Even if we blatantly ignore the fact that this does not even come close to resembling the truth that the sun and the stars formed long before the Earth and the moon, and that the Earth and the moon formed long before any life; even if we ignore all that, how in the hell is plant life supposed to exist without sunlight? In fact, how are light itself, evenings and mornings, night and day, supposed to be possible without the sun and the moon and the stars? Where was the light from the first day of creation coming from? How could there be night and day with no sun or moon?
Oh right, because God says so. Checkmate.
This is something else Andrew Parker wrote about, suggesting that this period refers to the evolution of sight, enabling creatures to become aware of the sun and the moon and the stars. Okay, what creatures are we talking about? Because at this point in creation, the only living things on this Earth are plants. Or bacteria. Goddammit, this is stupid.
And then on the fifth day, God created aquatic animals and flying creatures. WTF?
And God created the great whales, and every living and moving creature, which the waters brought forth, according to their kinds, and every winged fowl according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. (1:21)
This presents another problem to the symbolic interpretation of Genesis: birds being created before land-roving animals, at the same time as sea-dwelling creatures. This is completely counter to everything human beings can possibly infer from the fossil record, which tells us that birds would have to develop from dinosaurs starting in the Jurassic period. Hell, I learned that as a kid from a Magic School Bus PC game. The "inspired" writers of this text could not have surpassed modern 1st grade level intelligence. Oh, and if we're going by Oxford fellow Professor Parker's logic, these animals came after plant-bacteria with eyes. I can see why he's so credible in religious spheres.
Also notice the use of the word "kinds". There's going to be some problems when making interpretations of this word later in Genesis. We haven't even gotten to the crazy part of this book. Yeah, this is the easy stuff. It's only going to get worse.
And he blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the waters of the sea; and let the birds be multiplied upon the earth. (1:22)
This little ditty will become an interesting counterpoint to a popular claim in a minute.
So, the fifth day: plants with eyesight evolve into whales and birds. Next.
On the sixth day God finally creates land-based animals, which should have gone before birds, but whatever, that's not even the stupid part. He also creates human beings on the same day.
And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness; and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. (1:26)
The word "us" here is interpreted as proving in the Old Testament that God is plural, that there are three persons in one God. Don't even get me started on this nonsense concept that is the Trinity, but even this verse has no biblical support for the plurality of divine persons. God seems to speak to his spiritual counterparts, the angels, on a regular basis, and it doesn't seem strange in an ancient Israelite context for God to speak with them as a group. Unless we're going to suggest that God "inspired" the Jewish authors to write about a trinity they didn't believe in, just to be sneaky.
And God created man to his own image; to the image of God he created them. Male and female he created them. (1:27)
I think this passage is trying to tell us that God created them. And that man and woman came about simultaneously, which from an evolutionary perspective is accurate, but from a biblical perspective... it's complicated. We'll see in Chapter 2.
What exactly is God's image, anyway? Apparently it's supposed to mean that we have reason and free will like him, but that's a stretch of infinite magnitude, literally. No mortal being could come close to comparing to an infinite being, at all. It's just not possible. On a scale of infinite standards, a saint is on par with both a sociopath and dirt. How exactly are we supposed to be in God's image? And how are we supposed to know what God's image is? Wouldn't an infinite being be impossible to comprehend? So then how can we talk intelligibly about it at all? The main reason why people try to talk about God's image in the first place is so that there's some objective standard of morality beyond what we perceive. I just don't see the point. Isn't happiness and contentment enough? Isn't altruism hard-wired into our minds enough to make us want to live together without appealing to impossible rationale from the sky? I guess not.
And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all the living creatures that move upon the earth. (1:28)
Anti-environmentalists bring up this passage all the time, as if we can't do a damn thing without consulting ancient myths written by ignorant men long before scientific knowledge. But I'd like to point out verse 22, which says that the animals should be able to multiply as they damn well please. So aren't we doing God a disservice by limiting their dominion and hunting and harvesting them for food? I know there's an obvious contradiction here, with both parties being told to multiply to no ends, but then what's this passage worth if there's another one within the same chapter saying the complete opposite? But that's something you get used to with the biblical perspective: contradictions are resolved entirely by personal preference, as long as you declare your personal preference to be the inerrant word of God. Brilliant.
Wait, if we're supposed to be fruitful and multiply, shouldn't we be having more open sex with everything and everybody? I guess with the Catholic Church the multiplying part is no problem. Just anecdotal evidence, but I'm from a family of 4 children. My father's one of 8. My mother's one of 11. Global responsibility pales in comparison to God's word.
And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all the trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat:
And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done. (1:29-30)
Wow! We're like kids in a candy store! We can have anything we want in this place! Every living thing on the planet can be used for our nourishment, and it's all for the taking! I'm sure that all of this stuff is edible and none of them are just dangerous and poisonous traps to catch many of us off-guard before we learn simple culinary techniques! And I'm most certain that none of the animals our God has created will suddenly be considered unclean and verboten under divine law! And I'm sure there isn't one tree in particular which will be placed inexplicably on the earth only for us to be forbidden under penalty of death from eating from it, essentially bringing the fall of our species into suffering and despair down to a decision about eating some otherwise harmless fruit, right?
Right?
And God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good. And evening and morning were the sixth day. (1:31)
See? It's not just good, it's very good! There's nothing on this earth which could inevitably result in the misery and destruction of countless lives. And even if it did, our Lord God has decreed it very good, which renders the concept of good meaningless, but don't question his logic! After all, God created logic! Which proves... I dunno, something.
So, for anyone who's been keeping track, according to the inspired authors of God's word on Earth, the creation of all existence is as follows:
In the beginning: The spiritual realm of Heaven and the empty realm of matter. And possibly the planet Earth, which is empty and filled with water.
Day 1: Light from no source in particular. Or all the mass and energy ever. Day and Night and evening and morning despite the lack of a sun.
Day 2: An invisible wall keeping the monstrously large amounts of water in our sky, and Heaven again.
Day 3: Dry land and oceans, and plant life. Or photosynthetic microorganisms, the first lifeforms are kind of implied.
Day 4: The sun and moon and stars, 3 days after the light they should have been emitting along with the day and night they make possible were created, and 1 day after the plants (or bacteria) that depend on sunlight were created. Or eyes evolved... on bacteria.
Day 5: Sea creatures and flying animals. 1 day after the eyes they should have had first developed, and 1 day before the dinosaurs they evolved from were created.
Day 6: All the other animals on the earth, and humans. Everyone's told to multiply like crazy.
Aren't you glad we have people insisting on teaching the controversy? Not the controversy of the science, but just based on the views of anyone with a book they haven't read from beginning to end. I'd like to hear your interpretations.
Although it'd be easier if we just said the writers were wrong. Regardless, this is probably a better Bible School then you'll find for your kids. The fact that this is being taught to kids as truth, and that people are trying to push it into the public curicullum, is actually pretty scary.
See you next Sunday!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
