Open Letter to Bernardo Kastrup. I tried to publish it on his website but it was rejected for being too long.

 

Dearest Bernardo Kastrup, 

I read your open letter to Russia which I found very interesting. However, it makes me sad to see that even an intelligent and sensible person like you fell victim of our twisted and deranged media spreading our governments’ propaganda. I’m a big fan of you and I only recently started reading your books and listening to any podcasts I can find on youtube where you have a say. The type of approach to science and metaphysic you have developed is exactly what I’ve been looking for and I reckon it is like a life-changing realization. 

 Anyway, back to your open letter there are a couple of things I would like to highlight. I do understand we’re dealing with politics which is such an hard and hot topic where most of the times it’s extremely difficult to find an agreement due to all sort of reasons which more often than not are based on personal feelings of love and hatred. First and foremost I am not trying to defend Putin in any way though I completely agree with the invasion of Ukraine and also that it should’ve been done already in 2015 if not even earlier. So, attempting (and failing) to do my best not taking sides, in any case I must show the demonic hypocrisy of our own governments and statesmen whom I regard even more culpable than Hitler. I could easily predict that each and every accusation against western governments can easily be ‘balanced’ in the same way from our ‘common enemies’ but nevertheless let’s see how that can possibly be compared. I personally cannot see anything like that conceivable, for our own governments are the very cause of all the terrible misery and suffering on our dear Planet. Let’s begin then. 

All I wanna do is to make a couple of points about the behaviour and agendas our governments have and compare them with non-allied countries. So, let’s try to understand the invasion of Ukraine. You acknowledged the bullying NATO expansion and at the same time you don’t justify Putin’s reaction to that. I partially agree with that except that the vast majority of people keep forgetting some crucial events that caused the invasion. Two dates in Ukraine: Orange Revolution in 2010 and the Maidan Revolution in 2014. Same as usual: aggressively insidious CIA propaganda infiltrating in the Ukrainian government (mainly through NGO organizations!) supporting anyone against Russia even if they are (as they truly are!) real Nazis (footage of the infamous Azov battalion captured by the Russians in Crimea shows on youtube that each and every POW was asked to show themselves bare-chested and there wasn’t one single soldier without a swastika tattooed on them!). You tell me: who authorized with American taxpayers money the spreading of antirussian propaganda already in 2010 and earlier, meddling in the Russian’s backyard and why? Of course the American government helped by its puppet Eurozone. Who allowed to cling and stay in power a bunch of Nazis who slaughtered 50 peaceful pro-Russians demonstrators in Kiev during the Maidan Revolution? Same answer. I watched a documentary called “Donbass” made by a French woman who took huge risks to go there in 2015 (one crewmember was shot dead in the making of the documentary) to show that the civilian population in the Donbass region was living since 2014 in bunkers, bombarded daily by the Nazi-Ukrainian army, blood-curdling stories of civilians slaughtered in the streets and in their own houses, indiscriminately bombed with what they called it ‘grid’ which is something similar to napalm… while the world was looking away too busy with the Syrian civil war maybe, which was the best excuse to look away?! Oh, regarding the Syrian war by the way, there’s the great journalist John Pilger who stated years after 2011 when the war started in Syria that he was told by a Westminster MP he can’t name that such MP was approached in 2009! by a Westminster team of statesmen who proposed him to join ‘a big venture we’re gonna do in Syria’ and he refused to join them… all pre-planned by our own governments; forget about Hassad shooting for free his own people when the real cause of the unrest was carefully planned in London, Paris, Berlin, Jerusalem and above all Washington! That’s where each and every war is planned and executed no matter how reluctant the pawn-countries may be. The Arab Spring is the other recent example as well. You can say whatever you want against Putin but tell me something: he sat there for almost 8 years, knowing exactly what was happening, pleading and warning Western governments that he could not carrying on tolerating such slaughter (15000 East Ukrainians so called “separatists” died between 2014 and 2021 trying to defend their own land and criminalized by the western-Ukrainian-Nazis for being too pro-Russians!!) going on for so long and in the Russian backyard… or “scandals” like the phone conversation between Macron and Putin only days before the invasion where Putin was trying to reach out Macron to avoid the bloodshed we’re witnessing more than 6 months now… another scandal they tried to hide; it came on the surface only now and nobody could give a toss as usual! 

I mean, once again I’m not trying to say that Putin is Mandela but compared to our own bastards he is! Tell me what would the US have done if half of those abuses were done to its backyard, say Mexico or any other NATO country. Instead no. Our leaders are always right, indeed they do make history through the total control of information and therefore they must be right whereas Russia, Iran, China etc… they’re all evil because they don’t support enough our “national interests”!! 

What shocks me so deeply and made me loose every hope is actually the huge machine western states created by controlling the entire media and the internet and consequently people’s minds. I’m not just trying to say something like: oh, the Westerns did this and that. Too easy answering back saying: Putin did worse. The real nightmare is to see how the western powers organized to the minute detail the war in Ukraine and, as soon as Putin invaded (actually read: after he was goaded to invade by our filthy governments), all the misery and horrors unleashed on the civil population are to be blamed on Putin only and exclusively. This is the demonic hypocrisy I stated at the beginning of the letter. Our leaders know exactly what they did and are doing, and that’s why they’re double culpable. They literally create fanatics as they always did like anti-Communists military regimes in South America, Africa and Asia, the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan or the ISIS in Syria and Iraq and then they sell us the “duty” to destroy them once they turn against us, whereas it's our very leaders the real monsters and the masterminds who should be destroyed instead. Honestly, after immense scandals like the first Gulf War and the Invasion of Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan in 2004 when even the president of the US admitted: “I was wrong about Iraq possessing WMD” and after causing a proper genocide way bigger than what Hitler did if you put together Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Palestine and more… after all that we keep on falling on the same lies while they keep on perpetuating the same kind of savage bullying sold back to us with demonic hypocrisy and the vast majority of people even believe totally that. I mean, there’s not future really. 

So, moral of the story? I don’t even know what to say. To defend Putin? For sure not. But I ask our leaders: “dear” western-monsters why the hell don’t you leave him alone? He’s not from a puppet Country like Iraq or a stone-age Country like Afghanistan (no offense to both Countries which can boast some of the most ancient and developed Civilizations the world ever produced!) where they could be crushed quickly. So, why don’t they leave a power like Russia alone? Instead no! Pelosi went even to Taiwan just to provoke the Chinese. I mean, WHY??? Do they really want WWIII so badly as if Ukraine, Yemen, Syria and many other countries are not enough? Of course it’s never enough for those monsters who live as if they’re on another Planet. Common people like you and me can only pay the consequences of their actions! 

I reckon that in ancient times when every city and village needed to be walled to stop sudden invasions were much safer than nowadays where, if you don’t leave in a western country, you can only hope to survive the next day before an annihilating invasion could occur at any time. This is the world where we live. 

Yours sincerely,

Giordano

Ba-bil - The Gate of Gods

First dosage, straight to Ganymede. A vague memory of the cracking-sparkling sound of the spice erupting in the brain, lasting fractions of a second and… boom! The entire Universe exploded and the very instant of that explosion frozen in a slow motion way; all done without any drama, just simply. Deeply intense pleasurable heat, infinite abyssal space with geometrical shapes rotating and fluctuating everywhere up and down; I felt like hovering in that world. The whole world was not very bright; the visibility looked like a dark orange-glowing light with no source. The entities were part of those geometrical figures and they individualized themselves with vaguely human silhouettes but not really objectified like in a normal spatial-temporal dimension. As I plunged in there, I was welcomed by the smirk of those beings plainly asking me and nodding the confirming statement: “Did you really want answers? Did you really not known yourself already?” That very moment of truth was like an in-describable surge of consciousness, an explosive eureka moment always known but never fully realized. What happened next? The gamut feelings of intensity bordering the limit of delirium were constantly over me like a monstrous threat coming from the abyss but, as I was consciously aware of them, that helped me to feel some sort of control and not flipping into terror like in the very first breakthrough. So, I literally “told” the entities I didn’t want to leave that place, that I actually wanted more. There wasn’t any verbal exchange; it was pure thinking exchange. As they gently agreed to give me more of that world, I was channeled deep down into the abyss, literally channeled as if I was part of the geometrically stretched dark orange-glowing matter of the Universe, traveling like a fast moving fluid line stretching ad infinitum and enjoying the ride sublimely, never wanting to stop. As the flowing of that current which included my whole being started to decrease, I made my request to the entities again, and they obliged me promptly in the same fashion. Then I became aware of the music coming to a stop; that changed the perception and the intensity of the trip somehow. The universe appeared to turn into pure white, ever changing shapes resembling some sort of horses and unicorns alike, materializing and vanishing in the white background. The flowing of such a world into these silent ghostly figures was sweet and mesmerizing. I became alarmed about the music stoppage because such a feeling was more like a fear that the trip was going to finish any time soon and I did not want that. That’s why I opened my eyes and requested the music to be put back on. As I closed my eyes again, I felt as if getting completely back into the vortex once more. Whirlwind carousel of flashing multicolored lights spinning like in a fun-fare and me enjoying the ride deeply; feeling the freedom, the energy and the deep enjoyment of it. Consciously doing deep breaths; that made the ride even more enjoyable. As the trip started to gradually fade away, I become more aware of my body. I realized I had legs but I could not move them yet. The nerve connection was not there. The same physical pain of returning to the body was like the first breakthrough but this time I didn’t freak out because I knew I was safe, I had genuine desire of knowledge, and there wasn’t any silly recklessness of chancing with it. Second dosage, massive drag knocking me out big time. After I came back, I thought I dissipated into pure annihilation like having a big blow to my head and passing out completely but without the pain. It felt like a minute though I was actually out for twenty minutes solid. Coming back was like trying to inhabit a completely paralyzed body. I couldn’t even move my head, and it took me ages to gradually becoming responsive. I felt so tired, my whole body totally numb, wanting to sleep while my mind getting more and more alert. All I could recollect was a faint moving image similar to moving comics; a couple of Medieval messengers trotting forward and warning me gently but firmly “to slow down and take it easy”. The next scene seemed like the entire layer of reality petrifying, literally twisting and turning into stone. That layer resembled somehow my face, twisting and crumpling like tin foyer and imploding into a petrifying vortex. That was it. Third dosage, shack-hand one. This time I was thrown back into the second trip again. I felt as if I knew for sure what I forgot from the second trip. Thrown back again into that deliriously geometrical world, intensely pleasurable heat, bright multicolored shapes and extremely sharp in their silhouettes and shapes. This time the kaleidoscopically changes were much faster, just like the first breakthrough ever, and my whole being was taken by the delirious intensity of that world. The sharp forms smirking at me and flipping like a pop up book, page after page. Feelings of disbelief and bewilderment about how that couldn’t come during the second trip and experienced into the third one instead. Deep feelings of uneasiness and terror for not being able to hold that too long and yet, the feeling of letting go kept me completely safe. I enjoyed so much being there this time unlike the very first time. But coming back was painful again; physically painful and mentally terrorizing when contemplating the intensity and the speed of that place; profoundly deep and ultra-sharp perceptions taking the mental senses completely unprepared and unable to absorb that intensity. It’s as if we’d need much wider senses being able to cope with that stimulus. … to be continued!

RITE OF PASSAGE

RITE OF PASSAGE

I pre-planned the intake on Saturday night and such were the premises. Basically I wanted to unleash the demons and live fully through the challenge of containing them while Susan and Glen were sleeping and also facing the deadline of 5:30am when Susan would have got up. Bad fucking idea! So, I waited when Glenn was asleep and at 11pm I ingested 1 and 2/3 dose, put the lights off except the small temple light and lied on the couch with "Carbon Fossil life" tune ringing in my ears. It started to come steadily but strongly after about half an hour. Initially the rippling effects on the lights and objects around were slightly pleasant but quickly those effects increased their intensity to the point as if they were fire; the silhouettes of objects and lights were rippling as if they were on fire, and just around them those rippling effects were transforming into strange visionary effects, animated things similar to ghost-like figures. All this visionary effect was accompanied by the most terrifying beastly growling as those rippling-like figures were taking shapes. To be honest, I didn't even pay attention to the actual visionary figures; I knew my mind was playing and I didn't want to concentrate on that 'cause I regarded them more like mirages. But I knew I just opened the door and went in. My body gradually started to grow weaker and I lost concept of time while the intensity of the substance was only increasing. I became more and more restless, tossing and turning on the sofa. At some point I even got up and sat on the floor crossed legs meditating! That didn't last long. I felt extremely unsettled and disoriented while the bouts of anxiety and fear were taking a tremendous toll on my body. The anxiety for the discomfort that the demons around me were causing along with the urge of "being in control" and not make any noise and being in bed just before 5:30am was getting too much, and eventually I felt either to scream my head off or die. Then I had to go for a piss and that turned to be the revelation moment. Staggering about the hall, I entered the bathroom and took a piss on a bog that looked like sinking far away more and more. I then moved slowly towards the mirror and another massive bout of anguish came down to me. The profound fear of what I could see was felt like a shock first throughout my rib cage and then the whole body. However, I forced myself to stretch that further step and face the mirror. As I shone my wee torch on it, I noticed the reflection of the wall behind me on the mirror enlarging and deepening, as if there was another room through the mirror. I felt a massive shot of adrenaline through my heart as I realized there was not reflection of myself on the mirror, thinking for a fraction of second that I dissipated into nothing or turned into a fucking vampire. I then squeezed my eyes and looked again and saw my image, and I could see it was not me, even if it looked like me. There was someone there looking at me, looking like me but it was not me. Even the jacket he was wearing was different. I put my face nearer the mirror and the rippling effects on my face looked like tongues of fire ever changing and re-transforming myself into an old and feral human on and off. It felt as if the chain of external stimuli channelled to the brain and forming ordinary perception was missing. My whole being was the reality lived there and then. I mean, thinking again most of me refuses to acknowledge that intensity as unnatural. But then, what is natural about every day ordinary perception? I mean, we function through those few senses channeling external stimuli which are processed and organized in the common way that make us perceive us reality as we know it. Anything altering the process of neurotransmitters exchanging that information will give a different perception of reality; even simply affecting the mood receptor reality changes. So, the essence of reality will never be known but there is no true difference between one type of reality or another, except that in the world we live in we need the evolved senses as we have them in order to interact and survive. Anyway, back to the mirror. As the tension and bouts of fear and terror reached a climax, there wasn't any image there. A sudden flash made me feel as if I was in the dark room through the mirror, shining my torch around with the ever increasing terror of having just committed a massacre. A quick flash appeared, blinding the scenery and this time, as the flash dissipated in a split second, I could see blades and splattered blood before me, feeling throughout my whole being the certainty that I destroyed lives in the most atrocious way. My heart sunk to a point I couldn't breath anymore and yet, I could not accept that scenario and I kept on creeping in the darkness farther in that place of horrors until I saw the aftermath of the slaughter. The profound certainty of having done such an evil act was too much to take in. It was as if I just did it and went back to check. As I suddenly turned away from the mirror, another flash occurred. This time if felt as if someone grabbed all the neurons of my brain (which looked like an entangled white xristmas lights thread) and ripped it off from my head. As that happened, I saw my body falling down on his back, dead before my eyes (always in the room through the mirror). I looked away from it totally bewildered by those ghastly visions. I could not take that in and I slowly looked back to the mirror/room but this time I gradually saw a "good man"; my reflection facing me with a different expression again. I saw in there honesty, fairness and self assurance. That did not calm me down because the bouts of anxiety and fear were still running through my body big time. But at the least the feral and profound terror of having committed and unspeakable act of pure evil was gone and I could move away from the mirror finally. Back to the couch, tossing and turning, more visions coming of static dry tomb decay and more terrifying feelings. The feral beasts were still taking forms and changing around me and the objects I was looking at, brushing around my body and roaring horrific growls. At the some point I looked at the watch: 4am; 6 hours of traveling way past the gates of hell. I felt I was cracking down and the thought of asking for help became stronger and stronger. However, I gathered all the forces I had left to resist such an unwise urge and I thought instead to creep to bed about an hour before Susan was getting up. As I got up, my mind was still fully charged but my body was slightly more responsive and I noticed I was staggering a bit less than when I went to the toilet previously (fuck knows what time). I was loosing hope about how long I could keep going like that. A John vision came up then and gave me strength somehow as I was getting up from the sofa. I saw John sitting on a sofa looking at me with a busted face just like when he had that street fight in Amsterdam. He was sitting there, radiating the most incredible power and self-confidence, looking like a tiger at rest but ready to pounce any moment. That made me feel reassured. So, I went to the bedroom and for fuck sake... Susan was awake. My restlessness throughout the night kept her awake. She mouthed me badly but surprisingly I had a self-control coming I don't know from where and managed to reassure her. She was still moaning and got worried when she touched my hands and felt the cold sweat all over them. She blamed the Friday Salvia night for "mixing weed with wine" she said and admonished me not to do it again. I said nothing and things went smoothly afterwards as she got up and went to work. I couldn't sleep until 6:30am at the least and kept on having visions. This time, as demonic flashbacks were still besieging my mind, I suddenly had a vision of Chimp; he was wearing only a t-shirt, boxers and socks and teetering a long "eeeh heee eeee" as if saying "I'm coming into it as well, here I am". The vision was static, Chimp standing on one foot but at the same time as if trying to step in. That came to me at the least three times and every time I ended up bursting laughing. I texted John sometimes after 6am and finally I felt asleep until about 11am, when I got up and decided to go to Morrison for a brunch since there was nothing left in the fridge. As I went out with Glen, everything was spacey; the sun looked stunning and the air was heavy and fresh. I found the noise, people around and cars not bothering but not even interesting; maybe more like amusing to observe. Everything seemed to be simply "observable" and nothing more than that. I was feeling more and more tired every minute though and I endured just long enough to wait Gil finishing his burger and ice-cream. I wasn't able to down any food and in fact, I didn't have any food except water between Saturday afternoon and Monday morning; so upset my stomach was due to the ghastly feelings of the trip. I lied down the sofa for the entire Sunday and went to sleep at 8:30pm for almost 12 hours. Got up very fresh and hungry on Monday morning. I learned a lot through such an experience; I feel it changed me deeply and irreversibly in a good way though. Moral of the story: do not do it when your family is in!

SPICE

However shocking and traumatic the breakthrough was, nothing really changed about my "spirituality", regardless the out-of-the-body-experience or meeting entities. I'm not sure but, all people talking about meeting god or having their spirituality enhanced seem to me coming from some defined pre-spiritual settings, believing in a soul or spirtiual substance being able to detach from the body while travelling on DMT. It may well be like that for the majority of travellers but, to me, the power of a high dose finally gave me full insight in the meaning of an altered mind. After all, that's what the very essence of psychedelics is about.

Even though, after my first attempt on 70mg left me dazed and in deep physical shock for a considerable lenght of time, my mind started to quickly experience (after a few days) a feeling of intrigue and fascination, attraction towards the Unknown. Although a few months passed already, the only experience I can compare it with is always the Ulysses' one. He made his sailors bind him to the ship’s mast in order to be able to listen to the syrens. But unlike him, I personally believe I heard the syrens, jumped into the Ocean and came back yet from where I was not supposed to.

It's hard to convey strong tripping feelings with the limited mental categories filtered by our limited senses. Any visual or "existential" perception while tripping seems more real than any real feeling or perception in the most wakeful and self-conscious moment of everyday living. I really wonder what'd be like on massive doses like 200 or 300mg if anyone could possible tolerate such a shot. I mean, I wonder what's really like when the dosage increases tenfold the normal. I went through the massive change between a pleasurable dose and a breakthrough one. How long can the mind take that intensity for? Could the shock and stupor be trully unbearable or dangerous at that stage?

Pirates?

With the media feeding us almost on a daily basis about Somali pirates and the latest "heroic" rescue operations, I've been wondering what's exactly going on in that part of the world and why. The vast majority of Western media seems to focus on the seriousness of the problem, the dramatic experiences of the captured ones and on the brave and daring rescue operations by the special international forces. I've got to say it does suck. It sucks because almost nobody seems to mention the real reasons behind Somali piracy. I found this following article from Al Jazeera web site dating back to 11th October 2008 and I was shocked when I read it:

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2008/10/2008109174223218644.html

So, since the fall of Siad Barre and even before, dirty European countries have been making deals to dump highly toxic waste off the coast of Somalia, particularly Italians and Swiss bastards. Illegal fishing is widely practiced by Asian and Europeans fishing boats and the poor Somali people have to suffer almost total destruction. As if by suffering a civil war that has been lasting for more than 18 years wasn't enough! Unfortunately, due to the deep instability of the country, many officials of their so called transitional federal government are totally corrupted and sold the Somali sea to everyone, even to those mafia countries that go there and dump any kind of toxic waste.

Another thing to point out is this: when the ICU (Islamic Courts Union) were controlling most of Somalia in 2006, piracy activity had come to a virtual halt due to the strict measures the Courts took against the pirates. Unfortunately Ethiopian troops ousted them with the support of a UN mandate and the African Union. It seems to be a parallel case like the Taliban. While the Taliban were in power, heroin production was coming almost exclusively from those pocket areas controlled by the Northern Front forces. Then, after the yankees and NATO invasion of 2001, it rocketed so high that Afghanistan was re-established as the world main producer of heroin and opium.

This is a joke, ain'it? First of all, there's no doubt on who the real pirates are. Definetely not the Somali people. The Western powers, scum of the Earth, want it all: they don't give two shits about the chaos in Somalia, want to dump toxic waste, rob their fish AND expect the Somalis to sit and watch. If this so called "piracy" increases like I bet it will, I'm sure it's gonna be played by the Western powers on the same level of their insane filthy deception called "war on terror".

Darwin and god

The BBC series on Darwin in the past several weeks was interesting and remarkable. One of the last documentaries on the topic was called “Did Darwin kill God?” with Dr. Conor Cunningham, a British philosopher and theologician. Being a BBC documentary, all respect for the format and the different angles examined. However, it didn’t feel right the kind of argument Dr. Cunningham was bringing: the literal interpretation of the Bible is a recent phenomenon “therefore” Darwinism is compatible with an allegorical reading of the Holy Book. I mean, I really cannot see any link between the world of religion and the world of science whatsoever. Of course there are highly eminent scientists who are profoundly religious but that does not make me even conceive that science and religion should go together.

There were many points in the documentary where, in my opinion, an acceptable explanation was not given. First of all the main one: traditional Christianity always advocated an allegorical interpretation of Genesis whereas the literal interpretation seems to be a recent point of view well after the Reform. So what? Does that make the Bible compatible with Darwinism? Even if eloquent thinkers and scientists can manage to do that, the entire attempt does sound deeply pathetic. Com’on! As a matter of fact, science and religion are incompatible by definition (forget about various pantheisms, syncretisms and crap like that) and what makes the whole thing even more pathetic is seeing how desperately religion tries to defend itself against the achievements of science. And this is not the old debate about supporting one side or the other. They simply exclude each others and don’t need to be linked unless it’s done forcibly. Instead, what we saw in that documentary was the staunch attempt by a believer like Dr. Cunningham trying to adapt religion’s beliefs and ethics with science's discoveries. It’s hard to believe like Dr. Cunningham that, if we read the Bible allegorically, we can find an answer to our big questions compatible with science. Not only that: he says that we can use allegory to find even evolution in the Bible! That’s definitely going too far with apologetics.

Another big miss was the fact that, after criticizing “ultradarwinists” like Richard Dawkins, Dr. Cunningham did not even meet him to challenge his views, after traveling extensively in Europe, Israel and the land of Christian fundamentalism per excellence: the US. Surely Prof. Dawkins does not represent the only point of view against religion. However, one has to admit he’s pretty much against institutionalized religions which nourish bigotry and fundamentalism in people’s mind, making them intolerant and full of hatred. So, his stance against something like religion that reach in some societies included ours the level of a psychosis has to be fought to death, if we don't want to perish at its hands (how can we possibly critize traditional Islamic Countries when politicians and their voters in the US are trying to impose the teaching of Creationism in their schools? If achieved, that'd be a single step backward right to the Middle Ages). Indeed, a good point by Dawkins is the fact that almost “apriori” any kind of criticism against any religion is not accepted in our open society, whereas criticizing atheism is fine.

Without carrying on with the documentary’s pros and cons, I’m wondering when religious people will learn more about the essence of their beliefs and stop meddling with science. After all faith cannot be explained by science and cannot even be shared unless one would bow to “evidence” like miracles, personal supernatural experiences and, of course, the authority of canonical texts (authority coming from a bunch of bishops and patriarcs that, in the case of the New Testament for instance, got together 1500 years ago and decided what should get into the Bible and what not, unleashing some of the bloodiest genocides against the "Heretics"). I mean, if faith deals with a realm utterly opposite to science, why not separating the two things once and for all? Is it because the megalomaniac tendencies of religious people must take control of what science cannot explain and also of what science already explained without leaving a tiny space for their god? Get real! I mean, it’s true that science empowers the human species; however, it’s also true the human species is well aware of science limitations and dangers. That does never occur with religion. A god, an afterlife, retribution, redemption and all that nonsense giving people the “certainty” and piece of mind from "definite answers" to universal questions like why are we here or what is the meaning of life: these are just some of the common features that join people together in religion. Gee! Will they always stay happily deluded?

While writing I was listening a Levellers’ song called “Plastic Jesus”. I’m not sure if they wrote it but I googled the lyrics and I found them very amusing, the best example of the only kind of faith to be taken seriously. Here it is:

Plastic Jesus

I don't care if it rains or freezes
'Long as I got my plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car
Through my trials and tribulations
And my travels through the nations
With my plastic Jesus I'll go far

Plastic Jesus, plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car
I'm afraid He'll have to go
His magnets ruin my radio
And if I have a wreck He'll leave a scar

Riding down a thoroughfare
With His nose up in the air
A wreck may be ahead, but He don't mind
Trouble coming He don't see
He just keeps His eye on me
And any other thing that lies behind

Plastic Jesus, plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car
Though the sunshine on His back
Make Him peel, chip and crack
A little patching keeps Him up to par

When I'm in a traffic jam
He don't care if I say "damn"
I can let all my curses roll
Plastic Jesus doesn't hear
'Cause he has a plastic ear
The man who invented plastic saved my soul

Plastic Jesus, plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car
Once His robe was snowy white
Now it isn't quite so bright
Stained by the smoke of my cigar

If I weave around at night
And policemen think I'm tight
They never find my bottle, though they ask
Plastic Jesus shelters me
For His head comes off, you see
He's hollow, and I use Him for a flask

Plastic Jesus, plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car
Ride with me and have a dram
Of the blood of the Lamb
Plastic Jesus is a holy bar

Altruism

One of the latest episodes of ‘In Our Time’ on BBC4 Radio was about the concept of altruism. I found the discussion very interesting and I was amazed how easily they liquidated Kant’s moral system.

Initially for the ancient Greeks altruism wasn’t an issue at all. The simple idea of being altruistic towards someone else did not come from their culture. Aristotle for instance put it quite clearly that the world was a harmonious harmony where humans’ thelos (purpose) as social animals was to contribute to the good of society. Hence the need of being altruistic was not even conceived: it was simply natural. The idea of the soul brought about by Christianity contributed more towards individualism to a certain extent but it seemed more that the ‘democratic’ revolutions of the XVII and XVIII centuries mainly in Europe developed and focused the attention on the interest of the individual in contrast with that of the whole group.

For Kant morality was something rationally compelling. Emotions are disapproved (unlike Hume who admitted them but underpinned by reason). If someone has a benevolent feeling toward someone/thing else, that would detract from the virtue of the action because the right thing would be to act out of the rational perception of duty and a sentiment or a feeling would be something unreasonable. At the least, Kant constructed his absolutely authoritarian moral system without any reference to the idea of god in terms of the authority of the moral obligation and places the whole point on the human capacity for practical reason. When we act we need to ask if we act according a universal reason acceptable by everybody and if not we must refrain and we have a duty to refrain; so the duty comes out of his famous categorical imperative "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law". So, if any room left, god comes like a supreme idea after the rational motif behind an action.

A great and monumental construction of morality, and yet disappointing particularly if compared to his previous Critique of pure reason. So, a simple example from the program that made Kant’s morality crumbling down was this: for Kant you should visit your best friend in the hospital out of duty and not because he/she is your best friend. I mean, Kant’s cathedral structure collapses against the most common example in every day life. He believed in his ‘rational’ ethics so strongly that even after he died he had engraved on his tomb the following words: “The starry sky above me, the moral law in me”. I wish I can visit Königsberg (modern Kalingrad) one day, a city in that small piece of land still belonging to Russia squeezed among the Baltic States. Yes, it’d be nice going to Kant’s grave stone and have a shit against it.

At the end of the radio program, it seemed more rational a Darwinian approach to the concept of altruism. For Darwin probably our concept of altruism wouldn’t be built in nature and would be probably conceived like unnatural; what it’d count for him is that our social predispositions (the need to act considering other people's needs in general in various circumstances) toward action may be transferred genetically to future generations through persisting attempts. Almost like the fittest giraffe which developed a longer neck in the harsher savanna environment. After all we shouldn’t take strictly literal the idea of natural selection; it can always be 'evolved' in new forms.

Justice?

Needless to say that I’m disgusted with the latest american pantomime of putting on trial Saddam Hussein. Guilty of crimes against humanity? How about the yankees? No comment for that, after all there would be so many crimes against humanity that america should pay for. Let me just point out the fact that, due mostly to the atrocities in Korea and Vietnam committed by american soldiers, the U.S. still now refuses to join the International Tribunal and, just to give you one of the countless paradoxical examples, the latter supported the Sandinists' requests of justice against the U.S. government for brutally ousting the democratically elected government (socialist) in Nicaragua back in the eighties (fecking Regan). The Sandinist protested to the International Tribunal by the way and the latter accepted they were right but the U.S. didn't give a damn 'cause they weren't part of it.

I mean, what to say? It’s simply disgusting and most of all, the majority of people really believe that ‘justice is done’. This choreographic justice that the americans have put up simply to win more support. The CIA backing Saddam when he ousted (and executed the Iraqi Royal family), the Iran-Iraq war where the U.S. supported and armed Saddam against the (socialist) regime of Khomeini, the inaction on Saddam’s brutality against his own people like gassing the Kurds (how about the atrocities that Turkey committed and still does against the Kurds?) or brutally silencing any attempt to challenge his authority.

I mean, is this a joke? Saddam has been hanged because the genocide of those Shia muslims back in 1982? What was the U.S. up to back in 1982 apart from giving weapons of mass destruction to Saddam against Iran? Why nobody talks about that?

I’ll tell you what I think of this political vendetta though I think you’ll disagree: I’m sorry Saddam has been executed. No matter of his repression and purges (after all, the U.S. was born out of genocide and destruction of the native Red Indian cultures and the environmental exploitation of the New World), all I know is that when he was in power Iraq was united, no car bombs and innocent people killed every day and above all, rightly or wrongly, he thought to be a direct descendent (or the modern) Nebuchadrezzar I and just for that reason he had my respect for patronizing the archeological history and treasures of ancient Iraq that fell into the abyss due to those evil monsters in the white house!


What the Ffffeeekjfapoigjasdjgas....

INTOLERANCE

















The Conquest of the Aztecs


Looking back what I wrote in these blogs, I found so evident the level of religious hatred against Christianity I display. Not that it worries me whatsoever. Christianity seems to be the main target because I come from a Catholic background. I don’t want to deny this hatred against religion in general but I have to clarify that it is only against institutionalized religion, any religion. Once religion is consolidated in a body of dogmas and traditions which petrifies the spiritual richness of its first manifestations, it becomes dead.

Nowadays, with this huge debate about Islam and its culture confronted with Western societies and values, it’s impossible not to express a point of view right or wrong. It’s also easy to fall into the trap of ‘with us or against us’. However, although it’s totally understandable why Muslims feel targeted in this absurd climate of ‘war on terror’ and their religious and cultural values threatened by global westernization, one can hardly deny their stubborn intolerance against any form of criticism. This is totally unacceptable in an open and democratic society like ours; I could understand if taking the piss out of the prophet Muhammad like those Danish cartoonists or asking Muslim women to take their veils off were happening in countries where Islam is the official State religion opposed to a secular country. But in our society, the freedom of speech is more or less valid, definitely more than in other strict and authoritarian countries. This includes basically the right to disagree with something, even when it surely looks like an insult. As long as it is justified by reason, and not by sheer hatred, racism, power and so on, I think that it should be allowed.

After all, our secular power dates back long time. What was the Enlightment, for instance, if not one of the greatest attack in history against the Christian church oppression on people lives? It’s unthinkable for us going back to the times when religion exercised total control through the brutal means of the State like in the Middle Ages. The Enlightment and the social progress which came with it gradually liberated our society from the yoke of religious dogmas (well, Adorno and Durkheim surely have got a more pessimistic view on the Enlightment overall but I bet they’d agree on the point of religious oppression). Nevertheless, after all we went through in order to achieve freedom in the past 300 years, religious dogmas and prejudices even nowadays control the minds of a vast majority of individuals too cowards to “use their own reasons”, like Kant put it, to face the reality of everyday life.

The all-pervasive influence that Islam exercises in every day practices of Muslim societies is recognized and sometimes it represents a threat when compared to Western societies which were formed through the separation of the religious from the secular.

I have enough respect for Islamic cultures and their strong family values. They’ve got a long and rich history like the other two great monotheistic religions: Judaism and Christianity. All of them contributed to bring evil but also good into this world. Difficult to say if the greatness of the human spirit that those religious beliefs achieved in painting, sculpture, literature, architecture, law, philosophy, ethics, music and so on would equalize the amount of deceit, suffering, atrocities, genocide, fanaticism and mental blindness those religions brought upon us.

Who knows!

The Virgin Mary

Not sure anymore about the myth of virginity not just about Mary but the actual meaning of the word ‘virginity’ in general.

Like the vast majority of Christian beliefs, also the dogma of Mary's virginity is a ridiculous nonsense and an historical fraud. It seems that the Septuagint Greek translators used the word "virgin" instead of "young woman" from the Hebrew text of Isaiah, 7.14. Since then, a huge debate was open by theologicians and fathers of the church in order to find a specific meaning. Eventually, it was agreed that Mary was conceived without the original sin inherited by Adam and Eve like everybody else and, on top of all, not only she got pregnant through "spiritual intercorse", but she remained a virgin during the whole birth process of delivering young Jesus.

Apart from this absurdity, I always wondered why only human females are supposed to have the "proof" of virginity (the hymen) but not other mammals. It can't be true. We are all animals after all and share Nature with other creatures. So, if medical research show that the hymen does not have any based evidence whatsoever as a 'proof' of virginity but it's simply a social and cultural myth based on the sexual roles of females regarded as objects to possess in highly patriarchal societies - I wonder - why make a fuss of it?

They believe that Jesus was born mysteriously and miracously like a god and then they let him dying like a bad criminal. All right, that was necessary in order to save us. But I mean, what’s wrong in letting Jesus being borne like every ordinary human being? I don’t think his divine nature would have been affected negatively. Unfortunately we need powerful myths to have faith and believe. So, after his ignominious death, Jesus would have come back manifesting his celestial kingdom on earth. Actually, the second coming was expected by the first Christian communities very soon at that time and then, when the prophesies failed to materialize as always, they turned it in a new dogma of judgment day or something like that in an indefinite time.

Ponder, ponder...