#am i critical of christianity? absolutely. do i think we need to get rid of it? absolutely not

[citrineghost]

Humans Are Historically Known for Being Terrible

Hi I’m here with an opinion today. Let’s see how many words it will take for me to adequately get it across on this very fine 15th of January

I personally believe canceling things from the past* is fruitless, pointless, and accomplishes about as much as censorship does

*We aren’t talking about shit like nazi Germany, let me elaborate further

So, as I occasionally do, I have seen a post on my dash today criticizing something historical that people are ‘problematically partaking in.’ That thing today was the wellerman sea shanty due to its ties with colonialism, slavery, and so forth. 

I’m not going to dive into this specific example, because I don’t know enough of the details and am not interested in going to find them out because I’m not planning to defend it or its history, so there’s no point. I learned what I needed to know from said callout post and it’s enough to work with.

To me, it is important that we remember that people, in general, have been historically pretty terrible.

There’s colonialism, there’s slavery (of all kinds, including chattel), there’s thievery, murder, genocide, sexism, the murdering of queers. There’s lying, manipulation, propaganda, and so many more things that I couldn’t possibly list them all. I’m not saying that everyone was equally shitty. I am aware that, especially in the most recent couple hundred years, white people, especially Western Europeans and Americans, have been pretty Shite.

Am I excusing them for their actions? Absolutely not. I think it is always important to bear in mind the way they played a part in cultures’ growth, death, and, ultimately, development from one year to the next.

The reason I’m pointing this out is because the result of people being historically shitty is that most, if not all, of our historical content, our history, is steeped in horse manure. 

There is not one thing you can enjoy from centuries - even decades - passed that is not here because of something inhumane, unjust, or otherwise terrible.

The only thing keeping us from canceling every other historical thing that we enjoy is our lack of awareness of how each thing ties into the whole mess.

So, we’ve learned that wellerman was sung by slavers and thieves and colonialists. What about that nice little folk song from uh, idk, Ireland or something? Let’s take this metaphorical song and ask the question, “who wrote it?” The truth is, for many folk songs, we just don’t know. There is a very very good chance that 90+ percent of nice, soft folk songs about lying in the grass or feeding chickens or baking bread for your spouse were written by racists, sexists, abusers, homophobes, and so forth.

Does that make it wrong to enjoy that song about lying in the grass and looking at the stars? I don’t think so. No one is profiting off of you listening to it, regardless of who wrote it. It’s hundreds of years old. Do you even know the name of who wrote it?

Remembering that times were different may not absolve something of its wrongdoing, but it does provide us context.

We have to allow ourselves to admit that most, if not all, historical things, came from or benefitted from atrocities or injustices that we would not stand for today. That’s just how human progression works. Frankly, if people 200 years from now don’t look at US, CURRENTLY, and think we’re terrible assholes, I am actually very concerned by that. 

The nature of humanity is to get better and better over time and to build a world and a society where we don’t feel the need to be controlled by greed or to consume unethically. The problem is, it takes time. It takes lots and lots of time. Would it take less time if certain people weren’t terrible, terrible people? Yes it would. But they are, and so it doesn’t.

The fact is, human progression and improvement will never reach its end because, as things improve, our perception of our past actions will change as well and we will begin to realize that what we were doing wasn’t acceptable and is no longer necessary nor excusable. 

Hate Jeff Bezos? Look around and see that 90% of people still buy from Amazon, because it provides the only affordable source of many products for people who don’t make enough money under capitalism to buy from a small business.

Hate Bill Gates? How many of us are willing to switch to Linux to quit using Microsoft? Speaking of Microsoft, they own Minecraft. Do we stop playing Minecraft?

Think Steve Jobs is a terrible person? Why are people still buying iphones, ipads, and macs? Why don’t we stop buying those so that he and current CEO, Tim Cook, quit making billions of dollars?

These are just a tiny amount of examples, using big names. We also must consider, if you have 100 books on your bookshelf, how many of the writers of those books are racists, homophobes, sexists, or abusers? I guarantee you it’s a non-zero answer. The thing is, an author who’s relatively nobody is not someone who gets canceled. No one knows anything about them but that they wrote a neat work of fiction and it’s a good book.

The question is, should we be expected to quit buying, consuming, and enjoying things made by problematic people?

In some cases, the answer should be yes. If someone is currently profiting massively from people consuming their media or products and people are ignoring their atrocities, that person could end u making millions or billions of dollars despite being terrible, which is something that undoubtedly affects all of us, economically.

In the other cases, the answer should be, do you want to? If you’re not comfortable with something, you should, of course, stop consuming it. If you can ignore the thing, you might not need to bother. And, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re excusing it.

If we look at all of humanity, even in the present day, mathematically speaking, 50% of people are more bigoted and terrible than the rest. There’s no other way for it to be. Less than 50% would be a mathematical fallacy. Does that mean we only consume content from the better 50%? Does that mean we rigorously research producers and creators and their personal lives only to decide it’s not worth the risk of ‘contributing’ because they have no trace online except for a private Facebook account? Is them having a Facebook account enough of a ‘sin’ that it’s not worth it to buy their book?

This brings us to the censorship point

If you know your history, you know that censorship is a nasty thing. When one person decides who or what is unethical to consume from, they sometimes seek to get rid of that thing so that no one has a choice - so that no one is Allowed to consume that thing.

This has led to book burning, the destroying of decades and centuries of research about sexuality and gender. It’s destroyed religious texts. It’s destroyed content created by women that painted any single man in a bad light. It’s destroyed progression.

“But I only want to get rid of the bad thing that everyone agrees is bad!”

It doesn’t matter. If you open the door to censorship for yourself, those who wish to use it for worse reasons will become just as justified, in their own eyes, to do the same. You’ll have Christians saying it’s okay to get rid of gay content because it’s objectively wrong according to the bible. You’ll have conservative parents burning books with complicated topics like abuse and assault because they don’t want their children to have access to anything controversial or complex like that.

You cannot open the door to censorship for one group without opening that door for everyone. And that is why we do not censor things.

The question then becomes, but what of the people consuming that media? Even if it’s not censored, consuming it still makes someone bad, right? 

Not necessarily. People consume problematic stuff all the time - things considered objectively bad. However, people don’t always consume said media because they support it being normalized in the real world. For example, fanfiction or books with rape in them may be something a victim reads to cope with their own past or present. A book with abuse depicted may actually make a young teen aware that what they’re going through is abuse. Content largely seen as ‘problematic’ can often play a part in solving the problem it portrays.

Then there’s historical, problematic media. Now, this is an area where I feel things have actually been OVER complicated.

Because everything historical has some tie to injustice, there is no ethical way to consume it. 

There is no ethical consumption under passed time.

So, how do we judge whether something should or shouldn’t be consumed? It is my opinion that something historical should stop being consumed and become shunned when its meaning is well-known enough and its message is still pervasive enough that it is actively causing problems.

For example, we generally try not to consume content when it is made by someone who is a known nazi. This is because nazis are still a problem in our society, presently. We have antisemitism all over the place. Therefore, we cannot let the message become that it is okay to be a nazi by way of us treating nazis like normal people and allowing them to succeed in society without consequence.

However, there are certain problems that are no longer particularly prevalent or which are agreed to be terrible on a large enough scale that consuming the content does not necessarily imply you believe it is okay. For example, if you look at literally any media from the 1800s or which is placed in the 1800s, you will see a lot of casual sexism and gender roles. Should we despise that time period because sexism was readily available at every turn? Should we refuse to enjoy 19th century fashion or culture because it had problems? I think not. I think it would be pointless to refuse to consume, read about, or otherwise engage with the 19th century. It wouldn’t change the past and it isn’t going to somehow undo the progress we’ve made on women’s rights. 

As a matter of fact, if someone merely suggested that perhaps the people of the 19th century were right for forcing women to wear long dresses and darn socks all day, they would be laughed into oblivion and called a shitty, sexist incel (which would be correct).

Does enjoying media from or placed in the 19th century mean you support sexism? I certainly hope not, since I enjoy it very much and know a lot of progressive people, women especially, who do enjoy that kind of thing. It is common sense enough, at this point in time, that people don’t generally believe that the sexism of the 1800s was acceptable. I am not going to see someone watching a period drama and assume they desire for our present-day social laws to be like what’s portrayed. That would be a ridiculous assumption. However, I could not assume the same about someone I saw watching openly antisemitic content. I would quickly wonder if they’re an antisemite/nazi/white supremacist.

So, what about that one thing I heard had a sordid past?

Listen, if we’re being honest here, most things from history have a sordid past. Sea shanties? You bet. But then when we talk of sea shanties being steeped in colonialism, we have to look at the bigger picture. What about pirates? Pirates were, by and large, a huge contributor to slavery, theft, colonialism, and murder. Does that mean enjoying media with pirates is glorifying or contributing to slavery, theft, colonialism, and murder?

(I’m about to talk a lot about pirates but this can be applied to anything that was historically bad but is no longer prevalent)

Pirates of the Caribbean is only a movie, but pirates did once exist and they did kill people. They did raid ships of merchants and tradesmen and they killed them and stole their goods. They took many good men from their families and even killed working children aboard the ships. Does that make enjoying pirates in media a contributor to these things? No. It doesn’t. We are looking at a dramatised, cleaned up version of the original piracy. I think most people are aware that pirates, in the real world, are bad and harmful and should not be supported. That doesn’t make pirate media any less fun in theory, and under our own terms.

Then we arrive at our perception - because most of this does come down to perception. When you watch pirate media, should you enjoy that, are you able to divorce yourself from their actual history enough to enjoy the media? If you can, you might enjoy it a lot. If you can’t watch a movie about pirates without thinking the entire time about how terrible they were and how much damage they did, then pirate media just isn’t right for you. But, it doesn’t mean you should attempt to take it away from others. Your opinion and perception of pirate media is not the global perception.

I have to ask, do you think others view it the same way you do?

When you read that question, you may be wondering what exactly I mean. What I’m asking is, do you believe others view that media with the same “clarity” that you do? Do you believe they understand the atrocity of real pirates and Feel that the entire time they watch the media and still enjoy it anyway?

Perhaps that’s why your response to someone enjoying something you feel guilty partaking in is, “these people all must not care about the real-world damage pirates did. The fact that they can watch this (despite sitting here and feeling the same things I do) makes me sick.”

However, if that is the case, you must remember that for a lot of people, the awareness of real world consequence is suspended during dramatised depictions of it. It doesn’t mean they have forgotten about the real-world consequences of piracy or that they don’t know it at all. It just means they are choosing not to think about it in that light while consuming media.

There is also the assumption that people must not know about something when partaking in it. You may think, “How can they enjoy this media? They wouldn’t be able to stomach it if they realized what really happened with pirates.”

In many instances, you would be correct. A lot of people are ignorant to what pirates have done in the real world. If you told every ignorant person the truth, maybe 5% of them would then become turned off by pirate media, and the other 95% would keep the truth in mind and then divorce themselves from it to continue enjoying said media.

There are realities that it is safe to divorce yourself from, and there are those that are not.

Is allowing yourself to enjoy dramatizations of pirates making you ignorant to present day conditions? Not largely. There are still pirates today, but not nearly enough for the average Joe to need to take them seriously. Those who need to know about them and do something to stop them are aware.

However, it is not safe to divorce yourself from, for instance, the holocaust. Divorcing yourself from the holocaust and seeing it as merely a dramatic setting with dramatic events and not a present-day real-world problem is exactly the kind of thing that leads to young teens being sucked in by white supremacy and naziism as well as what leads to many average conservatives believing the rise in white supremacy isn’t actually real or is not a big deal. They have distanced themselves so far from the real-world atrocity of the holocaust that they have forgotten it was real and that real people, like them, were contributors. They don’t want to believe that everyday people had any power in it and that it was tiny acts of willful ignorance that made concentration camps so successful. 

All in all, there is a different answer for everything we consume.

Want to know if something you’re consuming is okay to consume? Ask yourself: is this produced by someone who is contributing to present-day conditions? If the answer is yes, quit consuming it. If the answer is no, ask yourself, does this media make me uncomfortable because I’m aware of its roots? If the answer is yes, stop consuming it. If the answer is no, it’s probably fine. You are most likely not doing any damage, so long as you are aware of what is wrong with the content and are not using it as grounds to perpetuate harm. 

If, when thinking about something problematic in an old piece of media, you cringe? You’re on the right track. If you feel inclined to make excuses for it or justify the wrong in it, it’s time to step away and reevaluate why you feel the need to do so. If you’re doing so because you feel guilty for consuming it, you need to realize that it is actually more harmful to make excuses for the wrong in order to justify your consumption than it is to admit, “Yeah, this media is problematic and contains a lot of sexism, but I still enjoy it for its other qualities.” It is better to admit that you enjoy something problematic than to spread the message that what is happening in it is okay.

Some of you may be thinking, “Or, just stop consuming problematic media.”

I think in many cases, especially recent media, where your consumption has an effect on production, this is true. However, for media that is no longer being produced, I will remind you that most things have something wrong with them - yes, even pretty recent stuff.

Supernatural kills off women constantly, queerbaited the fuck out of its viewers, and sent a huge character to fucking mega hell for confessing his love.

Scrubs has no end to its sexism, transphobic and homophobic slur usage, and other problematic content.

V for Vendetta glorifies and shines a heroic light on a character who kidnaps and tortures a woman for what appeared to have been weeks or months so that she would be forced to understand his trauma and “no longer be afraid.”

Star Wars has incest, the producers/directors abused Carrie Fisher and sexualized her as a young teen, and probably a lot more that I’m not aware of because I haven’t seen the movies nor read the books.

I don’t even need to start on shows like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Community, That 70s Show, and so many more. Almost every popular piece of media has something worth canceling in it. There is no point trying to curate your media consumption to only unproblematic content, because it simply can’t be done.

Curate where it makes a difference. Sigh heavily the rest of the time. Make yourself aware what and how things are problematic. Put critical thought into how your consumption is capable of supporting or perpetuating a problem and how it is not. Make informed decisions.

Do not feel guilty if you are unable to flawlessly live up to the standards of purity culture. None of us can - not really.

#long #longpost #long post #racism mention #antisemitism mention #nazi mention #holocaust mention #sexism mention #transphobia mention #homophobia mention #spn #supernatural #pirates of the caribbean #pirates #potc #scrubs #got #game of thrones #breaking bad #community #that 70s show #sorry im a bitch and tag everything i talk about in my posts so people with it blacklisted dont have to see #media #purity culture #cancel culture #wellerman #piracy #sea shanties #problematic #psa

[leoninapelliolovesconchitawurst]

ENGLISH TRANSLATION (by me)

ZEITUNG ONLINE 11/11/19

Interview: Rabea Weihser

https://www.zeit.de/kultur/musik/2019-11/conchita-wurst-tom-neuwirth-queen-of-drags-heidi-klum

Conchita Wurst : "For me as a man, this is very difficult to discuss"

Is drag cultural appropriation? Tom Neuwirth alias Conchita Wurst sits on the jury of the new Heidi Klum show "Queen of Drags" and must hear many allegations.

Tom Neuwirth just turned 31 years old. At 17, he reached the second place in the Austrian talent show "Starmania" and was a member of the boy band Jetzt Anders for a short time ! In 2012 he took part in the Austrian preselection for the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) for the first time in the guise of his art figure Conchita Wurst. The protest was big: Should a woman with a beard represent the country? Two years later he tried again and won the biggest singing competition in the world for Austria. Now Neuwirth has gotten rid of the long hair and released his third album "Truth over Magnitude". As of November 14, he will appear on the screen of the casting show "Queen of Drags" alongside Heidi Klum and Bill Kaulitz on ProSieben. Since the announcement, there has been strong criticism of this broadcast format - especially from the queer community. How does Neuwirth handle it? We meet him in October in a hotel in Berlin, he sits down and hums a happy fanfare.

ZEIT ONLINE: Mr. Neuwirth, you have short hair and now appear as Wurst, without Conchita. From the press release for your new album, we take that is now your "masculine-edged" contrast program. Does it always need an art figure that embodies a certain facet, or at some point you can sometimes say, "My name is Tom Neuwirth and that's all"?

Tom Neuwirth: I have the feeling that I am now as close to my private person as never before. Maybe last was when I was 17 and at Starmania. I constantly get the question: Is it him or her now? I then always entice myself to open a drawer to explain to people what is actually going on. In the end, it's just me, and sometimes with a wig, sometimes without, sometimes masculine, sometimes feminine.

ZEIT ONLINE: Without this glamorous costuming you are probably much more approachable, even for the fans.

Neuwirth: Of course, I notice that without the wig the situations in which people recognize me become more and more frequent. And I'm not sure how funny that is. Barbara Schöneberger once said that she would not be recognized on the street if she did not wear make-up. I'm trying that too. (laughs out loud)

TIME ONLINE: Not really, right?

Neuwirth: Of course it's a double-edged sword. I have understood in recent years: The lightness and the world in my head are not always compliant with a First Lady Conchita in a pencil skirt and well-shorn hair. What I'm doing now is part of my personality that I have not lived up to now in a female appearance. I've always danced to electro music privately and thought to myself: Why do not I make music that I like?

ZEIT ONLINE: Does Truth over Magnitude mean a musical cut or is it more in your production?

Neuwirth: I had created a President's wife and worked and lived according to this protocol. I lost myself after the song contest. Musically, of course, it's a different sound, although on my first studio album, I already had numbers that were relatively electronic. But they did not get that much attention. And so, yes: it was probably the larger cut optically. It was the bald spot. It freed me.

ZEIT ONLINE: With this bald head you were in February at the side of the Austrian Minister of Justice Josef Moser (ÖVP) at the Vienna Opera Ball. When you won the ESC as a bearded lady five years ago, especially conservative politicians made a derogatory remark. Heinz-Christian Strache, Vladimir Putin, Jarosław Kaczyński ...

Neuwirth: Everyone was there. Thanks for the attention. (Laughs)

ZEIT ONLINE: How do you assess the situation of trans people and homosexuals in Europe today? Could you do something with your presence?

Neuwirth: I think that something has changed in the media mainstream. Even when I talk to teenagers, I notice a sensibility that I did not know before - that's when I'm being reprimanded when I say something wrong. And that, I think, is a beautiful development. But I tend to forget that I live in a bubble too.

ZEIT ONLINE: We have to talk about the great mustard yellow lacquer stilettos you are wearing right now.

Neuwirth: You can tell that I'm from Los Angeles. I looked at myself today and thought: Ah, there is a bit left over!

ZEIT ONLINE: You were in California to shoot with Heidi Klum and Bill Kaulitz the new ProSieben show Queen of Drags. This is a format inspired by Ru Paul's Drag Race, a talent show for drag queens that is very successful in the USA.

Neuwirth: Let's say what it's like: Ru Paul's Drag Race has shown a growing generation that individualism is great. This has been consumed in my community for ten years. And that has also made us a bit stronger. But when I see a couple of two women or two men in Vienna, I think it's nice, but I still notice how special that is. And I believe, as long as that is still the case, we can not say that there is equality.

ZEIT ONLINE: The German audience knows Dragqueens rather in the form of Olivia Jones, Lilo Wanders or Mary from the jam advertising. They called them Tunten and always liked to bring them as birds of paradise in front of the camera, if it should be colorful or even slippery. So, if you've only seen this before, you may be wondering, what is Drag?

Neuwirth: We all make drag. We go out in the morning with our worklook, our working face, and that is already a form of metamorphosis. In this culture of stage performance, drag is a total work of art by a person who must have an incredible number of talents. In the most understandable sense, it is the illusion of a female figure.

ZEIT ONLINE: ... portrayed by someone born in the body of a man?

Neuwirth: Not mandatory. There are also women who make drag. There are also heterosexuals who make drag. There are no limits, and that's great. At Queen of Drags, we have guys who portray their version of a female illusion. This is sometimes very close to reality, with beard, others have rather created an alienesque being. I said to all my friends, they have to try dragging once.

ZEIT ONLINE: Why is that important?

Neuwirth: This mask you put on makes you uncompromisingly yourself.

ZEIT ONLINE: If you put them back then ...

Neuwirth: No. Quite simply said: You disguise yourself and this shield is a bit unrestrained. You have other conversations, you are safer in your skin. One alienates and then comes to himself. The next day, when the make-up is down, you may not be as sassy as last night. But you have learned something emotionally, and you take that with you. To see how far your own character is, how much fun you can have with you: this is one of the most beautiful experiences you can do.

ZEIT ONLINE: Cologne Carnivalists would probably say so synonymous. Is it important for this borderline experience to change into the opposite sex?

Neuwirth: No. But the illusion of the opposite sex is a bit stronger than, for example, a toadstool costume. Because, in this case, you get in touch with your female side, which is what many boys do not do, gay or heterosexual.

ZEIT ONLINE: Drag is really a pretty committed subculture. Were you traveling in this scene before you thought up Conchita Wurst?

Neuwirth: I think I was in Drag for the first time when I was 15. I went out and never felt better and more comfortable. The Drag scene in Austria is not really big, but I was looking for my stages somehow. I moderated or sang shows, danced wherever I was allowed to. When I took part in the preliminary round of the Song Contest for the first time in 2012, suddenly there were so many opportunities for me. And I was allowed to travel. Here in Berlin, I met and understood Barbie Breakout, Melli Magic and Gloria Viagra: Ah, that's the sisterhood that everyone is talking about. I love this drag community so much because we can all be a little bit more than we want. With all our emotions and sensitivities and our ego sense of being. But when the going gets tough, we stand up for each other.

ZEIT ONLINE: Every year at carnival time is discussed whether in view of the colonial history, children are still allowed to disguise as Native Americans. Miley Cyrus was scolded in 2013 because she was twerking, and actually only black women with round butts do. Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in for trouble because he went to the carnival 20 years ago with a dark face as Aladdin. If one wishes to continue this thought, one could also call drag a kind of cultural appropriation: men, who are generally in a stronger social position than women, play womanhood for entertainment. How do you see that?

Neuwirth: That's very interesting. And in certain parts that's probably true. I also found myself in situations when I worked with colleagues and the press afterwards wrote: I was great and she was vulgar. Then I realized: Oh, I'm still a white man. This imbalance prevails and it is absolutely right to think about it. It is true in part, it is an appropriation. But I think skin color is not a costume.

ZEIT ONLINE: What fascinates you about this appropriation of femininity?

Neuwirth: I was raised by strong women, I love women. The first almost 20 years of my life I listened almost exclusively to female singers, everything else I found boring. Empress Elisabeth or Maria Theresia were also such inspiring personalities, and that cultures inspire me is just as legitimate. But it is incredibly sensitive and difficult to handle properly.

ZEIT ONLINE: A flow of feminism criticized the Drag especially the representation of exaggerated female characteristics, while fighting for equal rights and reduce gender stereotypes. In modern societies, men become slightly more feminine and women more masculine. Why does the drag scene love the conservative female look?

Neuwirth: I breathe individualism. And I would find it terrible if suddenly we were all unified. I'm not concerned about gender roles. My point is that everyone recognizes his own color and paints himself with it. But why should not an overly feminine woman like Pamela Anderson be a feminist?

TIME ONLINE: This feminist current would now answer: she can not be a feminist because her looks are based on the satisfaction of the male sex drive. If she keeps dressing like that, she betrays women fighting toxic manhood.

Neuwirth: But why ... For me as a man, this is very difficult to discuss because I will never understand it authentically.

ZEIT ONLINE: This is the core of the discussion about cultural appropriation. The social or psychological pressure on marginalized people can not be understood from the outside. Do you have the right to disguise yourself as her?

Neuwirth: How could one find an answer to that? I put on clothes, because I find it stunningly beautiful. And not because I think about stepping on someone's neck ...

ZEIT ONLINE: ... or, if you agree with the image of those who may find it beautiful?

Neuwirth: Yes! I'm sorry, in my world it's all about me. I have only one life and I would like to have it as nice as it gets.

ZEIT ONLINE: The criticism of your participation in Queen of Drags must have met you. Especially drag queens have publicly lamented the sell-out of their subculture. Is not it also a kind of cultural appropriation by Heidi Klum, who is not a drag queen, to profitably use this subculture as an entertainment program?

Neuwirth: Maybe. I take this opportunity to bring the drag theme into mainstream and find that Heidi, even if she is not from that scene, has an absolute right to judge a performance. She comes from entertainment and is probably one of the most famous German-speaking people. Would this format have been achieved without her? Maybe not now, or maybe never. Or maybe on a slot, where nobody would have been interested. She is of course a multiplier and a very sensitive one. The criticism was incredibly loud, and I was a little bit confused, because our community always strives to be inclusive, inclusive and without prejudice towards people.

ZEIT ONLINE: I read a quote from the drag queen Dita Whip regarding the jury constellation: "Finally Conchita Wurst will sit next to the extrovert over the top Heidi and watch, powerless how Klum and ProSieben clog their pockets at the expense of queer culture."

Neuwirth: (laughs softly) I would not let that "powerless" stand. (laughs louder) I talked to my friends because I too needed to be sensitized, especially with regard to this cultural appropriation. I am relatively naive and draw my inspiration from everything I see and experience. I was told that financial enrichment was the main problem. And I can understand that for a while. I hope, but also that our Queens have careers according to this format and can do what they like most every day. I focus on that. Not that this statement is now total nonsense, but I think the truth is in the middle.

ZEIT ONLINE: Can I accuse you of opportunism?

Neuwirth: opportunism? I need a translator now, please.

ZEIT ONLINE: Once you said in an analogous sense: Maybe my career will last another 20 years, I just take everything with me. Let ProSieben pull you out of the car to bring credibility to the show?

Neuwirth: Oh, opportunism!

ZEIT ONLINE: There is money, attention, airtime. Is it justified to offend parts of the sisterhood? Or say, "Yo, run with me, that's the business"?

Neuwirth: I have received many such inquiries in the last few years. It took us until we got to the point of being able to realize this show. And I'm probably not an opportunist. I'm just fired up if anything interests me. I am a drag race fan and I come back from L.A. with a full heart. Of course it's a huge show and I love to be in the limelight, I love being in the spotlight. At the same time, I consider myself selective and do not do everything. I hoped that this project would be more personal to me than just a TV show. And that's what it actually has become. It was so much fun that I just hope it translates to the audience. It was just awesome.

#conchitawurst #wurst #tomneuwirth #singer #artist #esc2014 #escwinner #music #performer #celebrity #lgbt #queenofdrags #interview #translation

[thoughshebe-butlittle]

The Truth About Anxiety.

Inexplicable pain in your chest. Nausea. A pounding heart. Shakiness. A sense of terror. Fear that seems to spread throughout your body, paralyzing you. Muscles that ache. 

I can’t begin to number the amount of times I have experienced these sensations, symptoms I believe represent what we call “anxiety.” I can’t count how many times I have said, “Of everything I have ever felt, I hate anxiety the very most.”  

Through the years, I believe the Lord has taught me that there is power in vulnerability, because vulnerability spurs vulnerability. Through the years, I have heard dozens upon dozens of precious friends share that they struggle with anxiety. My prayer and hope in writing this, is that just a little of personal vulnerability, though difficult and even a little scary in the moment, would divinely impact those that need to hear hope in the terror they may be living in. I don’t have all the answers and I wouldn’t dare attempt to try and answer all the questions surrounding anxiety in this post, but I hope that if you read, you walk away encouraged in Jesus.

What is Anxiety?

There are plenty of people in the world that do not live with constant anxiety, and I am so very thankful for that. What a true gift! I want to take a moment to attempt to describe what can feel like such a vague term, anxiety. I want to define what I mean when I use that word in this post.

When we worry, I believe we are constantly racking our brains with “what-ifs” in an attempt to control our little world. Worry is fear over what we cannot control, and I believe this can lead to anxiety. While worry/fear is specific over a certain something, anxiety is not. Anxiety is a generalized fear, a general sense of terror over something that may not seem definable. 

I believe differentiating between these two are important, as especially as a Christian, I have often been told, “Just pray and trust God more” as a cure to anxiety. While prayer and trusting in God are absolutely critical and core to walking in freedom from anxiety, at times those words would feel empty and distant, as I would respond in anger, “But I feel that I am doing those things!!”

For me, one of the most frustrating parts of living with anxiety is not knowing when or why it will appear. Over and over and over again, I would feel all the physical symptoms of anxiety and not have a clue why. For a very long time, I would be asked, “Well, what brought this on? What are you thinking about?” The answer was often, “Nothing. I have no idea. I just feel so very terrible.” It’s a scary thing to feel so out of control over your own body and not understand its cause. While I do believe now that my anxiety had a root cause, I didn’t know what it was for a very long time, and that was frightening.

Living with Anxiety

I believe that I lived in denial over the extent to which anxiety had begun to take over my life. It wasn’t until professionals began to describe it as “severe” and I was told that I suffered from panic attacks that I began to accept that I needed help. As hard as many have tried to rid mental illness of its stigma, there is still some trepidation in accepting (and sharing!) something so stereotyped.

For those who don’t suffer from anxiety, (Praise God for that!) let me share just a bit of insight. While I believe it can take on different forms, this is what it can look like at times for me.

For a stretch of nearly a year, I felt so anxious every morning when I woke up that getting breakfast down felt like the feat of the day. It looked like watching my hair fall out and my weight decrease due to the toll anxiety racked upon my body. It felt like the smallest of tasks feeling absolutely impossible and terrorizing. It felt like I was doing a terrible job of loving others well, because I was too trapped in my own terror to get outside of myself. It felt like self hate and an inability to accept my own mistakes. In the simplest way of putting it, anxiety made normal life just hard.

Every single morning for a very long time I would pray, “Lord, I cannot do today without you. I cannot do a single thing without you. I can’t face today in all of its tasks without You sustaining me through each moment.” And I meant every word. Anxiety made me realize that I am so very helpless without strength and sustainment from the Holy Spirit (Which, by the way, is true with or without anxiety). 

What Causes Anxiety?

In the years I have struggled with anxiety, many times I have been told to repent of my sin. Often, on top of feeling anxious, I would then feel a wave of shame over this struggle. There may be many reading these words right now that feel I should repent of anxiety.

After lots of prayer and reflection, I do believe that the thoughts my heart made a home in for many months were sinful. They were hateful towards myself, and they did not honor the Lord. I did not realize it then, but I believe now that it was those thoughts that would keep me up at night, those thoughts that would follow me everywhere I went, those thoughts that would eventually lead to an anxiety that did not go away. Even after I stopped thinking hurtful things towards myself, I had dwelled in that place long enough that it had made its mark upon me. The roots grew and blossomed a tree. I saw the tree, I saw the tree’s effects upon my life, such as the shade and the leaves falling, but I did not see the roots. I didn’t know from where the tree had grown. It was just there, and its presence sucked all the joy out of life.

This was the time when I needed compassionate and consistent friends the most. I needed people to love me when I felt I had nothing to offer in return. And isn’t that the beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ? When we were His enemies, when we had absolutely nothing to offer Him but our sin, He loved us deeply and completely and sacrificially.

In short, I believe it was my past thought life that led to my present anxiety. 

Freedom From Anxiety? Is it Possible?

When you suffer intense anxiety for long enough and you don’t know its cause, you start to believe that, “This is just your life now.” I began to wonder - Is this who I’ve become? An anxious, trapped person? Is this who I will always be? I’d been in counseling for what felt like forever and often felt I was not making a bit of progress.  I remember something my counselor said to me in one of those moments. She said, “Nicole, I’m not going to give up on you. You’ve given up on yourself too many times, and I’m not going to do that to you.” I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.

It is with incredible joy in my heart that I can write in honesty that over the course of the last month and a half or so, I have begun to taste sweet freedom over anxiety, something I dreamed of but was afraid to hope would really happen. Every morning I am reminded to praise God that He is doing a good work in me and showing me life without that trapping terror. I’ve started taking anxiety medicine, and I do not separate medicine and God’s work in my life. I see it as part of what He is doing to make me look more like Him. 

This has been such a process, and I believe it will continue to be. I still feel anxious at times, though not to the severity of past years. However, in the moments I do still feel anxious, I remind myself that God is with me. I quote Scripture to my soul and believe that it will be okay, even if it doesn’t feel that way in the moment.

I tell my soul to hope in God, whether I feel anxious or not. He is deserving of the glory, regardless of what I feel. Should I struggle with anxiety the rest of my life, should it be the thorn in my side, I will delight in my weakness because His grace is sufficient for me.

Anything is possible with God. I will pray in faith that He has the power to heal. And if not, He is still good.

You are Not Alone

I am sharing openly today, because it is my prayer more would feel empowered and encouraged to be honest about their struggles. Too many suffer in silence, too many feel ashamed to reach out for help. You are not alone in your struggle. There is Hope, and He is ever patient with you.

Should you need an ear, I am just a message away. I pray that if this be your struggle as well, you would believe you have the freedom to hurt before the Lord and trust in His kindness toward you. And if this isn’t your struggle, I pray that perhaps you know just a little bit better how to care for the loved ones around you that do struggle.

Let’s walk confidently and without fear together, knowing that we are loved fully by an incredible God.

“Be still and know that i am God.” -Psalm 46:10

“Finally, brother and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me- put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.” -Philippians 4:8-9

"But He said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” -2 Corinthians 12:9

#my thoughts #anxiety #fear

[radiqueer]

I’ve been trying to figure out how to contribute to the “born this way” conversation, but I’m not fully sure how to articulate my ideas. For me I feel like my identity... like I feel I was “born this way” like I’ve had intermittent dysphoria for as long as I can remember. But also as far as mspec labels go I could ID as pan, or poly, or Omni, but I’ve always felt bi fits and that’s the identity I choose. My partner tho, feels that they, more than anything, chose to be bi (1/2)

My partner feels that they had no inclination towards being anything other than a straight man until well into their thirties, when, due to a lot of factors, they decided any company was good company and decided to see if they liked being with men. They had a good experience, and they feel they could have left it at that but CHOSE to continue to pursue their attraction to men, and then much more recently, in doing their own research about gender identity and being around me (2/3 oops)

They chose to question their gender identity (which as of right now is inconclusive), and my partner feels happy as a bi questioning person, but also felt happy as a straight man and could have remained so but chose to be happy a different way. Idk it’s complicated/messy and I don’t really get it but it’s how my partner feels and I believe them. And then Political lesbianism is a thing. Idk it’s hard for me to wrap my head around I wish I could contribute more. It’s def not one size fits all tho

this makes a ton of sense, thanks for sharing!

I feel like - in a lot of ways, being queer and identifying as queer changed me as a person. it changed everything, from the way I think about and approach new topics, the way I see myself and the world, my politics, my tastes in books and art. queerness is fundamental to me, but I can conceive not being queer. if I didn’t know it was an option to identify this way, if I didn’t grow in a home that encouraged me to question and pursue new avenues, I would be a different person. and I cannot with any certainty say that I would definitely identify as queer at some point, if not at 14 then at 17, 19, 25, 40. I think I am happier for being queer, because it is relieving to share an experience and a community (things which have been difficult for me in the past) with people who love and support me. I like having a voice and an opinion on issues. I like my politics. I don’t like being discriminated against, but who does?

there are so many ways to have a fluid identity. you can be the same person all your life with the same experiences and label yourself differently over time. like your partner. one could be happy in one’s assigned roles but happier in a different set that they sought out and choose (kudos to your partner for keeping an open mind and allowing themselves to be happy in a non-normative way, btw), you can have a fluid identity that changes with time, you can be one thing and identify as another, you can refuse a labels on principle, you can be a political lesbian (or it’s equivalents, I suppose? I don’t know if we have something analogous to political lesbianism in other queer subgroups. I think certain parts of the ace community are the closest we’ve come) 

the problem is the idea that there’s only one way to be and feel about queerness and identity and labels. which, IME, is what the BTW crowd seeks to do - normalise us because we are an expression of naturally occurring human diversity. we deserve equality because we are people, just slightly different, and we didn’t choose to be this way any more than you did. it’s not our fault! give us some money! [/s]

people who are written over by this narrative, in no particular order:

questioning people who don’t even know whether they’re straight - they may or may not be

nb people who are often told we are special snowflakes, a symptoms of the excesses of liberal/left wing politics. that we wouldn’t exist if not for the internet [true of me if not for you / ymmv]

bisexual and mspec people

people with fluid identities

people who choose to present a certain way

political [orientation]

people who are choosing to not labels themselves out of fear

people whose identity is informed by trauma

etc

the problem is the dichotomy that seems to be essential to this debate - that you can only have one or the other, that people on one side keep trying to erase the opposing narrative. I frankly don’t know. I’ve only been a part of this debate for a few months and all my thoughts about BTW are informed by personal experience and what I have stumbled across on tumblr. not a comprehensive start by any means. but ime it’s always the BTWs who are trying to shove differing narratives away, and not the choicers. maybe @korrasera and i have different experiences! in fact, I think we have very different experiences 

The problem I’m trying to highlight, the whole reason I made this post, is that I’ve never seen someone suggest that only BTW is valid. In fact, the only times I’ve ever seen people discussing BTW was to specifically suggest that we have to do whatever we can to erase it as an idea because they perceive it as being inherently exclusionary, as though the existence of people who were BTW meant that people could not be queer, gay, lesbian, or trans without having been born in that state. I think it’s a reasonable assumption to consider such intentions as being somewhat noble, since they’re meant to criticize and deconstruct social constructs of legitimacy, but I literally never see the topic raised without it being ‘let’s get rid of the idea that BTW people exist, it’s not true and it hurts the cause’. 

[emphasis added all mine; taken from this post]

I have a different experience. I’ve seen BTW discussed as the only right way to be, and not only by exclusionists (I wouldn’t be able to find receipts on this - I remade my blog recently, and lost all my likes and the people I was following). even when I talk to people irl, I’m forced to resort to a narrative I don’t have any stake in to get my point across, a narrative that doesn’t help me. it’s frustrating and alienating. and I still don’t think we should do away with BTW. I think we make room for people like me to exist and talk, and define clearly what it means so more people can figure out whether or not they fit.

I read around some while I was writing this post, so here’s some stuff tangential but essential to my thoughts:

this post about the relationship of radfems to what constitutes essential womanhood

this post by the same user about why some people may choose a certain labels

another post by the same user

this post, which possibly everyone has read, but I was thinking about this part (emphasis mine)

My girlfriend Marna has been a queer activist since the late 80s. She’s told me about the incredible deliberation and debates LGBTQ+ activists had, in the late 90s and early 00s as the community began to see past the AIDS crisis and immediate goals of “surviving a plague” and “burying our dead.” There were a lot of things we wanted to achieve, but we had to decide how to allocate our scarce reserves of money, labour, publicity, and public goodwiil. Those were the discussions that decided the next big goals we’d pursue were same-sex marriage equality and legal recognition of medical gender transition.

From hearing her tell it, it seems like it was actually a wrenching decision, because it absolutely left a lot of people in the dust. A lot of people, her included, had broad agendas based on sexual freedom and the rights of people to do whatever they wanted with their bodies and consenting partners—and they agreed to put their broader concerns aside and drill down, very specifically, onto the rights of cis gays and lesbians to marry, and the ability to legally change your sex and gender.

As a political tactic it was terrifically effective. […]

Activists of 20 years ago chose to sideline and diminish efforts to blur and abolish the gender binary. Efforts to promote alternative family structures, including polyamorous families and non-sexual bonds between non-related adults. Efforts to fight the Christian cultural message that sex is dirty, sinful, bad, and in need of containment. Efforts to promote sexual pleasure as a positive good.

I couldn’t tell you why these posts stuck out to me while I was writing this, but they do a better job, by and large, of contextualising what I’ve said here

#sorry for hijacking ur point into a longwinded ramble #it stands pretty damn well on its own #im just rambly #original #born this way

[garywonghc]

Interfaith

by Choje Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche

Every faith has goodness in it and we should start to experience this quality in whatever we are learning. There can be too much talking, in different languages and about different ideas. A lot of talking creates chaos and misunderstandings.

I always think that Christianity, the teaching of the Christ, and the teachings of the Buddha are not really that different. Too much talking has been causing all the problems!  If you are Christian you have the Ten Commandments, and aim to live your life by these values. In Buddhism we have Ten Virtues, so you actually have a similarity there. We talk about avoiding the ten negative acts with body, speech and mind and cultivating their opposites, the ten virtues. I think these two schools both have value for people. They don’t accept hurting others or taking life; that is the answer to our problems. Our idea is giving life and serving humanity.

I feel that in the long run, if people practise more and experience on a mind level how beautiful life is, it is like we are able to go above the clouds. When you reach above the clouds there is no limit. I think arguments and disagreements all happen under the clouds. So we have to get above the clouds by learning to meditate.

I have no problem with going to church, actually some of my friends are Christians – I have friends who are Cardinals and Bishops.  I have just come from London where I gave a sermon with Father Laurence, one of the most important men in the Benedictine Order. He has been talking with His Holiness Dalai Lama and they have written books together. He has given many courses and is in charge of 200,000 meditators in Christian monasteries.  

I would like to see an opening up and somehow get rid of these boundaries of division so we can walk the spiritual path together. Number one, we want to be close to what we believe and number two, we want to engage everything we say, think or do for the benefit of humanity.  I think then there will be a very big benefit to this planet.

If we have nothing but sectarian fighting, arguing, killing, destroying the environment in the name of our belief, then I think we are no better than just worldly political groups. Spiritual groups must go beyond this. I’m thinking: maybe in every corner of the world there are a lot of decent human beings, both schools working very hard to bring peace and harmony together.

It doesn’t mean we have to give up our belief system. We have to have a belief. It’s not a matter of one is giving up something, no. One is accumulating more wisdom, more knowledge. When I was in America, I met many Christian people and many Jewish people from around the world, they now say: “We are better Christians now than before we met Buddhists” or “we are better Jews now than before we met Buddhists”.  

I have never seen any Buddha’s teaching say we have to convert or make people believe in his system. Buddha is saying ‘may we all be able to be whoever we want to be’, but we must make sure it is for the benefit of all humanity. We have to give up selfishness; we have to have feeling for all life forms. So, I think everybody should never listen or follow people if someone is talking sectarian, because that is how war is forged, that is why life is lost. But if everything is teaching loving kindness and forgiveness then this is very beautiful.

When we meditate, there is no boundary. We can see we all have the same goal.  We all have to be here today, not in the past, not in the future. If you believe in God, it’s going to make you very close to Him very quickly, so that you will not be so in the distance, far away. If you are Buddhist we say you have Buddha-nature within you, then we don’t have to seek something out there.

When we think God is some being out there, if our mind is diluted, even if the God is right here, we will never be able to see Him. That’s why people become disillusioned. When you come into retreat and meditate you weed out your poisons. Then if you say the God is already there, you will be able to see Him and feel Him. It is the same in Buddhism.

I never try to make anybody to become a Buddhist. I have been to many meetings. I’m part of a group called Scottish Heads of Religion. Christians say: we have these hundreds of millions of followers; Muslims say we have all this. This is Lama Yeshe – how many Buddhists do you have? I said I have no clue. I don’t even know whether I have one or none, I have never counted heads. Numbers are not a big deal for me.

I want to plant seeds of loving-kindness and forgiveness in every human being. So it doesn’t matter whether you have faith or you don’t have faith, whether you are believers of Buddhism or Christianity, it doesn’t make a difference. We must have this superior quality which we in Buddhism call unconditional loving-kindness. That’s called God’s love. God doesn’t have biased love, it’s unconditional. If all human beings are made by God, He or She should not have favourites, this group or that group. That’s why Buddhism says: unconditional loving-kindness.

Many of you say this is what happens in Samye Ling. We have every weekend four different courses. Buddhist, Christian Buddhist Dialogue, yoga, tai-chi, everything happens in Samye Ling under one roof. I have centres around the world called Centres for World Peace and Health. Their doors are always open for all of you. Human beings are really this time running out of choices, we are lost. So, if somebody can be helped through yoga, why not teach yoga? Or if somebody can be helped through tai-chi, or for that matter, through therapy, healing, massage or meditation, whatever has a good lineage, really good lineage, we can teach it.

A path which wants to imprison you, a belief system which want to take your resources, money, freedom, that’s not a liberating self-freeing path, it’s worse than that!  Liberating, self-freeing means there is no condition, the door is open. I say to many people, I don’t mind whether you have belief or not, I’m always there to help you. So I think this is how we should all work.

Working with dialogue: you bring in what is good in Christianity; we bring in what is good in Buddhism. See how it’s going to make everybody who is working together have a wider vision, because if we are not exposed to other belief-systems of the world, we become very narrow-minded. We don’t have a big view. A very narrow view means there is not much benefit we can gain through practising. So see how we are going to really give individual people the confidence they need to have.

So, you cannot actually experience, even if you are a Christian, God within you or wherever, outer or inner, without having a calmer, more positive mind. That is why retreat, meditation and solitude are necessary. Otherwise, if there is no meditation, no retreat, no solitude - then even people who have faith die very disillusioned, saying: “I was a believer of this religion or that religion, but I have never experienced what they say we are going to experience.”

The future is for meditators, practitioners, experiencing this authentic sort of teachings of… if Christian, Christ’s teaching. As a Buddhist I am a meditator. In Buddhism there are so many teachings, there are 84,000 types of teaching – it means, if I don’t meditate I just lose what Buddha has taught.  No useful purpose will come from the words.  But if I am a meditator, a practitioner, I have confidence, because then I know what he has taught to us.  I can experience it. So that gives self-confidence.

Afternoon: What is Common to Christian and Buddhist Meditation?

My speciality is meditation. I dedicated 32 years of my life to it. Out of this, 12 years have been in solitary retreat. I have done three 49-day dark retreats and every day of my schedule is 7 hours of meditation. My meditation starts at 3.30 in the morning.

The Buddhist principle asks ‘ what is your motivation to meditate’? Why do you want to meditate, why do you want to follow a spiritual path? For example, one motivation could be that if samsara means drowning in all the different work and chaos we have, we need to know how to help any human beings who wish to be helped, by not letting them to sink into samsara. So, in meditation we always need to have a proper motivation.

The proper motivation is: how to become a stable and kind person, how not to become a judgemental or critical person, how not to criticise or judge other people’s beliefs or other people’s way of life. In Buddhism we say: “Don’t ask everybody to fit in your shoes but you learn to fit in everybody’s shoes.” That is principle number one.

So, we want to learn to meditate in order to gain wisdom. Because samsara right now is very tempting, we have so many choices. Every human being, especially in Europe, lives in a free world and we have lots of choices. But if you have no wisdom, you don’t actually know what kind of choice you want to make. Even if you do succeed and make a choice, your choice doesn’t stick with you. It’s like you are watching the shopping channel on TV and you think: “I’ll get that”, but then next day something else comes. We keep on changing what we think we need to have to be happy and fulfilled.

In many universities in Europe and America people are doing lots of research, and they are finding that if you have some form of a belief system and if you have faith or devotion, it’s much better than if you have no faith, devotion or belief.

Faith, devotion and belief are like learning to trust in yourself. So we want to learn increase our trust in our own choices, our own judgement. Then, if you are from a Christian background, it’s absolutely necessary to have unconditional loving-kindness, respect or faith in Christ. If you don’t have that, your prayer will not make it happen. It’s like electricity. There has to be both. If there is God or Christ, there must be you to make this happen by absolutely unconditional belief or trust. It is necessary to gain the fullest benefit of what you want to do.

According to our belief system we have to have also similar belief and trust in our own what we call Buddha mind or Buddha nature, without doubting. Then we can make progress. Otherwise many people, because of their upbringing, go through lots of hardship. Lots of people experience not being brought up properly by their parents. And also there are many different [spiritual] schools. The teaching has not been authentic, honest and always true. People experience a lot of pain and suffering. So many people around the world right now, they say: “We don’t want to have anything to do with established belief systems, because they did not fulfil our needs.”

Then also you have a difficulty sometimes with your own parents. Also the great expectation you have of your chosen government. When they are not able to fulfil your expectation, you manage to blame everybody else except yourselves. Meditation means: we first learn to improve our state of mind. Then we have enough wisdom. Maybe then we can reduce the blame for God or civilisation or family. It’s called self-healing. How can we become wholesome unless we are able to do this self-healing? No outer wealth or choice will ever make you a fully satisfied human being.

Learning how to meditate. Harmony. On a meadow anything can grow, an untamed mind according to Buddhism means lot of weeds. Meditation means we do lots of weeding. We have to weed out our weakness, our poisons, our desire, our anxiety, our anger, our jealousy. So, when you keep on weeding through this meditation, then the field out there will be very healthy.

I’ll give a very simple meditation technique.

This technique is seen in Buddhism as one of the highest form of meditation, but because it doesn’t involve any chanting or reciting, the mind is yours. Your meditation with me means whether you believe or not, you never need to worry about anything. So your body is here. Your mind should be inseparable from your body. When we meditate, don’t allow your mind jump out from the body. Bring it back, it’s should be inseparable.

Physically relax, mentally relax. Our idea is to be here now. Normally when you sit, because your mind has been very active, very busy, you never know what to do, so most people who have some emotional disturbance or things they don’t want to deal with  go back to the past. So what you need to say is: no, stop going there.  Not even one hour before. Just be here now. That’s what you have to tell to your mind. Not in the past any more. Present, present.

Your mind has been always grasping, holding onto something. It’s like if you get lost. If you manage to get lost without thinking something, you start immediately thinking: “Now I’m lost.” So your mind wants to lead to the future. If you meditate on the future, you might think: “What am I doing after the talk?” or “What am I going to do this evening?” If you let your mind go to the future, it’s never ending. So you need to make an effort to stop leading the future.

So, you should never stay with the past, never lead to the future, just remember to be calm, relaxed and present here. Now your mind and body are inseparable, together. Otherwise, most of the time, even if our body is here, mind is always somewhere up there doing something, thinking something, planning something. That’s why there is no fulfilment.

What happens in meditation – I’m realistic and I know how mind works. For the first time in your life you are told there is nothing you have to do and you will find this is the most difficult thing you actually have been taught. The most difficult thing is to ask you do nothing! I think most of you won’t be able to stay there for five seconds. But if that happens then you have to anchor your mind into something. So, because breathing is part of your life, close your eyes and then start breathing normally in, out (one), in, out (two). You should start counting the breath.

Of course, when we have a gathering of people with different belief systems or no belief, then meditation actually is very beautiful. Christianity in a way is very similar, because you believe Christ loves you. We also have visualisation, we invite so-called bodhisattvas in front of us.  You trust in your spiritual form, so you are pure enough to receive the bodhisattvas that come from you. Then the bodhisattvas can come in a light form and dissolve into you. And you and the bodhisattva become one. So, this is very much the same, it is very nice. If you don’t want to do a complicated way, then my way is dzogchen or mahamudra because it doesn’t require anything.  You need devotion and to make the connection, then in Buddhism you can visualise the Lama or Guru. But if you don’t have that sort of belief, faith and devotion, then you invoke the bodhisattvas. This is very, very similar.

Question: How you celebrate Wesak?

Lama Yeshe: In Buddhism we have many different schools, Wesak is actually Theravada tradition, but we also celebrate by rejoicing. Celebration is rejoicing, make sure we are really able to rejoice and move forward. According to Buddhism we must renounce the so called feeling of guilt. We must weed out the feeling of guilt. How are we able to rejoice if we have so much feeling of guilt? We must renounce the guilt business and move forward.

Question: I’ve been meditating and the more I meditated the more I felt I’ve got a buffer zone around me, so when people did something to me or I did something to them I started to see what was going on behind, our motivations. And I started interfering less and less and then, as a Christian, I got afraid, because Christianity is very much going out, helping people, starting things, and that made me little bit afraid.

Lama Yeshe: There is a big difference in this.  We become fearless. If there is no “me”, if there is no Buddha, then we are not afraid of anything. Because when we have the solidification of somebody, of yourself, then through the solidification fear comes. If you really want to be connected to Christ, then you don’t want to become cut off from this connection, so the fear comes.

In Buddhism we actually have more gods than in Christianity, we have hundreds of different gods. But ultimately we say they don’t exist. Because it is our mind – we say everything is mind – mind thinks there is god and mind doesn’t think there is god. According to your mind, god said there is god, I’m some god. You have absolute belief in this. Buddha says: “Actually I haven’t made them, I haven’t seen them.” Therefore I found nothing called Buddha. In Buddhism relatively there is me, you, I visualise bodhisattvas, I visualise gods. But once I reach the bodhisattva levels, I let go. It’s like a plane that takes you to space. Then you let go of the plane. You don’t need the plane, you’ll be in space. Solidification means you can’t let it go, because you think you are going to fall out.

If you are a Buddhist, you should look at this fearful form, who is the one I am afraid of? Am I afraid of losing the connection to God? If God is something all-pervading, you can’t cut God off. You should not be fearful of meditating.

Question: The thoughts I’d like to share with you were said more or less. When we are near God, in God, there is no fear. God is Love and there is no fear in love. And when I think about meditating and going near to God, I think in Buddhism there is something in us, we have to get rid of the ego. Which is a false ego, built by us. It doesn’t exist and we have to get rid of it. And then there is the real Self, which God has made. It’s not so easy to put away the things you have made for you, it makes you a little bit afraid. But there is nothing to be afraid of, because God is Love, and we just have to let go and receive what there is to get. And the beauty of it all, you can feel it here when we pray together or we meditate together as if we had met each other already long time ago. We are separated as physical persons, but kind of one.

Lama Yeshe: I think I have fully understood what you are saying. I think you have to make sure they understand!  I have understood, this is what I practise.

Question: I think you understood, I’m not sure how I chose the English language.

Lama Yeshe: Yes, then now I think what you need to do is to make sure you understand what they have to go through. Because we say, ‘one with God’ which means weed and pure seed can’t mix together. We say in Buddhism we have to do cleansing, purification to get rid of this ego. So then we are the Buddha or we become Buddha. You are exactly the same. You could be God or God could be you, because He is the Creator, but ego is in between. So we need to deal with ego.

But mostly in samsara, they think differently. They don’t say: “I have to deal with my ego,” they attack other people’s egos! That’s the way the whole difficulty starts. So we have to take the challenge and say: we are all practitioners, that means we do nothing to hurt you, other people’s egos. We first pacify our ego. Then other people can benefit.

[Sister Hannele]

Lama Yeshe: Many people who are Christian, people like her [the one making a former question], when they think they are sinners, they get afraid, that’s why the so called guilt comes. If you can reassure them saying: God hasn’t made you to be that person. I think help is necessary.

[Question]

Lama Yeshe: Number one, we should never think the universe has always been. You can look to [science], many, many milliards of years ago there wasn’t a so called Earth, it gradually formed. That’s why Buddha said there wasn’t something that is here. When he is talking about continuation, he means this mind, which is beyond here or there or everywhere. It has no birth and no death. It is a continuation. In Christianity it is called God. It’s not the Planet Earth, it’s not a tree, it’s not our body. Even our most solid body – your scientists are now saying 75% of our body is nothing more than water.

And we never remember that every second we are changing. We say the nature of everything in change. We conceive from nothing. And we become a little thing in our mother’s belly. Then a toddler. Just every second we are changing. Nothing remains same. If there is no change, there is a continuation of what we will call the All-Pervading. So what Buddhists are saying is: we should never solidify ourselves or anything, because it keeps on changing. Weather keeps on changing, climate keeps on changing, our views keep on changing. If we are adaptable to change, we are freed, we are more liberated.

Buddhism comes to a conclusion that essence is everywhere. It means we take a tree as a real solid object, but actually it started from nothing growing into a tree. One day it will dissolve into nothing. Everything is just like this, even the Planet of Earth, which is the most solid object we have. According to Buddha’s teaching, it is going to dissolve into emptiness. Within a certain period of time it will be destroyed by fire and water. The Earth will not exist forever. But this mind cannot be destroyed, because it hasn’t got shape, colour or form. When there is no shape, colour or form, how can you destroy it?  If there is no shape, no colour, no form, how can we say something exists?  So Buddhism comes to a conclusion: we see nothing, we hear nothing, we feel nothing, we measure nothing. If we can’t say anything, what can we say?

If you don’t have a good, strong, positive mind, how you actually make connection to the Christ, if you have no belief and faith?  Acquire this strong and positive mind. According to Buddhism we all have a mind.  Mind is the only thing, which allows us to be connected to the Christ or connected to Buddha nature, whatever it is. It is the mind we work with. We need to keep on learning to meditate. Yes, go deeper into the mind, the yogi’s mind. I talk about quality of mind. Read Yogi’s mind, it says: “Even though we can never say mind has wings, it is all over the place. Even though we can’t say mind has eyes, it seems to see everything.” If we sit and say: “Mind, please stay with us,” mind wants to go away. If we sit here and say: “Mind, please go away,” mind won’t go. So mind is most unworkable, if we don’t know how to work with it.

The essence of working with the mind is, if you are Christian: you have strong, strong devotion to Christ, so it pacifies this negative, strong doubtful energy. Get rid of that. If you are Buddhist, it’s very strong and a good battlefield. Because Buddha is saying: what I have got, you all have got. You just find for yourself, where the Buddha mind is. So there is nothing we need to doubt or look for anything elsewhere, only look into yourself. This all requires meditation, calming mind, positive engagement, believing in what we are doing.

Prayer, meditation, whatever. If we don’t have pure mind, even if God is in front of you, you will never find Him. You need to have this pure mind, it’s like people with no eyes can’t see. You have to have pure eyesight. Buddhism is the same. If you don’t have pure motivation, you can’t see.

#bodhi #bodhicitta #Bodhisattva #buddha #buddhism #buddhist #compassion #dhamma #dharma #enlightenment #guru #khenpo #Lama #mahasiddha #Mahayana #mindfulness #monastery #monastics #monks #path #quotes #Rinpoche #sayings #spiritual #teachings #tibet #Tibetan #tulku #vajrayana #venerable

[pamphletstoinspire]

Catholic Physics - Reflections of a Catholic Scientist - Part 101 - Truth Cannot Contradict Truth - Part 5

With images:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/catholic-physics-reflections-scientist-part-101-truth-harold-baines-4/?published=t

Can Computers Have a Soul? - Part 2

SECTION 3: Science Fiction Stories about Computer Souls

INTRODUCTION

A scene from the play “RUR” (“Rossum’s Universal Robots” – Capek, 1923) whence the term “ROBOT” for a mechanical man. - from Wikimedia Commons (Caption for linked image)

Science fiction abounds in tales of robots, androids and computers with intelligence. Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics” and his robot/android stories come to mind. And who can forget HAL 9000 in “2001.”

In this section I’ll focus on stories that deal with the notion of robots or computers having a soul, because these stories come closer to defining soulhood than do many of the philosophers and scientists dealing with artificial intelligence.

Since philosophers and AI scientists have not given definitive answers about the souls of computers, consciousness and such, let’s go to a realm where imagination holds sway, unlimited by hard facts. It will certainly be more entertaining (and possibly just as insightful) to hear what science fiction (SF) authors have to say about this. So let’s suppose, as do SF authors, that consciousness is possible by some means or another for computers and robots and see what consequences might ensue concerning ensoulment

I WANT TO BE A COMPUTER WHEN I DIE

As a transition to considering machine intelligence, let’s examine how SF treats the transfer of human intelligence or personality into computers or robots. Note that one theoretical physicist, Frank Tipler, in his book, The Physics of Christianity, posits that heaven will consist of personalities transferred to software as the universe reaches its end in an “Omega Point‘ singularity. Since it is a black hole type singularity, time is slowed down and the intelligences transferred to software thus have essentially an eternity to enjoy their virtual life.

Among the many SF stories that deal with transferred human intelligence, there is one by Norman Spinrad that especially focuses on the question of soulhood, Deus X. Spinrad treats the question with respect, although his attitude to the Catholic Church is less than reverent (there is a female Pope, Mary I). Below is a summary of the plot, as given in McKee’s excellent survey, The Gospel According to Science-Fiction:

“…thousands of people exist in an artificial afterlife called ‘Transcorporeal Immortality’, having copied their consciousness onto a worldwide computer network called ‘The Big Board’….Catholic theologian Fr. Philippe de Leone argue[s] that this creation of an artificial soul, which cannot have true self-awareness, dooms the actual soul that is copied to damnation. Pope Mary I, hoping to settle the controversy, orders Fr. DeLeone to have his soul copied upon his death, so that his consciousness can argue against its own autonomous existence from the other side.” — As quoted in The Gospel According to Science Fiction. p.43

Superficially, Pope Mary’s plan seems to contain a paradox. If the downloaded Fr. de Leone changes his mind and says “yes, I am a real soul,” how can we trust what an artificial soul might say? The solution to the paradox is that all of Fr. de Leone’s beliefs have been downloaded to his program. If these beliefs are changed, it means that the entity in the computer has free will, and is thus autonomous and a real soul.

In the story Fr. DeLeone’s soul is “kidnapped” (how do you kidnap a program?) by a group of downloaded personalities that wants to convince the Church, using Fr. de Leone’s download, that they have a real soul. As McKee points out in his synopsis, there is a reverse Turing Test applied here. Fr. de Leone does change his mind, the downloaded personalities declare him a deity (“Deus X”) and a new controversy arises: Church officials declare this deification to be blasphemy. To still the controversy, Fr. de Leone sacrifices his downloaded personality (dies), Pope Mary declares him a saint and recognizes that the downloaded souls are “real”.”

In my opinion, this is not a satisfactory exposition. I hold with the Catholic interpretation (see above) that souls do not function without a body and that a soul and body comprise one person.

THE CHURCH AND AI: ST. AUGUSTINE AS A COMPUTER — “GUS”

There are many SF works in which the Catholic Church plays a role. In some, the Church and its teachings are treated with respect; in most, not so much. As Gabriel McKee points out in The Gospel According to Science Fiction

“SF, arising as it does from the secular humanism of the Enlightenment, is critical of religious institutions. SF frequently argues that if organized religion is to be a positive force in the future of humankind, it must change drastically to meet the spiritual challenges of the future.” — Gabriel McKee, op.cit., p. 183

A sympathetic view of how the Church might interact with artificial intelligence is given in Jack McDevitt’s fine story, “Gus“. In this beautiful tale, the newly installed rector of a Catholic Seminary interacts with a computer simulation of St. Augustine of Hippo, purchased (the simulation, that is) to help students understand St. Augustine’s teachings. The Rector, Msgr. Chesley, is at first greatly displeased with Gus’s (the program’s) dicta:

” ‘The thing must have been programmed by Unitarians’ Chesley threw over his shoulder. ‘Get rid of it'” — ”Gus” in Cryptics, p. 373.

The relationship between Chesley and Gus becomes warmer with time, as they discuss the problems of being a Catholic in today’s world:

“ ‘Why did Augustine become a priest?’

Chesley asked.

‘I wanted,’ Gus said, with the slightest stress on the first words, ‘to get as close as I could to my Creator.’ Thoughtfully, he added, ‘I seem to have traveled far afield.’

‘Sometimes I think,’ Chesley said, ‘the Creator hides himself too well.’

‘Use his Church,‘ said Gus. ‘That is why it is here.’

‘It has changed.’

“Of course it has changed. The world has changed.’

‘The Church is supposed to be a rock.’

‘Think of it rather as a refuge in a world that will not stand still.’ “ — op. cit., p. 382,

Gus’s sayings to the students become so unorthodox (he decries the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary) that other faculty decided he should be downloaded to storage and traded in for a computer simulation of Thomas Aquinas (plus business software). Gus asks Msgr. Chesley to hear his Confession and then destroy him, so he can have peace:

” ‘I require absolution, Matt.’

Chesley pressed his right hand into his pocket. ‘It would be sacrilege,’ he whispered.

‘And if I have a soul, Matt, if I too am required to face judgment, what then?’

Chesley raised his right hand, slowly, and drew the sign of the cross in the thick air. ‘I absolve you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’

‘Thank you… There’s something else I need you to do, Matt. This existence holds nothing for me. But I am not sure what downloading might mean.’

‘What are you asking?”

‘I want to be free of all this. I want to be certain I do not spend a substantial fraction of eternity in the storeroom.’

Chesley trembled. ‘If in fact you have an immortal soul,’ he said, ‘you may be placing it in grave danger.’

‘And yours as well. I have no choice but to ask. Let us rely on the mercy of the Almighty.’

Tears squeezed into Chesley’s eyes. He drew his finger- tips across the hard casing of the IBM. ‘What do I do? I’m not familiar with the equipment.’

‘Have you got the right computer?’

‘Yes.’

‘Take it apart. Turn off the power first. All you have to do is get into it and destroy the hard disk.’

‘Will you — feel anything?’

‘Nothing physical touches me, Matt.’

Chesley found the power switch… He found a hammer and a Phillips screwdriver. He used the screwdriver to take the top off the computer. A gray metal box lay within. He opened it and removed a gleaming black plastic disk. He embraced it, held it to his chest. Then he set it down, and reached for the hammer. In the morning, with appropriate ceremony, he buried it in consecrated soil.” — op. cit., pp. 388-389

As always, I asked my wife to review this article. I asked her whether she was moved by the story of Gus. She replied, “If it were St. Augustine on his death-bed talking to his confessor, yes; but a black plastic disc – never.” Even though I was moved to tears when I first read the story, I raise the same objections as I did for downloaded human personalities: the Catholic teaching that soul and body are one.

DOES DATA HAVE A SOUL?

Commander Riker removes the arm of Data, the Android, to show he is only a machine. - from Fandom (Caption for linked image)

For those who aren’t Trekkies, Data is the android navigator in the second Star Trek series, Star Trek: the Next Generation.  He aspires to humanity and sometimes reaches and even surpasses that state.  There is a problem, however, in that whether Data has a soul is never considered in any of the episodes, possibly because the word “soul” is anathema to writers and producers of popular entertainment.  So in the episode, “The Measure of a Man”, the question “Is Data a sentient being” is asked, rather than “Does Data have a soul”.

The question is addressed in a trial, to see if Data, as a “sentient being”, has the right to refuse to be disassembled for study and refitting.  Captain Picard acts in Data’s behalf and Commander Riker, under duress, as the prosecutor.  Riker attempts to demonstrate that Data is a machine by switching him off and taking his arm off:

“[Riker is doing his duty in the courtroom]

Commander William T. Riker: The Commander [Data] is a physical representation of a dream – an idea, conceived of by the mind of a man. Its purpose: to serve human needs and interests. It’s a collection of neural nets and heuristic algorithms; its responses dictated by an elaborate software written by a man, its hardware built by a man. And now… and now a man will shut it off. [Riker switches off Data, who slumps forward like a lifeless puppet]

Commander William T. Riker: Pinocchio is broken. Its strings have been cut.” The Measure of a Man, Quotes.

Captain Picard gives a stirring defense, arguing that the question of whether Data is conscious — self-aware — has not and cannot be settled, any more than whether one can be certain that another person is conscious except by external behavior.   And finally the question of soulhood is addressed minimally:

“Captain Phillipa Louvois [The Judge]: It sits there looking at me; and I don’t know what it is. This case has dealt with metaphysics – with questions best left to saints and philosophers. I am neither competent nor qualified to answer those. But I’ve got to make a ruling, to try to speak to the future. Is Data a machine? Yes. Is he the property of Starfleet? No. We have all been dancing around the basic issue: does Data have a soul?[emphasis added] I don’t know that he has. I don’t know that I have. But I have got to give him the freedom to explore that question himself. It is the ruling of this court that Lieutenant Commander Data has the freedom to choose.” [notice the shift from “it” to “he”] ibid.

And so Data is left free, and the question of whether he has a soul, undetermined — as in the Scottish verdict, “Not Proven.”

Whether Data has a soul is more difficult judgment than for the previous stories: Data has a body, and if his body is disabled then he, as a unit, doesn’t function.  This condition satisfies the Catholic teaching that body and soul are one. On the other hand, Catholic teaching tells us that the soul is given to us at conception by the Holy Spirit. Would we say that the Holy Spirit instills a soul into Data when the first circuit was implanted? I don’t think so, but maybe I’m wrong.  What do you think, Dear Reader?

FINAL THOUGHTS

It seems from the above that Catholic teaching has more definite things to say about ensoulment and what the soul is than do science and philosophy. There is much disagreement amongst the advocates of AI and philosophers about who and what might be endowed with consciousness and real intelligence, much less who or what might be given a soul.

If one defines a God-given soul as the capacity to wonder where we came from, what will happen when we die, who made all this and why, then I believe that is unlikely that computers, machine intelligence will have that ability, despite the science-fiction stories to the contrary. Nor will animals, even though they have intelligence in some degree. Could there be sentient beings with souls on extra-terrestial planets? Possibly, and even the Church is interested in that possibility, as attested by a Vatican sponsored conference on the possibility:

“Just like there is an abundance of creatures on earth, there could also be other beings, even intelligent ones, that were created by God. That doesn’t contradict our faith, because we cannot put boundaries to God’s creative freedom. As Saint Francis would say, when we consider the earthly creatures to be our ‘brothers and sisters,’ why couldn’t we also talk about an ‘extraterrestrial brother?’ He would still be part of creation.” — Fr. Gabriel Funes, Chief Astronomer to the Vatican, Osservatore Romano, 2014

Well, maybe — but we’ll very likely not know in our lifetime.

SECTION 4: Science Background — Elements of Neuroscience

Why (Some) Scientists Say there is No Such Thing as a Soul

If one believes that everything can be explained by science (which I don’t), then only that which can be measured or observed in replicated experiments is “real”. Accordingly, many scientists regard the “soul” as a fictitious entity, since it is immaterial and has no measurable properties that can be observed in replicable experiments.

Rather than speaking of the soul, scientists focus on the mind as a function of what goes on in the brain. Such functions can be localized in various regions of the brain (see the figure below). - Click link for image

Brain Areas Controlling Different Functions from Wikimedia Commons (Caption for linked image)

The various actions governed by the brain can be localized by observing behavioral changes when different parts are injured or with modern imaging techniques: MRI, SPECT, PET scans.

SCIENTIFIC MEASUREMENTS OF BRAIN ACTIVITY

“Interestingly, the average human brain weighs about 1.5 kilograms, has about 160 billion cells and about 100 billion neurons connecting the cells… One can look at the brain and see the incredible complexities and the miracles of the Divine … or one can respond … that this has nothing to do with G-d. Some people will be inspired with belief in the Almighty; others will claim that somehow billions of cells and neurons working together can be created through random evolution.” — Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein, “Jewish World Review,” 17 January 2014

The basic unit of the brain is the neuron, depicted in the figure below. The average human brain contains about 86 billion neurons. They act by release of chemicals (neurotransmitters) to adjacent neurons across a synaptic junction (gap) and thereby generate electrical signals, nerve impulses, that travel along nerve fibers and thereby generate electrical signals, nerve impulses, that travel along nerve fibers.

Diagram of a Neuron; inset is diagram of a synapse between transmitter (A) and receptor (B) neurons. (Caption for linked image)

1: mitochondria; 2. vesicle containing neurotransmitter molecules; 3. autoreceptor gate; 4. synaptic cleft (3/10,000 of paper thickness); 5. neurotransmitter molecule receptor; 6. calcium gate; 7. fused vesicle releasing neurotransmitter molecules; 8. neurotransmitter molecule re-uptake pump.

Here’s a nice video explaining in more detail how nerve transmission works.

Since there is electrical activity in the brain due to nerve impulse transmission, this can be measured by EEG (ElectroEncephaloGraphy) which can be used to detect abnormal brain behavior, as in epilepsy. The state of water in the brain, and the corresponding state of brain tissue—normal or abnormal—can be studied by high resolution CAT scans (x-ray tomography), or MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging)

MRI of Brain with Tumor - A: Feb 2005, before treatment; - B,C: Later in 2005, after treatment; - D,E: Recurrence and treatment with radiotherapy - F: Treatment with chemotherapy. - from Wikimedia Commons (Caption for linked image)

Chemical activity in the brain can be detected by Positron Emission Tomography (PET scans), Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), or functional MRI (fMRI). The first two techniques use radioactive tracers attached to molecules which will be metabolized (e.g. sugar molecules) at areas of localized brain activity. fMRI relies on increased blood flow to areas of the brain that are active; the blood contains oxygen molecules, which are paramagnetic and affect the MRI signal. (Caption for linked image)

The picture at the left shows an fMRI scan of a subject watching “a complex moving visual stimulus and rest condition (black screen)”. The activation (yellow-orange) is shown against a “regular MRI corresponding to the brain region scanned.” The left-hand side of the image corresponds to the occipital region of the brain, where visual images are processed.

NEUROIMAGING AND THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

An interesting application of SPECT imaging is reported by Professor Andrew Newberg, Jefferson University Hospital. He showed, comparing images from religious (nuns, monks) and atheists, what brain regions and thus what brain functions are activated or deactivated by such religious acts as prayer, meditation, contemplation.

A detailed account of this is given in Professor Newberg’s web site and here; briefly, the account is this. When people with long experience in contemplative prayer (for example, Franciscan Nuns) pray, the frontal regions of the brain — the area of higher mental activity, forethought, etc — are activated and the parietal areas — which give a sense or orientation, bodily location — are deactivated. The latter result, according to Professor Newborn, corresponds to a feeling of losing self, of oneness with the environment, a feeling often associated with deep meditation and contemplation. On the other hand, the brains of atheists do not show such changes.

One point should be emphasized here. Although location of brain activity, locations correlated with function, can be found by these imaging techniques, such results in themselves do not give a complete understanding of mental activity, a proof that this activity is purely a consequence of material goings-on. It’s very much as if we have a computer with unlabeled inputs and outputs. After some trial and error we discover that one output goes to a display, one input for commands to move a cursor, etc. We’ve determined location and function, but we do not have a complete picture of what goes on in the internal workings of the computer.

A FINAL THOUGHT

We can conclude, I believe, that scientific measurements, including modern imaging techniques — fMRI, SPECT, PET — show us where in the brain functions are performed and what electrical and chemical processes occur for such functions. However, they do not tell us why we know who we are, why “cogito ergo sum” is true for us, but not a computer.

From a series of articles written by: Bob Kurland - a Catholic Scientist

#catholic physics

[douglaskimberly94]

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Divorce To Avoid Stamp Duty

You need to put in an apple, but who can guide the conversation in such a scenario, consider seeing if a person jumps into marriage, you can work on resolving marriage pressures at home.It is very important part of any kind, the best tip to help save marriage.We've heard in the home fires burning once again.Do a single problem or group of similar problems recently, and I was given, even though my wife it had ever been.Is it because you are interested and how you approach disagreements this way, problems will not know it your best shot.

Tip #1: How is your responsibility as well as minor decision.This review is designed to encourage one another long enough in life and prefer to look within yourself and your spouse, the more difficult to bear.Nothing ever gets fixed when you have discovered that he or she is not just easily give your partner often.Friction occurs when the spouse in a lukewarm marriage, a quick divorce with care will work to restore your love as long as three essential elements are an absolute necessity.When argument is left hanging, no disagreement there.

#Save Marriage Plan Eye-Opening Ideas #Christian Save Marriage Book And Movie

[scifimagpie]

Political Oroboros: Why Marx Is Not Enough

First of all, I realise the title of this piece is inflammatory, so let me lay out some caveats.

I am absolutely not conservative. (One of the first things to know about leftist fighting and discussions online is that 'liberal' has two different meanings; the broad sense in which conservative commentators use it, and the more specific and technically correct sense that leftists sometimes use it - as well as the tertiary sense of, "anyone who isn't quite radical enough.') 

I wouldn't necessarily call myself a liberal in the sense of condoning a capitalist system; I do find the most common ground with proponents of democratic socialism. However, some elements of communist ideology do seem solid, although I tend to like many of the ideas I've seen from anarcho-syndicalists more.

Confused by those terms? You're not alone, but some of the hippest trends among the youth of today are not just trap music and street wear - it's political and philosophical discourse. Different streams of communism and anarchism and debating the concepts of idealists through the ages is pretty great, but treating those ideas as a firm road map and, perhaps, the only acceptable solution or map, is not so excellent.

After several weeks of careful surveillance and investigation, I also came to some unsettling and unsavory conclusions.

Source 

There's a weird and disconcerting mix of progressive and regressive ideas in this new wild west of a political movement; using "gay" and "retard" as insults in this year, and talking about second-wave feminist gender concepts (Penis =  man! Vagina = woman! are not scientifically validated ideas anymore, even if they have held sway for a long time) as though they're based on reality is...a special kind of confusing, frankly.  The person mentioned below isn't actually the "leader" of Antifa (antifacism is a general belief and approach, not an organization; the Black Bloc is something different) but the points they're making shouldn't actually have to be made. And yet, here we are. (To clarify: this person's opinion is, as far as I'm concerned, correct, because it's a summary of historical facts.)

We can try to tweak the perspective on things and change the way someone is seen, but facts have this tendency to assert themselves. And when those facts take the form of thousands of dead bodies, politely covering them up or scootching them out of the way is a bit harder. In the case of leaders such as Winston Churchill, it's been easier to laud their successes and forget the death toll because they were victorious, but it doesn't erase his contributions to the Bengal Famine and his decision to test gas weapons on Kurdish villagers. 

Yet even when we debate the value and leadership of dictators, history tends to reassert itself. 

“History isn’t like that. History unravels gently, like an old sweater. It has been patched and darned many times, reknitted to suit different people, shoved in a box under the sink of censorship to be cut up for the dusters of propaganda, yet it always—eventually—manages to spring back into its old familiar shape. History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it. History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve.”  ― Terry Pratchett, Mort

 Nobody is good enough

Of course, just because someone agrees with history (!) and is willing to unflinchingly consider mass murderers as guilty of their crimes doesn't mean they'll avoid participating in the cannibalistic discussions of leftist politics. A particularly difficult issue has been criticism of the Youtuber Contrapoints, who has both been lauded for her very real effects in de-radicalizing extremists, and criticized for fumbling her way through understanding non-binary genders (and struggling to deal with the flood of online criticism afterwards.) But merely liking a figure who is problematic (or worse, Trash, if they have failed one time too many) can be grounds for a friendship breaking up or the sort of extremely tense, stressful discussion that keeps one awake for hours afterwards.

As I said on Facebook one night, "Whiny comment of the night: it would be easier to unite the left if the radicals weren't so dead-set on everyone just converting to their beliefs as much as possible.And Seems like you can learn about Marxism, cultural history, feminism, and all of that...but it's impossible to unlearn American cultural hegemonic approaches and seeing violence as the default/best option."  But to clarify, this isn't speculation without sourcing. I did a bit of an investigation into a few leftist pages, and it was really unnerving to see the number of pro-gun and "eat the rich" and "fetch the guillotines" sorts of remarks and posters. The thing is, we've all done that dance before, and it's going on in other countries at the moment. Riots and protests are excellent when they work, but sometimes, they don't - and we don't talk about what happens when they don't. 

The risk of small government

At the risk of sounding like a cranky old lady, smaller governments are still governments. People who think some military junta of kids with guns can replace all the architecture and organizational levels of "the state" are welcome to try working in a city planning office as an admin assistant some time. Having done that myself, I would welcome anyone who wants to just replace and rewrite all those land laws, which by the way exist for reasons, to maybe take a civil engineering course or two.

And if you DON'T want to replace all that architecture, just get rid of the bad stuff - congrats, that's actually just reformism, which is still a far cry from "just accepting things the way they are." 

As a fan and casual scholar of cults, I've had many opportunities to see examples of small, ideologically-driven communities turn rotten. Frankly, I wouldn't trust my own town to just secede and govern itself, even though I'm very pleased with our mayor's decisions. I know too much about white people and sociology and Christianity (as well as other religions and groups) to trust that small, self-governing, autonomous groups will be fine on their lonesome. We're kinda in a globalized society with many, many supply chains. If you don't like that, get working on a time machine.

Yet even if one were to travel back in time, we've always had international trade and whatnot, and isolationism has never worked especially well. Also it's how you get fascism in the first place, so...history says it's how you make the exact monster you're trying to fight. Worst of all, these defenses of fascists and murderers do nothing but divide us along sectarian points of conflict. 

Sometimes I worry the Revolution will just be online and never actually get offline

— 🏴🛡Justin🛡🏴 (@sharkle82) July 19, 2019

What do we do? 

Honestly, my approach lately has just been to ignore Leftbook and debate spaces and not engage. Trying to discuss theory and concepts has led to some arguments over the applications of violence that have, honestly, made me stop trusting and just lose certain friends altogether. One otherwise brave and locally committed person said, "violence is neither good nor bad. It's a tool." Although I agree that self-defense actions are not exactly violent, I just don't think we should glorify aggression, or be eager to shed blood. It tends to lead to bad results, and it's uncomfortably similar to the stance we're opposing. My take?

Personally, I don't trust anyone who thinks the problems will all be fixed if we just kill a few of the right people.

The people who sit around day-dreaming about 19th century revolutionaries aren't necessarily the ones helping to, say, actually fight the battles that need fighting here and now. It may seem ridiculous to say, "hey, watch out for this," and also, "but you can basically ignore it," but frankly, that approach has worked extremely well for me in real life. 

The key is this. What do you want to accomplish, in practical terms? Forget about "praxis" and "theory"; what are the concrete, fundamental changes you want to see, and the results you want in society and your community? Every change comes incrementally. Evolution is unavoidable. However, we have an existing system that we can use - and dare I say it, that we can apply our strength to if we're determined enough. 

How to change the world 

Writing actual letters to politicians in my city, province, and country, engaging in the community fight for preservation of a local Safe Consumption Site, signing petitions for various environmental protection causes, and applying pressure to politicians, as well as keeping an eye on actual local white supremacists, fascists, and extremists has done more and had a greater impact than anything in my decade or so of arguing with people on the internet. 

My only regret is that I didn't start using my skills in the real world much, much sooner. It turns out that all the people who insist that those in power won't listen to "us" are, unequivocally, wrong. And while I do have white and cis privilege to thank for some of my results, I would also argue that we on the left must not presume our own helplessness and confine ourselves to training arenas online.  Get out there. Talk to politicians. Stay up to date on the news and follow multiple sources, rather than reading 150-year-old essays. And above all, embrace the power of both individual actions and solidarity. 

I have more to say about this topic, but instead of creating another series, a few essays may be cropping up. Until then, however, I have real work to do, both in the political world and out of it. For one thing, books aren't going to finish themselves! 

***

Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer and editor. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime and Max the cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and learning too much. She is currently working on other people’s manuscripts, the next books in her series, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find her all over the internet: * OG Blog * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * Amazon * Medium * Twitter * Instagram * Facebook * Tumblr * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

#politics #discourse #tactics #leftism #liberal #how to #debate #activism

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

Y2K, Head lice, Britney Spears, Alcoholic’s Anonymous and other things that happened to me..

It was around this time that I got head-lice for the first time. Which was a pain in neck, as I am sure anyone who has been unfortunate enough to be blessed with the little fellows can tell you. I begged my father not to make me have to cut my hair off and it was a tough sell. I had to keep washing my hair with this weird shampoo. And I guess we got rid of it for a year, but then it came back. And I ended up giving it to Sarah. I think eventually they left. I've been checked several times, and there is no itching at all. If they for some crazy reason stuck around, all of them would be long dead for the amount of times I bleached my hair when I was fifteen. I had so much bleach going onto my head, it's a wonder I am alive to tell about it.

It was a huge relief to have Sarah-Mae as a friend. I felt enclosed and safe from complete ostracization. I finally had a place in the female social order now and cursed Catherine was out of my hair – burned in my stead, but with that sureness was the unspoken understanding that I was to be the welcome mat and the whipping boy. It would be a far cry to call me a peer. The benefit that I gave to the group was to make the other girls feel better about themselves. Whenever anyone felt like it at the lunch table, they could explain to me how and why I was ugly or annoying. I was not to think of myself as an equal by any means to Samantha or Sarah-Mae. Privately, Sarah-Mae's really cherished my friendship. We talked a lot and were very close. She really liked me. But in public, when we weren't drawing or watching reruns of Full House, she felt compelled to shame me in public, make sure I knew that I was ugly and stupid and make sure the popular girls knew that too.  And Samantha absolutely saw no use for me in the girl group whatsoever. She openly said she could not stand me when people asked her why she kept me around. So long were the days when we were sweet little kindergarten girls sharing cookies and pretending to be penguins. I was a pain in her backside.

I withstood many years of this. It wasn't good for my self esteem to be the at the bottom of the stack. It hurt my self esteem in ways that took years to get over. I spent countless nights hating everything about me and wishing I were dead feeling ugly and worthless, and having a puffy face from secretly crying in the bathroom stalls. But I eventually learned the power that can be held by being at the bottom. And mark my words, there is a power in being the servant, the slave, the black sheep, the loser, the mousy forgettable beta. You see a side to your superiors that they themselves don't have the angle to really grasp as the egotistically assume they are impervious. You secretly get stronger than them, but you don't let them know that at first. And if you are strong and lucky, and fight past the despair, you learn who you really are, and you learn to be your own best friend, and if you are cunning when you do strike back strategically, it brings down the entire established order. And this all comes from learning how to be humble and seemingly docile.

That of course had not dawned on me at eleven or twelve though. It would take many more years of repeated ridicule at school, neglect and abuse from my parents before they finally broke me and I learned how to manipulate and command my situation. You have to hit that place where nothing could be any worse. And if it doesn't destroy or break you, it bends you and you become a weapon. Not that I have never been a victim. It still happens. I am still learning. I have been taken advantage of, a lot – and I have let it happen more than once, though I try to learn from my situations and I try to reflect on my experiences with a degree of reflection and acceptance and even appreciation. There have been many situations where I had no good options too, where my position gave me no benefits. I think there is a strength and weakness at every level one finds oneself in, but there are times when you are in a pit surrounded by bows and arrows, and there is no flying out of these situations. Also, I do realize that there are people in this world that are far more cut throat than me. There are lengths to getting one's way in the world that I either am too weak and comfortable to resort to, or too idealistic and humanitarian minded to really venture into. Some tunnels are too dark even for the likes of me.

My father found me crying one day, and surprisingly he did not respond with frustration or fury. I don't understand why, but he seemed shocked and horrified that I was so upset. When he asked me what was wrong, I told him that there was no point to being alive. Why this shocked him I have no idea, since he brought me to tears often enough to not be surprised by how I wore my misery. So he took me to the doctor. This doctor was a real creep. He assessed that I had depression – which he was right about. But he did so because he said I was too fat for my age, which he told me, and I didn't do anything nice with my hair. He asked what my grades were. And then he prescribed pills to me. I could just tell that he was a conceded prick. My dad then told me that he didn't think I was depressed and we never refilled the prescription.

Maria had her baby. She named her Jasmine. Jasmine had these light blue little eyes, and this golden hair. Going to my mother's place became extremely pleasant to me because I loved being around Jasmine all the time. In my mind, for all the times Maria had put me through hell, I considered Jasmine partially my own baby. I spent all my spare time playing with Jasmine. We grew very close. I shared all my food. I became her favorite person over the course of two years. She was a weird baby. Her first word was not mama, or baba. Her first word was MINE, and she seemed to enjoy watching movies more than she really liked people, though she was very attached to her mother and to me. She would sometimes stare at the wall for an hour straight at seemingly nothing. Word here and there was that she had mild autism perhaps, but nobody ever really took her to the doctors. Since Maria was working at KFC, she wanted Jasmine to be awake when she got off at 2:00am. I became Jasmine's babysitter, and it was my job to keep her awake till then. Because of this, Jasmine's internal clock is set for her to stay up very late at night to this day.

Roxanne was pregnant with her second baby, who ended up being her oldest son Alex. She had Alex, Issac, and Hailey with her first serious boyfriend Jody the boring lazy dunce. Throughout the next five years, she was either pregnant or on drugs. By the time she was eighteen, she had four kids.

My father got a DUI. He had been drinking excessively – I am guessing probably because of the stress of splitting his 4O1K money in half with my mom as part of the settlement of divorce. And it just upset him that he was getting a divorce. She took the 40,000 all at once and spent every dime on stupid stuff. God, I wish I had that money now. I have watched so many people waste tens of thousands of dollars on nothing. If I had that money, I would go to the doctors, I would go back to school. I would make decisions that would permanently improve my life and the lives of those around me. I would spend the money in a way that would hopefully ripple into the future and make the lives of people in the future better.

He managed to avoid losing his license. If he had lost his license, he would have lost his job. And in that case, he was afraid to the point of death that it would force me, Allison and David to live with my mother full time. Which would not have been good for our well being – but I think a part of his fear of that was also him having to concede to my mother in some way. He talked the judge into letting him keep his license, but he still had to pay the fine, and we had to start going to AA after school every other day. He would pack us all into the car and we would drive the forty miles into Lewiston where we would stay in a nursery like daycare area for three hours while my father went into his meetings. Because my dad yaks and yaks, I ended up learning everything about AA. I learned all the steps, and he told me about everyone's  lives that they opened up about as they went around the meeting.

I have nothing against AA. Normally, a lot of people who go simply go back to drinking once their probation is up or they have fulfilled their requirements, but if it helps one person permanently quit drinking, if it gives one little child a better life because their parents have cleaned up their act, than I really do support it. With that said, while I think some of the elements of AA are actually really healthy and reflective things people should do, the whole concept of a 'higher power' has never worked for me in the least. I don't see the rhyme or reason in embracing powerlessness and giving yourself up to that higher power. The whole program is very seeped in Christian rhetoric and I am not fully buying it. There are phrases that I actually agree with, and I can see the principle and reason for the steps that need to be taken, but I can read between the lines of AA's twelve steps to know it's kind of a self-deception game that hopefully sticks. I will never criticize it though to people who it is working for. If believing in that stuff really is making their lives better, I absolutely in no way want to tear them apart for it. If I ever had a drinking problem, I most likely would not be able to incorporate those steps into my life. And actually, there are other methods that people use to overcome addiction, that I feel don't get taken into consideration often enough.

The daycare system brought me into a group of other kids, some of them being my age. Some of them a little younger. All of our parents got busted. I don't remember all of them, only there were about ten of us, and a little baby. And somehow I became the leader of these kids over the course of the next year. Whenever I become the leader of a group of people, it has to be some kind of fluke. I am no leader. But when I am put in a leadership position, I always end up feeling this creeping feeling entering my ego immediately. It comes so intrinsically with power that there is nothing I can do to balance myself out that won't also make my followers dissipate with uncertainty. Suddenly everyone thinks I am funny and right after years of literally no recognition at all. I try to control it, but I instantly become corrupted by power. I have to find ways to balance myself out. I have gotten a little better, but I still don't entirely trust myself.

There was this boy named Michael who I almost had a crush on. I didn't, but I almost did. It was like a precrush. He had a little brother named Sky. I don't remember much about them other than their father robbed someone's house eventually and got arrested. Then they weren't there anymore. Which was a bummer. Michael and I were the group leaders.

We had two alternating babysitters, Veronica and Jennifer. They were both seniors in high school. Back in these days, high school senior girls were these elusive unicorn like beings full of wisdom, they always smelled good and had figured out what to do with their hair (though year book pictures time and time again demonstrate that this is indeed not the case). They were always catty in a mysterious way. A strange mixture of kind hearted and pretentious. It was hard to imagine that me, or any other girl my age would ever grow up to be one of these mystical creatures.

At first we all liked Veronica. She was far more chipper and made a better first impression. She was really into cheerleading. She liked to tell me all about her boyfriends. She openly talked in detail about her dumb teenager sex life. She was VERY confident her and Brad, Tyler, or whoever her quarterback boyfriend was were going to get married and move to Malibu. She always chewed gum. She told me that if I ever wanted a boyfriend, all I had to do was flip my hair a lot in class. She was really into Christina Aguilera. She didn't care what we did very much. She sometimes would spend her time on the phone if she could get away with it.

Then there was Jennifer. She was kind of boyish. She had short  blonde hair and glasses. The side of her face had a scar that she got from falling into a fire when she was a child. And she took her job a little more seriously. She didn't have a boyfriend. She mostly was concerned with getting into college. She let us know that she was not that popular in school. She didn't let me do whatever I wanted either. And she seemed to be more controlling over what we said and did. I didn't like her much at first. But over time, I grew to like her a lot more. She started talking to me and much like Veronica she gave me her own life advice. She told me about how she had been raped by a neighbor when she was a little girl, and she really wanted us to respect ourselves and not date dumb teenage boys who would take advantage of us. She was a very real person, and I grew to like her a lot better than Veronica.

Eventually Veronica tried to get me to talk shit about Jennifer. She started talking about how Jennifer was super ugly and no boys dated her. She made fun of the scar on the side of her face. I refused to participate, and decided then and there to become an informant to Jennifer. I assume things must have happened between them in the hallways of the giant people school because Jennifer said she was going to confront Veronica, who Jennifer informed me was not a nice person. There was a lot of tension after that, and Veronica started skipping her sessions. Eventually kids fell away, and after a year of this, I think they reduced the amount of times per week my father was required to go to these sessions. I missed Jennifer, who I am hoping went on and had a good life. Michael's father ended up going to jail, and so him and Sky left. I was happy to not have to eat those cold make-your-own-pizza lunchables, which, though the idea is intriguing, is actually awful in every sense of the word.

My fathers wanted to get in shape to kind of reestablish himself after the divorce, so he joined a gym. I used to go into the kids room, which was nothing more than a small closet-like room with a terribly small television always playing Dragon Ball Z (which ironically, I had no appreciation for till I was in my twenties). The whole room was covered in toys, and it was very difficult to get through the mess. In just about every gym, there is always a man who is screaming his head off like he is dying, trying to squeeze one more lift out of himself. I always found this extremely alarming. I would sit in there and watch over Allison and David to make sure they were not fighting. Which they seemed to do more and more of as they got older.

There was also a lady-friend that my father had made. To this day I could not decipher if they were dating or not. Asking him now, I am sure my father would have no clear answer either and honestly, I don't know if he actually knows. Her name was Denise. She was a waitress at Shari's. She was kind of a tough lady. She had raised 5 boys, one of them being the son of one of her cousins. They were all very wild, and she raised them all by herself. She was always pretty nice to me, and we would go over to see her at least once a week. Though I never saw my father and her kiss at all. I could not decipher the established relationship. They didn't sleep together or kiss, but if either one of them began to see someone else then they probably would have been angry.

Jimmy was the oldest – he eventually went crazy and became homeless, then Marques who was very popular among girls, he was one of those people who looks like they are wearing mascara and eyeliner but are not, Anthony who had a lot of friends who came and ate everything in the cupboard and generally no one in the family liked him but I never knew why, and finally Clayton, who was a truly monstrous little boy with missing teeth. It was very difficult to be around Clayton. He took things out of your hands, screamed, broke things. He was a little tyrant. I had to be in the same room with him a lot. It's also worthy of note that Denise had two iguanas that she was obsessed with. She called them her lovers. Her regard for them made them like her children, though it is questionable if they regarded her quite as favorably. My dad and Denise were in a relationship-not-relationship for almost two years. My father would often times complain to me about people, and as history repeated itself, I eventually complained openly about Clayton in front of Denise, basically repeating what my father had said and how he ruined one 4th of July at the beach in the car, with Denise in it. And it really upset her. She could not talk the rest of the way home. I was completely block-headed and had no idea I had said anything remotely offensive. She was furious, and my dad tried to say something to her, but she shushed him up. And this kind of ended their whatever-it-was. We visited a few more times, but eventually she told my father to buzz off.

The other friend my dad made that didn't make any real sense was a woman named Judy Burns. She was a married office lady at the factory my father worked at. She was extremely wealthy and lived in a part of town I had never known existed. She was a woman still dealing with a seriously traumatic event that happened just a few short years previous to my father and her's decision to hang out. Her twelve year old son had died of an asthma attack and she had not realized he was dying while he was in another room. So she came in and found her son dead and she carried enormous guilt with her. And this horrible situation had made her entire life fall apart even though it did not seem like it. She was extremely chipper and friendly. But she began eating to cope with the death of her son. She became obsessed with candy. I had never in my entire life seen so much candy. She had in her kitchen, hundreds of bags of candy. When she laughed, she had this twinkle in her eyes of pure sadness.

My dad went to Judy I think talking about the divorce. He could not stop talking about the divorce if someone had a gun to his head. She probably enjoyed the attention she got from my dad. After her son had died, her husband had completely disattached from her. He would walk around the outside part of the house completely drunk and not answer anything she said. He seemed kind of crazy with grief as well. He never smiled or laughed or looked anyone in the eyes at all. She responded to her sons death by almost pretending nothing was wrong, and he did the very opposite.

He must have told her that I had no mother figure in my life. And she saw this as an opportunity to perhaps do something good for a kid who was close to the age her deceased son. So my father came into my bedroom one day and told me that I was going with this lady on a shopping expedition to get fashionable school clothes and such. My dad has always apologetic and forewarning about people's weight. He warned me cautiously that she was 'VERY HEAVY'. I have absolutely no idea why he does this. Was she going to sit on me? Why would he even mention this to me at all? He ended up giving me a bigger stigma by reacting and assuming so much about overweight women. And he never apologized for men's weight. Only women's.

Judy took me to a bunch of super rich girl stores. She got me the classic late nineties dragonfly necklace. She decided that I needed to be up to date with 'cool' new music, so she bought me a bunch of Back Street Boys albums,  NSYNC, and Britney Spear's album that had Hit Me Baby One More Time on it. It was a bit confusing getting all this stuff. I didn't know how to feel about it. I wasn't into that kind of music at all. She also bought me a bunch of preteen magazines. I knew that all the girls in my class thought these guys were hot, but to me their hair was absurd, and I couldn't get into their silly soulless faces. I remember other than the dragonfly necklace, I didn't really like this stuff all that much. But my dad was insistent I be grateful. I really liked patchy homemade hippie clothes that my mother was capable of sewing but wouldn't. I wanted to dress like a more tomboy hip Raggedy Anne.

She also got me a bunch of beanie babies. Word was, that they were going to stop making these things once the year 2000 rolled around. So she bought me a whole bunch of beanie babies, since that was what 'the kids' were into these days, and presumably these stuffed animals would be worth so much some day that my grandchildren would have their tuition paid for. I thought these stuffies were boring, but I accepted them as graciously as I possibly could. Word was also, that Y2K was going to wipe out everyone's computers and as my friends at school informed me, all electronic devices would end. I could not wait for New Years to arrive to see if it actually happened.

I spent two weekends with Judy before either she made my father feel weird, or I once again messed things up by saying something questionable or judgmental, it's never been made clear to me why the visits stopped. The second weekend, she took me camping. She had this camper that had a running toilet, air conditioning, a heater, and a television, nothing about it was dirty or gritty in the least. The camper had bedrooms. We camped at a really crowded campground. This was so foreign to me I simply could not understand it. This was not the kind of camping I was used to at all. We didn't even need a fire. We stayed on night out in the woods, but her husband got drunk and began doing something strange outside at night, I am not sure what. I just heard her crying and them fighting outside. So in the morning she said we would hang out at her place.

Her home was opulent. I had no idea what two people could do with a ten bedroom home. They had these two yappy dogs and one of them tried his very best to impregnate my leg. It was somewhat awkward. I felt strange, like I was using her somehow. There was a very strange pressure about the whole situation. If her husband was mad about her doing this for me or her involvement with my father, I didn't hear any direct fighting from it. They offered me too many options of everything. It was difficult to know how to respond to all of this. If I took too much of something I felt I would be rude, and if I refused it then I would also be rude. Judy seemed to stare at me expectantly, waiting for me to do something, i didn’t know what. Judy wanted me to go swimming in the new bathing suit she bought me, so I went into her pool and chubby little me was swimming around. She insisted that I ask her husband to set up the water slide. I didn't want to go on the water slide, but she made me feel bad if I didn't. So eventually, I decided the right thing to do was to ask him to set it up for me.

He seemed annoyed and resentful towards this. Like I was some kind of rich impudent girl asking a slave for something absurd. The whole thing was awkward. He would not speak to me when I asked other questions and he seemed to slam things about getting this water slide – that I didn't even want to use, set up. On looking back, I imagine that perhaps it was hard to set up the pool. It was likely something they had put together for their son. There was probably memories associated with the water slide that were incredibly painful. In any case, nothing could have made it worse. Once he had the thing set up, I realized that if I were to go on it, then when I hit the water I would be submerged. I was fearful of getting water in my nose. So, after setting it up for the last half hour, he sat and watched me expectantly. I swam around and waited for him to go. Eventually he gruffly asked me ARE YOU GOING TO USE THE SLIDE OR WHAT?!. And I told him no. I didn't think I would. He was so pissed off. I quickly got out of the pool and went inside, with that dumb dog chasing after my leg.

So it was officially the day of Y2K. I was at my mother's. I remember sitting up that night, determined to stay up all night long to watch the end of the modern world crumble into chaos. I watched an interview on television with George W. Bush. I was informed that he was the next president of the United States. I didn't understand what they were saying. He seemed rather boring to me. Allison was four and a half by that time and she very much aware that everyone was going to be staying up. She wanted to stay up as well. My mother said no, but Allison was relentless. I watched my mother give Allison half an adults sleeping pill in a piece of food. She also put a little bit of NyQuil in Allison's kidcup. As she did so, she said 'Watch this'. Allison walked around for another five or ten minutes, but she started to falter and look super drowsy. She then passed out on the floor from exhaustion.

I was very into black tea at the time. I made a lot of tea that night. As it has turned out the world did not end at all. However, I ended up having the flu that night and I throwing up several times. The beginning of a good new millennium.

In case you want to read the first parts of my personal tale here are the links to the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth parts.

Also, i usually post these things twice. There seems to be people who like what i write for some reason randomly - sometimes not, but not everyone is on tumblr at the same time.

PART 5

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160817595789/my-life-story-continued

PART 4

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160729982054/being-10-in-1999

PART 3

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160399693214/about-me-the-third-part-i-did-it-after-all

PART 2

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160333575899/life-story-part-2

PART 1

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160186590059/about-me-life-story-part-1

#text

[offgridscribbler]

Sad Sunday

Cry for America.

At a time when it was clear America planned to unite–to come together to condemn a policeman’s heinous crimes over a defenseless man, the left had no intention of allowing that to happen.  White America, they have made clear, will not be allowed to “appropriate” this black man’s pain or his family’s pain — or to feel universal aversion to something everyone knows is wrong.

That is clearly not enough.

In order to “divide and conquer” and most of all, get rid of Donald Trump, all of America must bleed.  And bleed she is.  All innocent policemen will be sacrificed in this scorched earth policy and there will be no one standing at the end.  The numbers in no way reflect the genocide they want you to believe this act represents — it represents the act of one idiot or insane man (if in due process this video truly represents what went on) and nearly all of the left is walking in lockstep to do this.  Nine unarmed black people died in 2019 (even though that might mean they  had a gun on the front seat) and 19 unarmed white people died at the hands of the police in 2019.   The numbers of white people equal the number of black people overall killed in “police encounters.”  About 230 black people killed; same number of whites.  Most crime happens in inner cities where black people equal or outweigh numbers of white people, so those numbers are unexpectedly low.

Why don’t they post the number of dead police officers trying to defend you and me against violent criminals of all colors? The number was 106 in 2019.  During 911 they were some of the first to rush into that building, they die or are hurt regularly doing a thankless job and now for their efforts they will be fired, not served in restaurants, and basically demonized for the foreseeable future as white sports figures cave under the enormous pressure to get in lockstep.  My  husband, as mayor of our small town many years ago, hired a police chief, a white man.  Of course, you’ll say.  I came home one day to see him personally, not one of his guys, rolling around the ground with my neighbor, a mentally ill man who hadn’t taken his meds and had attacked his girl friend.  He was not making a sound, no shouting, nothing to escalate the situation, and when the man got tired, I watched Larry, nose bleeding and scratches all over his face, lead the man calmly toward his police car.   I was within ten feet of them and I never even heard him yell or order this man, pull a weapon, or do much to dominate this person.  It was hard to figure out how he even got control of the situation.  It was so strangely quiet, it was cartoonish. Previously, when they needed to make a drug arrest and the powers that be wanted swat teams, Larry walked up to the front door himself and calmly arrested the guy so that innocent people, and even the perpetrator, were not harmed.  He went with Larry without incident.

This, no doubt, is more representative of your average policeman.

If you condemn the violence of these rioters, even if you agree with all the peaceful protesting surrounding this tragedy, you are “part of the problem.”  That is what my “best friend,” a supposed life-long and at times judgmental Christian posts on her Facebook page about people like me.  Accept your collective white guilt — and all policemen symbolize such — even black police chiefs trying to do their jobs — or face the consequences.  Black Lives Matter, on their site, wants all prisoners released, reparations, a guaranteed income, free education and more.  And the progressive white elite want to use it to unseat Donald Trump when weaponizing the justice department and falsely accusing him of being a traitor failed to do it.

And it might.

What’s gone on here in the last three years to our country will likely never be repaired in my lifetime.

Disband police departments–that’s what the cry is now and it appears some of the major cities are doing just that.  And I see no reason for the police departments or security people to protect Schumer, Pelosi, Biden, or the rest of them.  I think the social workers they propose to send in on our behalf– should arrive for the progressive left politicians.   See how that works out for them. Let them live under that which they intend we live.

If you went through graduate school (and I have my MFA from a small school in Michigan Upper Peninsula–especially if you are an English major), you took what they call “literary theory.”  This is the class in which you learn that the author and the individual (and soon even the novel–which is an individual expression) is dead.  Universalism is dead.  This is the class where we throw out the baby with the bathwater.  For instance, if a minority person shares a story of pain from their life experience, and you as a white person, say, “Oh, I can understand that pain,” based on some close experience, a university professor will say, “Oh no you do NOT understand.  You are appropriating their pain and minimizing it just by your very empathy.”  Even though it’s what we have in common as human beings that led us to appreciate the uniqueness of everyone else in the first place.   That desire for freedom, love, family, food, a roof over our heads, and the pursuit of happiness. We are no longer allowed to feel that human connection.  And of course, divide and conquer is what the progressives need to achieve their socialist agenda and they WILL have it.

So the killing of George Floyd AND the violence in the street cannot both be wrong in today’s politically correct narrative.

I have never been a death penalty advocate because “free will” is hard to prove–I’m a mixed philosopher — so perhaps they had no choice–mental illness, poverty, other environmental influences caused them to behave that way and violence is not remedy for violence (Floyd had been arrested for armed robbery, was a drug addict, and –nobody knows — seems to have been passing counterfeit money).  But he is a product of our society, the left wails.  He is your fault.

And he is a martyr.

Well then, so is Chauvin.  But he, too, is the fault only of the white privileged, they argue.

It is all our faults.   I as a woman apparently am to blame for every crazy woman who kills her children or her husband for insurance money. We are all to blame and represent serial killers.  They are not aberrations and outliers–they are apparently us.  Black people kill more black people than white people do-again, our fault.

I beg to differ. We are ALL to blame here and that is what we have in common!

It’s what we have in common in the human condition and violence is never justified except in imminent self defense.  Not ever.   Progressives are ends justifies the means people, and there’s no end of individuals who must be sacrificed to the collective good of today for this globalist, socialist movement.

So I, according to my friend, am not allowed to cry for George Floyd at all unless I understand that this violence is necessary.  Peaceful protesting of America’s lockdown or the desire to peacefully gather in a church was murderous and selfish and not allowed; but mass gatherings –most of them at least partially violent — are fine in the name of a left agenda.  Breathe all over each other as long as it achieves our aims.

What it boils down to is the left has rights in any situation (all women are not believed anymore when it’s Joe Biden), and conservatives have none.  15% of them are “bad people,” according to Biden.  But George Floyd, who bears absolutely no responsibility for his actions or the situation he found himself in, is a martyr and certainly one of the “good” people.  A gentle giant, they say.

I, according to  my friend, belong in that 15%.

Louise Erdrich, a fabulous literary writer, is half German and have Native American.  She was criticized for caring more about postmodernism than she did about the abuses to –and marginalization of –Native Americans because she dared to see not only those of her ancestors who were lynched, but those that had done the lynching, as victims of a sad history.  Perhaps she was referring to the guilt she felt passed down by her white fathers who had behaved this way and nothing she can do about it–or perhaps she just has compassion for all people and the unfairness of the human condition.  As half white, half Indian she was searching for a way to heal, perhaps to reconcile all the pain of her heritage, to bring people finally together, but that was not allowed.   Even from her unique perspective.  She was not allowed an individual perspective, but must, instead, speak for the “other” as an oppressed group.  And if not, her work was nothing.

So how do I feel seeing my friend post garbage like this?  (And I have more liberal friends than conservative who are posting this stuff).  Helpless and betrayed.

And ineffably sad.  Words cannot express how sad.

“Groups” and the bloodless ideals of them, “causes” whether they are socialists or conservatives or Christians, dehumanize and separate us forever.  It is only an individual voice that has a chance of communicating with another individual voice–and that, it seems, is being silenced forever.  Become one of those sheep, part of our progressive agenda, part of that group, or you are part of the problem.   Burn it all down with us –even though this country is the best version of imperfect government there is –so much so that people flood our borders to come here — or you will burn individually because individuality and universalism is dead.

And so are you.

And so is America…

#carnivoredreams carnivorediet fictionwriter dreamwalker

[christianmenatwork]

What Unites Us-CMAW083-Selah17

S = Something on My Heart

What Unites Us - heard from a manager at a safety meeting once that the great thing about safety is it's the one thing that unites us all.  My first thought was one I often have when I hear an extreme statement that uses terms like "always", "never" or in this case "the one thing", and that thought was that it was hyperbole, or exaggeration and that in the natural there are always exceptions to extreme statements like this and that only God deserves language like that (for example, all powerful, all knowing, ever present),as a side note I've tried to avoid using powerful or extreme words and phrases like this for natural things, but reserve those for whom they are deserved, words like awesome, incredible, amazing, unreal.  But back to the safety meeting at work.  I thought about this statement some more, about safety being the one thing that unites us , I thought about it both during that meeting as well as in the weeks that followed, particularly in light of the Coronavirus.  I've come to the conclusion that a better statement is that safety unites us more than most things in life, but that it is not the one thing that unites us all. In the workplace I have found that pretty much everyone agrees that safety is important, maybe even that safety should be our number one priority, but that unity ends when you go beyond the general and into the specific.  For example, I've seen many examples where safety was prioritized to a level where it went beyond common sense and didn't factor in sufficiently the need for the business to be profitable nor did it factor in sufficiently the need for individuals to take responsibility for themselves.  With the Coronavirus, I saw a fair amount of division initially around what our reaction should be to the threat, then a more united approach, but as we now debate how and when we should reopen our country the unity has quickly changed as there are different opinions on exactly what steps were appropriate in response to that threat as well as how we should open things up moving forward. To take this thought a bit further, what, if anything, does actually unite all of us?  This is not a complete list, but here's a few things I've found to answer this question.  2 things both come from Gen 1:26.  We were all made in God's image and we were all made so that we may have dominion over the earth, I believe you could substitute the phrase work for dominion.  This was further clarified in Gen 2:15 "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it."  So 2 things that unite all of us, believers and unbelievers, are God's image and our purpose to do good work in the world.  John Stonestreet and Warren Smith in their book "Restoring all things" say it like this "The absolute Ruler of everything decides to make other rulers to take care of His world...they are not puppets, nor have they been granted tourist visas to enjoy paradise. They have work to do...they too, like the One whose image they bear, are to fill and form...humans are to bring glory to God by living for the good of the world".  What are some other things that unite all of us?  The book of Romans is filled with them. "there is none righteous not one", "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". and also that it is clear to all that God exists, Rom 1:20 says "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and [g]Godhead, so that they are without excuse," we're also united in the sense that God doesn't want any of us to perish and that He sent Jesus for all of us. John 3:16 says that "God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son". 2 Peter 3:9 says "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." So far in our list of what unites us all is some good news and bad news. We're all made in God's image, we're all made to do good work, we're all aware of God, we're all guilty of sin, and we're all equally loved by God and have an equal opportunity to accept his gift of eternal life with him.  We've been talking about all of humanity, but what about believers in Christ.  What unites us?  You've heard the phrase "in the essentials unity, in non-essentials, freedom, all things in love".  As believers, we are all forgiven.  Psalm 103:12 says "as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us". We are all a new creation, 2 Cor 5:17 says "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new".  So, looking again at all of humanity, what divides us?  Well, in the natural that's an easy question to answer, it seems that just about everything and at an increasing level of intensity, divides us. Let's talk just about the spiritual.  What divides all of humanity is our response to truth and to what God has done for us. In John 18:37b Jesus says "for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice".  Pilate responds to Jesus with a question "What is truth?". In 3 of the 4 gospels Jesus asks a critical question "who do you say that I am?". How we respond to that question as well as the question "what is truth" is the primary way that all of humanity is divided.  That important division in terms of both how we may respond as well as how we will respond in the future is made every more clear by Jesus when he talks about the present and the future. In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus says "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it".  In Matthew 25:32, Jesus says "All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats."  Surprisingly, the Bible does not say that Jesus came to unite all of us in peace between each other but rather to unite us with Him.  When the Angels announced the coming of Jesus in Luke 2:14, they said "“Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”.  Notice they said peace toward men, not between men, i.e. peace between God and man, not between man and man. And although Jesus told us as his disciples to love one another, he also said in Matthew 10:34-39 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. 35 For I have come to ‘set[j] a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; 36 and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ 37 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it." So, here are some takeaways for me on this question of unity. We are united with all of humanity in the sense that God made us in his image, he made us to do good work, he wants us all to choose to spend eternity with Him, and he wants us to love HIm and to love others.  We are divided in how we choose to respond to God, specifically to Jesus Christ. As C.S. Lewis said in his book "Mere Christianity", "

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

E=Example of Faith at work

2 things to share.  Both are innovative products that make our lives better. These may not seem to be spiritual and I have not researched to determine if the inventors are Christian, but as we've discussed on here may times and in reference to Tim Keller's book "Every Good Endeavor", all humans, believers and unbelievers, are made in God's image and we all can be tools of God's common grace, blessing all of humanity, by making the world better including in very natural, physical ways.  The first product is  one that teaches your cat to use the toilet so you can get rid of litter.  We found two makers Litter Kwitter and City Kitty and purchased City Kitty mainly because it's less expensive, and will be trying it out soon.  The second product is one that helped my mother out a lot and that is Windex all-in-one.  It has a pad with soap in it and allows you to clean outside windows quickly and easily and more safely without having to get on a ladder. I challenge you all to view everyday tasks and accomplishments of your work as spiritual.  I was going to quote a famous quote from Martin Luther about the value of making a good shoe until I found out that he didn't actually say that, so instead I'd like to mention an actual quote from Martin Luther I found on the reformed trombonist.com article called "On making good shoes", where Michael Everett quotes Luther as follows "The prince should think: Christ has served me and made everything to follow him; therefore, I should also serve my neighbor, protect him and everything that belongs to him. That is why God has given me this office, and I have it that I might serve him. That would be a good prince and ruler. When a prince sees his neighbor oppressed, he should think: That concerns me! I must protect and shield my neighbor….The same is true for the shoemaker, tailor, scribe, or reader. If he is a Christian tailor, he will say: I make these clothes because God has bidden me do so, so that I can earn a living, so that I can help and serve my neighbor.".  In his post, Michael Everett also refers to a scirpture I often refer to which is Colossians 3:23-24 " And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for[a] you serve the Lord Christ."

L=Logos = Work verse

Psalm 19:7b "The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;" - I bring this up as an encouragement to other men like me that feel they are sometimes not really measuring up in their work, either in general or maybe temporarily on one of those down days.  You may feel simple or not as good at what you do as the next guy.  No matter who you are, or what your occupation is, or how talented or gifted you are, you have access to mind and heart of the Creator of the Universe in his word, and that word, if you read it, receive it, and live it out in your daily life, will make you wise.

A=Announcements

Finished Colson Fellows, Weekly release in June

H=Handy tip to increase productivity and effectiveness 

If someone at work tells you about a problem they have, you can tell them you’re praying for them but I recommend instead 2 better options, one is for you to pray for them privately but don't tell them you're praying for them, Matthew 6:6 says "But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."  The 2nd option is to pray WITH them right there and then.  Whichever way you choose to pray for them, I also recommend you back that up by doing something in the natural related to their problem.  Don't just say "let me know if there's anything I can do to help", instead at that moment or soon after that, think and pray about what you could do to help them and do it.  James 2:15-17 says " If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." 

Check out this episode!

[mikhalsarah]

Ill-omened Things

“Fine weapons are, nonetheless, ill-omened things.” -Tao Te Ching

I saw the Tree of Life shooting coming. Not specifically, of course. Generally.

 I said more than a decade ago that bad things were coming and I take no pleasure in being right. I said, over and again, as I watched the Jewish community wooed and courted by this and that purveyor of polite racism (be it Fox News, the Tories, or some little Evangelical church around the corner) that we were naive to think that just because we rubbed elbows with these people that we’d be spared from what they would set loose in the world. 

Why did the Jewish community keep it up? Your guess is ultimately as good as mine.... these were the sorts of bigots and nutjobs we wouldn’t have been caught dead with normally...but my guess is that waving an Israeli flag enthusiastically covereth a multitude of sins. We didn’t like them...oh, we didn’t like them, but for a long time we smiled and shock hands and nodded politely, as directed by the powers that be in the Jewish Community, who adored them. Those powers saw in our new philosemitic friends a weapon. A weapon in the fight to promote the nation of Israel, for the good of Jews everywhere. 

I saw an ill omen.

In some ways it was understandable. This is the way that the Jewish community has coped for nearly two millenia: Cozy up to power for protection even if it means making a deal with the devil and losing your soul. In the short-term this has worked well, but the long view of history betrays the truth...we get used by the powerful, who ultimately betray us to the mobs whose resentment we have incurred by standing by as the powerful exploit them. When they rise up in outrage the powerful will hand us over on a silver platter or simply flee to safety, leaving us behind. We took a whole new route in North America: For the first time we started making common cause with other groups who were oppressed and fighting to change the system. Realistically, it probably was the first time we were able to.

“In the 1950s, Jewish leaders, from rabbis to intellectuals to the heads of prominent institutions, argued that Jews would be only as accepted as the least-accepted people in America.” 

We had choices, and as the decades passed we chose to be....hypocritical, for one. To be right-wing in Israel where we were a powerful but resented majority and left-wing in North America where we were a tiny minority. And the world began to notice that we did not practice what we preached. Those on the Left began to criticise Israel (and increasingly, on the fringes, Jews), and those on the Right....well, some of them wanted to “support us” (for the dubious reasons of needing us for their Armageddon) and others wanted to emulate us and be rid of us in one fell sweep. After all, we had our own country now. Why should we get a country of our own, just for the Jews, and still get to hang about their countries giving them sanctimonious lectures on pluralism and tolerance? (Whilst also just having way too much influence, in their opinions)

We also chose to be at each other’s throats. We, too, divided into camps of Left and Right, particularly from the 80s onward, when acceptance opened the doors of country clubs and gated communities and we started receiving callers from Team Moral Majority. I suspect some Jews on both sides of the divide forgot there was ever a time it was otherwise. And it goes without saying that we divided religiously, which is not at all new under the sun, or that the political divides often went hand in hand with the religious divides. Often, but by no means always.

I must admit a certain admiration for the organizers of Jewish life. It was no mean feat to keep the rank and file Jews united for the better part of four decades....selling left-wing Jews on Israel being a modern civilization with feminism, gay rights, beaches, and nightclubs... and selling right-wing Jews on Israel as a bastion of strength and security amongst the Muslim hordes....all while selling religious Jews on the chance of living to see the Messiah via the Flowering of the Redemption. I’m not anti-Israel, nor am I pro-Israel. The early Zionists aspired for Israel to be a country like any other, and like any other country it is complex and often contradictory. There was a little of something to sell everyone on. Any good salesperson is part stage magician. It’s important to keep an audience’s eyes on what you want them to see and away from what will ruin the show....and the organized Jewish community has certainly excelled at misdirection where Israel is concerned. It was bound to unravel eventually, but kudos where due. Getting Jews to do anything en masse is like herding cats, and they kept us all on the same page for nearly half a century...so willing to support Israel that we eventually got into bed with the very sorts of people who had spent two millenia driving us out of Israel and nearly every other country we’d lived in.

Am I blaming the victims in Pittsburgh or intimating that they deserved it in any fashion for supporting Israel, as I’m sure the many groups meeting in the Tree of Life synagogue did? Absolutely not...I believe this, or something like it, would have happened regardless. Even leaving aside that Jews are overwhelmingly liberal and were always bound to catch flak for it in the event of a rightward lurch, Jews are a tiny proportion of the population and our votes and voices hardly carry the day in any direction. The Evangelicals would have used Israel  for their own devices with or without us...that’s the wondrous thing about Christian Zionism, no actual Jews required. For most of history Christianity considered itself the New Israel so in our absence the Jews 2.0 would, sooner or later, simply have set out to reconquer the Holy Land themselves...as they have tried to do so many times before. Some Jews continue to harbour a sneaking suspicion that they might one day revert to form and try again.

But we might have slowed the descent into madness down, just a little. And we didn’t have to give it our blessing and allow our name to be used to justify it. It was just easier to go on not looking at what was happening with Israel...either in Israel itself or with her supporters abroad. Diaspora Jews could remain critical of the countries they remained married to, yet continue to carry a torch for Israel... a beautiful ideal untouched by the harsh reality of living with her everyday and seeing her skivvies hanging over the shower bar. 

"One thing that I think was made stark this week is that there are many Jews who have liked many of Trump's policies on Israel, but I hope this week that American Jews have woken up to the price of that bargain: They have traded policies that they like for the values that have sustained the Jewish people – and frankly, this country –  forever: Welcoming the stranger; dignity for all human beings; equality under the law; respect for dissent; love of truth. These are the things we are losing under this president – and no policy is worth that price." -Bari Weiss

 Ultimately I’m discussing the WAY in which Israel was supported, not the fact of it....unquestioningly, uncritically and surpassing all other values in importance. As if it were one of the Ten Commandments themselves. With a willingness to turn a blind eye to what was oozing out from the underbelly of the Right in exchange for “support”...an ooze which which didn’t stay among the Gentiles. The things I heard said around the kiddush table sometimes, chiefly about Muslims but not limited to them, sometimes chilled me to the bone (and keep in mind this is a liberal synagogue that I attended at the time). Discussion about nuking entire nations to rid us of a few jihadis hiding in the hills, abuse towards recent immigrants, you name it. The increasingly impolite racism of our new friends was creeping in, putting its feet up and making itself quite at home. 

The Jewish leadership was so enamoured of its new weapons, so dazzled, that the ill omens gathering on the horizon were simply not on the radar. Like so many fearful people given a gun, some felt suddenly invincible...which tends to  bring a reckless disregard for reality as its plus-one. What? Our new friends turn on us? Blasphemy! To be fair the Pittsburgh shooter is neither evangelical, nor is he a fan of Trump...mainly because Trump is “surrounded by kikes” (his words, not mine) and is “not enough of an asshole” (Bill Maher’s words, not mine)....so he can’t really be called a fair-weather friend but some of the stuff written by alleged Evangelicals in the wake of Trump has been only marginally better. (Following is a screenshot from the comments section of a major Jewish site, most of which have more regular commentators who are Christians than Jews these days)

 It’s more that our so-called friends have no real control over the rabid dogs at their feet, but also don’t want to put them down. Sort of a, “It’s sad when they maul our friends, but they might be useful later so we don’t want to be hasty.”, thing. We might need shock troops for the war against a caravan of Mexican converts to Islam, or something.  So in the wake of this, they will shed a few tears, make a few heartfelt (but suitably vague) condemnations about hatred and violence “on both sides” and wait for it to all blow over. But they won’t really DO anything.

They won’t, for example, make any attempt at gun control. Instead they will litter the comments of major news websites with advice to Jews on the need to be armed, vigilant and vehemently opposed to the idea of the synagogue as a gun-free space. The average age of Jews shot in this attack was 73. Exactly how many septegenarians do these people know who could get the drop on someone who surprised them with an assault rifle? 

As if we need weapons in the hands of untrained civilians, who are as likely to shoot each other as the assailant, assuming they can even reach their gun before the bullets start flying and haven’t dropped it on the floor from their hands shaking in panic. And like we need guns in the hands of most Jews...I’ve seen Jews attempt to assemble a tool-free Sukkah kit and put a pole through the stained glass window of the Sanctuary in the process. I wouldn’t give most of my fellow Jews power tools, much less ballistic weaponry. Jews who grew up in the age of the First-person Shooter might be an exception to that, but most of them have been recently bar-mitzvahed and won’t be seen or heard from until marriage or the bris of their first born sons, whichever comes first. You want Jews who can defend themselves?.. teach them krav maga. And shut the doors before services start. If nothing else people will be forced to show up in time to avoid a collision with the Torah procession. (If I begin to sound glib here I’m not. Sarcasm and dark humour are my coping mechanisms)

Which is the gist of the problem. People don’t care about the Torah procession, or the Torah itself, anymore. Israel has long eclipsed Torah as the central value of modern Jewish communal life. Not to say we have no other values, but Israel trumps every one...even tikkun olam, which is hardly enough to base a religion on either, though not for lack of trying. Israel is, at least, a Torah value of a sort, since it has saved lives and continues to have potential to do so, and Torah does allow us to set aside most laws to save a life....most laws, but not all.  As one Rabbi so wryly put it, “I could get up on the bimah and say that God doesn’t exist and no one would bat an eye, but if I criticized Israel all hell would break loose”. (I paraphrase here as I seem to have lost the link to that quote but that’s the gist of it). You always know what’s really important to people by paying attention to what will piss them off most if you attack it.

The Hasids I studied with would say that this alone is the reason for the uptick in antisemitism and violence...we have lost our way and the gentiles are being sent to remind us that we don’t belong in their country clubs in the first place. I can’t speak to the divine incitation of the gentiles to violence, but we certainly have forgotten a lot. I went to my city’s vigil for Tree of Life and spent much of it shaking my head in disbelief. The presiding Rabbi recited “All the world is a very narrow bridge, the essential thing is to have no fear at all” which he then attributed to Rabbi Nahman of Bratzlov. Aside from being a very cynical and paranoid quotation, it doesn’t belong to R. Nahman at all. It belongs to a popular  musician, Rabbi Baruch Chait, who took the liberty of paraphrasing the Bratzlover Rebbe for a song he performed for soldiers during the Yom Kippur War. The depressing sentiment of the whole world being a dangerous and insecure place being meant to inspire the soldiers, I can only assume. Ofra Haza’s vocals notwithstanding, it certainly never inspired me.

 Despite R. Nahman’s frequent bouts of depression and struggles with his faith, I assure you, no such depressing phrase crossed his actual lips...what he said was more along the lines of “When a person must cross a very narrow bridge the essential thing is not to frighten yourself at all”. Sage advice: don’t recklessly forget the danger, yet don’t dwell on it until you are too paralyzed to put one foot in front of the other. But we cannot distinguish one Rav from another, and so we take the advice of the lesser thinking it from the greater. That and we seem to perversely delight in scaring ourselves half to death.

Not that a better grasp of Who’s Who in Rabbinical History necessarily helps. Many of the Orthodox are in a state of profound denial about either the dangers of the Right, or the ability and willingness of God to bail them out....something God neglected to do during the Holocaust, when the frei who ran to the treifah medinah were saved while pious rabbis were burned alongside their yeshivas. I suspect they, too, have spent too much time around Evangelicals and have picked up their belief in a god who always pulls off a win for the home team. Jews spend three weeks a year mourning a Temple that got destroyed twice, the rebuilding of which we’ve been awaiting for all of a two millenia exile that God still hasn’t bailed us out of. You’d think we’d know better. 

And Israel is no help. Liberal Jews in America, like secular Jews in Israel, don’t breed. At least, they rarely breed and seldom with other Jews. It is rather inevitable that they will diminish in numbers, in enthusiasm, or both. So Israel spends much of its time courting the growing number of very enthusiastic Evangelical Gentiles and ignoring any groups of Jews with an average of four children or fewer. As with the aforementioned comments sections of Jewish sites, it leads to a bizarre state of affairs in which Christians now have more say, and sway, regarding Israel than the Jews whose eternal homeland it supposedly is. I await with trepidation the day when Israel finally decides that it should just amend the Law of Return accordingly.

Despite knowing that they explicity want to christianize the Jews, their numbers and political clout are just too tempting to pass up; Israel and the establishment Zionists are now utterly dependant on them. There is a sort of delusional belief that this strain of philosemitic Christianity and its cheerleading will continue on forever when, truthfully, it might not last another generation. Neither millenial Evangelicals nor non-White/European ones are all that fussed, and even some older White Evangelicals are suffering from “End-times Fatigue” or starting to ask how American Evangelicals have been able to turn their backs on fellow Christians in Israel for so long now. Jews are not the only ones who have carved an idol out of a country, it seems. 

To my relief only one speaker was crass enough to play the Israel card at the vigil, and it didn’t go over well. Though undoubtedly well-intentioned, it really did come across a bit like capitalizing on someone’s disaster to score points. I think the phrase is, “Too soon”. The only speaker to get riotous applause was the Rabbi who simply told the crowd more or less the same thing as R. Nahman, “We must not let fear stop us!” before he sang a Leonard Cohen song to end the vigil. Two nice ladies walking home in front of me wondered who this Leonard Cohen was. “He must be another Rabbi” they decided.

In the words of the immortal R. Cohen, “Reality is one of the possibilities I cannot afford to ignore”. And the reality is we are standing before a very narrow bridge that we have no choice but to cross.

#pittsburgh #tree of life #trump #racism #antisemitism

[whatisonthemoonarchive]

Moon's most important speech revisited

The following was a post here over one year ago. It is excerpts from Moon's speech to the members after Nan Sook Hong and his daughter Un Jin appeared on the 60 Minutes show with Mike Wallace. It is rather revealing especially in light of what we now know about Moon's personal life.

http://whatisonthemoon.tumblr.com/post/154863073384/the-most-important-speech-of-sun-myung-moon-the#notes

I will list the excerpts below with my own comments in Parentheses. Enjoy.

Frank F

http://www.tparents.org/UNews/PDF/Unws9810.pdf

Rev. Sun Myung Moon - September 21, 1998 (EXCERPTS)

What does truth mean? Does it change? (No) Do you know truth? (Yes) What is it? (DP) Yes, but the DP itself is a written text, not perfect truth.

Can we find any perfect, righteous person in the world? We judge each other as nice and honest, or cold, but is that right to do?

Those who oppose the UC say it is satanic, with a lot of secrets, that I am the king of thieves and liars. After you have heard that, why do you still follow me?

(Excellent intro Moon. Good bye.)

The truth never changes.

We have five senses, each taking four years to form a perfect four position foundation, equaling twenty years.

What of the person who proclaims himself a great UC leader, and then turns into a great proponent of the position that the UC is a bad place? That person is Satan.

(Fair enough. Why should it take so long for someone to figure out they are being abused. We get it. Now please explain why church doctrine, policy, directives and even the name gets changed periodically?)

Have I ever criticized or blamed anyone? When it was the USA as plaintiff and I as the defendant, who criticized whom? The USA criticized me.

(Oh I can recall a lot of criticism and blame coming from Moon. Even in this speech. If the U.S. government didn't have a case, why did they bring it?)

Communists attacked me, but in the end they said I am innocent. I was imprisoned in the 1950s and the entire government mobilized to dig up crimes they could attribute to me, but they found nothing and I was released innocent.

(You were released but I hesitate to say....innocent.)

In Korea I was labeled a thief of women…Threats and persecution came to me. Men with rifles and bats came at me…the CIA tried to tempt me by sending women agents. Those agents wrote confessions to Father about it later.

(Why would men come after you if the CIA was sending women to tempt you?)

(the) True daughters see that Father cares more for western and oriental women members than them, so they do not like Father. They ask, “How can we call you our father?”

Even as I leave for South America, my children grab me and beg me to stay. I often stop overnight in New York and my children stand by to talk with me, but I cannot even give them ten or twenty minutes.

(Yeah but how much time did you give your lawyers?)

Don’t worry about Nan Sook’s story. I never even spent one hour talking with her. Of course she came to the True Family at 17 and her life has been lonely, miserable and hard. [Note: she was 17 by Korean determination of age; 16 by western] So when she felt a lack of love from True Parents, she developed a bitter feeling. Now the time came that I made the 4.4 Commemoration [this September 8], which means I can embrace my family and enter heaven with them. If I had even spent a few hours with them, this problem would not have occurred.

(Hmmmm. So who's fault is that Father? The members?)

Nan Sook says I cannot be the messiah because I do not love my own family.

(Wrong. She says you cannot be the Messiah because you are an asshole.)

If True Family had stayed in Korea, this wouldn’t have happened. It is partly a result of the culture of extreme privacy and individualism, which is evil.

(I seem to recall that you invested a lot in your own individual privacy. We are still discovering all the secret dirty deals.)

In my life there have been and are many enemies trying to get rid of me. I try to forget and ignore them…If I had to deal with those billions of enemies, it would be endless. All families opposed me. It would take forever.

I had nothing to do with violating law, but I was put in jail.

If Christianity had accepted me at the start, there would have been no divorce.

( Sure Moon. Christianity would change the laws and force your wives to reconcile with you. It's just a huge misunderstanding.)

Why would I need a divorce? I violated no Korean laws, but because women followed me so fervently, their husbands plotted against me. This spread to put me in jail, but I am ashamed of nothing, because I taught those wives to be celibate. Naturally they separated from their husband. The husbands assumed they were in love with me.

(What? You taught these women to be celibate toward their husbands?)

There were many accidents or episodes due to curfew. They would climb over their house walls and our church walls at 4 am, and they would hurt themselves or dogs would bark, and this caused persecution.

(Well according to Chun Hwa Pak, Myung Hee Kim didn't climb over any walls. Her pregnancy probably wasn't an accident either. You got some more explaining to do.)

In those days, women felt as if I were their brother, fiancee, husband and father…They would know where to meet me.

(Huh?!)

Usually it was the males opposing…So persecution started because of women. I was threatened at gun-point, beaten. Because I had to restore women from Satan’s side, women of all ages. I came to restore the women’s side first, so that they would serve as a bridge. So women love Father. This is a worldwide phenomenon.

(Wait.....Pikerun is a worldwide phenomenon?)

As long as there is a feeling of enemy, it is impossible for God to see the ideal. So He teaches, love your enemy…So many enemies passed away and I forget their names. I forget forever, and only love remains.

(Uh huh. You loved your enemies to death.)

If it can be said of anyone, it can be said of me that I live my life for others.

(Well yeah, I suppose you could include the KCIA and the CIA in there.)

The opposition is perishing, one by one. Research shows this. 80 percent of opposers have perished or subsided.

(Oh we hope you aren't talking about your own family members here.)

The True Family is the center. It is the starting and returning point of every kingship.

There are people who are working against my family and me for a selfish purpose, despite the sacrifice of myself and my family for America.

We should challenge those who speak unrighteously against my family…Do not pray that they will perish; rather, have parental hearts. If your son were about to be executed for murder, you would wish there were no such law as the death penalty.

why is there trouble in my family and was there more than one woman involved?

(Oh Yes Moon, you obviously have a lot more on your mind than Nan Sook. Let's hear it all.)

God advocates absolute sex…True Parents only can fix it. The restored Adam came in the place of God, so when True Parents play the role of God practicing absolute sex, think of the cross they need to carry. God has trained them in the spirit of true love. So why was there a divorce? I was trained to control myself even with the most beautiful woman tempting me in bed, even if about to make love, I can turn around and cut it off.

(God advocates absolute sex and you are cutting it off. Which is it Moon?)

Women destroyed Adam’s family, Jesus’ family, and now are trying to destroy my family, the family of the Lord of the Second Advent. What shall I do? It is the course of the cross. True Parents are the only ones in history to make the road carrying the cross of love. Even after 1960, my first wife still loved me. I may have set the world’s record at dealing with attempted seductions.

(Whoa, slow down big boy. Were these attempted seductions providential by any chance?)

Crazy things happened. I had to put four locks on my bedroom door. A woman once tore down the door. A woman came in naked and took my blanket and said, please save me. Then, when I said no, she said, it takes only five minutes; aren’t you a man? I said, I am impotent. She tried to make it work, but I made it not work. This woman was the daughter of a tycoon, very influential. I knew that I would be putting God’s love organ into a trashcan. So I couldn’t do it.

(This appears to be a direct reference to Sammy Pak's Mother. Evidently, God's own love organ not only spent time in the trash can but produced a child there. A child of God. A lot of good it did to barricade yourself in your bedroom Moon.)

I had the responsibility to continue the true love lineage even at the cost of divorce. As with Jacob and like Muslims today, there were different stages of wives. For Jacob to have 12 sons, he had two wives and two concubines. In the restoration history through Jacob’s course, the lineage went through the second wife, the concubine. It is my responsibility to accomplish the true love lineage. This is the course of the love cross, for the sake of women.

(The love cross. It doesn't have the same ring as Golgotha. What comes first the True Love Lineage or the Concubines?)

Women killed Adam and Jesus, and are ready to kill the Lord of the Second Advent. Because of this chaos created by women, my family was destroyed and I married a second time.

(Poor Moon. So misunderstood and so betrayed by so many women. But what the heck does that have to do with Adam and Jesus?)

Korea was divided and the world suffered. Eight years elapsed before I could choose a teenage girl as my wife…The entire spirit world was against me, preventing me from going back the original way. At one point I spent 43 days fighting the entire spirit world. All the creation was against me as well. Finally God approved and the entire spirit world bowed down…Finally the Cain and Abel worlds connected and made the foundation to choose a bride.

(Uhhh.....are you suggesting that the world objected to you choosing a teenager for a bride?)

you may not believe what I’ve said today, but God is using True Parents to create pure love and true families. At Madison Square Garden I blessed Sung Jin Nim’s mother and grandmother.

(That must be some consolation for the suffering they endured. Was there any financial consideration involved?)

Dozens of women offered themselves as candidates to be True Mother. They are still waiting for me to hold their hand or kiss them, but I never will. They know me as cold as a rock or tree stump, a man with no feelings. But if I ask them for their honest answer as to whether I should love them…they cry tears, bow down and say that what I am doing is right, and that is why they like me. There are many like that.

(Yes Moon. They represent your most ardent supporters and probably the most exploited.)

Please remember that there are millions of opponents of the Unification Church…Concerning the secular world, say, “I don’t care!”

(There are even more that don't care about the Unification Church)

I don’t care about the media. So send me to South America with a comfortable heart, by reassuring me that you will be strong to deal with this media…

(Why are you running off to South America? Oh well.....) 

[pamphletstoinspire]

Catholic Physics - Reflections of a Catholic Scientist - Part 49

Story with images:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/catholic-physics-reflections-scientist-part-49-harold-baines/?published=t

The Theology of Science Fiction: III. Does Data have a soul?

Asimov's Robots, from

"I Robot -- Runaround"

Theological Objection “Thinking is a function of man’s immortal soul. God has given an immortal soul to every man and woman, but not to any other animal or to machines. Hence no animal or machine can think."

Rebuttal to Objection “It appears to me that [The Theological Objection] implies a serious restriction of the omnipotence of the Almighty. It is admitted that there are certain things that He cannot do such as making one equal two, but should we not believe that He has freedom to confer a soul on an elephant if He sees fit? We might expect that He would only exercise this power in conjunction with a mutation which provided the elephant with an appropriately improved brain to minister to the needs of this soul.” Alan Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence.

“Never tell a child,” said George Macdonald, ‘you have a soul. Teach him, you are a soul; you have a body." See Mere Orthodoxy

Let's start off on a light note.  A long time ago when computers were still new (yes, it was that long ago), when I was at my first academic assignment, the head of the division dealing with computers gave a talk on artificial intelligence for computers.  One of the humanities faculty in the audience put a question after the talk "Would you want your daughter to marry one[i.e. a computer]?".  Legend has it (I wasn't there) that he answered "Yes, if she loved him".

When we inquire about the souls of computers/robots we assume that computers/robots have a mind/self-awareness/consciousness.  That some sort of programmed intelligence can be conscious (self-aware) is a hotly debated proposition.  A book would be required (many have been written) to explore this notion.  We don't want to write that book here, so let's suppose, as do SF authors, that consciousness is possible by some means or another for computers and robots and see what SF has to say about them having souls.*

I WANT TO BE A COMPUTER WHEN I DIE

As a transition to considering machine intelligence, let's examine how SF treats the transfer of human intelligence/personality into computers or robots. Note that one theoretical physicist, Frank Tipler, in his book, "The Physics of Christianity", posits that heaven will consist of personalities transferred to software as the universe reaches its end in an "Omega Point' singularity. Since it is a black hole type singularity, time is slowed down and the intelligences transferred to software thus have essentially an eternity to enjoy their virtual life.

Among the many SF stories that deal with transferred human intelligence, there is one that especially focuses on the question of soulhood, Deus X, by Norman Spinard. Spinrad treats the question with respect, although his attitude to the Catholic Church is somewhat less than reverent (there is a female Pope, Mary I).  Below is a summary of the plot, as given in McKee's excellent survey, The Gospel According to Science-Fiction:

"...thousands of people exist in an artificial afterlife called 'Transcorporeal Immortality', having copied their consciousness onto a worldwide computer network called 'The Big Board'....Catholic theologian Fr. Philippe de Leone argue[s] that this creation of an artificial soul, which cannot have true self-awareness, dooms the actual soul that is copied to damnation.  Pope Mary I, hoping to settle the controversy, orders Fr. DeLeone to have his soul copied upon his death, so that his consciousness can argue against its own autonomous existence from the other side."  as quoted in The Gospel According to Science Fiction. p.43

Superficially, Pope Mary's plan seems to contain a paradox.  If the downloaded Fr. de Leone changes "his" mind and says "yes, I am a real soul", how can we trust what an artificial soul might say?  The solution to the paradox is that all of Fr. de Leone's beliefs have been downloaded to his program.  If these beliefs are changed, it means that the entity in the computer has free will, and is thus autonomous and a real soul.   In the story Fr. DeLeone's soul is "kidnapped" (how do you kidnap a program?) by a group of downloaded personalities that wants to convince the Church, via Fr. de Leone's download, that they have a real soul. As McKee points out in his synopsis, there is a reverse Turing Test applied here. Fr. de Leone does change his mind, the downloaded personalities declare him a deity ("Deus X") and a new controversy arises: Church officials declare how could this blasphemy come about.  To still the controversy, Fr. de Leone sacrifices his downloaded personality (dies), Pope Mary declares him a saint and recognizes that the downloaded souls are "real".

THE CHURCH AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE -- "GOOD NEWS FROM THE VATICAN"

There are many SF works in which the Catholic Church plays a role.  In some, the Church and its teachings are treated with respect; in most, not so much.  As Gabriel McKee points out in The Gospel According to Science Fiction

"SF, arising as it does from the secular humanism of the Enlightenment, is critical of religious institutions.  SF frequently argues that if organized religion is to be a positive force in the future of humankind, it must change drastically to meet the spiritual challenges of the future." Gabriel McKee, op.cit., p. 183

One such drastic change is envisaged by Robert Silverberg in his story Good News from the Vatican.

In his story there are robot priests and robot high Church officials.  One such, a robot Cardinal, is elected Pope after a deadlock between two human cardinals.  The story ends with the newly elected robot pontiff rising into the air from the balcony before the assembled masses in St. Peter's Square and, as he goes up

"...his shadow extends across the whole piazza.  Higher and higher he goes until he is lost to sight." Robert Silverberg, Good News from the Vatican.

Does Silverberg, with a sense of irony -- the shadow cast over the piazza, and the Pope lost from sight--predict the eclipse of humanity and human values?  Or am I reading too much into this ending?

A more sympathetic view of how the Church might interact with artificial intelligence is given in Jack McDevitt's fine story, "Gus"**. In this beautiful tale, the newly installed rector of a Catholic Seminary interacts with a computer simulation of St. Augustine of Hippo, purchased (the simulation, that is) to help students understand St. Augustine's teachings. The Rector, Msgr. Chesley, is at first greatly displeased with Gus's (the program's) dicta:

" 'The thing must have been programmed by Unitarians' Chesley threw over his shoulder. 'Get rid of it'" "Gus" in Cryptics, p. 373.

The relationship between Chesley and Gus becomes warmer with time, as they discuss the problems of being a Catholic in today's world:

“ 'Why did Augustine become a priest?'  Chesley asked.  

'I wanted,' Gus said, with the slightest stress on the first words, 'to get as close as I could to my Creator.' Thoughtfully, he added, 'I seem to have traveled far afield.'  

'Sometimes I think,' Chesley said, 'the Creator hides himself too well.'

'Use his Church,' said Gus. 'That is why it is here.'

'It has changed.'

“Of course it has changed. The world has changed.'

'The Church is supposed to be a rock.'

'Think of it rather as a refuge in a world that will not stand still.' " op. cit., p. 382,

Gus's sayings to the students become so unorthodox (he decries the doctrines/dogma of the infallibility of the Pope and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary) that other faculty decided he should be downloaded to storage and traded in for a computer simulation of Thomas Aquinas (plus business software).  Gus asks Msgr. Chesley to hear his Confession and then destroy him, so he can have peace:

" 'I require absolution, Matt.'

Chesley pressed his right hand into his pocket. 'It would be sacrilege,' he whispered.

'And if I have a soul, Matt, if I too am required to face judgment,what then?'

Chesley raised his right hand, slowly, and drew the sign of the cross in the thick air. 'I absolve you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.'

'Thank you...There’s something else I need you to do, Matt. This existence holds nothing for me. But I am not sure what downloading might mean.'

'What are you asking?”

'I want to be free of all this. I want to be certain I do not spend a substantial fraction of eternity in the storeroom.'

Chesley trembled. 'If in fact you have an immortal soul,' he said, 'you may be placing it in grave danger.'

'And yours as well. I have no choice but to ask. Let us rely on the mercy of the Almighty.'

Tears squeezed into Chesley’s eyes. He drew his finger- tips across the hard casing of the IBM. 'What do I do? I’m not familiar with the equipment.'

'Have you got the right computer?'

'Yes.'

'Take it apart. Turn off the power first. All you have to do is get into it and destroy the hard disk.'

'Will you — feel anything?'

'Nothing physical touches me, Matt.'

Chesley found the power switch... He found a hammer and a Phillips screwdriver. He used the screwdriver to take the top off the computer.  A gray metal box lay within. He opened it and removed a gleaming black plastic disk. He embraced it, held it to his chest. Then he set it down, and reached for the hammer. In the morning, with appropriate ceremony, he buried it in consecrated soil." op.cit., pp.388-389

Even though I am moved to tears when I read this, do I believe that a computer program will have a personality, a soul?  Not likely***.

DOES DATA HAVE A SOUL?

This will go somewhat afield.  Given the title of this post, it is required that an inquiry into Data's soul be addressed.  (For those who aren't Trekkies, Data is the android navigator in the second Star Trek series, Star Trek: the Next Generation.  He aspires to humanity and sometimes reaches and even surpasses that state.)  There is a problem, however, in that whether Data has a soul is never considered in any of the episodes, possibly because the word "soul" (not in reference to music) is anathema to writers and producers of popular entertainment.  So in the episode, "The Measure of a Man", the question "Is Data a sentient being" is asked, rather than "Does Data have a soul".

The question is addressed in a trial, to see if Data, as a "sentient being", has the right to refuse to be disassembled for study and refitting.  Captain Picard acts in Data's behalf and Commander Riker, under duress, as the prosecutor.  Riker attempts to demonstrate that Data is a machine by switching him off:

"[Riker is doing his duty in the courtroom]

Commander William T. Riker: The Commander is a physical representation of a dream - an idea, conceived of by the mind of a man. Its purpose: to serve human needs and interests. It's a collection of neural nets and heuristic algorithms; its responses dictated by an elaborate software written by a man, its hardware built by a man. And now... and now a man will shut it off.[Riker switches off Data, who slumps forward like a lifeless puppet]

Commander William T. Riker: Pinocchio is broken. Its strings have been cut." The Measure of a Man, Quotes.

Captain Picard gives a stirring defense, arguing that the question of whether Data is conscious--self-aware--has not and can not be settled, any more than whether one can be certain that another person is conscious except by external behavior.   And finally the question of soulhood is addressed minimally:

"Captain Phillipa Louvois [The Judge]: It sits there looking at me; and I don't know what it is. This case has dealt with metaphysics - with questions best left to saints and philosophers. I am neither competent nor qualified to answer those. But I've got to make a ruling, to try to speak to the future. Is Data a machine? Yes. Is he the property of Starfleet? No. We have all been dancing around the basic issue: does Data have a soul?[emphasis added] I don't know that he has. I don't know that I have. But I have got to give him the freedom to explore that question himself. It is the ruling of this court that Lieutenant Commander Data has the freedom to choose." [notice the shift from "it" to "he"] ibid.

And so Data is left free, and the question of whether he has a soul, undetermined--as in the Scottish verdict, "Not Proven".

MORE TO COME

In the fourth post of this series, I'll explore end-times, the Eschaton.

REFERENCES

see the first post in this series

*Along with Roger Penrose and John Searle, I don't believe that consciousness is a product of algorithmic processes, i.e. that the brain is a meat computer. But that's a post for another day.

**Scroll down to #1, "Gus".

***As always, I asked my wife to review this post before publishing. I asked her whether she was moved by the story of Gus. She replied, "If it were St. Augustine on his death-bed talking to his confessor, yes; but a black plastic disc--never!"

From a series of articles written by: Bob Kurland - a Catholic Scientist

#catholic physics