Original Sin

Through coition came cognition,

so we’re told.

From serpentine perdition,

to the eve of our condition,

is a line of pulchritude.

 

The serpent was lascivious.

Tempting Eve to coitus,

by offering an apple

to consume.

 

His squirming, so voluptuous,

slithering, conceptuous,

lured her to

perfidy and sin.

 

From thus, homo erectus

was hetero in his genius,

until, through nostra damus,

came il papa’s mighty plan.

 

By immaculate deception,

came the godhead

to reception

as a naked babe in straw.

 

Lacking sign of all suspicion,

or hint of malefaction,

the lord had sired offspring,

but no genitals engorged.

 

Through countless generation,

from Adam and creation,

had the genesis of

humankind been drawn.

 

By fervent copulation,

foregoing masturbation,

the race had been

expanded and preserved.

 

In coitus emeritus,

no interruption hindered us

and life was passed

by orgasmagic down.

 

From primeval broth evolving,

through complex myths contriving,

the human creature

comes to speculate.

 

No! It surely is apparent,

that our knowing was descendant,

and did not come

from falling to a snake.

 

All the love and joy

in breeding, should be guiltless,

not conceding any merit

to the fantasists of god.

 

Deus non magnificat,

and coitus cum laude.

Shagging is not sinful,

but bonding beautiful.

The Sixth Commandment

You Shall Not Murder

 

This obviously didn’t apply to war or execution. God was always encouraging the Israelites to go to war and massacre their enemies and when you get to the laws of Moses there is plenty about people being put to death.

 

It seems then that it is OK for the state, tribe or whatever authority structure to kill people for the reasons that it decides, but individuals are not allowed to.

 

Well that seems a pretty reasonable rule on the face of it although I am against capital punishment in all circumstances (all justice systems are fallible and killing people for things they have not done is morally repulsive) and the way that the god of Abraham approved war is no guide that anybody should follow. Let us also not forget that this god would not have been a fan of the Geneva Conventions. He was entirely happy with genocide and killing prisoners.

 

Even when it comes to individual murder it seems that god himself was exempt from his rules. He was happy enough to kill poor Mrs Lot for the terrible crime of looking back. In the case of his chosen he also seems to have different standards.

 

When Moses killed the Egyptian overseer because of his cruelty there is no censure of him. Apparently the ten commandments did not apply to Moses himself. He cannot be allowed the excuse of self defence, because he was not personally under attack. The fact is that he took the law into his own hands. He killed an official of the Pharoah who was acting in accordance with the norms of his government. As is the case throughout the old testament, the life of an Egyptian did not have the value (in the eyes of god and Moses) of a Jewish life.

 

We should not be surprised that the old testament is racist, that merely reflects the times in which it was written, but it does mean that we cannot take biblical commandments as having any relevance to modern life.

 

I certainly think that you should not murder and that applies to everybody at all times. Not just to those who are alleged to be approved by god. We need universal standards not hypocritical and partial ones.

Manimal

 

Prime, primates, proud and preening people,

differ little from their kin.

Nice vocal chords, opposing thumbs,

and much less hairy skin.

 

Deep, deep inside though, little shows,

that chimp is far from chap.

Their genes show common ancestry

with little species gap.

 

In the beginning was the word,

of that there’s little doubt.

The human creature left the ape,

when first he spoke right out.

 

But was that language handed down,

in supernatural gift?

Or did voice form from mutant gene,

to bring the specie rift?

 

Just look upon the monkey group,

and see how they behave.

Fighting, fondling, fucking free.

The weakest, they enslave.

 

Apart from upright gait and song,

these beasts are us, with hair.

Should we class them now as brutes,

and deny them human care?

 

As slavers, we owned soulless blacks,

and herded them in ships.

Those people then weren’t ‘touched by god’,

but beasts we thrashed with whips.

 

Now! Tell me! Is a bonobo

no different from a cow?

Or should we count gorillas in.

the human family now?

 

Black and white, hirsute or smooth,

we’re creatures much the same.

No god distinguished ape from us,

we share much, but our name.

The Fifth Commandment

 

Respect your father and mother

 

We are half way through and at last god has started looking at something other than his self obsession.

 

Most people would probably agree that children should respect their father and mother. I certainly hold that view in most cases, but really this commandment is such a generalisation that it’s value is very weak.

 

Humans are full of failings. Not because Adam ate a fruit or Eve was a temptress or that they were lead astray by a serpent, but because some people do very bad things.

 

Should a child respect a parent who abuses them? Sadly, some children are so badly treated that they are killed by one or other of their parents. Does respect for the abusive parent extend to the point at which the child should not tell anybody about their suffering and so allow it to continue until their life is taken or irretrievably damaged? Surely not.

 

I am in favour of laws being simple enough that they can be easily understood and enforced, but simplicity can be taken too far. In this case the exhortation to respect ones parents is fine for parents who respect their children. It is wrong to suggest that children have responsibilities to parents without reference to the responsibilities of parents to their children.

 

The commandments were a set of rules put together between two and three thousand years ago by people who lived simple, often brutal, lives in tribal communities without schools or any of the institutions of the twenty first century world. Children, like wives, were seen as assets of a male head of household. This demand of respect for parents is still worthwhile, but the relationship lying behind it in which children are not seen as deserving of the same should be put behind us as a more primitive stage of human development.

 

The fifth commandment stands up better than the four going before it, but it really isn’t very much use for the modern world and it suffers from the risk of giving an excuse to poor parents who demand undeserved respect from their children.

I’m Glad

 

I’m glad I don’t speak German

and salute the fuehrer’s flag.

Free of Stalin’s frozen gulags

Not in Trotsky’s paradise.

 

That Bin Laden’s worldwide caliphate

with limbs and heads lopped off

remains the madman’s fantasy

is comfort beyond words.

 

The stumbling democracies

that rule the western states,

frustrate at their complacency

depress with decadence.

 

Should ayatollas wielding nukes

set my children’s fate?

May Slavic, ethnic cleansers

be Hitler’s ugly heirs?

 

Terror in its multiforms

is child of rant and hate.

The bumblers chosen by the mass

protect us from the pure.

 

Me, still a wild extremist,

convinced of my ideals,

just wishing, hoping, craving

to be held back by the bland.

 

So! People choose the stupid,

inept, and sometimes, crooks,

but those who choose themselves, are mad

and ideologues kill for the good.

 

The visionaries of God or grail,

tread on a path of blood.

Save us from the saviours,

revolution’s call is false.

The Third Commandment

 

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.

 

Right, so on his third commandment god is still rambling on about himself and trying to demand what he sees as the proper respect he considers he deserves.

 

The first question to be asked is what is this name that he doesn’t want misused? God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah? Well most of that comes down to what language you are speaking doesn’t it? It does go wider than that though. Many ancient people thought that the more names a deity had, the more important it was. This is partly why Moslems still recite the many names of god.

 

So he has lots of names, but we generally know when we are referring to god. What does it mean to misuse his name. If I called a pet goldfish god would that be breaking the commandment? God claims to be the creator of the goldfish and if I really loved it wouldn’t that be quite nice? If I were to say ‘Oh God!’ when I was shocked by something, would that be misuse? When I say that god doesn’t exist perhaps the believer might think that was misuse although it is actually a statement that does not include any value judgement at all.

 

The truth of course is that the commandment doesn’t have any meaning at all. It is just the third in the series of Moses’ insistence on his monotheistic religion and reinforcing that there was prohibition on any word being said against it.

 

For an all powerful, all present, all good god being worried that his name might be used in a way that he didn’t like is to diminish that god to an absurd level.

 

This commandment is very clearly a human invention and the invention of a not very sophisticated human at that.

The Second Commandment

 

You shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it or worship it:

 

Why?

 

I agree that it is a pretty silly waste of time to be worshipping idols, but what harm can it possibly do to an all powerful god if people bow down in front of some idols?

 

In a set of rules that are claimed to be all the god given laws that are needed for human conduct the second one is that you shouldn’t be making idols and worshipping them. That is just plain stupid.

 

What it really tells us is that the time and place of Moses was one where the ancient Egyptian society ruled by the Pharoahs was a place in which there were loads of gods. These gods were wooden statues kept in the temples and people belonged to the cult of a particular god or they chose a special god to worship when they had some issue to deal with that they associated with that god. What the followers of Abraham were trying to do was to pull everybody together into a single doctrine and they saw these competing religious factions as a fragmentation of their tribes.

 

Some Egyptians were actually trying to do the same thing around the same time. The Pharoah Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhnaten and tried to make all Egyptians worship Aten the sun god to the exclusion of all other gods. He faced great opposition from the priests of other gods who had their own power bases. When Akhnaten was gone, his successor Tutankhaten gave up the whole one god idea, made peace with the priests of Amun and returned to the historic capital with the changed name of Tutankhamun.

 

The Semites went off and did their own thing with the one god that they had made up. This was the one god who was frightened of idols and the fragmentation that they might bring about.

 

The second commandment was all about Moses and his fellow tribal leaders worrying that they would lose authority to the followers of the golden calf Ba’al or some other similar god. There was no ‘real’ god carving out tablets of stone that might still have some relevance to us in the twenty first century. Moses and his mates just made it up to serve their own ends. That is what politicians and religious leaders do.

What is Easter

Easter is a pagan festival of various origins. It was associated with the vernal equinox and was a celebration of fertility in the re-birth of plants in spring. The name itself probably comes from Eastre or Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon name of a Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility. Her festival was celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox. Traditions associated with the festival survive in the Easter rabbit, a symbol of fertility, and in coloured eggs, originally painted with bright colours to represent the sunlight of spring.For the Greeks the the festival commemorated the return of Persephone, daughter of Demeter, the earth goddess, from the underworld to the light of day. Her return symbolised to the ancient Greeks the resurrection of life in the spring after the desolation of winter. The Phrygians believed that their deity went to sleep at the time of the winter solstice, and they performed ceremonies with music and dancing at the spring equinox to wake him.

The execution of Jesus was reputed to have been on the Jewish festival of Passover, or Pesach, from which is derived Pasch, another name for Easter, so this is the most direct link that Christians draw.

Just like virgin birth, resurrection was taken by the Christians from many preceding religions and traditions. Easter was a fertility celebration long before the Christians took it over Even the name pre-dates Christianity and it was not a bunny that was crucified and Jesus did not lay a chocolate egg.

I would like to say happy equinox, but, of course, the date of easter does not coincide with the equinox (or passover for that matter). The movable date was set by the Council of Nicea, which was convened by the pagan Roman Emperor Constantine, 300 years after Jesus to decide on the date of his death among other things. They could not agree on a fixed date so Jesus has the anniversary of his death on a different date every year.

Earth to Earth…

 

Where is the earth

from which I was born?

Which is the ash

of my birth?

 

How was the dust

from which I was thrust,

given breath and

life and girth?

 

Was it magical mixing

with bell and book,

plus the grace of a god

with a whim?

 

Or the sweaty poking

my mother took,

from my dad who

was drunken and grim?

 

Am I the mystical

gift of grace,

from a merciful lord

beaming down?

 

Or do I fill,

my dead brother’s place?

Just to lighten

my parents frown?

 

When I am cast,

back to the earth,

the ash and the

dust in the ground.

 

Will I be told what

my life was worth?

Or will it just end

in that mound?

Deluge

 

So Bishop Dow has told us

and Jim Jones thinks so too.

Flooding is the curse of god

for the naughtiness we do.

 

To these brain dead, barmy bishops

it all seems clear as day.

The good lord sends his rain on

the decadent and gay.

 

So, by this godly logic

AIDS is vengeance too.

The kid born blind is paying

for the sins of god knows who.

 

Their Jesus, who died for our sins,

has not quite done the job.

We’d better have him back once more

and nail him up again.

 

No, that is really loony

just like the bishops are.

The weather’s down to physics

not the whims of gods afar.