I woke today by the window light
Saw a town filled with strangers on every side
Scared and tired they were ready for a fight
Well they looked just like me and you
When I went down to the streets for a closer look
There was much that I recognised
I heard desperate hearts beating to urgent songs
I knew the fire in their eyes burned true
I saw beggar with preacher
Pupil with teacher
And babes in the arms of the old
Every soul there met a change in the air
The anger of the false promise they were sold
Don't let them fuck us
Support the damn strike
Tell this coalition
To get on thier bike
Thursday 30 June 2011
God
I don't believe in God, but I can understand why some people find it nessecary to do so. This planet is, at it's core, a completely fucked up and badly run establishment. It's relatively small, it's overcrowded, and we as a race (humans, that is) are ultimately destroying it faster than we can reproduce people to continue the trend. Who wouldn't want a God to believe in, given such circumstances? It makes sense. It is the ultimate way to not only deflect responsibility for our own actions and lives away from ourselves, but also to feel justified - and, crucially, safe - in that deflection. The scapegoat and the pacifier rolled into one.I should make it clear at this point that when I say I don't believe in God, I'm talking about the default Christian image, the one and only almighty who reportedly created the entire universe in a week, 'sent' us his only son and then subjected him to a thankless life and violent death, and has since presided over us all from somewhere in the sky.
So what does this particular idea of God prove without question? The power of spinning a good yarn. The Bible is a great work of fiction. I haven't even read it (yet) and I can say that with complete confidence. The themes, the ideas, the tales contained within it (Arks, Cruxifiction, Resurrection, Giants, Sacrifice, Parting Waves, Walking Through Deserts For 40 Years, Plagues etc)....it probably is the greatest story ever told. But that's the key - it's a story, not fact and there is no way that I could go ever along with seeing it as such. I'm sure there are elements of fact because yes they did crucify burglars and whatnot back whenever the hell it was written and yes there were street merchants who would have performed tricks for money (think Derren Brown in sandals) and yes there was a man named Jesus living in Jerusalem at the time but he was, I'd bet, one of several hundred and most definitely NOT the son of God . But what the very clever people who wrote the Bible did was to amalgamate all these different concepts and elements of their daily life into these great fantastical stories, add in the idea of divinity as a way of scaremongering and, hey presto, you have a way of controlling people indefinitely (or at the very least, the next several thousand years). I don't know if that was the authors' original intention but thats pretty much how it ended up.
I mean look at churches in the old days - 'even though you're all poor and your health is wretched, give us all your money. You can't use contraception because it is an insult to the will of God (ok I don't think contraception existed in the very very old days but if it did they'd have said that) and therefore you must keep having lots of children that you can't afford to bring up who'll most likely die very early seen as you live in unimaginable squalor....do it or you'll go to Hell and burn eternally. Oh by the way, there's one sure fire way to make sure that doesn't happen, give us all your money every week and we'll pass it on to the big G in the sky and your place in eternal paradise will be assured'. I mean surely that would've set off alarm bells? God can't be that holy and righteous if you can just buy your way out of purgatory in to his Eternal Kingdom, no matter how heinous your sins.
NB: I wrote this several years before discovering the great George Carlin and his now infamous (at least among my friends) routine in which he basically says the same thing
So what does this particular idea of God prove without question? The power of spinning a good yarn. The Bible is a great work of fiction. I haven't even read it (yet) and I can say that with complete confidence. The themes, the ideas, the tales contained within it (Arks, Cruxifiction, Resurrection, Giants, Sacrifice, Parting Waves, Walking Through Deserts For 40 Years, Plagues etc)....it probably is the greatest story ever told. But that's the key - it's a story, not fact and there is no way that I could go ever along with seeing it as such. I'm sure there are elements of fact because yes they did crucify burglars and whatnot back whenever the hell it was written and yes there were street merchants who would have performed tricks for money (think Derren Brown in sandals) and yes there was a man named Jesus living in Jerusalem at the time but he was, I'd bet, one of several hundred and most definitely NOT the son of God . But what the very clever people who wrote the Bible did was to amalgamate all these different concepts and elements of their daily life into these great fantastical stories, add in the idea of divinity as a way of scaremongering and, hey presto, you have a way of controlling people indefinitely (or at the very least, the next several thousand years). I don't know if that was the authors' original intention but thats pretty much how it ended up.
I mean look at churches in the old days - 'even though you're all poor and your health is wretched, give us all your money. You can't use contraception because it is an insult to the will of God (ok I don't think contraception existed in the very very old days but if it did they'd have said that) and therefore you must keep having lots of children that you can't afford to bring up who'll most likely die very early seen as you live in unimaginable squalor....do it or you'll go to Hell and burn eternally. Oh by the way, there's one sure fire way to make sure that doesn't happen, give us all your money every week and we'll pass it on to the big G in the sky and your place in eternal paradise will be assured'. I mean surely that would've set off alarm bells? God can't be that holy and righteous if you can just buy your way out of purgatory in to his Eternal Kingdom, no matter how heinous your sins.
NB: I wrote this several years before discovering the great George Carlin and his now infamous (at least among my friends) routine in which he basically says the same thing
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