christopher hitchens

above all, we are in need of a renewed Enlightenment, which will base itself on the proposition that the proper study of mankind is man, and woman. This Enlightenment will not need to depend, like its predecessors, on the heroic breakthroughs of a few gifted and exceptionally courageous people. It is within the compass of the average person. The study of literature and poetry, both for its own sake and for the eternal ethical questions with which it deals, can now easily depose the scrutiny of sacred texts that have been found to be corrupt and confected. The pursuit of unfettered scientific inquiry, and the availability of new findings to masses of people by electronic means, will revolutionize our concepts of research and development. Very importantly, the divorce between the sexual life and fear, and the sexual life and disease, and the sexual life and tyranny, can now at last be attempted, on the sole condition that we banish all religions from the discourse. And all this and more is, for the first time in our history, within the reach if not the grasp of everyone.

so writes christopher hitchens, in his book, god is not great: how religion poisons everything.

i saw hitchens the other night, on the hour. he made some shocking, but very valid points. such as: how we think, not what we think that matters more ... religion will destroy the world through the marriage of messianic ideology and apocolyptic technology. hitchens sees religion as a toxic-to-the-core celestial dictatorship. try as we may, we can never make it go away. but theoretically speaking we could domesticate the beast known as religion.

while i find hitchen's angry, almost vitriolic persona somewhat unbecoming, i do think he makes some excellent points. and ... i must admit, i laughed @ his cynical quip about the catholic church: "no child's behind left." and i laughed even harder when he quoted an american politician as follows: "if english was good enough for jesus its good enough for me." i mean ... if one wants to worship, s/he could at least inform oneself on the true details of one's belief ... read: jesus did not speak english, you fucking lug-nut!

so ... on a good day the whole concept of religion ... the supernatural ... the spiritual confuses me. and then people like hitchens, his buddy dawkins weigh in on the 'con' side and that other dude alastair mcgrath weighs in on the 'pro' side. and then dubya starts telling us about evil and how he must champion humanity by 'smokin out' the evil. and then there's islam ~ no need to comment on all the conflict and confusion raging in that religion. and then there's christianity ~ accusing islam of wantin' to take over the world, when it [i.e. christianity] already has!

i mean, what else do you call it when the religious holidays of ONE PARTICULAR RELIGION become embedded into the cultural fabric of at least an entire hemisphere of the world? do i need to remind anyone that judaism, islam, nor hinduism honour either christmas and easter? that despite friday and saturday being the 'day of rest' for judaism and islam, christianity's 'day of rest' finds itself enshrined into our law as a definitive, nationwide weekly holiday?

don't get me wrong, here. i'm not really knocking the notion that anyone believes ... or the specific doctrine of any particular belief. that's pointless. i mean to express here my doubt that any human-formed - and therefore political - establishment could ever represent the supernal being. i see religion as serving different purposes for different types of believers. religion provides the guts of that intimate connection between one's philosophical view of truth and one's spiritual self. whatever religious perspective one chooses to weave into his/her cultural matrix speaks to his/her larger view of truth, the universe, humanity, and how life got here. essentially, religion must serve a purpose if we cling to it so fearfully. what purpose? you decide.

1. religion as a social construct

• a manifestation of some psychological or moral pathology?
• a pernicious and deliberate falsehood, spread and encouraged by rulers and clerics in their own interests, in an effort exercise control over others?
• seeing religions as marginally useful constructs which encode instructions or habits useful for survival in a society
• seeing religion as ‘the opium of the masses’

2. religion as progressing toward a higher truth

• reflections of an essential truth?
• seeing religious truth as relative, due to its varied cultural application and/or expression
• seeing prophets as messengers of god — individuals given to extraordinary spiritual insight during periods of social decay and acting as purveyors of balance and social survival.
• seeing religion as evolving over time in a thesis-antithesis-synthesis-great awakening paradigm

3. religion as absolute truth

• the exclusivist view
• one belief system … one holy book … one supreme being
• seeing all things and individuals incongruent with the one belief system as ignorant, devious, false, misguided
• a sort of arrogant view of truth (”our view is the RIGHT view, all others are wrong”)
• providing an unwavering perspective that requires individuals to conform to its truth

i do not have the answers ... i don't have the questions, either. but i think that whatever a person believes, its never so cut and dry and absolute and neat and tidy and the same everyday. i think the mistake devout people make lies in denying any opposition to their perspective. to deny opposition makes one sort of a totalitarian. it closes the mind. it closes the spirit. it closes off the entire grand possibility of intellectual expansion.

so ... i guess i just think, for those who believe in heaven and hell, ' stop telling me i'm going to hell for blaspheming. concentrate on how you plan to get into heaven. concentrate on the fact that, some days, keeping one's faith seems as easy as squeezing a fat man through the eye of a needle. and the more any of us berate another for a different belief, the more distant our own faith becomes, if we had one to begin with. even atheism requires belief and faith, in case anyone's wondering.

lately, i find i've spent much of my time squeezing that fat man into the eye of my own faith's embroidery needle. i know ... intrinisically i know ... of a supernal existence. i've felt it. and ... that's an intimate matter ~ each individual has their own concept and experience with the supernal force(s). still, i wonder, each day ~ will this path take me where i want to go? ah ~ but, my dear Self ... you must wait until you get there to find out. and so it goes.

in other news ~ note the change. i felt the need for minimalism for a while. so ... no sidebar, no links, no bling. just a blog. and a tiny bit of eye candy. so, call this the naked blog, if you want ... for a while anyway.

i have felt like this for days ...

pssst - if you're one of those carebears
that only wants to live in the 'feel good' moments -
then your post is two posts back - sea otters holding hands.

enter this post @ your own risk.

alone. alone. alone.
melting into the darkness.
GONE. GONE. GONE.
we have all GONE.
well ... no matter.
i have GONE. but, still -
i'm here. besides,
stuffed animals make
far better companions anyhow.
and so do street people -
even though they're only nice
because they want something.
... at least they're honest!
that's more than i can say for others.
human beings -
they're highly overrated anyhow.
they simply lie and patronize
far too much for my liking.
morality and rationality -
they're just costumes we wear.
ultimately everyone acts
in their own self interest.
g-d is a tool of our trade -
self-service.
only the very weakest seem so very strong.
no one will close his eyes for you.
no one will close his heart for you.
no one will open his heart for you.
no one will save his heart for you.
no one will protect and defend you.
no one will pick you up when you fall,
but many will trample you, without a second thought
no one will ever open a door for you
but many will want to slam it -
and catch your heart in the doorjamb
there are no lovers, or friends, or partners
community exists only in one's dreams
promises mean little more than
the dust from which we emerged.
happiness - the exception, not the rule.
pain - the currency of life.
go lightly from this ledge
leave @ your own chosen speed.
nothing in here moves -
everything - just made of stone.
festering madness will eat me alive,
reduce me to a few meaningless shards of glass
sharp - jagged - shattered.
melting into nothingness
a beam of light --
swallowed into a cell of darkness.

i give up today. i feel sorrow-filled.
disconnected. i want to disengage.
from everything.
i cannot. i will not.
but -- i dearly, dearly WANT to.
that makes me weak, i suppose.
or --
perhaps too honest for the living?

~a letter from india~

i received a letter from india late last week. its lovely and lengthy - just the way i like to receive a letter from a friend. this week's a crusher for me: quarter-point (of my studies) evaluation - a la major, mutherfriggin project! no kidding, the higher order thinking required to complete this by the deadline exhausts me. so - here to entertain you while i fuss with my school stuff - my friend, Anupam (an excerpt from his letter):

"Explosive growth of population, rapid industrialisation, and urbanisation. mindless annihilation of flora and foliage, pushing other species of life to the brinks of extinction -- where shall we stop? Perhaps not until we've ensured the demise of civilisation. Roxx, at times i feel that the modern epidemics like AIDS are cures from nature - her own way of counter-balancing population explosion. Science, perhaps, has given us knowledge, but took away wisdom. As a species we have gone insane, tirelessly running after material pleasure. i am not saying that spiritualism is the panacea to all our maladies. But to marginalise philosphy and humanities as disciplines in our pursuit to attain technological excellence will prove too costly."

i will let y'all chew on that one ... while i flutter and fuss. lemme know what ya think, @ least!

i thank y'all for your comments. i will address them all friday evening, when i can breathe again.

~EDIT: WHEW! first assignment - its done! i am takin a break now!

just posted some surrealish-weird pics here - so CHECK IT!

i will be back later ...~

dear g-d

please give me the strength and the patience to tolerate other humans ... i know, i know, they're your creations. but, dear g-d ... why so slow on the uptake? why can't they speak honestly? without all the flashy, fluffy rhetoric? why can't they follow direction? why can't they listen AND hear? why do they exclude? g-d ... why don't i fit in anywhere? i feel likeable, most of the time. so, why do i have no friends? how do i know who i can trust? who i can believe?

in a world full of bull shit it's so fucking hard, g-d, to smell the roses. really. i try. maybe not hard enuf. i see so much complacency, greed, ignorance, thoughtlessness. and just plain mean-ness. y'know? lack of compassion. g-d .... it makes me incredibly sad. when i think of it all ... i wonder ... how do you deal with the constant disappointments we present to you? your creation ... it lets you down ... falls short of the mark.

g-d ... grant me serenity ... patience and wisdom. remind me that its not a popularity contest. remind me that its not any sort of contest. remind me ... fill my heart with something good. something i can hold onto. something. that doesn't make me feel empty as soon as it touches me.

despair

why, oh why, does it seem so hard to tell the difference between the despair that's placed before us to tell us to change course and the despair that's an inevitable part of transition?
there's a saying that tells us 'things seem darkest before the dawn.' in fact, its cliche to say so. so ... ? why don't we ever get it?

why do we find it such a challenge to know? to know, the difference.
time and time again, when i face my old friend despair,
i fear i do not know him. after all these years, i still don't know.

other questions i have ...

why do people say such horrid things to each other over the phone?
do we get an emotional hard-on when we hang up in someone's ear?
why do humans inflict suffering upon each other? what's so fucking entertaining about it?

why is each one of us our own worse enemy? why?
what's wrong with having an addiction? really, i'm asking.
i mean, do you still villify a junky, even if s/he is a functioning junky?
why should i give up my addiction just to make society feel better?
society does not give up its addiction to greed and power and stuff to make me feel better.
so ... ? what gives?
it seems to me like some fucking control thing.
what are we, living in a fucking borg cube, or somethin?

FOR or AGAINST

[NB: addiction, part 2 still to follow.]

something occured to me just now, while watching the CBC morning news. the story of the violence in gaza caught my eye. the governing Hamas put out a call to all women to submit themselves as human shields. human shields - to protect the unworthy asses of those cowardly militants, hiding in a mosque. hiding in a holy place? putting civilians in harm's way? hiding from the israeli soldiers whom they have engaged in gun battle. cowardly ... ANYWAY... in all this, something ocurred to me. what? well, that any society becomes like this [ie like gaza] when they oppose something so much - they forget that for which they stand. y'know? when the entity you oppose becomes that which defines you, you have lost the struggle... and fallen toward darkness.

GRASP the light, people. lest the darkness swallows you whole.

unreacting - a lesson i'm learning

the nature of a human being is to simply react -

to give back the medicine others give you.

here's some advice from the ancient sages:

ignore the urge to return bad with bad,

hurt with hurt, scorn with scorn --

and the heavens will ignore

all the mess you've made in the past.

image originally uploaded by hanuta

my mosaic lense (she = me)

she sees the world thru her markedly mosaic lense. she realized how it colours her vision of humanity. it raises her expectations of humanity. for the beauty of a mosaic lies in its contrast of differences. she believes in the principle of equality. and so, she cannot accept that differences must all be melted into some sort of sluggish paste. that view, she sees as intolerant. equality for all means respect of each and every individual. she believes that this view makes her quintessentially canadian. the poetic beauty of the mosaic embodies, symbolically, the canadian identity.

her mosaic lense makes murky her visualization of cultural identity versus assimilation into society. while some others around her appear to have the answers ... or seem content acting upon an initial emotional reaction to a cultural controversy ... she feels bewildered. puzzled, by the issues. she understands the desire to express oneself religiously - nun's habits, turbans, hijabs/ niqabs, and yarmulkes. she also understands the importance of maintaining a secular society to honor egalitarianism.

her mosaic lense muddies clarity. she understands where jack straw is coming from regarding the issue of the niqab - veil that muslim women wear which covers their face, save for their eyes. she understands people, and sees how speaking to someone - whose face one cannot see - could evoke some discomfort. she personally thinks that a requirement to cover one's face seems tantamount to an attempt to marginalize ... render invisible. to silence women. however, she respects a woman's desire to express herself religiously. and so ... she doesn't know. how does a society juxtapose or balance freedom of religious expression with the requirements of a secular society?

her mosaic lense causes her to stumble, when it comes to consideration of fundamental issues, such as health care. politically, administratively, and quite possibly financially as well, universal health care seems questionable. but ... equality means all citizens receive equal treatment. democracy fundamentally goes hand in hand with equality for all. so ... how to reconcile dis-equal access to a basic requirement for human existence? this seems at odds with egalitarianism. and so ... these opposing views wrestle within her.

culture and religion provide shape, form, identity, context. they can even promote growth and enlightenment, as long as they're not excessively repressive, exclusivist and/or reductionist. to diminish the cultural identity of an individual or a group seems to her like ripping the lovely, thriving flowers from the ground. that said, she resents attempts by a particular religion to manipulate society for its own promotion. she thinks that christianity has really come to embody idolatry. so much opulent and massive machinery ... g-d does not exist there anymore. it makes her soooo angry. she seeks truth. she feels like that droplet ... searching for its source. she knows g-d provides her context. she feels it. g-d cannot live where intolerance does. that she knows also.

image originally uploaded by silkdiver and firelily

sexual repression

repression: attempt to subdue forbidden desire. it speaks to the reality of perpetual conflict that reside within humanity. the forces of our rational thought processes versus our subconscious, primordial desires.

what makes some societies more repressive than others? intuitively, i see an association between repression and monotheistic religions. such religions have sophisticated structures in place to assist with the subjugation of their subjects. and villification of human flesh plays a key role in this subjugation.

the example of catholicism spins through my head. repressive. subjugating. vilifying the human sexual experience and all pleasures of the flesh. if we vilify the process/act which produces the human fruit - read: us - aren't we vilifying the human entity, ie ourselves? vilify. subjugate. forbid. repress. and then i think.

i think, what's born in the dark, and grows in the dark, must stay in the dark. and secrets? they erode. and therein lies the cancer of repression. so? where does this lead me, as i continue along this thought trail? it begs me to begin articulating my observations.

observations that the vilification-repression dynamic seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy. like ... creating the very conditions one sets out to avoid. does the reality of our sexuality make us villains, or, does our vilification of this sexual nature? i guess i'm asking - does our own sexuality, or our denial of this sexuality, make us villains?

just wondering.

cost of humanity

Protecting the environment is important, but it shouldn't come at the cost of Canadian businesses, says federal Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn.

The Conservative government is expected this week to table clean-air legislation that would avoid setting fixed targets for businesses to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions.

Opposition parties and environmentalists are critical of such initiatives, saying they do little to safeguard the environment. But Blackburn insists the government is taking a balanced approach.

"You have to be pro-environment, but it's also necessary to go ahead in a flexible, measured manner so that businesses don't start an uproar," Blackburn told The Canadian Press.

The minister, who is from Quebec, cited the current crisis in his home province's forestry industry as an example of excessive conservation.

do you get this kind of logic? i consider the flipside of what this nitwit said and its repulsive - its ok to protect business at the cost of the environment. effectively, that's the underlying thinking here - isn't it? and that's why kyoto sort of flopped. because business stakeholders, as a collective, and those from whom they benefit - ie conservative-leaning politicians - cannot concede that business must bleed a little now in the wake of a global crisis. no kidding - GLOBAL. the fucking polar ice caps are melting, folks! that's a problem. if you still got no clue, then you oughta see for yourself. go up north. like, north north. you know - churchill, manitoba or even nunavut. go. visit. observe. ask. you will see for yourself. the crisis looms.

and the big boys just cannot get their fucking big heads outta their asses. and they cannot adapt to a changing world. and they appear far too fixated on those god-damned fossil fuels. barrels and barrels of the stuff. and still the ice keeps melting. and still north americans occupy their thrones as the most obese and, quite possibily the stupidest and the laziest, humans on the planet. and still the ice melts. and still need grows in places like darfur, iraq, palestine, and right here in the soweto's we've created in our largest cities.

and then toss in the epidemic currently ravaging an entire generation of the world's largest and most polulated continent - africa - AIDS. and so many of us have achieved a perfect state of desentization that we can honestly believe ourselves when we look away from the tele screen and say 'its not my problem.' or believe ourselves, complete with self-righteous indignation, when we apply a scornful blame-the-victim-elitist attitude to the homeless, panhandling, addicted street uchins.

do you feel happy? you there, surrounded in all your stuff? wrapped in the comfort of your apathy and cruel disregard? do you feel connected to the web of humanity? or only when it suits your requirements? what responsibility to you ... do any of us ... feel as a human?

breathe. can we?

[also posted in wakeupcall] deny. demonize. deny some more. then kick sand in everyone's face if they express opinions that differ from yours. have we, here in this north american society, grown this small? really? i despair. it feels like we have. where, oh where, have our hearts and minds gone? where has constructive outrage gone? where has compassion gone? oh ... sometimes i feel like its all too much. far too much.

did we think the threat of mcarthy-ism dead? think again. maybe not. did we think solving the middle east difficulties would really be that easy? did we bother to inform ourselves of the history of the conflict? did we already forget about lawrence of arabia? did we already forget that 54,000 canadian, 400,000 american, and 25 million in total, soliders died in WW2 - a war that spanned 6 years? the world effectively lost an entire generation of men. do we have a fucking clue? about history? about things that happen on the other sides of the oceans?

do we really think its ok to send adolescents, who have questionably yet to reach the age of consent, into a environment filled with manipulative, power-addicted narcisstists (read:politicians)? OMG. what the fuck makes us soooooo blind and naive? really, its all too much. i wonder if its occuring to anyone out there that sexual deviance and sexual repression goes hand-in-hand. or if we are all just going to put another pair of blinders on and get on the 'indignant outrage' soapbox.

it saddens me a great deal that people out there still think the collective WE bears no responsibility for all the world's suffering. absolutely saddens me. that they honestly believe, because they did not pull the trigger, wield the torture device, or hold down that 15 year old girl so 14 others could rape her, this grants absolution and frees them from accountability. why? why, if another human, somewhere - anywhere - out there, suffers would ANY one think they have no responsibility to contribute toward efforts to relieve said suffering?

and why have we attached some sort of twisted ideological entitlement to the relief of suffering?

and what the fuck is up with this culture of retribution and revenge?

breathe. can we?

image originally uploaded by wimdejonge.

in the face of helplessness

"... i eventually realized the hopelessness of the situation."

the words of my husband (a UN brat who spent one-third of his life in africa) ring true in my head. i peer thru a veil of tears, as sanjay gupta tells the stories of the sudanese refugees of brutal civil war. silent sobs fill my chest, as i focus on the photon-spewing flat screen sitting a mere 6 feet away from me.

a NGO/MSF worker strolls with gupta on camera as she paints a picture of daily life in sudan, near the chad border. a 14 year girl, gang raped by 15 members of one tribe. the women and children of another village taken, raped and killed. my heart crumbles, with each syllable, each word, each phrase, each story uttered. and the videography? equally heart-wrenching.

my heart crumbles. and i feel the fullest sorrow of those words - "... i eventually realized the hopelessness of the situation." such carnage. such brutality. such corruption. so widespread. i feel no outrage. or indignation. or anger. just incredible sorrow. and something i feel inclined to call guilt. for, the fact of my membership in humanity holds me, in some infinitesimal way, accountable for such pockets of incredible suffering and carnage.

and so, what do i do? how to i act? i know. i know. one person cannot change the world. but, i believe in the eisenberg principle. and i believe that humanity changes one human at a time. and, i see witnessing as an crucial form of action, of doing. and so, i watch. i fervently watch.

i deliberately choose not to look away from the screen. or leave the room. or cover my eyes and ears. i do not shield myself from the event of this suffering. i embrace its connectivity in my living room. it touches me. i touch it. i decide. not to let go. and then, i embark on a journey. my mind's journey. a journey into my humanity. i seek to inform myself. i owe it to myself, to my humanity.