Happy Celtic New Year – Year 157 A.D. (After Darwin)

Happy New Year.  Happy Celtic New Year.  It was the global New Year long before they moved it to January 1.

The world seems to be changing very quickly.  Arab Spring. Occupy Everywhere.  Out of Iraq soon? I’ll believe that when I see it. The great non-Depression.  Etc.

It is the Celtic New Year.  The traditional New Year before the Church of Constantine hijacked the date and turned it into the Feast of the Circumcision.  (Boy, what's that all about?) 

Anyway.  I am Areligionist, without religion and dogma.  It saves on the brain cells, avoiding too many brain games etc.

Of this, I am proud in my designating a proposed new global calendar system to reflect the reality of Darwin.  Even if On The Origins of the Species was first published on November 24, 1859, I am starting or setting in motion a Cultural Christian non-religious, non-dogmatic sacred tradition and merging Nov 24 with today Nov 1, a sacred day to me because I am a Celt, in this, the new New Year ‘s day of the year 152 A.D. (after Darwin).  Cute.

Cultural Christian Sensibility

Organized religion seems to be obsolete in western culture. Schools, hospitals and government are mostly secular and here in the USA the separation of church and state has been the cornerstone law of this land for over two centuries.

It is not that God is dead in so much as ancient myths and logics are misunderstood and or incompatible with this modern age. In any case – God is God; man is religion.

I pray that all of Islam wakes up one day soon. I pray that it is able to think independently of the state and the evil fascist rulers controlling the local mosque. That awakening will be Islam’s Reformation and gift to the world. 

The harder the extremists of Islam and Christianity fight for a place at the table of a fascist rulers’ feast – the greater the awakening to moderates who do not want to be told what God wants. 

Who knows what God wants ? Only madmen!

The secular sunshine of tomorrow will shine on all cultures on all continents.

Other than that, my Cultural Christian Sensibility knows that in fifty years time – all of humanity will look at all things including God and religion as either “B.D” or “A.D.” – either “Before Darwin” or “After Darwin”. - - (April 29, 2009)

I have some New Year's Resolutions and will be devoting more time to some postponed projects.  I do not anticipate being so active on this blog in the near future.

Happy New Year.  Happy 157. 

Treasure (not bless) Darwin.

Samhain!

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Year 155 A.D. (After Darwin) - Happy Celtic New Year

Happy New Year.  Happy Celtic New Year.  It was the global New Year long before they moved it to January 1.

The world seems to be changing very quickly.  Arab Spring. Occupy Everywhere.  Out of Iraq soon? I’ll believe that when I see it. The great non-Depression.  Etc.

It is the Celtic New Year.  The traditional New Year before the Church of Constantine hijacked the date and turned it into the Feast of the Circumcision.  (Boy, what's that all about?)

Anyway.  I am Areligionist, without religion and dogma.  It saves on the brain cells, avoiding too many brain games etc.

Of this, I am proud in my designating a proposed new global calendar system to reflect the reality of Darwin.  Even if On The Origins of the Species was first published on November 24, 1859, I am starting or setting in motion a Cultural Christian non-religious, non-dogmatic sacred tradition and merging Nov 24 with today Nov 1, a sacred day to me because I am a Celt, in this, the new New Year's day of the year 155 A.D. (after Darwin).  Cute.

Cultural Christian Sensibility

Organized religion seems to be obsolete in western culture. Schools, hospitals and government are mostly secular and here in the USA the separation of church and state has been the cornerstone law of this land for over two centuries.

It is not that God is dead in so much as ancient myths and logics are misunderstood and or incompatible with this modern age. In any case – God is God; man is religion.

I pray that all of Islam wakes up one day soon. I pray that it is able to think independently of the state and the evil fascist rulers controlling the local mosque. That awakening will be Islam’s Reformation and gift to the world. 

The harder the extremists of Islam and Christianity fight for a place at the table of a fascist rulers’ feast – the greater the awakening to moderates who do not want to be told what God wants. 

Who knows what God wants ? Only madmen!

The secular sunshine of tomorrow will shine on all cultures on all continents.

Other than that, my Cultural Christian Sensibility knows that in fifty years time – all of humanity will look at all things including God and religion as either “B.D” or “A.D.” – either “Before Darwin” or “After Darwin”. - - (April 29, 2009)

I have some New Year's Resolutions and will be devoting more time to some postponed projects.

Happy New Year.  Happy 155. 

Treasure (not bless) Darwin.

Samhain!

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Polite Conversation - Noah's Ark - Funda/Mental/ism - Darwin - Evolution - Evolutionary Throw Backs

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Senator “Monkeyman” Corker and Dinosaur Jesus Oppose Unions in Tennessee, the Scopes Trial State

Monkeys in Tennessee don’t deserve no evil unions. It is a right to work state which means a right to no rights state. It’s in the Spreadsheet Bible.

The Republicans appear to be afraid that the UAW vote will eat into Tennessee's hard-earned as a right-to-work (read: anti-union) state. A UAW victory at Volkswagen, moreover, would be its first at a foreign-owned auto plant in the country. The politicians have expressed fears that other manufacturing companies will shun Tennessee if the UAW cracks open the door.

By far the most cynical expression of this view came from Corker, a former Chattanooga mayor, at a press conference on the eve of the vote. "We know these discussions are having a dampening effect on our economic growth," he said, "and we're concerned that if they actually come in and win this election -- then obviously it's going to be something we can overcome -- we will overcome --"

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-tennessee-union-drive-20140212,0,1883327.story#ixzz2tZftXTRq

Do Dah! Do Dah!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial

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Darwin's Box

I think that Darwin's box, which is a good metaphor, expanded the possibility of thoughts regarding science way out of the ball park in terms of 19th century western thought. If you stick you neck out, think outside the present box, and are proven right with your theories, then the box of reality expands for everyone. 

In fact, I think using the same metaphor, that the Creationists' box, ability to perceive or understand, is merely a pedestal that Charles Darwin is standing on in his new box IMO. 

I use the time, dating, calendar idea to expand perception, in reaction to the really dull loop arguments I read over and over again from creationists. A little bit like rants from Mao's little red book. The calendar I mention is the year 152 A.D.I. (After Darwin' Idea). The Gregorian calendar with its start date of Jesus, if he existed, being born around 4-6 B.C.E., is a built in unproven prejudice used in the arguments of the fundies, who with that calendar then do not expand thought, but collapse backwards into a six thousand year old fishbowl/universe. Duh!

The playing field, the arguments pro and con on creationism and intelligent design, the ground rules need to be expanded. Most people start and end in frustration with them because many  assume the present world is real, that Jesus is two thousand years old etc. Actually to get political here, if you try to ask for Jesus's birth certificate from them, they will hold up the book that they worship. 

In a way, in a modern scientific way, at least we know or have stronger evidence that Charles Darwin actually existed with papers, photos, portraits, biographies, written certifiable court room testimony type witnesses etc. A better starting point for a western calendar. The eastern world, philosophies, time etc. is another can of worms all together. 

Regarding the bible, during my long term search, research into faith, spirituality, I ran into a blog of a homeless man in Nashville who no doubt was running it on a computer interface at the local public library. He said, being a person who had to smile when getting handouts, food, survival, from the fundamentalists and in reaction to their preaching, evangelization, he said something to the effect that these people worship the physical book itself. Mumbling the words in it and not understanding them and repeating them over and over again is in a way not their faith but really their idol. 

And a final note on Darwin. A business psychologist in college whose insights I found interesting defined Great Men as men who made the world see itself differently. In the context of recent history, he defined people like Einstein, Gandhi and Darwin as great men because they changed the world with their POV. They in essence helped change the world's POV.

The problem I get with all fundies and the creationists in particular is that they have no respect for other people's POV. It is all a war mentality. Expand or collapse.

(What is the difference between General Moses, General Constantine and General Mohammed? None. They all founded religions of peace.) (sarcasm)






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Happy Celtic New Year – Year 152 A.D. (After Darwin)

Happy New Year.  Happy Celtic New Year.  It was the global New Year long before they moved it to January 1.

The world seems to be changing very quickly.  Arab Spring. Occupy Everywhere.  Out of Iraq soon? I’ll believe that when I see it. The great non-Depression.  Etc.

It is the Celtic New Year.  The traditional New Year before the Church of Constantine hijacked the date and turned it into the Feast of the Circumcision.  (Boy, what's that all about?)

Anyway.  I am Areligionist, without religion and dogma.  It saves on the brain cells, avoiding too many brain games etc.

Of this, I am proud in my designating a proposed new global calendar system to reflect the reality of Darwin.  Even if On The Origins of the Species was first published on November 24, 1859, I am starting or setting in motion a Cultural Christian non-religious, non-dogmatic sacred tradition and merging Nov 24 with today Nov 1, a sacred day to me because I am a Celt, in this, the new New Year ‘s day of the year 152 A.D. (after Darwin).  Cute.

Cultural Christian Sensibility

Organized religion seems to be obsolete in western culture. Schools, hospitals and government are mostly secular and here in the USA the separation of church and state has been the cornerstone law of this land for over two centuries.

It is not that God is dead in so much as ancient myths and logics are misunderstood and or incompatible with this modern age. In any case – God is God; man is religion.

I pray that all of Islam wakes up one day soon. I pray that it is able to think independently of the state and the evil fascist rulers controlling the local mosque. That awakening will be Islam’s Reformation and gift to the world. 

The harder the extremists of Islam and Christianity fight for a place at the table of a fascist rulers’ feast – the greater the awakening to moderates who do not want to be told what God wants. 

Who knows what God wants ? Only madmen!

The secular sunshine of tomorrow will shine on all cultures on all continents.

Other than that, my Cultural Christian Sensibility knows that in fifty years time – all of humanity will look at all things including God and religion as either “B.D” or “A.D.” – either “Before Darwin” or “After Darwin”. - - (April 29, 2009)

I have some New Year's Resolutions and will be devoting more time to some postponed projects.  I do not anticipate being so active on this blog in the near future.

Happy New Year.  Happy 152. 

Treasure (not bless) Darwin.

Samhain!

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Ricky Martin comes out of Closet

The last thing I thought I would be writing about would be a Puerto Rican Pop Singer but here I am. I am no Ricky Martin fan to be honest but that sentiment here is irrelevant.

From others who like his music or who know his personality I had already heard that he was Gay. No big deal. Who did not already know? Strange thing is that he has been living behind a public mask of sorts for many years.

Ricky Martin announces he is gay

In his website he wrote: "To keep living as I did up until today would be to indirectly diminish the glow that my kids where (sic) born with."

He may just be generating interest in a book he is writing etc. And of course, most famous singers hit a wall around the age of forty whereby their fan base melts away. Got to reinvent yourself.

Martin has two sons born to a surrogate mother in 2008. I have seen this before in some high profile gay people whereby they adopt or have surrogate mothers produce a child.

The Parenting instinct is a strong one. For people who are perhaps cheated out of the “normal” life of the other ninety odd percent of humanity, why not do some social catching up of sorts in building one’s own life to satisfy oneself and try to conform to social norms as well. Nobody likes being an outsider.

Kudos to Ricky, for coming around to reality and to not living one’s life in a total lie.

Putting Martin aside, the flip side of all this has to do with Christians who want to keep Gays from marrying.

I do not know the personal life of this pop singer but apparently a parenting instinct is being followed. Some sort of natural law is in place. Problem with natural law is that nobody has re-examined it on the religion side of any equation for thousands of years.

On the secular side, Darwin’s view of the world, and it’s natural laws, is a hundred and fifty years old.

The whole Christian right argument about marriage has been that it can only be between a man and a woman. And because in the ancient past marriage was the only logical, socially acceptable way to reproduce and nurture offspring.

That with science, in a secular world, some assumptions about marriage are obsolete. Obsolete in the sense that children can be produced without marriage or two opposite sexes in direct or total connection.

Parenting is a real issue in the concept of marriage and not the lineage idea attached to claims of property. Somehow the political or religious right is always obsessed about property first and foremost. Property I can assure you is nowhere mentioned in so-called mythical Natural Law.

With parenting not an issue for some gay people who can afford surrogate mothers and nannies, the other part of the equation regarding gay marriage is one of companionship.

I am not too hip on every phrase in the old/new book but I do not think that lifelong companionship is emphasized too much in the writings of men only over the centuries.

Never the less, there is a gay man, a pop singer with two kids. Why would his marriage in theory to someone of the same sex be a sin and or a crime?

Marriage is a civil secular institution.

To Life !

Joe the Pope Stumbles at Midnight Mass

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Since the beginning of the age of Darwin certain scientific methods apply to all things. Cause and effect in one such conundrum.

Joe the Pope stumbled the other night at Midnight Mass which was not at midnight. The 82 year old pontiff with a busy seasonal schedule wanted to go to bed early and get some rest for the next day. Midnight mass started at 10 pm. When you change anything around away from its norm – you have cause and effect. If you want to get to bed early, you are not staying up later than the homeless and the wandering crazy people particular to every urban center on the planet.

A young woman, 25, jumped the barricade separating the processional column of clergy including the Pope from the attending crowd. The security guards tacked the possible assassin and in the collateral damage (catalytic reaction) the would be assailant drags the pope to the floor by grabbing onto his garments.

Scuffle over. The pope is unharmed. An aged French cardinal gets a broken leg. The pope, the superstar of the evening, puts on his usual great performance.

Moral of the story. Security at the Vatican is as lax as at the White House where two publicity seeking clowns walk into Obama’s first State Dinner for the Prime Minister of India. They get photos with everyone and slip away as people are being seated for din-din and where there are no place cards for two party crashers.

The security at the midnight mass looked like they hired some husky tall moonlighting Italian policemen for the evening event. These days all corporations and all governments seem to be staffed by part time, minimum waged temporary staff and guards.

The young lady of Swiss Italian background had apparently done the same thing last year and in the same bright red clothing as at last year’s Christmas midnight mass – so much for my theory of staying up later than the crazies. The temp guards from last year who grabbed this same jumper before she touched the pope were not on duty or not looking or screening the people coming into the mass this year? People were admitted by ticket only.

Which goes to my previously stated assumption, of the fact that only tourists fill in the gaps of the big events like midnight mass – staged for the cameras. So easy to get tickets like at your hotel front desk. No real Roman would go out on a cold winter’s night for midnight mass at St. Peter’s. Romans may show up on a warm spring day for Easter in the plaza but other than that, few if any of the native population participate in the ancient rituals of the church.

Which brings me to my previously stated position, that only a few hundred or a few thousand Romans go to church on a regular basis. Which puts the Bishop of Rome as supposed premier moral leader of the Christian world as a shepherd to an active flock as large (or as small) as any Jesus got in his barnstorming days of preaching.

In any case, the pope is a symbol of Christiandom. I personally do not want to see him harmed. He and his office are deserving of global respect.

Besides, who would I have to call Joe the Pope? Better the pope you know than the pope (next pope) you don’t know. But then again I have already named him Pius XIII and Joe the Pope has yet to give him a red hat. (cause and effect).

If and when the rabble and crazies do storm the Vatican with torches and pitchforks, it won’t be with Joe Ratzinger, the current German pope in residence.

In the meantime, the Vatican better spend a few more lira on competent full time security staff.

Pax

I am a Modern Christian

There’s an awful lot of bullshit about religion out there these days. There is an awful lot of people playing “GOD” in the name of jesus.

There are news sites that promote both the pro’s and con’s of abortion, distorting the whole birth control individual choice issue that can prevent pregnancy and therefore veto Abortion before there is a need for such.

There are a lot of tax free and tax reduced Hate non-profit groups that want to dictate what love, commitment or union is. There is an awful lot of fatigue out there over truth, debate, what passes for truth, what passes for debate. ETC.

A thousand, a million, a hundred million cookie cutter Christians, without heart, without the true spirit of Jesus in their heart, are not worth one true Good Samaritan pictured above.

Let me back up here. I started this blog to inform others of my mere “one” individual point of view about my interface with what I now consider “the insanity of monkeys (which is) - religion”.

I have evolved in this short period in a Darwinian sense (no, I do not believe Darwin to be “satan” whoever or what ever that is except the evil in the hearts of individuals, one or collectively in a group of people, as in an exponential growth of evil).

Darwin was only a man - he made a series of observations and calculated guesses about what was the mystery of it all. He did not write a bible. Thank the proverbial concept of God for that! He is the father of modern scientific methodology as this ignorant uneducated individual understands it.

He, Darwin, did tread on centuries of ignorance and superstition that we as local and or global cultures still cling to. Such is life.

With age comes a certain amount of experience and sometimes wisdom. As such I am a Christian.

I am a Christian who believes and or tries to follow the alleged teachings of Jesus, the alleged messiah and or alleged anointed one – “Christ”.

Of course this whole messiah/Christ thing is a Jewish thing. Somehow the Jewish thing got transplanted to another planet along the timeline to Rome – the mother of, and pig, civilization of the western ancient world.

Somewhere along the timeline, the teachings of my teacher Jesus got caught up in the Political Correctness of the Mother/Pig of nations, of Rome and the Roman Empire.

Somewhere along the timeline the teachings of Jesus got inserted into the anti-Semitic synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke and into the very Gay (I say it in a good sense of Gay Eye for the Straight Guy) Gospel of John.

I believe in a modern streamlined Jesus. I believe in the social, civil disobedient, pro-people philosophy agenda of an obscure Rabbi from Galilee.

While I believe Jesus’ message is divine, it is the internal Gnostic sense of divine within Jesus of Nazareth that evokes peace and harmony within my spirit and soul when looking out at my present social, political, economic, spiritual landscape.

I seek to define and refine that same divine spark within me that Jesus did within in his time – and dared to share insight with us in the shards of his words so powerful that they reach out to us today two thousand years later.

Jesus and his view of the world and its future and or its evolution to a new and distant place goes beyond the personal gods of Abraham, Moses and Mohammed.

I do not worship Jesus as a god. He was divinely human. He was perhaps first among equals in the ancient world. He is teacher and a path guider for all those modern generic “organized” and “fundamentalist” religious who still cling to fourth century superstitions in line with the political correctness of an ancient and dead Roman Empire.

The collective pathway to truth of religions from the past blends into the modern pathway and spiritual search of individuals to the divine - I am a modern Christian.

“He who has ears let him hear!”

Have a nice day.

Mosque of Miriam Paris?

America used to be called the dumping ground of Europe. Europe, now with so many immigrants, will be twenty percent Muslim by 2050 by stats I have seen lately. Nothing outwardly wrong with that unless you fear Islam. (And the GOP vehemently complains about the many Catholics coming north from Meso-America.)

Is it possible to envision the sale of an unused obsolete house of worship like Notre Dame in Paris around 2075 with the plaza outside to accommodate daily Muslim prayers? Anything is possible. Whatever.

Anti-science campaigns by fundamentalists in this country have brought forth a kind of false science with the resurrection of dinosaurs to stand along side Jesus in popular local belief and myth as creationism.

Creationism, by default, would seem to be slipping into Islamic common beliefs or lack of them. It is not that I am campaigning for or against Charles Darwin, patron saint of modern science, but only three or so of twenty-two Muslim majority population countries even touch upon the topic of evolution in their education systems.

Creationism would seem to happen by default by either believing in the literal myth of creation in Genesis or by the lack of any Genesis like text in Islam.

As such, educated scientific minds of all persuasions, Muslim or not, gathered in Cairo this week to discuss the western, European concept of evolution.

Egypt’s Darwin debates

She (Dr. Eugenie Scott) objected to science being viewed through a religious filter and said the two should not be confused. "A biologist who studies enzymes that cause cell division does not bring the Qur'an or Bible into it. It does a great violence to science to run your explanation through a religious filter for this understanding to be accepted."

Lots of uncharted grounds here in the merging of cultures, religions, sciences, myths and human nature.

Islam as a culture carried on basic science while Europe wallowed in the ignorance of the Dark Ages. It would appear that there is at present no real dividing line, concepts set in stone by words, by culture, or in thought about the idea of science or evolution or even the strictest sense of creationism across the Islamic world.

Creationism Gains Ground in Europe

Prof Reiss will tell the gathering that many European nations are yielding to pressure exerted from both East and West in the growth of creationist beliefs, with Muslim immigrants on one side and the importation of Christian fundamentalism on the other…

“What the Turks believe today is what the Germans and British believe tomorrow. It is because of the mass movement of people between countries,” he told The Guardian newspaper yesterday. “These things can no longer be thought of as occurring in other countries.

In London ... there are increasingly quite large numbers of highly intelligent 16, 17 and 18-year-olds doing advanced-level biology who do not accept evolution. That’s either because they come from a fundamentalist Christian background or from Muslim backgrounds.”…

But Prof Reiss said although Islam does not suggest that the world was very young – a tenet of Christian creationism – its texts say different organisms had separate origins.

The world continues to merge in thoughts and deeds. The future global society is one of a mix of many things both of scientific and religious myth.

The future is full of possibilities real, imagined and unimagined. The tidal wave of humanity and mixed ideas are already washing over the landscape in the growing Global Culture. Many perspectives are too close to focus on at present. I do not care whether Darwin or Jesus’ pet dinosaur wins in the end. I will not likely be alive in any case to see that future cultural landscape.

Food for thought.

Cousin Darwinius Welcome

Hello distant cousin. Distant, distant, distant cousin of creation.

Darwinius masillae was found in the year 124 A.D. (after Darwin – or more accurately after On the Origin of Species was published in the old style date 1859 C.E.)

Now that the levees are breached so to speak, now that the neo-con blinders from the Bush Cheney regime are no longer in effect in the New America, it is interesting to be allowed to see a new global world dawning in the fanfare of the finding of a new so-called missing link specimen. Anyway it is more interesting than seeing Jesus sitting on a dinosaur.

Missing link found?

I had mentioned in my article Cultural Christian Sensibility about how the world would one day see everything and or date things in a secular light as in before or after Darwin. I redefine this general idea in that Darwin was not divine, his ideas were close to being that in terms of how the world scientific and secular cultures have evolved since the publication of the idea – day zero in our brave new secular world.

There is nothing to stop you from reading your bible in America. It is however no longer the only book on the shelf in the library. So much of what I would call ignorance in the American history has to do with gaps. As an example, it was a lack of books in upstate New York in pre civil war America that gave rise to writing your own book down and of prophecy no less of new religions and beliefs – a form of deconstruction and reconstruction of Christianity as found in the Book of Mormon.

On the Origin of the Species is a deconstruction and reconstruction of accumulated human knowledge and the use of that knowledge in some way to trace the face of God and feel the thread of creation through all things – living and dead. The theory of evolution is not evil. Man, the creation of God, is not intrinsically evil. A work of man, a book about the concept of evolution, is only as good or as evil as what man does with it.

I was amused to find out that Darwin was born on the very same day as our secular saint Abraham Lincoln. I am also amazed that On the Origin of the Species was published on the eve of the American Civil War when an obsolete economic idea like slavery was such a current consuming important thing in this part of the globe and far away from Victorian and Albertian London. It takes time for all good or reasonable ideas to take hold and change the world.

Many things, many efforts, many ideas and institutions have taken hold in the sixty odd years since World War Two – the United Nations, the International Court of Justice etc. – the foundation stones of the future are moving into place. We are capable of great and wonderous things and, the collective we, the secular and or Christian we, are also still capable of total destruction.

Getting back on track. The reason I mentioned our friend Darwinius Masaillae is because it was imprinted, artistically embedded into the Google Logo today. How many hits does the secular Darwinius get today? A billion? Well we are talking about American Google. I do not know the limitations of Google in other political or religious geographical settings where they will not see Darwinius – today – but he, she, it – our presumed ancestor is now part of the Global Commonality of Thought, the virtual planetary library of human knowledge.

Big words. Big thoughts. Have a nice day.

Of gods, Monsters and Intelligent Design?

I don’t know what to make of all the fake science that is trying to get endorsed or believed these days.

Intelligent Design is supposed to tell us that the universe is not a random chaotic thing, which it is. They would have you believe that there is an intelligent design (by God) to the whole mess. The Vatican and or its German speaking surrogates such as Cardinal Schoenborn of Vienna back Intelligent Design.

There is supposed to be some international meeting of minds or conference on Darwin sponsored by the Vatican on the calendar right about now. Don’t hold your breath expecting any intelligent outcome or pronouncements. One critic, the former head of the Vatican Observatory Father George V. Coyne, a real scientist, got fired over his views about real rational science, which is opposed to fake science or Intelligent Design. I don’t think he was invited to this Darwin Conference thing.

The whole folly comes within the realm of Voltaire from his book Candide and the philosophical falsity that this world is “le meilleur des mondes possibles” – the best of all possible worlds. Délusion. Délusion. Délusion.

If the earth is of an intelligent design then why did the Intelligent Designer waste hundreds of millions of years on the Dinosaur Project ???

The Creationist theory will tell you that the Bible, being the exact and perfect world of God, proves that science is wrong in determining the age of the earth. They will tell you that all physical evidence must fit into the five thousand year old timeframe of the Bible. That is why if you stop off at some GOP endorsed Creationist Museum, you will see our ancestors, as cave men and women, living in harmony with the dinosaur things.

The Bible is a flawed document. The bible is a human document. The New Testament is a committee written document. Jesus changes from a human being to a god in the time frame of three hundred years. Jesus’ words, wisdom, divine inspiration and divine mission have been subordinated to politics since his death almost two thousand years ago.

Did he rise from the dead ? Definitely. As a Christian I believe that. God can do anything including raise the dead. To believe in Jesus is to believe in the higher powers of an evolved, evolving species called man. I have faith in the non-tangible abilities and powers of God and his servant Jesus.

These religious screamers call faith, faith, faith. I do not think they believe or have faith. They need an exact user manual for life – a rule book. If anything, the day to day struggle of Jesus to get imperfect people to listen to his more perfect evolved message for the human race seems at times to have been wasted on many deaf human ears.

So too the flaws of the Old Testament are obvious. The Hebrew Testament does not get written or fully consolidated until after the Babylonian captivity. Along the way to consolidation several non-communicating committees manage to lose ten tribes and the Ark of the Covenant.

Tangible things such as fake relics like the Shroud of Turin or a Jesus Ossuary - speaks of non-faith in the original person and the true message of the teacher of Jesus.

What I have found or sensed along the way of this study of my own beliefs is the negatuve reception or reaction of others to the Gnostic concept of a divine spark within. Negative belief too in the possiblility of Jesus as a bearer or in his own recognition of that divinity. The role of bearer and of recognition connotes great responsibility to go forward in life as bearer of the light of God within and with that light to be given freely to others. Few of us now or in the generations past have come close to the ideal of Jesus as evolved enlightened being and creation of God.

There is hope - the human race continues and “Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”…(W.B.Yeats)

The problem with the Gnostic belief approach is that 99.9% of humanity do not seem to want responsibility. They want to be sheep and they want to be led. As such, the P.T.Barnum types in the Vatican and the far right fundamentalists need road shows, conferences, freak shows, museums, literal interpretation of myths - tangible proof of their so-called faith – which is not faith but seems so much more like superstition.

The show goes on.

Popcorn! Peanuts! Cotton Candy!