Showing posts with label Humanist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Humanist. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Benedict XVI and Second-Hander Clergy


I am a visionary of sorts. I have a passion for looking at many different things. I look for the ways to rearrange the pieces of the puzzle of life into a better fit and or the perfect fit.

In terms of the present moral meltdown and officially sanctioned cover-up of rape and torture of children in the past decades, it is time to stop and realize that an institution that claims to be founded by God – that God has apparently been absent for long periods of time since the beginning of this particular church.

That the chaos of wars in Europe from Napoleon to Hitler in World Wars and tens of millions of deaths start with the collapse of the corrupt French monarchy around 1789 and propped up by the corrupt Roman Catholic Church. The Church of Bling, not the church of God, saw fit to bless and sanction cake and pastries on the fat King’s plate while the peasants starved outside the palace gates.

I love the French. Their arrogance and their anti-clerical atheistic attitude is a breath of fresh air after living a life in America with the holier than thou Cardinal Spellmans and Cardinal Codys and their boyfriends and mistresses. And all under the cover of celibacy which is of course not the problem in this global sex abuse scandal in America and Europe as stated by paid church apologists.

I am sorry that we have not heard from Latin America, Africa and Asia where there is little free press, unseen and unheard at present, from those other tens of thousands of victims screaming to heaven for justice.

And then there is the whole of the last forty years of Born Again Bling by Swaggard, Jim and Tammy, Richard Roberts, Pat Robertson, Falwell and dozens of other absolute worshippers of the Pope Bling CEO style mismanagement and misperception of the needs of humanity. Management first, people last and children don’t count. That is not Jesus!

The smug German pope sat on his throne on Sunday, Easter Sunday, and listened to an equally smug Cardinal Sodano state that the faithful are not affected by petty gossip.

Where is the petty gossip? We are talking conspiracy, crimes against humanity, not petty gossip you asshole in a red silk gown that costs enough to feed a village in Africa for months. Where is your perspective and your humanity?

If I address humanity and with an empathy for humanity then I must be a humanist and that is a dirty word in the Roman church. Traditions counts first and foremost. People can apparently go ---- themselves.

A so-called institution of God goes ape shit crazy and corrupt and then the human race has to clean up the mess. The rise of Napoleon after the fall of the corrupt church/monarchy shaped European history in the nineteenth century. The corrupt Russian church/monarchy and its ensuing revolution dictated the course of 20th century politics and brinksmanship. And then there is Mexico in the twenties etc. and on and on.

This is not an institution of God but of corrupt men. Let’s have a going out of business sale once and for all. Let’s just put the Vatican and its contents up for sale at Christie s. That is the best humanist thing to do for humanity.

Let’s stop giving a bunch of third rate “second handers”* another chance to hurt and cause so much pain in body, mind and spirit in the future.

As a visionary I connect the dots and I now quote from a comment on Ayn Rand’s concept of the mediocrity - presently in the Vatican and American Business as well. She seems to have perfectly fitted and predicted this present situation and business management cancer in the Roman Catholic Clergy.

* Second-Handers
Isn’t that the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he’s honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he’s great in the eyes of others. The frustrated wretch who professes love for the inferior and clings to those less endowed, in order to establish his own superiority by comparison . . . . They’re second-handers . . . .

They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They’re concerned only with people. They don’t ask: “Is this true?” They ask: “Is this what others think is true?” Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. Not ability, but friendship. Not merit, but pull. What would happen to the world without those who do, think, work, produce? Those are the egoists. You don’t think through another’s brain and you don’t work through another’s hands.

When you suspend your faculty of independent judgment, you suspend consciousness. To stop consciousness is to stop life. Second-handers have no sense of reality. Their reality is not within them, but somewhere in that space which divides one human body from another. Not an entity, but a relation—anchored to nothing. That’s the emptiness I couldn’t understand in people.

That’s what stopped me whenever I faced a committee. Men without an ego. Opinion without a rational process. Motion without brakes or motor. Power without responsibility. The second-hander acts, but the source of his actions is scattered in every other living person. It’s everywhere and nowhere and you can’t reason with him. He’s not open to reason.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

SHANAS – S.H.A.N.A.S. – Secular, Humanist, Atheist, Non-believer, Agnostic, Skeptic


The road to a true global future is indeed full of many skeptics and skeptical beliefs.

Perhaps it takes time for global reality to set in. Myself I would rather look at the tools available in global communication and set a focus point for others to gather at and to begin a lot of restoring of the human spirit and the human culture after thousands of years of religious bigotry and superstition.

My quest to assert my minimalist Christian beliefs as a Cultural Secular Christian is to have a place at the table of communication and not let some religious or PR hack determine what is best or acceptable for me to believe in.

We all believe and feel billions of different things. We are however bound together by blood and DNA on this fragile planet in space.

As such I termed the word SHANAS as a focal point – focus point as a label to follow, fill out in breath and come back in retort, an umbrella of beliefs and non-beliefs, in reaction to those thousands of years of abuse and superstition that the human race has endured thus far.

We all want to change the world. Perhaps I am too much in a rush to perfection for our human race. The past seems to cling to too many negatives and redundancies. The future or any so-called new world order should be determined by input by all mankind. Part of the future is trying to determine what to jettison from the past. It is no easy task on an individual or on a global scale. I value individual input rather than institutional input.

I took the words most common in these outside cultures and philosophies at present and forming from ideas that gravitate toward similar but not exact goals. Secular, Humanists, Atheists, Non-believers, Agnostics and Skeptics should focus perhaps under one label to ease the path to future communication and integration of a durable global matrix of local and global issues in the present and immerging Global Reality. The energies of these groupings do not seem to be set in stone so much as that energy can turn into quest for a new horizon and or enlightenment for all.

SHANAS – S.H.A.N.A.S. – Secular, Humanist, Atheist, Non-believer, Agnostic, Skeptic – as a label is a start.

Whatever forms in reality in terms of labels in the future will form by common consensus and not by any one SHANAS member of alternate belief systems. And as opposed to the obsolete superstitions and religions plaguing the present world. I want people to start thinking and acting globally and – in a Secular Humanist fashion of sorts.

Christopher Hitchens, a famous atheist, complains that we need a new Age of Enlightenment – well that age is here – it has arrived – it is time for individuals more so than any one or many institutions to bring forth the light within humanity to the forefront of all human existence.

This is the dawning of a new human age.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Happy Human Light Holiday - 2009


The so-called War on Christmas did not have much energy this year. Everybody is recycling lights and decorations, those lucky enough to still have their own home. The economy and the massive PR efforts on politics in Health Care legislation has exhausted any patience or tolerance for additional nonsense about the right way to celebrate Christmas – the right talk and the right walk etc. this year.

Indeed Senator Coburn’s recent Prayer on the United States Senate floor to pray for God to strike down Senator Byrd, 92, in a wheelchair, to not make it for a rare One A.M. Senate vote on Healthcare says it all to me about the mean spirited Grinch like love of GOP "Christ-Inane-ity".

The War on Christianity is a self inflicted wound like flagellation. The more you beat yourself, the holier you and your cause becomes? Yeah right.

The War on Christmas is largely I think a time killer on entertainment news which in the Bush years would not dare investigate or report misconduct in government.

Make an artificial enemy out there and blame them for America not being as white or as Christian as it used to be.

Ran into an interesting article about how many foreign born or non-Christians deal with “the December Dilemma” because they do not celebrate their cultural or religious holidays in December.

For many, December's a dilemma
"We definitely had a little bit of anxiety in childhood," Tarin said. But that changed as he grew up and refined his American Muslim persona amid the American atmosphere of diversity and tolerance.

Now, where he and his family live in northern Virginia, "we don't celebrate Christmas. We celebrate our holidays" -- pointing, for example, to Eid al-Fitr after Ramadan and Eid al-Adha after the hajj pilgrimage. But he welcomes the goodwill of the season -- the gift-exchanges with non-Muslim neighbors and the requests from schoolteachers to talk about Muslim holidays.

And

Interfaith couples celebrate their diversity during the Christmas season. Jeff Silver, a certified public accountant who is Jewish, and Shweta Gupta, a dentist who is Hindu, are planning their marriage next year. They will have an interfaith household and said they hope to raise children to understand both of their traditions. At their home in Atlanta, they've set up a holiday tree decorated with Hindu and Jewish ornaments.

And

Non-religious Americans embrace a December "secular holiday" called HumanLight.

Patrick Colucci, vice chair of the HumanLight Committee and member of the New Jersey Humanist Network, said the holiday can uplift "atheist, humanist and nonreligious" people who feel left out and isolated during Christmas.

Which brings me to the Human Light holiday celebrated today December 23. Never heard of it before today. It is a man made holiday by Humanists to make – I won’t say non-believers but perhaps non-conformists – have a day of celebration and gathering in the midst of all the other pagan year end celebrating.

HumanLight

The energy of the diversity of America is sometimes a surprise and delightful.

Happy Human Light Holiday to you all !

(– and that includes Bill O’Reilly and Bill Donahue too. XOXO)