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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:35 am on March 13, 2016 Permalink | Reply
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    Religion 102: Toward a New Spiritual Discipline 

    We’re a degenerate society, America, that is, profane and impolite, licentious and unlicensed, democratic and debauched. We’ve lost our way as a society, a nation, and a culture, for what reasons being debatable.  What’s worse: having made our deal with the Devil we now dismiss those religions that haven’t, as though our degenerate society is somehow superior.  We’re drunken, drug-addled, sex-craving, and proud of it! This is how we measure our manliness, and increasingly: our womanliness…

    Starlets repeatedly score fashionista points for how much skin they’re willing to show, as if titillation were talent. Paragons of virtue we are no longer. Is this the best we can do as a race of people? Much of this is in the name of ‘freedom’, of course, which is understandable, given our traditions, but some of it also tries to pass for spirituality, which I object to. Early Christians used to torture themselves mercilessly to show their love of Jesus and God, you know, quite the opposite of nude selfies at the Grand Canyon… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:30 am on March 12, 2016 Permalink | Reply
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    Takin’ It to the Trumpster: Fake Smiles and the Art of Duh-ceit… 

    “You can only smile when the losers of the world try so hard to put down successful people. Just remember, they all want to be YOU!”–Donald Trump

    Kudos to Rubio (“Little Marco”) for asking his supporters to vote for John Kasich in Ohio. I like it. I don’t like Trump. The only apologies I have for previously referring to him as a ‘disgusting pig’ are to the hardworking barnyard animals of this world. He represents everything that is wrong with America–the arrogance, the stupidity, and the mindless aggression. The fact that so many Americans seem to identify with that a$$hole would seem to indicate that we are a nation of a$$holes. I hope that’s not true… time will tell…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 1:08 pm on March 8, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , John Kasich, , , , US   

    T. Cruise: Republican Anomaly for US Prez… 

    Okay, this is difficult, advocating a vote for Ted Cruz, BUT: these are difficult times. After all, that WAS a pretty funny line about, “Breathe, Donald, breathe.” Give him credit for that one. That’s the only time anyone has ever stumped Trump, AND… he does know how to use the subjunctive mood correctly, as in, “If I were you… Most Democrats can’t do that, SO… If I were a Republican, I’d vote for John Kasich. That makes sense. There, I said it…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:27 am on March 6, 2016 Permalink | Reply
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    Religion, Atheism, Buddhism, Christianity and fear… 

    Atheists are adamant about denying the existence of God, without making it clear exactly ofIMG_0387 what they are denying the existence. I get the feeling that denial is the important act. They seem to not be able to get past the fact that our God and gods are created by us ourselves, first person plural possessive reflexive. Does that make them any less real or efficacious? I mean: I don’t think anyone really believes that there is a Superman sitting up there on a cloud somewhere sipping espresso, do they? Okay, so never mind, the important thing is how you live your life…

    …and definitions of God have long been shifting, subject to a sliding scale of current events, and ultimately are secondary to their utility in our lives. My own suspicion—totally unprovable—is that gods have their origin aboriginally in the deaths of powerful leaders and family members. Where did they go? What just happened? So where did we come from, anyway? Just like early Texan settlers felt the need to “Remember the Alamo!” others must have long felt the need, or desire, to remember their ancestors. Ancestor worship seems to confirm this. From there it’s a short hop to postulated deities… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:41 am on March 3, 2016 Permalink | Reply
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    Bernie Sanders’ Three-Part Campaign Platform… 

    Image result for bernie pics…was released today by Thor Wyndham, Sander’s campaign manager and currently a graduate student in Political Science at Columbia University in New York City. According to Wyndham, the core principles of Sander’s political philosophy inform the platform and are as follows:

    1) Break up the banks (30-day notice required or withdrawal penalties apply)

    2) Free college tuition (with any 4.0 GPA–bill us)

    3) Hillary sucks (dude!)

    For a complete description of the platform, interested parties should send e-mails to:

    hillarysuxdude@hotmail.com

    (-:  The previous post is satire and for purposes of entertainment only. Hopefully you’ll see the humor. If symptoms last for more than four hours, please contact your physician 🙂

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:19 pm on March 1, 2016 Permalink | Reply
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    Karma, Tr*mp and the 2016 Election… 

    Image result for mandarin duck picsMy wife says Donald Trump reminds her of Mandarin ducks, not just the hair, but the personality.  Myself, I was thinking more like Peking duck.  What do you think?  Ni hao. Ni hao ma?

    The Repubs brought this on themselves, of course, this ‘theatre of the absurd’ style of politics that now has brought celebrity mogul Donald Trump to the brink of the Republican nomination for President. This has its origins in the obstructionist tactics that even mainstream Republicans used to inflict their inherent racism upon the country for the last seven years, offended that a black man could be smarter than the lot of them, and without even trying, they holding on to the politics of the Wild Wild South, negroes ‘wanted dead or alive’, frustrating Obama at every move simply because he’s a black man…

    In a way, Trump’s the perfect payback for the a$$hole treatment that the Repubs have exhibited over the last seven years, during which not only was racism not overcome, but was in fact doubled down. The question now is whether the Democrats will take advantage of this opportunity, or whether they instead will take the bait and succumb to the same level of absurdity, throwing caution to the wind in favor of long-pent-up desires and agendas. With Trump at the helm, Dems should be able to waltz to the Prez, and maybe pick up a house of Congress to boot. But will they? (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:12 am on February 28, 2016 Permalink | Reply
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    Zen and the Art of Smartphone Maintenance 

    IMG_1190

    Buddhism in Sri Lanka

    For someone to say that they just want the Zen Enlightenment, without all the ‘normal’ Buddhist suffering is like a doctor—or patient—who only wants elective surgery, no cure for the common cold necessary, thank you. Of course that can be done, as thousands of the bored wealthy among us do, the elective surgery and the Zen enlightenment up at the Zen Center up on the hill, BUT: there’s only one problem…

    …that ain’t Buddhism, not really IMHO. It’s hard to have true Buddhism in a Christian country. Twenty Christians practicing Buddhism as a second language will be a very ‘Christian-y’ Buddhism. So that’s more like New Age such-and-such, or Transformational something or other, as American as apple pie a la mode du jour.

    There’s more to Buddhism than meditation, too, which is what Zen specializes in, that and the ‘crazy wisdom’ of unsolvable riddles designed to trick your mind into Enlightenment, the Sudden Enlightenment of stopped thought. That IS the goal of meditation, after all, isn’t it, to stop all thought, all linguistic thought, if only for a little while? I’d say so, though there IS some scuttlebutt about accessing other worlds—yeah, right…. (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:50 pm on February 24, 2016 Permalink | Reply
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    Fall of America, Act III: Bread, Circuses, Conspiracies and Clowns… 

    So what’s all this (c)rap about ‘Establishment’ candidates, and the notion that D. P. Trump and Bernie Sanders are the desirable anti-Establishment alternatives?

    The Establishment generally denotes a dominant group or elite that holds power or authority in a nation or organization. The Establishment may be a closed social group which selects its own members (as opposed to selection by merit or election) or specific entrenched elite structures, either in government or in specific institutions…

    …In fact, any relatively small class or group of people having control can be referred to as The Establishment; and conversely, in the jargon of sociology, anyone who does not belong to The Establishment may be labelled an “outsider”–Wikipedia

    Got that? No? Well, it’s quite simple, really. It’s all about THEM: (fill in the blank). THEY can be anyone you want, anyone you just love to hate, be it the so-called Establishment, the military-industrial complex (cue rat-a-tat), the secret government (cue ghostly sounds), the Illuminati (remember them?), or you-name-it… See where this is going? Yes: how do you spell C-O-N-S-P-I-R-A-C-Y (Note capital letters)? Now, no one disputes the thousands of little conspiracies that occur everyday, but ‘conspiracy theory’ is all about the Big One: the idea that they’re all connected… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 8:29 am on February 21, 2016 Permalink | Reply
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    Secular Humanism? Yeah, right: Gimme Religion, and ASAP… 

    IMG_1184

    Buddhist shrine in Sri Lanka

    For better or worse, Bernie, “We’re-All-In-This-Together” is not a religion. Spirituality? Maybe, but I doubt it. Nice try, though. It’s okay to be Jewish, you know. It doesn’t mean anything bad, as long as you’re not a tool of the modern state of Israel. So feel free to clarify that, ASAP, but obscuring your ethnic origins by muddying up religious waters is not helpful…

    So Bernie sounds like a ‘secular humanist’ to me, and not a ‘practicing Jew’. But I’m not interested in politics right now. I’m interested in religion. So is ‘secular humanism’ a religion? Naah, not really. Why not? They’re all just belief systems, aren’t they, ‘secular humanism’ and every religion? So what’s the difference? Does a religion have to have a God? Buddhism doesn’t really have a God, and Islam allows no images of one. Hinduism has loads.  So what’s the difference?

    Short answer: plenty. In fact, secular humanism DOES have a God, and its name is mostly ME. That’s the difference, and that’s the opposite of what religion is all about. Religion is all about being a part of something bigger than you, and secular humanism is all about individuality, and individualism, specifically this individual, and all too often (drum roll here, please): ego.  God help us. (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:41 am on February 14, 2016 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism: the Path to Compassion… and Conciliation 

    IMG_1184

    Buddhist shrine in Sri Lanka

    Buddhism is well-known for its compassion, but actually: shouldn’t they all be? In fact, yes all religions are pretty equal in that regard, to their own adherents, at least. Christians who rejoice in their style of communion might be surprised at the joy of two Muslims meeting at the unexpected random encounter in some disparate (and not necessarily desperate) country.

    So that’s the challenge, really, then, isn’t it—to expand the umbrella of inclusion, so that people can feel that feeling of brotherhood whenever and wherever and with whomever? Unfortunately it doesn’t always work out that way, as cultural baggage weighs heavily and racial and facial considerations rear their ugly heads in calculated derision… (More …)

     
    • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

      davekingsbury 1:53 pm on February 15, 2016 Permalink | Reply

      An insightful blend of philosophy and personal experience which hits the nail on the head … I shall remember your phrase ‘umbrella of inclusion’!

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