You know when you read a book that's so good you actually can't put it down—I mean, literally, viscerally, simply can't put it down? You might have other things to do and need to get to them; there are emails you have to send; chores you have to do; perhaps you're hungry and have to get or prepare something to eat; you need to get to sleep to wake up early in the morning—but your mind demands you keep on reading, absorbing every last word, and therefore your hands must stay where they are along with the rest of you until your eyes are weary. Such was my experience in reading Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, written and published in 1853, the year he was set free from bondage and became a free man once again. I loved the movie so much, and was so impressed by it, that I had to get the book. And I'm so glad I did. I'm proud to have it in my library. The prose is superb, and I learned so much from this absolutely incredible, extremely well-documented, astoundingly vivid story. My favourite passage is this one for its imagery and the way it makes the reader feel like (s)he's actually there. Northup had escaped the clutches of a lunatic he was working for. The psychopath had tried to kill him for no good reason for the second time, and, unlike most of the slaves in the region, Northup could actually swim, and swim well. So he ran and ran, towards the river, through the godforsaken Louisiana swamp and backwoods, filled with alligators and moccasin snakes all around him, always worrying he'd accidentally step on something reptilian and deadly, and he got far away from the bloodhounds trailing after him, their barks fading and fading away into eventual nothingness, his scent being lost along the water, and then was able to give us a glimpse of something spectacular that must have shaken him to his very core:
After midnight, however, I came to a halt. Imagination cannot picture the dreariness of the scene. The swamp was resonant with the quacking of innumerable ducks! Since the foundation of the earth, in all probability, a human footstep had never before so far penetrated the recesses of the swamp. It was not silent now—silent to a degree that rendered it oppressive—as it was when the sun was shining in the heavens. My midnight intrusion had awakened the feathered tribes, which seemed to throng the morass in hundreds of thousands, and their garrulous throats poured forth such multitudinous sounds—there was such a fluttering of wings—such sullen plunges in the water all around me—that I was affrighted and appalled. All the fowls of the air, and all the creeping things of the earth appeared to have assembled together in that particular place, for the purpose of filling it with clamor and confusion. Not by human dwellings—not in crowded cities alone, are the sights and sounds of life. The wildest places of the earth are full of them. Even in the heart of that dismal swamp, God had provided a refuge and a dwelling place for millions of living things.—from Chapter 10
Incidentally, there's a story Northup relates of a young light-skinned slave woman who escapes and hides in the wilderness, and, for some reason, the hounds refuse to track her. Northup says that, for whatever reason he never could explain, there are people whose scent the dogs would not under any circumstance follow. I'd never heard of anything like that before, and I found it absolutely fascinating. Make no mistake about it, however: This book is a horror story. And what makes it so frightening is that it's actually true. Fiction never did scare me that easily, even as a child. I always found nonfiction to be infinitely more terrifying. What astounded me more than anything, even beyond the sheer brutality, callousness and perpetual torment of innocent, undeserving people within the story, was Northup's ability to rise above it all, with a clear and rational mind, with patience and self-discipline:
The existence of Slavery in its most cruel form among them, has a tendency to brutalize the humane and finer feelings of their nature. Daily witnesses of human suffering—listening to the agonizing screeches of the slave—beholding him writhing beneath the merciless lash—bitten and torn by dogs—dying without attention, and buried without shroud or coffin—it cannot otherwise be expected, than that they should become brutified and reckless of human life. It is true there are many kind-hearted and good men in the parish of Avoyelles—such men as William Ford—who can look with pity upon the sufferings of a slave, just as there are, over all the world, sensitive and sympathetic spirits, who cannot look with indifference upon the sufferings of any creature which the Almighty has endowed with life. It is not the fault of the slaveholder that he is cruel, so much as it is the fault of the system under which he lives. He cannot withstand the influence of habit and associations that surround him. Taught from earliest childhood, by all he sees and hears, that the rod is for the slave's back, he will not be apt to change his opinions in maturer years.—from Chapter 14
Now that right there is cold-as-ice objectivity. The way he sympathetically puts himself in the position and milieu-saturated mind of his oppressors is absolutely remarkable to me. It's an objectivity that I haven't yet come across in any other book of any genre, and I've read many. The reason I say so, is that this sentiment rises and ascends so high above the baser instinct of refusing to see the grey area, an instinct which commonly has a person prefer rather to comport themselves to the human-all-too-human sentiment of what Nietzsche called ressentiment. Northup never even expresses, at least not in the book, personal wishes that those slave-masters be thrown into eternal hellfire, even though he was a Christian and believed in such a place as hell and a final judgement for all. His resentment and hostility are so shockingly minimal after twelve years of the most horrific, torturous of hardships at their hands. He was a greater man than I; that's for goddamn sure. I'm not so naive, however, as to believe for one second that he didn't wish the fires of hell on a regular basis for his most heartless and tyrannical master of ten years, Edwin Epps, because, for the most part, as is to be expected:
They are deceived who flatter themselves that the ignorant and debased slave has no conception of the magnitude of his wrongs. They are deceived who imagine that he arises from his knees, with back lacerated and bleeding, cherishing only a spirit of meekness and forgiveness. A day may come—it will come, if his prayer is heard—a terrible day of vengeance when the master in his turn will cry in vain for mercy.—final words of Chapter 17
And, for the record, as amazing as Michael Fassbender was at playing Epps in the film version, the movie itself only scratches the surface of the man's ruthlessness, vindictiveness, madness and cruelty. You need to read the book to get the full picture. As for Northup, he always stuck out from the rest of the slaves with his many diverse abilities, his profound intelligence, and his skills. With his musical talent, he made extra money on the side and, from time to time, got out of the backbreaking work of the cotton fields and endless sugar-making industry, because people all around demanded he come play his fiddle for them on certain occasions. That instrument of his kept him much company through those gut-wrenchingly trying twelve years. In a way, it kept him alive. And, in the end, it could be known for all time that Solomon Northup was a man who used his stealth, wisdom and shrewd-mindedness to gain his beloved liberty, family and home once again.
It's funny: The last book I read before this, The Demon-Haunted World, by Carl Sagan, nearing the end of it, touches quite a bit on slavery (something I didn't realize before purchasing and reading it, yet was already planning on reading Twelve Years a Slave right after), so it was like it blended, as a precursor, right into it. To be sure, this autobiographical masterpiece of Northup's made me wonder what kind of slave I would have been myself, how long I could have possibly handled living in such inexorable, utterly despondent, wretched conditions of ceaseless torture, exhaustion, stress, fear and malnourishment day after day, and how long I would have even lasted—if I perhaps would have taken, or tried to take, my own life. But, more than that, it made me wonder what kind of master I would have been, if brought up that way in an upper-class southern family: the benevolent kind, like William Ford and others whom Northup spoke of with great reverence, or a monster like Edwin Epps. I'm glad I don't have to know the answer to either of those questions.
To me, Solomon Northup is the ascending type that Nietzsche wrote about extensively. He was a slave with the strength of will and profundity of a true Dionysian spirit—a 19th-century Spartacus, you might say (though without the revolt)—affirming his hellish twelve years with the writing of his prolific, profound and enlightening contribution to the world, Twelve Years a Slave, and by dedicating the remaining ten years of his life to using all he had experienced and learned to make all the difference he could within the realm of abolition. This man was a survivor, and he has allowed me to understand, better than I ever have or could on my own, how lucky I am to have freedom, and that no matter what life throws my way, I have no excuse to recoil in weakness and acquiescence, but rather to use all I have at my disposal along with the power of my inner strength to overcome and persevere. And for that, I'll always be thankful—to Solomon Northup.
My rating: five stars!
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Saturday, February 13, 2016
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (book review)
"The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir." - Page 29
I love Carl Sagan. The way he brought science, astronomy, history, skepticism, etc. to the common man in his acclaimed 1970s show, Cosmos, was so admirable. The Demon-Haunted World has been on my "to read" list for a long time now. It was originally published 20 years ago, in 1996, and then he died later on that year from cancer, so he didn't get to enjoy its success. He wrote it over a ten-year period, and that patient, careful, finely tuned aspect of it comes out quite evidently in the book, which I'm going to call a marvelous one. In it, he covers numerous topics that overlap each other in regard to the intriguing historical nature of people having the same tendency throughout history of letting their minds get carried away with them, for example, repeatedly, tenaciously and mistakenly searching the sky or their dreams for signs and beings that simply aren't there, be they gods, devils, angels or aliens coming to take them away and/or use them. So, with all the scholasticism of a great skeptic, scientist and historian, he covers matters such as the crop-circle hysteria, the age-old problem of confusing dreams with reality; he covers hallucinations, demons, visions of the Virgin Mary (and how, for hundreds of years, it's always been about the Church trying to influence politics to its liking and been a huge cash grab each and every single time) and the sheer, grand-scale brutality of the witch hunts; he tackles UFO sightings and abductions, hypnotism and government propaganda, giving examples of modern-day "witch hunts." He has a very well thought-out baloney-detection criteria that he lays out for the reader point for point, and he applies it to all sketchy matters that cry out to be debunked.
All the chapters meld into each other so fluidly, the end of one usually being a kind of precursor to the next. He was so brilliant. And his passion for the sciences is so refreshing. I love how he explains the closely nit nature between democracy and science, and how both are at the root of the philosophies and outlooks of the Founding Fathers of the United States, who truly were ingenious men (scientific men) with almost superhuman foresight. And he often uses previous chapters to bolster arguments in a given one and show how a present chapter ties into what was discussed much earlier on in the book. As is to be expected, it's all very erudite, rational, logical, and fueled by a zeal and wonder for life and the truth.
"Despite usage to the contrary, there is no necessary implication in the word 'spiritual' that we are talking of anything other than matter (including the matter of which the brain is made), or anything outside the realm of science. On occasion, I will feel free to use the word. Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or of acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both." - Pages 29-30
I learned so much from reading it about science, history and the things which have shaped our civilization and species. I love the section in Chapter 18 where he refutes the claim that the roots of science are in fact the religious (in particularly monotheistic) demand for the truth. Nonsense! It came from our ancestors' need to survive (namely by hunting) by analyzing and understanding the natural world around them:
"They scrutinized the shape of the depressions. The footprints of a fast-moving animal display a more elongated symmetry. A slightly lame animal favors the afflicted foot, puts less weight on it, and leaves a fainter imprint. A heavier animal leaves a deeper and broader hollow. The correlation functions are in the heads of the hunters.
In the course of the day, the footprints erode a little. The walls of the depressions tend to crumble. Windblown sand accumulates on the floor of the hollow. Perhaps bits of leaf, twigs, or grass are blown into it. The longer you wait, the more erosion there is.
The method is essentially identical to what planetary astronomers use in analyzing craters left by impacting worldlets: other things being equal, the shallower the crater, the older it is." - Page 313
Really fascinating stuff, in my opinion.
It's not only people who have a passion for truth and knowledge and people whose minds are darkened by their credulity for pseudoscience, propaganda and sensationalism who need to read this book, however. It's also a large number of people out there, many of whom actually dwell and thrive in academia, who think that science is just more faith-based religion, who need to read it as well. The relentlessly rigorous scrutiny for facts by experimentation and peer review that goes into scientific research simply does not exist in monotheism, polytheism, the New Age, etc., and it's in fact anathema to them. And non-scientists can know certain scientific discoveries to be factual if those discoveries have spawned actual innovation. For example, I may not understand the mathematical calculations of Thomas Edison, but I know they must be correct - because now we have the light bulb. And if his findings, in their raw form, were incorrect, we'd still have to be lighting candles in order to see. I may not understand the physics expressed in the equations of Sir Isaac Newton, but I know he must have been right, or planes, rockets, probes that have flown across our solar system and landed on meteors and comets, etc., wouldn't get off the ground - hell, wouldn't even exist. I don't know how Albert Einstein discovered E=MC2, but I know he must have been right, since now we have atomic power, and the latter could not exist without the former. I can't for the life of me understand quantum mechanics, but I know it's real and absurdly precise, given it can calculate the distance from New York City to Los Angeles within a hair's width!! Therefore, no faith is required to know any of those things to be accurate. In Chapter 23, entitled, Maxwell and The Nerds, Sagan discusses the immense, world-shaping discoveries and scientific contributions of James Clerk Maxwell. A lot of it is way over my head, but "[t]he now conventional understanding of the electromagnetic spectrum - running in wavelength from gamma rays to X rays to ultraviolet light to visible light to infrared light to radio waves - is due to Maxwell. So is radio, television, and radar" (386).
"The linking-up of the modern world economically, culturally, and politically by broadcast towers, microwave relays, and communication satellites traces directly back to Maxwell's judgement to include the displacement current in his vacuum equations. So does television, which imperfectly instructs and entertains us; radar, which may have been the decisive element in the Battle of Britain and in the Nazi defeat in World War II (which I like to think of as "Dafty," the boy who didn't fit in, reaching into the future and saving the descendants of his tormentors); the control and navigation of airplanes, ships and spacecraft; radio astronomy and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence; and significant aspects of the electrical power and microelectronics industries." - Pages 392-393
Arguably, the most important aspects of what Sagan has to say in this last and mighty tome of his, because he really did care about the world a lot, is his emphasis on the importance and intrinsically emancipatory nature of literacy and that the skepticism and scrutiny involved in science must be thoroughly taught (all over the world) within educational systems, so that people have a full grasp of it by the time they leave high school, and, more importantly, that they direct that rigorous, intellectual ability towards their politicians and justice system. That way, the people keep their governments from running amok by creating arbitrary laws that only serve themselves and subject the people, bringing them closer and closer to an Orwellian world with Big Brother in absolute power and control, and a history that is rewritten time and time again to suit him.
"Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being. If we're true to its values, it can tell us when we're being lied to." - Page 38
Anyway, I could go on and on talking about all the fascinating, eye-opening and extremely important things Sagan has to say, as I've only just scratched the surface here, but I'll do you a favour, and leave you with the joy of reading the rest all on your own.
My rating: five stars!
I love Carl Sagan. The way he brought science, astronomy, history, skepticism, etc. to the common man in his acclaimed 1970s show, Cosmos, was so admirable. The Demon-Haunted World has been on my "to read" list for a long time now. It was originally published 20 years ago, in 1996, and then he died later on that year from cancer, so he didn't get to enjoy its success. He wrote it over a ten-year period, and that patient, careful, finely tuned aspect of it comes out quite evidently in the book, which I'm going to call a marvelous one. In it, he covers numerous topics that overlap each other in regard to the intriguing historical nature of people having the same tendency throughout history of letting their minds get carried away with them, for example, repeatedly, tenaciously and mistakenly searching the sky or their dreams for signs and beings that simply aren't there, be they gods, devils, angels or aliens coming to take them away and/or use them. So, with all the scholasticism of a great skeptic, scientist and historian, he covers matters such as the crop-circle hysteria, the age-old problem of confusing dreams with reality; he covers hallucinations, demons, visions of the Virgin Mary (and how, for hundreds of years, it's always been about the Church trying to influence politics to its liking and been a huge cash grab each and every single time) and the sheer, grand-scale brutality of the witch hunts; he tackles UFO sightings and abductions, hypnotism and government propaganda, giving examples of modern-day "witch hunts." He has a very well thought-out baloney-detection criteria that he lays out for the reader point for point, and he applies it to all sketchy matters that cry out to be debunked.
All the chapters meld into each other so fluidly, the end of one usually being a kind of precursor to the next. He was so brilliant. And his passion for the sciences is so refreshing. I love how he explains the closely nit nature between democracy and science, and how both are at the root of the philosophies and outlooks of the Founding Fathers of the United States, who truly were ingenious men (scientific men) with almost superhuman foresight. And he often uses previous chapters to bolster arguments in a given one and show how a present chapter ties into what was discussed much earlier on in the book. As is to be expected, it's all very erudite, rational, logical, and fueled by a zeal and wonder for life and the truth.
"Despite usage to the contrary, there is no necessary implication in the word 'spiritual' that we are talking of anything other than matter (including the matter of which the brain is made), or anything outside the realm of science. On occasion, I will feel free to use the word. Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or of acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both." - Pages 29-30
I learned so much from reading it about science, history and the things which have shaped our civilization and species. I love the section in Chapter 18 where he refutes the claim that the roots of science are in fact the religious (in particularly monotheistic) demand for the truth. Nonsense! It came from our ancestors' need to survive (namely by hunting) by analyzing and understanding the natural world around them:
"They scrutinized the shape of the depressions. The footprints of a fast-moving animal display a more elongated symmetry. A slightly lame animal favors the afflicted foot, puts less weight on it, and leaves a fainter imprint. A heavier animal leaves a deeper and broader hollow. The correlation functions are in the heads of the hunters.
In the course of the day, the footprints erode a little. The walls of the depressions tend to crumble. Windblown sand accumulates on the floor of the hollow. Perhaps bits of leaf, twigs, or grass are blown into it. The longer you wait, the more erosion there is.
The method is essentially identical to what planetary astronomers use in analyzing craters left by impacting worldlets: other things being equal, the shallower the crater, the older it is." - Page 313
Really fascinating stuff, in my opinion.
It's not only people who have a passion for truth and knowledge and people whose minds are darkened by their credulity for pseudoscience, propaganda and sensationalism who need to read this book, however. It's also a large number of people out there, many of whom actually dwell and thrive in academia, who think that science is just more faith-based religion, who need to read it as well. The relentlessly rigorous scrutiny for facts by experimentation and peer review that goes into scientific research simply does not exist in monotheism, polytheism, the New Age, etc., and it's in fact anathema to them. And non-scientists can know certain scientific discoveries to be factual if those discoveries have spawned actual innovation. For example, I may not understand the mathematical calculations of Thomas Edison, but I know they must be correct - because now we have the light bulb. And if his findings, in their raw form, were incorrect, we'd still have to be lighting candles in order to see. I may not understand the physics expressed in the equations of Sir Isaac Newton, but I know he must have been right, or planes, rockets, probes that have flown across our solar system and landed on meteors and comets, etc., wouldn't get off the ground - hell, wouldn't even exist. I don't know how Albert Einstein discovered E=MC2, but I know he must have been right, since now we have atomic power, and the latter could not exist without the former. I can't for the life of me understand quantum mechanics, but I know it's real and absurdly precise, given it can calculate the distance from New York City to Los Angeles within a hair's width!! Therefore, no faith is required to know any of those things to be accurate. In Chapter 23, entitled, Maxwell and The Nerds, Sagan discusses the immense, world-shaping discoveries and scientific contributions of James Clerk Maxwell. A lot of it is way over my head, but "[t]he now conventional understanding of the electromagnetic spectrum - running in wavelength from gamma rays to X rays to ultraviolet light to visible light to infrared light to radio waves - is due to Maxwell. So is radio, television, and radar" (386).
"The linking-up of the modern world economically, culturally, and politically by broadcast towers, microwave relays, and communication satellites traces directly back to Maxwell's judgement to include the displacement current in his vacuum equations. So does television, which imperfectly instructs and entertains us; radar, which may have been the decisive element in the Battle of Britain and in the Nazi defeat in World War II (which I like to think of as "Dafty," the boy who didn't fit in, reaching into the future and saving the descendants of his tormentors); the control and navigation of airplanes, ships and spacecraft; radio astronomy and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence; and significant aspects of the electrical power and microelectronics industries." - Pages 392-393
Arguably, the most important aspects of what Sagan has to say in this last and mighty tome of his, because he really did care about the world a lot, is his emphasis on the importance and intrinsically emancipatory nature of literacy and that the skepticism and scrutiny involved in science must be thoroughly taught (all over the world) within educational systems, so that people have a full grasp of it by the time they leave high school, and, more importantly, that they direct that rigorous, intellectual ability towards their politicians and justice system. That way, the people keep their governments from running amok by creating arbitrary laws that only serve themselves and subject the people, bringing them closer and closer to an Orwellian world with Big Brother in absolute power and control, and a history that is rewritten time and time again to suit him.
"Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being. If we're true to its values, it can tell us when we're being lied to." - Page 38
Anyway, I could go on and on talking about all the fascinating, eye-opening and extremely important things Sagan has to say, as I've only just scratched the surface here, but I'll do you a favour, and leave you with the joy of reading the rest all on your own.
My rating: five stars!
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Animal Farm (Book Review)
So I finally got around to reading this iconic classic by George Orwell, and I really enjoyed it! It's a fun, witty political satire against Stalinism and I think totalitarianism in general. I loved 1984 when I read it back in May of 2009, so it was about time that I got around to reading this. It's a short novella, so you get through it quickly, especially since Orwell was such a great writer. He charmingly and brilliantly takes you through the following events and stages: The first speech that instills, within the minds of the animals, the idea of an uprising against their unjust master, the farmer, who keeps them in their miserable, short, slavish state that usually ends with them being either butchered, drowned, or something else terrible. Then there is the revolution, the sense of victory, the illusion of freedom and the implementation of the new "government" run by animals. Then come the inevitably polarized factions. It is a split between a pig named Snowball and a pig named Napoleon, the latter of whom just disagrees with the former about anything and everything, simply because it was Snowball who said it. After that, comes the wicked and unscrupulous means by which Napoleon violently scares off Snowball in the middle of an election and, by power of fear and sheer brute force, appoints himself as leader of the farm. After this, comes the Orwellian propaganda that is also presented to us in 1984, executed by a shrewd, double-talking pig named Squealer. The majority of the animals are depicted as being illiterate and too stupid to know what's going on, kind of like the dumbfounded masses of a nation in constant upheaval (or, some might say, pretty much like the mob in general all over the world, upheaval or not), and, in the end, they're all (except for the liars and swindlers running the show) worse off than they were when enslaved by a human being. Meet the new boss, WORSE than the old boss. The motto? Politicians are pigs, and the majority of people are as dumb as sheep.
My rating: five stars!
My rating: five stars!
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Newest Blog Interview
Here's a blog interview I did recently. I hadn’t done one in a while. I love doing these:
Here are the three previous ones I did:
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
My First Radio Interview, Baby!!
Check it out, everyone - my first ever live radio interview, promoting my books. The radio host, Stu Taylor, called me from Maine, USA, where his program is broadcast out of. It was so incredibly exhilarating to do! It was broadcast across 19 cities throughout the U.S. Please have a listen and let me know what you thought. My goal was to not sound like an ass. Some of it got cut off due to the connection, but I wrote out that part in the YouTube vlog description: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6OJYn9GhwI&feature=youtu.be
Please follow me at raymemichaels.tumblr.com and twitter.com/Rayme_Michaels, and please like my Facebook author page as well; it would mean a lot: https://www.facebook.com/Rayme-Michaels-1654482248109702
Please follow me at raymemichaels.tumblr.com and twitter.com/Rayme_Michaels, and please like my Facebook author page as well; it would mean a lot: https://www.facebook.com/Rayme-Michaels-1654482248109702
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Justine (book review)
"What strikes me as most surprising is that when it is simply a question of trivial things we are never astonished at the difference in tastes between one individual and another, but the moment these differences involve what is known as lust – behold, everything is in an uproar! Yet what an injustice!" – from Justine, by Marquis de Sade
So true . . .
You know the expression “no good deed goes unpunished”? That’s the point that’s driven home again and again throughout Justine to the point of beating a dead horse. It’s the first book of Marquis de Sade’s that I read. It was written over a two-week period in 1787 while he was imprisoned (most of his writings were done while in prison) but not published till 1791. Then Napoleon read it, was aghast by it, and had the Marquis thrown back in jail for it. Pretty lame move on his part.
The book is, no doubt, brutal in its perversity and sadism, as is to be expected from de Sade, of course, the word sadism deriving from his name. It really does make one cringe. But one thing I really didn’t like about it, and which made it hard to read at times due to redundancy, was the unrealistic and repetitive way the characters would go on these long spiels, justifying their wicked, pernicious actions, as if reciting an essay off by heart or something. The Marquis uses rationality on the side of his evil-doers to justify his ideal society of unbridled hedonism and nihilistic anarchy. And that’s cool and really different at first – even refreshing – but it reaches a point where you sigh and think to yourself, “All right, de Sade . . . I get it, dude: being a prick gets you everywhere, and being a goody-goody screws you over. Get on with it already! Enough with the monologues.”
But the words flow and are lyrical. And I like that. Sometimes I couldn’t help but chuckle at the way his incorrigible, malevolent characters would absolutely mock the hell out of virtue and living a virtuous life, while also dealing with the psychological matters of remorse and having a bad conscience. He didn’t just push at the idealistic boundaries of what was mainstream education, social propriety and puritanical thinking, this iconoclast, no – he consciously treaded all over them, leaving his black, muddy foot marks all over the place, until the boundaries simply didn’t exist anymore, and then juggled and toyed with people’s notions of what is deemed “moral” and “immoral,” arguing that such things are based solely on caprice and the whims of man. Oh, yeah, the untimely, pre-Nietzschean element is so glaringly obvious:
"But when anatomy and physiology are really perfected, it will be clearly demonstrated that all morality is essentially physical. What will become then of your laws, ethics, religion, gibbets, paradise, God, and hell – when it is proved that a particular organisation of the nerves, a peculiar reaction in the body, a certain degree of acridity in the blood, makes a man what he is, for better or for worse?" – from Justine
“The slave preaches the virtues of kindness and humility to his master because as a slave he has need of them; but the master, better guided by nature and his passions, has no need to devote himself to anything excepting those things which serve or please him.” – from Justine
Couldn’t have said it better myself. At any rate, I don’t know if I’ll ever read anything else of de Sade’s again; there’s a lot out there for me to get to, and I wasn’t that impressed by it, but time will tell. I’m glad I finally read Justine, though, as it is downright diabolical (especially the section in the monastery – yikes!), its influence has been great, it has had a vast contribution, and it posits and argues for many sentiments which I have argued for in my own books as well:
"Delicacy, for instance, may go hand in hand with love and romance; but love and sexual pleasure are not necessarily the same thing - they frequently, in fact, represent two entirely different attitudes. People daily love each other without enjoying, and enjoy each other without love." – from Justine
You're damn right they do. Somebody had to say it!
“Repentance is an emotion one only feels for actions to which one is unaccustomed. If you repeat frequently enough those things which bring you remorse, you will finally extinguish it. Oppose it with the torch of the passions, with the powerful laws of self-interest – then it will quickly disappear. Remorse does not prove anything to be a crime. It merely indicates an easily subjugated soul.” – from Justine
I agree with that too, but I think that that applies to a lot of things that we are accustomed to as well. And I think the Marquis goes too far in his anything-goes philosophy, where true happiness raining down upon the world can only be achieved through complete incivility and not giving a damn about anyone but yourself without any restraint on the passions whatsoever, and that’s what prevents his philosophy from truly resonating with me: It’s not epicurean, and it’s idealistic in itself, just to a completely opposite extreme than that of the idealism of Platonism and Christianity and the spin-offs of them that we’re used to. But let's finish off this critique with some awesomeness and then some unintentional hilarity within the book:
“I believe that if there were a God there would be less evil on this earth. I also believe that if evil exists in our world then its disorders are necessitated by this God, or it is beyond his power to prevent them. But I can’t be at all frightened of a God who is either weak or wicked. I defy him without any fear and laugh at his thunderings.” – from Justine
Hear, hear! Amen to that!
"And if he did not entirely consummate his crime, at least he covered me with such revolting stains that it was impossible for me to doubt his abominable designs." – from Justine
LOL! What does that even mean? In reading that part and knowing all he had done to her in the past and what he'd just done to her at that moment, it's even more befuddling.
So true . . .
You know the expression “no good deed goes unpunished”? That’s the point that’s driven home again and again throughout Justine to the point of beating a dead horse. It’s the first book of Marquis de Sade’s that I read. It was written over a two-week period in 1787 while he was imprisoned (most of his writings were done while in prison) but not published till 1791. Then Napoleon read it, was aghast by it, and had the Marquis thrown back in jail for it. Pretty lame move on his part.
The book is, no doubt, brutal in its perversity and sadism, as is to be expected from de Sade, of course, the word sadism deriving from his name. It really does make one cringe. But one thing I really didn’t like about it, and which made it hard to read at times due to redundancy, was the unrealistic and repetitive way the characters would go on these long spiels, justifying their wicked, pernicious actions, as if reciting an essay off by heart or something. The Marquis uses rationality on the side of his evil-doers to justify his ideal society of unbridled hedonism and nihilistic anarchy. And that’s cool and really different at first – even refreshing – but it reaches a point where you sigh and think to yourself, “All right, de Sade . . . I get it, dude: being a prick gets you everywhere, and being a goody-goody screws you over. Get on with it already! Enough with the monologues.”
But the words flow and are lyrical. And I like that. Sometimes I couldn’t help but chuckle at the way his incorrigible, malevolent characters would absolutely mock the hell out of virtue and living a virtuous life, while also dealing with the psychological matters of remorse and having a bad conscience. He didn’t just push at the idealistic boundaries of what was mainstream education, social propriety and puritanical thinking, this iconoclast, no – he consciously treaded all over them, leaving his black, muddy foot marks all over the place, until the boundaries simply didn’t exist anymore, and then juggled and toyed with people’s notions of what is deemed “moral” and “immoral,” arguing that such things are based solely on caprice and the whims of man. Oh, yeah, the untimely, pre-Nietzschean element is so glaringly obvious:
"But when anatomy and physiology are really perfected, it will be clearly demonstrated that all morality is essentially physical. What will become then of your laws, ethics, religion, gibbets, paradise, God, and hell – when it is proved that a particular organisation of the nerves, a peculiar reaction in the body, a certain degree of acridity in the blood, makes a man what he is, for better or for worse?" – from Justine
“The slave preaches the virtues of kindness and humility to his master because as a slave he has need of them; but the master, better guided by nature and his passions, has no need to devote himself to anything excepting those things which serve or please him.” – from Justine
Couldn’t have said it better myself. At any rate, I don’t know if I’ll ever read anything else of de Sade’s again; there’s a lot out there for me to get to, and I wasn’t that impressed by it, but time will tell. I’m glad I finally read Justine, though, as it is downright diabolical (especially the section in the monastery – yikes!), its influence has been great, it has had a vast contribution, and it posits and argues for many sentiments which I have argued for in my own books as well:
"Delicacy, for instance, may go hand in hand with love and romance; but love and sexual pleasure are not necessarily the same thing - they frequently, in fact, represent two entirely different attitudes. People daily love each other without enjoying, and enjoy each other without love." – from Justine
You're damn right they do. Somebody had to say it!
“Repentance is an emotion one only feels for actions to which one is unaccustomed. If you repeat frequently enough those things which bring you remorse, you will finally extinguish it. Oppose it with the torch of the passions, with the powerful laws of self-interest – then it will quickly disappear. Remorse does not prove anything to be a crime. It merely indicates an easily subjugated soul.” – from Justine
I agree with that too, but I think that that applies to a lot of things that we are accustomed to as well. And I think the Marquis goes too far in his anything-goes philosophy, where true happiness raining down upon the world can only be achieved through complete incivility and not giving a damn about anyone but yourself without any restraint on the passions whatsoever, and that’s what prevents his philosophy from truly resonating with me: It’s not epicurean, and it’s idealistic in itself, just to a completely opposite extreme than that of the idealism of Platonism and Christianity and the spin-offs of them that we’re used to. But let's finish off this critique with some awesomeness and then some unintentional hilarity within the book:
“I believe that if there were a God there would be less evil on this earth. I also believe that if evil exists in our world then its disorders are necessitated by this God, or it is beyond his power to prevent them. But I can’t be at all frightened of a God who is either weak or wicked. I defy him without any fear and laugh at his thunderings.” – from Justine
Hear, hear! Amen to that!
"And if he did not entirely consummate his crime, at least he covered me with such revolting stains that it was impossible for me to doubt his abominable designs." – from Justine
LOL! What does that even mean? In reading that part and knowing all he had done to her in the past and what he'd just done to her at that moment, it's even more befuddling.
Friday, July 3, 2015
Well Done, America - but It's about Damn Time
I wasn't going to write a blog about the long-overdue decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, mainly because I'm Canadian and gay marriage was already legalized in Ontario (where I'm from) back in 2003 and across Canada in 2005, not to mention that Spain did the same thing that very same year, along with a shit-ton of other countries around the world over the years, Holland doing it back in 2000! Hell, even Ireland legalized it this year, and it's going into effect in the fall! So, yeah, it's nice to see America joining the rest of the world in progress. Due to the religious fanaticism and backwardness of much of American politics, I often thought it's something that would never happen in my lifetime. I thought the same thing about Ireland. I was wrong. I'm so goddamn happy I was wrong, you have no idea.
Now, given I don't believe in marriage and find the notion completely absurd, I could never figure out why people, straight or gay, are in such a rush to get married at all. But that's their business. My concern is equal rights for all despite of colour, creed or sexual orientation, and all the hate and bile that’s been pussing out of the mouths and minds of religious conservatives has compelled me to write this blog.
The antagonism towards the decision is, of course, mainly being spewed out by conservative Christians, mainly by evangelicals and Catholics and, strangely but not surprisingly, not only those who live in America or who are American. I'm really stunned by the outrage I've seen by some Canadian Catholics about this decision after 12 years of not hearing a peep from anyone about its legalization by the Supreme Court of Ontario followed by its full-on legalization across Canada two years later. What's with all the incredulity, indignation and concern with America, after much slogging, suddenly and finally doing it, when your country, and countries all over the world, already did it years ago?! In fact, what's with the concern at all? If you don't believe in gay marriage, that's fine; all you have to do is not marry someone of your sex - simple as that! And nobody is forcing religious leaders to marry a gay couple. They can choose to do that or not to by their own accord, and eveyrbody knows that! Straight people can still get married and have kids, and have continued to do so in all the other countries that went about legalizing gay marriage a long time ago, so it doesn't affect you, puritans! So why not just leave the gays alone to have their constitutional rights? It's just a stupid certificate, and they want one in order to share in all the rights and joy that straight people can have when they are permitted to marry someone whom they love. Enough hate-mongering! Enough descrimination!
What's really annoying and obnoxious is that most of the arguments and rhetoric against the ruling are Bible based! THAT'S RIDICULOUS! THERE'S A SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE! DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT?! Is that what this is about? Are you just seething inside because the entire world isn't under Church rule like Europe once was for over 1,000 years? Yeah, because that worked so well, didn't it – with those good old Dark Ages and everything?
You can't dictate government laws in accordance with what the Bible deems to be "sin." Masturbation and fornication are sins, according to the Bible. Should masturbation and fornication be illegal? Keeping holy the Lord's day is mandated in the Bible. Hell, it's one of the Ten Commandments! In the Old Testament (Exodus 31:14), it was commanded by your god of love that breaking that law was to be punished by death! That sounds pretty serious to me. Should it be illegal not to go to church on the weekend, then?! Perhaps we should be stoned to death for it like homosexuals (Leviticus 20:13), disobedient sons (Deuteronomy 21) and girls who weren't virgins on their wedding night (Deuteronomy 22) were to be! Don't be ridiculous.
And how can you use the Bible to pontificate that marriage is solely to be between one man and one woman, when the Old Testament sanctifies polygamy?! Wise King Solomon, for example, a man who supposedly wrote the book of Proverbs, had 700 wives and 300 concubines! Don't you care what your own holy book teaches?! In Exodus 21:7-9, God regulates the selling of daughters as sex slaves! What about these famous words of Moses (a man who never even existed) to his Israelite army?
"Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." – Numbers 31:17-18
How nice! Or how about this?
“A day of the LORD is coming, Jerusalem, when your possessions will be plundered and divided up within your very walls. I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city.” – Zechariah 14:1-2
Yay, let’s worship the god of RAPE!!!
But then there's another argument – that of the rearing of children. So apparently, what I'm getting from much of the fanatical hubbub, is that fundamentalist Christians would rather a child be in an orphanage forever, instead of in a loving home being raised by two parents who adore him/her, if those two parents happen to be of the same sex. No, that's not bigotry at all!! (That last line is sarcasm, by the way.) Here, watch this incredibly eloquent presentation given by this fine, elegant young man about how he was raised by two lesbians in a loving household, and then tell me that two loving homosexuals can’t raise a son or daughter properly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMLZO-sObzQ
I can't imagine how there can still be an argument after watching something like that. But people don't think properly when religion is infecting and infesting their brains. I mean, does the Catholic Church really want to lecture us on sexual morality? REALLY?! Ever hear of people living in glass houses not throwing stones? Why not take care of that sex scandal that's rocked your organization, not only for the past few decades, but since the first goddamn century?! Yeah! Child-molestation and -rape have taken place in the Church at the hands of its religious leaders for nearly two thousand years now, which is why it's condemned in the Didache – because it was actually happening! And how about finally putting a stop to the Vatican no longer giving sanctuary to pedophilic priests, which is purposeful, methodical interference with justice, done so that these filthy child-molesting, child-raping animals don't get the jail time they deserve?! And how about doing something about the Church's tactic of moving around a priestly child-molester from parish to parish every time the priest’s detestable child-abusing actions begin to surface?! How about speaking out against this army of pederasts and pedophiles that your Church has created and protected for hundreds of years?! Where do you see love in any of this?
You think it's love that permeates the Bible? Here are more delightful verses for you to chew on – verses you never hear about in Sunday school:
‘Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the LORD sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the LORD. This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”’ – 1 Samuel 15:1-3
“Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.” – Psalm 137:9
“The people of Samaria must bear their guilt,
because they have rebelled against their God.
They will fall by the sword;
their little ones will be dashed to the ground,
their pregnant women ripped open.” – Hosea 13:16
Ya, real pro-life! How can someone even write something like that? Wait, it gets better! This next one’s got it all: stabbing innocents, smashing babies to pieces, ransacking homes, raping people’s wives, killing young men and showing no mercy whatsoever on infants and children:
“Whoever is captured will be thrust through;
all who are caught will fall by the sword.
Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes;
their houses will be looted and their wives violated.
See, I will stir up against them the Medes,
who do not care for silver
and have no delight in gold.
Their bows will strike down the young men;
they will have no mercy on infants,
nor will they look with compassion on children.” – Isaiah 13:15-18
You think things can’t get any worse? Please! This is the Bible we’re talking about. Now hold on to your seat:
“Because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you. Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities. The most gentle and sensitive woman among you—so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot—will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For in her dire need she intends to eat them secretly because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of your cities.” – Deuteronomy 28:53-57
Stephen King doesn’t write this shit!!
“I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh because their enemies will press the siege so hard against them to destroy them.” – Jeremiah 19:9
Wow, thank fucking God I’m an atheist. Hey, what’s a god of love, justice and mercy doing making people eat each other and their children, by the way? I’ve been asking this for years now, and no one can seem to give me an answer. I wonder why. Well, at least he's honest:
"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." - Isaiah 45:7
I love that verse. And now for some loving words of Christ:
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” – Luke 14:26
Ya, ya, ya, that’s just the writer of the Gospel of Luke saying, “Hate everyone and everything except for the god we’re planning on ruling through.” No, thanks, Jesus . . . I’d rather LOVE those who are dear to me.
*sigh* I really wish everyone would just read the Bible. If they did, atheism would reign upon the earth, as it rightfully should, and the minds of men and women would be free at last. Aside from all the execrable foulness, brutalities and evils propagated and ordered by its deity, the Bible is filled with hundreds of contradictions, absurdities and historical discrepancies. Here, go count them all; some aren't even listed in all this, but it'll more than do to get the point across and give you much jolly laughter and eye-opening good times: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/
Anyway, congratulations to the gay community of the United States! After ages of struggle and tribulation, you stood your ground through thick and thin and finally got what you should have gotten a long time ago: to be able to express your love for someone in matrimony with all the legal rights that come with that sanctification. It’s about damn time. And I say this as a heterosexual man – and I mean this from the bottom of my heart – I love you, I love, I love you all so fucking much! My heart could explode with the love and admiration I have for you! I think you’re amazing and are a true inspiration to the world! Maybe straight couples will learn from y’all how a marriage ought to be, since, well, let’s face it, heteros haven’t seemed to have had much skill in that department. Even when they manage not to get a divorce, our society is rampant with people who are far from well-adjusted, all thanks to their mom-and-dad unit of an upbringing. But let’s not go there today. Volumes have been written on that, and that’s not what this blog was intended for.
Now, given I don't believe in marriage and find the notion completely absurd, I could never figure out why people, straight or gay, are in such a rush to get married at all. But that's their business. My concern is equal rights for all despite of colour, creed or sexual orientation, and all the hate and bile that’s been pussing out of the mouths and minds of religious conservatives has compelled me to write this blog.
The antagonism towards the decision is, of course, mainly being spewed out by conservative Christians, mainly by evangelicals and Catholics and, strangely but not surprisingly, not only those who live in America or who are American. I'm really stunned by the outrage I've seen by some Canadian Catholics about this decision after 12 years of not hearing a peep from anyone about its legalization by the Supreme Court of Ontario followed by its full-on legalization across Canada two years later. What's with all the incredulity, indignation and concern with America, after much slogging, suddenly and finally doing it, when your country, and countries all over the world, already did it years ago?! In fact, what's with the concern at all? If you don't believe in gay marriage, that's fine; all you have to do is not marry someone of your sex - simple as that! And nobody is forcing religious leaders to marry a gay couple. They can choose to do that or not to by their own accord, and eveyrbody knows that! Straight people can still get married and have kids, and have continued to do so in all the other countries that went about legalizing gay marriage a long time ago, so it doesn't affect you, puritans! So why not just leave the gays alone to have their constitutional rights? It's just a stupid certificate, and they want one in order to share in all the rights and joy that straight people can have when they are permitted to marry someone whom they love. Enough hate-mongering! Enough descrimination!
What's really annoying and obnoxious is that most of the arguments and rhetoric against the ruling are Bible based! THAT'S RIDICULOUS! THERE'S A SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE! DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT?! Is that what this is about? Are you just seething inside because the entire world isn't under Church rule like Europe once was for over 1,000 years? Yeah, because that worked so well, didn't it – with those good old Dark Ages and everything?
You can't dictate government laws in accordance with what the Bible deems to be "sin." Masturbation and fornication are sins, according to the Bible. Should masturbation and fornication be illegal? Keeping holy the Lord's day is mandated in the Bible. Hell, it's one of the Ten Commandments! In the Old Testament (Exodus 31:14), it was commanded by your god of love that breaking that law was to be punished by death! That sounds pretty serious to me. Should it be illegal not to go to church on the weekend, then?! Perhaps we should be stoned to death for it like homosexuals (Leviticus 20:13), disobedient sons (Deuteronomy 21) and girls who weren't virgins on their wedding night (Deuteronomy 22) were to be! Don't be ridiculous.
And how can you use the Bible to pontificate that marriage is solely to be between one man and one woman, when the Old Testament sanctifies polygamy?! Wise King Solomon, for example, a man who supposedly wrote the book of Proverbs, had 700 wives and 300 concubines! Don't you care what your own holy book teaches?! In Exodus 21:7-9, God regulates the selling of daughters as sex slaves! What about these famous words of Moses (a man who never even existed) to his Israelite army?
"Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." – Numbers 31:17-18
How nice! Or how about this?
“A day of the LORD is coming, Jerusalem, when your possessions will be plundered and divided up within your very walls. I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city.” – Zechariah 14:1-2
Yay, let’s worship the god of RAPE!!!
But then there's another argument – that of the rearing of children. So apparently, what I'm getting from much of the fanatical hubbub, is that fundamentalist Christians would rather a child be in an orphanage forever, instead of in a loving home being raised by two parents who adore him/her, if those two parents happen to be of the same sex. No, that's not bigotry at all!! (That last line is sarcasm, by the way.) Here, watch this incredibly eloquent presentation given by this fine, elegant young man about how he was raised by two lesbians in a loving household, and then tell me that two loving homosexuals can’t raise a son or daughter properly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMLZO-sObzQ
I can't imagine how there can still be an argument after watching something like that. But people don't think properly when religion is infecting and infesting their brains. I mean, does the Catholic Church really want to lecture us on sexual morality? REALLY?! Ever hear of people living in glass houses not throwing stones? Why not take care of that sex scandal that's rocked your organization, not only for the past few decades, but since the first goddamn century?! Yeah! Child-molestation and -rape have taken place in the Church at the hands of its religious leaders for nearly two thousand years now, which is why it's condemned in the Didache – because it was actually happening! And how about finally putting a stop to the Vatican no longer giving sanctuary to pedophilic priests, which is purposeful, methodical interference with justice, done so that these filthy child-molesting, child-raping animals don't get the jail time they deserve?! And how about doing something about the Church's tactic of moving around a priestly child-molester from parish to parish every time the priest’s detestable child-abusing actions begin to surface?! How about speaking out against this army of pederasts and pedophiles that your Church has created and protected for hundreds of years?! Where do you see love in any of this?
You think it's love that permeates the Bible? Here are more delightful verses for you to chew on – verses you never hear about in Sunday school:
‘Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the LORD sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the LORD. This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”’ – 1 Samuel 15:1-3
“Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.” – Psalm 137:9
“The people of Samaria must bear their guilt,
because they have rebelled against their God.
They will fall by the sword;
their little ones will be dashed to the ground,
their pregnant women ripped open.” – Hosea 13:16
Ya, real pro-life! How can someone even write something like that? Wait, it gets better! This next one’s got it all: stabbing innocents, smashing babies to pieces, ransacking homes, raping people’s wives, killing young men and showing no mercy whatsoever on infants and children:
“Whoever is captured will be thrust through;
all who are caught will fall by the sword.
Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes;
their houses will be looted and their wives violated.
See, I will stir up against them the Medes,
who do not care for silver
and have no delight in gold.
Their bows will strike down the young men;
they will have no mercy on infants,
nor will they look with compassion on children.” – Isaiah 13:15-18
You think things can’t get any worse? Please! This is the Bible we’re talking about. Now hold on to your seat:
“Because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you. Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities. The most gentle and sensitive woman among you—so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot—will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For in her dire need she intends to eat them secretly because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of your cities.” – Deuteronomy 28:53-57
Stephen King doesn’t write this shit!!
“I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh because their enemies will press the siege so hard against them to destroy them.” – Jeremiah 19:9
Wow, thank fucking God I’m an atheist. Hey, what’s a god of love, justice and mercy doing making people eat each other and their children, by the way? I’ve been asking this for years now, and no one can seem to give me an answer. I wonder why. Well, at least he's honest:
"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." - Isaiah 45:7
I love that verse. And now for some loving words of Christ:
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” – Luke 14:26
Ya, ya, ya, that’s just the writer of the Gospel of Luke saying, “Hate everyone and everything except for the god we’re planning on ruling through.” No, thanks, Jesus . . . I’d rather LOVE those who are dear to me.
*sigh* I really wish everyone would just read the Bible. If they did, atheism would reign upon the earth, as it rightfully should, and the minds of men and women would be free at last. Aside from all the execrable foulness, brutalities and evils propagated and ordered by its deity, the Bible is filled with hundreds of contradictions, absurdities and historical discrepancies. Here, go count them all; some aren't even listed in all this, but it'll more than do to get the point across and give you much jolly laughter and eye-opening good times: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/
Anyway, congratulations to the gay community of the United States! After ages of struggle and tribulation, you stood your ground through thick and thin and finally got what you should have gotten a long time ago: to be able to express your love for someone in matrimony with all the legal rights that come with that sanctification. It’s about damn time. And I say this as a heterosexual man – and I mean this from the bottom of my heart – I love you, I love, I love you all so fucking much! My heart could explode with the love and admiration I have for you! I think you’re amazing and are a true inspiration to the world! Maybe straight couples will learn from y’all how a marriage ought to be, since, well, let’s face it, heteros haven’t seemed to have had much skill in that department. Even when they manage not to get a divorce, our society is rampant with people who are far from well-adjusted, all thanks to their mom-and-dad unit of an upbringing. But let’s not go there today. Volumes have been written on that, and that’s not what this blog was intended for.
Peace and love, everybody. And I truly mean LOVE in the fullest sense, not the merely tainted use of the word “love,” used to mask and justify homophobia, bigotry and wanting to take people’s basic rights away, be it in America or anywhere else. Religiosity is mental warfare and an attack on personal freedom. That's all it is. And for those of you still clinging onto your nonsensical, ego-centered, old-fashioned ways of what your religion dictates a marriage ought to be, I'm gonna tell you what William Shatner told hardcore Trekkies on SNL back in ’86 – “GET A LIFE!!” And stop telling others how to live theirs. This is progressive history in the making that you're witnessing, if you'd just take off the blinders to see it. You should be in awe right now, not in turmoil. There's no going back. Make no mistake about that. The Dark Ages shall NEVER return—not if we secularists and freethinkers can help it. Mankind moves forward, not backward. It's called inevitability. You're on the progress train, baby. So get your head out of your ass, and enjoy the ride.
Cheers.
Cheers.
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