That feeling of waking in bed fully clothed – and I mean fully, two jumpers, leggings under jeans, socks, beanie – under a goose down doona and a blanket – an electrified one, and it’s turned on – in a room heated to 18 degrees by the best air-conditioner money can buy, with the door shut, so that you are essentially being fan-baked. The remnants of a dream are escaping from you and as much as you try to grab the tail, it escapes into the back of your mind, or is that down your throat? There is the debris of something eaten around your mouth, which is a worry because there’s nothing missing from the bar fridge and you haven’t been upstairs to the kitchen for days. What’s that? Yes, days. It could be a week. Because you don’t cook, and if possible, don’t eat. There could be – you hope there is! – a family of refugees living upstairs and you wouldn’t know it. If they blend into the boxes of books – they are masters of hiding – then you and they will all die one day under the inevitable avalanche when one of the towers of boxes of books tumbles, to be followed by the others as the laws of physics and hoarding dictate, to end as food for silverfish. But, you haven’t been snacking on silverfish – it hasn’t come to that – and the dream is of something that you’ve been trying to catch by the tail, and the only creature that you are known for doing that to is the cat. It becomes a real possibility that you have eaten an entire cat. Yes, yes, I know I don’t have a cat, but that makes it all the more likely, as surely eating an imaginary cat is an easier feat than eating a real one, no? The tell-tale – or is that tell-tail – crumbs, when sampled, taste of chicken. Doesn’t everything? Dogs, cats, humans, aliens, all taste of chicken. Perhaps there are only two tastes in the world: chocolate and chicken. I can’t remember a single thing I’ve eaten in the last decade that didn’t taste exactly of chicken. Perhaps I am a chicken, being roasted, dreaming in my afterlife of being the person who’s going to eat me, when she eventually goes upstairs to the kitchen, which she may not do for days. The phone is reminding her to take drugs. Drugs, more drugs, drugs. Just keep taking the medication. Much better than food. She bought a book called Feast by that Nigella today – she’ll read it later, in bed. Before adding it to the north tower of books.
He may as well have said it. Tony Abbott.
Consider the specimen.
The personage where misogyny, Budgie Smugglers and Roman Catholicism collide. It’s not pretty. Let’s face it, it’s not even bearable.
The very idea that this… individual… might one day be our Fearful Leader. That he might be let loose on the world to say whatever mind-numbingly insulting and absurd thing that happens to drift through what passes for his brain. That he will be what Australia offers as our representative.
‘This is the best we could do. Send help now’
I’m getting my passport ready…
I’ve just watched the program “Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die”. It showed a man with some nasty illness taking his life by drinking poison. Yes, that’s right, folks, drinking poison.
And this poison did not do what it said on the tin. Dignitas, in Switzerland, claims they provide a painless dignified death. I beg to differ.
It didn’t look peaceful, or pain-free, at all. This poor man was asking and grabbing for water in a desperate manner while he could still speak and move. His last words were “water, water”. He was held back by the Dignitas woman. Then he made horrible gurgling noises. I reckon the stuff was burning his gut. She said he was snoring, but it sounded like a death rattle. He seemed more disabled by the effect of the poison than to be ‘going to sleep’ as advertised. It was horrific.
If a dog can be given a lethal injection that simply knocks them out, why can’t people? This man should have been sedated, or even put under anaesthetic, then injected. Then his last words would have been to his wife, his last action to hold her hand.
I’m sure these people died before they needed or even wanted to, because to do the deed they still had to be capable of self-administering the lethal dose. If they knew that someone else would be able to help them if they couldn’t do it, I think they would have stuck around longer. They seemed so alive, so intelligent, so likable. Perhaps I spend too long in nursing homes seeing people in far worse condition, but they seemed to have so much worthwhile life to lead. Especially a younger guy who was there on the same mission, who rather wistfully said he’d really loved Zurich and wanted to see more of it, but… he’d set the date, and that was it.
But the most disturbing aspect was the comment made when they were saying goodbye to the young guy, and they shook hands, and he said something like “See you on the other side”. What other side?? I wonder how much a belief in an afterlife drives the willingness to die. What part does religion play in this? Replay the death scene with prayers and priest and affirmation of afterlife and meeting again and heaven, and see if there’s something seriously wrong with this picture.
This life-or-death decision happened to someone I know. Finding herself suddenly facing life in a wheelchair, she told me it might be best if she died because Jesus was waiting to welcome her into Heaven. There she was in a spinal unit hospital bed, with all the trappings, literally, and she would have died if she’d given up. I told her that as far as I was concerned, Jesus wasn’t there, God wasn’t there, if she cashed her chips in now, that was it, the end. No, she would never see her family again, no she would never do anything again. That’s what dead is. She said she didn’t believe that, but when I said, but, what if I’m right? she hesitated. She hesitated enough. Doubt crept in and saved her. Jesus didn’t save her, doubt saved her.
When something seriously weird happens, or allegedly happens, something that seems to just not be part of the natural world as we know it, what do we do with these events (sorry, alleged events)?
Well, that depends on who you are and how you think.
Religious people of a certain hue will be quick to claim credit on behalf of their god, if the event was good (a ‘miracle’) or if it was bad (‘punishment’ for sins, usually other people’s sins, of course – the delightful Fred Phelps springs to mind).
Joe Bloe at the bus stop, whose an agnostic, or dull-witted, or just trying to get the shopping home (or all three) will shrug and call it ‘one of those things’ – a mystery.
The skeptic will say it never happened in the first place, or if it did it can’t be shown to happen in the lab in a reliable repeatable way, so it has no credibility. Those experiencing it are delusional, or the victims of fraudsters, or they themselves are the liars.
Personally, I’m at the bus stop with Joe. I’m there waiting for the piece of science that says it’s proved one way or the other whether this bizzare event or phenomenon is possible. My religious friends pray that God will give me faith to accept that He works in mysterious ways. My skeptical friends think I’m so open-minded I’ve let my brain fall out.
So why am I at the bus stop? Because over time so many things have been taken off the ‘supernatural’ list – from earthquakes to epilepsy, they are no longer seen as the petulant or malevolent impositions of gods or demons, but as natural things with natural causes. How we arose from the primordial slime is now explained by evolution – no zebras or tse-tse flies or humans appearing ‘ping!’ at the wave of an Intelligent Designer’s wand. Quantum mechanics – unfathomable by 99.999% of human brains – explains, we are told by the 0.001%, how very small stuff works, and they have the maths to prove it.
A lot of these changes, these advances in understanding, involved some serious mind-boggling. And I suppose I’m just skeptical that the boggling is over, that our scientific methods have come as far as they can, that we have the territory mapped out. I think it’s possible that in the future there may be scientific explanations for things like psychic experiences, out-of-body consciousness, distant-viewing, intuition, and so on.
But, as real life, so in ideas – I don’t know when, or even whether, the bus will turn up. Could be a long wait.
Religion is a subset of greed. It’s the leggo blocks that some people use to construct greed.
Think about it: My salvation, my spot in heaven, my prayers answered. Not content to just be one of the chosen people, some go even further – my personal relationship with God. How Jesus moves in my life. IT’S ALL ABOUT ME.
Surely the ‘miracle’is the pinnacle of this plethora of narcissism, this bloated sense of entitlement.
Yes, the Universe literally revolves around me – the Supreme Being who made all things is willing to suspend the laws of physics, chemistry and biology, for ME. Enough of creating galaxies, he’s gonna send me a picture of himself in a grilled cheese sandwich. As a sign! To me!!! Not send grilled cheese sandwiches to all the hungry people, no, ‘cos what would that have to do with me??
See, this is the problem with religion. It allows – indeed, it requires – the abandonment of common sense, of rationality, of a grip on reality. And once that goes, then personalised cheese sandwiches from God become possible.
Tonight’s ABC news:
Some bitter little man who organises Pakistani trains has personally offered $100G for someone to kill whoever made That Frigging Awful Movie. He isn’t sacked, and his fatwa goes unimpeded. NOT GOOD
Then, the pointless and inane protest by Muslims that was due to be held in Melbourne (I think it was Melbourne) has been toned down. EXCELLENT.
This is because the protest is to be hijacked by white supremacists. ERR… NOT QUITE SO EXCELLENT.
The atheists argued with Muslims. EXCEL… no wait, what?
Did Auntie just put a bunch of white males in hoodies shouting puerile crap about how they don’t like other people, in the same breath as atheists?? Seriously? NOT EVEN REMOTELY OK
Wow. What is hard about the idea of atheism? It’s not a ‘group’, it’s just a bunch of people. There’s no secret handshake, no salute, no special headgear. No bitter slogans yelled at people. No threats. No offence taken.
No, we just think that this religion thing is baloney, and that it’s bullshit. Don’t think about the witch hunts or the murdering of doctors who perform abortions, or the stonings of women who’ve been raped, or the attack on the World Trade Centre… just look at the last week or so. WE REST OUR CASE.
Mirrors have a reputation for reversing things – but, really, do they? I think not.
Try this: stand in front of a mirror. If, like me, your hair is parted on the left, then the image in the mirror will also have hair parted on the left. Touch the left side of your face with your left hand – all happened on the left side of the reflection, didn’t it? no crossing over, no right-left reversal.
Now try this: get a thick piece of card and write ‘hello’ on it in pencil. Hold the piece of paper up and look at the words in the mirror. They’re reversed, yes? Yes. And the mirror reversed them, right? Wrong. YOU reversed the paper, then held it up to the mirror – it is just reflecting reality back to you, exactly as it is. Think about it – that’s exactly what you did, you turned the paper around and held it up to the mirror.
Now, try this: get a piece of tracing or tissue paper, and write ‘hello’ on it in thick black texta. Now hold the paper up (hold the top upwards) without turning it around. See? the word ‘hello’ is the right way around in the mirror. Neither you or the mirror reversed the word.
so, when you look at me, you see my hair parted on the right – your right, that is, the right half of your world. Why? Because you have reversed yourself, by facing the opposite way that I am – you’ve turned yourself around. What you see is a reversal. Everything you see by looking at it directly is a reversal of what it actually is.
Ahh! I hear you say – BUT, if you look at yourself in a mirror, and everything you see is a reversal, why aren’t you actually reversed? Because I’m not really there! I’m standing in front of the mirror – there is no ‘me’ standing behind the mirror, that’s actually a wardrobe of clothes or another room or whatever. What I’m looking at is a reflection, not an object.
Oliver Sacks wrote about people who, due to some sort of brain injury, have no concept of half of their world. They only eat what’s on, say, the left side of their plate, and when that’s gone, they think they have finished the meal. They can see the rest of the food, but they can’t perceive it. They will only put one arm in one sleeve of a piece of clothing, only put on one shoe, and so on. The really interesting thing is, they will only put make-up on the left side of their face – but most people apply make-up by looking in a mirror, don’t they? – could these people do this? Yes, they could. Because they could perceive the left side of the mirror image, which is the left side of their face, which proves it is not reversed.
Could a left-side-only perceiver put on makeup if they’re right handed? I’ve got absolutely no idea. My brain went into meltdown trying to work that one out. Anyone want to guess?
That seems to be the general consensus – there are millions of the little bastards, we are covered with them, they live in every orifice of every critter, and under every rock, in the desert and in the ice caps. OK.
But you don’t hear much about them, do you? We talk about, worry about, do research on, and try to eradicate the nasties – HIV, MRSA, malaria, influenza and so on.
So why, when it comes to religion, do we hear so much about the nice moderate ‘people of faith’ who are allegedly no threat to anyone? In the midst of mayhem and despair caused by people who are a real threat – the extremists, the fundamentalists – most of the conversation is about how they are in the tiny minority. So what?
Is harm driven by religion really a numbers game? How many nutters did it take to bring down the World Trade Centre? not many. What percentge of priests are paedophiles? probably pretty small. How many people does it take to stone someone to death? not many. How many members are there of the Westboro Baptist Church, really??
Isn’t it about time we got past the PC reassurances about how we all know someone nice who’s a Muslim, and get on with naming and dealing with the problem? – that religion drives hatred, division, violence, bigotry and oppression, across the globe, and is a massive threat to civilisation and life on this planet.
I have a chronic illness. This illness isn’t visible. This makes some people view it as a suspicious illness. Perhaps an imaginary illness. Perhaps I’m (gasp!) faking it.
Some of these people, when they eventually either get it that yes, I’m sick, or they actually don’t want to think about it, tell me they’ll pray for me.
Prayer – how to pretend to help while actually doing nothing.
Then there are those who assure me, completely seriously, apparently, that I’m sick ‘for a reason‘. They don’t know what that reason is, but they assure me that there is one and God knows what it is. And they think I’m imagining things?
I know the reason. It’s how the cookie crumbles.
This used to be my favourite quote from Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass – the Red Queen being everything I wanted to be – imperious, in charge, mighty! But then, I was a shy repressed child of about 6 years of age, so I think I can be excused.
It seems really pathetic that grown men are out on the streets carrying placades saying “Behead those who insult the prophet” What prophet? I DON’T CARE about your prophet. Below zero interest in your frigging prophet.
Go change some nappies. Help an old lady across the street. Wash some dishes. Take some medicine to someone who’s sick. Help an injured or lost animal. Plant some spinach. Do the vacuuming. LIGHTEN UP. GROW UP, and it would be quite pleasant if you SHUT UP, too.
fishwishwonders 