I would like to learn more about atheists because they’re so prevalent—far more so than the census or whatever reveals, because people usually only go off on that stuff when they’re in Big Dick mode, you know: when the US Census guy comes by, they’re like…. Oh we’re Christians. Not Jews or nuthin. We Big Christmas folks, homie.

And I mean, reading Richard Dawkins is a lot like drinking piss, right; because he’s such a Little England racist, you know; and people are so indoctrinated that atheist = liberal = go fuck your racism accusations, that they just…. Lie about him, right. But apparently he goes to church now, just to hang out with the white people. Almost as good as the science wing of the university; or a BBC period drama where nobody says Ms., and nobody’s Black, right.

But yeah, I would like to learn about less piss-similar atheists, so it’s easier not to get triggered by it, right. Atheists can just be so…. Scummy and ordinary; they irritate my patient little Aries Rising ass, you know. (Patient + Aries = Sarcasm, lol).

(atheist) (going off on how humans should be replaced by human calculators and all the non-calculator humans, rounded up and shot)
(Child Hermes) It’s like, hey: why you gotta be so scummy and ordinary. Don’t you have, like, Aspirations. Come on.
(atheist) (considers this) My aspiration…. Is pretty much not to be, you.
(Child Hermes) (uses arms to express disbelief) That’s a terrible aspiration! I’m the greatest!
(atheist) (smugly) Religious people are behind all the wars.
(Child Hermes) (points) Hey: I invented, Information! What the hell have YOU invented…. punk?
(atheist) I invented your mom.
(they draw knives at the same moment and start to circle each other)

It’s like: he stole the cattle of the God of the Sun: On The Day He Was Born…. He can take your punk little Eminem ass, whenever he wants to take it.

(yeah….) But I mean, yeah. Don’t listen to me. Although, I am the greatest. (laughs)

But yeah: I mean, I did like Nietzsche’s book “The Antichrist”; I had a very intense experience with it…. And I like Jonathan Haidt, right; the only way not to like him is if you, just don’t like him, right: I mean, you either are bored by nerds, or you want to eliminate the free thought; or you want to…. I don’t know: but it wouldn’t be anything fair, right. And he is a very, opened-minded atheist, right…. And Nietzsche, is Nietzsche; he’s very…. him, you know.

But neither of those guys are people that it seems like, your average contemporary atheist would find relatable…. As much as I hate trying to puncture and get inside the head of, their little Anglo Math Nerd Bubble, which knows itself to be The One True Rational And Sole Non-Arrogant Example Of Human Culture, right….
You know: like…. Hey, I’m reading about the Māori; they’re cool.
—(dismissive) Excuse me, this is a computer.
~But the thing is, there are MANY people who basically have that attitude, you know, who don’t find it politic to call themselves, “atheists”, you know, most people are like: Yeah, Hitler is going to hell; I go to church for weddings and Christmas; God judges people who cut me off on the freeway…. Yeah, I’m a Christian. (dismissive hands) I’m certainly not Māori, or Lenape! They’re primitive…. (dismissive again) Although yeah: I don’t want to see that God stuff in public too often; it gets a little weird.

And it certainly WAS the Christians who jumped on board and almost created that ship of like, “The great thing is the technology; the other civilizations don’t have the technology”: like in the 1800s through the 50s and 60s it was like: the Christian countries have the Science…. ~Then people stopped going to church so much, and the atheists just took that argument, and ran with it, right. ~The countries that reject religion have the Science….!

~I’m not trying to run a Fox News agitprop column here, right: the Christians did terrorize and traumatize and even imprison scientists for a long time; ‘Christian civilization’ gave birth to science—but it is very much a case of child abuse right…. But what I mean is, atheists can be so naive, right. It’s like, they seem to spend their days programming computers, spewing their boy talk about how feelings don’t matter, and blithely assuming that there is no such thing as an emotional pattern, and that if you contradict something with enough indecency, the patterns you learned from it vanish from your mind, right…. As though a pattern were just something you could stab with a thought-knife, right….

I mean: you are so pessimistic about Christianity—and I get it, for so long I was so blithe about it; or I TRIED to be: and I “failed” to do so; I was wrong, right—but you’re so opposed to something, and you just so moronically assume that making a computer statement, like, “I hate God. The End”—just means that your life is though it had never been, right…. And that is a VERY common pattern, and it’s like…. Maybe you’re dumb? Right?

(chuckles) But I’ll see if Sam is a non-piss-similar atheist, right…. People who are atheistic or whatever generally probably tend to be a certain subset of a certain personality type, right: especially the theorists/True Non-Believers, right; (and that IS something I did know, before); so maybe, I don’t know: if you found one who wasn’t so traumatized and corrupt and wicked and common, and…. Scummy, scummy like a boy, right…. You might learn something that, my own style of relating wouldn’t see, right.

I mean, I ~know~ that’s true, in theory, right; the problem is the example person can be too…. Too them, right. Yeah.

…. (Re: buying the book) And yeah, the Christian response to Sam seems to range from, “Letter to an un-Christian Nation: Fuck Sam Harris, Bro”—like, “you think that America is on my side: bro, I am so DONE with America! America is like, siding with the Muslims, man! I say, fuck this place! Go Trump! America sucks!!” ~You know, like…. Where do you start, right?…. Where do you even, fucking, start…. —and then it also goes to, “Ever since I was born over 400 years ago in the early 17th century; I’ve been a white man. I’ve earned degrees from over thirty universities by explaining how the wisdom of whitey helps keep the whole society white, even today. People think I’m a walking talking, sack of arrogance and pseudo-intellectual human failure, but hey: we can’t all understand the Mind of God’s Elite…. And church culture has been an important part of my journey. I guess sometimes the lemmings just don’t get that: their inferiority makes me laugh. You know, one time, my dad told me this funny story, about how when he was a little boy, growing up in the 1200s….” ~And it’s like: good for you; wasting your life, your life in your own UNIQUE way: good for you, really. Now in terms of you rooting for society to give you this feather-bed of sheltering-from-reality; I don’t know about that…. I mean, good luck; but yeah: fuck you, I don’t care….

That’s basically almost the entire spectrum of Christian opinion, basically. Occasionally you meet the socialistic moralism from the left instead of the right—and it’s like, Yeah, historically conservative, the old leftist socialistic moralism, bullying people in the name of the inevitable brighter future…. Isn’t that cute…. Run along now: and stay the hell out of my way….

(And yes: if you read Rachel Held Evans and the Cool Christians, she WILL tell you, right: Christian Unity, love for the people crushing you, reach out your hand in friendship and love and don’t reject or withdraw from the “America sucks; Go Trump” Christians, right…. Although they routinely want the preacher to tell random business owners that they’re going to hell, because they’re not like, traditional/masculine/fighter man/biblical, enough in their enemy status, so you can’t love them…. It’s like: it’s wonderful not to hate people, but…. I mean, if you judge yourself for not loving people, and try to force yourself to accept, love, support, and aid people, because after all, you’re not worthy: instead of just kinda going through the divorce, because you’re not compatible, you know…. And kinda going through what comes up as you inch towards the settlement, you know: at least in your own mind…. Like, coming to a settlement, right. Like, the Cool Christian can’t do that: because, they think they’re not supposed to have agency. That’s why they have this Idea In Their Head, that they support, Their IDEA of, The Poor: right, because they’re “The Poor”, therefore, they have no agency, “(pop rap) Just like a good man should, uh uh…. Gimme a beat (musical break)….”

Like, they assume that somehow the poor are ~more obedient~ than the rich, and then support them like that…. It’s like, Bro? Can you get a pill for that, now? It doesn’t hurt to ask, man…. Maybe help is available, right?….)

And yeah: talking about how blood sacrifice is wrong…. Well, it IS wrong. And once you do a blood sacrifice of God, your whole life gets consumed by how YOU can sacrifice and contract your life, “for God/Life Itself”, right. Or, better yet: someone else could do that for you….

It’s not a good idea….

…. Yeah: sometimes you just have to invent a creative solution, to an intricate moral problem….

(Child Hermes) That’s a terrible aspiration! I’m the greatest!
(atheist) (smugly) Your mom is the greatest.
(Child Hermes) (considers this) Yeah: but I think you forgot to pay her! (hits him on his ass, takes his money) (waves his gold in front of his face) I thank you, on behalf of My Mother!

All we can know, is that the wise philosophers will debate the informations, for many years to come….

~It’s like: because you know nobody kills as many people, as an uptight little guy who thinks he’s the henchman of the prince of peace, right…. It becomes like a death drive….

(frowns) And yeah: when you discourage men from being kind, and terrorize them into territorial thinking and shame of the body…. Yeah: so much of this isn’t answered by atheist-theist (church culture) per se. Although I certainly feel Sam would agree, that sometimes it’s that unpleasant experience, that really confirms you in your opinion, right.

…. (the guy’s father when he was seven) I mean, if I don’t assume bad faith and shame everyone in a body that’s closer to Kazakhstan than angel-stan (Angel Stan?), then…. What’s the point of patriarchy?….
—(absorbs uncritically)
Without patriarchy, how would there be women? And without women, who would we shame?
(excited) Men, papa.
(considers this) Without women? Yes, in a pinch; with masc-y-ness, all things are possible….

And what they do to the girls, right…. Like, if you’re a man, they threaten you, basically. If you’re a girl: the mind games, right…. The mind games.

And just that they can pursue their empire tyrannically, while doing this abominable lie, you know: I’m not going to beat the crap out of you because you pissed me off. I’m doing it because, ~it’s the right thing to do!

Like, whatever is this god of theirs, and what would remain of this church culture of theirs, without colonialism? What activity or behavior that doesn’t “need to be persecuted in polite society”, would be at all the same without church-colonization?

Right…. It’s like the sin is to be happy, to be easy, to like yourself, you know…. The sin is to control your own disgust, in the end….

(sigh) I’m just tired of this shit, sometimes. It wears me out.

…. It’s, like: situation, in stores, they set the music and the announcements to influence you—but it makes no difference to them, if you, if Everyone, Hates, All of it, and None of it, Ever, Makes you want to help them out. “Hey buddy: I don’t care. This is what all stores do. I’m just trying to be a man.” Occasionally brands do have clever ideas that someone in corporate dreamed up about what they’d LOVE their people to do, right…. Only it’s a total delusion, that has ZERO influence on their employees’ mindset or the service the customers receive.

—The Christian response: Hate the brands that people like more! Be suspicious of strength! Punish the strong—they can ~take it~, dammit: just like ~Jesus~, took it!
—Also the Christian response: Punish!…. Just, punish! Don’t think about it! Punish!

Result: “Hey buddy I’m being a man. The purpose of propaganda isn’t to get anybody to like it…. Say: you wanna piece of me?”

…. But yeah: atheists are a lot. It’s like:

—Across the vast reaches of time and space, has any atheist ever willingly harmed another sentient being?
—(considers) No.
—What about the excessive quantification of society: you know how the Math Club always compulsively shames girls at every conceivable fucking opportunity, like how when the guy in the chick flick was paying for a shirt before his date, and somebody screamed, I hacked his bank’s website! His account is overdrawn! Lies! Deception! Revolution, revolution! Do you remember that?
—(considers) Yes, but he didn’t scream Allahu math-bar and do terrorism. So I think it’s ok.
—But if that ever happens: we can get it worked out together.
—Absolutely.
—Even though you’re an idiot with a weak heart.
—(frowns) Emperor Palpatine of the Dalleks will be most displeased when he hears my report….

…. But yeah: Jesus is the Harry Potter teacher who decides to retire to spend more time “with his remaining limbs”, right…. And you know no matter what I say about Jesus, it’s not like what the church fellows have said about him, from the first letter Paul wrote before there was a gospel, to the 40 million sermons not delivered yet, all waving the bloody corpse, right…. It’s like: “We should make a religion where people only live and move and have their being, conditional on the approval of the authorities. Who can be our poster boy shill?” “There was that teacher who got executed, that people liked.” “Excellent! People will assume we wouldn’t stoop so low: that we would have some pride….”

(Jesus) (singing) I’m just a shill…. I’m just a shill…. I’m just a shill….
(sound engineer) Do you think that they’re need to give him different lines?
(producer) (shakes head) No. This is it.

Mr. Shill Goes to Jerusalem: Extended Director’s Cut….

Like, I don’t know how…. But it’s like, “You don’t want Jones to come back, do you?”

The Eagles generally were a horse poop band, but that one song is good: “you can check out any time you want: but you can never leave….”

It’s like a horror movie: you leave the house that you can’t leave and you cover five miles on foot but there’s nothing, and you turn a corner, and there you are in front of the house that the wizard told you you couldn’t leave, right….

~Okay! HERE WE GO!

—I mean, anticlimactic, reading materialists, right. I do think, on the one hand, that he does sound kinda mechanical, and boring, you know…. A lot of atheists sound like that, you know: like, we wouldn’t want to be cool! (laughs) We wouldn’t want to be poetic or ~divine~, right!…. Think how much better to turn the knob, just so: just so, my boys….

But yeah: he does sound like a careful, strategic sort of person who’s trying to minimize harm: he’s not at all like a blubbering, moronic Little Englander who will remain unnamed, right. (Maybe Richard Dawkins, who knows.) I mean, I suppose I’ve already implied what I think of the Europhile nature of many contemporary atheists, right…. But yeah: just that you could write a calm, strategic book about the harm of hostile, bozo Christians, and that some medievalist philosopher ensconced in unproductive, and unsympathetic, essentially, privilege, (“my son, until you have read all 100,000 pages of Aquinas, you are not a MAN: you tell that to that dirty fool who thinks that basketball is important!”—you know, Constant, from these people: whenever they’re around), and kinda go: “young man, the point of theology is whether Paul was a Catholic or a Methodist or so on. You’re not playing by the rules. Go away.” (pushes button for swordsmen) “Why…. doesn’t…. It, work!” (pushing repeatedly, right)

Like, so much of the church is like: well, if you don’t believe that—I’ll just frighten you and or yell at you, and or…. Like, is it still legal to….

~Yeah: but it does seem like it’s going to be a careful, calm, short book: which is why it’s so amusing, you know: the people get all…. (frightened trad rich person voice) “Father, if people read this book, will the the university endowment for the continued study of medieval persecution logic not be maintained, and will I have to get a job selling strawberries to Haitians and Muslims and immigrants like the, ~bad~ people, Father?” (sweating) (handkerchief)

Like, there’s a certain sort of rich person—gossips and theologians and so on: where they literally have such a felt lack of capacity to be free and speak their mind against the people who control them…. You know, it’s almost like there are guards around their mansions, and little guards watching inside their minds, right; they’re not free.

And yet, it’s hard not to blame them. Free will theory is usually either opaque or hostile or both, but…. I don’t know; but it’s hard not to blame that person, in the prison-mansion, putting everyone else in ~heavy~ chains, right.

…. Yeah: I mean, it is certainly, both brave, and careful, right. Certainly better than virtually all Christians—they tend to have a cruel bravery, on the right, or else a simpering, cowardly carefulness, on the left: usually. I’m waiting for the fucking Pope to say that Microsoft should have more female executives, right—“We call on them to obey Catholic Jesus, who always always, stood for non-oppression, except for that one time…. What’s that? Yes, and also today. Catholic Jesus stands for oppression, today! So, follow Catholic Jesus, that all oppression may, go away!”

I mean, perhaps Sam is a little boring, right. He’s not the greatest, you know. Hermes is the greatest; Thoth is the greatest; Freya is the greatest….

But not everybody can be the greatest. (shrugs)

…. “The fact that some abolitionists used parts of scripture to repudiate other parts does not indicate that the Bible is a good guide to morality.”

And that IS why there were slaves in the 19th century—because people had been slaves to the past, for all those centuries. A religion that cannot change is dead: it’s an unburied corpse….

They literally would have had a better religion, if that pack of grasping, hostile ingrates, to whom their own day was not enough, and who loathed to think that others would come after them, hundreds of years after they had died, who would have some small leeway in how they viewed life, right…. They literally would have had it better, if those fuckers had just checked themselves, right. And yet: they were constantly calling themselves sinners and beating themselves, and weakening themselves, so they didn’t have the strength left to check themselves, when it mattered, right.

…. It’s not bad writing, certainly.

It is true that a certain sort of, I don’t know if rationalism or science is the right term—and I don’t think he really touches on the aspect of needing to soften science’s elitism and insecure personality: like people can’t read reviews of superhero movies without people who think that they’re scientists trying to do the conceptual equivalent of a cock block, right; (it’s like: only dommes should be allowed to block your cock….)—but yeah, especially in our society, where science is perhaps the strongest element, and certainly the strongest element that can be easily made conciliatory, it is easier perhaps to get people to agree on a moral contract with science, throw in evolutionary biology (if you’re Sam), and psychology and philosophy: although sometimes the only thing people literally suffer themselves to agree on is the law, which tends to fall into the choice of, being lax—even most forms of child abuse aren’t actually illegal, and parents are almost always too quick to point out the albeit real ways children spite them, and also the community/social contract doesn’t even aspire to really support parents in the non-abusive raising of children, they just kinda…. Impose penalties, basically, whether formal or informal—or else the law can take people and throw them into a deep black pit with the Hitler people in it, right. Sometimes I wonder if there IS social contract, right: at least that anybody has put any thought into too; or perhaps they were just misanthropes! (And by the social contract I don’t mean the Constitution. The governmental contract is an important feature of the social contract, but perhaps the most important parts of it are unwritten.)

But yeah: my fantasy is that we’d be so non-genocidal towards each other, and that society would be based on choice and not compulsion to such an extent so that if a Wiccan became president, the White House would have Wiccan trappings for four years: or if Jain, (his favorite example), then Jain, or if Catholic, then Catholic—or else, if people really wanted like a PhD secularist president, then every press conference with the president could begin with Handel and Bach, right, or perhaps a brief piece about some science magazine: and not because popular feeling couldn’t be honored because it would lead to genocide, but because the population was so educated and so non-traumatized by the education system and so un-alienated from it by religious authorities, that they just kinda said: fuck, what the hell—why not?

I’m a dreamer. I get that.

…. About paranoia about sex on grounds of social control, as opposed to reducing suffering, not much needs to be said. Sex can be healthy or unhealthy—and much of it in our society is still unhealthy. But this is largely because it is shamed in order to further social control. This doesn’t really have the effect of making people less sexual, except perhaps in certain fantasies and media—though not all of these. But it does, in the oppressors’ imagination, make people easier to govern, I guess, since perhaps they’d be less likely to ask for their rights if they seek shame. Then again, if they become psychically ill enough through it, they might act out—though many people react to this simply by automatically shaming them…. Also, while it is true that say popular music tends to downplay, you know, probably, the role of the thinking process and emotional withdrawal in happiness, ultimately it is a false choice to say that you can be either intelligent or sexual, right. It also tends to discourage people who know that they want to be sexual from becoming intellectual; usually their only forays into this areas of life are driven forth and accompanied by shame, and lead to “failure” (what is failure?), and more shame.

Fortunately, the Bible teaches that if you obey the religious authorities, you don’t need to feel shame. What a relief. 🤕🦖🏄‍♀️

…. Christian morality can very easily become about prestige being good, rather than suffering being bad…. After all, Jesus chose suffering in order to become the most prestigious of the gods….?

…. It is true that Mother Teresa, although acting according to her lights, (so to speak: the RCC lights), she was someone capable of doing harm as well as good, and who people are incredibly naive about because of the Cult of the Obedient Woman you know. I once read a book of her letters edited by some kind of Catholic clergyman or monk—you know, pious and studious, the whole nine yards—that if it had been my project, I probably would have called “The Secret Self-Hatred Journals”, you know. Just eaten up by this idea that she didn’t believe enough, wasn’t good enough, wasn’t worthy…. The saints are the victims of the church, you know. She may have had native goodness, but no good comes to the world by putting someone through the wringer like that, you know.

And yeah: it is possible to do good without religious or even spiritual beliefs. Some people simply have profoundly workaday and deeply un-fancy beliefs that suffering is bad and we should lessen suffering: and then go ahead and do that. There is more than one personality type in the world, right.

…. Trading statistics is kinda one of the bad things about this society—“The worst criminal is Stalin, the well-known New York atheist!!”; “(27 pages of quotes and labels and data to the effect that that’s bullshit)!”—although it is true that he feels compelled to do that by the whole ‘atheist dictator/city scum crime atheism’ thing.

The thing that isn’t really addressed by peaceful, non-rioting atheists is kinda the issue of class, you know. 94% of the most prestigious scientists? God, people must think it’s an elitist club, right! 😸 You know, not that there’s an inherent wrong in having lots of money—or at least spending a small fortune on your education, right. I myself would love to become wealthy or closer to being wealthy—it’s a long-term goal. I feel like it would be a fun little accomplishment, right. I also probably would spend more time in formal education if I felt I had the time, money, and that it wouldn’t be an anti-creative hierarchical hellhole kind of experience. Ironically, the whole reason for going to a school rather than locking yourself in your room reading books, is the social aspect of learning, right. But the social aspect of schools are very, very…. You know: a hundred years ago it was worse, but…. They do tend to be tyrannical, basically. The feminist book “Failing At Fairness”, scratches the surface, right….

And yeah: it’s kinda a funny dynamic—wealthy, or at least, comfortable people, are less likely to commit crimes, but, at least as an abstract entity, have a terrible reputation, right. This is kinda the dynamic with atheism. It’s not the only aspect of it—I mean, some people might hear that their broke teenager hates God because of Marx and tell their working-class family to go into a prayer huddle, right—but…. Yeah: I mean, I don’t interpret class in a Marxist or even an entirely economic way, but…. I mean: it’s funny—people have crazy beliefs about the rich, not least conservatives. They vote to decrease taxes on the wealthy, but I don’t think that they’re less likely to go to those mega-popular blockbuster sci-fi movies where rich people are aliens slugs who inhabit the bodies of Congressmen and initiate nuclear war, right. “The coastal elite….” Etc. I can’t figure it out.

But yeah: I hate to wag my finger at atheists, and I realize that you can’t and shouldn’t beat gratitude into people, but it’s like—you disbelief in God because of the reality and power of negativity? Because you’re sure it’s a bad world? You’re sure that nature and reality is out to get you—so you encourage the study of nature and reality? You study it, what, out of fear/despair…. Conniving strategy in the face of certain defeat?

Oh yeah: great PR. We’re gonna get you one of those TED talks. “Be an atheist, because everything is bullshit”. ☄️ 🌏 🦖

“In the end, you go extinct: become an atheist.” (chef’s kiss)

~Right?

…. Although I started watching “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”, and I have to say that Gandalf/the Odinic Christ, IS kinda what Sam in his pessimism would expect, right.

—Do you want to go on an adventure, Bilbo Baggins?
—No.
—Good. I have added your name to the list. Thank you for supporting our tribe of noble warriors.

They were all kinda English, except the hobbits are Edwardians, and the dwarves are Viking Age people, right. I suppose that the elves are Italian, right….

But yeah: it is true that John T was a Christian—RCC actually, although he seems very anti-Rome, you know…. Figure that out.

But yeah: “you can check out whenever you want—but you can never leave….”

…. But yeah, then I go back to Threads, and it’s like, “Your inability to understand science doesn’t mean, ‘God did it.’”

And I’m like:

1. Your inability to understand tarot does not make me a jackass
2. Your inability to understand tarot does not make you a jackass
3. Your being a jackass, however….

~And then, I do NOT post that, lol: because the little peaceniks would go postal on my weird ass, right….

…. And yeah, I’d like to think I’m more respectful of him than he is of me, right—I really would. Not that I’m expecting a long stretch of text about us, lol, but yeah. “Those stupid Greek fuckers and thousands of other dead gods….”

(Child Hermes) Dead? I’m…. Dead? (makes face) (anxiety)

lol.

Not that I can decide, you know, for other people, or for him, or whoever, if I’m respectful of him, right. That’s not really how life works, right. (BLM taught us that principle, right. “I am not being racist!” You’re just being…. An American demon. “Thank you! Finally, someone around here shows whitey a little respect!”)

I mean, you can do your best. I do my best. (shrugs) I mean, the feeling that a Book of Ultimate Knowledge—not that there is any one such book in Wicca; for that matter, although Buddhism and Hinduism have scriptures, they run to many, many volumes, and not one conveniently spammable text, right—but yeah, I understand, in the vague sense, that he feels that the Great Knowledge should include considerable coverage of the technical sciences and what I guess Epictetus would call the “third topic” in philosophy—I’ve kinda run the original text through my own filters in my head many times, but I kinda think of the first two as being, I don’t know, I word it differently in my head at different times, but kinda, “practice”, and “integrity”, you know…. The rest is like, “Things are going good; I wonder if, (random question)….?” Right? Like, I’m totally of a different cultural orientation than the popular stance in atheism, right…. Like, I went to a World Book or one of those encyclopedias at the library the other day, to see if I could look up some stuff about Ganesha, but it was all like either Gandhi or food processing or stuff like that, right…. Western people and Gandhi is funny. I mean, I read his long memoir; he’s a great guy, but it’s like, “Yes, there is ONE person from India who matters, Virginia….” And it’s like, wow: they don’t care about Ganesha, but they care about food processing—you know, and it wasn’t like, a health article, right; it was like: “So you want to be a technical advisor at a food processing plant? (hearty laugh) Well, Michael, let’s get right to work, earning you your (alphabet soup) qualifications, today! (50s PR marketing smile!).”

~It’s like, Yeah, I guess that the World Book crew doesn’t really care about me, right…. And I mean: that’s common enough; it happens….

(Although yeah, I still don’t know whether Hermes would rather play some ball game with Ganesha or Hanuman. I guess Hanuman, but, Ganesha sounds like a really cool god, right…. 🐘 🐵 🪽….)

…. “(science/scire/to know)”

fun fact= Gerald Gardner’s craft name (was Scire)

There certainly is a bifurcation between the etymological sense of the word “science” and the common modern sense of the word, lol…. And yeah, I guess it is possible that for many scientists, the kinda Science Academy of the Universe website’s official spiel on non-interference between science and religion, might be a…. How to say this in a way that doesn’t insult, pretty much everyone involved…. A political/diplomatic thing that is not how they feel about it in private…. certainly the science, the natural science of this age, (although because of the prestige science has, humanities disciplines try to science-ify themselves, right: like, “historically important” literature is essentially ALWAYS classified by “objective” things like country of origin, and BASICALLY NEVER by subjective things like, “Does this strike me as more of a romance or more of an adventure”, right….)…. Yeah: the natural science that exists now certainly is about learning about natural phenomena through natural means, that’s a very careful and useful definition; I couldn’t have done it that well, certainly not off the top of my head, for several different reasons, right. But yeah: whether science, and scientists, ever try to integrate with non-scientific/spiritual ways of knowing, right, ultimately with the non-specialist and her/his ways of knowing: obviously it could only become part of science if the scientists themselves felt that way. Today the relatively few scientists who make researches or interpretations to imply it’s at least possible have minimal influence on the mainstream (to put it politely). But then again, it certainly is true that you can study science and practice any faith, in addition to no faith, right. They don’t actually issue you an atheism test before the calculus one; it’s just kinda, about being “cool”, right—I mean, that’s how it seems to me, although certainly not all non-believers are…. I mean, many science documentaries actually intended for the general public do use “religion” metaphors on the sly, and they don’t talk like atheism books, right…. And yeah: although I can’t but imagine that one day science and religion WILL reconcile—unless we commit collective suicide, in which case the process won’t be completed—but yeah, I can’t imagine that the study of natural causes by natural means would ever…. “go away”, you know: it is quite useful, and there are just so many forms of faith, that I can’t imagine it not being useful to have a…. I mean, when I think of “practical”, I think of business; and the stereotypical scientist isn’t “practical” enough to run a business, although businesses do employ scientists and scientific findings—I can’t imagine the non-terrible future without a sorta common ground in between faiths, right: or common grounds, plural, right, and science could be one of them. Even say, a Dianic Wiccan and a kinda “trad” coven Wiccan, or a sorta “vanilla” Scott Cunningham-style one, might not feel comfortable, or indeed, be permitted at, each others rituals; also even today sorta Roman Catholic and kinda post-Baptist/“non denominational”/almost kinda “pop”, at least if it’s liberal, Christian church services…. I mean, there’s ecumenism today in Christianity, either of the “let’s love each other at the eleventh hour so we don’t look like fools” or “let’s ally against the others because there are only a few million of us left” (only over 200 MILLION in USA alone? 😹), varieties, but a church that plays Bach and a church that plays a pop band modeled on U2 or whatever, probably doesn’t have a whole lot in common, right…. But you’d think that they’d have these other areas of life where they could mingle: like sports or food or business affairs, or, yes, academic research….

But sometimes, getting along isn’t the goal, right. “That’s not a bug, that’s a feature”, right. I mean, sometimes couples bicker over what brand of milk to buy. It must be a relief to actually light somebody up, “over something that matters”, right…. Yeah: I don’t know if I am always kind; I would suspect not, right. But, “when you have the choice between being kind, and being right: always choose kind”, is the most challenging saying, perhaps, I’ve ever heard. I suppose, in literal terms, and in the stereotypical sense, especially, of “kindness”, it isn’t all there is—like say if you’re an air traffic controller, or something. But generally, I mean—our society is mostly about using legal force to get things out of people, at the bottom, right. (At the bottom, I mean. We think we’re not bullying people because the force is of lawyers and implicitly cops, and not slugging someone yourself. But when someone stops believing our lies, we don’t try to work it out to save the business relationship, right. We, “get our money”, right.) In tarot terms: it’s ALL about swords and pentacles, (air and earth), and NOT cups and wands, (water and fire)—the “higher” suits just don’t come into it, right. (The ordering that clicked with me, although I suppose it’s popular, I don’t know: is wands, cups, swords, pentacles: “high” to “low”.) I know that sounds like gibberish, but it’s like: we think that art matters, and nature doesn’t; because that’s what colonialism teaches, right. But art is just nature adopted to human frailty; it’s not the highest truth…. People aren’t “right” instead of kind because they’re tough; that’s just the delusion they operate by. They’re that way because they don’t have the guts, the real guts, you know…. It’s hard to explain.

…. You know: like….

(Child Hermes) I think that loving the children, is one of the things that keeps us protected. The children live inside.

~And no, before you ask, if you are that perceptive: I can’t define how I’m using the word, “children”, lol. 🧚

…. But yeah, it is kinda funny.

(atheist) That your religion EXISTS: PROVES, that I’m right.
(Child Hermes) (confused) What’d I do?
(atheist) Hermes—no.
(Child Hermes) (looking around) (confused) What’d I do?….
(walks away)
(Child Hermes) I mean: I’m sorry about Mercury Retrograde! It has to happen! It’s part of things! It’s part of the lessons!

…. Re: if God exists, “he has an inordinate fondness for beetles.”

It is true that, not long ago, I restricted my sympathies to warm-blooded vertebrates, like ducks. (I sometimes refer to people as ducks, in my head.) I figured: all us warm-blooded vertebrates have to stick together, right.

But I was reading this book, “Shamanic Power Animals”—it’s by this Toltec guy, so like Native Mexico, basically—and he was talking about how beetles—or scarabs—were very important in the Egyptian religion, right. I mean, I look at the ants or beetles after reading about the ant medicine and the beetle medicine, and it’s like…. You know: it’s easier to understand bear medicine, right. I actually have a bear keychain, right. (Not gonna lie: I thought the meme on Threads about all the girls leaving their boyfriends for a bear, was SO FUNNY. It’s like…. Bear’s right here girl— and besides: there’s a man in every bear; a bear in every man….) But yeah: Egyptian civilization existed for literally well over 3,000 years, and Nahuatl and languages like that, which are still spoken today, have existed for literally well over a millennium. The Toltec guy was probably literally raised in these beliefs. If less than a year of the serious study of Wicca, and a few TikTok videos, don’t provide the same level of insight: maybe that’s on me, right.

But yeah: it’s at least partially on the Christians, the idea that…. I mean, the Church Fathers thoughts that flies represented demons, right. Air is spiritual, but flies, are icky, so…. I mean, there’s a line of thought to it, but…. Does disgust really help us, that much, on our path?

…. It is funny how it reaches a crescendo at the end, like a novel: even though scientists always think, subconsciously, of natural science kinda, colonizing, the humanities, even though it’s like an…. Equal marriage 😉…. But yeah, sometimes: it goes the other way!….

And yeah: I spent a lot of time reading and thinking about this book over the last few days, and I found myself using the word “objective” in my head a lot: and then I was like…. What the hell does that mean?

(Odin/Ian McKellen) It means you’re on the right path, Hermes. You’ve become serious.
(Child Hermes) Oh no: but where’s Loki? Today was our play date; where he is?
(Odin/Ian McKellen) (gentle laugh) Loki doesn’t exist. Loki never existed. Things are as they should be. You are on the right path.
(Child Hermes) (look of abject terror)

~But yeah: I did read it, to understand other people, right.

…. And yeah: I hate to go to bat for Muslim terrorists, right, (“There he is! The infidel!” {Hermes running to save his ass}), but like, of course the ~leaders~ of like terrorist and rebellion groups and military operations have education, right: they need skills. But certainly terrorism, whether by Ulster micks or sand-epithets or anybody else: I mean, even US soldiers don’t come from the CEO class; they come from the Wal-Mart population, right…. (Thanks for reading the above statement with the proper sense of discernment, CIA spies, LOL….). But like, you come from the Middle East, ~of course~, it’s at least POSSIBLE to consider yourself oppressed by the American Empire, right…. Do Black intellectuals stop considering themselves oppressed—stop considering themselves BLACK, OMG!—because they get a good job teaching Toni Morrison and James Baldwin?

Like: scientists—

—I know about brain chemicals. I win at life. Go fuck yourself, ape; I know All There Is To Know.

Also scientists:

—This is a question of GEOLOGY, you untutored neurosurgeon! (wild trad rich boy privileged laughter)

~Right?

…. (waving the bloody shirt about Islam)

~It’s like, why do elite men tend to think that women’s issues is something to use to press down harder on minorities, but that also is not something of relevance in their own lives? I mean: it’s a hard issue, the issue of women’s oppression. But some people are, Not Trying, right.

…. It’s like, Malcom X was a Muslim—a Muslim American. Was he a threat to civilization?

~Why yes, based on my exposure to white folklore, I can answer that question definitely. Not only was he a….

…. Well, I guess you certainly would have a negative view of nature if you think that nature is “rape”, or something. I wish I knew more about the scholarship around topics around things like rape: but I can only feel that…. Yeah, I don’t know about that. Also: if nature is “rape”, right…. Does that mean as a scientist you study something you abhor?…. I mean, that’s the thing: generally when we don’t offer people respect—I mean, you think someone is stupid, then that’s what you think…. I actually think we should normalize using the word, the literal word, “stupid”, right: because (a), some things are stupid, (b), it’s a simple word, a baby, word, and often describes something enormously simplistic and babyish, and (c) usually people don’t call each other “stupid” when they feel that they are, because (i) they are afraid of using “baby” words when their whole identity is wrapped up in elitist education, and (ii) they want to use elaborate and incredibly stigmatizing work-arounds that basically lead to exchanges like this, (if you were to translate, right): ‘You’re stupid!’ ‘Oh yeah, you’re stupid times ten!’ ‘You’re stupid times…. A MILLION!!!’—but yeah, it’s one thing if you think someone is a moron, you know—like they won’t even watch a good movie or a comedy that makes sense; they just watch slop because they hate themselves, right…. “Wal-Mart Romance Bundle: 20 movies for sixty-nine cents….” ~And I can’t even talk about the boy movies, lol….

But yeah: when you don’t RESPECT someone, like you get Uptight, and Tell Them They Can’t Do Better Because Their Stupidity Is A Moral Failure….

You’re a jerk, in that case.

~Yeah: and I vote we rename “humanism” hoomi-ism, lol…. Because really, if your whole thing is you’re trying to identify yourself with the hoomi, right—just hoomis, any hoomi, right….

Yeah, I mean…. Are you feeling ok? Do you think they make a pill fit that, now?….

😹

…. But yeah: scientists do some good, in their own peculiar way. They’ll be alright someday. They’re part of a larger culture. We’re all caught in something, right.

…. But yeah:

(Merlin guy) (raises hand dramatically) What my grandfathers began, will be completed in the days of my grandchildren…. Prophecy says it will be called “click bait”: it will make people think that the journey from 18 to 19 is endlessly fascinating, and the journey from 35 to 83, an endlessly stupid story of woe…. Why? Hmm…. (shuffles through scrolls) Hmm, that’s a good question; there must have been a reason….

Although written primarily for an American audience, still as powerful as the first time I read it. ( )

I hadn't read anything by Sam Harris before. I've seen him many times, mostly on YouTube videos of debates with his late colleague Chris Hitchens. Other reviewers are correct that there is nothing really new here, but Harris does have some interesting and well-made arguments.

I did find a few mildly disturbing things that stood out as falling short of an easily defensible argument.
Harris argues that the destruction of a human blastocyst is the same as scratching your nose since a human could be cloned from the skin cells that you destroy. This is silly. It isn't currently feasible to clone human skin cells, many think that it would be immoral to do so, and cloning human skin cells is not a natural evolved process. There is no clear moral solution to the question of abortion since there are good arguments on both sides, and I don't think any argument is satisfactory that fails to recognize that if you do not destroy an early fetal human, then you are likely to get an infant in 9 months.

Although the book is ostensibly a letter to Christians, it spends a considerable portion of its short length running down Muslims. I just find it hard to believe that if you somehow magically removed religion from the Earth, that people wouldn't find ample reason to kill each other. ( )

Written at an audience that I never was part of, but I really don't want to be in the room with either him or his audience member. ( )

On one hand, Letter to a Christian Nation is extremely unlikely to even slightly budge the audience (fundamentalist Christians) to whom it's ostensibly addressed towards Harris's way of thinking. On the other, it's a bracing and instructive synopsis of the real-world harm done in the name of religion. Harris is unflinching in his analysis, and, as the kind of moderate secularist that he takes to task towards the end of the book, it was good for me to read, even if I will never be as much of a hardliner as he is. ( )