sophia_sadek's Journal

12:04pm: Break Time: Back in a few weeks
I'm going off-line for a few weeks. As the governator says, I'll be bahk.

4:03pm: got law? (part 8)
During a critical period of life passage, I approached a group of sheriff's deputies to discuss some local activity. I told them that we would have to establish sacred trust before I could say anything. They turned me down on the condition with the assertion that they were the "law." It is just such moments which open up a whole new way of seeing things. ( "Sorry, missy, we cannot ... )

4:03pm: got law? (part 7)
In the sixteenth century, two zealous sects of Christian fundamentalism attacked each other with their favorite tool: the sword. They acted out their essential law of degradation by behaving in a beastly manner in their conduct with their respective enemies. They each obeyed the commandment of their respective material Creators to hate their enemy with all their heart, all their soul, and all their mind. ( It's the Law!... )

4:11pm: got law? (part 6)
In the history of the conflict between the Roman and Celtic churches, two Roman laws became sore points. One of them was the age old difference in the "law" of Easter celebration. The Romans felt it was terrible that the Celts didn't celebrate Easter on exactly the same day as the Romans. ( It was scandalous to have some ... )

4:03pm: got law? (part 5)
The one thing that all forms of fundamentalism have in common is the degradation of the human spirit. We know so much about Christian fundamentalists who hang dark skinned people for imagined crimes. We also know quite a bit about Muslim fundamentalists who commit suicide just to get laid in the after-death. The horrors of Jewish fundamentalism are too grisly to mention. What about Atheist fundamentalism? ( It cannot be ... )

3:04pm: got law? (part 4)
It has been said that knowledge is power. The reasoning behind the assertion is that if you want to accomplish something, you need to know how to go about it. If you want to be free, you need to learn how to get to that point. ( It's not something that ... )

4:04pm: got law? (part 3)
The classical story of Augustus Caesar's daughter points to a phenomenon that fundamentalists thoroughly detest. It is a form of self-indulgence that violates the "sanctity" of marriage behind the scene while maintaining the essential integrity of monogamy in child birth. ( By a level of ... )

4:02pm: got law? (part 2)
The natural law of promiscuity can best be observed in the domain of plant life. Since plants spend an entire lifetime in a fixed location, they rarely have direct physical contact with their reproductive partners. Each plant distributes its pollen to a variety of mates over such channels as wind and insect movement. ( There is absolutely no control ... )

4:05pm: got law?
As I've said before, fundamentalism essentially professes to control the divine domain. It claims to know what is eternal and what is not. ( It asserts its own hegemony ... )

12:08pm: got sin? (part 8)
Every theology has a unique definition of sin. Some theologians profess to espouse the One True Theology. These charlatans think that their paradigm of sin is the only one that matters. ( If their personal deity were truly ... )

4:06pm: got sin? (part 7)
The nihilism of the seventeenth century had precursors in previous generations. The conflict between the Celtic Church and Mother Rome continued to flare up from time to time in the centuries after Augustine became the dominant figure of Roman hegemony. ( For some reason, Celtic culture ... )

4:13pm: got sin? (part 6)
One of our students works in a public high school. A student of hers asked her if she believed in global warming. She pointed out that there is plenty of evidence that the earth is warmer today than in the past. It's not something to believe or not. ( It's an observation of ... )

4:03pm: got sin? (part 5)
Another vector of nihilism made itself known to the Church in the seventeenth century as the order of the rosy cross. This allusion to the red cross of the Knights Templar helped to lend an air of mystery and legitimacy to the group. One Bruno scholar, at least, draws a potential connection between the group and Bruno's crusade into France, England, and Germany. ( Even if its members ... )

4:02pm: got sin? (part 4)
The turn of the seventeenth century was a time of great nihilism in the Western world. It was the era of Bruno, Galileo, and Bacon. It was marked by the banning and burning of books. An author could increase his royalties with the Church's black market in sacred literature. Fewer copies were sold, but those that had already been printed increased in value to become collectors' treasures. ( The sycophants of the flat... )

4:06pm: got sin? (part 3)
There was a time in human history when navigators kept their knowledge of the celestial domain closely secret. This increased their value to merchants who hired them on missions of global commerce by limiting their number to an elite few. It also kept them save from the attacks of priests who would have them roasted over a fire for the sin of revealing the truth. ( Knowing the truth was legal, ... )

3:03pm: got sin? (part 2)
Is Allah the same as the material Creator of the flat and immobile earth? There are people who make that claim. When they translate the Koran into English, they use the name of the jealous flat-earth deity instead of the name "Allah." ( Like the Logos of Greek ... )

4:03pm: got sin?
"Forgive me, father, for I have sinned: I voted for a pro-choice candidate." It is true that the material Creator of the flat and immobile earth still exists. This is all the evidence we need. ( The flat-earthers would have their ... )

4:02pm: got race? (part 8)
I confess that I have committed the unpardonable sin of mentioning a higher competition while only discussing the lesser competitions. The race for genetic superiority, the race for intellectual domination, the race to the bottom, and even the race to the middle, ( all pale compared to the ... )

4:03pm: got race? (part 7)
The moronocratic headlong race into the abyss has finally burned itself out. Certainly, there are Americans who wax nostalgic about the good old days of torture, blitzkrieg, ethnic cleansing, and other hallowed traditions. ( They are the bin Ladens ... )

12:02pm: got race? (part 6)
America's expert on the craft of blitzkrieg, Tommy Franks, engaged in a unique and extraordinary race to become the General Patton of his own time. His seniors and his colleagues shared a disdain for his aggressive race to capture and hold Baghdad. ( The successes and failures ... )

4:10pm: got race? (part 5)
In the competition within the Bush administration for most honest and informative memoir, it is difficult to judge between Jerry Bremer and George Tenet. The former was out of the gate first, but the latter takes up the themes of the earlier memoir. ( Tenet has certain racy ... )

4:03pm: got race? (part 4)
The race between Ahmed Chalabi and Saddam Hussein demonstrated the destructive capacity of intestine conflict. Chalabi bragged about his successful use of contrived intelligence to convince ignorant Americans of the need to invade and occupy Iraq. In his ambition to replace Hussein as the despot of Baghdad, Chalabi succeeded in rushing two nations into the pit of chaos. ( Chalabi won the race to ... )

12:03pm: got race? (part 3)
In machine engineering, there is a phenomenon called a race condition. It can be part of the deliberate structure of the machine, or it can be an aspect of mechanical failure. A healthy race condition provides timing and synchronization. ( An unwanted race condition ... )

4:15pm: got race? (part 2)
Between the two poles of racist ideology, stands a middle ground where competition between gene pools gives way to a higher level of play. It is a game where force becomes impotent and ancestral bloodlines lack significance. The winner does not despoil the loser. ( The loser does not ... )

4:03pm: got race?
Klansters and Afro-centrists have given race a bad name. It is important to distinguish between race and racism. One is an objectively observable aspect of biological existence and the other is a subjective desire to be better than one actually is. ( Calvinists argue against the imperfectability of the ... )