We carry unfortunate news, your majesty….

Ffolkes,
Unfortunately, the trains just aren’t what they used to be…. The trip to Oregon turned into a nightmare along about 4:30 AM, and just got worse from there until I got off the damn thing…. It’s taken me until this morning to get over the frustration on exhaustion the trip engendered, and I still have yet to call them to file my complaint…. Ah well, it’s a good thing I’m a nice guy, right? Nobody died, so I can go on to enjoy myself here with my friend….

I am also finding that writing is not an activity to carry on when visiting friends…. It’s a bit rude to ignore them for three hours while I create a Pearl, so I’m going to be quick today, using more archived material to fill in the sections. Even the poem for the challenge will have to come from what I’ve already done, and I don’t know if that is legal, or against the rules of the challenge, which may entail only fresh material…. oh well, I’m not trying to win any prizes, so it doesn’t matter in the final analysis….

In order to make this perhaps the shortest intro on record for the past two years, I’ll get right to the rest of the Pearl for the day…. It seems to be the only way I will get this done in a timely fashion…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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Before a cat will condescend
To treat you as a trusted friend,
Some little token of esteem
Is needed, like a dish of cream.
– T. S. Eliot

Sometimes I’m not sure which is my favorite poet, between T.S. Eliot, Emily Dickinson, or ee cummings….. all three were of such power and influence that they changed the very face of poetry in the 20th century. Poets of earlier ages are always there to give us the beauty and depth of human experience leading up to the last century, and there were a number of great ones. Alexander Pope, Yeats, Keats, Longfellow, Cowper, Shakespeare, and a host of others, all left behind an impressive legacy for later generations, for which I am eternally grateful. This particular poem is one of my favorites; I love cats (and dogs, and just about any other 2, 4, 6, or 8 legged creatures), and it’s obvious that T.S. has known several of them intimately. In my humble opinion, cats and dogs are much better at being what they are, and nothing else, than humans can ever be. If one believes in the concept of a Deity, then they were put here to be our examples of how to live with honor, and we can do no better than to emulate their approach to life at large…..
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    I don’t know if the challenge rules mean I am supposed to create a fresh poem each day, or not, and I find myself in a position where I MUST use an old poem, as I just cannot make the time it takes to create one today. So, if that mean I’m disqualified or anything, oh well…. the link to where you can see all the challengers is here:  http://www.napowrimo.net/

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I looked for something appropriate, and here it is… a quite long religirant, from sometime in 2012, I didn’t check, and it doesn’t matter…. it was a good one, so enjoy…..

“The evidence of the emotions, save in cases where it has strong objective support, is really no evidence at all, for every recognizable emotion has its opposite, and if one points one way then another points the other way. Thus the familiar argument that there is an instinctive desire for immortality, and that this desire proves it to be a fact, becomes puerile when it is recalled that there is also a powerful and widespread fear of annihilation, and that this fear, on the same principle proves that there is nothing beyond the grave. Such childish proofs are typically theological, and they remain theological even when they are adduced by men who like to flatter themselves by believing that they are scientific gents…” — H. L. Mencken

“One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed it–they also believed the world was flat.” — Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) (1835-1910)

“Convincing yourself doesn’t win an argument.” — Robert Half

Here is an old school Pearl, in a manner of speaking…. These three quotations all say pretty much the same thing, with varying types of expression. Each, to me, seems to express that same idea more succinctly than the one before, leaving out more and more words until the final statement gives the bottom line… which is one that is heavily argued by those to whom it most applies….

It’s funny (ironic funny) to me to hear some of the arguments proposed by the priestly hierarchies in support of their beliefs. Some are couched in formal robes, all dressed up so they appear as reasoned logic, rather than the unwarranted assumptions that they really are. Mr. Mencken’s expression above would be the most effective in engaging these wordy individuals, as it would appeal to the side of them that pretends to being a scientist. They might reject the arguments, since their own arguments are, in the final analysis, subjectively formulated, not based on observations but on induction, as the platform of their entire argument is all based on an imaginary entity’s theoretical wishes…..

“Jesus loves  me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so”…. Such an innocent sounding piece of doggerel…. one would scarcely believe it is one of the most insidious examples of blatant propaganda in existence. The proponents of the “Old man in the sky” group start drumming this into the minds of children as soon as they are able to talk, and, as they well know, before they learn to doubt what their elders tell them. Children naturally accept what their parents tell them, almost exclusively for the first few years of life.

This home-schooling form of brainwashing continues once they are of an age to start looking outside their family for knowledge of the world, with teachers, preachers, and kindly old aunts who continue to inundate the young minds with stories of Bible heroes and villains, drilling into the malleable minds the sense of entitlement and elitism that will provide them with the impetus for bigotry later in life. In addition, this period strengthens the brainwashing given earlier, teaching the kids that they should only trust certain people to tell them the truth, and that all the other religions in the world are not only not saved, but are not eligible for saving, due to their own beliefs, which are characterized as villainous, and as enemies, to be reviled and persecuted because they are different….

“The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.” — Oscar Wilde

This entire process, this systematic, deliberate mental conditioning, is, to my mind, pretty despicable. It denies its proponents any possible way of examining the information that other systems may possess, by convincing them that all other forms of knowledge are not only wrong, but blasphemous in nature, and should be cast aside whenever encountered, without ever examining the information for its relevance, or its accuracy.

Education is learning that you did not even know what you did not even know you did not even know. — Smart Bee

The whole system is designed to continue the delusional system into the future, while keeping the congregation in the dark of ignorance. It has no other purpose…. it is not in place to help or sustain the members of the congregation, but rather to control that population’s thoughts and behavior, ensuring the power and influence of the priests, pastors, preachers, or whatever name they choose to call themselves…..

I can only count myself as fortunate, to have been raised without the brainwashing on a regular basis. We attended a Presbyterian church, probably an offshoot of the old Church of England, where the adage about “cake, or death?” was originated…. The net result of this was that I was able to include other systems in my education, and found the entire construct to be a house of invisible cards, easily knocked down with a single bite of the Apple….

“How come you never see a politician (or a preacher) laugh? Because they know what they’re getting away with, and if they started laughing, they’d never stop.” — Smart Bee

And you know what else?…. I always thought Satan got a pretty raw deal, all for exercising the free will he was given…. and so did Adam and Eve…. Even as a child of five, I always wondered why God had set them up to fail like that…. it’s like, “Here’s the apple…. don’t taste it….” and then making sure we, as humans, had a sense of wonder and curiosity strong enough to disregard the admonition…. Even then, it looked like a set-up, and I could never reconcile the image in my head of a God, supposedly with infinite knowledge, setting up his own creation like that…. it just didn’t seem very God-like, or even fair…. and I still don’t get it, even today…..

With a subject such as this, it’s hard to know when to stop…. the issue has been one that has held Mankind back for two millennia now, preventing us from achieving our real potential as a species. All the progress we, as a species, have made in the last 3,000 years or so has been in spite of the efforts of the priestly hierarchies to keep us as ignorant as possible; at every turn of the wheel of science, the powers that be have thrown sand in the works, to try to slow down the acquisition of knowledge.

“Neither do the ignorant seek after wisdom.  For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself; he has no desire for that of which he feels no want.” — Plato (428-348? B.C.)

They know that an educated populace, capable of reasoning beyond the limitations placed on the human mind by religious dogma, is the greatest threat to their continued existence as the leaders of Mankind. They know that once people are exposed to knowledge (the flesh of the Apple, remember?), the less they will submit to the brainwashing that is the lot of the common man…. and it scares them to death…..

Doubt. Question authority. Ask the next, deeper question. And never, ever, give up the right to make up your own mind…. In the final analysis, that power is the only one we all have, and the only one that cannot be taken away from us without our consent…. Viva la raza!…..

Oh, and won’t it be nice when you don’t have to give tithes anymore?…..

Though old the thought and oft exprest,
‘T is his at last who says it best.
– James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) — For an Autograph
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Well, it’s not particularly fresh, but it’s clean…. and it’s done. So be it, I gotta go play with my friend in the Big Blue Room….  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..