Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, etc.

While I NO LONGER make any claims to be “religious,” practice any religious faith, or have anything to do with any kind of religion, faith, or the practice thereof, there are some things that, it seems to me, if there was a god/dess, such a being would be unlike us in practically every way… at least most of us.

Such a “god/goddess” or supreme being, would be concerned with our lives, the lives of humans on Earth, and with practically, or actually, every picayune thing associated with life here on this planet.

The relationship of humans to one another, to each other, the relationship of humans to the planet upon which they live, and upon which they rely as the very source of life itself, for food, for water, for clothing, for housing, for EVERYTHING — EVERY LITTLE THING — that pertains to life, including every minuscule joy, or momentary and passing pleasure, happiness, the taste of food, of smell, perfumes, aromas, all kinds of love, including sexual pleasures… ALL THAT would be a concern of a supreme/divine being, simply because that being loves those who live upon, and from, the Earth.

There is no god/goddess/supreme/diving being like that. At least there is none like that preached from most pulpits in churches, synagogues, mosques, temples and other houses of worship. And so, therefore, by virtue of that lack, that absence, I am led to conclude, that substantial lack, that fundamental absence of such a being — that again, being a being which is so full of love, and wisdom, that it cannot help but give, for giving is its very nature — that there is not such a one. There is no god/goddess/creator/divine being.

Yet, as a scientist, I must admit that we do not yet know, nor can prove, and so therefore, it is reasonable and rational to suppose that the possibility might exist, however small, that there might be such an one. But again, the likelihood is so minuscule, so microscopic, that its practically (for all practical purposes) non-existent. If it, the possibility, were but one grain of sand on the Earth, it would be so substantial, so life-changing. But those who have changed their lives have done so themselves, some with help of others, while others have done it alone. Jesus of Nazareth is even reputed to have told the renown parable story known widely as “The Prodigal Son” who “came to himself,” or as some versions put it, “finally came to his senses.” There is no indication that the son had any help in the matter.

But, it’s nice to think about the possibilities that a “supernatural,” even divine being exists, because again, if it were so, it would be a global game-changer. But, it’s also nice to think about eating all the ice cream, cake, pie, and other sweet treats that one could possibly want, without having any adverse side effect, like weight gain.

And so, this creature, this divine/supreme being… I think about a song which became popular some years ago

Nose/Mouth Protection Was Once Popular Among Right Wingers

The now-defunct Moral Majority was a far-right-wing, extremist political arm of a primarily Protestant Christian Fundamentalist organization founded by the now-late Rev. Jerry Falwell, Sr. (1933-2007), Founding Pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, in Lynchburg, VA, who infamously filed, and lost, a defamation of character lawsuit against pornographer Larry Flynt (1942-2021), Founder of the Hustler magazine empire, which was ultimately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Based upon First Amendment principles, the SCOTUS found that Flynt’s plainly-marked parody depiction of Falwell fell under protected speech, holding that “the First and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit public figures and public officials from recovering damages for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress by reason of the publication of a caricature…” and noted that “the State’s interest in protecting public figures from emotional distress is not sufficient to deny First Amendment protection to speech that is patently offensive and is intended to inflict emotional injury when that speech could not reasonably have been interpreted as stating actual facts about the public figure involved.”

Moral Majority Report, July 1983, AIDS

In other words, the First Amendment protects parodies of celebrities or other public figures, even if they are intended to cause distress to the subjects depicted/portrayed.

Such a matter is now ongoing and involving soon-to-be-former U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, a Republican who has represented California’s 22nd Congressional District since 2003. CD 22 is in the state’s fertile San Joaquin Valley farmland area, and encompasses parts of Fresno, and Tulare counties, which includes portions of the cities of Fresno, and all of the cities of Clovis, Tulare, and Visalia.

Nunes is infamously litigious, and as some would characterize it, is thin-skinned, and becomes very “butt-hurt” when he is mocked, satirized, or parodied publicly, which has occurred regularly on Twitter, where the satire account “Devin Nunes Cow” (Nunes has interests in dairy farming in the district), and several other parody accounts, including some naming his mother, regularly poke fun of him.

Ironically, the two men Falwell and Flynt, later became good friends, and frequently appeared together in several public venues on college & university campuses, including on the Larry King Show.

Dr. Heather Murray, PhD, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Ottawa, Canada, (see her faculty page here) recently wrote the following, in part, about the matter of the far-right-wing now refusing to wear protective nose/mouth coverings (aka “face masks”) during the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus (aka COVID-19) pandemic, whereas once, they were gung-ho to wear them, despite the fact that

A Baptist and a Methodist walk into a bar…

They’re both shot dead by the Church of God, who is then fought by the Assembly of God, and then attacked by the Church of Christ; and next, the Mormons come along, who are suddenly blindsided by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Seventh Day Adventists, while the Catholics & Episcopalians both fight the Presbyterians & Lutherans on the side. In walk the Moonies with the Unitarians, and everybody turns on them. Meanwhile, the Quakers, the Amish, Mennonites, and Buddhists stand by and watch it all unfold.

That’s the gist of what’s happening in the Middle East— a bunch of goddamn religious nuts fighting each other over their private interpretation of their preferred religion.

Here in America, goddamn religious nuts want to inject their preferred flavor of religion into government (which the Constitution specifically forbids) by sticking their noses into other peoples’ private lives, outlawing certain medical procedures which they find objectionable (What’s next? Colonoscopies? Pap smears? Testicular exams?), forbidding birth control, in vitro fertilization, freezing embryos, stem cell research, denying sex education and healthcare to everyone, while they secretly molest children, young girls, and teens, then go preach about “sin” and “love” afterward, and tell their parishioners along with the news media that Wiccans and Satanists had been doing it all along, by calling it “Satanic Ritual Abuse.”

That poor ol’ mythological “devil” is an easy punching bag, and catches hell for everything. Must be why the Rolling Stones composed “Sympathy for the Devil” in 1968.

After speaking a few magic words, and waving his magick wand, (on table) God pulls the unimaginably vast cosmos out of his top hat.

Meanwhile the widow, the orphan, prisoners, the stranger among you, and the least of these all look at them in dismay and wonder if there really is any such thing as “god,” because from their perspective, it sure doesn’t look like it.

Fuck ‘em all.

Every goddamn rotten one of ‘em — the dirty rotten religious bastard hater hypocrites.🖕🏽

They’re no better than the goddamn Muslims who are at each others’ throats.

And according to the bizarre monotheistic Judeo-Christian-Islamic mythology, not only are they a bunch of inbreds, anyway, but their “god” is a magician who spoke a few magic words and *!*POOF*!* like a rabbit out of a top hat, everything just appeared out of nothing everywhere (ex nihilo, it’s called in their theological seminaries)… in 6, literal 24-hour periods.

That’s not even a good fairy tale.

Then, there’s their “giant boat that saves the world” myth – or, at least

Sex With Aliens, And Infanticide

While perusing through old SMS messages with a friend, searching for messages that the system didn’t send in order to clear them out, I happened upon this jewel:

https://archive.fo/G7wtb#selection-4998.0-4998.1

FIRE POWER DELIVERANCE MINISTRIES WITH DR STELLA IMMANUEL

Deliverance from Spirit wives and Spirit Husbands (Incubus and succubus)

This tormenting spirits are responsible for breaking marriages, hatred by earthly spouse serious gynecological problems, Marital distress, miscarriages, impotence, untold hardship, financial failure and general failure at the edge of breakthrough. In fact studies shows that seven out of ten people in the church are affected by these spirits.

Everyone needs this information. Isa 5:13 Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst. Get knowledge and be free in Jesus name.

The subject of the evil spiritual marriage has been grossly mis- understood by many people. While some hold erroneous views, others demonstrate partial knowledge of this all- important subject. The problem of evil marriage goes beyond dilettantish purposes.

Evil marriage is a deep subject. It affects many people. From our spiritual research and statistical findings, we have gathered that seven out of ten ladies who profess to be born again are involved, consciously or unconsciously, with evil spiritual marriage. In the same vein, seven out of every ten Christian men are, consciously or unconsciously, affected by evil spiritual marriages.

More than any other power, these spirits have destroyed marriages

Many women suffer from astral sex regularly. Astral sex is the ability to project one’s spirit man into the victim’s body and have intercourse with it. This practice is very common amongst Satanists. They leave their physical bodies in a dormant state while they project their spirits into the body of whoever they want to have sex with.

“9. I send thunder fire of God to burn to ashes the children born to the marriage, in Jesus’ name.”

—//—

Turns out, those nut-jobs have been at it for a very long, long, long, long, long time.

To what “nut-jobs” do I mean to refer?

The nut-jobs that believe in demon sperm, having sex with spirits (most bad ones, never good ones) being causative of disease, impotence, and other maladies and health problems.

But note this item, number

Telling Tall Tales: Shared Mythology in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Today I happened upon a description of a beer made by Cigar City Brewing of Tampa, FL – Double Barrel-aged Hunahpu’s – which is a 2016 release of an Imperial Stout, aged in rum barrels & apple brandy barrels and blended together.

As rated and ranked by the crowd-sourced beer enthusiast’s website BeerAdvocate, where reviewers rate beers according to various measures of quality, not upon “popularity” based upon sales volume, per se, Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout was graded 100, which is a perfect score, and was ranked 2nd within the category of Imperial Stouts, had a 3rd overall weighted rank, while the website’s contributors gave it an overall rating of 4.78 out of 5 truncated mean for all beers on the site. Its flavor notes read “Stout aged on Peruvian cacao nibs, ancho and pasilla chiles, cinnamon and Madagascar vanilla beans aged in apple brandy and rum barrels before being blended together.”

After having read the review notes, I navigated over to the Cigar City Brewing site to see the brewery’s page for the brew, to see what they said about it, and read that they describe it as being:

“Extremely dark in color with a brown head with notes of big notes of chocolate and espresso, moderate notes of vanilla and cinnamon and mild notes of tobacco and chilis. Flavor opens with a big blast of chocolate and moderate espresso with notes of dark toffee and interjecting notes of vanilla with lingering hints of cinnamon and tobacco and chili notes with a mild Scoville heat in the finish. Extensive aging in both rum and apple brandy barrels adds candied apple, allspice, vanilla and oaky tannic qualities to this rare and complex stout.”

I also found the following about the beer’s curious name:

Did you know?

In Mayan mythology, Hun Hunahpu was the father of the Mayan hero twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque. Hun Hunahpu, along with his brother Vucub Hunahpu, was tricked by the Dark Lords of the underworld and slain. Hun Hunahpu’s corpse morphed into a cacao tree, his head becoming a cacao pod, which in typically awesome mythology fashion, spit upon the hand of a young maiden named Xquic who promptly became pregnant with the hero twins. The twins would ultimately grow up to avenge their father and uncle and defeat the Dark Lords and ascend the heavens to become the moon and sun.

That’s quite a tale, to be certain, and as I read it, the preposterous absurdity of it all was reminiscent of another well-known fairy tale told by observant Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike.

Artist’s depiction of the Hebrew exodus

That tall tale is of Moses, regarded as

Happy Easter, er… Happy Fertility Day!

For Christians, today is Easter Sunday. It’s their annual high holy day which corresponds with the Spring Equinox in which they celebrate the alleged resurrection from the dead of their god, Jesus of Nazareth, whom they also call Jesus Christ, whom they believe to be God incarnate, and the “son of God,” even though in their story book, Jesus only referred to himself as “the son of man,” NEVER as “the son of God.” NEVER.

Of course, they’ll fight you tooth and nail in disagreement that Jesus of Nazareth is not their god all while saying “praise Jesus!” and making similar exclamations, but in the same breath, they’ll capitulate and confuse things by saying there’s a “trinity” of three separate divine beings whom they identify as “the Father,” “the Son,” and “the Holy Spirit” whom they claim are not separate, but are separate, and are “co-equal” yet distinct and unique.

Entire religions – actually, “denominations” – have been formed around the various interpretations of those blatantly absurdist claims. Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Church of Christ, Church of God, Church of God  in Christ, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Cumberland Presbyterian, are but a few, and that’s just here in the United States.

Abroad, there’s Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Catholic, Armenian, Coptic Catholic, Coptic Orthodox, Anglican, Anglican Catholic, and on, and on, and on, and on. Some have said there are probably tens of thousands of different denominations and sects of Christianity, while others say there are but a few hundred. And yet, the odd thing is, that while they’re all “doing their own thing” they pray and seemingly ask for “unity” which they call ecumenism.

Bottom line? It’ll never happen. Not until they all give up their own private interpretations, traditions, and everything about their religion.

There’s a long-standing joke – there’s ALWAYS truth in humor, and it serves to remind us of the matter about which it takes light-heartedly, and even

“Take Back” Our Schools, Government, and Teach Mythology

For the record, while I receive their emailings, I have NEVER been a part of, nor have I EVER in any way supported the Family Resource Council. The reason I receive them is because it’s always good to know what kind of shenanigans your adversaries are up to. And, I’ve marveled, and continue to do marvel, at their, and other right-wingers’ “take back” this-that-or-the-other diatribes. The only problem with that is that they never say how far back they want to take whatever it is they want to steal. Before 18-year-olds had the right to vote? Before the Civil Rights Act? Before Women’s Suffrage? Before Alabama became the 27th state to ratify the 13th Amendment which outlawed slavery? How far back? They never say.

But you see, by creating an “Us vs Them” mentality, they immediately establish a simplistic either/or “we’re the ‘good guys,’ and you’re the ‘bad guys'” mind set, which then also allows them to couch their the language of their argument as if some evil adversary stole something from them, i.e., “take back.”

How can anyone “steal” public schools? Steal from them by denying tax dollars, or funnel tax dollars to private corporations, I can see. But “steal” them? Hardly possible. Of course, that has never been the case – nor will it ever be the case – because no one stole anything.

Unfortunately, we also see that fallacious and petty mindset in politics, as in