The Conservative Conspiracy of Classification

When the government wants a secret they classify it, hence a classification.

I have not yet read Fahrenheit 451 but I know the general plot as explained by a co-worker: a future where books are banned and thought suppressed. We have not to fear a future of this making by people of a liberal mindset.

I saw a freighting group on Facebook.com; Do NOT support "The Golden Compass". I have liberal tendencies but would not say that I am liberal, just logical. I was raised a Catholic, went to college and lost God, then found God as a Christian, but have since had my eyes opened. I no longer have a narrow view of religion and faith in the form of a conventional religion (Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.)

The Facebook.com group is not the first time I have herd of controversy surrounding the upcoming movie "The Golden Compass". A recent article in the Wisconsin State Journal talked about how parents were going to keep their children home from a trip to see the movie, the trip was earned by hard work and the cost was the student’s responsibility.

It is this mindset that is dangerous, the one that prevents people from even contemplating an alternate view for fear that they might be wrong. It is because of this mindset that the fearful then wish to suppress the free thought and actions of others thus eventually leading to tyranny and oppression.

Even though I do not necessarily agree with all of the content in the Bible I think people should have access to it and read it, it has value and wisdom that many people could benefit from, and many do. I have benefited from its many lessons. I will, if I have children encourage them to read it to think about it and learn from the Bible. I will not suppress something I disagree with, and I will not support others who wish to suppress truth. All things have some truth, nothing has all truth.

Back to the group that started all this, in the group info section there were these comments:

“In the final book a boy and girl kill God so they can do as they please”

I find it ironic that religious people who believe in a God, a God that is generally all powerful, all knowing, and an immortal being, would fear a movie or book that has a god dieing in it. If the religions are right how can God die?

To me the fear is anti-desire; it is the opposite of what you want. So to fear the death of God is to want God to live, but the crux of fear is that the opposite of what you want is a possibility. So to fear the death of God is to admit that the death of God is possible.

And now for the Conspiracy:

Briefly stated is the implied conspiracy that the movies goal is to get children to read the books and then believe that gods can die.

“The movie is … designed to be … attractive in the hope unsuspecting parents will take … children to see the the movie and that the children will want the books for Christmas.”

Of course the producers of the film, the screenwriters, the director, the studio, the distributor, the actors and the staff all wanted to spread the word that God can die. Profit had nothing at all to do with the movie being made. It was all about enticing innocent children to read a book that has a god die in it so that they will doubt their religion.

In the end we must all remember:

Aristotle is said to have said,

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

It is the diametrically opposed mindset as the one described by Aristotle that we must fear for it will eventually lead to oppression of free thought.

All things have some truth, nothing has all truth.

Fear is the opposite of your desire, but it must be a possibility or it can not be feared.

My Christ

Please accept my Apologies I was so wrapped up in my own rhetoric in my last post “The Illogical Christ.” that I forgot to express my views on Christ.

I think Jesus was born a mortal, and through life became enlightened to the truth of God. In understanding God’s truth Jesus became Christ, he became one with God; a feat that any mortal can achieve, but not easily for it requires giving up sin which is selfish desire.

Christ did not die for mankind, he lived for mankind.
Christ did not forgive mankind’s sin in his death, for man was never held in bondage by God for our sin, thus God has never had to forgive man for his sin. Jesus Christ lived to tell mankind this, to teach them that they must forgive themselves, for we are the ones who hold onto sin. To live in peace with God one must first forgive themselves.

God knows that as mortals we will sin, God may have even created it that way. Because God knows the very nature of man God expects man to sin, to act on selfish desire.

God as a perfect being is perfectly compassionate and understands mankind’s sin, and thus does not hold sin against man. However, to not believe in God is to never find God after mortal death.

Mortal man is neither inherently good nor bad, the nature of man is neutral; it’s the choices of man that makes men good and evil. We are responsible for our choices, only as individuals are we accountable for our own choices; the good, and the bad.

As mortals there are needs that must be satisfied in order to survive, that is selfish desire which is sin. Some sin is necessary to survive and that is accepted, other sin is not needed which should be avoided. To be at peace with God is to be at peace with the self, and the world.

Holey Christians

Part 2: The Illogical Christ.

At its foundation Christianity is illogical. To understand one must take a step back and ask the basic questions. Questions like; what is a god?

So what is a god? The best answer I have is that a god is a perfect being. What does that really mean? It means that god is the best thing, there is nothing better then god, it also means that god is nothing less then perfect. What are the ramifications of that statement? It means that god is unchanging, for to change is to imply that there is lack of perfection on one side of the change (before or after change.)

Now with that in mind let’s look at the fundamentals of Christianity. Christianity is a faith that follows the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus the Christ. To many the most important part of Christ’s life was in fact his death. In that camp of thought the moment Christ died on the cross was the moment that God forgave mans sins and admitted human souls into Heaven. If so, the moment Christ died God changed, and that just can’t be, it is a logical inconsistency.

Also another little problem, conventionally it is taught that Jesus was born Christ. To be Christ is to be Godly. Thus if Jesus was indeed born Christ then Jesus the boy human would have been God, to be that is to know what God knows. That would mean that Jesus the boy would have remembered the creation (however it happened) the eons before his birth, and if God is all knowing then Jesus would have known the future as well. Jesus as God would also mean that he would known Heaven and hell and experienced both.

At the surface that seems ok but a part of Christianity is that supposedly Jesus lived as a mortal and suffered as a mortal, but if Jesus was God and the above holds then that’s one lousy sacrifice. It would be akin to pricking your finger with a needle and calling that a sacrifice. Also Scripture says so,

“Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen
to him…” John 18:4, NIV

The real logical inconsistency comes to the surface with the events surrounding the eve of the crucifixion. Scripture says,

“And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” Luke 22:44 NIV.

If Jesus was God then he would know his fate, he would know that he would die, and rise again, and sit at the right hand of God, and to know that would purge any fear. But apparently this is not so, that is if scripture is correct.

The sweating of blood can also be seen in a different light: If Jesus was God then Jesus would not fear for fear is anti-desire and only mortals have desire.

God Save Us

“As for solutions, other than embracing Jesus Christ as Savior and accepting the guidance of the Catholic Church, explicitly by conversion or implicitly by simply heeding her advice, I see no hope for mankind.” - A Wiser Man Than I

To me this is a disturbing and dangerous comment. Let me elucidate my position.

Religion and Faith are a means to an end, not the end. Faith is a subset of any and all religions. Faith is a glue in society, it pulls and holds people together, but then it sometimes pits those groups of people against each other. I doubt that humanity would be as far along as we are today if it were not for Faith.

Faith is guiding force for many, a moral standard; and for many the only moral standard. However let it be said that there are other moral standards that are not faith based.
Many have used Faith for their own personal gains. Saddam Hussein used Islam for personal gain. The man was never a religious person up until the end of the Iran Iraq war when his power started to wane; then he allied himself with the Sunnis. Hitler used Faith; he used the Jewish people as a scapegoat and rallied the German people against them, to gain power. Thankfully Faith has generally done more good then bad.

Faith gets its power from the people, without followers there is little to Faith. Faith can be powerful on an individual basis, but only for the person who has faith. If power is control, and control nothing but great influence, then Faith inspires people to influence the world in a particular way. When there are a lot of people with the same goal actively seeking fulfillment of that goal then the goal is realized. The catch is that the main three faith’s ultimate goal is extra worldly (i.e. salvation.) Little guidance is given on how to advance humanity in this mortal realm.

Because Faith is a moral standard, and morality is a calming influence on humans, and advancement happens in the calm (but sometimes in turbulence), the advancement of humanity will slowly happen under Faith’s watch. Slowly is too slow, history speaks for itself. Under the Romans humanity made leaps and bounds in technology, philosophy, and infrastructure. When Rome fell humanity lost much of that progress, we reverted to low technology, poor infrastructure, and lost much knowledge, it was called the Dark Ages. It took us more then a thousand years to overcome that little stumble; and only then it was accompanied by a general enlightenment (education) of people, A.K.A. the Renaissance.

Now it might be pessimistic to say, but people are not saved from grave danger nor harm by prayer, Faith, or miracles (at least not very often, if at all.) When in this mortal world we are by ourselves, we must stand on our own two feet, must walk our own path, God does not help us with those mortal things.
I will leave some room for God to tweak the universe but only in the size of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The world is natural world, and that prevents God from playing, well, God. If we cannot expect the world to be natural and operate by natural means then we cannot have science, and science in the keystone that holds humanity up; it is what has gotten us to the modern era.

Thus if the world is natural and operates by natural means then it is up to humans to fix the problems that plague us. No amount of prayer or faith will change the world unless we get up and work for that change. Thus to live in the fantasy that the world will change because we believe it will, because we have Faith, will only lead us nowhere. That is where the danger lies; for that which does not change eventually gets replaced, we only need to look at evolution for the proof of that.

Holey Christians

Part one: Icons and Tradition

Christianity is full of holes; holes in logic, and traditions, things that simply makes little or no sense in the conventional construct of Christianity. What follows is a list of the most obvious holes.

Amen that is said at the end of prayers is short for Amen-Ra, the Egyptian sun god.

The relationship between Mary and Jesus seems to have been influenced from Egyptian Culture. From Wikipedia:

“There is a strong resemblance to the depiction of the seated Isis holding or suckling the child Horus and the seated Mary and the baby Jesus.”

Also:
“the resemblance between early Christian images of Mary and those of Isis are sometimes striking, providing an explanation for the somewhat awkward position of Mary's arm - breastfeeding that was later censured by the addition of clothing.”

The death and resurrection of Christ was not original; again from Egypt we have Isis and Osiris.

“[Osiris] the god who came from heaven; he was the bread by which man lives. …. the murder and dismemberment of Osiris, the search for his body by Isis, his triumphal return as the resurrected god, and the battle in which Horus defeated Set.” (From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris)

Also a synopsis of an Egyptian ritual:
“Osiris is slain, no one knowing what happened to his body, ... Isis and Nepthys then recover the remnants [of Osiris's body] and return to the temple. ... Thoth, Horus and Isis revive Osiris in the sanctuary, [which is] not witnessed ... Then Osiris emerges, to much rejoicing. Horus then places Osiris in a solar boat, to proceed directly to the eternal regions.” (From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis)

The Ten Commandments which is common among Jewish and Christians was originally again an Egyptian idea; well at least six of them, straight from the Book of the Dead:

Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain...
     I have not worked witchcraft against the king.
     I have not cursed God.

You shall not murder.
     I have not slain men and women.

You shall not commit adultery.
     I have not committed adultery, I have not lain with men.

You shall not steal.
     I have not stolen.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
     I have not uttered lies.

You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.
     I have not debauched the wife of any man.

The Trinity is not a new idea; there was a trinity before the Father Son and Holy Sprit. It was the “Capitoline triad, Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva.” (Wikipedia) Jupiter is the king of the gods, Juno the queen of the gods, and Minerva the goddess of wisdom.

Da-Vinci was a great artist but he was not accurate in the painting of the last supper. Jesus of Nazareth was a Roman Jew; he lived under Roman rule and was influenced by Roman culture. Thus the last supper was probably eaten in Roman tradition. That culture was one where the meal is eaten out of a central community table with the food in community dishes. The participants would have lain on their left side around this table eating with their hands out of the center. Also, the cup would have been a traditional cup of the time which would have been stone. For at the time Jewish culture was obsessed with cleanliness, and clean people could be tainted by unclean people. But a cup made from natural earth could not itself become unclean if used by an unclean person, so a clean person could then use the cup and remain clean; thus the stone cup became popular.

Ultimately Religion was created a long time ago and has been adapted to new times. However some of the fundamental precepts that were invented by primitive man to explain the then mysterious world around them have not been updated for modern times. Tradition is important and comforting and has its place, but should be used sparingly. Some of the inane ideas that early man used to explain the world around them still persist in current religion, and that is just silly.

The Devils Sin

Sin:

“a vitiated [faulty or defective] state of human nature in which the self is estranged from God.” the definition of Sin according to Merriam-Webster. I turn to Merriam-Webster for a definition because I never received a good definition from pastors that I asked. I still think that this definition is quite vague, open for interpretation; and quite hard to apply to ones actions. I wanted a definition that when you think of something you did you can readily determine if it was sinful.

After much pondering and discussing with others I came up with my own definition: Sin is selfish desire. With this definition one can easily see if actions are sinful. Did it only benefit me? And did I want it? If yes to both then you sinned.

If the ultimate good is the fulfillment of all then with this definition of sin, sin is bad. Having sin be bad was one of the requirements for when I was looking for a definition; maintain its historical negative connotation.

The Devil:

Next I asked was who or what is the Devil? I was always taught the conventional teachings as the Devil being a fallen angel and the tempter of mankind. The biggest problem with this is that the Devil is external, not a part of people. It is a convenient excuse, an easy way out, “the Devil made me do it.”

I think the Devil is the collective manifestation of mankind’s internal guilt; how the Devil was invented I do not know but I suspect it was early on. To realize that the Devil is not external but a part of each and every one of us, we should all be better off. To know that people are neither good nor evil; its just that people do good things and they also do bad things. That is to know that the Devil a part of each and every one of us. The Devil is the manifestation of our own Selfish Desire, our own Sin.

Sin is selfish desire. To be mortal is to need, to desire, to sin. The Devil is our Sin.

We all desire good things, we all fear bad things. Fear is anti desire it is the opposite of what we want. To desire nothing is to fear nothing. To fear nothing is to be more then mortal.

Drugs are Us

Let’s face it there is no such thing as Drug Control. Ok, so there is no such thing as control, only influence. The question then remains is that influence big, biggest, small or somewhere in between? If your influence is the biggest then you probably will get your way. If its big then you might get your way, but if its small then things will not play out in your favor.
Back to the topic at hand drug influence. Society has been and will continue to use drugs; no program will be able to stop drug use. Thus current drug influence measures are inadequate; that is they could be better. A change in thinking regarding influencing drug use could be beneficial.

The change is one of no tolerance to one of accepted use. Do not misconstrue this for drug legalization. Accepted use policy would have many benefits: revenue from drug sales, user identification, targeted rehabilitation, and safe drug use.

The first step would be to accept drug use; an interested party would be able to visit an authorized drug retailer, like a pharmacy. They would have to present valid and verified identification (ID is checked against a database), and then they could buy an individual sized dosage. Benefit number one is approximately $60 billion dollars in drug sales (1). The second benefit, a known and publicly published list of drug users in America which is almost 42 percent of the population (1). Along with the drugs the users are given proper and sterile administration devices (i.e. needles.) This would reduce the spread of infections diseases because of drug use. Sterile drug paraphernalia could reduce the number of new HIV cases up to 36 in America per year (2). There is a benefit to drug users as they know what they are getting and its quality and purity would be guaranteed.

Any use of drugs outside of the accepted use policy would be harshly dealt with. If users obtain their drugs from sources other then authorized retailers there would be mandatory rehabilitation and other harsh punishment (jail time). Also to keep drug monies domestic the drugs would be grown, and refined in the US, all operations would have oversight and would be regularly audited.

As of 1999 drug use in America is estimated to have cost society $110 billion annually (2). Provided a policy of accepted drug use does not significantly raise the costs to society the selling of the drugs would at least offset cost to society of drug use. In addition the cost to society could be offset more because of the fact that drug users claim almost twice the amount of medical benefits as those of nonusers (2). Benefit number four for nonusers is lower insurance; with the public list of users insurance companies could charge more in premiums to drug users then those of nonusers.

What about the cost to the users? Many users are so consumed by their addiction that they cannot hold jobs so they have to get the money elsewhere sometimes by means of crime (2). Controlled use is not addiction, which is benefit number five. By knowing who the users are they can be observed and counseled on their drug use habits. If the users become addicted they would be admitted into rehabilitation, this program would be compulsory and completion mandatory. Also no purchase would be allowed to be made on credit (taxes could be referenced so as to make sure users don’t use loan sharks, or loan sharks punished for loans to drug users.); this would hopefully keep users financially stable.

Also, accepted use should not allow users to use drugs or be under the influence of drugs while on the job. Employers would be allowed to restrict work from drug users. However it could be encouraged to allow users to be employed but not be under the influence or use drugs while working, much is the same for alcohol use on the job.

Although no solid correlation can be drawn from such little data, there seems to be a pattern in the work of R. E. Peterson, who analyzed drug laws and drug incarceration between 1960 and 1995. That period contained two types of drug enforcement; 1960 to 1980 was a period of permissive drug laws, and 1980 to 1995 was a time of tough drug laws. The corresponding drug incarceration rates fell almost 80 percent for the first period but rose almost 450 percent during the era of tough drug laws (2). If the perceived pattern holds then drug use should fall if a policy of accepted use were instituted.

The goal of influence should be to make the best of the situation. Drug enforcements goal should not be to prevent its use completely but to make the best of the situation. To make the best of the current situation the drug policy should embrace accepted use.

Sources:

(1) Presidents National Drug Control Policy: http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/factsht/drugdata/index.html

(2) Transcript, DEA Congressional Testimony, June 16, 1999: http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/cngrtest/ct061699.htm