So, a couple of online articles have colluded to make me comment on the subject of Bible literacy:

• Oldest known Bible goes online
• Why a Real ‘Year of the Bible’ Would Horrify Its Sponsors

The first article discusses how the oldest known collection of books of the Bible, once part of a single collection which has since been pieced and parsed here and there, are coming back together as an online collection. What’s interesting about this is that it points up something most Christians don’t realize: There is no “original Bible.” This earliest collection was compiled 400 years after the last of the known gospels were written. Think about how long ago 400 years ago is from today…1600 AD. The Renaissance, more or less. From then to now is about the same amount of time that passed between the events depicted in the New Testament were supposed to happen and when the various and sundry stories were collected into one book.

Well, I’m fudging a little: It was about 350 years after the events that the more powerful and connected Christian leaders, who fought tooth and nail to eliminate many many of the less politically powerful Christian sects (like the Gnostics), got together under order of Emperor Constantine and decided what books, gospels, and epistles were to become “official” religious canon…because Constantine didn’t like all this bickering and fighting among the diverse orders of the religion he recently became a part of. Even by that time, 300+ years after Christ, the existing gospels and Pauline letters were copies of copies and passed around as individual documents. There is no original Bible, and more important, there is no original of any single document which makes up any of the Biblical books.

Not only that, but this article also discusses a topic very troubling to most Christians but is old hat to any Biblical scholar: The various gospels and letters have been changed and edited over time, so that what we have now in most Protestant and Catholic Bibles is not what was is depicted in Bibles 800 years ago and even more so what existed 1600+ years ago! One of the big examples is the ending to the Gospel of Mark (which is the earliest written gospel, on which Luke and Matthew are heavily based and even copied from). In the earliest known copy of that story, it ends with the women running away from what they encounter at the tomb and the Gospel saying they told no one of what they saw. Some decades later, a coda was added to make it fit more in line with some of the later “official” gospels like Luke.

Then, in that second article linked above, “Why a Real ‘Year of the Bible’ Would Horrify Its Sponsors,” we read a bit about how Christians today really have little idea what’s in this “Word of God” they revere:

A 2000 survey showed that even 60 percent of those chapter-and-verse-quoting Evangelicals thought Jesus was born in Jerusalem rather than Bethlehem. Similarly, a 2004 survey of high school students found that 17 percent thought “the road to Damascus” was where Jesus was crucified and 22 percent thought Moses was either one of Jesus’ 12 apostles or an Egyptian pharaoh or an angel.

When I was a kid and a teen, growing up Christian, I was encouraged to read and study certain very important verses. Sunday School, church camp, I encountered the same usual verses over and over, and invariably they were the verses involving God loving the world, Jesus is the one and only way, etc. Interestingly, I never encountered passages like these:

Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s foes will be those of his own household.
Matthew 10:34-36 (RSV)

Or Matthew 12:46-50 in which Jesus ignores and refuses to recognize his own family. Or Matthew 5:18-19 and Luke 16:17 where Jesus tells his followers the old Law of Moses is the Word of God and none must break them. Which makes things awfully awkward for Christians who want to claim we don’t need to kill the married victims of rape (Deuteronomy 22:23-24), nor sell our virgin daughters to their rapists (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), nor sell daughters into sex slavery (Exodus 21:7-11), nor eat shrimp because they’re an “abomination” (Leviticus 11:9-12), nor kill our children if they disobey (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). Just to name a few of the hundreds of fun rules and laws God gave Moses and his other prophets.

See, I was like most Christians who only knew the John 3:16-type stuff of the Bible, until I was 17 or 18 and decided if I was going to be a good Christian, maybe even become an apologist or Biblical scholar, I should actually read the whole Bible. That’s when I read all about how God condones slavery and neither he nor Jesus (nor Paul for that matter) say a single word against owning people as property. In fact, women are property in the Bible from beginning to end, and owning slaves is fine for any good follower of Yahweh. I read how God sent bears to slaughter children who made fun of one of his prophet’s baldness (2 Kings 2:23-24) (not to mention the countless other instances in which God kills children en mass, such as the innocent first born of Egypt instead of giving Pharaoh a Paul-like Road to Damascus vision and change of heart), and the song of praise to God for killing children like this gem:

O daughter of Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall he be who requites you with what you have done to us! Happy shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!
Psalm 137:8-9 (RSV)

Praise be to the God of Love and Forgiveness.

The long way ’round to my point is this: Actually reading the Bible started me in realizing that the Bible is nothing more than a collection of myth and history (most of it fabricated) of an ancient patriarchal and superstitious Bronze Age people who were a nomadic offshoot of Babylonian culture. Followed by the stories (mostly copied from various older Near/Middle Eastern myths [see mainly Mithra, Horus, Dionysus and Krishna]) about an existence-questionable cult leader who believed the world would end within his followers’ lifetime (Mark 8:39 to 9:1, Mark 13:30-33, Matthew 16:28, Matthew 24:34, Luke 9:26-27).

And the history of the religion, why it’s survived this long instead of going the way of countless other religions that sprang up in that teeny-tiny patch of dirt, aka: God’s Promised Land, is because a Roman Emperor decided he wanted to add another religion to his collection of religious beliefs, of which he had many, and thus gave Christianity political protection. Followed by another Roman Emperor (Theodosius I) who spread it across Europe, foisted upon Europeans at the point of a spear. When you’re forced to convert or die, the religion will tend to take hold.

Back to the original topic: most Christians have not a clue what’s in the Bible. Like the fundamentalist Republican Representative who wanted the Ten Commandments displayed in Congress, most Christians can’t even name them. Well, of course the problem there is that in the Bible, as opposed to the mass produced porcelain replicas you find at Christian gift shops, there was actually two different sets of Commandments given to Moses–the pre- and post-broken tablets. Evidently God changed his mind about some stuff in between. Oh, and neither set were actually ten of then, but who’s counting. Most people who check the box marked “Christian” on forms do so simply because that’s how they were raised to answer the question, and have maybe been armed with a verse or two and some nice stories about an Ark, a manger, and a cross. Most Christians have no clue about the actual blood-soaked, misogynist, psychopathic, stone-age level of morality and ethics found in the book they believe to be the Word of God.

Read the whole thing sometime, cover to cover, including the “boring bits.” It is, after all, the very Word of God, is it not? At the very least divinely inspired by the all-creator. If you believe this to be true, then shouldn’t you actually have read it over and over again? It’s the most important document ever compiled, if it is truly God’s history and instruction book to all of humanity. I guess the first step is deciding which version of the compilation of ancient scrolls and letters is the true God-intended “official” one….

In the meantime, I’m WAY behind schedule in my “necessary” writing. I still haven’t finished the last couple of chapters in my novel/thesis’s first draft and I need it done by mid-July if I’m going to be able to do a rough edit and polish on it before the semester starts. Plus, the article I submitted to the JFA, after a LONG process of editing, was politely turned down in the jury process. I have some semi-significant editing to do on that.

Being turned down is oddly a bitter-sweet event. On the sucky side: I got turned down! Hella suxorz. However, it also reminds me of the benefits of peer-reviewed scholarship. The JFA strives to accept only articles that meet a certain standard of quality and viability–this is a great thing! It helps assure me that the articles I read in the journal have gone through similar critique and the useless and poorly written articles have been weeded out. Which also means that when mine gets accepted, I know it’s really worthy.

Although, it should be said that quality isn’t a scholarly journal’s only benchmark. Some have ideological firewalls which block some works. For example: my mentor, Dr. Burling (RIP) informed me that while Science Fiction Studies is considered the premiere scholarly journal for speculative fiction studies (and I generally agree), they currently have a highly feminist agenda (NOT a bad thing!) which ironically results in their dislike of Marxist criticism. (Ironic because feminist criticism owes it’s existence to Marxist criticism.)

So, when I’m ready to try to publish some scholarship that uses a feminist critical therory (which I do have plans for), they’ll be the first journal I turn to. For all my Marxist work, JFA or Extrapolation get the first shot.

Oh, and The Pocket Review! They’re a new, non-peer reviewed journal that works with both fiction (literary, mainly) and non, that I’m really wanting to work with. I know the people behind it and I really hope it takes off. I’d like to be connected to it become a regular contributor. But…I’m trying to count my irons in the fire and I’m losing count.

Let’s say it’s a post-apocalypse situation where whatever happened caused crops to stop growing and all herbivores (i.e.: the animals we farm and eat) to die off, like in the years leading up to Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD. Good ole red blooded middle-class Americans are dying from starvation by the millions. Given the mercenary survival instinct of corporations, and the natural survival instinct of humans in general, and our likely desire to not lose as much of our Way Of Life as possible…

Would we knowingly and willingly allow corporate run cannibalism to keep ourselves and our society as we know it running, if it allowed The West from turning into a THE ROAD or MAD MAX style desolation?

What do you think?

(It’s been 20 years since I’ve seen SOYLET GREEN and I’ve not read the book, but the main difference here is in that book/movie the populace didn’t know what the govt/corporations were doing. I’m interested in opinions regarding a willing populace.)

About 40 minutes into the show, they start talking about personal experience and revelation, and how revelation is inherently a personal experience and can not be transferable to other people. That is, one person’s experience is not proof that another person who has not had the same experience should believe them and take up their beliefs–especially the more extraordinary the experience. Test this: Pick any belief system you completely disagree with, whether it’s Islam, Wicca, fundamental Christianity, Hindu, whatever. Now imagine someone from that belief gave their testimony to you, very sincerely and emotionally, of their experience of communing with The Goddess, or Vishnu, or Krishna, or Mohammad, the Virgin Mary, etc. Would you just on the power of their telling of their personal experience, no matter how emotional and powerful it was for them, convince you to believe their religion? Didn’t think so.

That’s a little off the subject, but what the caller and the hosts began talking about was Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus and why he received a rare and unique vision to the exclusion of nearly everyone else in the world. The caller tried to offer that he thought it was because Paul was in a position to do the most good to spread Christianity at that time and place. But that raises the question: Why give that transcendent conversion experience to just Paul and not give it to everyone? Forget the middle-man, the books with contradictions and translation debates, the traveling prophets who’s stories are indistinguishable from mad ravings, and just make yourself known, truly known without question, to everyone.

The caller (you really should listen to the show; it’s quite good…but in case you don’t have that time, and I’d love to see some responses here…) suggested that perhaps God has a reason to stay distant, hidden for the most part, because the relationship he wants with us is more important than proving he really exists. That maybe removing that doubt would change or force the relationship.

Here’s where it starts to get good. (Go listen.) The host then suggests if you received a letter that said, “I love you; I want you to love me,” from someone you don’t know…would you love that person? To love and adore another requires that you know that other person. (He, and I agree, suggests that love and adoration also should be earned, not demanded.) You can’t even begin to have a relationship with someone if the other person doesn’t even know you exist. By revealing yourself to a handful (at the very best, currently 1.5 billion out of 6.5 billion–but how many of that 1.5B have actually “known” God and how many just check the box “Christian” on the census form?) you don’t put everyone on an equal ground, the same chance to know you. That’s at best shortsighted and thoughtless, and at worst a clear sign that “loving the world” is not a factor in this deity’s interests.

Just revealing one’s self, unambiguously, to the entire planet, would not force people to truly love you and have respect for and adoration for you any more than a thug who reveals himself from around your curtains and shows you he’s capable of killing you at his whim would elicit respect and adoration for him either. This God would still have to deal with people who honestly love him, those who only say they do to avoid the threat of hell, and those who feel that he’s unworthy of respect even though he’s shown to exist. (For example, it’s one thing for me to find out (a) God really exists–but if it was really Yahweh/El from the Old and New Testaments who existed who I found out really was real, there’s no way I’d worship and love that blood-thirsty, deceptive, callous, racist, sexist, amoral psychopath. The best he’d get out of me is the kind of “Yeah, OK, whatever you say, man–just don’t pull the trigger” you’d get if a deranged psycho had a gun to my head.)

Anyway, what is it for an all-powerful everything creator to give everyone a road to Damascus experience? At least that’d eliminate the grand majority of the world for the last 2,000-6,000 years from having died never having even heard of Jesus/Yahweh/Elohim/etc. and thus not even having the opportunity to have that relationship this God evidently so desperately wants–if you believe, say, Ray Comfort.

So, now that it’s summer, I’ve still almost completely ignored this blog. But, I spend most of my social e-media time on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/liamrw) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/mechphisto), I don’t feel compelled to write articles on here even though I have tons of saved links and news items and others’ blog content I want to comment on. Darn you short attention span time wasters!!

Anyway, so, the iPhone is updating, I just finished re-planting some cilantro and Greek oregano into a new window-box planter…thought I’d at least get one interesting item I’d like to share out of the way today.

“vjack” over at Atheist Revolution has a recent post entitled: “Did Jesus Abolish the Old Testiment.” It starts with a question he received from one of his readers, that goes in part like this:

…why Christians cherry pick from the bible. I brought up stuff from the old testament, like women not being allowed to dress fancy in church. His response was, “That’s mosaic law and we are under a new law now.” I didn’t know how to respond to this. What would you say?

vjack’s response I think is incredibly reasoned and thought-provoking. Well, OK, not to me at this moment, I have to be honest. Because his response, which I agree with 100%, is a response I came up with on my own (and so do many many many former Christians) while I (1.) first read the Bible in its entirety around age 17 or 18, and (2.) once again a few years ago when I was working through those questions and issues that actually reading the Bible sparked so many years earlier.

It’s not a bad thing, and I mean no negative intent, when I say vjack’s response is not interesting to me…in fact, I mean it as both matter of fact and a complement. See…I was reminded of something this week as my wife and I watched Richard Dawkins’ “The Root of All Evil?“, and part way through we started discussing liberal/non-fundamentalist Christianity and the atheist response. And I gave answers and opinions and analysis which were kernels of understanding I came to on my own a few to several years ago, wrapped with wording and terms and nuance gained from other freethinkers I’ve since read who also deal with the same issues and questions. Then, when we continued to watch the documentary, my words were virtually echoed back to me by Dawkins.

Agnosticism and atheism have been on an upswing lately, people have started coming out and talking about it, and not being ashamed or afraid of being non-believers. It’s almost like a fad in appearance. But it’s not new by a long shot. Ancient Greeks wrote about doubt regarding the gods their contemporaries worshiped, including questions like: “Does [god] command what is moral because [he] decides what it morality; or does [he] do so because morality is absolute and [he's] simply relaying the message? If the former, then morality is still relative…believers have simply shifted the responsibility up one level. If the later, then what is the need for [god] as a middle-man if morality is absolute and universal?” For example.

Then there’s Lucretius and Marcus Aurelius. And after that slews of freethinkers (at least, those not murdered by Christians during the Dark Ages), to Spinoza and Bertrand Russell, and now Hitchens and Dennett and John W. Loftus, who basically have been saying the same things for centuries regarding God(s), belief without evidence, religion. Because let’s face it: atheism is the final point of critical thinking for any person of any culture, any background, former religion or belief system. Any individual, anyone, can come to atheism on their own through thinking through the questions and thinking critically about the supposed answers. The reasons for non-belief don”t change through the ages (like religions constantly do in order to survive in changing and evolving cultures). Atheism doesn’t require any books, tomes, scrolls, or prophets. No figures of authority, no priests or rabbis. No spiritual revelation from any of the over 2,000 gods humans have created.

Religious belief requires revelation. For example: it is impossible for a person to become a Christian without coming into contact with the Bible or another Christian (who uses the Bible). A book that requires stores and libraries full of books to try to interpret it, explain it, rationalize the contradictions and inherent issues in order to bolster a person’s belief in it. Atheism only requires one’s working brain to come to the same conclusions freethinkers have been coming to for millennia.

And so, some years ago I would have found vjack’s response thoroughly interesting and informative. Now, it’s old hat. But, that’s a good thing. It continues to show that for 2000 years the same arguments hold up and continue to be inadequately answered by the believer.

That said, seriously, read vjack’s response. It may be old hat to me, but it’s a good read! And, he has some fantastic links toward the end of his post to some resources which pose issues that demand response from the believer.

Also, some of the comments on vjack’s post are great as well. Some annoying or just plain worthless. But some, like this one, poignant and well-said:

The question is, why do you follow a different law? And, if you are supposed to follow a law that contradicts what is in the old testament, why even have the old testament in the first place? It is obvious that it simply creates confusion, so why not simply publish a version of the bible that is only the new testament and use that at church?

The reality is that no believer knows exactly what they are supposed to believe or follow, which is why they pray for guidance. Given that, if one has that kind of access to a deity, why would they need the bible in the first place? Couldn’t you just ask for guidance and go from there? Or, does this deity only answer some of the time, and how do you know when your god or gods is/are answering? You see, there are endless questions, none of which have answers that are going to (1) satisfy the skeptic, and (2) convince a believer otherwise. I guess the best that I hope for is that they begin to try to actually answer these questions honestly with themselves, which is how I became a skeptic in the first place. That eventually led me to atheism, although I realize that doesn’t happen with everyone.
(TDG)

Now, I’ve NEVER been one to care much about grades (I graduated 40th out of 88 in high school, and while I did earn a 3.8+ in my undergrad theatre major, everything else was sucky enough to get me a total undergrad GPA of 3.18.) Also, according to my grad school mentor my very first day of my first MA class, grades are the last thing PhD programs look at, likewise employers. In higher level academia, it’s all about publishing and active work in your field. That’s advice I’ve taken to heart, and in these three years I’ve presented papers at conferences and have worked on journal articles (with one under peer review right now). So, whether or not I care about graduating my master’s program with a 4.0 seems odd, and possibly hypocritical.

But darnit, now that it’s possible, I kind of care. The problem is I have just two classes left before graduating, and they’re potentially my two hardest I’ve yet to take. Two B’s out of 13 grades would lower my GPA to 3.85! Almost as if 11 A’s didn’t even matter.

And then I think about the fact that most people in this world don’t even get the chance at any education at all; attending an elitist liberal university to earn a degree in something as squishy as “English” isn’t even imaginable. The reality-check of my privileged life seeps in a bit.

This will be a quick post by me; I can discuss my thoughts on this at great length, but I think it’s more important that one just simply read this fantastic article:

• Canadian Perspectives 2009: The Failure of Capitalism and the Need for a Socialist Alternative

“Capitalism has failed. This fact conditions all future developments.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, all the mouthpieces of capitalism repeated the mantra, ’socialism has failed, capitalism has won, there is no alternative.’ Francis Fukuyama declared it was ‘the end of history.’ Free-markets, privatization, corporate tax-cuts, deregulation, and outsourcing were seen as the only way forward. In short, there was a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. The workers had lost and there was very little pity from the victors.”

It is kind of a long article, but please don’t let that dissuade you from reading–it has excellent material from beginning to end, especially as the thesis starts to really pick up steam about halfway through. This article is vital for anyone of any political bent: If you’re a die-hard capitalist, this article may give you a better understanding of real socialist perspectives so you can fight against actual socialism (if you continue to wish to do so) and not some false cartoon propaganda mockery of socialism that hasn’t existed since Stalin; people curious about what socialism is all about, this will give you a great, practical, real-world idea; socialists, well, I don’t need to say anything to you.

Bottom line: anyone interested in what’s going on in politics and economics lately, and what the future may hold, should read this article. As Kim Stanley Robinson mentioned a couple of weeks ago, humanity’s survival may depend on becoming post-capitalism!

Now that Democrat Obama (corporatist) is president, and Democrats control Congress (corporatists and oligarchs); just because the overtly fascist, corporatist, imperialistic, evil Bush regime is gone, doesn’t mean the threat of USSA, Amerika, is over.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” – Thomas Jefferson

The Obama administration still has to repair a lot of erosion that has occurred to our civil liberties, for example: stopping the NSA from monitoring and recording all domestic phone and Internet usage…and it doesn’t look good that’s going to happen.

Another, recent display of how this country seems to have crossed over the line into an unstoppable slide toward fascism, to fight the war ‘gainst them ter’rists! is a recent New York Times story on how the Boy Scouts (Explorers) are encouraging and training your future Brown Shirts, er, Blackwater mercenaries, er, I mean, warriors ‘gainst terrahism.

Better than what I can say, check out these articles reacting to the story:

• A truly frightening story.
• Scouts training to fight immigrants and terrorists

I was a Boy Scout in the 80s, as the organization was being taken over by Christian fundamentalists, and becoming a tool of the Mormons. I did learn a lot as a scout, and I do have some great memories of it. Well, in Colorado most certainly, and in Missouri under one particular Scout Master…the following leaders my troop had were kind of scary racists who looked more like they’d be at home in an Idaho compound. But the best experiences I had I could have had without the Boy Scouts; what the BSA was mainly responsible for in my life was an attempt to instill worship of authoritarian power structures and a reverence for conformity. Yep, pure and simple.

Last meta topic: Facebook readers: this post came from my official blog; the auto-transfer to FB tends to strip any embedded images.)

I finally got to see Watchmen at a 2nd run theater this weekend. (Just to get that out of the way: the sound was meh. Mediocre quality and an audio channel or two would cut out now and then. If possible, always see highly visual/auditory movies in a good theater. But, $2 to see a film in a theater isn’t a bad thing either!) And my general reaction: A-frakkin-mazing! I was totally blown away! I even had chills watching the incredible opening credits.

Chances are most people reading this will have already seen Watchmen or have decided not to. Instead of an in-depth review of the movie itself, I want to express some of my personal background and reaction to it. Hey, it’s a personal blog, after all–not a news ‘zine.

I was aware of the Watchmen comics when they first came out in the 80s, but I never read them. The covers were compelling, and even though I didn’t have comic book fan friends, I was still aware of some kind of buzz surrounding these comics. But, I never got into comics at all, really, despite my really wanting to. Once, as a kid, I had gotten a copy of Ghost Rider, and it has some action which was cool…but what it mostly has was a confusing plot that depended upon previous issues of the comic in order to understand what was going on. And that very early experience with comic books prevented me from ever really picking them up as I realized some of these comics had been going on for years! How could I possibly get involved in X-Men or Teen Titans much less any of the Super- or Bat- characters if I’d be lost without the years of backstory?

It doesn’t help that I didn’t have any comic book-loving friends (even though we were definitely geeks–we played D&D pretty much every weekend and rode our bikes to see every scifi and fantasy movie we were allowed to go to), nor any comic book shops nearby. Well, not that I knew of. I mostly grew up in suburbs of Denver, yet the only hobby store I knew of was a train and model store I’d get my model rocket parts from. I always got my D&D stuff from Waldenbooks. So…I was never given any advice in how to get into comic books in the middles. In high school I used to walk to my mom’s work after school, stopping by 7-Eleven, and I started getting The ‘Nam and Groo from the beginning, but I always saw them as pale substitutions for real comic books. (Mmm, that was also the beginning of my love for chili picante Corn Nuts!)

Ironically, I didn’t get into Watchmen for that reason despite the fact it was a finite story that was published over a year or two. Once I was older and realized it was a limited story, the excitement of Watchmen had turned into legend and reverence and the comics were re-issued and collections were published. I could have gotten into it then. But something else turned me off: the artwork. In my opinion, it was and still is pretty horrendous. It reminded me of Sunday comic pages. I understood by that time that Watchmen was unlike anything that had come out before. There was something about it that elevated the comic book to literature status: it was mature, it was deep, it deconstructed the super hero, it was revolutionary. But still, every time I was reminded of it and I told myself “I’m not worthy of geek status until I read Watchmen, I would look at the old style inking and terrible coloring, and couldn’t bring myself to actually read it.

And now I’m glad! Because I think the movie freakin’ blew me away exactly because of this specific condition I find myself in. For more than 25 years I knew of the cult status of Watchmen so when the trailers for the movie started coming out, I could join in the excitement of it. (And even if I knew nothing of the history and legend of Watchmen, the trailers were freakin hawsome! I got chills the first time and the 20th time I’d watch the trailers.) But since I had no early impressioned love of the content of the comic books, I could enjoy what the movie did without expectations or criticism for not sticking to the script, adding something, or leaving something out. I could enjoy the movie for what it was.

But then, I’m pretty forgiving when it comes to movie adaptations. I’m very aware of how impossible it is to translate a book to film and not have to change things in order to make a coherent and enjoyable movie. For example, I love the original Dune novel, every time I read it I get something completely new from it–it is so amazingly rich and deep. But I liked David Lynch’s movie just fine, enjoyable on its own terms, as it’s impossible to film that book. Likewise Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings was probably the best that could possibly be done and capture the themes of the novel(s) and still make a movie that would make sense, and be enjoyable. I thank goodness there was no Tom Bombadil in the film!

Since seeing Watchmen, I’ve tried to find scans of the original comic book online so I could see what the differences in dialogue may be, and honestly, from what I’ve seen, I think the movie did a better job. Some of the dialogue in the movie was a little stilted or odd sounding. Not much, though. But while most of it was word-for-word from the comic book, the movie would eliminate some dialogue that was in the original that was even worse. Almost ridiculous. From my limited experience, I think the film-makers did an amazing job keeping the best of the original. And I like the little details. For example, I noticed in the film when Rorschach was in the prison interview room, his had both hands on the table, as if he may have been required to do so, or he was ready to strike out if need be. I later saw, in that image from the original above, that you can just see his hands flat on the table.

Watchmen was an absolutely amazing film, whether you’re into super heroes or not. It was pretty violent and gross in places, but not too bad. (All the violence in this movie doesn’t even come close to the horrific two instances of violence in the French drama, Irréversible, but that really is for another blog post.) I really need to see it a couple more times before it leaves the theater. Am I getting the DVD? Hellsyeah!

KSR is an award winning Utopian author (with a PhD) who’s written, among many other critically acclaimed works, the Moon trilogy and the “Science in the Capital” trilogy. The former is about terraforming Mars and “Utopian” society that develops there, and the latter is about the effects of global warming. In his regular life, KSR is an “American-leftist” and works for social change and climate change awareness. (He made interesting comment that when he started writing, “utopian fiction” meant writing about perfect society, nowadays it means simply society surviving. Kind of indicative of some significant social change.) His talk was in dedication to Dr. Bill Burling who he collaborated with and edited a book of critical essays about KSR. (Dr. Burling was my professor and mentor who I recently mentioned passed away.)

Alright, so, what he said:

(Yikes, I got pretty busy and sick the last week, so this has been delayed; sorry. Hope my notes still make sense to me….)

So, KSR started off by telling us he comes from an American-leftist perspective, and that he sees the world though a particular ideology. But, the point is, we all experience the world through various ideologies–and it’s not something to be avoided, even if you could. He remarked that when people use the term “ideology” it’s usually as a negative: “I see things the way they are, but he sees things through ideology!” It is through ideology that we translate our experiences and make sense of the world we live in, whether it’s a leftist or conservative, humanist or religious, or any other ideology. The point it so identity the ways in which we make sense of the world, find the overlaps with other people and cooperate where we can to make things better.

He then talked about something that has always intrigued me about we as people and society: he observed that at each stage of our cultural development we as a culture believe we’re at the top of the ladder, the best we can be. After all, if there’s more we can do to be better and more advanced as a people, wouldn’t we be doing it already? Yet every ten or twenty years we look back and are amazed at how ridiculous we were as a culture–whether it’s something like clothing and music trends or the way we act in general. We must always strive to “become more sophisticated than your own cultural moment.” If we know that in a couple of decades we’re going to look back on what we are today, what we’re doing and how we’re behaving, and be amused or aghast or ashamed–let’s go ahead and start moving toward that better moment around the corner.

Our brains as hominids have grown larger and more capable over time. Our brains, as homo sapiens, are about as big as they can be and still more often than not pass through the birth canal; evolution caused our brains to advance faster than the rest of our bodies. Why? What was going on in our relatively stable environment millennia ago to cause our brains to advance so drastically? (Uhm, I don’t remember the exact point he got to from there, but he went on to say) we used to live in a world in which we experienced what we call the sublime on rare, amazing instances….

The sublime is the combination of  natural beauty and terror. It’s a kind of experience that fundamentally shakes our sense of reality. To the paleolithic human, the sublime was experienced when a lightning strike would explode yards away. Or when you run for your life from a wildcat and make it to the tribe alive. These are experiences of the sublime. Amazing and wonderful and terrifying.

But in our modern world, we still have the brains we maxed out on as paleolithic humans, but experience what our brains interpret as sublime on a constant basis! Riding in a car at amazing speeds whizzing past other zooming hunks of metal–that’s fundamentally sublime. Flying, easy to get food, ability to stay warm or cool without effort, constant shelter, these are mundane modern experiences that our brains evolved to find as unusual and awesome, but we’ve sublimated the experiences into white noise, and so our still in many ways anciently-wired minds strive to experience that heart-racing and hormone pumping reaction to the sublime experience that we should be having to this constant “technological sublime.” With the help of computers, games, drugs, television, we perform virtual rock throwing to strike down a charging enemy–in the form of watching sports or playing a first-person shooter game. Virtual travel, virtual sex, we use our cultural production to try to fulfill the experiences our brains evolved to experience, and feel the sense of accomplishment and success they were wired to feel–and we don’t quite get it. We earn 100,000 points at Game X, yea, yippie…but it’s an empty accomplishment. Hmm, maybe if I earn 200,000 points I’ll fill fulfilled. Easy food, no accomplishment. Maybe if I eat more I’ll feel like I caught my hunt. Easy clothing, comfort, everything. But we don’t feel truly happy much less the results of experiencing the sublime–so we consume more and more and more in constant search for fulfillment and happiness. And of course, a billion and a half corporations are more than happy to take advantage of our spiraling and recursive need/non-fulfillment by producing and selling us more and more and more.

The result: addiction to consumption.
The result: Global ecological impact = appetite x population x technology.

KSR then talked about the GINI figures and wealth distribution. During feudal period, power came from land ownership. In capitalism, power comes from money ownership. However, between the two periods, the power structure didn’t really change all that much. The powerful land owners became rich land owners.

What we have in capitalism wealth distribution is a pyramid where at the very top is 1% of the world’s population owning 99% of the world’s wealth. (In the US, the top 5% own 95% of the nation’s wealth. Go us.) The most damage to the ecosystem actually comes from the top and th bottoms of the pyramid. The top engages in hyper-consumerism. The bottom (and population-wise, the largest world group) is poverty stricken, they have to feed their children tonight, so the thought of sustainable natural resources don’t (can’t) factor in what they need to do to earn enough to feed their family.

The best wealth-to-population “shape” that we can have would be a flattened oval, where the majority of the population have the majority of the wealth reasonably equally distributed. This paradigm would be best not just because it’d be “nice,” but because it’s vital for the survival of our species.

Social justice, just like language and law, is a technology. It’s a development that changes and improves over time and to social conditions. We can change our concepts of social justice for the better for more people. Interestingly, the places on the world where women enjoy full legal rights and social justice, the “replacement rates” (childbirth rates) is low and sustainable. Where childbirth rates are high (and potentially socially and ecologically damaging) are where social justice is rare. (On a personal note, I find it interesting in the middle of the US where in general social justice is moderate (not near as good as many northern European countries) there are pockets of social injustice and high birth rates among the evangelical religious Christians. For example, “Quiverfull Families,” where women are expected to be baby-making machines and are considered second-class and second-rate people. “Helpmeets” at best!)

Back to consumption without happiness, by every statistical measurement of happiness over the last 50 years, we in the US aren’t any happier than people in other countries despite our increased ability to consume and 5x the consumption rate as [notes illegible here. I believe compared to comparable Western nations].

We as individuals conform to the norms of our culture. If we truly want to be happier people and/or less consuming people, we need to make big group decisions to change culture what equals happiness. In a manner of speaking, the impending climate change, though dangerous, is an opportunity to make massive social change across the board, including improvements to social justice and global living conditions!

(KSR advocated a resurgence of awareness for Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.)

At this point KSR started taking questions from the audience. In response to a question regarding his view on healthcare, he very much believes healthcare is a right for all. As was the saying among Italian workers: “health is not for sale!”

Something we have to remember as we desire change, is the government is us. He’s always found it amazing when people curse the government because the government if “for the people, of the people, and by the people.” When you curse the government, simply replace the word “government” with “us” and see what kind of sense that makes.

(Here’s where I diverge from KSR’s opinions, and when I had a moment with him I asked him about how I, and many of us, do not see the government any longer as by, of, and for us. The government is a corporatocracy, run by, for, and of corporations. People may still have some influence over government at local levels, which is vital and often ignored! People forget that change can start at home as all focus is on state and federal levels. But it’s at those levels where corporate interests hold sway. KSR’s response was basically that we still have the right of the vote, who we vote for. Yeah, well, that’s a great symbolism but it’s pretty much meaningless as the only people that are allowed by the corporate run campaign and election machines are corporate lackey X and a nearly identical corporate lackey Y. Their only differences are in superficial “wedge issue” topics that create a conflict between the voters that cause them to ignore the more important, fundamental issues rotting the core of society.)

He mentioned the site http://www.350.org and the data than can be found on it regarding how to sustain human and most current life on the planet, the CO2 in the atmosphere can’t be (on a long-term level) more than 350 parts per million. We’re currently at 389 and climbing rapidly.

There are a lot of great ideas that are floating around about geoengineering, but the bottom line is we need to get CO2 out of the atmosphere (and not into the oceans where it’s currently being soaked up and screwing up the food chain.) The best option is reforestation. And it’s possible that just a little effort and improvement can result in huge chain-reaction of thriving greenery. We can’t assume the problem is too big and out of control to deal with–then crisis is assured. We can’t stand around paralyzed, waiting for the next gee-whiz technology to get invented that will save us all. It might not come in time.

We need to promote “mindful consumption,” increase wind-powered technology, and absolutely 100% not burn coal. And “clean coal” is non-existent. It’s a marketing term that’s essentially meaningless.

Smart consumption. Interestingly, junking your current car for a hybrid may be more ecologically damaging as the increase in hybrid car production causes more of a carbon footprint than what’s saved by the hybrid cars.

“Sustainable development,” one of the buzzwords found on the printed materials for this day’s events and printed on a 50-foot wall banner in the theater, is also a marketing term that’s simply code for “capitalism”. We need to become post-capitalists. One thing we have to get past is this idea that capitalism is the end-all be-all of socio-political developments. There are better alternatives, and it doesn’t mean embracing Ludditeism. Low tech is not necessary to become post-capitalist.

We have to face that because of our ability to affect the world, we have stewardship over it. It’s a scary thought because we’re pretty ignorant as a species when it comes to world-building. We don’t even know how to make soil–we have to grow soil. We have to realize as we make change to save the eco-system (and human society) that we’re not giving up comfortable lifestyle, we have to give up a neurotic lifestyle!

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There’s an addage that anyone who can spend 10,000 hours at something will become accomplished at it and can start producing quality after that. When you have socialized healthcare you can start your writing career at young age because you don’t have to worry about the cost of illness and injury. (Author and technology guru Cory Doctorow (Canadian) after living in the U.S. for many years, moved to the U.K. with his wife to start their family and has said he’ll never live anywhere again where there’s not socialized healthcare.)

Listening to Sawyer explain how socialized healthcare is the greatest gift a society could give to it’s people and the arts in particular brought up angry tears. My life since undergrad has been all about working for that “gift” of American for-profit health insurance. Every job I worked, every job I overworked, jobs I desperately wanted to leave, decisions not to work jobs I wanted more, have all been predicated on making sure my family had health insurance. My desire and drive since childhood to write has taken a back- to non-existant seat to slaving away for g–d– health insurance.

And the freakin irony is even with the generous and patriotic boon of for-profit health insurance, we’ve still had to pay thousands in medical bills and premiums and deductables. And even with god’s gift of health insurance upon the only modern nation to not have socialized healthcare, should my family become visited by a little more significant of a health issue, we could become broke, bankrupt, broken.

I’m middle-aged now, barely able to eke through the beginnings of my 10,000 writing hours, and I’ve done shitall except work 40+ hours a week as a drone at mind draining jobs for the gift of health insurance that’s STILL a financial drain on us. I fucking hate capitalism.

The issue of Salvation is arguably the most important aspect of the religion of Christianity–a cornerstone. The foundation, I would think. For, if the issue of the accuracy and validity of Salvation through Jesus is undermined, the very basis in belief in Christianity falls apart (from a religious standpoint. Nothing stopping someone from “believing” in Christianity from a philosophical standpoint…but why would you, when Christianity is rife with intolerance and cult-like attitudes and demands, and illogic? And I’m not just talking about Christianity today, but the very stuff printed in red in the NT).

It’s this issue of Salvation that really first made me question full-time and turned my corner from ultra-liberal Christian to Deist. (Like that’s incentive for the believer to keep reading!) My actual beginning of questioning started circa 1988 when I actually read the Bible for myself, but this issue of the logic of Salvation began somewhere around 2001-ish. And it went pretty much like this:

1. Why was it necessary for God to demand a blood-soaked human sacrifice to forgive sins? Can’t he just…forgive?

2. Wait. If Jesus is all man and all God, is God incarnate, then, he knew from the beginning the “sacrifice” was going to happen. And he had to have known, after all, he supposedly prophesised it, that he was going to rise a couple of days later and ascend into Heaven and return to the Godhead. So, technically, what did he sacrifice? What did he give up? He basically just gave up a weekend and indeed had a painful death. But, he got his life back anyway and returned to being God. Is that really a sacrifice?!

3. Who’s really responsible for sin anyway? I mean, did God not create humanity and all humanity was capable of? At the very least, isn’t God omniscient (all-knowing), so he had to have known before creation what was going to happen to humanity and the world–filled with perdition and death and destruction and “sin.” And since God’s the one with all the power and knowledge, isn’t it ultimately his responsibility for there being sin and evil in the world?
To let billions suffer cruelty, disease, cancer, for the mistake of one man is like if I had a young child, not even aware of the difference between right and wrong and so unable to understand that it’s “wrong” to disobey, did something I told him not to. So I punish him severely by…cutting off his arm. Then, decades later, he visits me with his family. I go up to his own granddaughter, and I cut off her arm. My excuse is it’s because her grandfather once disobeyed me. Would I be just and loving and merciful, worthy of worship?

4. Wait, I haven’t believed in Adam and Eve since I was a child. From whence did “evil” come from, then? If it is supposedly the work of a Satan or something, does that mean God’s not capable of thwarting him? Or is he not interested? Is the excuse “Well, humans made their choice, that’s free will,” really the excuse of an all-loving and merciful “father”? Is the command “You have free will, do as you want–but if you don’t do what I want, I’ll torture you forever” really a gift?! Is free will at gunpoint still free will? Would I be considered a “good, loving, just, merciful” person if I saw a rape-murder in progress, and I had the ability to stop it, but I did nothing, and my excuse was “Well, the rapist made his decision, it’s his free will”?

5. Same question, related to the innocents. Is it the work of a just and loving and merciful father to have every generation of human (not to mention animals) suffer this supposed evil that is another’s responsibility? If Adam was real, why is it just that children get raped by the parents that are supposed to protect them, why do millions die needlessly from starvation, why is there torture and insanity, because of the actions of one man and woman? Is that just and merciful and loving? And if it’s the work of an adversary that has infiltrated God’s Earth, isn’t it his responsibility to put a stop to an evil doer who’s causing great harm to his children?

6. If this is what we have to be saved from–how does that work exactly? How does God’s murder/suicide of Jesus actually change the rules about eternal punishment/reward that he set up in the first place? Why can’t God just change the rules? Heck, he’s God–we wouldn’t even have to know he changed them, he could just fill us with gratitude for the change and there’d be no need for a blood-lusted murder worshiping aspect to the religion, that doesn’t make sense.

7. (This one was my big kicker for my weakening belief…) And, so if Jesus is indeed the one and only way to Salvation, why would a loving and just God give that method such an incredibly inefficient and cruel method of transmittal. That is: All people are destined for eternal punishment (by God’s will). But to avoid that, you have to believe in Jesus. But the only way to know about Jesus is to have another human tell you about him. He was introduced to a handful of humans in a tiny speck of land in a planet that already had millions all over the world. And humans have to transmit the Good News by hand and mouth around the world, thus making sure that countless billions of people will live and die and presumably burn in hell because of the bad luck of being born in a time and place where a human didn’t reach them with a Bible. In fact, today, 2000 years later, there’s an estimated billion people alive who have not even heard of Jesus and will die having not. And this is the result of “For God so loved the world”?!

It would be like my having a big family, and I told one of my children, “When you all sleep, if you don’t wear a hat to bed, I’m going to kill you. All you children and grandchildren…everyone. But, I’m only telling my plan to you, and now you are responsible to go tell everyone else. Oh, by the way, I love you.”

At this point in my reasoning, which took a couple of years to really develop and for me to fully understand, I realized the God of Christianity simply did not exist. It’s impossible. Not to say maybe a god didn’t exist–I was still too much a believer…in something…to completely eschew the supernatural, but it was impossible for the God of the Bible as an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving and merciful creature to possibly exist. And this is where I got on my own, before I read any books on the subject, before I listened to podcasts, before I even knew the “new atheists” existed.

It was later, though, when I found out that everything about Jesus came from earlier myths from Egypt and the near and middle east. Everything, including every aspect of the nativity, and every aspect of the Easter story–all borrowed from existing myth. Look up Mithra and Osiris and Dionysus, just to name a few.

So, I end on this note from Lee Randolf’s blog post: As You Celebrate The Horror of Easter

- The principle that all of us have done things so egregious to warrant the death penalty is itself egregious. Name one thing that you have done that you should be put to death for.

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I have a love/hate relationship with the blog “Classically Liberal“. I couldn’t agree more with his analysis on the failed War on Drugs, the criticisms of institutional education, his disgust for the encroaching police state, police abuse of power, face-palming frustration at the destructive and absolutely absurd criminalization of sexuality, and pretty much anything having to do with civil rights. But his hatred of socialism based on as terrible misunderstanding and misrepresentation of it as the creationist “understanding” of evolution, really crinkles my spleen. His economic libertarianism is based on a very elitist, self-righteous, belief in immutable “human nature” and the inherent existence of an objective sense of “the good the true and the beautiful” in class-defined artistic production.

But, I have to say I’m really starting to agree with his criticism of this horrific spending-spree the government is on in bailing companies out. I wish I could remember who I heard recently say: “If a company is so big that it can’t be allowed to fail, then it’s too big for the ‘free market’ and must be broken apart.” Yep.

Anyway, check out this alarming video he has linked on his site under Spending our Future: The Bailout Crisis:

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BoingBoing has an article: “Marx was right!” in which the author discusses his move from being a dot-com capitalist to a return to a respect for Marx’s criticism of capitalism. (His wife, who said of his return to Marxist studies that it’s “worse than your reggae phase!”, could commiserate with mine!)

[quote] The work of Karl Marx is ultra relevant to understanding the world’s current financial mess, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Marx has become intellectually indispensable to me again, as if there ever should have been any doubt. It’s fascinating to consider that during the time period when Marx was writing “Capital,” there were few factories in England –it was largely an agrarian society still– yet somehow Marx was able to see clearly the mess that we would be in today. He’s the most accurate prophet in all of history, there should be no doubt about this. Marx viewed history with a very, very long telescope. How he was able to see so far into the future is a mystery of his particular genius, but Marx accurately extrapolated how capitalism’s endgame would play itself out at the very birth of the system. Marx saw how utterly destructive this system would ultimately become. Look around you: Marx was right.[/quote]

(On a related note, Richard Metzger posted a followup: “Marx was… second???” about Thomas Jefferson’s essay on “fictitious capital” decades before Marx wrote about it.)

Well, I could write for a long time regarding my thoughts and history in Marxist studies, but you don’t care, do you? Instead, let me link to this great page that helps explain both Marxist and anarchist theories in ordinary terms that speaks to the common person:

Questions about Capitalism and Class

Yes, it’s Chumbawamba’s Web site. They live the spirit of anarcho-socialism, and their answers to common questions about materialist criticism of capitalism is really fantastic! I really encourage you to read at least this one page I just linked top to bottom. That’s it, all I ask.

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(Drawing of Marx and Engles stolen borrowed from http://www.hermes-press.com/distinctions.htm)

BoingBoing (yeah, love that site…too bad I’m still banned) recently posted an article about this video:

Fake People Tell Fake Stories About The Threat Of Gay Marriage

Seriously? Get a load of how over-wrought and concerned these actors (yes, actors) are in their description of how the evil tentacles of the Gay Agenda are threatening to take away the rights of oh-so-tolerant Christian fundamentalist who only want to protect the Sanctity of Marriage®. Gahkh!

Meanwhile, the extremely faithful and religious “Quiverful” Christians have probably a better understanding of the traditions of marriage than anyone today (no irony). To them, marriage is nothing more a means of moving property (including the wimins) from one man to another, and to procreate herds. Friendly Atheist has been reporting on recent reporting on these faithful keepers of the traditions of marriage:

Scary Excerpt from Quiverfull: Part 2

“I never told her ‘I love you,’ and I never told her she was beautiful,” explains Peter, “two things that I thought would insert an emotional flutter, an emotional element. I wanted to withhold before I made a commitment.”

and from another excerpt:

When godly people stop having children, we are wasting the godly seed. So today, we are facing a very, very serious threat: the threat of Islam. They are outnumbering us seven to one. And there’s eight million Islamics here in America. When you think of Osama Bin Laden, he is one of fifty-three children. He has twenty-seven himself. So between him and his father, they’ve fathered eighty children. What about his fifty-two brothers and sisters? How many have they fathered? Say they’ve only fathered or mothered twenty each — less than him — but in the thousands when you think of their grandchildren, who would now be having children today.

When I talk to parents today and ask how many grandchildren they have, they tell me, “Oh, we have two! Isn’t it wonderful?” “Two?” Is that going to impact the world? Two? When you get someone like, say, Osama Bin Laden, for example, he’s just representative of so many Islamics, well, you see how they’re populating.

Now that’s the kind of sanctified traditional outlook of marriage that makes my marriage stronger! Not that evil gay marriage that’s only about love and devotion–hat’s the kind of marriage that threatens mine. (Now you can read irony.)

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BoingBoing has been following the issue of a new surge of British “fear everything” posters:

David Byrne’s snapshots of UK police posters.

London Police poster mashup (in which people have ’shopped their own versions)

And my favorite so far:

Make your own paranoid British terrorism poster!

The fine print in that one’s dead-on.

(Whew! Finally, I can close those tabs off my browser!)

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The apparent fact that they must have been just making it up as they went along, and had no idea how they were going to revolve anything until like the week before shooting the episode, seems painfully obvious.

So much of it didn’t make any sense, and most of the rest of it strains credulity. I wanted to like it so bad, because of how the series has been in general…. For example, the episodes with the final appearances of Gaiden and Dee were simply, utterly amazing. *sigh*

I miss BSG.

I actually first met him a few times at the local astronomy club before I enrolled in grad school. He was the guy who first helped my sight my new telescope in to Saturn, and that’s an incredible sight! Imagine my surprise when weeks later on my first night of English 600, I discover he’s my teacher.

And in that class I was introduced to the concept of questioning ideology. I’d been a born-again skeptic for a couple/few years before that. But Dr. Burling taught me to go even deeper and examine and question the very base of all cultural assumptions and the very concept of “common sense” and “natural law.” It was from him that I learned that “Marxism” was not a dirty word. That I learned about critical theory and cultural criticism, of Lacan and Derrida, and Adorno and Jameson. I learned in that class about the politics of academia, the ideological nature of education, and the value of scholarship. That was literally a life-changing class.

And the next two classes I’d have with him continued that incredible education. I learned that science fiction was not embarrassing genre fiction meant for geek entertainment, but had a special place in cultural criticism. I would never read sf, (which I had always loved simply as escapism but knew just subliminally that it spoke something more to me, but I didn’t know what), the same way again.

He inspired me my first year to write a paper for a conference. I did, and presented it. And would the next year thanks to him. He inspired me to write for peer-reviewed scholarly journals. I have. He gave up his time to help me write at a much higher level than I ever realized I could. He spent a collected many, many hours talking with me in office hours, after class, in e-mails, about everything from the origins of sf to underlying ideological assumptions in current politics.

He was going to have Kim Stanley Robinson, who he had been corresponding with for quite some time and had edited a book about him, come talk to the class he was teaching this semester. This would-be 4th class I would have had with him. Now, whatever synergy of Dr. Burling and Kim Robinson’s time together with us could have gifted us, is gone forever.

I learned so much from him, and I was only just beginning. There was so much more I was planning on learning from him, so much more he could have taught me. It’s a selfish loss, I know. But I’m keenly missing the lost opportunity to confer with him in my future writing and scholarship, to seek his advice and counsel, and continue to learn from him. His wit, his audacity, his brilliance, gone. I’m not ready.

He had on a few occasions called me his peer. That was the greatest honor he could have ever given me.

Dr. William Burling was fiercely intelligent, absolutely committed to his students and the subject of his expertise, dedicated to the ideals of critical thinking and learning which surpassed the confines of organized, institutional education. He inspired me, pushed and challenged me, opened my eyes and changed my life. It’s a little darker of a world without him in it.

Posted on BoingBoing: 15-year-old girl beaten by sheriff’s deputy

You tell me, “lippy” shoe-kicking disrespect or no, does a teenage girl need to be body-slammed, punched in the head, and dragged off by her hair? Imagine what kind of behavior doesn’t get caught on camera.

Attorney for the sheriff’s department:

“As we argued to the judge, it will inflame public opinion and will severely impact the deputy’s right to a fair trial.”

Pfft! I wish! The public never gets inflamed! The closest they did was for a week after a BART cop murdered a guy in public view

Classically Liberal does a good job blogging about the culture of violence and brutality and above-the-law mentality of the state-sponsored Blue Shirts.

Update: After I posted this, Classically Liberal made his own post with some interesting background info:

The police report filed by Schene and his fellow officer claimed that the shoe caused “bruising, bleeding and pain” which I suspect is just more police bullshit. What is worse is that Schene was a “field-training officer” teaching the other deputy how to act like a cop. At the moment Schene has been put on paid vacation—they call it “suspended with full pay”. The world is filled with billions of people who would like to be “suspended with full pay.”

The reality is that cops often think they have the right to act this way and that they are above the law. One of the great problems with policing is that individuals attracted to the job are often prone to visions of grandeur, authoritarian in nature, and love violence. It is the authority and right to act violently that they find attractive. In other words many of them are psychologically unfit for the job.

That fellow officer, by the way, is the guy who can be seen in the video as possibly gesturing to Schene to stop pummeling the girl. WHich might give someone the impression that he might do the right thing and report on the unfit and violent cop–giving hope that maybe a “good” cop will help get rid of the oh-so-rare minority of “bad” cops. But no. Cops protect their own no matter what the crime. Just like street gangs. There are no “good” cops when they protect the bad ones.

I suppose some atheists do, sure. But so do some Christians. Some Christians really take the Christian message of worhlessness and born in sinfulness to heart, and it affects their entire self-image and their behavior. But in general, atheists aren’t any less happy than anyone else in general. Maybe….

Yesterday I attended a MeetUp of some local atheists and freethinkers at a cafe. While the topic of conversation was more in my interest, I found by and large most people there to be just as, if not more, snide and cynical and negative than a usual gathering of Christians. It was actually very annoying. How many times can we complain about the same things over and over. (Well, I guess the honest response would be as long as they keep trying to get Creationism in public schools and creating faith-based government initiatives and exclude non-believers from the social forum. So long non-believers continue to be the most hated people in the country–then groups of non-believers will continue to be negative and whiny and defensively arrogant.)

What I found really surprising about the Sunday School meeting, was that after the initial pre-class joking and offhand comments, when the discussion turned serious, there was a lot of honest questioning and curiosity over what atheists think and how they got there. (Granted, this was a Methodist group which tend to be pretty liberal and open-minded. If it were, say, a Southern Baptist church, I wouldn’t even think about mentioning my atheism. I seriously believe that if anyone had found out at the Promise Keepers rally I attended a few years ago that I was a non-believer, I’d have been roughed up and brutally thrown out. The hate-speech against atheists, socialists, and feminists (in that order) all that weekend was scary! Anyway, back to moderate Methodists….)

I chose to remain silent at the Sunday School meeting because I wanted people to be able to speak freely, but I so wanted to speak up and offer insight. They really seemed curious about the topic and I think most of them would have been polite in listening to me and interested. I doubt I’d deconvert anyone, but I think I could have good discussions with them.

On the other hand, the group of “free thinkers” yesterday, I don’t think they’d welcome any kind of dialogue. In fact, one person spoke of wondering if any Christians may have the idea of “infiltrating” their group. I actually did speak up and say I would welcome a Christian, as I think it’s absolutely vital they see what we’re really about, and we can have an open and honest dialog with them and we can work together. But I don’t think my sentiments were well received.

I hate to say that this group was stereotypical elitist and arrogant atheists, but they kind of were. And it was a downer. A disappointment. I don’t know. I know during the first year or two of my honest acceptance of my non-belief I was very outspoken (to certain people) and very vitriolic. Heck, my blog shows a record of it! In fact, there are some instances where I still get fired up and upset and blog some flame about religion. But that gets it out of my system. Perhaps for these people, living as we do in a community where everyone is assumed to be a church-goin’ Christian and the culture is geared for that, when given the opportunity to commune with like minded persecuted ultra-minority, it’s time to vent and find solidarity in shared anger and righteous arrogance.

I can understand that, and even support it to some degree. But, it’s also very wearying, being that negative. I have to say, what the people talk about at the Sunday School and Bible study make me cringe on the inside and beat my imaginary head against an imaginary wall, I much prefer the happy and upbeat joyfulness of the Christians. If only I can be around a group of freethinkers and atheists who talk about non-theist stuff, but with the same positivism and good naturedness of the believers. (Again, this is a liberal Methodist group…I’ve been to some Baptist groups where the arrogance and self-righteous indignation and vitriol was as bad as the atheists’.)

Does this make me miss being a believer? I’d be lyin’ if I said it didn’t. Oh, I’m not about to throw in my reasoned de-belief in favor of community; but I can see why some non-believers, like Robert M. Price, continue to enjoy church and the ritual and the ceremony. I still find church services to be too much for me: the mindless ritual, the blood-soaked death worship, the abdication of personal worth and value, the painful cognitive dissonance and the veneration of ancient myth…I hurts, I tells ya. But I still really like the people. I’d like to spend more time with them. And you know, when it does come out that I’m an atheist, then maybe they will have gotten to like me as well, and I can be a force for cooperation and understanding.

I just wish more in the atheist community could be as positive and upbeat. Maybe when they’re not constantly being bonbarded by the cultural message of their (our) forced elimination….

Related links:

• What is the Future of Atheism?
• What Happens When Atheism is the Norm Instead of the Exception?
• Do You Fit the Atheist “Stereotype”?

Update: Oh, I didn’t see this when I posted this article, but this link is great and perfectly related:

• Atheist Arrogance

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