“Atheists are often charged with blasphemy, but it is a crime they cannot commit. When the Atheist examines, denounces, or satirizes the gods, he is not dealing with a person but with ideas. He is not incapable of insulting god, for he does not admit the existence of any such being.”
“Religion is a chronic disease of the imagination contracted in childhood.” —Jean Meslier—1664-1729
From James A. Worrell
Subject: The 4th of July
Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.
Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.
They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
What kind of men were they?
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
At the Battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying. Their thirteen children fled for their lives. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.
Some of us take these liberties for granted, but we shouldn’t. So take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It’s no much to ask for the price they paid.
Remember: FREEDOM IS NEVER FREE!
I hope you will show your support by sending this to as many people as you can, please. It’s time we get the word out that patriotism is NOT a sin, and the Fourth of July has more to it than beer, picnics, and baseball games.
Received by e-mail
The following is from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters that had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.
Attorney: What was the first thing your husband said to you in the morning?
Witness: He said, ‘Where am I, Cathy?’
Attorney: And why did that upset you?
Witness: My name is Susan!
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Attorney: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
Witness: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
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Attorney: Are you sexually active?
Witness: No, I just lie there.
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Attorney: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
Witness: Yes.
Attorney: And in what way does it affect your memory?
Witness: I forget.
Attorney: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
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Attorney: Now doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn’t know about it until the next morning?
Witness: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
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Attorney: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
Witness: He’s twenty, much like your IQ.
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Attorney: Were You present when your picture was taken?
Witness: Are you shitting me?
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Attorney: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
Witness: Yes.
Attorney: And what were you doing at that time?
Witness: Getting laid.
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Attorney: She had three children, right?
Witness: Yes.
Attorney: How many were boys?
Witness: None.
Attorney: Were there any girls?
Witness: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?
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Attorney: How was your first marriage terminated?
Witness: By death.
Attorney: And by whose death was it terminated?
Witness: Take a guess.
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Attorney: Can you describe the individual?
Witness: He was about medium height and had a beard.
Attorney: Was this a male or a female?
Witness; Unless the circus was in town, I’m going with male.
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Attorney: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
Witness: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
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Attorney: Do you recall the time you examined the body?
Witness: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
Attorney: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
Witness: If not, he was by the time I finished.
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Attorney: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
Witness: Are you qualified to ask that question?
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And the best for last:
Attorney: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
Witness: No,
Attorney: Did you check for breathing?
Witness; No.
Attorney: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
Witness: No.
Attorney: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
Witness: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Attorney: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
Witness: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.
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WILLIAM HARWOOD
Soon after his inauguration, Barack Obama had the approval of 83 percent of the American voters. That figure has been diminishing, and disparate polls put his approval rating after 100 days at an average of 65 percent (ABC 69%; FOX 61 %).
A new president’s popularity is bound to decrease as the voters who thought they were electing a miracle worker come to terms with the reality that no president can solve the nation’s problems by waving a magic wand. The same decrease occurred with John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. And the widespread recognition that Obama is not responsible for economic and foreign-policy disasters that pre-dated his election have minimized the effect of the current reality on his approval rating. But part of the drop can also be attributed to the disillusionment of voters who expected his promised “change we can believe in” to include bringing the perpetrators of the Bush administration’s crimes against the Constitution and the Geneva Convention to justice.
Obama’s virtual pardon—by vetoing prosecution—of the Bush Gestapo is bound to cost him a lot of votes in 2012. Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon is widely believed to have made Jimmy Carter President. Obama is probably right in assuming that the number of Democrats who want to see Dick Cheney strapped to a gurney with a needle in his arm is no more than a few hundred thousand. But the number who want to see Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove incarcerated for the term of their natural lives is in the millions. That may not be enough to unseat a sitting president. But added to other factors, it could nonetheless prove decisive.
Obama’s treatment of most minorities is generally seen as even-handed. If America’s 87 percent of non-Blacks had feared that he would try to turn America into a reverse image of South Africa under apartheid, they would not have elected him the first time. And he has shown no evidence that their judgment was wrong. His treatment of the nation’s 20 million Jews and 7 million Muslims has been non-discriminatory, and neither group is likely to prefer a Republican in the foreseeable future. He has avoided alienating America’s largest minorities, women and Hispanics. His first appointment to the Supreme Court was a Hispanic woman, and he has made clear that, while he has a religion-based personal opposition to abortion, he sees a woman’s right to choose as none of the State’s business.
Obama is on the side of the majority of Americans who reject the Neanderthal Rednecks Association’s insane interpretation of the Second Amendment as giving criminals the right to own guns, rather than establishing an armed militia at a time when America had neither a standing army nor adequate law enforcement agencies. If he has ever voiced an opinion on whether Christian Scientists and Jehovah’s Witnesses should have the right to kill their children by denying them lifesaving medical procedures, most voters neither know nor care.
Similarly, whether Obama recognizes Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard as lying humbugs motivated by lust for power and profit is a nonissue for the average voter. And while he accepts the religious dogma that the victimless behavior of the 30 million Americans who are gay is “sinful,” just as Jews believe that eating a cheeseburger is sinful and Muslims believe that drinking Manischewitz wine is sinful, he has made clear that he sees gays as having the same right to equal treatment under the law as any other minority.
Nonetheless, Obama is a very Machiavellian politician. While paying lip service to gay rights, he has permitted his Justice Department to file a brief with the Supreme Court endorsing the legitimacy of the viciously homophobic Defense of Marriage Act. He is gambling that such a move could win him support from the Christian Taliban, with little risk that America’s 15 million voting-age gays will switch their allegiance to the homophobic theofascist the Republican Party is bound to nominate. In the event that the Republican nominee is a supporter of equal rights, Obama can modify his position at that time so that he remains the lesser evil.
As for Obama’s kowtowing to the organized crime syndicate known as the Roman Catholic Church, it does not come close to the treasonous implementation of the laws of a foreign state enforced by King George ll.
It is Obama’s continuation of his predecessor’s dismantling of the wall of separation between Church and State that has the potential to prove his undoing. “Faith based initiatives” are an unmitigated violation of the First Amendment’s prophibition of any “law respecting an establishment of religion.” Far from abolishing such legalization of theocracy, as the nontheists who voted for him expected, Obama has extended them, and is showing signs of using more tax money to propagandize for the god delusion than Bush Senior or Junior ever did.
King George l is on record as declaring that America’s 100 million nontheists are neither citizens nor patriots, and George ll officially reduced them to second-class citizens with his declaration that he saw himself as the divinely appointed enforcer of his imaginary Sky Führer’s overlordship, even lying to Congress in order to start a war that he seriously believed his god had ordered (over the intercom in Dick Cheney’s voice?).
Barack Obama will be his Party’s candidate for President in 2012. The Democratic Party does nor dump a sitting president running for reelection, even when polls suggest that he cannot win. In 1980, when it was evident that only Ted Kennedy could defeat Ronald Reagan, the Party clung to Jimmy Carter. And in 2012, even if polls suggest that Hillary Clinton could win if Obama stepped aside, she will recognize that becoming a candidate against Obama would not only split the Party and thereby guarantee a Republican victory. It would also permanently end her political career.
Nontheists are fully aware that Barack Obama is as godphuqt as either Bush in terms of his personal beliefs. But they are also aware that any Republican nominee in 2012 will be similarly ignorant, superstitious, and brainwashed. In the event that the Republican Party is manipulated by the mad-dog faction of Rush Limbaugh, Dimbo Palin, and FOX News into nominating a theofascist such as Mitt Romney or a Repuublicanazi such as Newt Gingrich, the election will be a formality and Obama’s coronation guaranteed. But if the Republicans shake off the stranglehold of the Christian Taliban, and nominate an upholder of Church-State separation and women’s sovereignty over their own bodies, a large percentage of nontheists might see Obama’s misuse of taxpayers’ money to discriminate against them as a deciding factor.
President Obama can afford to lose the support of smaller minorities. He cannot lose the support of 50 million voting-age nontheists and still win.
NEAL WILGUS
It’s like living in a cave
but with a balcony
where you can go out
and watch the city lights
with a drink in your hand.
Back in the shadows
are the rocks and dust
and endless bones
and the ashes of countless
fires, and in the blackness
beyond there’s something
living but we never know
what it is.
Out on the overlook
you can watch the shifting
patterns of the traffic
and live the sun going down
into the ocean or the desert.
There are the drapes that can be
drawn to keep out the night’s
cold and the morning sun
and the roar of the city.
But it’s that roar
that drives us back
into the shadows of the cave
where we can escape
that awful racket
and the suicidal stress
the balcony allows.
The paintings on the wall
would explain it all
if only we could see them
in the flickering light.
A. J. MATTILL, Jr.
Perhaps the best way I can respond to Dr. Harwood’s recent comments on my article, “How Many Times Did David Kill Goliath?” (www.freethoughtperspective.net, May 5, 2009), is by reprinting my column of October 14, 1982, in the long defunct Pickens County [Alabama, Advertiser] “Whodunnit?”
The world of religion is full of mysteries. One of the most intriguing of these is in the Old Testament: “Who slew Goliath?” Every Sunday School child would immediately answer, “David, with his slingshot.” To students of the Bible, however, the answer is not quite so easy. Like good detectives, we must look at the evidence and then build our theories to explain that evidence.
The familiar story in 1 Samuel 17 does tell us that David slew Goliath. 2 Samuel 21:19, on the other hand, says that “Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, a Bethlehemite, slew Goliath the Gittite.” 1 Chronicles 20:5 complicates matters still further by informing us that “Elhanan, the son of Jair, slew Lahmi, the brother of Goliath the Gittite.”
On the basis of this evidence, the translators of the King James Version of the Bible assumed that David slew Goliath and Elhanan slew the brother of Goliath. Thus when they translated 2 Samuel 21:19 they added, in italics, “the brother of,” to read, “Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite.” But were they justified in making an addition to the text?
The great bibilical scholar of the fifth century, Jerome, and many after him, tried to solve the problem by supposing that “Elhanan” was the original name of David. There is some evidence that men changed their names upon becoming kings. Thus David (=Elhanan) slew two giants, Goliath, and Lahmi, the brother of Goliath. David, unfortunately for this theory, was the son of Jesse (1 Samuel 17:12), not the son of Jarre-oregim of Jair.
Another possibility is that there were two Goliaths, one slain by David, another by Elhanan. 1 Chronicles 20:5, however, says the giant slain by Elhanan was Lahmi, not Goliath.
A popular view among students of the Bible is that Elhanan killed Goliath, but since David became much more famous than Elhanan, who was one of David’s obscure warriors, David was given credit for the heroic feat. In other words, the story was lengendarily embellished and transferred to David, since it is more likely that the king would be credited with what one of his men had done than vice versa. All through history the accomplishments of subjects have been ascribed to monarchs.
This theory, however, tends to overlook an important clue which is found in 1 Samuel 17. There the name “Goliath” appears only twice in that long chapter (verses 4 and 23). Otherwise he is called “Champion” or “Philistine.” This strange situation suggests that David slew an anonymous giant, to whom the name Elhanan’s victim “Goliath” was later given. On this theory, David slew a nameless giant and Elhanan slew Goliath.
What, then, becomes of 1 Chroncicles 20:5? It is easily seen that the original language (Hebrew) of 1 Chronicles 20:5 is very close to the Hebrew in 2 Samuel 21:19. The writer of 1 Chroncicles had the brilliant idea that he could cleverly reconcile 1 Samuel (David slew Goliath) with 2 Samuel (Elhanan slew Goliath) simply by making a few slight changes in the Hebrew text of 2 Samuel 21:19 so as to read: “Elhanan slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath.” “Lahmi comes from “Bethlehemite” (Hebrew —Beth halahmi) and “brother” from a Hebrew word (eth) similar to the Hebrew for “brother” (ah).
To view go here: www.michaelshermer.com
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Also read some of the interesting articles on this site.
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Watch video and read articles by the author.
A. J. MATTILL, Jr.
According to believers, the Epistle of Jude is and will be of lasting value to Christians so long as time shall last. —Adapted from Matthew Henry (1662-1714), Jude, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible, p.2459. Jude is a short letter, containing only twenty-five verses. We shall examine thirteen of these verses. Such an examination should help us to judge whether or not Jude will be of lasting value to thoughtful people.
Verse 1. Jude gets off to a rough start by calling himself a slave of Jesus Christ, one who is forever at the disposal of Jesus for service in his cause. The truth of the matter is that the Jesus of the Gospels is not worthy to be the Master of slaves, for he himself held too many untenable beliefs and had too many character flaws. For example, he called sensitive human beings “dogs,” the supreme insult (Matthew 7:6). He promoted pitiless packinghouse piety/brutal butcher-shop religion/senseless slaughterhouse spirituality (Matthew 17:24-27). He destroyed the property of pig owners, two thousand pigs (Matthew 8:28-34). He approved slavery (Matthew 6:24, etc.). For much, much more on Jesus’ false beliefs and character flaws see my Sweet Jesus, Volume One (2002), Volume Two (2004), and Volume Three (2006), published by The Flatwoods Free Press, 750 Lum Fife Road, Gordo, AL 35466-3357.
Verse 3. You “should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (King James Version). In other words, it is the faith to which nothing may be added, from which nothing may be subtracted, in which nothing may be altered. That is the faith we must defend.
The “judge” says, No! God did not give faith to anybody. On the contrary, the Christian faith is something we humans discovered all by ourselves. No God created it and passed it on to us. Rather, we humans created it and passed on our own creation from person to person for two millennia.
Since the Christian faith is a false faith, 100% manmade, we rationalists should criticize it, repudiate it, and substitute for it a creed of basic beliefs which are tenable today, beliefs which can be adopted, defended, and promoted by people who have a sensitized conscience, seasoned experience, and sound reason. Here is my creed: “I believe in the evolving universe as the supreme reality, and in the authority of truth, known or to be known. I believe in the power of people to work together to establish a more humane society in which all that have life are more and more delivered from suffering. I believe in the moral leadership of everybody who embodies reverence for truth, for beauty, for life, and for the mystery of the universe. And I believe in the common origin and destiny of everything.” See my A Cosmic Creed for the Current Century (Gordo, Al: The Flatwoods Free Press, 2007).
Verse 4. False teachers “even deny that we must obey Jesus Christ as our only Master and Lord” (Contemporary English Version). How many people obey Jesus’ command not to swear any oaths at all (Matthew 5:33-37)? Who obeys Jesus’ command not to judge others (Matthew 7:1-6). Note that this whole paper is judging Jude and calling upon others to do so too. Who obeys Jesus’ command to execute children who curse their parents (Matthew 15:4)? Who will stop laughing because Jesus says to (Luke 6:25)? Who obeys Jesus’ command to give to everyone who asks and to lend without expecting to be paid back (Luke 6:30,35)? Who will hate his father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters in order to be a disciple of Jesus (Luke 14:26)? How can anyone obey the Jesus who says, “You cannot be my disciple unless you give away everything you own” (Luke 14:33)? Note that many wealthy people are recognized as Jesus’ followers. This judge says that if Jesus’ disciples must obey him, then Jesus has few, if any, disciples.
Verse 5. “Don’t forget what happened to those people that the Lord rescued from Egypt. Some of them did not have faith, and he later destroyed them” (Contemporary English Version). Here Jude refers to the events described in Numbers 13 and 14. The Lord had brought the Israelites out of Egypt and safely across the desert to the borders of the Promised Land. Moses sent twelve spies to spy out the land before the invasion was to take place. All of the spies, with the exception of Caleb and Joshua, reported that the dangers ahead were so formidable that it was hopeless for Israel to try to conquer the Promised Land. Because of their lack of faith in God, God sentenced the people, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, to wander forty miserable years in the wilderness until they died.
Jude approved of this scenario, insensitive to the suffering it caused the Israelites during forty long, hot years in the desert. Jude also was unconcerned about the bloodshed a military conquest of Canaan would cause, namely, the deaths of 21,000,000 Canaanites, according to Exodus 12:37 and Deuteronomy 7:1-6.
Verse 6. “You also know about the angels who don’t do their work and left their proper places. God chained them with everlasting chains and is now keeping them in dark pits until the great day of judgment” (Contemporary English Version). Jude accepts the reality of angels instead of recognizing that angels are only figments of our imagination. Here Jude may be referring to the account in Genesis 6:1-2: Some angels in heaven so lusted after the beautiful women on earth that they left heaven, came down to earth, and seduced these mortal women. For this sin, God put them in chains and is still holding them in dark pits until the end of time. Anybody, including Jude, who can believe this story can believe anything!
Verse 7. “We should also be warned by what happened to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the nearby towns. The people became immoral and committed all sorts of sexual acts. Then God made an example of them and punished them with eternal fire” (Contemporary English Version). See Genesis 19. The sexual sins to which Jude refers surely include homosexual intercourse. However objectionable that may be, it is still a finite sin and does not deserve the infinite punishment of eternal fire.
Verse 9. Here Jude tells us that the archangel Michael (the greatest of the good angels) argued with the devil (the greatest of the evil angels) about the body of Moses (the greatest of the good leaders of Israel). Jude seems to be alluding to a book of the Pseudepigrapha, the Assumption of Moses, which relates that God commissioned Michael to bury the body of Moses. But while Michael was digging the grave, Satan appeared, opposed the burial, and claimed the body for two reasons: 1) Matter is evil; therefore Michael should hand over Moses’ evil body to Satan; and 2) Moses was a murderer, having slain an Egyptian (Exodus 2:11-12). Hence Moses was unworthy of an honorable burial. Michael, however, finally outargued Satan, buried Moses’ body in the recesses of the mountains, and carried his spirit to heaven.
Stop to think for a moment. To believe this tall tale a person must believe eleven things, any one of which is most unlikely: 1. Believe there is a God. 2. Believe that this God was concerned about the burial of Moses. 3. Believe that there are angels. 4. Believe that one of these angels was an archangel named Michael. 5. Believe that Satan exists. 6. Believe that Satan had nothing better to do than to argue with Michael about the body of Moses. 7. Believe that Satan claimed Moses’ corpse. 8. Believe that Michael and Satan argued about who should have Moses’ body. 9. Believe that Michael outargued Satan. 10. Believe that Michael dug Moses’ grave and buried him. 11. Believe that Michael somehow laid hold of Moses’ spirit (whatever that may be) and carried it to heaven. It goes without saying that Jude 9 and the Assumption of Moses are absurdly fanciful. For more on the burial of Moses, see my “A Fantastic Funeral,” Freethought Perspective, Volume 3 (No. 5 July 2002), p. 2.
Not only are Jude 9 and the Assumption of Moses creations of overheated pious imagination but so is the Assumption of Moses 10:9-10 which states in all seriousness that Israel will be exalted to heaven, whence they shall look down and see their enemies suffering in Gehenna, recognize them, and rejoice over their suffering. This is the ultimate insensitivity!
Now ponder this: Jude’s use of the Assumption of Moses indicates that Jude regarded the Assumption of Moses as inspired Scripture. Yet the church has disagreed with Jude on this point, for the Church does not accept the Assumption of Moses as inspired. Jude, then, erred. But an inspired writer could not err. Therefore the Epistle of Jude is not an inspired writing and should not be in the New Testament. If Jude was wrong about the value of the Assumption of Moses, he may have been wrong about other things too. Also, if the Church erred in accepting Jude as a part of its collection of inspired writings, then the Church may err in other matters too.
Verse 11. Jude declares that the false teachers are in for real trouble because they followed Cain’s example. According to Genesis 4:1-15, Cain was the world’s first murderer. That, indeed, was a horrible crime. But Jude may also be condemning Cain for being a skeptic. In the Jerusalem Targum, Cain remarks, “There is neither judgment nor judge, there is no other world; no good reward will be given to the good, and no vengeance taken on the wicked; nor is there any pity in the creation or the government of the world.” Instead of condemning Cain for being a skeptic, nontheists would condemn him for recognizing, accepting, and correctly interpreting the harsh realities of life. Cain, if there ever was such a person, was light years ahead of his time.
Jude goes on in verse 11 to condemn the false teachers for rebelling against God, just as Korah did (Number 16:1-35; 26:9,10). Like Korah, the false teachers will be destroyed by God. Korah rebelled against Moses. Therefore God caused a huge crack to appear in the ground and Korah and his family and others, plus everything they owned, fell in the hole and were buried alive. What a horrible way to die! What cruel punishment! Yet Jude believed in this mean-spirited God.
Verse 14-15. Here Jude says, “Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied about false teachers when he said: ‘Look! The Lord is coming with thousands and thousands of holy angels to judge everyone. He will punish all those ungodly people for all the evil things they have done. The Lord will surely punish those ungodly sinners for every evil thing they have ever said about him.’” See Enoch 1:9. By the way, Enoch is a book of the Pseudepigrapha, which is a group of Jewish religious writings of the period 200 BC/BCE to AD/CE 200. The Pseudepigrapha are not included in any canon of Scripture.
Are we to regard the Book of Enoch as sacred Scripture because Jude quotes it as he does the Old Testament? Or are we to conclude that Jude cannot be Scripture because he errs in using as Scripture a book which is not Scripture? The Book of Enoch is full of such things as visions, angels, (Enoch gives us the names of 150 angels), demons, resurrection, judgment, books of life, the New Jerusalem, the tree of life, punishments for the wicked, rewards for the righteous, and the end of the world. Angels conduct Enoch on journeys throughout the earth, to Sheol, to the place of the final punishment of the fallen angels, to the tree of life, to Jerusalem, and to the Garden of Righteousness.
Note that here again Jude accepts the existence of angels, those figments of human imagination. Jude fantasizes that ten thousands of these imaginary beings will accompany the Lord when he comes to judge people. Rationalists, on the contrary, would agree with George Beer, an authority on the Book of Enoch, who said: “The Book of Enoch contains a great deal of stupid gibberish.” Jude, however, had no problem with Enoch’s gibberish. For more on angels, see my Sweet Jesus, Volume Three, pp. 98-106.
Verse 23. “And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire” (King James Version). In the words of Matthew Henry (1662-1714), whom some Christians yet today regard as the greatest devotional commentator who ever lived: “Endeavor to frighten them out of their sins. Preach hell and damnation to them” (Jude, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible, p. 2463). But now in the twenty-first century it is high time that people of conscience declare that since even the worst of us humans can cause only finite torment, no one deserves the infinite punishment of eternal torment for causing finite torment. Infinite torture is infinitely cruel, evil, and immoral. No decent human could stand the thought of one animal being tormented forever, let alone the bulk of mankind.
Verses 24-25. “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding great joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen” (King James Version). Jude 24-25 is one of the most impressive and widely used of all benedictions. I myself have often repeated it at the close of a worship service. But now I would like to offer as a substitute for Jude 24-25 and other theistic benedictions a slightly revised form of a non-theistic benediction which I wrote in 1989: “And now may the faith that makes us strong, and the hope that never dies, and the love that binds us together into one union of all who love in the service of all who suffer, lead us forward, onward, and upward, until all of us are more and more magnetized by mystery, fascinated by life, enraptured by beauty, and obsessed by truth; Amen.” Adapted from my A New Universalism for a New Century (Gordo, AL: The Flatwoods Free Press, 1989), p. 66.
Conclusion. In my opinion, our critical examination of thirteen verses of Jude has given us sufficient evidence to judge Jude and conclude that Jude will not be of lasting value to thinking people. Now you be the judge. What is your verdict?
A. J. MATTILL, Jr.
A bribe is the giving or promising something of value to a person in order to influence that person to act in favor of the giver. Should, or should we not, bribe others? Should or should we not, accept bribes from others? What does “God’s Word,” the Bible, have to say about bribes? Quotes from the Bible are largely based on Today’s English Version and Contemporary English Version.
Exodus 23:8 is said to be the Bible’s most basic teaching on bribe taking: “Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe makes people blind to what is right and ruins the cause of those who are innocent.” Now hear Deuteronomy 16:18-19, “Judges and other officials are not to show partiality in their judgments; and they are not to accept bribes, for bribes blind the eyes even of wise and honest people, and cause them to give wrong decisions.”
Consider 2 Chronicles 19:7, “The Lord our God does not tolerate fraud or partiality or the taking of bribes.” And Proverbs 17:23, “Corrupt judges accept secret bribes, and then justice is not done.”
Now let us examine some verses which look favorably on bribes. Proverbs 17:8, “A bribe works miracles like a magic charm that brings good luck.” Proverbs 18:16, “A bribe will get you in to see anyone.” Proverbs 21:14, “A secret bribe will save you from someone’s fierce anger.” In other words, “A bribe given secretly to a person who is fighting mad at you will calm him/her down and will save you yourself from that person’s fierce anger.”
We should never forget that God Bribed Abraham by promising to bless Abraham and make Abraham’s descendants a great nation and to give Abraham and his family the land of Canaan (Genesis 12:1-7).
Now let us check the New Testament to see what it has to say about bribery. Satan Bribes Jesus. One day the Devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in all their greatness. Then Satan offered Jesus a tremendous bribe, saying, “All this I will give you if you kneel down and worship me.” Without a moment’s reflection Jesus answered, “Get out of here, Satan! The Bible says, ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve only him!’” (Matthew 4:8-10). Thus Jesus refused Satan’s bribe.
Jesus Bribes His Hearers. Jesus bribed people, not with money, but with the assurance of eternal life/salvation/treasure in heaven to get people to obey God’s commandments (Matthew 19:16-26), to give alms to the poor (Matthew 6:3-4), to pray and fast (Matthew 6:7-18), to repent (Matthew 4:17) to be baptized with water and in the Spirit (John 3:5, 6:53), and to believe in Jesus (John 3:16). See my “What Must I Do to Be Saved?” Freethought Perspective, Volume 3, (Number 8, April 2003) pp. 2-3; reprinted in my Sweet Jesus, Volume Two, pp. 175-179, published in 2004 by The Flatwoods Free Press, 750 Lum Fife Road, Gordo, AL 35466-3357.
Judas Asks for a Bribe. Judas went to the chief priests and asked them, “How much will you give me if I help you arrest Jesus?” They paid Judas thirty silver coins, and from then on Judas started looking for a good chance to betray Jesus (Matthew 26:14-16).
Conclusion. God, Satan, Jesus, and Judas practiced bribery. Judaism and Christianity are religions based on bribery.
NEAL WILGUS
Contrari, WS (LEAK)— Several people were injured today when an Advertarian Attack Ad broke loose and went on a rampage down Split Street. The wayward Ad first battered two guards posted near its cage, then smashed the heavy double doors which were supposed to keep it confined. Once free to roam it attacked two Mormons on bicycles, a little old Baptist from Pasadena, a Muslim cab driver on the take, and a handicapped Hebrew seeking to buy drugs.
Authorities soon had the Attack Ad surrounded and a SLAP team managed to subdue it and place it under arrest. It was returned to confinement under heavy guard, but officials were red-faced and scrambling to explain the incident. “We are looking into allegations of neglect and malfeasance,” spokesman Norman G. Sources said, “and we’re confident we’ll find what we’re looking for.”
Cases of rogue Attack Ads breaking loose and causing havoc and mayhem have been on the rise of late, Sources said, and he attributed it to the tight financial market, the atmosphere of rancour between the Contrarians and the Adversarian Movement, and to something funny in the water. Two weeks ago, a Contraroid Attack Ad broke into a private home and killed an elderly couple living there, and was brought under control when a Catholic priest performed an exorcism. Earlier, several Attack Ads from both ideological camps were executed after a series of bank robberies, gunfights with police, and the brutal murders of church officials.
“What we need,” Sources said, “is new legislation to make sure these vicious Attack Ads are brought under control and made into the useful and positive features of society they were originally intended to be.” Sources was echoing the official position of both Contarians and Adversarians but, as usual, both sides are long on position papers and short on ways to actually bring the Attack Ads under control. Meanwhile, the splinter party called the Oppositionists issued a tough policy statement saying that the two major parties had failed miserably in controlling the Ads and vowed to pass new legislation to bring about order.
In related news, it was learned recently that a band of Attack Ad guerrillas is forming in the badlands and they are gathering in strength as new Ads escape and join them. They are reported to be heavily armed and dangerous since they have virtually no hope of ever being accepted by civilized society. Both major parties called for calm and vowed to wipe out the rogue Ads mercilessly if given the opportunity.”These so-called Kamikaze Attack Ads are nothing to worry about,” Sources said. “We will overcome them in the long run and our homeland will once again become secure. Hey, it’s not like we created one of those Frankenstoid creatures, you know.”
MARVIN SIEGER
O, omnipotent YOU, who sees all, knows all.
You are the one must pay for Man’s fall.
And yet to YOU men plead, beg, and cry.
When what they should be saying, is goodbye.
Look deep within the bowels of your hell,
Where Popes and Kings and whores dwell
With those who washed in innocent blood,
More sinful by far than those unlucky first
you drowned in the flood.
Try not to wash your intolerant hands be white.
Can never they be clean in your creation’s sight.
Would that men ever learn not to kneel afright in fear
Before the tyrant You, who will neither care nor hear.
Look not about for some innocent to blame,
For all the world’s ills are yours to claim.
No one else could mold this unfeeling universe
And leave upon it Man’s eternal curse.
JIM LEE
Colmes: “There are many people who are full-on crackpots who try to hide who they are behind religion. I don’t want to hear anything more about said morals or values coming from Colmes: … you then said, I asked for whom else are you praying in that fashion and you said President Obama. Are you praying for his death?
Drake: “Yes!
Colmes: “So you’re praying for the death of the president of the United States? Are you concerned that by saying that, you might find yourself on some secret service call or FBI most wanted list. Do you think it’s appropriate to say something like that or even pray for something like that?”
Drake: “I think it’s appropriate to pray for the will of God. I’m not saying anything, what I’m doing is repeating what God is saying, if that puts me on somebody’s list then I’ll just have to be on their list.”
Colmes: “You would like for the president of the United States to die?”
Drake: “If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around, I am asking God to enforce in imprecatory prayers throughout the scripture that would cause him death, that’s correct.”
Oh, its God that’s saying it, OK, I feel better now. What a freak. He also was a running mate with inmate Alan Keyes and was reported to have said this about Dr. Tiller:
A former Southern Baptist Convention officer (Pastor Wiley Drake) on June 2, 2009, called the death of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, an answer to prayer, and said later in the day, he is also praying “imprecatory prayer” against President Obama.
Wiley Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., and former running mate of American Independent Party presidential candidate Alan Keyes, said on June 2, 2009, in an interview on Fox News, he didn’t understand why people were upset with comments he quoted and were later reported by Associated Baptist Press, from a recent webcast of his daily radio talk show.
Drake said he didn’t pray for Tiller to be murdered—only that God would take his life by some method—but that he “absolutely” believed that God wanted the doctor dead.
You can listen to this obviously deranged pastor and other religious fundamentalist dinosaurs at: www.crusaderadio.com
LEONARD HARGRAVE
Those people who declare that Jesus was without sin are, in fact, admitting, they have never read the New Testament. If they had read it, they would find that Jesus did sin. For instance:
Both Mark 11:14 and Matthew 21:19 state that Jesus threw a childish temper tantrum and destroyed a fig tree because it did not have any figs. This tree was on private property and Jesus sinned by destroying somebody else’s property. Did Jesus recompense the owner? His sin is compounded by the fact that Jesus violated God’s law not to destroy fruit trees (Deuteronomy 20:19).
In Mark 5:13 and Luke 8:33, Jesus drove demons into a herd of swine, causing them to drown. Again Jesus sinned by destroying private property that was not his own. Leviticus 11:7 forbids the eating of swine, so why was there a herd of swine in a Jewish community? The answer might be that Christians Luke and Mark were unaware of Leviticus 11:7.
In Matthew 13:31-32, Jesus Jesus lied about the size of a mustard seed and the size of the plant that the seed becomes. Jesus deliberately lied. This is a sin.
Jesus’ greatest sin was that he deliberately broke God’s Commandment to not work on the Sabbath. The New Testament records many times, that Jesus worked on the Sabbath, to the horror of observing Pharisees. Therefore the son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath, (Mark 2:28).
All the details of the Gospels were lifted from previous pagan myths. This includes the story of Jesus destroying the fig tree. The Gospel writers simply took the pagan myths and gave them a new description, and called it Christianity.
WILLIAM F. HENNESS
I was sitting here thinking about DV and MV. In their church or someone’s home they can dance with Jesus, talk in tongues, and in general, make a fool of themselves, but, if they did the same thing on the street or at Wal-Mart, they would probably be taken into custody and evaluated for their mental health. If they were found to be a little loony, they would probably be put under observation and given medication to help them act normal.
Apparently it depends on where one is when they act like that. In a church or someone’s home, the state looks the other way, but in public or on the street or a place of business, it takes on a whole different aspect.
To view Gary Bauer go here: www.citizenlink.org/hatecrimes
Gary Bauer, the religiously insane James Dobson, and numerous religious establishments feel threatened. Threatened by the reality that their reprehensible campaign to use the Bible as a reference for their lunatic agenda to make homosexuality criminal, may no longer be effective or possible. Especially, if clowns like the above mentioned, are no longer able to express their fictional belief, that, “Because the Bible says it’s so, homosexuality is an abomination in the sight of their just as fictional tyrant in the sky.” This is the main reason they object to the remote possibility that Congress might pass a “hate crimes bill” that will frustrate and disrupt their unholy campaign against homosexuality and a host of other religious obsessions that have infected their less than sane view of reality.
There also are other videos on this site, with discombobulated commentaries from ultra-right religious fundamentalists still unaware that this is the 21st and not the 13th Century.
Received by e-mail from
JIM LEE
You think English is easy???
1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9. When shot at, the dove dove in the bushes.
10. I did not object to the object.
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
14. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down a sewer line.
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
19. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend.
Let’s face it—English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, no ham in hamburger, neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Giunea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of tooth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one mouse, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship. Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
PS. —Why doesn’t ‘Buick’ rhyme with ‘quick’ ?
You lovers of the English language might enjoy this:
There is a two-letter word that has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is “UP”.
It’s easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?
We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.
And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.
We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost ¼ of the page and can add UP yo about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP … When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP.
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
When it doesn’t rain for awhile, things dry UP.
One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so … it is time to shut UP!
Oh … one more thing:
What is the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night? U-P.
The following aricle was e-mailed by
JIM LEE
Thought reform or “brainwashing” was considered by several researchers (Hassan, 1988; Singer & Ofshe, 1990; Galanti, 1993; Martin, 1993; West & Martin, 1994) to be a key factor in understanding the profound changes that members of cults experience. Thought reform was first described by Robert J. Lifton, Edgar Schein, Margaret Singer, and Louis Jolyon West who interviewed dissidents from the Chinese Communist Workers Party who had emigrated to Hong Kong and former prisoners of war (Galanti, 1993; Hassan, 1988; Martin, 1993).
Robert Lifton (1997) described eight interpersonal dynamics from his research with former prisoners after the Korean Conflict and survivors of “thought reform” camps in China. In the introduction to the latest edition of his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, expressed his agreement, from his own study of cults that his dynamics could be applied to them. Individuals Lifton interviewed who had been subjected to these eight processes could be influenced to adopt new ways of looking at self or of the world enabling them to make rapid changes in convictions, values, attitudes and behavior.
MILIEU CONTROL:
The foundation of thought reform is the establishment of a power differential between the new inductee and the person or group. This position of greater power is accomplished initially through the imposition Milieu Control or control of the surroundings. The individual is gradually denied contact with conflicting ideas or alternative explanations to the phenomena observed in the group or those supposed explained by the groups principles. Milieu Control can be accomplished through physical separation of the inductee from friends, family and alternative sources of information. In concert with the other seven processes, physical control of the surroundings is often unnecessary after the processes take effect. A kind of psychological separation occurs, a loss of interest or outright fear of considering competing ideas.
MYSTICAL MANIPULATION:
Mystical manipulation is the ability of the group to induce states of emotional arousal and, eventually self-deprecation and fear. Gradually, the group gains control of almost all the events or concepts that regulate mood. The individual feels elation when exposed to an exercise supposedly unique to the group and the resulting elevated mood is framed as a logical response to rightly applying the princples of the group. In like manner, any thoughts expressed by the inductee in opposition to the teachings of the group are deflected into personal challenges for “growth”and deeper understanding. Opposing ideas are framed as lacking wisdom. Continued exposure to Mystical Manipulation results in what Lifton called the “psychology of the pawn.” The inductee feels trapped in a world ruled by forces that only the group understands and that only the group has the means of controlling, the Sacred Science.
SACRED SCIENCE:
The inductee is presented with a package without his or her knowledge or informed consent that represents that portion of the beliefs of the group or Sacred Science, that the inductee could be expected to accept given the positive experiences felt during Mystical Manipulation. The result is that the individual is given the group’s interpretations of reality that seem to confirm what the inductee has already experienced emotionally. This is the psychological equivalent of the financial fraud known as the Ponzi Scheme, where initial investors are paid the promised generous returns out of the investments of later investors. Like the early investor, the inductee has an emotional experience that confirms at least some aspects of the Sacred Science are true. The Sacred Science always contains the usually unexpressed ethic of the ends justify the means. The ends promoting the group and its Sacred Science are so vital to life on Earth, that any means necessary are considered ethical for either furthering the interests of the group or stopping the efforts of those the group identifies as its enemies.
LOADING THE LANGUAGE:
The second part of the package is the language of the Sacred Science itself. It is presented by using loaded terms and phrases more laden with emotion then content using “bumper-sticker”slogans that are designed to sound like jargon. Actually, they are “thought terminating clichés.” Lifton (1997) quotes Lionel Trilling who calls this Loading the Language “the language of non-thought.” By controlling the language the inductee is allowed to use to talk about the Sacred Science, the group gradually manages to also control how the inductee thinks about the Sacred Science.
CULT OF CONFESSION:
The Sacred Science is presented as a completed whole. It appears that all others in the group accept it self-evident without the need for involved explanations, since all present have had experiences that seem to confirm its veracity. Any doubts still plaguing the inductee are reframed as shortcomings of character that must be “confessed” as personal flaws, further removing the Sacred Science itself from the light of reasonable scrutiny. The world is viewed by the group in simplistic, black and white categories and any failure to measure up perfectly with the demands of the Sacred Science must be confessed. Any material presented in this Cult of Confession can and will be used against the inductee as a Demand for Purity.
DEMAND FOR PURITY:
The Demand for Purity is based on the notion that absolute perfection is possible and any deviation from perfection is intolerable. The inner world of the inductee is slowly reduced to endless rounds of guilt and shame. The cycle of the Cult of Confession and Demand for Purity gradually wears down any sense of self-acceptance that might have been present prior to the onset of the process. Eventually, inductees lose the ability to believe they can make sense of the events they experience, choosing the doctrines of the group as more trustworthy than their own experience in defining reality.
DOCTRINE OVER PERSON:
Doctrine Over Person is the acquired ability of the inductee to reframe the events of life only in the context of the teachings of the group, the Sacred Science. Those experiences that support the Sacred Science are accepted, those that do not are rejected. Eventually the inductee rewrites their personal history to force it into compliance with the Sacred Science. When the group is faced with circumstances that force it to go against its own Sacred Science, it constructs an often elaborate explanation defining the circumstance as an artifact of the collapsing world system that it, of course, predicted. The apparent hypocrisy of the group is redefined as evidence that the Sacred Science is more true than physical reality. When the inductee has reached the point in the process where personal experience is denied and doctrine accepted as reality, all but the boldest machinations of the group are explained away by self-blame or further rejection of the world outside the group.
DISPENSING OF EXISTENCE:
As a sense of self is squeezed, the need to connect with the group increases. At the same time, the group makes it clear that it alone has the wisdom and authority to decide who is qualified to exist on the superior plane the group defines and who is not. This develops naturally from the belief that the group has the inside track on ultimate knowledge (religions based on the Bible or any other holy book, wrongly assume that the realities they depict are based on infallible truth and a just as infallible unreal god, Ed.) and as such, represents the only hope of humankind. All others, by definition, do not measure up and in failing to do so, threaten the forward progress of humanity, or the purpose of God, etc. The group freely engages in this Dispensing of Existence, making it clear that the group is the elite, having more right to exist than non-members. Usually practiced non-literally, groups Dispense of Existence though denouncing their detractors and especially their defectors, usually by Loading the Language.
These eight interpersonal dynamics describe an environment carefully controlled to produce a particular response from participants, not just obedience but total commitment to the goals of the group.
Thought reform and its implications formed the foundation of definitions of the word “cult” that remove doctrinal or belief schema that obscured empirical research. Singer and Lalich (1994) distinguished cults from other groups by three factors, the origin of the group and the role of its leader, the relationship between the leader and the group’s members, and the existence of a coordinated program of persuasion. Langone (1993) related thought reform to cults in his definition: A group or movement that, to a significant degree, (a) exhibits great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing, (b) uses a thought reform program to persuade, control, and socialize members (i.e., to integrate them into the group’s unique pattern of relationships, beliefs, values, and practices, (c) systematically induces states of psychological dependency in members, (d) exploits members to advance the leadership’s goals, and (e) causes psychological harm to members, their families, and the community.
Aronoff & Lynn (1996) pointed out that these definitions describe cults in a negative fashion, presumably introducing bias to any investigation based on them. It may not be possible to use the definitions to determine if any particular group was a cult. A perfect definition may be elusive and that there may even be a continuum along which groups may be distributed ranging from completely non-cultic to extremely cultic. Another consideration was the unique experiences of any two individuals in the same group might be completely different, and could also be distributed on a continuum. Those who were deeply involved might be the only source of information on the cultic nature of the group.
The Group Psychological Abuse Scale was developed on the conceptual foundation of the above definitions (Langone, Dole & Wiltrout, 1992). In order to operationalize the definition of “cult” into a measure of individual experience for this study, the GPA was chosen as a measure of the intensity of the participant’s exposure to a cultic environment.
Theoretical constructs and clinical observations are crucial to social science research, and researchers who performed empirical studies reveal their theoretical orientations in their experimental design.
FRANK RAY DAVIS
DICTIONARY writers come up with definitions that try hard to be exact. But just plain people can turn out definitions that both convey meaning and tickle the imagination. For instance:
ATHEIST: A person defined by what he does NOT believe in. (Try defining a person by what he is NOT and see where you land!)
BEAUTY: Eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. —Kahlil Gibran
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: Killing somebody to show everybody that nobody should ever kill anybody.
DANGEROUS: Jumping across the Grand Canyon in a series of leaps.
EXPERIENCE: An accumulation of past mistakes.
FAITH: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge of things without parallel. —Ambrose Bierce
GLOBALIZATION: A slick economic system where wages are hammered down so low that workers can’t afford to buy the things they produce.
HAY: Grass a la mowed.
IDIOT VOTE: The giant electoral power of midget minds.
JOY: A happy place between having too little and too much.
KISSING: Getting two people so close together they can’t see their faults.
LYING: Short cut to a blind alley. STEALING: Shortcut to fortune. Same destination.
MONEY: Maximum behavior modifier.
NEUTRON BOMB: The invention to end all inventions.
OPTIMIST: A dreamer who never quit dreaming; WINNER:
POLITICS: A rich cake paid for by the people, baked in the heat of passion, and eaten at leisure by sharpies. —Ricardo Flores Magon
PHILOSOPHY: Questions that may never be answered.
RELIGION: Answers that may never be questioned.
QUOTATION: Saying in somebody else’s words what you’re too chicken to say yourself.
RECESSION: My neighbor lost his job; DEPRESSION: I lost my job!
SENIOR MEMBER OF THE FIRM: An old duffer who lacks the good sense to step aside and let progress happen.
TWENTIETH CENTURY CAPITALISM: Dog eat dog; 21st CENTURY CAPITALISM: Hog eat hog.
UNSHAKABLE ALIBI: Being dead at the time of the crime.
VEGETARIAN: Old Indian word for “lousy hunter”.
WALL STREET: A symbol for sin for every devil to rebuke. That Wall Street is a den of thieves is a belief that serves every unsuccessful thief in place of a hope in heaven. —Ambrose Bierce
X: I don’t have a single x to my name.
YANK: A jerk. (Hey, don’t blame me, Yanks. That’s what the dictionary says).
ZEAL: Super mind-set and enthusiasm. If one has lots of zeal he’s a ZEALOT.
Oops, I just remembered that I forgot something, the best daffy definition of all. Here it is, dedicated with all my heart to the lung-cancer industry…
CIGARETTE: A tobacco-stuffed paper cylinder with a fire at one end and a fool at the other.
It’s no accident, then, that the United States approved torture at the highest levels of government exactly at the moment it began the most precipitous decline in global power in its history. Torture is one more sign of this weakness, which it feeds. It is a mere pantomime of the power notably missing elsewhere. In the torture chamber, the sole superpower still feels super, almost omnipotent. It is not so in the villages of Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan’s Swat Valley, or in Pyongyang or Tehran. The cult of force can create an illusion of power in the “black site” prisons. Even the illusion is missing outside them.
From the article Torture and Truth by Jonathan Schell, p.17, in the June 18, 2009 issue of The Nation magazine.