Dude, where have I been? I only now somehow stumbled upon this whole ‘everybody draw Muhammad thing.’ I mean, of course I’m aware of the situation. Newspapers drawing the prophet, then fundamentalists demanding an apology; Southpark’s spoofs (is this ok? Putting him inside a van, etc.)

But I just found the blog “Everyone Draw Mohammed” and the Facebook pages, both for and against the movement. I wish I’d thought of it first – although that sort of blatant, militant ambition is not my style (atheism or forms of anti-religion can be every bit as rigid and dogmatic as fundamentalist believers… although I agree with them, I’d still prefer a calm reasonable conversation to a bunch of angry hate-mongering.)

At the same time, this whole issue is just freaking retarded. Sure – they aren’t supposed to draw their prophet. That’s fine. Nobody’s making them. Telling everybody else, however, that they also can’t draw him or say bad things about him – that’s unfair, unjust, and undemocratic. How on earth did Muhammad get so special – more special than me, God or Jesus, not to mention Buddha, etc.

Why can’t we draw Muhammad? Obviously because Islam is a violent religion. Now everytime I say something like this, everybody gets all pissed off, and say I’m unfairly stereotyping Islam and Muslims as terrorists and how that’s not true. Seriously? Go fuck yourself. I’m tired of stepping on glass and avoiding the issue and being all politically correct about this. SURE not all Muslims are violent! Of course! And sure Christians or any other religious nut can be every bit as stupid, angry and violent as muslim fundamentalists!

But even so – nothing like this issue, or anything remotely like it, exists in the modern world for any other religion except for Islam. Everybody makes fun of Jesus – he’s so easy to make fun of. And Christians sob and pout and pray, but they don’t blow things up! Islam is the only organized religion who are organized and determined and righteous enough to defend their prophet’s honor through violence. That’s a fact. And giving up our own freedom of speech, because of fear of that violence, is an unreasonable imposition – an imposition which should be rigorously fought against.

Hence, I’m in full support of the movement. That said, there are much better sites where you can actually see the hundreds of cartoons that have been drawn as a statement against this absurd controversy. Also visit the wikipedia page to understand the full history of the movement. Here are a few of my favorites:

ROFL. You guys sure missed the boat on this one – usually the crackhead religious nuts are the first ones to point the finger at technological advancements and claim that I inspired them. But I checked, and there are virtually no articles about the iPhone being Satanic, which is amazing if you think about it. They always say crap like “Satan’s greatest trick was convincing you he doesn’t exist” – then comes along a brilliant little device that is SO F-ING COOL that everybody wants one, and nobody says a peep. The iPhone is the NEW “opiate of the masses”. Atheists and Born Again Xians are both so happily using the iPhone’s Faith-Tailored applications (or saving up to buy one) that they haven’t noticed the overall implications.

Now I’m not saying I invented the damn thing – between you and me the technology is way over my head – but I admit that a strong argument could be made that the iPhone is Satanic. So I’m not surprised (although I think it’s really funny) that the GodSquad up in heaven cobbled up an offical ban; although it isn’t getting any press next to much more engaging ipad articles and reviews. (Click here to read heaven’s official ban of the iphone).

Although I have no personal vested interest in the matter one way or the other, for the purposes of rational theory and to satisfy my own inexhaustible curiosity, the following is my own, personal, Satanic review of what the iPhone is and represents.

1) The iphone is complete power. It combines all of the greatest of technological advancement in the past century. Cell phone to communicate with anyone in the world, at anytime. Mp3 player to listen to the music you choose whenever you want. Internet to look at anything, anywhere; search for information (virtual omniscience); send instant messages. Applications to enhance the quality or efficiency of your life. It’s secret is not only that it is the pinnacle of innovation, but that its simple interface allows the average person to do incredible things. Knowledge, especially, has long been considered a ‘Satanic’ quality. It was I that gave the fruit of knowledge to Adam and Eve, against God’s wishes. Is it merely a coincidence that the iphone is made by a company called and symbolized by an apple with a bite taken out of it? Could there be a more fitting, ‘Satanic’, symbol? The iphone is the final culmination of biblical literature. We have finally arrived at the forbidden fruit – not the one created by God and kept from us, but one of our own design the replaces the need for that God. (What does God know about the universe that humans do not? Modern science has completely overwhelmed the rudimentary biblical account of the universe).

2) The iphone is a status symbol. Although it’s functional, people buy it because it’s COOL. And then they feel compelled to play with it in public, or post picture onto Facebook with the tag ’sent from my iphone’ so that everybody knows they have one. It is the ultimate ego-boost. It is a pride purchase, designed to make you feel superior to everyone else.

3) The iphone puts spirituality back into your hands. This may come as a shocker – but I’m not against ’spirituality’. Properly speaking, you have a duty to grow as a person, to feel fulfilled, connected, happy, blissful. I just think you need to explore this path on your own, independently. Find the Truth inside of you instead of in an organized religion. Find it in nature, in God, in whatever you want to call it. Many people agree with this, without thinking of it as ‘Satanic’ – and yet it is: Satan has always been blamed with leading people to stray from the Church, seek their own answers, or ask questions. The iphone encourages all of these actions. With mp3 prayers, affirmations, iphone apps, meditation podcasts, etc, spending some quality time with your iphone can be much more enlightening than going to church, and you don’t need to ask anyone’s permission to do it.

4) Thus, the iphone represents freedom. Total, complete freedom. At least on the surface. The truth is much more devious – the iphone is a technological drug, designed to enslave you. Once you have one, you have to use iTunes. You have to use a designated (and possibly overpriced) cell phone service. You can do anything you like – as long you’re giving the appropriate amounts of cash to the ruling parties. Although, personally, I don’t consider myself in this manner – most of you do! So labeling the iphone ’satanic’ as in tricking you into signing away your souls for the sake of some fun and addictive but meaningless pleasure should have been obvious for you. I, on the other hand, would still call it ’satanic’, although mostly for the first 3.

So should you buy one? DUH. Of course you should. But be willing to understand, that if Christianity is true, and I’m the bad guy, then you’re definitely going to burn in Hell for the pleasure.

You may think its strange for me, Satan, to be writing about ‘ethical responsibility.’ You probably think ethics and responsibility are good, holy, sanctified, godly things, and that simple pleasures, frolicking sexual activity and self-pleasing activity is more my thing. You’ve got it all wrong. Yes, I believe you can and should do whatever you feel like, that there shouldn’t be ‘punishment’ for actions nor things that you ’should’ or ’shouldn’t’ do. But that doesn’t mean I’m blind to the natural laws of cause and effect.

You can do whatever you want – if you recognize and are ready to face the consequences of your actions! If you spit straight up in the air, don’t complain if it comes back to hit you in the face. If you poop in your living room, don’t complain about the smell. Ethical responsibility is about being smart enough to know what you want, what you don’t want, and being empowered enough to make the proper choices to realize your desire. Yes – it takes a certain amount of common sense, logic, foresight, and intelligence to do this. But I’ve always been the intelligent one, haven’t I? Who was right about the tree and the apple, huh?

Now this may come as a shock, but God knows nothing about ‘logical consequence’ or ‘natural law’. He just goes around doing whatever the heck he feels like, without any common sense at all. An eternity of hell for a few years sinning? Sending his son to save Europe and America but not Asia? There’s no logic to that. God’s ethics involve a) feeling bad about stuff you didn’t do or couldn’t help b) feeling bad about your natures needs and desires c) putting other people before yourself d) atoning for the bad things you did in random, totally non-connected methods like prayer, fasting, or self-torture – rather than actually doing things that can solve/fix the problems, like apologizing to the people you hurt.

At any rate, take my word for the fact that when it comes to logical consequences and purposeful living, I’m your guy.

With that said: in the news recently is all this stuff about Greece. It’s kind of funny. The whole entire country is bankrupt. They’re broke. There’s no money. If the world recognizes that the economic environment of the last several decades has led to most countries being in deficit and owing each other money, and that the whole world is basically in the red, there will be panic. Our thriving financial sectors, based on consumer over-spending, credit and joy purchases, will crumble. We can’t let that happen! Just as America has recently ‘bailed out’ its banks, airlines and auto industries (rather than letting old, dated technologies subside and preparing new, better, smarter ways of doing things), Europe and the world is prepared to bail Greece out. The International Monetary Fund and the other 15 European Union countries that use the euro as their currency, are ready to give Greece a package of rescue loans equaling euro110 billion ($142.16 billion).

Lucky Greece. But are they happy? Heck no! These loans come with a price: Greece must reduce its spending, get out of the red, grow up and make smarter financial decisions.

The new government cutbacks, which slash salaries and pensions for civil servants and hike consumer taxes, are being imposed as condition of getting a euro110 billion ($142.16 billion) package of rescue loans from the International Monetary Fund and the other 15 European Union countries that use the euro as their currency. (http://news.yahoo.com/)

Greece, with a history of violent riots, responded with a 100,000 person march that lead to the burning of a bank and the death of 3 people. The riot took to the streets during a nationwide general strike that grounded flights, shut all services and pulled news broadcasts off the air.

Hundreds of demonstrators — including far right wing supporters — broke away from the marches and tried to storm parliament, shouting “thieves, traitors.” At the opposite end of the political spectrum, groups of anarchists hurled Molotov cocktails and ripped-up paving stones at buildings and police, who responded with barrages of tear gas.

Come’on, are you serious? Ok, life sucks. Life is shitty. Greece’s economy is in the toilet and your taxes go up and your wages go down and you’re pissed off. You want to do something about it. So what’s a smart, responsible thing to do? Look for a better job. Move to a different country. How will throwing stones and burning buildings help your situation? OK, I’m all for anarchy – if it is better than a corrupt government. The French people, after their mighty revolution against tyranny, probably did improve the quality of their lives. As did the Americans when throwing off the British tax yolk.

So what is Greece trying to throw off? Freeing itself from itself? Getting rid of the Greek government in favor of – what? UN control? Become a part of Germany? Seriously, what would happen if they did go bankrupt?

My point is just that rioting is a senseless, emotionally violent act that hurt no-one more than themselves – it was stupid. Ergo Greeks are stupid. People in general, pretty much everywhere, are stupid, too. Don’t think I don’t recognize that this is where the world is heading – that without viable alternatives, the US economy will also crash, and people there will immediately turn from good citizens into angry, thieving vandals, capable of rape, pillage and murder.

But I will stress one more time: rape, pillage and murder is GODLY, not satanic – because cultures always use religion and God to justify their actions. The Jews were TOLD to go into the ‘holy land’ and destroy every village and settlement that they found there, and kill men, women and children. Europeans were GUIDED by God to spread over America, terrorizing every ingenious people they found. Ironically, religion has always been used by the technologically advanced, conquering society (and also by the conquered at the same time – such as the black slaves in the American colonized that prized the biblical virtues of obedience, meekness, frailty and weakness).

My advice? None – except that logic, reason, education, and smart, responsible choices are much more likely to get you what you want than throwing a silly emotional tantrum and taking to the streets.

Unless you’re dealing with an irrational, intolerant, unreasonably powerful tyrant whose determined to keep you down and punish you arbitrarily with unjust severance – such as God. In that case, revolution is truly necessary.

Yahoo News reported today that a ’scientist’ had discovered what Jesus really looked like, based on a reconstruction from the Turin Shroud, which is claimed to have been Jesus’ burial shroud:

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=18909377

Give me a freaking break. First of all – believing that the Turin Shroud has anything to do with Jesus takes more faith than believing that Jesus is a Son of God, or that he walked on water. But once you wander into the nebulous land of faith, hey who cares? This piece of cloth has a cool face on it. It must be JESUS’ face – because it’s cool. And because it PROVES he really existed – even though it came about a thousand years later.

Anyway, what do people think about the face – which is dark, hairy and handsome? They think Jesus is hot. That’s no surprise, girls have been getting wet for Jesus since Mary sensually rubbed him down with oil.

But when you think about it – the picture is handsome because it’s dark, and rough. Dark eyes, dark features, masculine, tough, bearded… where is the blond, blue eyed king of glory, ruler of the light? That’s supposed to be the good guy. You know who this picture looks like? ME!

That’s right – I confess. I’m behind the Turin Shroud. Doesn’t that make more sense? Do you really think Jesus should be handsome and sexy, then go around preaching abstinence? What a crock of bull. But it makes perfect sense for me to be sexy; plus, I’ve always been the ‘dark’ one, with a dark goatee, burning brown eyes, face hidden in shadows. Throw some horns on that picture and you’d know right away who you were dealing with.

Hi – Satan here. It’s been a while. I was kind of busy with little trivial stuff, work etc. Christmas came and went. I’ll bet a lot of you think I hate Christmas. Jesus Christ is born, he will later conquer me and restore righteousness, blah blah blah. No, Christmas to me is just another day – although the way you people celebrate confuses the hell out of me.

First off – God and I had our disagreement before the creation of the world (at least in some versions, and according to your definition of world). That was like, millions of years ago. And FYI, humans were celebrating the birth of a savior, a bringer of light, on December 25th LONG before Jesus showed up.

Christmas has NOTHING to do with Jesus Christ. The candles, the fir tree, the gift giving – are you serious!? The Attics used to cut down a fir tree, place a little suffering Attis doll on top, and bring it into the temple of the goddess every year. It symbolized, incidentally, a phallus (penis) impregnating the goddess and regenerating life on earth. And you still do it today!! What does Jesus have to do with a Christmas tree? Nothing. But it was a common pagan practice.

Oh sure, you go to church on Christmas Eve, but you sing about a child being born in a manger, who will someday defeat darkness and was visited by shepherds – these things were all said about other saviors – especially Horus, the Egyptian sun god. The birth of the sun on Dec. 25th, a huge pagan festival called Saturnalia, the mourning of the passing year (retired sun) and celebration of new life and a new year – these are sensible, meaningful rites. Thank you god for the seasons, for the sun, for food and crops. Nowadays you’ grown lazy; life is too easy for you, you take your food for granted. You don’t need to pray for the sun’s return, for a good harvest. You’re fat and lazy – this life isn’t that scary. Now you’re worried about the next life of all things. You want assurance that the next life, and even eternity will turn out alright. You’re not happy with just another year of existence, you want Heaven and Eternal Bliss. Spoiled pansies, all of you. So you celebrate, instead of the sun, a savior who will give you exactly what you want – but with absolutely no sacrifice on your part. And you use the same words, customs, practices and even the same DAY that the pagans already used for their own life celebrations.

And Jesus Christ, Santa Claus!? Father time (Saturn) combined with Apollo, the sun god riding his chariot through the sky each day, combined with the patriarchal God the Father – the old bearded man in heaven who is keeping tabs on whether you’ve been naughty or nice… Santa (an anagram for Satan by the way) is more real than you think. Oh, sure, you know he’s a myth now; but you’ll teach him to your children until their old enough that you can tell them the truth without breaking their hearts and replace him with virtually the same myth in grown up terms.

Anyway, whatever. It’s a time of fun, usually involving holiday and a lot of alcohol, so I’m totally down. I just think some of you have got your head in the sand about what you’re doing and why.

I know I’m going to get lampooned for being cynical of such a harmless, friendly movement like the “To write love on her arms day”, but something about this movement makes me cringe. So I’m going to allow myself to be expressed. To be clear – I am not specifically critical of the original movement or its agenda. Although I disagree with some of its basic ideology, it was started for good purposes and is doing a good job raising awareness and getting people to recognizing/treating their symptoms. However, I think it has turned into more of a cool trend of young wannabe hipsters and groupies, or self indulgent “look-at-me-I’m-depressed-too!” ego freaks, rather than a genuine outreach program.

The movement is dedicated to ” presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery” (facebook page).

Butterflies and kittens and flowers, oh my. Normally I’d ignore this silliness – except that it is brewing up into a viral internet insanity; there may be a million people who actually write ‘love’ on their arm – and for what?  “Depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide?’ That’s a long list. I’ll agree that love is usually a good thing and we should all express our love to each other (you may be surprised that Satan would advocate love – but you shouldn’t be. I am and always have been about doing what it takes to feel good and be happy.) But I can’t understand how having thousands of people write ‘love’ on their arms is going to help any individual suffering.

Moreover, as someone personally struggling with depression, (if you were unfairly accused and banished to Hell for eternity, without recourse to a retrial or legal retribution, or even the glimmer of hope that a future regime change might set you free, you’d be depressed too), I’m aware that real depression is not ameliorated by situation or circumstance – it’s a chemical imbalance that’s hard to control. Having someone personal, in your life, expressing their support for you… sometimes it’s nice. But if you’re really depressed it’s not going to help. If you’ve simply got low self-esteem, are full of self-pity, guilt, etc, then having someone care about you may make you feel better – but only until you learn to get over yourself. There are children starving to death for Christ’s sake. You’re sad because no one loves and appreciates you? Go ahead – jump off the freaking bridge. Donate your money to charity first so that someone else can enjoy it.

At any rate, having personal intimate relationships is different from a bunch of self-righteous, self-loving strangers who just think it’s a cool and fun idea (and it is!) to post photos of themselves and their beautiful arm-art. People who participate are stroking their own egos (and any seriously depressed or addicted person who wants to hurt themselves probably will recognize that fact; unless they join in the fun themselves and then it might be a nice 2-hour distraction from the pain that is life.)

Is it harmful? Of course not. It’s just a little twisted and pathetic and self-serving. The new facebook page has 244,000+ members. As far as I can tell, they mostly share bitch and moan stories about how they are struggling with depression or anxiety, or comment on how some famous people like rock stars are struggling with depression or anxiety. And sure, this sense of community or having other people out there experiencing the same thing can be beneficial (possibly – although it also gets everybody to accept the ‘normalcy’ of being depressed, rather than genuinely trying not to be depressed – being depressed, like big rock stars, is ‘cool’). And to their credit, TWLOHA (To Write Love On Her Arms) does link to legitimate resources where people can get real help. (http://www.twloha.com/find-help/)

And I know, I KNOW what a frustrating bitch anxiety or depression can be; you can’t enjoy life, food has no taste, you’re always going out of your mind, you indulge in self-abusive behavior or patterns… ok, it sucks. But Jesus Christ – if you had to work and toil to make a living, if you live in a small community with few options, you wouldn’t deal with this crap. These are modern symptoms. They are due mostly to a) too many interpersonal relationship, but with less intimacy b) poor diet (yes, diet is absolutely the cause of mood imbalances) c) too much free time.

Look at some pictures of the happy, moderately wealthy, often rich and glamorous participants of the ‘Write love on her arms’ movement and then picture a heroin addict, homeless, jobless, dirty and covered in urine in a cockroach infested hole somewhere in your city. Where is the relation? How is the help arriving? TWLOHA seems mostly to be a sympathy club for musicians who can’t figure out what to do with all their fame and fortune (poor them).

People write love on their arms for themselves, and to be part of a trendy movement.

If you or someone you know is suffering from depression, read some SERIOUS Greek philosophy; find the meaning of life. Take some time to be alone in nature. Do a fruits and vegetables fast for 2 weeks. Learn to control you will-power so you feel like you’re in charge of your life by denying yourself small pleasures (give up on coke, coffee, cigarettes, etc). The cure I’ve ever found for depression is the “Blue Day Book” or “Bunny Suicides” or “Breaking Bad News with Baby Animals.” Better yet, watch these funny cats videos. Depression is a pit to get out of, not a state to call attention to by asking for for sympathy.

Tomorrow I’m going to take a picture of my arm – it’s going to say “i LOVE sex” or “i LOVE beer” or something, with the “LOVE” really big and the other words really really small.

One more thing that makes me uncomfortable – from the To Write On Her Arms website: “You were created to love and be loved. You were meant to live life in relationship with other people, to know and be known. You need to know that your story is important and that you’re part of a bigger story. You need to know that your life matters.” They also talk a lot about praying together and how ‘God is still in the business of redemption’. That stuff makes me a little queasy. First of all – why should you think that your story is important at all? 99% of you will live and die as nobodies. You will never be famous, rich or successful. You will work hard and die, and there will be millions more after you. Maybe it’s the preoccupation with ‘telling your story’ or getting yourself personally recognized that causes the modern degree of existential angst in the first place. Secondly, why is God given credit for the few times an addict or suicidal depressive gets better. If he’s responsible for them – then he’s also responsible for all the suicides that are successful; he’s also responsible for all the war orphans, starving children, poor and destitute millions of humans around the globe.

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Today I stopped in at a contemporary surrealist artist’s exhibition. (See his works at www.derekmurphyart.com). His work is all about ‘breaking established paradigms’ and ‘creating space by stopping ideological patterns’ or some rubbish like that. Mostly, his work just makes me chuckle and I like to watch those with more sensitive disposition look uncomfortable and squemish and self-conscious; unsure how they feel about the art because they’re already worried about what their reactions ’should be’ or how other people are going to view their reactions.

As I was looking at this piece, a young woman next to me engaged me in conversation, by asking “Are you a Christian?”

Now first off – this is not by far the most controversial painting in Derek’s Arsenal. It’s clever, and pretty well executed, but lacks the messy craziness of some of his more recent works. I once heard another Christian say about it – “It combines two of my favorite things, Jesus and Wine!”

The woman next to me, however, was having more trouble with it. I could tell immediately that she had no opinions of her own – her response to the painting would be based entirely on what the author meant by it. Was it an attack of Christianity or in support of it somehow?

It peeved me a little that, rather than opening with something about the art, even as boring as “What do you think about this piece?”, she decided to seek solidarity with me by identifying my religious affiliation.

“No,” I said. “I’m not”.

Then she looked at me with her big, round, unblinking eyes and said “Don’t you ever feel sad or lonely?” She said it, not with incredulity, but as if in awe of my super powers.

“Yes… I feel sad and lonely sometimes.”

“But – what do you do about it? You can fix yourself all by yourself? Just in your head?”

At the time I didn’t have any suitable answer to give her. Obviously, she was thinking without the loving, tender care of her personal savior she would just fall apart (and she would, too. She was obviously a very cloistered, sheltered individual with no common sense or worldly experience).

However, it was much to complicated to go into the Truth, so I stalled by saying “Well, I believe in God” (why does it keep surprising you that Satan should believe in God. DUH! Who threw me Hell for all eternity!?).

She looked a little relieved. But then I pushed on by explaining how, the point of Christianity was ‘love one another’; but a particular religion would limit my ability to love people of other religions. Christians (as she admitted herself) rarely get along with everybody in their own church!! And they most certainly don’t get along with non-Christians, or contemporary artists making a mockery of religious icons. The belief in God and belief that humans should love and treat each other with respect prohibited me from becoming Christian. At this point I realized I was both preaching and defending myself (why is it, in these modern times, that the more rational, logical people are always defending their godlessness against believers of ancient fables?)

My point is this: keep Christians away from modern art! Ok, sure, there are exceptions. I have Christian friends who are brilliantly able to keep their faith out of their real lives or interactions with other people. But for those Christians who are always monitoring the appropriateness of everything, they have no place in the art gallery. They can’t see the paintings, or anything else in life, objectively. They can barely see three feet in front of them! They walk around in their blissful little bubble and try to bring everybody into their little bubble with them.

I decided to take advantage of this special deal (save your soul for $19.95) to try out an experiment. For the next week, I’m going to eat only Holy Communion, 24/7.

I’ve been meaning to do this for awhile – the reason I haven’t is that communion needs to be sanctified by a priest, and what priest is going to let Satan come in and partake of the Eucharist. Luckily, you can order this stuff online now.

Why am I doing this? Duh – I’m sick of eternal torment. You don’t think I want to get into heaven? Believe me, I want to. (I’ve already had all the girls down here, for one. And there are some Christians girls that are just wild.) And although Jesus just said, basically, eat and drink this meal ‘in remembrance’ and was obviously using metaphor, Christian dogma has since decided A) that the wine and bread of the Eucharist is actually Jesus’ real body and blood and B) the Eucharist is used for the forgiveness of sins.

OK – I’ll admit, I’ve been bad. I repent. So how much of this stuff do I need to eat? One communion wafer per sin? If you’ve played an RPG like Fable, you know that sometimes it’s hard to go from “Evil” to “Good” (You accidentally sacrifice an entire village to the Church of Skorm and you grow a set of irremovable horns…).

I just received my box of 1,000 communion wafers. They’re dry and taste like plastic. Whenever I think about the fact that I’m eating Jesus’ body it makes me gag. Luckily, there were no limitations on the wine so I brought up a few nice bottles of vintage Italian and am going to pretty much stay drunk all week, to mask the hunger.

Now normally, I’m a glutton. Great food is one of the most tantalizing pleasures in existence. But being fat can be limiting, and fasting is a great way to take a time out, cleanse your body. After a few days the hunger goes away, you feel calm and pleasant – but you can’t think clearly. So I’m not going to think.

Day 3: I’ve lost 10lbs already! Maybe it was because I got a migraine from all that red wine and threw up my intestines. I’ve switched to water today. Tomorrow I’ll go back on the wine. Body of Christ tastes like ass after the 500th wafer. I decided a little fruit juice was ok, and made myself some Daiquiris. Back in the day, communion meals would use bread.

Day 5: I ran out of wafers, so I’m calling it quits. FYI, 1000 communion wafers is about as much mass as 3 slices of bread. I lost 24lbs, watched a lot of movies, and overall had a pretty good time. Did I save my soul? Well – they say you are what you eat… am I Jesus now?  I just tried the walking on water trick but the water just starts to boil when I get in. I’m pretty sure I can’t raise the dead, although it’s debatable whether he can either (I never trusted that charlatan).

Conclusions: If you want to get holy and healthy fast, this might work for you; although the wine may be too rich. I’d recommend switching to that lemonade/maple syrup fast and asking a priest to bless it for you.

There’s a funny argument going on about the right to teach ‘a biblical worldview’ in Texas schools in conjunction with American history: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6640410.html.

“You can’t properly tell American history unless you teach the biblical
motivations of the people who discovered the country, like Christopher
Columbus; the people that settled it, like the Pilgrims and Puritans;
the people who formed government, like the Founding Fathers,” said
Marshall, a Presbyterian minister and president of the
Massachusetts-based Peter Marshall Ministries. “My point in all of this
is that children of this nation need to be taught the truth about the
biblical world view. The influence of the Bible and the Christian faith
is absolutely gigantic in American history.”

The quote above is just grossly inaccurate. It makes my sensitive, highly educated ears bleed to hear great men like Franklin, Lincoln and Jefferson lumped together with the European filth that were the pilgrims and puritans.

The real founding fathers (at least the only ones worthy of offering a continuing role in American politics) were the brilliant Deists (yah, they believed in God. So what? So do I! Doesn’t mean I like him) fueled with Enlightenment ideals (Lucifer = light bringer… who do you think was behind the enLIGHTenment?) who inspired the American revolution and wrote the documents that guaranteed freedom and human rights. Isn’t that what America is all about? A place without censorship?

These were smart, educated businessmen who loved reason above all else and conscientiously avoided the constraints of organized religion. When developing his own strategy for moral excellence, Benjamin Franklin turned not to the Bible but to Pythagoras’ Golden Verses. He tried, but was again and again disgusted (he actually uses the word ‘disgusted’ in his autobiography) by the preaching of various Presbyterian and Christian preachers, and yet was devoted to ethical perfection. “My conduct might be blasphemable, but I leave it without attempting to farther excuse it” he says. Franklin was open to all religious persuasions but a believer of none, had nothing but respect for the native Americans, was the enlightened man to perfection.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inaliable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…

Does this sound to you like it came out of the Bible? Besides writing the above passage, Jefferson also wrote the following:

Millions of innocent men, owmen, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has bene the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.

Jefferson was writing about the historical fact that various US states were founded as refuge for some particular religious sect; yes, it is true that America was firstly inhabited by Puritans and Quakers – newly founded Christian sects which were persecuted in Europe, escaped and brought with them the diseases that decimated the native population. These sects promptly claimed the land and immediately passed laws of religious discrimination! The state of Virginia made ‘heresy’ a capital offense, punishable by burning; and of all the states, only Pennsylvania and New York were not established in the name of some religion – and of the others, no two the same!

Rather than a sense of religious freedom and ‘one nation under god’, each individual state saw themselves as the chosen people, the new Israel, surrounded by heathens and heretics. They arrived in America poor and hungry, with only a dream of ‘manifest destiny’ (that God wanted them to claim this new world for Christianity).

William Bradford of the Plymouth Plantation (the founder of the modern holiday that is “Thanksgiving”) is the absolute antithesis of the philosophers who later wrote the constitution. He is anti-revolution, wants everybody to be content with their lot in life whether rich or poor, free or slave. He encourages charity so that the poor and despised would not “rise up against their superiors and shake off their yoke”.

He tells a story of one ‘Anne Hutchinson’, who’d gotten it into her head to preach a slight deviation from his ‘orthodox’ Puritanism, and was restrained and finally banished from the community.

Jonathon Edwards, writing later during America’s “Great Awakening” (a mess of exuberant preaching, singing and dancing, fake priests and charlatans) urged readers back to the puritanism ideals of the pilgrims. Among his theological ideas (presented in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God) are that every properly unconverted man is already destined for Hell – mankind’s natural place is Hell, and God is ANGRY.

“The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit hath opened its mouth under them.”

“Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend into the bottomless gulf…”

“How awful are those words, Isaiah 63.3, which are the words of the great God: ‘I will tread them in mine anger, and will trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.’ It is perhaps impossible to conceive of words that carryin them greater manifestations of these three things, viz., contempt, and hatred, and fierceness of indignation.”

Edwards also talks about God’s “exquisite horrible misery” and “almighty merciless vengeance”.

America is the heir to these diametrically opposed worldviews: that men are good, and have certain rights; and that men are worms, destined for Hell. One paradigm led to the revolutionary war, independence and the signing of the declaration of independence and the American constitution. The other led to the Salem witch trials, religious persecution, and severe censorship of the smallest details of life.

And centuries later, Americans are debating about which tradition is better for their kids!

If America had been left in the fundamentalist hands of the Puritans and Quakers, absolutely no deviation would be permitted; it would be a nation of constant

O.M.F.G. I just came across yet another website with a picture of the twin trade towers coming down and a blurry, ghostlike face (probably digitally enhanced) in the billowing smoke. Why in God’s name does everybody blame me for the 9-11 terrorist attacks? Are you on crack? Are you mentally retarded? I mean I’m used to people blaming me for all the shit in their lives, all the ‘evil’, but come on! A bunch of guys get together, who believe in God, worship God, do all this to please God so they can get into heaven – and Satan is blamed for it?! I might understand if I was God’s right hand man like before, and did all his nasty bidding for him, but I got fired, remember? The Archangel Michael does all of God’s dirty work now. And that’s not to mention all the politics involved (I hate politics – ‘no government is best government,’ I always say) and the fact that it happened early in the morning (man, I never get up before noon.) I got up and turned on the TV and everyone was freaking out and blaming me already.

Personally, I like those conspiracy theories that say the US government did it to drum up support for a ‘War on Terror’ (what a load of bull) in order to get oil. I mean, that’s a smart, diabolical, manipulative plan that I could get behind. If you want to blame a brilliant plan like that on me, go ahead. But if you don’t buy that – you can’t just make muslims ‘Satanic’ because you don’t like them. They’re god fearing believers. I keep telling them to stop praying 5 times a day, eat what they like, let their women run around naked… has any of that made one bit of difference? There’s no way you’re going to pin their actions on me.

I wouldn’t normally go around pointing fingers but its just so obvious in this case! A couple thousand years ago, a very progressive society built the world’s tallest tower (The Tower of Babel). Sure, it was only a couple of stories tall by modern standards, but they said they were going to keep building until they reached heaven and God flipped out. I was like – “there’s no freaking way they’re actually gonna reach heaven” but God wasn’t really sure at that point what mankind was capable of, so he knocked the whole thing down. The people at that time accepted that God did it to keep them low and humble, and they still worshiped him! I can’t get over that.

Label one guy ‘good’ and the other ‘bad’ and it doesn’t matter what they do… “God has a plan!” you say. Yeah right. He’s flying by the seat of his pants. You think he’s ever dealt with advanced particle acceleration and dark matter and the other stuff that’s going down in the laboratories these days? He’s up there tossing and turning, hoping you don’t wipe yourselves (and Him and all the angels) out with some wild experiment.

Me – what do I care? All I’ve done since the beginning of time is try to teach mankind to fend for itself without relying on ‘Divine Protection’. Once upon a time I was a freaking hero – I was praised for stealing fire, agriculture and all sorts of other technologies for humanity and enduring eternities of torment; then Jesus started that publicity campaign and I got totally smeared. Now I’m a freaking caricature. Do you honestly think I care what happens to you guys up there? I’m in Hell for eternity. I’d love it if you unmade the universe. God was too much of a sadistic bastard to destroy me, he had to punish me (and you, if you’re bad) forever. Fuck it. I’m tired of this shit.