I get bored

At work, when it is quiet, it is supremely quiet. I get bored quite easily. I usually take a book with me. Purely because the work itself is mind numbingly pointless. There is no social good. It is not improving my sense of self or helping to achieve any goal I have. So I take a book. However, yesterday I forgot to take a book. So I tried to concentrate on other things. Unfortunately, I was in a bit of a mood because earlier in the day, I discovered I had no milk to make tea. Being English, and having no milk for tea, is an horrific situation to find ones self in. Even now, I look back, and it makes me want to weep. When the Pope’s representative told the press that the UK was like the Third World (I watched that on my HDTV, which sits next to the XBox, and Laptop, near the second PC, in the window which over looks our two cars…… perhaps Bob Geldof should do a World concert for me and my obvious poverty stricken status), he meant with regard to lack of milk for tea, i’m sure of it. I had no milk for tea. Malnourished Ugandan orphans certainly have no milk for tea; quite clearly a link. We should listen to the Catholic Church more. They make SO much sense. So obviously it played on my mind all evening, to the point where I think I may have gone a little bit insane.

And this is the product of that insanity:

Contrary to the conclusion you may have drawn, I am not studying fine art.
I even gave him some new happy disco shoes, to celebrate.
I was trying to convey how my mood would change for the better, if I were to have some milk at home. Today I have milk at home. I thought this would make me happy. I even prepared to indulge in a happy dance.  And it did make me happy. For a second. But then, I spotted flying toward me, a flying spider. As if regular spiders aren’t horrendous enough. It had fangs, and blood dripping from them. It had a sting the size of a butchers knife pointed at me, and long hairy legs. Okay so I may be exaggerating. It probably wasn’t even a spider. They don’t fly. But this was huge. I kept my eye on it the entire time I made a cup of tea, and moved around the room methodically avoiding its evil gaze (when I wrote ‘evil gaze’ I giggled childishly because it sounds like ‘evil gays’. I’m not even Catholic. Or Right Winged American. Homophobic humour, I should get a job at Fox). I knew what it wanted, and what it wanted was to kill me. I am now locked in my bedroom, it is probably waiting outside. Although, it feels like it is on me somewhere. The same feeling I get if I walk face first into a cobweb. I presume the spider is on me. That is how this feels. It is probably waiting for me to sleep, and then it’ll bite me.  I will have to leave and enter my house from now on, through my second storey window, via a rope that I will craft out of old clothes. That is how serious this situation has become.

Anyway, after calming down a little, and deciding that having no milk is actually no big issue. I thought I would enter the realms of political and religious satire. And this is the result:

What an entirely pointless blog entry.

A Philosophical Question

I have been trying to reason out a Philosophical question that I have posed to myself recently. My mind is too tiny to come to a conclusion and draw a line under the entire thing. I need closure!

Feel free to leave your comments and philosophical logic, but please, if you’re a religious person, give me a reasoned consideration rather than empty religious dogma. For example, don’t start your sentence with “God wants…. blah blah blah”, because it is all conjecture, you are making it up, you do possess a level of objective truth, that I do not.

So, here’s my issue.
If we start from the contentious issue that everything that is, was created from nothing, I conclude that whatever created it all from nothing, was ‘outside‘ so to speak. If I, for example, were to create a tea cup, I cannot be part of that cup, I am the creator of the cup, I am outside of the cup. I see the cup from top to bottom, from front to back, from side to side. But I am not the cup. I perceive the entire cup. Similarly, if the creator of everything is outside of what he has created; time, light, space, life etc, then he presumably has it all set out in front of him, like a tapestry. He is not part of that creation, so is not affected by time, or light, and so cannot succumb to death or decay and aging, like the Matter that he created does. He is beyond that. He can see it from top to bottom, side to side. He can see the past, the present and the future, as if it were one. He preceded existence. He created existence. He is the height of perfection, there is nothing that he cannot do. If he wanted to create a stone that he could not lift, this wouldn’t be a paradox, it would be correct. He wouldn’t be able to lift it, if that were it’s purpose. The moment he decides the purpose is something different, he’d be able to lift it. He is the limit. If he couldn’t see everything, from beginning to end, the past the present and the future; he wouldn’t be perfect. Or the creator. If I created the cup, but can’t actually see the cup, that would be ridiculous.

So, therefore, he knew I would be an Atheist. In the same way that I knew the cup I made, would be white. I wouldn’t be shocked and disgusted if it were white, because i’d made it white. If I’d intended to make it blue, and it came out white, I would be a pretty bad creator. God, is considered perfect, he apparently doesn’t make mistakes. He knew a few of my friends would be gay. He created them Gay. He knew Dr Harold Shipman would be a murderer. He knows it all. There is no limit remember. He doesn’t start our path, he knows the entire route we will take, from beginning to end. So, given that our entire lives are pre-determined, why is this supposedly loving God, going to punish me for eternity, with the worst kind of pain, simply for not believing in him? I have no choice. I cannot force myself to believe in something that not only offends my sense of rationale, but also insults my sense of morality. I cannot change my belief, I can only follow my conscience. My conscience will always tell me that the God of all organised religion hinders and holds back the progress of humanity, all in the name of a fairy man in the sky.  It is ludicrous to me. To suggest God expects me to give up my heretical views, and start believing in him, purely because the consequences of non-belief, are horrific; is blackmail. In the same way that someone dedicated to Jesus is unlikely to give up their beliefs, I cannot in good conscience, give up mine But, say i’m wrong, which i’m willing to admit I may be. If i’m wrong, God knew I would think this way, so why is he punishing me?  I am not a bad person, so why punish me? What is it achieving? Why should I believe in a God like that?

Answers please.

The Pope in Britain

The Pope is in the UK for less than 24 hours, and he’s already calling the majority of us Nazis. The ex-Nazi Youth member, who brought back into Catholicism a bishop who claims the holocaust never happened and Jews are the enemy of Christ; the Pope turned leader of a mass child sex cover up, said:

Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live.
I also recall the regime’s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a reductive vision of the person and his destiny.

It’s an often repeated manipulation, that Hitler was Atheist. He wasn’t. Nor did he wish to strip the State of religious influence. I’d go further, and suggest that centuries of anti-Jewish sentiment spewed by the Catholic Church, had far more influence on the anti semitic sentiment in Germany of the time, than non-belief ever had.

Hitler in 1922, said this:

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. .. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison.

Hitler in 1933, said this:

“Today they say that Christianity is in danger, that the Catholic faith is threatened. My reply to them is: for the time being, Christians and not international atheists are now standing at Germany’s fore. I am not merely talking about Christianity; I confess that I will never ally myself with the parties which aim to destroy Christianity.”

Hitler, also in 1933, said this:

“We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.”

Hitler in 1934, said this:

“National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary, it stands on the ground of a real Christianity.”

In 1939, Cardinal Orsenigo was sent by Rome to celebrate Hitler’s birthday. Pope Pius XII started an annual birthday celebration tradition for Hitler in fact. The Catholic Church each year would send “warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany”.

Here are some lovely Catholic Bishops, showing their love for The Nazis.

– You can tell they’re not Atheists, because we wouldn’t wear such pathetically elaborate costumes.

Here is a page from a German kids book, made by the Nazis:

It reads:
“When you see a cross, then think of the horrible murder by the Jews on Golgotha..”
Anti-Jewish propaganda, pointing out that Christians have a duty to hate Jews. Atheists didn’t say this. We didn’t want this.

In 1933, the Vatican and the Nazis signed the ‘Reich Concordat’ which in exchange for the Pope’s power over Catholics in Germany, meant that the Vatican would encourage Catholics in Germany to leave politics (at that time, they were very powerful) and allow the Nazis to centralise power, with no opposition. This allowed the Nazis to take full control of the Country, and progress to the next level, and we all know how that turned out. The Vatican said nothing on the issue. According to writer John Cornwell:

“On July 14, 1933, after the initialing of the treaty, the Cabinet minutes record Hitler as saying that the concordat had created an atmosphere of confidence that would be “especially significant in the struggle against international Jewry.” He was claiming that the Catholic Church had publicly given its blessing, at home and abroad, to the policies of National Socialism, including its anti-Semitic stand.”

In 2009, the Pope lifted an excommunication on a Bishop who is an out of the closet Holocaust denier. Bishop Richard Williamson, whom this Pope brought back into the fold of Catholicism, the same Pope who tells we Atheists that we are Nazis, claimed that Jews were the “enemies of Christ“. He blames Catholic Church corruption, on Jews. He claims Jews are fighting for World domination. He claims there is no evidence that 6 million Jews died in gas chambers in Nazi Germany. The Pope brought him back into the Catholic fold.

Perhaps the Pope should spend less time referring to Atheists as Nazis, and more time trying to rid his Church of systematic sex abuse, anti-semitic bishops, and changing its horrific stance on AIDS in Africa.

America’s tortured brow

– Reagan meets the Taliban and refers to them as Afghanistan’s founding fathers, despite their remarkable ability to deny even the most fundamental of human rights.

Prior to 1986 the UN’s judicial wing, the International Court of Justice was supported by the United States. However, all that changed in 1986. In that year, that fantastic year (my birth), Nicaragua became indescribably pissed off with the US’s involvement in supporting Right Winged terrorists in their country, that they bought a case against the US, to the Court of Justice. The charge was, that:

(a) That the United States, in recruiting, training, arming, equipping, financing, supplying and otherwise encouraging, supporting, aiding, and directing military and paramilitary actions in and against Nicaragua, had violated its treaty obligations to Nicaragua under:
Article 2 (4) of the United Nations Charter;
Articles 18 and 20 of the Charter of the Organization of American States;
Article 8 of the Convention on Rights and Duties of States;
Article I, Third, of the Convention concerning the Duties and Rights of States in the Event of Civil Strife.
(b) That the United States had breached international law by
1. violating the sovereignty of Nicaragua by:
armed attacks against Nicaragua by air, land and sea;
incursions into Nicaraguan territorial waters;
aerial trespass into Nicaraguan airspace;
efforts by direct and indirect means to coerce and intimidate the Government of Nicaragua.
2. using force and the threat of force against Nicaragua.
3. intervening in the internal affairs of Nicaragua.
4. infringing upon the freedom of the high seas and interrupting peaceful maritime commerce.
5. killing, wounding and kidnapping citizens of Nicaragua.

The US defended itself, not by denying any of the above, but by suggesting that everything it had done in the region, all the terrorist activity and the dead civilians and the economic warfare, and the torturing, was justified because it was preemptively “exercising a right of collective self-defense” for the benefit of other Latin American countries.

As proceedings were clearly going against the US, the lawyers for this new Roman Empire, who answer to no one but themselves, decided to throw their toys out of the pram, by suggesting (and being the only Country to ever suggest) that the International Court of Justice is “semi-legal, semi-juridical, semi-political body, which nations sometimes accept and sometimes don’t.” This obviously setting themselves up to say that when the court inevitably finds in favour of Nicaragua, the US wont listen. And so that is exactly what happened.

The Court found that the US was guilty of attacking key infrastructure in Nicaragua, and arming, training and financing Right Winged terrorists in the Country, although admits that the US probably wasn’t directing the operations of the terrorists. They simply picked them, funded them, armed them, and then said “okay….GO!“. The court also found that the Nicaraguan government had absolutely no part in any arms flow between Nicaragua and insurgents in other Latin American Countries. It found that no Latin American Country had asked for US support in these matters.

The judgement reads:

“Decides that the United States of America, by training, arming, equipping, financing and supplying the contra forces or otherwise encouraging, supporting and aiding military and paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua, has acted, against the Republic of Nicaragua, in breach of its obligation under customary international law not to intervene in the affairs of another State;”

Decides that, by laying mines in the internal or territorial waters of the Republic of Nicaragua during the first months of 1984, the United States of America has acted, against the Republic of Nicaragua, in breach of its obligations under customary international law not to use force against another State, not to intervene in its affairs, not to violate its sovereignty and not to interrupt peaceful maritime commerce;

Finds that the United States of America, by producing in 1983 a manual entitled “Operaciones sicológicas en guerra de guerrillas”, and disseminating it to contra forces, has encouraged the commission by them of acts contrary to general principles of humanitarian law; but does not find a basis for concluding that any such acts which may have been committed are imputable to the United States of America as acts of the United States of America;

Decides that the United States of America, by the attacks on Nicaraguan territory referred to in subparagraph (4) hereof, and by declaring a general embargo on trade with Nicaragua on 1 May 1985, has committed acts calculated to deprive of its object and purpose the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the Parties signed at Managua on 21 January 1956;

The list goes on.

America of course disagreed and ignored the verdict. Nicaragua took it to the UN Security Council, asking for all members to respect international law. The US Vetoed it. Because the US don’t like being told what to do. It is the equivalent of a murderer being found guilty, but then walking out of the court because he doesn’t like the verdict and saying “Yeah, I don’t really take it seriously now, i’m going home” and being allowed to.

Nicaragua then took it to the General Assembly, who passed the Resolution by 94 votes to 3. The 3 anti votes, being obviously the US…….. of course you can guess the second….. Israel, and the third being El Salvador, who at the time were the recipient of huge US aid, to fight the Left Wing uprisings in the Country. The US then tried its hardest since the decision, to discredit the ICJ for being a “hostile forum”, simply because the decision went against the US. I wonder if they’d have followed the same path of trying to discredit the ICJ, if the decision went their way. Something tells me they wouldn’t. And so Nicaraguans had to deal with even further American involvement in their Country. Reagan imposed tougher economic sanctions, and denounced the elections in Nicaragua as suspicious, despite the fact that Canada, Ireland, the European Economic Community and religious groups sent to oversee the elections all said that they were perfectly fair and free.

The US Congress then banned all funding to the Right Winged terrorists in Nicaragua, the Reagan administration carried on covertly. They did this by selling arms to Iran and sending the money gained, to the terrorists in Nicaragua. In 1996 it was revealed that the Reagan administration used money raised through drug trafficking to support the terrorists in Nicaragua. And today, those very same conservative Americans who masturbate furiously over the mere mention of Reagan, are claiming Obama is the one pissing on the Constitution, by trying to improve the Healthcare system. Fickle, despicable, moronic; the American Right Wing.

This is why it amazes me, that it was the Middle East that lost it’s mind first, and began fighting America. Muslim Extremists are the equivalent of the barbarians that sacked Rome. Pissed off at their treatment by this wretched superpower, but just as pathetic, barbaric, and evil as the bastards they are fighting.

Two days ago, marked 9 years since the September 11th 2001 terrorist atrocity in New York City. It was unquestionably one of the most vile and senseless attacks the World has witnessed. The inhumanity was beyond comprehension and it strikes me as utterly counter to human compassion and decency, to assume such an attack is justifiable. That being said, I cant help but wonder why we in the Western World are only ever exposed to this one side of the story.

Almost 3000 people died that day in 2001. Since then, and because of that act, 2071 soldiers have died in Afghanistan, 4736 soldiers have died in Iraq, 14,240 civilians have died in Afghanistan, and as many as 104,595 civilians have died in Iraq, with thousands upon thousands more displaced, starving, and living in poverty that they were not in prior to US led military action. One wonders what this has achieved? One also wonders why we never hear about those deaths? Why is a declaration of war considered a legitimate and almost entirely ethical justification for the deaths of almost 200,000 innocent people? Why are America not considered far far worse than the terrorists who attacked on 9/11? 3000 people is one building. 200,000 people, is an entire city. Imagine waking up, in your city, and finding everyone dead. Children included. How is that in any sense justifiable?

Does anyone in the West know the significance of the date April 28th 2003? I doubt it. It was the date that the Americans imposed a curfew on the people of Fallujah (if Iraqis invaded America and demanded people stay in their homes after a certain time, would Americans agree? No, of course not). The people defied the curfew, and the 82nd Airborne shot and killed 17, and injured over 70. Two days later, a protest in Fallujah against the shootings took place. The US shot two people dead. American terrorism and imperialism at its finest. The documentary ‘Fallujah: The hidden massacre’ gives compelling evidence of an even greater evil, committed by the US against ordinary civilians in Fallujah, including children. It shows footage of White phosphorus being used in residential areas, which breaches human rights conventions. It then shows us footage of children and other victims of the attacks, in the areas in which the White phosphorus was used. Ex soldier Jeff Englehart backs up the claims and the evidence by admitting the use of the banned substance. A Labour MP Alice Mahon pressured the British MOD to respond to the claims. The MOD then confirmed that US forces used MK77 during the invasion. The US defended its actions by saying they gave civilians enough time to evacuate. Overall, 39,000 homes were badly damaged and 10,000 destroyed, along with 60 schools, hospitals, and 65 mosques in Fallujah, by the US, in 2004. They have not been reconstructed. 32,000 compensation claims altogether. It is now 2010, and only 2,500 have received any form of compensation. Is America still convinced these people simply ‘hate our freedoms’?

We as a species seem to have instilled in us, a sense of revenge, as well as an impulse to assume we are the ones hard done by. American governments, including the Obama administration, play the innocent far too often. The usual story across the World, from Latin America, to Afghanistan, is America attempts to control a Country for resource purposes, the people fight back, America refers to them as evil, they refer to America as evil, America attacks and refer to themselves as freedom givers, the locals attack back and America refer to them as insurgents and terrorists, America attacks again, the locals attack again, and so on. All the time, Americans are shocked that anyone could dislike them for any reason, after all they assume quite amusingly that they are the beacon of hope and freedom. And so the cycle goes on. What does it achieve? Nothing.

Right now, the Muslim World assumes it is entirely innocent, and America assumes it is entirely innocent. Both are not innocent. Do I consider America to be terrorists? Damn right I do, quite horrific terrorists too. What is unnerving, and deeply regressive in terms of the history of humanity, is that both sides assume they are fighting a morally just war, for their own abstract concept; One side is fighting for their religion – a man made concept, something that doesn’t exist, a fairy tale. The other side is fighting for a Nation State – again, a man made concept that has no scientific or empirical worth, is not biological, is an archaic throw back to Colonialism, and is simply a social construct that certainly is not worth killing or dying for. It is unbelievably short sighted, because it will never end. America as a Nation are never likely to admit they have been utter bastards across the World for the past 50 years. Islam as a religion is never going to accept it has anger issues and takes its fairy man in the sky a little too seriously.

One problem, from a Western perspective, is that since 9/11 at least, we have had this us VS them mentality. We believe the West is right, and the Muslim World are evil bastards who we tried to help, but were beaten down for it. It emanates from America. We never hear stories of American terrorism; of which there are countless examples. We are made to believe the Office of President of the United States of America is an honourable office. It REALLY isn’t. It’s like the office of Roman Emperor. It means you have the power to impose your will on much of the World, through force if necessary and build a public reason for it, but keep the real reason private. It is an office of criminals. Very little more. The castle of the Presidency is built on pillars of sand, not rock. They will not talk about the fact that when Reagan was President, he helped to create the Mujahideen as an anti-communist force, despite the fact that they were also a very violent human rights abusers. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an ex Prime Minister of Afghanistan is currently on the run from America, who have him labelled as a ‘Specially Designated Global Terrorist’. This man is responsible for countless deaths. Yet, conversely. according to the book ‘Afghanistan, the bear trap: defeat of a superpower‘, Hekmatyar was the recipient of the most US covert funding (thought to be around half a billion dollars…….. apparently Tea Party activists didn’t really care about this) ever, and total immunity from the CIA for his role in the Drug trade.

During the Afghan-Soviet war, America funding the creation of over 35,000 religious schools throughout Afghanistan, in order to help train people against Soviets by teaching an extreme form of Islam in the hope that what the crazed Muslim extremists are doing now to America, would be aimed entirely at the Soviet Union. When their anger was aimed at the Soviets, America referred to them as Freedom Fighters. The moment that anger spilled over in the direction of America, they suddenly became known as terrorists. But, the Americans created the problems. They didn’t care if terrorism that they funded was being aimed at Americas enemies. They didn’t care how many people would die, from funding the creation of the monster of Islamic Extremism. It suited their needs, so it was fine. Now it is going against them, and they suddenly find it to be an evil that needs to be defeated.

President Eisenhower famously used his farewell speech to warn the US that the ‘Military-industrial complex’, in other words, private military and arms manufacturers, as a concept, runs entirely at odds with the objection of peace. That when a situation arises in which certain people and groups have material interests in being continuously at war, there can never be peace. Eisenhower said:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Today, this is more crucial a point, than at any time during the past fifty years. A fifty years in which the US has never had a moment where it has not been involved in the affairs of other Nations. The vast economy of the military machine, is the very source of international terrorism, and it is based entirely in the US. Eisenhower recognised it. I think we are all beginning to recognise it. Especially after Iraq.

There will never be an end to terrorism. Because terrorism is not limited to extreme Muslims. Terrorism takes on many forms, and one of them includes direct funding from the very superpower that in public appears to be so anti-terrorism, it goes beyond the realm of hypocrisy and becomes laughable. Whilst money exists, whilst Nation States exist, whilst America exists, and whilst Religion exists – terrorism will also exist.

My favourite Bible stories

A line in a wedding ceremony I recently attended, read by the Priest was: “God loves those who fear him“. This made me feel a little uneasy. It is from Psalms, and it is a little unnerving. It suggests in order to be in favour with this maniacal overlord, you must be fearful of him. You must be frightened. God wants your love, through fear, God Corleone is probably a more apt name.

Opening any page of the Old Testament seldom produces anything other than shock and disgust from those of us who are not indoctrinated by its bullshit. The God of the Old Testament is merely a dictator of the most evil variety, with a number of genocides that would make Polpot stand in awe. A Stalin-esque figure demanding nothing but intense loyalty and the unquestioning acquiescence of ‘his’ people. A figure who wishes you to obey his every command, NEVER question him, and is even in control of the way you think. He demands you put all morality to one side, and put him above it. If you have no problem with homosexuality, and just wish that you should be happy with whomever you fall in love with; tough. God says it’s wrong, if you disagree, you’re going to burn in the pits of hell for an eternity of pain and torture……. but he loves you.

A totalitarian dictator, straight out of Orwell’s 1984, who, not content with inventing the concept of ‘sin’, and forcing upon an entire planet, even as innocents at birth; He decided that the only way to cleanse the World of a concept that He created in the first place, was to have His ‘son’ brutally murdered. The logic is ridiculous. An Ancient logic that deserves no sympathy or credence in 2010.

The idea that this God gave us all the gift of Free Will is inevitably problematic for the believer. Usually they worm their way out of an explanation, by inventing reasons why the situation regarding Free Will is as it is. They offer no proof, but then Organised Religion, and evidence don’t exactly mix very well anyway. Take the story of Abraham. In Genesis 17, we find Abraham at 99 years old, being told by God that he shall have a Son. Abraham had no choice in this. Nor does he have the freedom to call God an absolute maniacal despot when God tells Abraham that he is to cut the skin off of the penises of all who live in Abraham’s house, when they have reached 8 days old. Those children don’t have a choice. They haven’t asked for this. Why is it even necessary? Why can’t they just swear an oath, if God is really that paranoid that they might not believe in his laws? It is senseless. It is the work of an evil ruler, not an all loving God. The suggesting that God demands all of this because he loves us, is eerily familiar to when a wife cries and claims that her husband beats her, because he loves her. It is a mental illness. If a ruler today told all his people that in order to prove their loyalty, they must cut a bit of skin off their cock, surely he would be seen as a little over tyrannical? In any case, the idea that God gave His people Free Will whilst at the same time demanding innocent children be mutilated, and given no choice in the situation, is a little bit of a contradiction. No doubt Christians will find a way to squirm out of it.

Abraham is then told to kill his son. He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t say “Hang on a minute, i’ve chopped half his cock off, why do I have to kill him?” He just goes along with it. But our sneaky God doesn’t REALLY want Abraham to kill Isaac. So when Abraham has lured his son on a fake hunting trip, tied his son down to a stone, and held a knife above him, about to kill him, an angel stops him. God only wanted to test Abraham. He was perfectly happy to put Isaac through one of the worst ordeals he’s ever likely to face, by making him believe his dad is about to stab him to death on a stone block, just to prove to his rather paranoid and jealous self, that Abraham is willing to go that far to glorify this fickle dictatorial lunatic in the sky. This lovely little story features just after the story of Lot’s daughters who get Lot drunk and fuck him, because he’s all alone, after God, in an act of pure genocide, wipes out Lot’s entire city.

Muslims celebrate Eid al-Adha. The Festival of Sacrifice. A celebration of the fact that Abraham was willing to kill his son. Now, in this modern age, if a man were to lure his son to an opening in a desert, struggle with him, fight with him, in order to subdue him and tie him down whilst he doubtless screams for his life, and the man then attempts to kill the boy, but stops at the final seconds because he claims an angel told him to; he’d be judged insane, he’d be thrown in prison. The child would be scarred mentally for his entire life. We’d celebrate the fact that the child survived such an horrific ordeal at the hands of a monster. Why isn’t Abraham, or God for that matter, considered a monster? I consider them both to be horrendous monsters. The same God, who, instead of fighting against child molestation, or poverty, or appalling disease and malnutrition, instead instructs his followers to build temples in which they can worship him and his oversized narcissism. This is not a God I want anything to do with.

It all appears in Genesis. Way before God gives Moses a bunch of pointless commandments and a few obvious commandments. Not that we needed to know not to murder people. We managed to get through thousands and thousands of years without destroying ourselves. In fact, the most violent section of the history of man, must be after Christianity is founded, and usually, due entirely to Christianity. The first few commandments, are all about trying to appease a jealous God. Do not have any other Gods. (That free will thing is slowly eroding again). Don’t make false idols. Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain. Keep the Sabbath day holy. What a waste of commandments. Why not, Do not rape. Do not molest children. Do not keep slaves. Do not exploit people for money. Vindictive, jealous, dictatorial and monstrous – the God of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

Jesus supposedly died to save us. Firstly, why did he have to die? Why did God, who is in control of everything, feel it necessary to brutally murder someone, simply to rescue humanity? What kind of sadistic mind comes up with that idea? And secondly, what did he save? From Jesus’ death until now, we have had countless religious wars, atom bombs, genocide far worse than anything in the Ancient World. Perhaps God was a little premature in sending us his Son. All Jesus’ death managed to create, was a far worse World than before, thanks entirely to the very fact that he was born in the first place. Did God not foresee the problems it might cause, creating this religion called Christianity? He is solely responsible for the mess Religion has created. For the people who have burnt to death for believing something different, for the limits placed on scientific advancement, for the religious wars. God is responsible entirely. And you can’t blame people. God knew people were flawed and full of Sin, not only that be he knows all; the past, the present and the future, and so knew exactly what was about to happen. God, is evil. Although, this of cause, is all conjecture… because God doesn’t actually exist. A fairy tale, to indoctrinate those less intelligent and easily suggestible section of humanity, who cannot think for themselves. A relic from an archaic time. Nothing more.

People who chose to believe in this God, or have been brought up in the faith, are not free. They have a need to be controlled. They need to be told what is right and wrong, rather than using their own intuition. They need a dictator full of rage and anger, and call it ‘love’. America is a country that prides itself on freedom, and yet paradoxically it is one of the most Christian nations on the Planet. Lives are ruled by a book written four thousands years ago, and with absolutely no evidence. They live their lives on fear and subordination.

I cannot, and will not ever submit myself to such an evil and vicious concept, as that of Organised Religion.

A Social Retardation

In Melbourne, Ash bought me a beautiful leather covered notebook with such thick and elegant pages, and an amazing fountain pen. In it, I will be writing any simple thoughts or observations I have; a sort of book of my own social commentary, in the hope that it’ll require me to try to understand the World I live in, a little better and develop my own way of perceiving certain situations that may arise. I then intend to expand on my thoughts, in blog entries on here. Today, I wrote a few lines in it, in my rather unique yet inapt handwriting, about how annoyed I am with what I have heard from a few English people since being back in the UK. The picture above shows my first page.

I have been back in the UK now for four days and already I’m starting to dislike many of the people who inhabit this otherwise beautiful island. I have heard the word ‘paki’ used to describe anyone with a slightly darker skin complexion, three times already.

The word ‘paki’ offends me. I am not Pakistani nor do I have a dark skin complexion, so it isn’t that which offends me. It is the level of profound ignorance required to imagine that using such a derogatory term, is a sensible idea. I have faith in humanity, but when such archaic bullshit is uttered, my faith in humanity takes a knock back, and that offends me. I am embarrassed to be part of a species that can be so flippantly abusive and illogical. It has no merit, there is no intelligent argument, it isn’t making a point or arguing a case, it is simply racist ignorance and for a society that is no longer living in the dark ages, and for a society that more often than not, refers to itself, quite comically, as ‘civilised’ the term ‘paki’ runs so contrary to that, it only proves to me that humanity is still at a plainly uncivilised stage of development, almost a nascent stage of evolution, still needing to grow up before certain social ills can ever be addressed. Quite paradoxically, children in a nascent stage of human development do not have these negative stereotypical preconceptions clouding their World view. They will pay cars with anyone, regardless of Nationality and skin colour. Children are at a progressive stage of social interaction, far beyond that of their parents and the adults who run their World. They are then taught quite severe regression when it comes to social interaction between cultures and Nations. They are taught superiority and exclusion. For humanity to progress to the next stage of social evolution, this has to change.

These prejudices run so deep, and provoke such anger, that they actually produce nothing of value, and only add to the misery from which they came. They are pointless. They are easy to use, when the alternative requires deeper thought and inquiry. They are the reason I wish to become a teacher, to try to infuse into the minds of the young, that they do not need to follow the path left by the older generations, and that the only way humanity can progress in their hands, is through thought and cooperation and throwing away the silly and worthless prejudices of the past, and move forward a decent way. I want to teach kids to think for themselves, and to question absolutely everything.

Those who use the term, are racist. It is doubtless that many use the term, and think it’s okay. They are ignorant to the fact that by using such terms, the meaning behind it aimlessly finds it way to the next generation of very suggestible idiots. And so the cycle of hate, distrust and suspicion continues. It would appear self evident, that the word ‘Paki’, which implies a sense of superiority of ones own culture, Nation and heritage, is a product of a 17th Century social construct known as Nation States and with it, the lugubriously abstract concept of Nationalism. It doesn’t really exist. Humanity created it. ‘Paki’ and ‘Brit’ and ‘Spanish’ and ‘Chinese’ don’t really exist. We created the concepts. There is no biological basis for defining someone by a Nationality. It is senseless. The only thing that most certainly is a biological actuality, is that we are all human, and nothing else. Not a religion, not a Nationality, and not a Race. Defining people solely on the basis of their apparent National heritage is what I consider to be a social retardation, but so strong a social retardation, that it also acts as a barrier to progress. A barrier, whose only by-product is an inevitable mix of anger, hate, oppression, superiority complexes, and inter-generational ignorance.

The negative connotations around the word ‘Paki’ wrongly educates our children to associate negativity with a particular group of people based solely on their skin colour (I wont say it is based on Nationality, because the word ‘Paki’ isn’t necessarily used to describe those born in Pakistan; it is used by the ignorant to describe anyone who looks slightly Middle Eastern or North African). Some will argue that they are simply using a term of Nationality, much like calling me a ‘Brit’. It is weak minded and a rather nonsensical and fatuous argument. The term ‘Brit’ or ‘Spanish’ or ‘American’ is used almost exclusively as a term of National identity, whilst ‘Paki’ is used entirely exclusively as a term of abuse. It has no positive connotations. It is not used as a term of endearment. It is used to express hate. And so the different motives around how the words ‘Brit’ and ‘Paki’ are used suggest that they are in no way similar.

It offends me that people can be so feckless, and weak. It offends me that a species that has so much potential and has already achieved a great deal in its short history, can stoop so low. It offends me that a social retardation, like rain water in a broken pipe, can not be contained, and will merely leak down onto the next generation and continue the cycle uninterrupted. Society, is in no way ‘civilised’.