Category: Al Dexter

Deism is a close cousin to agnosticism. I’m just not prepared to state that there really was a god who started it all and then took a hands off policy. It does make a whole lot more sense than belief in an interventionist god who never seems to intervene when he is needed most, such as during the holocaust. Most of the “miracles” I’ve heard people prate about are several steps down the line hearsay and misinterpretations of totally plausible natural….

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SUBSTITUTIONARY HUMAN SACRIFICE BARBARISM SANCTIFIED

by Allen C. Dexter

The blood soaked history of religions (all religions) is too little known or recognized in the modern world.

The myth continues that religion is the source of morality, mercy and everything good. Muslims, for example, try to paint themselves as peace loving while commissioning suicide bombers to blow up infidels and other Muslims who happen to follow a different variant of islam their particular sect or group considers heretical. They are not unique in this sanguine, shocking stain on the pages of religious history.

Nothing inflames passions more than religious fervency. This is especially true when those passions get inflamed even more by a mental pathology like extreme narcissism.

Witness Jonestown and what many of us experienced as unthinking adherents to WCG and its dizzying plethora of offshoots. It becomes a psychological addiction that many can never shake.

A detailed summary of just a few of the appalling atrocities religions have perpetrated on the world can be found at this website: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_haught/holy.html.

These facts demonstrate the absurdity of claims of benevolence and moral and ethical superiority for religion and religious belief – even that generally benign faith of Buddhism (see the above article). Most general adherents of all religions, unless and until inflamed, usually go through life with no murderous attitudes toward others. They’re just ordinary people trying to get by, someone with whom you could enjoy a cup of tea.

Interject the power mad narcissist in a position of leadership and/or influence and all bets are off.

But, that is only background for the real subject of this post; something the average Christian has just accepted through mental osmosis – the redeeming sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Stop and think about it for a moment. Does “Jesus died for my sins” really make sense?

You may reply that it does because Jesus was special. He was God made flesh through a virgin birth. He never committed a sin and was guiltless. Therefore, as God made flesh, he could atone for all my sins by voluntarily sacrificing himself.

This whole idea of a substitutionary sacrifice or atonement makes no sense at all. I’m sure there are loving parents who would gladly suffer execution for a crime one of their children committed. They could protest that they are guiltless and, therefore, suffering the penalty in their offspring’s stead would justify the guilty one going free. There isn’t a court in the entire world that would entertain such a thing.

Besides, if Jesus really was god incarnate, his death would be an illusion in the first place. In effect, he would be sacrificing himself to himself to cancel a rule he set up in the beginning. When they call it a “mystery,” they’re dead right!

Several assumptions are at work here, and they all revolve around accepting one mythological absurdity after another, beginning with Genesis 1. These include the special creation of Adam and Eve, the “fall,” man’s death being an eternal penalty instead of a natural thing that befalls all creatures, etc.

Some will counter with the common self-righteous charge that I’m just “leaning to my own understanding” and they are too reverent to do that.

Everybody, yes EVERYBODY, has no choice but to lean to their own understanding, even if that means accepting somebody else’s understanding, so don’t try to belittle my understanding. Here’s a humorous little parody which illustrates how the average person gets their spiritual and religious “truths”: http://www.jhuger.com/kisshank.php.

Osiris (see:: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa2.htm) and Mithras (see: http://www.near-death.com/experiences/origen048.html) supposedly were virgin-born of the gods and died for your sins long before Jesus was ever heard of. There is no evidence that the original Jewish apostles held any such beliefs — either in a virgin birth or a blood atonement. It was all grafted onto the Christianity created at the Council of Nicea and written into what we accept as the Bible after the fourth century (over three hundred years after any individual named “Jesus” walked the streets and roads of Judea). Read the history here: http://www.nexusmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=70.

The whole idea of a substitutionary sacrifice permeated the ancient world. It took many forms and the concept has never disappeared: “…without shedding of blood is no remission” Heb. 9:22.

We see it at work in the myth of Abraham’s proposed sacrifice of Isaac. We are assured by the scriptures that God told him to do it. Every psychopath who murders his or her children seems to come up with a similar statement. Today, only those with mental derangements claim such personal communication with the deity. This fact should give us pause to wonder about Abraham. Perhaps he had some unfortunate accident similar to Ellen G. White’s that led to partial-complex seizures: http://www.ellenwhiteexposed.com/egw79.htm.

Whatever really happened back there in the misty mythological past, at least an acceptable level of sanity took over before poor Isaac’s throat was slit. Maybe the psychological stress brought on another revelatory seizure. I’m too old and knowledgeable about history and the ways of the world to accept it all as scripturally stated. “Spin” is as old as human awareness, and I’ve had to be corrected from time to time about my recollections and interpretations about my own past. I can only imagine what might have happened if those memories had been passed on orally for hundreds of years, finally written down and then copied, translated, interpreted, etc, over and over for more hundreds of years.

At least, Abraham somehow came to his senses, according to the account we have. Beats what Jesus’ supposed father ended up doing, according to the myth.

We are told that God likes to smell the aroma of a sacrifice. I can relate. I enjoy smelling a barbecue. Anthropomorphizing that liking onto your deity is a stretch, but humans do create their gods in their image.

Most people conclude that only the sacrifice of animals was pleasing to God.

According to the scriptures, he got a few kicks out of the slaughtering and burning of humans as well, at least in the centuries before he was fully evolved.

For years, I read over Leviticus 27:28 and 29 and never noticed what it really said: “…no devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto the Lord of that he hath, both OF MAN and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord. None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed; but SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH.” (Let’s be honest, I skimmed it. We tend as believers to be selective in our reading and our awareness of what we really are reading.)

“Oh, that didn’t really happen,” I can hear people saying.

Oh, but it did! Many Times, I’m sure, but few are recorded.

It took centuries for Israel to totally abandon human sacrifice.

Remember the account of Jephthah’s daughter? That’s another passage of scripture we tend to carelessly read over and dismiss one way or another. When we are people of faith, we tend to develop tunnel vision and selective scriptural amnesia. Here’s the account:

“Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah … and Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, then it be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to me, when I return in peace … shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering…. And Jephthah came … unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child … he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! … I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back (remember Lev. 27:28-29). … And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains … at the end of two months … she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed.”

The God of Israel (I suspect that it was really the avaricious priests) even considered the firstborn son of every family something that had to be ransomed or redeemed so they would not be sacrificed. See Exodus 13:2. Those offerings for redemption went to the priests. It was quite a mafia-style protection racket! Such practices went by the way over the centuries, thankfully. They were once common to religions.

In Deuteronomy 13:13-19, it was commanded that a whole town, everyone and everything in it, be killed and burned AS A SACRIFICE TO GOD.

I know. God commanded it, so it’s all right.

The child murderer and Muslim cleric say the same thing.

If a real God really gives such commands, why doesn’t he have the “balls” to give the command in person? Or, more reasonably, do the job himself? Couldn’t he, if he really has the power attributed to him, have sent an asteroid to wipe out that city? Why does an all powerful deity have to have puny humans do his dirty work? Takes no courage to send a priestly lackey to in turn send the rank and file “Joe Blow” any more than it takes personal courage for a mafia don to send a hit man, or an imam to send a fanatical young boy or girl wearing a suicide vest.

Surely a few of the attackers were killed or seriously wounded. I guess they were just unfortunate “collateral damage.”

People worship a pusillanimous wimp!

Some power mad, probably wild-eyed and psychologically disturbed individuals in different places at some ancient times manufactured those sorry travesties of humans standing in for their all powerful deities and through fear and intimidation, got everybody to bow down to those sorry excuses of omnipotent gods and do whatever the exalted “holy” representative told them to do in their names.

 

Far too many people still worship some imaginary god they’re absolutely certain demands blood to be spilled for their sins. They are so grateful to be able to claim the substitutionary blood of somebody called “Jesus.”

What a delusion!

What barbarism!





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THE ARROGANCE OF HUMAN ASCENDANCY

by Allen C. Dexter

Time for something lighter.
I hope everyone enjoys reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

The human race stands in a position of dominance on planet earth. We are clearly the most highly evolved species.

Our brains and minds are the most highly developed in the entire biological sphere we inhabit. We alone have the capacity for advanced speech. No other creature has the manual dexterity, due largely to our opposable thumbs, to invent and manufacture quite like we can. No other being besides us has the capacity to reach for the stars or even realize that there is a vast universe out there to explore. It’s only recently that even we realized that.

We’re obviously superior in many important ways.

That fact leads many of us to assume that everything, including other creatures, is here to exploit and use as we damn well see fit. Like the attitude ancient royalty and pre-civil war slaveholders had toward “lesser” humans, we tend to regard all other creatures as simply there for our exploitation. We are prone to think they don’t have the same quality and depth of feelings and emotions we do.

This is a very flawed attitude.

I’ve always been somewhat cognizant of the fact that other inhabitants of this world do have feelings and emotions, but I still thought they were vastly inferior to what I as a human would feel.

All of that changed in the last few years as three small dogs entered into my world. We are the doting owners of a female Pomchi and two male Pomeranians. I have been fascinated to see how much like human children those pooches are. I am convinced that all they would need is a hyoid bone and a human-like larynx and they would carry on kindergarten level conversations with us. They certainly know a great deal of what we are saying and we are learning to interpret what their barks, growls and looks mean. Watch this video to see what I mean: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/dog-breaks-vocabulary-rec_n_804728.html.

The little Pomchi and one of the Pomeranians absolutely love peanuts. I keep a large sack of roasted peanuts beside my recliner. As I’m watching the TV, the little Pomchi will park herself in front of my recliner and gaze steadily at me. If I don’t notice, there is soon a little bark telling me to adjust the portable steps for her and then she watches for me to put my hand down into the sack. Up she comes and parks herself with an expectant look like a child waiting for candy. My heart just melts at such moments. She can also hear me open a carton of ice cream from the master bedroom, and if on the bed, bark to be put down for her share.

Daisy, the Pomchi, especially loves to have her tummy rubbed and petted. She usually sleeps between us and will often roll over and impatiently convulse her little body to let us know she wants her tummy rub. When she is sitting on my lap and being petted by my right hand, she will daintily reach out her paw to my left hand in what I call her “tummy dummy” reminder.

Years ago, a friend who had a large property in the Altadena, CA foothills with horses and a couple cows commented how he always resented putting gas in his car, but he never resented feeding his animals. It’s much the same with our dogs. We just don’t resent sharing anything with them when we see the joy it gives them. They are so much like little human children.

And, they want to please us, just like normal children do. If we have to scold them for something, their little crests fall and they look oh so miserable. We are careful to shower them with love and praise as soon as possible afterward.

None of them have ever been struck. As a result, they have no fear or hostility toward any human. Yes, they will bark at all visitors, but its all a territorial “pack” thing. Their tails are wagging and they are ready to love and be loved. Nipping a visitor never enters their minds.

When they have been left alone for a while and we come back, it’s like children welcoming daddy and mommy back. We have to let them in the car or they could get run over. Trouble stands up like a little man and does a dance we call the “lambada.” His brother is starting to do the same. Daisy is more sedate. She just waddles up in all her plumpness, tail wagging, and waits to be greeted and petted. Then, they anxiously wait to see if we brought them something.

Dogs fit in so well with humans because they are in many ways very similar to humans.

They form packs (families). They are hierarchical with top males and females. They mark their territories – much like Mexican gang bangers “tag” theirs. If we had evolved a keener sense of smell, one can only wonder what we might see taggers doing. Would save them a lot of money for spray paint. Getting acquainted by intimately sniffing each other would also add an interesting dimension to life!

Besides, there are known benefits to having a pet. This recent article points out six of them: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-liebmannsmith-phd/6-health-benefits-of-owni_b_795430.html#s209450.

Dogs also learn quickly from experience. One morning, our oldest Pomeranian, who was a pup near a year old at the time, came yelping and howling from under our bed. Like all pups, he liked to chew just about anything and that, along with other mischief, earned him the name “Trouble.” The compulsion included electrical cords. I soon found that he had chewed through one of the control cords to our sleep number air bed – and gotten a painful shock for his “trouble.” He has never touched an electrical cord since!

We hope his two-year younger brother, Jubilation or “Jubi,” learns a similar lesson without dire consequences. Like children, you just can’t guard them from all hazards. They have to learn some things the hard way and one can only hope without too many serious repercussions. The main cord he has damaged so far was the charger cord for my wife’s cell Phone. Those small cords carry very few amps or voltage so he didn’t learn from it.

We aren’t sure whether they’ve learned the lesson about skunks yet. A skunk family chose our alley for a temporary “stomping ground” last summer. Of course, the Invaders had to be challenged. Yep, we had some “de-skunking” to do. Luckily, not a direct, close-up hit. As an old North Dakota ranch kid, I know how devastating that can be. It makes for instant “canus non grata.”

Neither of us are cat fans, but the stories people tell us about their cats make it plain that they have their own unique personalities and feelings. I’m certain, if we had a cat, and we won’t because of a severe cat allergy on my part, that I would find many things to love about the animal and could relate equally interesting facts.

Other creatures are a lot more intelligent and emotionally aware than we would perhaps suppose. Their feelings run deep and they suffer from pain, deprivation and loss very much like we humans do. Anyone who takes on a pet needs to realize that and treat that animal as a feeling, sentient being every bit as worthy of our concerned respect as any other member of the family. If you’re unable or unwilling to provide that loving respect and care, it’s best to forget taking on the responsibility.

Many denizens of the animal kingdom demonstrate great awareness. Elephants have great mental capacity and their care for each other is in many ways human-like. Watch them playing with snow at a German zoo: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/28/elephants-play-in-snow_n_801933.html#s216103. Dolphins can be trained to do a great variety of complicated things, as can whales. Both are extremely intelligent. Even the lowly octopus has a very highly developed brain. The longer we study, the more we learn and the more our commonality of shared abilities and traits with other creatures becomes apparent.

I was amazed by the story of Washoe, a female chimpanzee who had been taught to communicate in computer sign language. She learned to name things, and when asked what a watermelon was, she gave it the name, “fruit drink.” If that isn’t a synonym for “watermelon,” what would you call it? That was human-like reasoning!

We recently watched The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill as the first film we pulled up on instant Netflix. It was amazing and brought tears to our eyes several times.

Exactly what life, mind, brain, spirit, soul, etc. all may mean, it is clear to me that all higher creatures, although still greatly inferior to us in many respects, share a great deal of our mental and emotional characteristics. We have a responsibility to respect them and care about how we treat them.

We don’t need to go to the extreme of becoming vegetarians, never using their capacities for our service, etc. Many animals add a great deal to human existence, and if they are treated with humane care and respect, their lives are also enhanced. A triple crown race horse, for example, usually leads the life of an aristocrat – great accommodations, constant attention, the best of food and medical care, and lots and lots of sex with the best and most beautiful fillies in the equine kingdom. A Solomon couldn’t have it better!

Ask any blind man what he thinks of his guide dog. I have a blind friend who once had one and wishes he still did.

I’m not a fanatic. You won’t find me picketing or sabotaging research labs that utilize animals in experiments. I do hope they are treated humanely and I would push for that. I don’t go around looking for fur coats to throw paint on. I eat steak and most other meats with no pangs of conscience. All I have to do is open my mouth and look in a mirror to see that I resemble a wolf much more than a sheep dentally. My whole digestive system is that of an omnivore. I wear and use leather.

What I’m saying is that we have a responsibility to treat all species with respect and an awareness of their sentience and intrinsic worthiness. We are part of the animal kingdom and share a distant kinship with all of them. As humans, we are all cousins somewhere in the past. We are also some kind of relative to all other creatures, no matter how many millions of degrees removed.

We need to quit feeling so superior and haughty.

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Stupid Is As Stupid Does

by Allen C. Dexter

I am appalled!

I am flabbergasted!

A new poll is out, showing that close to half the population (40%) of the supposedly most advanced nation on earth believes in creationism! Not just general creationism with “God” as first cause to set evolution in motion, but totally stupid “God did it in the last few thousand years” creationism.

The question as to how dumb the American people can be was answered by the last (2010) election and this poll!

In the recent election, the American electorate gave overwhelming support to some of the most ignorant and totally dumb people like at no other time in our nation’s history. I just can’t believe that a total “dumb ass” incompetent like Sarah Palin can be a serious contender as a presidential nominee in less than two years.

It has been stated by several historians that nations get the leaders they deserve. If we’re really that dumb, then we have what we deserve in power right now and our position as the top nation of the world will soon be over.

I mean it! I totally believe that the USA is most likely doomed! Just like ancient Rome!

We have the same situation of treasure draining wars and occupations coupled with a predominantly super rich ruling class that basically buys elections. Serving the needs of the nation comes in a far second to promoting themselves and the interests of their millionaire and billionaire cronies.

Our “leaders” don’t have the understanding, moral principles or the gumption to take the steps necessary to turn things around. True education and true science continue to get “short shrift” and are often ridiculed by little minds with set-in-concrete pro-superstition attitudes in high places.

We have become an anti-science, pro-mythology bunch of under-educated, rap-spouting, superstition-championing idiots! We’re careening down a precipitous blind curve oblivious to what’s happening with our eyes glued to a “plastic Jesus” on the dashboard!

An additional 38% of Americans think that evolution was guided by their God. That is a little less insane but still shows an appalling lack of reasoning power or education in some basic facts of history, geology, paleontology, etc.

It also shows a total lack of any study of comparative religion. All these people know is what they have been fed and carelessly accepted without ever delving into facts like our founding fathers did.

I tremble for the fate of my descendants when I see the state of education in this country. I realize, as did James Madison when he wrote, “The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty,” that we are in dire straits when school boards dictate what can be in textbooks based on a religious bias and ban the dissemination of the knowledge of great men like Thomas Jefferson.

All people have to do is read Thomas Paine’s Age of reason or go online to look up the quotes of men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, regarding religion to see that this nation wasn’t founded by men who could be present-day adherents to the “Tea Party” or the ultra-conservative Republican right. Here are two sites to check out: http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/washington.htm and http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/jefferson.htm.

Benjamin Franklin is well known for his pithy sayings in Poor Richard’s Almanac. They have become so ubiquitous that many people believe a lot of them come from the Bible. Being a born diplomat, he was much less vocal about his feelings on religion. He was a staunch Deist. Read his very pointed comments that have been preserved at this website: http://articles.exchristian.net/2002/03/ben-franklin-quotes.php.f

Anyone can easily google any number of our founding fathers to see what they really felt on this and other vitally important topics.

Paine’s book is available right here on The Painful Truth website.

People have been lulled to sleep and told the same old nonsense over and over to the point that they just accept it. Hitler realized that if you tell people lies often enough and loudly enough, they will start to believe. It’s a feel-good thing. They can’t be bothered to question and they certainly don’t want to risk going to “hell” by asking some simple questions or reading something “satanic” like an uncensored textbook that teaches that horrible “evulooshin.” Rhymes with “Rooshin,” ya know.

All they think they need or want is their plastic Jesus. He’s gonna come and save them for sure. Viva la Rapture! Funny. I’ve been backward and forward through that Bible, and I have yet to read anything in there that uses that word in any such context.

Weren’t there a few million Jews in Aushwitz and Bergen-Belsen, etc. with similar expectations? Where was that “interventionist” god all the countless thousands of times innocent people have been brutalized and slaughtered time and again throughout history? Often in worship of another concept of that supposedly same god! There were a lot of devout Christians in the Waffen SS. The monsters who flew planes into the twin towers were very passionate worshipers of Allah.

I fear it is too late. Everywhere I look, I see decline. I see my nation basically bankrupt but unwilling to stop the party for the rich and powerful, and many states and local jurisdictions are about to fold under unmanageable budgets. Our greatness has been squandered and sabotaged from within and the “barbarians” without are getting stronger, richer, better educated and more determined.

And, they own us!

The time to call a halt was decades ago. But, we were mesmerized into thinking that we would always be at the top of the heap, so we could party on like drunken sailors. I remember the cliches well: “Use other people’s money,” “Trickle Down,” “Greed is good,” “Tap your equity,” etc., etc., ad nauseum.

We thought we were really clever. Turns out, we were and are abysmally stupid.