Gods and Cooperation

Religion seems to be a leading cause for the end of the world. Of course this isn’t because of their beliefs as it is the gods they believe in. The basic problem is that gods hate other gods. Worse, they really hate the followers of their competitors. All of this leads to a god destroying the world or an apocalyptic battle between rival religions

Gods are jealous. You hear it in all the hoopla about worshiping false or “other” gods. Why can’t they just be friends?

It’s always our god against your god. Even a religion with dozens of gods has infighting in the ranks. They are always messing with the other god’s pet humans too.

If you are a god, wouldn’t you belong to a club? You’d think they would talk about each other over drinks and a good cigar. Imagine the gods laughing about the silly things their followers would do.
But it does not seem that gods really like each other. In fact, even in cultures with many gods there are tales of disagreements. Look at the Greek and Roman gods with all their problems. It is the sort of messed up stuff you would see on Donahue.

The really big issues happen with gods with different followers. Look at the Jewish God, for instance. He hated everybody. You name it, he hated it. But what about the Christians and Muslims? There are so many different versions of each of these religions! Basically the same followers of the same gods and teachings, but they find reasons to hate each other.

Is there a turf issue? Do the gods need to share Heaven or even Hell? Is there competition in the real estate of the gods? You would think they had plenty of space in the universe.

But say it isn’t about estate value. Maybe it’s about souls? Could it be that when you die, you add to the credit rating of the god you believe in? Sometimes the truth is stranger than you could ever imagine.
There are other things that seem to get gods angry. Each culture’s god seems to take credit for the same sort of stuff. Everybody is creating the world and mankind. They all want dibs on creation. It is like they are stealing each other’s toys in a last ditch effort to have the last word.

Missing Gods
Some gods have disappeared. They are mentioned in history, but nobody seriously worships them anymore. No miracles are attributed and none is ghostwriting new bibles or giving the faithful regular supernatural visits.

Have these gods retired?
Is there a retirement plan for gods? Have the Aztec gods gone missing when the Spaniards showed up and they decided to take an early retirement? Are they living the life of leisure at a galactic fishing hole, drinking mojitos? Can you imagine them getting up the energy to come out of retirement and destroy the Earth in 2012?

We heard it once said that a god ceases to exist if it doesn’t have enough followers. That may make sense. One reason to kill off the competition or convert them.

Imagine the Christian god cooking up the whole idea of Columbus finding the New World just to kill or convert the people of the Americas. No Indians, no Indian gods. Game over.

God Therapy
We need a solution to all this god on god hate. We need to do something fast before a deity decides its time to start over.

Lesser God Employment
Maybe the problem is that gods don’t feel wanted. We think that a sort of employment program for out of work gods would help them feel less hatred for the better off gods.

It seems sort of obvious. Look at the Judeo-Christian God. He probably killed millions in the Old Testament. But why? Think about it, the primary gods at the time were Roman gods and others. Big G God was just a young god with only a small band of followers. He was just working his way up the social ladder to become popular and have the most followers.

Why not get these gods into a work program that will get a few humans to worship them a bit? A little love will go a long way.

What if the Aztecs loaned out a spare god or two to the Jews? Aztecs have gods that specialize in crops, prosperity, and war. The Jews could have used the expert help from time to time. Better yet, Aztec gods are unemployed and could use the work.

Would the popular gods get mad? Sure, but pray to them to suck it up and get over it.You would be helping them out. Everyone knows that popular gods can’t answer every prayer, they should be happy for the help.

The result would be happier gods and humans would get some godly help.

Words are Dangerous, so are Fees

Ah, I love a debate where the one being attacked refuses to play because in reality there may not be a defense. You find this with churches that have an entrance fee.

But I will help. Really! The fact is that there is truth in Dianetics. A simple fact is that words are powerful. At times, we hear things and our brain rewires. Dianetics is a great book to learn this, but so are a thousand other books and a local psychologist.

Here is the funny thing, this principal, that we can be influenced by others, has been known a long time. Hubbard just put a pretty wrapper on it at the height of the self-help revolution. Everything else is perhaps greed and power mongering.

Words and events do change us. But so do the words of any organization that promises to fix that and change you for the better. People are addicted to psychologists, lovers, friends, and even charitable organizations too. Some via the words that change their minds to think they need them, or just as simply, self talk.

To be a skeptic is to question all we hear. Words change us, so it is best to not just believe what we hear, especially when there is a fee/donation/offering or other sacrifices are required. I learned that from Dianetics. 

Was Your God Spotted by Hubble?

The Flying Spaghetti Monster has been sighted! How many people can you honestly say have their god sighted by the Hubble Space Telescope? Will teapots be next?

Here is the photo from Wired.com (note that only one meatball is showing):

         

In the Land of the Believers: Evangelical America

Exerpt from the book: In the Land of Believers: An Outsider's Extraordinary Journey into the Heart of the Evangelical Church

Don't Hate the Believers

Religion is something you are given by others who are religious or believe in something that you encounter and believe in for one or two of several reasons:

1) You are born into it and believe because it is what your community and family believe.

2) It shortcuts something like death, fear, loneliness, depression, or purpose... Basically you are at rock bottom and anybody that says the will end the pain in exchange for belief will be readily accepted. Note that this is why conversions happen.

3) Because it is cool. Psychic stuff is very very cool. I want to move stuff with my mind. Just believe!

Hate of someone religious or having a 'belief' not based on facts or skepticism is not stupid. They are simply in a state of belief. Suspension of belief is not created by argument. Do you see any argument above? How can you believe argument would cause a change?

Physical proof is usually impossible. How do you counter the existence of gods and ghosts. Can't disprove something that can't be proved.

People are not stupid for their beliefs. It is I believe a part of the mechanism of survival. You don't have time for skepticism when a lion jumps out of the bush.

We all hate to be wrong too. To be wrong is to display a weakness that you somehow were to brain dead to believe in nonsense. The brain rebels and fights back. Again, argument fails.

The only thing that really works is self discovery. Well there is another, you treat skepticism indoctrination like a cult would.

Self discovery usually only occurs when your world fails to make sense. There is only one slight problem. Our brains fight that too. We find an excuse to believe in nonsense, despite what we have discovered.

The most powerful way to remove a belief? Laughter. When you laugh at yourself, you have probably created a new view of the world.

But be careful. Don't hate. Try perhaps to help. But odds are, they are lost and you can only wait for them to find their way.

Texas Textbooks are Faith Based

Texas is becoming California. Why do I say that? Because a belief is swaying the writing of textbooks.

California became a wacky place once it had the belief that paying property taxes was more important than education. Slowly education was commoditized to the teaching on the lowest common denominator or at least the average student. The geniuses were bred to be house painters and the poor performers left behind. Some, like myself, got lucky and had damn good bootstraps and got out of the university before it too was gutted.

How can Texas education be faith based? The board of education in Texas is an elected political body. Because Texas is overburdened with Christian Right Conservatives, we get Christian Right Conservatives for the Board of Education. To turn a phrase, do the math.

This is how you make things better for your faith, political party, or even your paranoid delusions. Just sway the voters to your side, get elected, and then brainwash the masses by rewriting history. Did you see that one coming? Ask the current board, they admit to jamming their ideals into text books.

The funny thing here is the result. If it is faith based, do we stop testing? Surely you can take it on faith? What about getting a job? The moral majority is entitled, right? I mean it is going to be a breeze for kids that are growing up in Texas.

On the other hand, will Texas have a new explosion of Home Schooled kids? Now that the right has the faith and politics on every page, the rest are going to start home schooling in droves. Soon the local Home School Supply stores here in Texas will need to start selling Darwin instead of Bibles.

Are you a budding textbook writer? Time for a whole new line of skeptical student or critical thinker based textbooks. Why not history books that have confirmed facts? Better yet, books that tell the truth rather than both sides (the watered down truth and what someone wants you to believe).

Texas, now a faith based economy. Send me a million dollars, please. I have faith that I will spend it wisely.

Boycot Glenn Beck

There is a lot of hoopla over Glenn Beck and his call for folks to switch religions. It is one thing to demonize Democrats, but quite another to call a church a bunch of Nazi sympathizers and Communist socialists.

Just for the record, there is a big difference between Nazi Germany and socialists. Socialists on the whole don't have strange salutes and mustaches. There isn't much talk about genocide ether. Glenn Beck on the other hand would imprison the Democrats for any attempt at helping their fellow man with our collective tax money.   Note: This is a ruse. What would Glenn do if Democrats disappeared? No more Fox News gravy train.

Boycotting Glen Beck is like admitting the Antichrist doesn't exist. He of course is the Antichrist, so be careful. If old Glenn can't preach his Rightwing/Republican/Mormon agenda, all that is left is politics which is what everyone believes is high on the list for any aspiring Antichrist.

Back to the Antichrist. I really do think it is bad to get Beck barred from the air. Can you imagine the damage he could do with real power? Forget starting a war with Russia. Beck would probably nuke Massachusetts and California!

We might boycott the sponsors... No, we already are. Who is going to buy Armageddon seeds for your government collapse victory garden? The only real solution is to get Glenn animated and put him on Cartoon Channel's Adult Swim. At least there they are smart enough to limit horribly politically and socially inappropriate cartoons to ten minutes.

Questioning Buddhism

I like Buddhism, really! Of the world's popular religions, it isn't so bad.

First, is it a religion or is it a philosophy? Well, go to Thailand and then ask that question again. In Thailand it is a religion, no doubt about it. The same is true of Tibet. The Dalai Lama, though espousing philosophy, is the Dalai Lama because a bunch of monks believed that a two year old child is the reincarnation of a teacher of Buddhism (perhaps the Buddha himself). So, one strike against Buddhism is reincarnation.

Let us pause for a moment. The Buddha never addressed reincarnation. The Buddha simply said that we suffer life and that we die. No heaven or hell, and certainly no recycling unless you are referring to compost. Where does reincarnation come from?

Reincarnation comes from Hinduism and other religions. Buddhism by its nature, is about enlightenment and not denial. Thus a lot of buddhist societies embrace their root religions and simply add Buddhist philosophy. This makes a lot of sense because we are our history. It is nearly impossible to ignore or forget our history, habits, ceremony, and especially our superstitions.

Buddhism in fact is never really pure for the simple fact that it does not deny anything. It simply states that life mostly hurts, joy has its own cost, and then we die. You might say that this is all right for Buddhists, but Christians, Jews, and Muslims are pure religions with their specific philosophy... Well... Should I go down that silly path? You can find many places in Texas where there are as many churches, synagogs, and moscks. They are as thick as Starbucks. None of them are pure. They all are colored by their past leaders and history. Yet these are all based on ancient Judaism (influenced of course by all before that).

So, where were we? Oh yeah, e were questioning Buddhism! So, the one thing you hear is that life is hard, but pleasure has a high cost. Well, the cost of pleasure is now really low. Yep, back when Buddha lived, pleasure was very hard.

Enlightenment is also quite good and supposedly you should dedicate your life to this as a Buddhist. But the Buddha did not have the Internet or libraries... Certainly no Kindle. What the Buddha dedicated to enlightenment could be fairly explored by reading a couple dozen books. Enlightenment is at least available in volume.

Any other questions for Buddhism?

The Blogger Priest

According to the Pope, priests should be blogging. Why not? I am sure that this is in the Bible someplace or a 14th century saint predicted that this would happen.

Do you believe in blogging?

Welcome to the latest Boys Book. This time we are taking on belief and all the joy and of course grief, damage, and outright violence and terror caused by certain beliefs.

We will also teach you about proselytizing your beliefs to the unequipped mental midgets. We like to be careful about not shrinking to the level of the rube too, so we will also convert how to keep from being a mental midget.

Stay tuned and if you have a question, comment, or a requested topic, let me know.