Christian Temples Ban God's Smoke and Fat

If God were to show up in a cloud of smoke would we ban Him?

Who is this coming out of the
wilderness
Like pillars of smoke,
Perfumed with myrrh and
frankincense,
With all the merchant's
fragrant powders? (Song of Solomon 3:6)

I suspect we would be greatly afraid and would run for fear of our precious temple-bodies being made unholy by the smoke of the saints and of God billowing about. There is no safe amount of smoke, as they say.

Notice, too that not only is smoke being banned, but fats too. Hmm. Another enjoyable sin associated with God and smoke. Constantly, those Hebrew priests of the Scripture are offering up the fat upon a smoking altar. I wonder if this smoke and fat means God is an obese diabetic with lung cancer?

Is this why God didn't accept Cain's healthy serving of veggies? He really didn't feel like changing His ways and preferred Abel's smoking barbecue.

And this really bothered Cain. He couldn't quite figure out why his healthy produce wasn't relished by God who seemd to prefer Abel, the shepherding barbecue king. The science said this was wrong. So Cain "banned" Abel for harming God with dangerous fats, smoke, and carbon monoxide. This upset God because He wasn't particularly ready to give up His habits and only Abel knew how to make the secret BBQ sauce. He reprimanded Cain and forgave him for his mistake and sent him on his way with a protective mark (probably a smudge of Abel's BBQ sauce).

Water will have to be the next unhealthy item banned, because it too may remind us of God. It is in the works, controlling water and its use by the common people.

But it is okay to be a temple harlot as long as one is responsible and safe about it.

And as long as we keep the logs in our eyes we can point out everyone else's splinters. But the log will burn longer and hotter than the tiny splinter which can be blown out quickly. I'd rather have a splinter of imperfection than a log of piety constipating my system.

image: Rembrandt, The Prodigal Son Returns

Is The Glass Half Full or Half Empty?

The past week I have been reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, Stacy Schiff's Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), and Sylvia Nasar's A Beautiful Mind. I have not finished Solzhenitsyn. I was overwhelmed by the interrogation techniques used by the Russians due to the fact that many of these are being used by the local law enforcement upon my fellows. Sometimes, the truth is too dark and breathtaking when it removes the shiny curtain of imagined freedom to reveal the very evil one thinks cannot possibly exist in their own community.

Interestingly, these three books go together quite well and I cannot help but think that it was ordained by some greater will that they should have been brought together for my pleasure. Schiff's Vera shows us how to overcome evil, slipping through like water in the hand of Russian and German hatred; and live quietly, yet brightly in the persistent pursuit of one's love. If I could rename Schiff's Vera it would be And Then She Typed, Then She Transcribed, Then She Took Dictation, Then She Translated. Vera was not written how I would have written her, but it sure makes one think about typewriters, vehicles, and words, drive and fingers.

Nasar's biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr. tied the trio together nicely. Nash makes a perfect metaphor for our current society and how it has become sick with schizophrenia. Everything that Nash suffered as an individual schizophrenic describes modern culture, except there is no sanitarium for the masses, and there won't be a Nobel Prize.

And now, I'm looking into propaganda, which is fairly dry when one has learned most of this information from reading good literature. Great writers expose their readers to the world of lies, truth, and ways of thinking critically. A great reader doesn't always believe the narrator if they know what's good for them.

Here is a quote on how propagandists play with numbers:

"'2 out of 5 fatal automobile accidents was due to drinking. 33% of the drivers involved in fatal accidents had been drinking. 24% of the pedestrians involved in fatal accidents had been drinking. Therefore, alcohol intoxication is a major cause of automobile accidents and drunk driving must be dealt with harshly'

That logic sounds impressive, but it's completely wrong. Consider the reverse logic:

'3 out of 5 fatal automobile accidents did not involve drinking. 67% of the drivers involved in fatal accidents had not been drinking. And 76% of the pedestrians involved in accidents had not been drinking. Therefore, sobriety is undoubtedly the major cause of fatal automobile accidents, and sober driving must be outlawed immediately, and punished harshly'" ("Propaganda and Debating Techniques," A. Orange).

I don't know if we should be bandying those sober numbers about. A mother of a child who died at the hands of a sober driver may get ideas and form M.A.S.S. (Mothers Against Sober Sinners). We are at such a precarious point in our schizophrenic world that people would actually support banning sober drivers.

This is why we need to stop feeding our emotions and listening to those nasty adverts featuring the sobbing wife of a drunk husband who killed a father of a small and darling child with his car. It's pure emotion designed to pass a law which will eventually lead to another law and another until everyone is a criminal, and made to pay penance for farting and belching, or simply looking odd while driving.

I wish that those, especially the women, convicted of DUI and put through the illegal and humiliating treatment at the local gulag would put out an advert exposing the inhumane treatment they were subjected to.

Guilty of Living

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted -- and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on guilt" (Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged)

During the 1930s and 1940s it was illegal for a person of Jewish descent to work or to be alive in Germany. And before this, it was illegal for Jews to work or live in Russia. And before that it was illegal for Catholics to participate in many aspects of life in England, such as politics or education. English Catholics paid higher taxes too for their "sin." And before that is was illegal in many places to be a Protestant in a Catholic country. And before that it was illegal to be a Jew or Christian in the Roman Empire.

And not so long ago it was illegal for a person with high melanin to eat, travel, live in many neighborhoods, own guns, or go to school in many areas of the United States of America. One religious leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is highly admired and celebrated for leading the battle to abolish the laws and sick mindset of those who fear those born with blessed bodies that produce more melanin.

It was believed, and still is by many highly "educated" people with academic degrees, that certain groups of people were a danger to society and would contaminate the health of all. These specially designated and despised groups were often forcefully sterilized for being poor, sickly, or unwed.

These laws of the past which made innocent people into guilty criminals to be hunted down and eradicated were not correct then, nor are they ever. Those who broke the law, those who ignored these heinous laws are heroes.

Will you break the law to defend the dignity of life?

image: Carrie Buck (Paul B. Popenoe, "The Progress of Eugenic Sterilization," Journal of Heredity,25:1 (1934), 23). In the 1924 case of Buck v. Bell the U.S. Supreme Court agreed that it was constitutionally and scientifically correct for the state of Virginia to forcefully sterilize those it hated, including three generations of Buck women.

Carrie's mother, Emma, was sterilized for the crime of being poor and abandoned by the father of her children. Carrie was placed in foster care, and raped at age 17 by the nephew of her foster parents, thus becoming pregnant. Accused of the crime of being a seductive and feeble-minded female it was decided that upon the birth of her child she be sterilized to protect society from the danger she posed to the health and safety of others.

The case of Buck v. Bell, which established the precedence of science's justness and love of life, helped to enforce sterilizations all across the U.S., and gave the the Nazis of Germany a foundation upon which to base their own laws. Buck v. Bell still stands and has NEVER been overturned, never been declared unconstitutional or unlawful by the lawmakers, BUT because it is considered illegal in the hearts and minds of the citizens it has not been observed.

Carrie Buck's daughter, Vivian, was adopted by Carrie's former foster parents and also sterilized. Vivian died at the age of eight. Carrie lived on and married. There was nothing feeble-minded about her. She was the victim of the feeble-minded and feeble-hearted.

Toto, who's behind the telescreen?

The Wizard of Oz will return to the Big Screen September 23. But, there is always that big butt, the company putting on the event won't display the theatres until one clicks the "buy ticket" button. And because I am naturally skeptical I won't click the button to find out if it's showing anywhere near me. For all I know, that one click could access my account and get me a ticket for New York City.

I finished my reread of George Orwell's 1984, since the Kindle brouhaha rekindled my desire to read it. It puts that overly referred to piece of poor writing and thinking by Aldous Huxley to shame. When will Amazon delete Brave New World from the Kindle? I surely wouldn't cry over that. Ascetics flagellating themselves near lighthouses have never impressed me.

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power." 1984

"Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the revolution." 1984

It was 1949 when 1984 was first published, and here we are! Telescreens everywhere. How was Orwell able to see so clearly?

Remember, when you look out a window that others may be looking in at you. Big Brother is a natural peeping tom.