Many people believe that 2000 years ago, a child was born. This child was the offspring of the God of the Old Testament and of a Virgin woman. He was crucified, killed, and resurrected a few days later. All of course, as a plan. The plan was to ‘rescue’ humanity from a single sin, perpetrated by our original ancestors.

Now I will not get into the finer details about this story because quite frankly, I don’t have time. What I would like everyone to keep in mind, is that this story is based on the testimony of individuals who claim to have seen this event or who heard about it (nevermind the delicate controversy about whether or not first-person testimony actually exists). It is on the basis of this testimony, coupled with some very loose ‘logic’, that one third of the human race currently believes this story is true.

Michael Persinger, a Canadian neuroscientist, has conducted experiments which ’simulate’ religious experiences using electro-magnetic waves. He also notes, that a substance called reserpine will elicit a “death-like” state in animals when they are restrained, only to seemingly “resurrect” after about 3 days. The Celts performed similar ceremonies, citing the experience as proof of an afterlife.

Did a Jesus truly rise from the dead and destroy every shred of evidence suggesting its impossibility? Or was it just a performance, acted out by a jewish sect, in hopes of attracting members in a religiously competitive culture? Do you ever wonder why there is not a single eyewitness testimony or historical reference near the date Jesus’ death was supposed to have occurred?

Do you wonder why the earliest gospel was written a minimum of 40 years after the fact? Could this be the most successful Hoax in human history? “No!” you say, “I have experienced the power of Jesus’ resurrection personally”. A visit to your local faith healer will demonstrate the power of suggestion. What happens when an entire culture proposes a particular idea? Did you experience Jesus before you knew about him?

But maybe people are too honest to do such things.

Here’s the relevant clip from Michael’s lecture:

Download ipod version

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It is official. George W. Bush has finally gone Green

After finally getting around to the report on his desk, revealing the inconvenient truth that plastic may take thousands of years to decompose, Bush did what he does best: pledged money to a cause.

The cause was Africa. George also learned that Africa was suffering from a terrible outbreak of something called AIDS, a sexually transmitted disease. George is no dummy, he knew that the best method of preventing AIDS was through the use of condoms. That disturbing fact, coupled with an estimate of 25 million people living with AIDS or HIV in Africa, spawned a series of nightmares for Mr. Bush. Nightmares, he claims, where Africa is submerged in a landfill of used condoms for thousands of years.

“We must do something,” boasted a brave George W. Bush during his latest press conference¹, “Our landfills are filling up, our resources are being drained, and the African people may lose their country to a torrent of used condoms!”

The President was eager to reveal a bold new solution: Foreskin. “Instead of using plastic condoms, a commodity not broken down over thousands of years and restrictive of the penis’ freedom, we will free the penis from totalitarianism! We will sever the skin of every African penis so that it may have same freedoms that we American’s enjoy.”

Human flesh is, after all, biodegradable.

The President was like a polished Greenpeace soldier; shooting out scientific research and moral duty in singular sentences. He silenced his critics with relevant fart jokes and brilliant metaphor. The speech may very well come to be known as the monument of the birth… the birth of American Environmentalism.²

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1. Source misplaced while reading bible. Sorry. [↩]
2. Please note, some quotes may be slightly embellished. [↩]

Back Alley on East Hastings, Vancouver¹

Main and Hastings, Vancouver, Canada: A dessert of dirt, garbage, and the concrete dust remains of human misery. A country within a country; block after block of dull washed away brick, chapels, bent shopping carts, ‘truly’ free markets, and relief societies. Here, sleeps the soul of Canada’s tropical paradise; a wasteland of death behind the mirage of salvation. Needle-by-needle, theft-after-theft, the dust storms pick up speed.

A short, balding woman, covered in dust, paces up and down the trash-riddled alley. She glares me in the eyes, fidgets uncontrollably, and fixes a manikin-like gaze near my shoes. I take three steps to the left. She…takes one forward, hunching near the pavement. Three more to the left. Then, before I can glance back, she is crouched in the corner behind me. Another takes notice. It speeds towards her in a drunken vampire frenzy. They share. Before it is time for me to leave, deja vu. Both creatures are pacing up and down that very same street; I’d swear it was the matrix, but they aren’t trembling anymore.

Where do you find hope in the midst of a hell like this? Perhaps a tiny place called Insite: North America’s only safe injection facility. For those of you unaware of this facility, it stands as a safe haven in Vancouver’s worst area. It provides clean syringes, keeps medical staff on hand, saves hundreds of lives, prevents the spread of HIV and Hepatitis, lowers public drug usage, and reduces sidewalk needle disposal. Violence, theft, and drug use have remained stable. But perhaps most damaging of all: many addicts have pursued successful addiction treatment through the facility - possibly using health care funds.

Now, for reasons I’m sure must be related to health care, Insite is under attack.

Read more

1. http://www.flickr.com/photos/stollerdos/143573967/ [↩]

I hate you. All of you. Worthless sniveling excuses of human nature. I hate people in general really, and I find it hard to muster up any kind of sympathy for you wretched creatures. You cheat, lie, steal, rape; what the hell is not to hate? Who are your idols? Child molesters and greedy self-indulgent business whores. Oh god, oh god, when will you cast down thine apocalyptic plague?

Maybe I’m being too general.

I hate dopey dimwitted blacks, avaricious jew swine, asinine fanatical arabs, materialistic menstruating women, dull impersonal asians, lazy drunken natives, foul curry indians, mexicans, africans, australians too. I hate muslims, christians, buddhists, hindus, taoists, mormons, atheists, and even those carpet-munching wiccans. Kill homos. Screw handicaps. Miss anyone? Fuck you too.

That’s right, this is the internet and I can say whatever the hell I want… asshole.

Hate is serious. Apparently 7,000 - whoops, 7,001 hate websites have been identified on the internet. Sites with games in order to attract children¹. Sites showing how to build bombs². Sites to tickle the senses of any rotten scapegoating scum. The horrifying thing about all this is that websites bypass the media filter system. Anyone can access hate now.

Hate hasn’t always been easily accessible. Hate-mongers would seek the bible or the Quran on the black market and risk molestation at the church. Camps and schools secretly existed where children were raised, from birth, to hate women and homosexuals. All of the sudden this garbage is more accessible. Or maybe it is just the new stuff?

And what about hypocritical scum like the Simon Wiesenthal Center and other do-goodder foundations seeking petty vengeance. They are worried, allegedly, at the rising number of hate websites; some more than others, I presume. Tracking down hatred all over the planet and bringing it to justice. How nobel. If they’re homosexual, two birds - one stone. These people aren’t seeking equal conditional worth for all human beings; they seek blood, as always.

Here’s an idea: Why not teach kids logic, reasoning skills. How is it, in a developed system where children go through 13 years of learning, that most will never experience the faintest glimpse of critical thinking? If society is so concerned with influential children being brainwashed by hate then maybe it should equip children with the tools necessary to resist it themselves. Haven’t we learned that trying to rid the world of effects, while neglecting the causes, is useless³?

But we can’t teach children logic, oh no. If we did that, we couldn’t brainwash them. They would question us; they would hate us for our stupidity. So let’s raise morons, together. Together we can foster hatred for logic instead of hatred for each other. Let logic be our common foe.

There is nothing wrong with us. Everyone needs something to hate.

Self-preservation at all costs.

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1. See “Ethnic Cleansing” the game [↩]
2. Anarchist cookbook and others [↩]
3. See War on Drugs [↩]

They appear taller than they are. Black suits; knee high skirts; masks made of multicolored concealers, greenhouse sprayers, coloring pastes - suitcases of reconstructing patches making artificial intelligence seem like a work of nature. Feminists. Just writing it gives me fever-like chills down my spine.

Calm down ladies. Maybe you do deserve to vote and work: seems reasonable enough. But this feminism thing is no longer instigating equality and cooperation, but rather division. Women’s solidarity right? Look how that is being accomplished, through the creation of a common enemy: man.

A line of Rona commercials has been taken off the air in Canada because of its discriminatory remarks about men. One single father saw one of these commercials and took the complaint to the company, where he received ridicule for his complaint. One article describes the commercial:

The commercial features a female customer going into a Rona store with an imaginary complaint called “homestressidous.”A sympathetic female clerk suggests the customer’s husband never helps around the house. The customer confirms this and the clerk responds: “That’s okay. They [husbands] are all like that.”

Politics. To feminist women, Men are the Al-Qaeda’s to Bush, the Jews to Hitler, and the women to the Catholic Church. I begin to wonder, Are women’s rights still about ethics or are they just petty jealousy? Seems as though your righteous struggle against discrimination has degenerated into a savage crusade against masculinity.

Feminism is just another Christianity rising up against Paganism, not for some higher moral system but for the acquisition of power.

I know you like the commercials ladies. As did the beaten-down German’s of the 1930’s like the propaganda articles sponsored by Hitler against the Jews. It allowed them to displace any shame and build pride. A common threat gives people a purpose; a goal. But, as is typical of any scapegoat, the real problem still remains.

The real problem is human. People associate immorality, stupidity, or any other type of ‘wrongness’ with some common characteristic of the people displaying that attribute. We start by denouncing the actions, but almost always end up denouncing the people. (And yes, atheists tend to do that to religious people sometimes, and vice versa.)

Lets flip things around. Take some common problems in our society for instance. I see a real problem with our obsession with appearance and celebrities, our impulsiveness, our yearning for instant gratification, and our lack of leadership. Rather recent social phenomenons wouldn’t you agree? Closely related to say… the rise of feminism? These are indeed characteristics usually attributed to women.

Now say I were to go around claiming that all women are obsessed with appearances. Making public appearances, creating commercials, etc.. Some back ally garbage bin would inevitably become the final resting place for the victim of my very public castration. Justice for my hatred.

Have you feminists ever considered that the types of mass generalizations you associate with men are of the same ilk as the ones that probably led to discrimination against women in the first place? Women were considered provocative and distracting - a menace to the building of civilization and should therefore be delegated simple tasks. Yes, more extreme than the feminist cause today, but same type of thinking.

Now before you all go off on me about simplifying feminism and blowing it out of proportion let me just point out that I concede feminism is a very diverse subject matter. My criticism should be directed at the ‘excesses’ of feminism which I mention, and not the whole movement itself. I agree with equality and cooperation. I criticize divisiveness.

I don’t think feminists are bad because they are women. Just like I don’t think Christians are bad because they believe in Christ or were born that way. I judge people individually by their actions. And when those actions that I feel are unethical become institutionalized, I judge the institution. I can respect who you are while still hating what you do.

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In an unprecedented landmark study, researchers at the University of Oxford discover that abstinence programs don’t do anything. Nothing¹ . They don’t prevent HIV, sex, pregnancy, or child molestation. They quite literally have no impact whatsoever - besides that little issue of wasted tax money.

Who would have thought that a program designed to actively discourage genetically programmed biological urges would fail? Whats next? Research suggesting that homosexual cures don’t work?

If something isn’t done soon, government will stop sponsoring religious programs! What the hell am I going to criticize then?

What a pity.

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1. Underhill, K., Montgomery, P., Operaric, D. (August 2007), “Sexual abstinence only programmes to prevent HIV infection in high income countries: systematic review.” British Medical Journal. 335: 248. [↩]

Do you remember reading in school, or seeing in Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto (a vile movie I might add), stories of human sacrifice? People captured, limbs tied; forced to sacrifice their lives in order to appease the gods. Archaic tales of civilizations long forgotten…

Seems we are merely uninformed.

Human sacrifice is happening today: in a little south African country called Mozambique. According to BBC News:

Murder, mutilation and exhuming human bones for witchcraft have become a common practice, particularly in the country’s northern and central regions.

That’s right. People are being murdered so that their body parts can be used for witchcraft spells. This is different than all of those chilling reports of organ harvesting during surgery or for criminal punishment. These are helpless, forgotten, undeserving women and children. I suppose both cases have profit motive in common.

Thankfully politicians are on the job. Mozambican officials are scrambling as we speak, enacting laws against human trafficking for the purpose of selling body parts. Apparently bad press made them change their views on the topic. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself; democracy of course; maybe parliament is not in agreement. In a couple of weeks, the story may just blow over and they won’t have to strain themselves. Awww… they grow up so fast.

Some of you may think: “God, why aren’t we over there doing something about this?”. Fair question, I suppose. But let me ask you this: Who are we to go barging into some democratic country and forcing our morality? Do Mozambicans come invade us because our priests sexually abuse our children? No, they mind their own business. We should do the same.

The only reason to invade for the sake of ethics is in the case of verbal or political challenges. Ethical responsibility forces us to create an agreeable form of government and show how righteous we are in giving their citizens more rights and freedoms. We will defend our battles to the death, on ethical grounds of course. Brave at heart indeed.

That is why we cannot send troops to Mozambique or Darfur (where women are regularly raped and forced to eat feces while their families watch). We must stand by our ethics and let democracy flourish! If women don’t like being raped or murdered for body parts then they should vote against it, if they can. Jesus, can’t they see we’ve got enough things to deal with?

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Lets all try to wrap our brains around this one.

I noticed today, in my neglected inbox of mostly dry, horrendously boring science news that something seemed a little ‘off’ about this story. Apparently, researchers at the University at Buffalo have linked the use of malt liquor (your Big Bear, Colt 45, Olde English 800, Magnum, Bull Ice, etc.) to marijuana and other substance abuse among young adults.¹ . In fact, regular users of malt liquor were found to consume an average of 19 joints per week as opposed to an average of 2. And no, marijuana use was not the factor contributing to drinking as most of the participants consumed malt liquor before ever trying marijuana. Scary isn’t it?

Now if we believe in all of the ummm… arguments in favor of criminalizing marijuana (ie. cancer, gateway to heroine, psychosis, stupidity, crime, etc.) including that flawless study I mentioned last time, then this study should be truly revolutionary right? The majority of research suggests that the more marijuana you use, the higher your risk of acquiring one of those horrifying side-effects. Last time I mentioned that heavy marijuana consumption could double your risk of developing schizophrenia! So, by the laws of reason: drinking malt liquor leads to heavy marijuana use and heavy marijuana use leads to dangerous side-effects, therefore… Malt liquor should be easily available and its advertising targeted at young adults.

Sound about right?

Indeed, the famous ‘gateway’ theory of marijuana (ie. if you smoke dope, you’ll probably smoke crack eventually) is of extreme importance here. Yes, many abusers of drugs such as cocaine, heroine, meth, etc. had experience with marijuana first. What is rarely ever mentioned, in the frenzy of major media regurgitating political jargon, is that this ‘gateway’ sequence is almost always started with alcohol or cigarettes - then followed by marijuana² . Why wouldn’t they mention it you ask? Maybe its laziness or stupidity even; most likely they don’t want to get shit on by Budweiser while they’re kissing its gigantic advertising-budget ass.

Luckily there is a silver lining in this twisted shamble of bureaucratic bullshit. Oh yes, perhaps things are not as bad as they immediately appear. Some evidence suggests that marijuana can be used as a treatment for alcohol abuse³ . Not only that, marijuana consumption has been linked with lower alcohol consumption as compared with non-marijuana smokers in Jamaica, where marijuana is often considered accepted⁴ .

So lets let teenage children drink malt liquor. If they do, there is a better chance that they will develop into heavy marijuana smokers. By doing so, they will be less likely to develop into heavy drinkers and may even kick that drinking habit all together. Thus saving thousands of lives every year! In fact, we should start selling Colt 45 in elementary cafeterias for christ’s sake… the earlier the better.

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1. Bradiaza, C. M., Collins, R. L., Vincent, P. C. (June 2007), “Young-Adult Malt Liquor Drinkers : Prediction of Alcohol Problems and Marijuana Use.” Psychology of Addictive Behaviors. 28(2): 138-146. [↩]
2. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment (19940 Technologies for Understanding and Preventing Substance Abuse and Addiction, OTA-EHR-597 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, September 1994). pg. 74. [↩]
3. Mikuriya, T. D. (April 1970), “An adjunctive therapeutic tool in the treatment of alcoholism.” Medical Times. 98(4): 187-191. [↩]
4. Rubin, V., Comitas, L. (1975), “Ganja in Jamaica: a Medical Anthropological Study of Chronic Marihuana Use“. [↩]