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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:09 am on February 8, 2015 Permalink | Reply  

    Religion 101: the Great Atheistic Conceit 

    It’s easy to be an atheist in these modern times of high-tech and low intellect, thoroughly modern atheism something of a nod to the zeitgeist every bit as much as its opposite, Islamic fundamentalism, the two something of an odd couple of misplaced ideals gone horribly wrong, carrying an argument to its logical conclusion of death and despair, even when other options are available, most of them no little bit cheerier and more uplifting…

    But this is the era of ‘likes’ and lack, spiritual lack, in the midst of the greatest abundance ever known to ours or any species. For all the inequality inherent in the distribution of wealth, the sheer quantity of it cannot be denied but by only the most jaded and unappreciative of civilization’s overweight and overindulged malcontents. This is truly the era of abundance.

    But that can change in an instant. As in the principle of ‘yin-yang’: the seeds of one are in the other. Religion can help ease the transition and make sense of the ultimate realities. Ch-ch-ch-changes will likely be most difficult for those who are today most comfortable. (More …)

     
    • Kc's avatar

      Kc 6:07 pm on February 8, 2015 Permalink | Reply

      got the david bowie references. here’s a david bowie joke for you. diamonds are a girls best friend, dogs are man’s best friend, david bowie’s diamond dogs is everybody’s friend. while i am not a scientist, religion is way confusing to me so i claim atheism. this whole town is christian. been trying to register people to vote, you wd not believe the people who will not register to vote because they read the bible and god is going to take care of everything, why should they vote? yi yi yi

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 10:24 am on February 1, 2015 Permalink | Reply
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    Religion 101: The Limits of Love… or Why the West needs Buddhism—and Islam 

    We all know what it’s like to be in love: that crush—of feelings and desires and… and… suffering, yes, suffering (we’re talking about passion, remember, as in the Passion of Christ OR the passion of hot steamy nights). There’s nothing like it in the world, absolutely nothing. It will make you do the craziest things or go to the craziest lengths, all for love, or the act thereof…

    But is this something to base a religion upon? If I remember correctly (from last week or last month or last year) there were two (2) equally effective ways of dealing with love’s ‘crush’: acting on those desires directly or simply waiting for it to pass (time heals all things, remember, including random bouts of passion). It usually does. That was one of the rites of passage in ‘growing up’, after all, wasn’t it? You never really wanted to ‘die for it’, now, did you? That’s just an expression, you know…

    Passion as a basis of religion is another matter. All sufferings of Christ aside, isn’t the willingness of various fundamentalist Islamic ‘jihadis‘ to die for their religion something we Westerners generally abhor and chastise them for, accusing them of all sorts of perversions and misinterpretations of divine intent? Yet it was Jesus, only one of Islam’s many prophets, who clearly saw such actions as appropriate. Muhammad (Mohammed, Mehmed, etc.) didn’t die for anyone’s sins, after all. (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:33 am on January 25, 2015 Permalink | Reply
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    Religion 101: What’s so Fun about Hate, War and Fundamentalism? 

    It’s an amazing world in which we live, this slow cool world down here, up here, of molecules making love, and atoms doing time, of spatio-temporal flows and eddies, with dervishes and rock bands and salad greens and rocket science all swirling and whirling at less than the speed of light, more like the speed of sound defining this dimension with all its percussion and repercussions, quarks tachyons leptons Higgs bosons and an infinite number of other particles all holding hands…

    …as if they really existed, probably all read the same books, mixing and matching and flirting and hurting and creating bacteria and other multi-celled species, with emotions you can feel, and frequencies you can smell taste touch see and hear, so God said go forth and multiply but instead we went forth and divided… (More …)

     
    • Kc's avatar

      Kc 11:38 am on January 25, 2015 Permalink | Reply

      are you in tucson now? running a hostel? did have big fun in youth hostels on left coast, traveling alone. r not getting better, only worse. aren’t you glad you left mississippi goddamn? one day i will also. say hello to tang. take care. xx o x o

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:50 am on January 18, 2015 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism 101, a Logarithm Grape-fruit: Sci-Fi and Religion, vices and verses… 

    People are desperate; people are starving; people line boulevards scrounging for crumbs and morsels; the homeless drift through the streets of nameless cities like zombies on life support, more and more keep coming and coming, without end middle or beginning, living in the moment like animals in search of pleasure and pasture; office workers adjust their ties and tie up their arms in expectation of junk, mail arriving from the four corners of the earth in bits and bytes, accounts payable and receivable in silver and slivers of pie-charts and Boolean logic…

    People perform sex acts on web-cams for pennies and tips, putting themselves into strange postures for the amusement of raucous crowds on opposite sides of interactive cameras, audiences and performers trading places in the name of mutual mastering and slaving—things once illegal: baiting, goading, pleading and ultimately pleasuring each other in temporary transitory sensations, tripping the light fantastic, skipping the light fandango; while people hurl insults at each other in Internet chat rooms; such is modern life in the Western lands and the cities of red nights… (More …)

     
    • Kc's avatar

      Kc 4:34 pm on January 18, 2015 Permalink | Reply

      in our county in MS, i have located many church food and clothing pantries. not for profit. the gov. of love, on the other hand gives minimal food stamps and a small bag of food monthly, to every household. it is a big time when the bags contain salmon, for croquettes. usually soybean oil, raisins and mixed veggies. Buddhism, huh, the xtians sure enough have good food that will not make you sick, after weds. services, at noon, people group up in small circles and testify, i mean in tongues. . r still growing thin and forgetful but we are fine, you, Tang? bi-polar, know that one. you are right, why not?

    • hardie karges's avatar

      hardie karges 5:47 pm on January 18, 2015 Permalink | Reply

      Maybe too late for Buddhism to save us all from ourselves; my only concern at this point is survival of the species…

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 5:15 pm on January 11, 2015 Permalink | Reply
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    Charlie Died for Somebody’s Sins (but not mine)… 

    I swore I’d leave politics out of my little Sunday not-so-sermon more-like-a-screed. But it’s hard in this day and age of crowded borders and anti-social media. First decent-comic and B-movie director Seth Rogen brings us to the brink of WWIII with his take on North Korea in The Interview’. Now we have the auto-da-fe by Islamic jihadists upon the staff of the French ‘satirical’ magazine Charlie Hebdo.

    The staff of Charlie Hebdo know precisely what the acceptable bounds are, within the Islamic system of justice… and still chooses to press their, and civilization’s, luck. IMHO this is not acceptable. It’s worth noting that their previous lampoons of the Pope and Catholicism stop short of the Pope having sex with under-age choirboys, as their caricatures of the Prophet do, pretty reprehensible stuff, I’d say. That goes way beyond free speech in my book.  Scuttlebutt is that they don’t do Jewish stuff, but I wouldn’t know.

    Liberalism is dead. That much is obvious, when they are now the super-patriots, marching the streets to show support for the state security apparatus and its anti-immigrant pro-hate stance in the name of ‘free press’. If it wasn’t obvious before, with the historic waffling on NAFTA (ever heard of China, you pro-labor anti-Mexicans?), health care (any is better than none, isn’t it?), Keystone (ever heard of Canada?), and runaway economic growth (aka ‘global warming’), then it is now, with the ‘Islamic threat’.

    Bill Maher is the perfect example of this, he liberal royalty, now scared to fly with anybody wearing a robe, and he spouting racial, cultural and national epithets thicker than a KKK member. Liberalism is dead. Old-fashioned notions of ‘free speech’ were never more than a vague ideological ideal, thinly defined and often abused, first crossing the line into pornography and now into hate speech. Hate speech is not free speech. It is terror, and Charlie Hebdo should be condemned for it.

    Maybe Seth Rogen was a harmless Teddy Bear caught up in something larger than he, but not Charlie Hebdo. They knew exactly what they were doing. It used to be called incitement to riot. Now it’s called ‘satire’, and it came back to bit them on the a$$. R.I.P. cartoon warriors, may your offspring choose softer subjects.  Payback is a b*tch: a batch of contradictions.

    If we’re going to survive as a society, a multi-racial diverse society, then people are going to have to get along, dialing down the freedom to provoke, and toning down the freedom to get in yo’ face.  We are really a society adrift, in serious need of a new reason, a new rationale, a new religion, a new vision of the future, something we can all share at our highest common denominators, not our lowest.

    I don’t enjoy arguing politics with my liberal friends any more than the conservatives. It’s tiring, but necessary, I suppose—for the kids. You don’t want to know what the future archeologists say. It’s all superfluous, if we can only change the time-line. Would that life were as easy as the movies. Where’s Seth Rogen when you need him? I persevere.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 7:42 pm on January 7, 2015 Permalink | Reply
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    I am not #CharlieHebdo. Freedom of speech is not freedom to insult defame and blaspheme other people’s Gods and leaders. Sorry. Both parties are to blame.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 10:53 am on January 4, 2015 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism 101: Living in the Moment—Not 

    Buddhism in Sri Lanka

    Buddhism in Sri Lanka

    “Ignorance is bliss”; “knowledge is power.” “The only moment is the present;” “Those who forget the lessons of the past are condemned to repeat it.” Competing cliches and proverbs compete for our attention, loyalties and commitment, knowing that they can’t all be true, mutually exclusive options negating all opposing viewpoints. So what’s a mother to do?

    Back in the old days—a couple generations ago—you’d just go to Padre Magnago or Preacher Watson and make your amends and ask his advice; chances are you’d survive. Now it’s not so easy. For one thing the problems are more complex. Instead of merely lusting after your neighbor’s wife, you might be lusting after his daughter—or son (not to mention his property)! It gets worse, of course: war, dictatorships, famine, and pestilence; ISIS, Kim Jong-un, Eritrea, and Ebola. (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:33 am on December 28, 2014 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ebola, , , ,   

    Advanced Eschatology: R.I.P. 2014 

    Don’t you just love the latest FaceBook silliness in which we proudly proclaim, “It’s been a great year. Thank you for being a part of it!” Really? 2014 was a great year? In what parallel universe did that occur? Or is it just wishful thinking? Or are we just sheep following our leaders off the cliff, the dance leaders, that is; like Rome before the fall, or the last cabaret in Hitler’s Berlin? Now denial—like hero-worship—is nothing new, and FaceBook is not known for high intellect, but this is a new low.

    And that’s saying something for a medium specializing in silly pet tricks and reverse child psychology that goes something like: “I love my mother-in-law. Do you love your mother-in-law? If you do, then please ‘like’, follow, or share this post. I know that most of you won’t, but I want to see how many of you will.” What rubbish.  Did you know that ‘likes’ are now currency? It’s true. What Marvel Comics super-hero are you, anyway? I’m Captain America…

    More importantly, which part of 2014 did you like the best: the Ebola epidemic, maybe? Now there’s a memorable series of moments, death destruction and denial, in which highly-paid pundits and Math 101 extrapolaters (i.e. bloggers) predicted that there would be a cool Mil (1,000,000) number of victims by now. In actuality: “As of 23 December 2014, this outbreak has 19,648 reported cases resulting in 7,645 deaths.” (Wikipedia)

    Ouch. And then there were that not-so-lonely band of lovable losers known variously as ISIS or the Islamic State or The Artists Formerly Known as ISIL, in which bad Fashion Police finally claim turf, proclaiming cleavage illegal at penalty of amputation, and wayward thoughts illegal at penalty of beheading, all of which prompted Noam Chomsky to declare the probable ‘end of history’. Now I’m no huge fan of Chomsky’s politics or his linguistics, but he may have just nailed this one—shut. Give Boko Haram honorable mention in this category. (More …)

     
    • Kc's avatar

      Kc 5:28 pm on December 28, 2014 Permalink | Reply

      yes, way way too much b.s. going on. r is out of his mind. do not know how to deal w it. he is getting violent and is certain that i am poisioning his food, so he refuses to eat. weighs less than 120lb, still, insists on drinking everything he can get his hands on. yea, happy new year to you also.

    • Esther Fabbricante's avatar

      Esther Fabbricante 9:55 pm on December 28, 2014 Permalink | Reply

      Powerful – the power of your words and your thinking and conclusions!
      Living one day at a time seems almost precarious.

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 10:27 am on December 21, 2014 Permalink | Reply
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    Christmas Goes Viral: Festivus for the Rest of Us 

    Babel on in Babylon, the Hanging Gardens (as imagined) and the Tower of Babel

    Everything is a caricature of itself now, and entertainment is king. So Christmas in America is when we all get to return to our childhood fantasies, beyond sugar plums and into consumer gluttony—or not. If Thanksgiving morphs simple thanks toward God into thanks for the goods, then Christmas goes beyond celebrating the birth of Christ into celebrating the birth of consumerism. It doesn’t have to be that way.

    George Costanza’s dad on the old ‘Seinfeld’ series made alternative celebrations official, but I’m starting to warm up to the many ‘orphan’ events that now spring up around this time of year to give the rest of us some reason for the season: simple social camaraderie and spiritual communion, nuclear family optional. ‘Nuclear’ can sometimes be dangerous, after all.

    Christmas—and Christianity—is not alone in pushing their holidays to absurd viral proportions, though. Other countries and religions do it, too. Anyone who’s gone to Thailand for the Songkran water fest (read: ‘water fight’) is witnessing the modern spectacle of what started off as a simple dousing of water as a symbol of renewal. And I hear that the daylight fasting that occurs during Islamic Ramadan says nothing about what happens after dark. This is cultural neoteny, the evolutionary regression to childhood (in biology, literally the decreasing age of reproduction). (More …)

     
    • mary's avatar

      mary 9:52 am on December 21, 2014 Permalink | Reply

      and a happy winter solstice to you. no xmas for us-mas. the shortest day of the year-grand, it means they will be getting longer, if that is a good thing or not i am uncertain. pax

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 11:28 am on December 21, 2014 Permalink | Reply

        Yes yes yes, it is all good if we want it to be that way and act accordingly…

    • Esther Fabbricante's avatar

      Esther Fabbricante 6:54 am on December 24, 2014 Permalink | Reply

      Family is first with me – 31 members including in-laws and step children..
      Merry Christmas to you.

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:22 am on December 14, 2014 Permalink | Reply
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    Awesomenessificationizing in a World w/o Him 

    “Awesome”: the word defines our lazy consumer/consumed age, selfies self-centered, Christmas especially, speaking volumes while explaining nothing, an idle exclamation and simultaneous proclamation of all things hubristic, ourselves extrapolated outward for viewing and public worship—self-worship—the worst kind, “awesome” not to be confused with “awful” its evil twin, same word really, merely inflected with opposing sentiment, neither of them even in the same emotional league as that original feeling of awe that inspired it, and which inspires millions, that feeling of smallness in witnessing grandiosity…

    So how did the same word, and same original feel, come to mean two such opposite things? That’s what it is to be human, dahling, language—and thoughts—mutating at the speed of sound in direct proportion to the distance from the source, so much like biological Evolution that it’s hard to see them as anything other or different, as often declared by scientific minds specializing in such fields with (pedi)grees much higher than my own…

    We humans are a rather imperfect lot, at best blessed, at worst cursed, in reality most likely somewhere in between, the recipe for fulfillment in direct proportion to intent, a sliding scale of satisfaction, hard to accomplish anything without really intending it, or retrofitting the logic, intent being the key, left in this slow cool world to fend for ourselves or die trying… (More …)

     
    • Kc's avatar

      Kc 1:55 pm on December 14, 2014 Permalink | Reply

      awesome, iconic and literally, words that stick in under and around my craw. do people not read the dictionary anymore?

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