Archive for May, 2009
…stop being so religious…
…nope, this is not another controversial rant…it is but a humble collection of some of the most ecstatic poetry by Hafez, the ‘tongue of the invisible‘, the ‘poet’s poet‘…enjoy!…and yes: listen carefully, there is story being told here…a beautiful story…
Stop Being So Religious
What
Do sad people have in
Common?
It seems
They have all built a shrine
To the past
And often go there
And do a strange wail and
Worship.
What is the beginning of
Happiness?
It is to stop being
So religious
Like That.
- Hafez
The sky
Is a suspended blue ocean.
The stars are the fish
That swim.
The planets are the white whales
I sometimes hitch a ride on,
And the sun and all light
Have forever fused themselves
Into my heart and upon
My skin.
There is only one rule
On this Wild Playground,
For every sign Hafez has ever seen
Reads the same.
They all say,
“Have fun, my dear; my dear, have fun,
In the Beloved’s Divine Game
O, in the Beloved’s
Wonderful Game.”
- Hafez
We
Are not
In pursuit of formalities
Or fake religious
Laws,
For through the stairway of existence
We have come to God’s
Door.
We are
People who need to love, because
Love is the soul’s life,
Love is simply creation’s greatest joy.
Through
The stairway of existence,
O, through the stairway of existence, Hafiz
Have
You now come,
Have we all now come to
The Beloved’s
Door.
- Hafez
Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe Me.”
Look what happens with
A love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky.
- Hafez
…The earth has disappeared beneath my feet,
Illusion fled from all my ecstasy.
Now like a radiant sky creature
God keeps opening.
God keeps opening
Inside of Me.
- Hafez
…now step away from those mundane and meaningless rituals and traditions for a bit…cast off the burden of those hereditary prejudices you carry and stop being so religious…then read through this beautiful story one more time…
“…the more I study ‘religions’ the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself….” – Richard Francis Burton
…about good and evil…
A very interesting take on morality by Sam Harris…
Transcript of the video (courtesy of Big Think):
I think that there’s this myth that unless you think one of your books was dictated by the creator of the universe, and there he told you what good and evil are, you’ll just have no basis for morality. You need religion in some sense to have a generalizable morality. Without religion, there’s no way to say the Nazis were really wrong to do what they did, or believe what they believed. I think that’s clearly untrue. I think we have some very serviceable intuitions about . . . about what good and evil are, and what is . . . what constitutes an ethical life. And we converge on those intuitions. I mean every culture agrees that cruelty is wrong; that taking pleasure in the suffering of others is wrong within the context of your “in group”. I mean many cultures think it’s good to take pleasure in the suffering of people who are not part of your tribe. But in terms of, you know, who you’re going to admit into your moral sphere, we have some very serviceable intuitions about how we treat the people we accept in our sphere. And the challenge for modernity . . . the challenge for civilization is to extend the sphere of our moral community to include the entire species, and even other species so that we really don’t have these “us and them” boundaries that we have. And our “us and them” boundaries are really propped up by dogmatism. I mean they’re propped up by nationalism. They’re propped up by racism. And there are many ways to divide your world dogmatically; but the most insidious “us and them” boundary, as far as I’m concerned, is religion. It really is . . . Religion causes a transcendental object between you and this other person. I mean not only are you different because of your skin color or your political persuasion, or because you speak a different language. You are different for all time for what you believe about God and what he believes about God are so opposed that it’s gonna require eternity to, you know . . . an eternity of punishment, in his case, to work out that difference. So I think it’s a very . . . I think our moral . . . This question of morality is an important one to focus on, because many people are attached to religion not because they’re convinced that the metaphysics make sense, but because they just see no other alternative to teaching kids, you know, right and wrong. I think there’s a few obvious things to point out. One is that we clearly don’t get our morality out of our holy books. Because when you go into the holy books, they are bursting with cruelty. The Old Testament, the New Testament, the Koran – these are profoundly cruel and morally ambiguous books at best. I mean you know, the Ten Commandments . . . the first four have nothing to do with morality. They have to do with theological offenses. You know, “Don’t take any other gods before me. Don’t take God’s name in vain. No graven images,” etc. “Don’t work on the Sabbath.” What are you supposed to do when people break those commandments? You’re supposed to kill them. I mean this is unbelievably immoral. And yet we’re not doing that now not because the book itself is so wise. I mean, to take a more relevant example, slavery. I mean slavery is clearly endorsed in the Bible. It’s endorsed in the Old Testament. It’s endorsed in the New Testament. We all agree that slavery is wrong. We conquer that ground morally through some very hard fought conversations, and also wars. Religion was of very little help in that. I mean there was . . . It’s true that abolitionists were cherry picking Scripture trying to find ways to justify their project. But their project wasn’t coming from Scripture, because Scripture is clear. It supports slavery. There was . . . There’s no . . . The evil of slavery is not recognized in the Bible, and it’s certainly not repudiated in the Bible. And so the . . . the slave holders of the South were on the winning side of that theological argument. And it . . . Religion was an impediment to making that moral progress. Again, the fact . . . Even if it were not an impediment – even if it were extremely useful – that would not be a reason to believe that any of our books were dictated by an omniscient being.
…food for thought indeed…I agree with Sam – that the business of ‘religion’ only serves to create these “us and them” boundaries – dividing and conquering along the way (and in my humble opinion, filling the coffers of those who have mastered the art of selling fear and despair; shamelessly exploiting others by way of dogmatism, nationalism, and racism among other -isms)…
Why so much fuss over frogs?
I’ve ranted on frogs a number of times before – and keep referring to the slimy, unethical, selfish, dishonest, and crooked from amongst us as ‘frogs‘ – why frogs?
Well, when I thought of ‘slimy‘, the first thing that came to mind was a ‘frog‘ – but it could well have been a ‘snake‘ or a ‘salamander‘ – it just happened to be a ‘frog‘ that jumped out of the memes in my brain…essentially, it doesn’t matter which reptile (or amphibian) I chose to describe these ‘cold-blooded‘ entities – the point I tried to make was that these folks are truly ‘reptilian‘ in their behavior, attitudes, and thinking…
Why reptilian?
Ever heard of the Triune Brain?
In the triune brain model, it is articulated that the base of the human brain (the brain stem and the cerebellum) are the first parts of the modern human brain to develop in human evolution…this base is referred to as the ‘reptilian‘ brain because that is exactly what a reptile’s brain is composed of…
Of course, through evolution, we (humans) have layered on the limbic system and the neocortex to what we now know as our ‘brain‘ – that allow us to rise beyond the instinctual, survival, and reactive functions that the ‘reptilian‘ brain is restricted to…
…Coming back to the ‘frog‘…
This ‘reptilian‘ complex (or R-Complex) – a technical term for the part of the brain that higher mammals share with reptiles – is responsible (among other normal involuntary behaviors like breathing) for instinctive (rage and rudimentary survival [fight or flight]) responses to direct stimuli.
The layers of the modern human brain – i.e. the reptilian complex (involuntary functions, reflexes), the limbic system (emotions, instincts), and the neocortex (reasoning, thinking, speech, judgment or ‘wisdom‘) – depend on each other – and in fact, the limbic system depends entirely on the neocortex to analyze and process the emotions and instincts it develops…however, the ‘reptilian‘ complex has the capacity to override and suppress even the most compassionate (limbic), logical, rational, and sensible (neocortex) information and make a human being react and behave in terrifying, unpredictable, and primitive ways…
The healthier and better developed the neocortex, the better ‘control‘ one has over the ‘R-Complex‘ activity in one’s brain…the lesser developed the neocortex, the easier it is to ‘manipulate‘, ‘brainwash‘, and ‘coerce‘ a human being to behave like a ‘wild‘ animal – because the R-Complex will gladly override all reason, compassion, and logic and is capable of doing so even in the most sentient of beings – overriding and suppressing a ‘less-than-healthy‘ neocortex would be a ‘walk-in-the-park‘ for the reptilian brain…
Why do you think that in many parts of this planet (especially in the ‘resource-rich‘ parts), for centuries, the most powerful and influential from amongst us have left no stone unturned in ensuring that the development of the neocortex of the masses is severely restricted – we hear horrifying stories of the ‘brutal‘ behavior exhibited by the citizens of these places – easily resorting to ‘violence‘ and ‘aggression‘ against each other in their quest for ‘survival‘ (and in many cases, beyond survival, out of the greed to have ‘more‘ than others)…ultimately contributing to destruction for themselves and to more prosperity for those ‘powerful‘ and ‘influential‘ beings who cleverly use their higher brain functions to siphon out as much wealth and resources as they can, as fast as they can, while these ‘reptilian-brains‘ struggle with the chaos they create for themselves…
I digress…but stay with me – this will all make sense later on in this (and future) rant(s)…
Back to the ‘frogs‘ in my rants…
What we know about reptiles and their brains through scientific study is that they’re wired simply for ‘survival‘ – the driving force, therefore, of all ‘reptilian-brain‘ functions is the need (without exception or compromise) of establishing and defending their ‘territory‘ and ‘dominance‘…they’ll do anything (and everything) to assert their ‘territory‘ and will destroy you if you dare venture into their ‘space‘ – even if you’re but a harmless, well-wishing ‘friend‘…they don’t care about anything but themselves…
What we also know is that the following human traits originate in the reptilian brain:
- obsessive-compulsive behavior
- day-to-day repetitive rituals
- acts of superstition
- slavish conformance to outdated traditions and beliefs
- ceremonial re-enactments
- obeisance to precedent, as in legal, religious, cultural, and other matters
- deception
Now reflect on the behavior of the ‘frogs‘ that I describe in my rants…see the connection???
Ever wonder why the ‘Adam and Eve‘ story always has the ‘snake‘ tempting them into ‘sin‘? – regardless of what your favorite dogma (or organized business of religion) is, your scripture will always identify the manifestation of the root cause of ‘evil‘ with a ‘reptile‘…it’s sad that you still wonder how that snake could have possibly spoken to Eve in human lingo (or was Eve well versed in hissing? – hmmm…)…and even if it did speak, why did it pick the apple tree??? Keep wondering…
Research isopraxic, preservative, re-enactment, tropistic, and deceptive behaviors if you wish to verify and/or clarify the assertions I make in these rants…
That, my dear friends, is the reason why I keep talking about ‘frogs‘…I have a lot more to rant about (and the ‘thinking‘ minds out there may have already caught on to my drift) and will definitely follow up (soon) on this with some more about the ‘frogs‘ that surround (and overwhelm) our physical existence on this planet…
Do your research – learn what you can about this ‘reptilian-brain‘ of ours that is shamelessly exploited and used by those who know about it for their selfish gain…careful with that research though, there is an enormous amount of ‘junk‘ circulating out there on this subject – learn to separate fact from fiction and you’ll be fine…
“If you kill a snake, you’re still afraid of it” – a saying from Zaire (Congo)
Recent Comments