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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 6:23 pm on June 8, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , religion   

    Religion, Linguistics and Politics: the Muslim Problem is an Aryan Problem… 

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    The ugliest church in the world: Kabul, Afghanistan

    When you think of Islam, you generally think of the Mideast, and all things Arab.  Yet more than half of the total Muslim population lies to the east of the Shatt al-Arab, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and that line that separates Iraq from Iran, Arab from Aryan, them from us.  Huh?  Aryan?  Us? What gives?

    Yes it’s probably no accident that the most problematic of Muslims are our own not-so-distant relatives.  You’ve heard of the Beverly Hillbillies, right?  But what about the Kandahar Killbillies?  Yes, it’s true: one of the peskiest terrorist problems in the world comes from our own relatives from the same original ‘hood out back on the steppes, on a different stairway to a different Heaven, even if exactly the same Semitic god… (More …)

     
    • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

      Dave Kingsbury 9:20 am on June 9, 2016 Permalink | Reply

      The opposite to labelling and stereotyping … pro-evolutionary, you might say, showing how language is a wordhoard that art can use to reconstruct old ways of looking.

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 9:25 am on June 9, 2016 Permalink | Reply

        According to prominent micro-biologist, language and DNA function almost exactly the same, in terms of evolution: “no reason why they should, but they do…”

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:12 am on June 5, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , religion   

    Religion 201: Lessons in Humility, Messages for Humanity… 

    Christian God

    Christian God

    “Man is the measure of all things.”  Protagoras (c.490-420 BCE) is the author of that statement, and—with all due respect—I’d say that’s the beginning of the end of us humans as spiritual animals, and the mark of our ascension to the status of corrupt malignant city-dwellers, masters of our own private little domains and little else.  On the one hand, it is a statement of the relativity of all perceptions—okay.  On the other hand, it is a statement of our ignorance and arrogance—ouch!

    We imagine that we are masters of the universe, creators of the cosmos, and lords of the lower two hundred—countries in the world, that is. This is nothing but human hubris, of course, and nothing could be further from the truth.  We live at the mercy of our machines, possessed by our possessions, in the thrall of our inventions and our inventiveness, in love with ourselves and our selfishness, enraptured by our images and our imaginations.  We wallow in our memories and our comforts and our conveniences.

    We Westerners admire ourselves, our successes, our ambitions, our madness, without even questioning the whys and wherefores of it.  We climb naked rock faces, while smiling all the time, oblivious to the danger, addicted to the climb, always looking for a faster computer and a more easily programmable car, pushing envelopes and shuffling papers, rejecting our traditions and annoying our neighbors.  Ego rules! Nobody wants to be the follower, everybody wants to be the Alpha male, while ending up the Alpha a$$hole. (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 8:58 am on May 22, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , religion   

    Religion 313: Simple Prayer for a Tortured Earth 

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    Buddhism in Sri Lanka

    I’m not here to diss or dismiss anyone’s faith nor fantasy—quite the contrary, in fact: I hope to be part of a conversation in which all viewpoints are reconciled, and the human league is improved in its capacity for survival upon an earth grown weary from wars and wickedness, tired of mayhem and mudslinging…

    This is in fact the prime role of religion—to make you feel better in situations beyond your control, to make things feel better without taking up arms in dispute.  That religions are sometimes used as battle flags is unfortunate, of course, but hopefully only a paradigm shift away from the pages of history…

    Rome was only ultimately saved by church and religion, and I doubt that Washington will fare any better, and this is as it should be, faith in something bigger something better assuming its rightful place in the pantheon of our thoughts and highest common denominators, rather than recourse to rifles as we sink to our lowest…

    Like religion, the function of prayer is to make you feel better about whatever outcome should arise, since there is no greater truth than that we really know little or nothing about anything and control even less.  To recognize that no matter how hard you pray, the outcome is reliant mostly upon other factors is so obvious that it should be self-evident—but it’s not… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 7:00 am on April 17, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , religion, ,   

    Buddha-Consciousness in a Pill: In Defense of ‘Low-T’… 

    IMG_1665

    Thai Buddhist Temple

    Is there anything more pathetic and disgusting than watching an old man trying to get it up just one more time, meter running, with multiple payment options? Enter Viagra, and sex tourism, and you name it: ‘Low T’ (testosterone), the male sex hormone, or absence thereof…

    It’s all about reproduction, or dying trying, in this life in this world, in this dimension, in this plane of existence, Boeing 747’s equipped with 1st-class cubicles with reclining seats just in case the mood strikes, at the moment of inspiration at the moment of conception…

    Welcome to Thailand, where ‘feed-us’ farming is the late-life equivalent of fetus-farming, for-hire breeding, artificial selection, putting guys out to pasture with hopefully one last biscuit in the oven, just to make things official, and put the young lady on an inheritance plan…

    Low-T? Guys need to take meds for ‘low-T’? That’s like spitting in the face of God, as if Viagra, Cialis, and that pharmacopia weren’t bad enuf, pumps and pills and multifarious cheap thrills in the back seat of cars too small now for proper breeding, need an early model Cadillac…

    It’s ironic that our major form of entertainment—sex—all around the world was never intended for entertainment at all, if we can correctly intuit the mind of God, but you gotta’ give it credit, maybe pandas should take a lesson and start chewing each others genitals instead of so much bamboo while they go happily extinct…

    It’s just a chemical! Without that chemical testosterone and its stiffening influence on the lower extremities, all of our stories and music and literature and art would amount to little, all the philosophies and religion and denominations and free sects… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 8:35 am on March 20, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , mythology, , religion   

    Religion, Philosophy, Mythology: Land of 1000 Dances, God of 1000 Faces… 

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    Hindu Temple in Sri Lanka

    Joseph Campbell got it backwards, you know, with his emphasis on the ‘Hero with 1000 Faces’, as if the hero were really the important actor on this world stage, he with his light-saber or Bowie knife, long bow or trebuchet. They were mostly just movable actors on a movable stage, and not so smart for the most part, simply acting on hunches best articulated by others. The important aspect were the ideals they represented, the gods they served, and the food supplies they secured, for this was what would advance their respective societies.

    The problem with Campbell’s analysis is that he is largely describing a literary device, not the world of real people in which heroes are definitely hard to find and much more nuanced in the roles they play, few in fact going through the formal stages that Campbell describes. In the real world, gods are more important for that very reason: they ARE literary devices, custom-built to serve a mythological purpose. Heroes are expendable. Gods are not. The fact that Hollywood might not even know the difference speaks volumes.

    The epiphany, of course, is that heroes—and gods—can, are, and should be made to order to fit the circumstances and needs of their particular flock. Thus violent Europeans get a god of love while overly possessive Orientals get a god of non-attachment and hyper-sexed Middle Easterners get a god of strict prohibitions. Still it seems that there should be a higher common denominator than this and that there could and should be a higher level of spirituality to unite them all. A bicameral legislature of divinity, perhaps? Sounds good to me… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:27 am on March 6, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , religion   

    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 10:40 am on January 31, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: dance, , religion, sound   

    Living in the Material World, a Dimension of Suffering—and Dance… 

    IMG_0379So if my analogies and metaphors prove timely and sufficient, and there really is a higher dimension of light (electromagnetism) analogous to heaven, definable and measurable, and there really is a lower dimension of gravity analogous to hell, definable and measurable, then what does this dimension, this dimension here—our human dimension—consist of, and how is it measured?

    Continuing with our analogies and metaphors, and lacking the possibility for any exact truth, I’m guessing it’s a lot like sound, measurable as the speed of the sound wave, and easily definable as an accessible physical constant in our world, if not technically a ‘force’ (if we can understand it, then I don’t think it qualifies as a ‘force’):

    In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as a typically audible mechanical wave of pressureand displacement, through a medium such as air or water—Wikipedia.

    IMG_0387‘Mechanical’ is the important word for our purposes, for what is our world if not a world of mechanics? ‘Pressure’ and ‘displacement’ also define our circumstances and illustrate the previous physicist’s conundrum of ether, the idea that something must be there, everywhere, that vacuum as a normal state is simply not possible. This was also the problem of rocket science, that propulsion must push ‘against’ something, even if that ‘something’ is only air.

    That’ll do, hence propellers flapping their little wings like birds in migration while heavenly bodies just look on smiling silently. And that’s as far as Newton got—physical forces with equal but opposite reactions. It took Einstein and others to break the consciousness barrier that would allow Brownian motion, photons as particles of light, curved space and ultimately: quantum mechanics, which makes no sense, but which has been proven over and over.

    IMG_1588It makes no sense because it’s really describing a dimension—or two—beyond our common sense one of sound and percussion, probably even beyond the next higher dimension of light (electromagnetism), which we can intuit, and posit as a force, and on into something entirely different. ‘Percussion’: yeah, there’s that, too, the fun part of our dimension.

    Ever seen a small child swinging hips and boogeying like there is no tomorrow? Yeah, they get it young, don’t they, the essential physical and mechanical nature of our existence, the eternal external dance that we call ‘life’? From there it’s all downhill, of course, as the innocence of dance becomes the cynicism of sex, and the bellies turn tricks to stay full (just joking)…

    And with percussion comes repercussions, of course, Newton’s equal but opposite reactions, and their ramifications in the psychological world of human existence, tempting fate and cursing God, or cursing fate and tempting God. But here we are: low-flying angels or high-flying animals, ready to rock out as only we humans can, mechanical particle/waves propagating in a physical medium, not rare, a dimension of suffering, but also of dance—sounds good to me…

     
    • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

      davekingsbury 12:00 pm on February 1, 2016 Permalink | Reply

      (sings) … I got rhythm … I got music … I got my girl … who could ask for anything more? Our evolved instincts may be most visible in dance, natural to kids as you say … grace is dance, now all we need to do is dance our way through thought which your elegant yet natural style does. Thanks.

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:20 pm on November 15, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , religion   

    Building the Perfect Religion: Why? 

    The last thing the world needs, really, is a new religion—been there, done that. What we really need is a synthesis of all the old ones. After all, for all the grief they’ve caused us, they’ve also brought goodness many times over that, a fact which atheists tend to overlook, because it fits their narrative. Atheists seem to assume everything was rosy way back when, before religion, but that’s a ridiculous assumption. In all fairness it’s hard to see into the past, but it’s there if you want it. It’s pretty simple, really: “nasty, mean, brutish and short,” as one famous philosopher once put it, Calvin or Hobbes, can’t remember which.

    The only problem with most traditional religions is that the truth, beauty and goodness that they provide, promote and accomplish usually stops at the membership line. If you fall outside that line, then all benefits stop, or in some cases, the wrath of that same loving God will fall upon you—ouch. That’s the problem right there of course, that religions have boundaries and membership requirements that must be respected and adhered to. Ever wonder why that is? (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:26 am on October 18, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , religion   

    Modern Religion: Waiting for Godot, or ET, or the Eternal NOW… 

    Buddhist Temple in Laos

    Buddhist Temple in Laos

    I’ve always marveled at how certain songs just feel good, regardless of whatever words are being sung, while other songs are sad for the same reason, something about minor keys, I think. Words are the same way, it seems, especially when you’re trying to get all philosophical. I mean: nobody really wants to hear about categorical moral imperatives—borrrring. But everybody loves to hear about the ETERNAL NOW, philosophy in a spray-can, shake well before using, get in touch with your energy, etc. Why are such words and ideas attractive?

    Simple, dahling: because it feels so good, and it can’t be proven or dis-proven—nice touch. We Western Europeans used to exult in our rationality, our Age of Reason, beyond superstition and the dictates of the Mother Church. And it worked fantastically—up to a point. We still love the fruits of such labor, but not the labor itself, and the discipline that achieved it in the first place. Now we want all that and superstition, too, but without the church, thank you. That means New Age fad religions and pop psychology and life-coaching: people who can’t run their own lives will try to tell you how to run yours. Isn’t it wonderful to be alive in 2015 with so many options? (More …)

     
    • mary's avatar

      mary 11:19 am on October 18, 2015 Permalink | Reply

      serendipidy, now that is a good word, joe powers told me what it means, i still miss him.

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 11:33 am on October 18, 2015 Permalink | Reply

        Tales of Serendib, ancient Sri Lanka, world’s oldest continuously Buddhist country… .

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 10:10 am on May 17, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , religion, social commentary   

    Religio-politics 101: Desiderata Considerata 

    Texas, Mexico, river, fence and questions

    Texas, Mexico, river, fence and questions

    …and a strange peace comes over me, in the midst of all the chaos, rejection and reflection, in the midst of patchwork solutions to comprehensive problems that are beyond my comprehension… and I think it has to do with people, last but not least of the great apes, violent and intelligent beyond belief, the gentle ones naturally long gone, left only with the hardened ones that must be softened by religion often rendered impossible by the needle tracks of time and the sloppy sutras of space…

    We are pathetic little people with our pathetic little problems of food, shelter and clothing, mostly just demanding dignity, Capital D Dignity, as if that were the most important thing in the world, that self-importance, that self-esteem, that love that is a priori to all other loves, that feeling of being centered in our self slightly above the navel and just below the head let’s call it heart and get it over with, the connections between people one of heart firstly and foremostly…

    I love the so-called losers of this world because they are the humans with heart, sometimes, or sometimes not, but at least they’re usually open to it, for lack of better options, but it’s not that I hate those who are so sure of themselves and such masters of the world; it’s that I pity them for they will never know the feeling of submission, the feeling of being part of an indivisible whole of which they count only for a little bit, whether entertainers CEO’s or politicians, it’s lonely up there…

    Celebrity sickness is the disease of the day in late 21st C. America, drunk on fame, real or imagined, our obligatory fifteen minutes barely enough in this day and age of hard drugs and random hugs, gotta’ keep the rush coming to see ourselves in pictures on the Big Screen; selfies won’t do for much more than government work, the basic minimum of likes, follows and shares needed to gain some face and hold on to it for a day or two. Why do we see ourselves on the Big Screen at the expense of ourselves on the ground planting seeds and forgiving misdeeds?

    My main memory of a visit to Cuba was the loaded question from a local functionary, fully formed and well-thought-out, could only come from a Commie, stuck behind ironic curtains for most of his life and that of a nation: “Just what do you need Internet for, anyway?”

    (space intentionally left blank)

    Just what DO we need most, anyway? Why are we obsessed with this corporate mentality of skyscrapers Hondas and iPhones while homeless people are sleeping on the streets and begging for food? Is there no middle ground that we can all be part of? Maybe it’s time to reassess our priorities. Maybe it’s time to get back to the garden—a high-tech one—we and our smart-phones: but no two-year contracts, please…

     

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