Don't you respect my beliefs either, and that's the point.
Firstly, this cartoon is pretty great:
And no doubt you are already tired of those nightly news segments with father-less children taken away by government authorities to the sad pleas of colonial women with weird haircuts. We get it: Fundamentalist polygamous Mormon cults are weird.
Yet we don't get it, because the truth is far worse and nobody is sharing it: Pentagon funds aid polygamous sect.
Are we paying attention, or are we falling back asleep while TMZ gives us the more important news? 1.5 million dollars, a drop in the bucket to the M-I-Complex to be sure, but nontheless I hope this disturbs. And this is only what's so far been revealed now that the FLDS has been in the spotlight; so how many other unknown cults are being presently funded by the Pentagon, and nobody knows, and nobody cares?
(While the global-corporatist methodology of infinite tax funds for war and no funds for the poor is a deep and sad story, and thoroughly documented, it is not to be the subject of this particular post, and I appologize but space is limited)
This is essentially obvious. Regardless of whether mainstream Mormons are nice to you or not, all religions (all belief systems period) inevitably evolve a harsh extremist side. This is not the occasional fluke, the bad seed ruining the bathwater or whatever metaphor you choose - this is the logical evolution of belief structures systematics.
-Make up a system.
-Think in a vacuum.
-And fall down the spiral of human irrationality.
How have I come into this fractal nonsense?
I live in a world where I am invited to a party see this Tilak asshole charge new agers hundreds of dollars a pop for a two-minute session.
By the way, go Mike Myers! I intend to see this movie.
Cute girls, otherwise educated and respectable, are excited when our Hitler Youth-volunteering Pope comes to town.
Muslims give at the book fair give me a free Koran, which is cool, balancing out my free Bibles.
Everyday my Mother tells me I should move to Israel.
And my sister (who lives in Israel) tells me not to vote for Obama because he's secretly a Muslim.
Scientologists abound in Hollywood, personally friends with "Ron" apparently, and beg for my personality test results.
Free Republic gives us a choice of either being racist assholes by liberating a country via using the Koran as target practice and , while on the other hand blasphemy can indeed be a noble crime. But let them evolve to the point of blaspheming themselves, no help from the invaders please.
Commies too. All belief systems are plagued by primate behavior and near-sightedness, political just as much as the religious. Bob Avakian's supporters in particular seem to be goddamn too in my face at the protests and book conventions.
Or LaRouche. Or, dare I say it, even some Ron Paul and 9/11 Truther types that get a bit too pushy...
All around me nonsense is pushed as truth. People, otherwise reasonable, believe such inanities as that Hillary Clinton will save America, or that you should hate Saddam Hussein, or that if only the government would redistribute all wealth the poor would be free, and that we must pray for Bush
Bottom-line. Some belief-systems seem weirder than others, but let's be honest. They are all stupid. Billions of human beings believe that Jesus Christ died and was resurrected, or that angels talked to Mohammad, or that God promised Abraham the land of Israel, or if you get bad karma you'll come back as an Untouchable, or whatever.
These are mainstream fucking religious philosophies, and the are completely nonsensical.
This is mass mental illness that's been going on for thousands of years.
But then again who am I to judge?
Don't get me wrong, mythologies (otherwise known as religions) have much to teach us. Even Orthodox political theories have a few good ideas peppered in.
Its only the part where people believe in them that's the problem.
Can we evolve to the point were we believe in nothing?
Believe in shit. March for shit. Vote for shit. Spend money for shit. Kill for shit.
And yet most scared are still scared of the psychedelic experience.
If you really want to talk to Jesus, and test your brain and see what you really think deep inside; its not that hard. No therapist bills or priests required.
A fourth of an ounce of psilocybin might run for 40 bucks, and then see what you believe in...
"At one point consciousness-altering devices like the microscope and telescope were criminalized for exactly the same reasons that psychedelic plants were banned in later years. They allow us to peer into bits and zones of Chaos."
Timothy Leary
"Psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen..."
Alan Watts
"Let us declare nature to be legitimate. All plants should be declared legal, and all animals for that matter. The notion of illegal plants and animals is obnoxious and ridiculous."
Terence McKenna
Illegallities - picked and chosen by the authority structure because those alpha male primates know what's best for you, and you love to listen - yet another nonsense irrationality in our sea of memetic ideaspace.
But that's just my subjective belief.
//ray
