Archive for Religion

A Time-Honored Political Institution

February 27, 2008 at 11:24 pm · Filed under Marriage, Politics, Religion ·Tagged , , , ,

In recent weks I’ve seen alot of posts about the “Deline of marriage”, and the “breakop of marriages” and the drive to legalize gay and lesbian marriages, and a whole host of things about how bad it is in this country for marriages, and I have a few things to say about marriage that I think really ought to be considered before taking any side in these various debates.

First of all, we live in a country that sees itself as a bastion of freedom.  Now, I think that fact is critically important when regarding the subject of marriage.  Historically, marriage has been a purely political institution, all but unnecessary for the common people, and had been frequently been used as a form of low-impact slavery even up to the present day.  Throughout the third world, there still are girls basically sold off by their parents into arranged marriages, and the draconian laws on many books make it nearly impossible to escape from a life that has been imposed on young people–both men and women in some cases–for fear of being ostracized, persecuted, or worse.

In our own country, people often fare as bad, as, up until the 1960s and ’70s, teenagers who had sex outside of marriage were persecuted, and in some cases prosecuted for it.  Now we stand at a threshold where sex between consenting adults is acceptible, and a portion of our teenagers are sexually active in high and grade school, and we decry the failure of marriage and the breakdown of morals in our schools.  Why is this a problem?

Rest assured, there are alot fewer problems in the jungles of South America, where the native tribes don’t deal with political infrastructure or organized religion.  These are what really turn marriages into prisons to begin with.  As a political institution, marriage involves a unification of personal property, a legally binding contract, and in most cases, a religious recognition and vow.  It is a process of bringing together two lives under contract, and in no cases has any built-in guarantee (or, often any association at all) of love.

Love, you see, is the point of this pathetic story.  Marriage, as an institution, is no guarantee of love, and the fact is, marriage is not necessary in any way for love.  So, in effect, if two people truely want to be happy together, you can get rid of the “Institution” of marriage altogether, and this country will be perfectly fine.  We would eliminate the spectre of messy divorce, we could stop wasting millions on marriage counseling, and we could probably put those pretty white dresses to even more creative and fun purposes.

The point is that we don’t need marriage at all!  We don’t need to worry about teenage sex.  We need to worry about keeping people who are happy together safe from religious and political institutions who want to control them for political ends!  This is PRECISELY what happened during the 14-16th centuries when the church imposed harsh penalties (Burnings, beheaddings, hanging, torture) for extramarital sex, and forced couples to marry “Forever”–i.e., no divorce.  Back in those days, the peasants had it easy in that area–more wealthy families arranged marriages for political gain.  Anyone remember the marriage of Charles and Di?  Plenty of politics there.

In short, the political ramifications of marriage poison the concept of marriage, and that’s not something that the divorce rate or gay marriage have anything to do with.  If marriage is in trouble in this country, it is not because someone is having sex outside of marriage, or because someone wants to marry a gay lover.  It’s because we live in a free country, and we don’t have to live with your political poison anymore.

Long live the people!  Down with “political institutions!”

SASS has Spoken.

 – the SASS Man

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Holy Cats!

January 12, 2008 at 12:29 pm · Filed under Pets, Religion, blogging ·Tagged , , , ,

Yep–that’s the right title.  I just posted a response to a discussion on Comcast’s message forums.  It seems that a woman has discovered that her house has a ghost – of a CAT!  Well, that makes alot of sense to me, and here’s what I said about it:

All creatures have spirits.  In fact, most religions believe that all things–animate or otherwise–have spirits.  There are spirits in the rocks, the trees, rivers and streams, and even our automobiles take on human characteristics.

And, of course, the spirits themselves take on different characteristics.  After my cat Greystone died, I guess he moved up to a higher level, because we’ve maintained a dialogue that has gone on for almost five years since he passed away.

Now, I should explain a few things here, since Greystone was rather a special cat to begin with.  In the first place, Greystone understood human speech pretty well, and I had no problem making myself understood to him.  But Greystone wanted more, and between 1987 and 1993 or so, he actually taught me to SPEAK CAT.  That’s right–I learned to perfectly mimic nearly all of the feline vocalizations, and even learned what they mean…TO A CAT.  Cats, you see, are not just hungry purring furballs meant for giving love to humans.  In fact, their evolution has not even revolved around humans except for the last 3,000 years or so (out of some 1.6 million years of evolution). 

What I’ve learned is, Cats have a rather sophisticated society of their own.  Greystone was a king–he ruled an area covering about 4 1/2 city blocks, and had his choice of females, prey, and food.  And, cats are political.  I’ve seen feline politics in action in many occasions, and was even called upon once to help resolve a dispute between two other cats!   (Unfortunately, I came back with the scratches to prove it–their form of justice is delivered by fang and claw, as you can immagine.)  But, the two toms got along marvelously after that. 

And then, Greystone’s wife moved in with us for a while.  Tht was the first time I ever saw a cat go steady–she had two litters of kittens before I took Greystone to the vet.  I couldn’t bear to have him altered in a way that would affect his personality, his authority, his politics, so I paid a little extra for a vasectomy.  It probably shortened his life, but I think it was worth it.  Greystone gave me 14 wonderful years of his life before he died, and a great deal of wisdom along the way.

And then he took on a new life altogether.  It was no pitter-patter of feet, and a strange depression on the pillow I felt.  Greystone spoke to me in the recesses of my mind in clear English words, in a deep, resonate, baritone voice worthy of any true king.  He now calls himself “John Tiberious Greystone,” and he’s adopted a tagline, invented by me, btw:  “The Legend of Greystone.”

Well, that legend continues.  Not content as a haunting, Greystone now accompanies me like a guardian angel, always present and able to converse with me.  He’s there at my mental fingertips along with God, my personal angel guardian (Whom I’ve known since I was a child) and the “spirit” of my car, who often jokes about my driving.

Maybe I’m mildly delusional, one would say.  But I’ve always been able to tell the difference between that which is real, and that wich is imaginary.  And while none of these voices are material, I can sense that they are real–fabrications of outside intelligences, and not the product of my own vivid imagination.  For, when I imagine something, as I must do to invent stories or play a Role-playing Game, the voices in my head, whatever timbre, gender, or language, are ME.  When John Tiberious Greystone speaks, it is my cat.  And only my cat.  And when God speaks…well, you get the idea.

There are non-physical entities all round us, and there always have been, and there always will.  And if one or more of those entities is, or once was the soul of a person or a favored pet, this is nothing unusual.  The Christian bible states somewhere that God knew each of us before we were a twinkling in our mothers’ eyes.  If that’s true, then there’s no reason He can’t know us–and we know each other–after our physical point of presence in this world has been shed and is no longer necessary for us.

A cat ghost?  Of course!  For all creatures, and indeed all things of this Earth have spirits.  They live with us, and they live forever.  So shall we all.

Amen.

SASS has Spoken.

– the SASS Man

And it’s all true.  Animals are sentient, and some have enough of it to do remarkable things.  Even act as our advisors after death.

SASS has spoken.

Seeya!

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Moral Objectivism – A Realistic Nightmare

November 15, 2007 at 11:07 am · Filed under Philosophy, Religion

I came across a piece of information today that struck my philosophical side. It’s a Wikipedia entry on “Moral Objectivism.” And it started me thinking.

I follow a religion that is filled with absolutes. I consider myself a Christian–at least, that is the way I was raised. In the Christian Bible, there are ten simple rules which are ABSOLUTE. These, of course, are the “Ten Commandments.” Now, it’s interesting to point out that these laws were given to the Jews as Absolute Commandments … rules which were to be obeyed at all times and in every way throughout a human being’s lifetime. If any one of these rules is broken–EVER–from the time a person’s born until that person dies, his or her eternal spirit is condemned to spend eternity suffering in a place of horrible torment. These laws are absolutely given, absolutely enforced … and absolutely impossible to obey every day for the entirety of a human life! In other words, for the believer in Jesus Christ, “Moral Objectivism” literally means “If you’re born, you are damned to eternity in hellfire” and there’s just no way out of it–at least, not unless you become a Christian and get “Saved” from the flames, etc…. This was my original exposure to “Moral Objectivism.”

Which is part of the reason so many people choose to REJECT Moral Objectivism entirely. The bottom line seems to be, that if, in fact, there are truly any absolutes in Moral reasoning, then the practitioners of some one religion is going to go to some form of Paradise, and everyone else is going to burn. Now, this could be Christianity; or it could be Hinduism, or Paganism, or Buddhism, or Zen, or Mormonism, of the Moonies, or Opus Dei, or even the “First Preslyterian Church of Elvis the Divine” for all we know! And, in fact, this line of reasoning has lead to quite a few wars; even today, there are nut cases who strap on bombs and grenades in order to break my aforementioned Commandments in subservience to a twisted form of somebody else’s Moral Absolutism.

BULLSHIT! There CANNOT be more than one “ABSOLUTE” Right-and-Wrong. If, in fact, there are any absolutes at all, say the Moral Relativists, then there can only be ONE set of “Right-and-Wrong” for EVERYBODY–EVERYWHERE. And there obviously isn’t. (They say.)

What a pickle.

On one hand, we seem to know “just by instinct” that some things are Wrong. And yet, the next thing we know, there’s some [insert your own demeaning slang here] person doing Exactly what we instinctively Know is wrong. How can They know right from wrong, when they don’t even know that [insert your own taboo here] is wrong! (Add lots of exclamations for emphasis….)

Well, I’ll try to explain it all. The truth just got a whole lot more complicated. Point of fact, none of us truly know right from wrong to begin with. And if we did, we’d probably find out to our horror that every damn one of us is WRONG!!! If you happen to follow the Christian doctrine, like I do, you’ll quickly find out that no matter what you think, you’ve already done it wrong, and it’s a serious enough mistake that no other consideration matters. Absolute truth means absolute damnation, and it makes no difference whether I try to be morally wright or turn to the foulest of evil. Damned is damned, end of argument.

Christanity is not alone in this “Bang! You’re damned” approach to winning converts, either. I think most other religions have some similar set of “Absolute” truths that can only be relieved by serving the tenants of the faith obediently until salvation, release, or some sort of “Nirvana” is achieved.

So as human beings, we find ourselves left in a world in which there are indeed “Absolute” right and moral actions; we just can’t achieve them. That forces those who wish to embrace the ideals of all people to reject absolute truths by the very principle of it. Because unless group “A” believes in the same standards of right and wrong as group “B”, we cannot entertain Moral Objectivism without condemning the other group. I disagree. I say you CAN embrace the other group if you are willing to accept that it is your own beliefs that fall outside the “absolute right.” As a Christian, I am well aware how hard it is not to do or say anything that my God told me not to do or say. I CAN’T. But, I CAN try to love my fellow person. I can do that. And I won’t try to reject the idea that some things are just “Right” whether I think they should ought to be or not. We are still responsible for the consequences of our actions, objective, relative or otherwise.

I not only throw out the baby with the bathwater in this case, I throw out the entire concept of this acid wash reasoning. “Morals” can, are, and must be the domain of individual and personal responsibility. Because we are a race of “Sinners” as it were, we have no foundation to hold others accountable for what we ourselves deem to be “Moral”. Collectively, and individually, we are immoral beings, that’s just all there is to it. “For ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God” reads a passage in the Christan Bible. Each and every one has sinned, will sin, and our perceptions and morals are twisted by sin for as long as we continue to be human. “Morals” must never be used as a criteria to judge a Human being. The Christian God has already done that … and every last one of us born of human fathers has failed that test forever.

The conflict is absolute. Morals cannot be objectively judged by human beings. What’s more, the idea of morals must never be fully rejected by a human being! We NEED our morals to help guide us to do what is (mostly) right to one another! But for objective, multi-cultural and cross-class relationships, we must use other means to judge the goodness or badness of individual actions. Absolute wrong is absolutely useless. My morals can never be yours or anyone else’s to judge.

And with that, I wash my hands of “Moral Objectivism” versus “Moral Relativism.” These ethics cannot function in a polytheistic or multinational environment. We have reached a threshold in which we must choose an alternative means for building the standards of our society. Moral anything will no longer cut it.

SASS has spoken.

Good night.

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