Deist on the Cusp of Theism – and Areligionist too

(Wm.) Blake on Man (Newton)

Eduardo Paolozzi 1924-2005

Just a reminder to my readers to refresh your memories.  I remain areligionist. Without religion or dogma. Remain a cultural christian (small c). 

I heard a remark from comedian Kathy Griffin on one of her comedy specials about not believing anything but not wanting to join the atheists – an anal lot mostly. I agree.

So for the sake of further clarification I am a:  Deist on the Cusp of Theism (want my cake and eat it too)

The use of the word theism to indicate this classical form of monotheism began during the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century in order to distinguish it from the then-emerging deism which contended that God, though transcendent and supreme, did not intervene in the natural world and could be known rationally but not via revelation. - - Wikipedia

“Just because man invented God does not mean that God does not exist” - - M. McShea

*   *   *

Republican Jews – Yiddish Curses – Paul Krugman

Oy yey, Jesus.
Such a catch. And still single.

May your son the doctor introduce you to his fiancée, Bristol Palin.

May your child give his Bar Mitzvah speech on the genius of Ayn Rand.

May your grandchildren baptize you after you’re dead.

May you find yourself insisting to a roomful of skeptics that your great-grandmother was "legitimately" raped by Cossacks.

May you grow so rich that your widow’s second husband is thrilled they repealed the estate tax.

May you have a large store, and have it all dismantled by vulture capitalists.

May you have a rare disease and need an operation that only one surgeon in the world, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine, is able to perform. And may he be unable to perform it because he doesn’t take your insurance. And may that Nobel Laureate be your son.

May G-d give you a daughter-in-law who is as kind as she is beautiful, as patient as she is rich, as wise as she is devoted, a virtuous woman in every way. And then may a ballot initiative invalidate her marriage to your fat lump Rebecca.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/oy-vey/

.

GOP Convention Reinvention - Etch A Sketch Resurrection

.

An American tragedy. Downsizing. Unemployment. Anger. Revenge? Insanity? Suicide by Cops?

I am surprised that there was not more collateral damage to bystanders in terms of the cops going into top fifth gear in reaction to a killing on a sidewalk across the street from the Empire State Building.  Considering the density of the space, time of day, crowds, traffic and the stone, concrete and granite present, ricocheting bullets are a believable scenario. Glad I wasn’t there.

53-year-old Jeffrey T. Johnson has been identified as the gunman who opened fire at the Empire State Building Friday morning, shooting and wounding 9 people, and killing his former co-worker, before being gunned down himself by police ...

Jeffrey awoke alone Friday in his upper East Side apartment, put on his gray suit and grabbed his briefcase. On his way out the door, promptly at 7:30 a.m., Johnson said hello to the building’s super. 

Neighbors described Johnson as a loner who bought the same takeout meal each day at a McDonald’s near his home — and then dined alone in his room. 

Other than an occasional pop-in by his mother, Johnson never welcomed any guests to the simple apartment. 

Here are a few things you need to know about what happened when Johnson opened fired yesterday morning:   

-Johnson used a 45 semi-automatic caliber handgun.-He worked at Hazan Imports, a women's accessories design line, for 6 years.-Johnson was laid off a year ago due to downsizing.-Johnson shot his former co-worker, a 41-year-old named Steven Ercolino, in the head in front of the office building at 10 W 33rd street. Ercolino had been the Vice President of Sales at Hazan Import Corp. since December 2005.-After Johnson shot his former colleague, a construction worker followed him, then spoke to police nearby. Johnson turned his .45-caliber pistol on officers and they returned fire. Johnson was shot and killed by police.

Read more: http://globalgrind.com/news/jeffrey-johnson-picture-empire-state-building-shooter-hazan-corp-photos#ixzz24ZNGAwww

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/25/justice/new-york-empire-state-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

*   *   * 

Cardinal Dolan's Prayer for the 1% GOP Convention

My fellow Angry White Males

Let us Pray 

For dear fellow One Percenter Mitt

And One Percenter Paul

Whom God has chosen to bless

With lots of PAC cash and

To lead us forward

Out of the darkness caused 

By you know who 

In the White House
(pause for boo-s, house noise)

Restore our Nation

Restore Religious Freedom

So savagely ripped from our 

Christian breasts by the 

Godless Pro-Choice crowd

And…(pause for applause)

(of) politics and fraud—

We’ve made a pretty mess at home,

Let’s make a mess abroad.

And let us ever humbly pray

The Lord of Hosts may deign

To stir our feeble memories

Lest we forget—the Maine.

Take up the White’s Man’s burden.

To you who thus succeed

In civilizing savage hordes,

They owe a debt, indeed;

Concessions, pensions, salaries,

And privilege and right

With outstretched hands you raised to bless

Grab everything in sight.

Take up the White Man’s burden

And if you write in verse,

Flatter your nation’s vices

And strive to make them worse.

Then learn that if with pious words

You ornament each phrase,

In a world of canting hypocrites (like me)

This kind of business pays.

A-men.

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5477/ 

Devil's Dictionary (Revised) - Ambrose Bierce - Definition of Ayn-Ryan Catholicism

Ayn-Ryan Catholicism: 

When Ayn Rand meets Paul Ryan and a socially engineered miracle occurs, demanding a new rewrite of Jesus’s Infamous Sermon at the Mall – “Blessed are the Rich cause they gots, gots, gots bling, bling, bling.” – (with an implied non-verbal subtext of “F*ck 'you' poor little 'people'. Why don’t you just go away and die?”)


.

Burning Man Festival - Black Rock Nevada

Repeat of some images from an earlier piece on the Burning Man Festival about to get underway in Nevada.

*   *   *

Elvis, Jesus on Toast – Mary on a Mountain – Hand of Mohammed

Mary on the Mountain?

It has taken some time to write this. It was coincidence or serendipity that the topic of seeing Jesus or Elvis on a piece of toast kind of thing came up recently for me.

I can remember meditating on my lunch hour, sitting on a low wall behind Wal-Mart in some little shade on the recreational walkway, bike, park trail along the Rillito (little river) River in Tucson about fifteen years ago.

I was meditating trying to relieve middle age and work stress.  I opened my eyes and then I focused on a distant peak, part of the Santa Catalina mountain range.  I was looking specifically at the large smudge like area on Big Horn Mountain.

In the noon day sun, a summer Arizona sun I should add, I saw what appeared to be the Christian Icon of Mary on the side of the mountain. As I wrote previously, only a Christian is likely to see Christian iconography and iconic images in the abstract darks and grays of a mountain side. That and only mad men in the noon day desert sun are crazy enough to see God and or start world religions sometimes.

With some additional lunch time meditation sessions, I began to make out more of the total image surrounding the Mary iconic image that I imagined that I saw connecting the dots on a mountain side.

It was then that the words of Revelation 12 seem to take shape before my eyes:

Revelation 12 - A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. ² She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.  ⁵ She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. ⁶ The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of…

¹³ When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. ¹⁴ The woman was given the two wings as of a great eagle (angel), so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time…

Along with the opening words of Psalm 121:

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.

Of course all this was against a backdrop of being in bible study with my local pastor.  And seeing Mary, which was more so a Catholic Icon than a Protestant Icon, and as then being Protestant, I discounted the Mary image seen and kept it to myself. No point in running around sounding like a lunatic and saying there was a giant image of Mary on some mountainside in Tucson.

Though I must recall and admit that my local pastor at the time on our group study of Luke sparked a certain chemistry and or electricity within the group that I file mentally under the category of Holy Spirit (whenever two or more are gathered in my name...).

Fast forward, we move back east for some years and I keep the image, the Jesus, Elvis image on toast, Mary on a mountain thing in the back of my mind.

Some years later I go visit my son in college at Tucson and again am seeing Christian Iconography on a mountain.  From the second floor balcony of his dorm apartment I show him the outline of the smudge on the mountain and tell him what I think I see.  He does not see the image of a woman and child. He says he sees what looks like five fingers on a hand.  Shadows can be so tricky.  I look again and yes I guess you might also see a hand.

And of course since I am so steeped in esoterics and religious lore, I see both images, of Mary and also of the hand.  I see what I choose to see.  What I have in confidence and or in faith am willing to see.

And of course looking, connecting the dots on the image of a hand, I am reminded of the Hand of Mohammed, whose original handprint is said to be imprinted on a charter of protection to the ancient St. Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai Desert.

What is in a name? Or an image? The global reality of the present global culture  is to try and see with all the eyes of all cultures and see what best results in image or form evolve out of all those local cultural and religious contexts of the planet. 

So it goes.

*   *   *

Arizona Webcam

.

Pedophile Bonus Bishop Timmy Dolan to Bless GOP Convention - Paul Ryan his kind of “Boy”, Ayn-Ryan Catholicism

Happy with your bonuses Guys? I aim to please.

Pedophile Bonus Paying Archbishop Timmy Dolan to Bless the GOP Convention.

Dolan has been curiously silent since his Bonuses to Perverts Program in his salad days in Milwaukee scandal broke in the Press recently.  Off to Ireland for an official Church conference and not a peep since in the media until present when he announces his love of the property party – Angry White Man’s Party – the GOP.

While he has not officially given the Papist Seal of Approval to the Romney Ryan Ticket, Timmy has expressed his approval of Catholic Paul Ryan as his kind of “boy”.

*   *   *

Judge Head Lubbock Texas – Slave Rebellion about to Attack Massa’s Plantation House – and other Shit His Father Told Him

Lubbock Texas, a shit hole, in the middle of nowhere is about to be attacked by a Nigra Slave Rebellion aka Civil War if the Nigra President Barack Obama gets reelected – according to Judge “Massa Tom” Head in Lubbock Texas.

Some of this paranoid old shit that has been passed around the family campfire of the Head Family since before the War Between the States is getting quite old.

Indeed, Representative Todd Akin of Missouri is still talking down the rules, justification for his great great grandfathers raping the slaves in the day back before the Civil War.

The Civil War happened. You Lost! They freed the Slaves! GET OVER IT!

All this ancient recycled paranoid town square horse shit verbiage in the "current" Tea Party culture should be separated for reality from the shit your fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers etc. said to you over a hundred years ago.

Judge Head and Representative Akin are two embarrassments to us real Americans in the 21st century to the rest of the planet and our common global culture. 

GET A LIFE Judge Head.  GET A LIFE Lubbock!

*   *   *

Medicare Vouchers – Redeemable only at an I.M.A. Bain Capital Crony Healthcare Company Store

Medicare Voucher System – take the worthless piece of scrip government I.O.U. and present it at your local office of the I.M.A. Bain Captial Crony Healthcare Company Store.

Old story of the 19-th century done all over again with a modern scrip(t).

The “Medicare Voucher”, “Scrip”, “Trade Token” “Food Stamp” healthcare will be inferior and cost much much more than the value delivered.  No Bang for the Buck. No competition. Take it or leave it old people.

A Con Job of the Man, the Robber Baron Man who wants your soul at His (Bain Capital) Company Store. 

Todd Akin – The Mind of a Serial Rapist? – GOP = Angry White Man’s Party

Representative Todd Akin’s 13^th century wives’ tale about “Legitimate Rape” being good birth control up there with abstinence and wishful thinking makes me wonder what sort of cocoon this man has been living in all these decades.

 

It makes me wonder what kind of mind, a delusional mind, minds that surround him in the Angry White Man’s Party in Congress aka the GOP.

And you have this young guy Paul Ryan standing next to Todd Akin and sponsoring legislation that defines “forcible rape” and you know Paul has never had an original thought in his entire life. All his life he has poll parroted the official Party Line of the Angry White Man’s Party and gotten handsomely rewarded for it in politics.  

The only black men I imagine Paul Ryan has even seen, being from pure white Nordic Wisconsin, are the security guards in the Capitol. (Or when he is so resentfully in the Oval Office?) I doubt he has ever even said a “Hi, how are you?” to those guards, that wage slave servant class of the Congress. 

So, in a way the definitions of rape that so easily roll off the lips of Todd Akin are the words of complete and total ignorance or they are the words from the mind of a serial rapist? Or of a long standing serial rapist mentality as part of some subculture? Not that Todd has ever raped anyone that we know of.  But one has to wonder the way he treats women verbally, he must have learned at an early age that women were automatically inferior to himself based solely on the fact that he was born with the first class unquestionable male entitlement of a penis.

A culture of (male owned) property entitlement and not people entitlement is what America is currently all about I think.

And I have to say, I am tired of all the outrageous coded talk of the Angry White Man’s Party and the kkkristian fundamentalists who spend 110% of the time talking about nothing useful for the economy or the day to day life in any American community.

I realize of late that so many men in American Politics of the GOP are reitierating the same shit their father said, their grandfathers said, their great grandfathers said etc.

The stupid utterances of Todd Akin went global.  They are talking about that ignorant man and base level, corrupted level, of human sexuality framed in eternal superstition and ignorance in America.  They are talking about this in Africa and even undemocratic China.

The GOP of course is denying complicity in the Serial Rapist mentality of so many in the Angry White Man’s Party AWMP and for Todd Akin letting the cat out of the bag so to speak that excuses most rape within the realm of white male entitlement.  

The rest of us are supposed to live with these, their bizarre outrageous lies about human sexuality.

And in a way, the Southern Strategy of Richard Nixon and raising the South and its mongrel culture of religion, guns and rape (male entitlement) to the forefront of American Culture is what we have to live with at this moment in time until a lot of these Angry White Males die off and the rest of us can get on with living a diverse tolerant life together as a nation.

I do not think that Rep. Akin left the cat out of the bag last week so much as he metaphorically published pictures (lightbulbs went on ! across America in a visual brain epiphany) of the secret room out behind the barn where Massa Todd secretly (in his mind at least) rapes his slaves, both male and female or was it that his great great grandfather did such in the good old days before the Civil War. And the sins of the father are troubled upon the generations to come in any family. 

*   *   *