Category: Religion

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The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho: Pondering the Soul of the World

It’s no secret that The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, is one of my favorite books. I’m leading the discussion in my book club this month, and The Alchemist is the book we’re discussing. I feel fortunate, but overwhelmed at the same time.

I’ve re-read the book during the past week to get ready for the book club discussion. Reader’s Guides are readily available for The Alchemist. The tenth anniversary edition, which I have, contains one after the epilogue. Its discussion topics seem so obvious to me. There is so much more to this book than those canned study guide questions point out.

For instance, there are two different types of alchemy: scientific alchemy and spiritual alchemy. While the gold that scientific alchemy yields is tempting, Coelho’s beautiful fable teaches us that the spiritual aspect of alchemy is the important one. The tale of Santiago the shepherd boy underscores that without achieving the Master Work of spiritual alchemy, no one can attain the Magnum Opus of scientific alchemy.  The discussion of both types of alchemy is a discussion of the book itself, as well as a philosophical discussion that may never end.

Santiago’s quest for his Personal Legend is full of lessons. Santiago’s wisdom, and the wisdom of the people he meets in his travels, must have been sound bites that Coelho collected for years then wove seamlessly into this tale. All of Coelho’s books seem that way, though. But the wisdom and joy of The Alchemist makes it the only one of Coelho’s books that literally makes me cry.

Each time I’ve read this book I’ve cried, and each time I’ve cried at the same point. For me, the climax of the book comes twice. The first is not when Santiago finds the physical treasure of his dream, but when he first lays eyes on what fabulous wonders men can achieve.  Yes, this is when I cry, and I’m crying with the profound joy the book has given me.

At the moment when Santiago thinks he should find his treasure, he is attacked by several refugees from the tribal wars he has dodged all across the Sahara. One attacker announces that it is stupid to cross a desert to look for buried treasure  just because of a recurring dream. The attacker doesn’t know it, but Santiago has done exactly that, and is at the point of realizing that dream when he is beaten bloody and left nearly dead by these attackers. As outside observers we readers laugh, knowing that whether or not Santiago finds his material wealth in the desert, his journeys have resulted in a spiritual wealth beyond most people’s imagining. He has learned that if he wants to, he can become the wind.

Coelho uses phrases and terms of his own making, but they are philosophical terms necessary to understanding the spiritual alchemy he presents in his book. The Soul of the World, the hand that wrote all, the Language of the World, and one’s Personal Legend are concepts Coelho deftly teaches us with this story of a shepherd’s quest, undertaken because of a recurring dream. Without initially understanding those terms, though, we struggle along with Santiago to grasp the concepts of spiritual alchemy.

Fear hampers our quests for our Personal Legends. The fear presents itself in different ways. First, it is a fear of leaving the familiar comforts of what we know to go in pursuit of a dream. But when we take those first few tentative steps toward our dream, beginner’s luck encourages us to keep pursuing the dream. Eventually, though, our initial success creates another fear within us. We have achieved so much. No, it’s not what we set out to achieve, but it is enough. We can die happy because we got this far and we are comfortable. But, if we listen to our hearts, we know that this temptation to settle for less than our Personal Legend is really a fear: a fear that we have had so much success that we are bound to fail soon.

The fear of failure prevents many people from realizing their Personal Legends. Settling for “good enough,” these people stop listening to their hearts and listen instead to the comforts of having come this far and achieved this much. They feel blessed to have done so much; to try to do more tempts fate, does it not?

Yes, it does.

That’s part of the pursuit of the Personal Legend, though. We aren’t rewarded with the realization of that legend unless we show that we have truly learned the lessons along the way to achieving it. Proving that we’ve learned the lessons means we have to be challenged, and the challenges aren’t supposed to be easy. If we want something enough, if our goal is our dream, and our dream is our Personal Legend, the path gets harder, not easier, the closer we get. Nevertheless, if we step carefully and read the omens sent to us, we will achieve success. We will recognize and live our Personal Legends.

I’m making four presentations to make on this book this month. In each, I want to examine a portion of the story, and a portion of the philosophy of spiritual alchemy. I don’t know if I can limit myself to just four!

I’ve come up with a list of omens Santiago notices in his adventures. Some of them have layers of meaning. I want to talk about them.

Throughout the book, Coelho sprinkled concepts from the three Abrahamic religions. I want to talk about each, yet I know that those in my audience who know me not to be a follower of this religious tradition will want time to challenge me on my interpretation, and will want to offer their own. There must be time for that.

There are mystical elements that defy being categorized with something else, so must be treated separately.

Each major character, plus a couple of minor ones, have wisdom to share. I want to examine their profound observations – ALL of them!

Then there are the literary aspects of the book. Coelho’s writing style, the format of the story, foreshadowing and other literary devices, character development . . . I’m babbling already and I haven’t even begun my presentation.

And then there is alchemy, both scientific and spiritual, to tackle. To be fair to each, they should be dealt with separately, then addressed together so as to underscore the similarities. There are specific alchemists mentioned in the book whose biographies might be interesting to my audience, yet I fear boring the masses with my enthusiasm.

But wait: Santiago’s strengths were his courage to do what he wanted, and his enthusiasm in the process.

His strengths were what enabled him to become the wind.

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School Choir Sings Religious Songs

So, I’ve got my first legal question to answer for WWJTD.

Question:

Our children, Chris and Meg, are participating in a choir at school. All the songs in their upcoming recital are religious songs. I want to complain and raise a huge stink, get the media involved, and sue, but my wife, Lois, urges caution; she does not want undue negative attention focused on the kids. The kids don’t really want me to say anything, either, but they complain daily about how stupid the songs are. The bottom line, though, is that all of us really, really object to the kids being required to sing religious songs in choir. What should we do?

Peter

Answer:

Yep, this could be bad.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation says this is the single most frequent complaint they hear. It seems that school choir directors often come from church choirs, and forget that they need to separate the two. The problem is especially troublesome around Christmas and Easter.

It’s time for Peter and Lois to have a talk with the choir teacher. There are some facts they need to find out before complaining. They shouldn’t mention an objection to religious music right off the bat, but find out why religious music has been chosen.

  • Religious vs. educational value: If this choir is introducing the children to the giants of classical composition like Brahms and Handel, then remember that most of that music is religious, but has educational value as well. Unless the songs are being sung over and over for a recital, and only religious songs have been chosen, it is not unreasonable to expose music students to them. We want our children, especially those who are serious about music, to know music history. By necessity, that includes grand chorales with religious themes. It also includes music that is entirely secular. There should be a balance of the two.
  • Is the concert or recital intended for a religious holiday?  The name of the recital or performance may be a dead giveaway here. Christmas carols, especially, have religious content, but there are other holiday songs that are entirely secular. There is no reason why some of those songs can’t also be included – and should be included, if for no other reason than to underscore that the reason for the season isn’t just Jesus. If the purpose of the concert is to highlight songs of different religious traditions, then consider that indoctrination might not be happening. Five choruses of “Jingle Bells” is much less worrisome than five choruses of “O Holy Night.” Now, if the “Dreidel Song” and the Kwanzaa Song” are included, as is “Up on the Rooftop,” there’s probably a good mix of traditions that takes the concert out of being just religious in nature. If not, it’s necessary to demand that the school do better about teaching all traditions.

  • How old are the children singing? The ability of a second-grader to fight indoctrination and the ability of a high school senior to do so are completely different. Younger children tend not to complain on their own about the nature of music chosen, but older children who have been taught to stand up for their rights will get in the teacher’s face about things. Then again, shy older children who are terrified of drawing attention to themselves will stay silent. It’s more likely that an older child in choir will be singing music composed by the great classical masters, and therefore singing more religious-themed music for non-religious reasons.

  • What is the music teacher’s agenda? Is he or she proselytizing? Making inappropriate comments about being “saved” or “accepting Jesus as your personal lord and savior”? Or is the teacher trying to be all things to all people, including some religious things because of the season but mostly focused on secular songs?

Now, once it is clearly established that the choir teacher is motivated by religion and not by education, or doesn’t care that children in his or her class come from backgrounds other than the teacher’s own religion, or is actively trying to indoctrinate and save little souls, it’s time to object.

My preferred approach is to object gently, at least at first. It may be that the teacher simply never imagined that there was any other worldview, that there might be local families who object to her religion. If the response is embarrassment and apology, Lois and Peter have gotten their message across without making huge waves. Meg and Chris don’t have to worry about embarrassment because the teacher, dismayed at her own lack of forethought, will scramble to change the song selections.

Save stronger objections for teachers who respond dismissively, or who tell Peter and Lois that the teacher, not the students, are in charge of music selection. Peter and Lois can let the teacher know that if she is not responsive to their concerns, the next step will be to involve the administration. If the teacher resentfully complies at this point, mission accomplished. Lois and Peter should be vigilant for complaints by Chris and Meg that the teacher has singled them out and is retaliating against them, though.

If Peter and Lois make this stronger objection and the teacher is adamantly (or passive-aggressively) unresponsive, or is completely dismissive of their concerns, Lois and Peter need meet with the principal. The principal may be unresponsive, too, and if that is the case, go to the superintendent. If none of this gets the mission accomplished, it’s time to write the school board, and attend a meeting.

Here’s where the “counselor at law” part of my attorney’s license kicks in.

Meg and Chris will be at the center of this controversy. Their friends will know about it. The cool kids who are not their friends will know about it. The uncool kids who think their stand is awesome will know about it and want to be friends with them. Other teachers will know about it. The parents of their friends and not-friends will know about it. Chris and Meg need to know that Lois and Peter will give them all the counseling and support they can muster.

Peter and Lois’s kids may hate them, but it is their responsibility as secularists and parents to make sure that Meg and Chris get the best possible education, and if that means taking on the Harper Valley PTA, so be it.

Meg will be fine – she’s got a good head on her shoulders and is confident. however, Lois is worried that Chris, who is already shy and uncertain of himself, might become even more introverted and isolated if they make a big stink. Taking on the entire school over this might cause a problem for him.

If that means finding a therapist for the kids to complain to, then Lois and Peter need to find such a therapist. In selecting a therapist, Peter and Lois should be certain that the therapist is atheist-friendly. If they don’t already know someone, hopefully they will be able to find a secular-friendly therapist at Recovering from Religion’s new Secular Therapist Project. If Lois and Peter live in my area, they’re in luck, because I just emailed four secular-friendly therapists I know, as well as one secular-friendly psychiatrist, and asked them to sign up. It’s a new organization and resource.

There are legal resources, too.

Atheist-friendly lawyers like me won’t have any trouble at all writing a letter to the school telling them that their music selection violates the establishment clause of the US Constitution and violates the separation of church and state. A letter may be all it takes. If it takes more, Lois and Peter may be concerned about how to pay for a lawsuit. If they win, as they should, their legal fees will be reimbursed by the school. That’s great if they can afford to pay the lawyer along the way, but what if they can’t?

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is awesome in their legal badassery. They take in these complaints and they contact violators and they get things done. If you aren’t already a member, join. It’s free. And then donatewhat you can to the legal fund. Lawyers aren’t free; we like to eat, have homes, and send our kids to college, even if we work for cool organizations like FFRF.

After you’ve gotten the “join” and the “donate” parts out of the way, it’s time to lodge a complaint. FFRF has an online form at http://ffrf.org/legal/report. Fill it out. Be prepared to answer follow-up questions.

Based on what I’ve seen, and I don’t work for them so don’t hold me to this, FFRF first sends a letter asking that the situation be remedied. It’s my understanding that FFRF can do this without identifying the child whose family is complaining. That’s what any lawyer would do, and essentially, getting FFRF involved is the same as getting a lawyer involved. If the parents report that nothing has changed, then suit is filed.

Lawyers can protect the identity of children who file lawsuits. Using names like “John Doe” or using initials are the customary ways. If the case proceeds to trial, though, the cat will be out of the bag. As parents, Lois and Peter need to be prepared for this. Chris and Meg should also be prepared for it, and willing to proceed.

I can’t stress enough how important a secular community is. A religious kid sticking up for her freedom of religion will have her church or mosque or temple behind her. If a situation has reached the point of litigation, there is no other way to resolve it, and everyone involved is emotional and determined.

A major weakness of the secular community is that we aren’t cohesive. It’s hard to have meetings of people based around what they don’t do. If Lois and Peter are the organizing types, now would be an excellent time to join or start a secularist club. Maybe they’re too caught up in the lawsuit, though. Their friend Cleveland can start the group, rally the secular troops, and let the community know that they won’t be intimidated. There are resources for this, too, like Meetup.com and even Facebook.

So, Lois and Peter, talk to that teacher. Take it all the way to court if necessary. You and your children have a right to be free from religion, and it’s up to you to make sure of that.

(This post originally appeared at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2012/11/school-choir-sings-religious-songs/)

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Lesson One: Become an Atheist Activist Today

It’s election time again, which means that now is the perfect time for atheist activism. I know a way for you to become an effective atheist activist without ever leaving the safety of your keyboard, and I’m going to share it with you.

Come on – let me see a show of hands – how many of you reading WWJTD know of a church or other religious organization in your community that tells its members how to vote on issues? Raise those hands higher. I can’t see you. Okay, now look around. See all the hands waving in the air? There are lots of them.

It’s time to do something about this.

Did you know that most nonprofit organizations – including churches – cannot endorse candidates, tell their members how to vote, publicly support one side of an issue, or lobby? I know. It’s stunning. You’d never know it from the way so many of them behave. But if they lobby, electioneer, or outright tell their congregation how to vote, they’re supposed to lose their coveted tax-exempt status.

Because it’s illegal for them to engage in politics. Not illegal in the criminal sense, but in the sense that they enjoy a favored status in exchange for a promise that they will not engage in politics. So, when they break that promise, they should lose their favored status. The problem is, they tend not to. The IRS just doesn’t have enough proof against most of these churches.

I want to do something about that. I want you to do something about that. And I can tell you how to do it in a legal, above-board, non-confrontational way.

We can make these particular churches pay taxes just like everyone else – because if they blur the line between church and state, they are supposed to lose their tax-exempt status. At the very least, getting a letter from the IRS warning them that their political activity is dangerously close to the line may inspire them to cut it out.

 

Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code gives most nonprofit organizations, including churches, their tax-exempt status. Almost all churches are organized as non-profits and approved under 501(c)(3). That’s how tithes and offerings and other donations to them are tax-deductible. But, that special status comes at a cost: no 501(c)(3) organization may endorse, support, or oppose any candidate for public office. They cannot make contributions to political campaigns, and they cannot make any public statements for or against a candidate. They cannot take sides on any issue. Violation of this requirement will cause the IRS to strip the organization of its tax-exempt status.

Now, some minor politicking is permitted, but strict rules apply. No fundraising can happen at the event where the church or other 501(c)(3) organization does its politicking. If one candidate is invited, then all of the candidates running for that position – not just the one favored by the organization – must have an equal opportunity to be heard at the event. And most importantly, the organization cannot give even a hint as to which candidate it supports.

These rules also apply to ballot initiatives, referendums, and other matters voted on by the public. They apply to laws and constitutional amendments presented to the people for their vote. Gay marriage, abortion rights, gambling – all of these are issues churches like to weigh in on, and their publicly stated positions are grounds for them to lose their tax-exemption.

Why doesn’t the IRS do something? Because the IRS doesn’t have the time or the manpower to go around the country looking for these kinds of violations. It takes effort, proof, and a complaint to get them going. The only thing they routinely investigate without a complaint being filed are income tax returns, randomly selected for audit.

The IRS will investigate a church or other nonprofit organization if one of its higher-ranking agents has a “reasonable belief” that the organization’s activity violates its 501(c)(3) restrictions. It’s up to us to provide a basis for that reasonable belief, because the IRS won’t police each and every church. Thank the FSM, we are perfectly capable of recognizing and supplying concrete proof of these violations, so as to create that “reasonable belief” in the minds of the upper echelon of the Internal Revenue Service. We non-theists are all about reasonable beliefs!

Revocations of these tax-exemptions actually can happen. They don’t happen as often as we might like, but it’s up to us to help change that. As far as I know, the tax-exempt status of only one church was ever revoked, although the tax-exempt status of other nonprofits violating this rule have been revoked over 40 times.

The notorious case of the IRS pulling the tax-exempt plug on a church is Branch Ministries v. Rossotti. Branch Ministries and its church bought a full-page ad in the Washington Post and USA Today opposing Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election. The advertisement clearly said that the church had placed the ad, and it solicited tax-deductible contributions to help pay for the ad to be run in additional newspapers in large markets. The ad claimed that Clinton supported abortion on demand, homosexuality and the distribution of condoms to teenagers in public schools. It cited various Biblical passages and said, “Bill Clinton is promoting policies that are in rebellion to God’s laws … How then can we vote for Bill Clinton?”

The bigger question for Branch Ministries became, “Since we’re overtly supporting a particular candidate and letting the world know about it, how can we maintain our status as a 501(c)(3) organization?” Answer: It could not.

How do we make sure that more churches are investigated, and that more churches pay taxes? Not every church will do us the favor of being so blatant about its political activities. Therefore, we must report what we see. We have to give the IRS proof to support that reasonable belief that a church or nonprofit group engages in political activities. They won’t self-report these violations any more than an illegal immigrant will self deport. It’s up to us to do it through the available legal channels.

The IRS needs documentation. It can get that documentation from any number of sources, but the most reliable are:

  • Newspaper or magazine articles or ads
  • Television and radio reports
  • Internet (yes, the IRS apparently believes everything it reads there)
  • Voters guides created and/or distributed by the church
  • Documents on file with the IRS (e.g. a Form 990-T filed by the church)
  • Church records in the possession of third parties or informants

That last bit is where we come in. The IRS says that information obtained from informants must be reliable, so we need to do more than just send an email to complain. Proof will get the church’s tax-exempt status revoked. Send photos, audio recordings, video recordings, news articles – anything that provides independent proof that the activity has happened. Heck, if you can tolerate sitting through a religious service close to election day, go to church and record the pastor or priest’s political rants. You know they’re giving them in pulpits across the nation.

Here’s an example of how it’s done.

Actual Church Sign at 702 Church St., Benton, AR
Photo taken October 23, 2012

There’s a church near where I live that is also a polling place. Churches as polling places are an issue for another day, so let’s leave that for now and focus on something even more in-your-face egregious.

One of the ballot initiatives in our area has to do with medical marijuana. This particular church has taken it upon itself to say that legalization of marijuana for medical purposes is a moral issue. There are reasons for and against legalization of marijuana that I won’t get into here – whether or not the ballot initiative should pass isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about whether someone’s church should be allowed to tell them how to vote on the issue.

This church was featured on my local news a few days ago. I have a link to the news report, and I have IRS Form 13909, which can be downloaded as a PDF file or completed online. This is the complaint form to use when you see nonprofit organizations engaged in the political process. If you bookmark no other IRS form, bookmark this one.

The form asks for the basic information about the church. Its name and address are easy enough to find with Google, but the form also needs the church’s EIN, or tax identification number. You can usually find that number on the website of the National Center for Charitable Statistics. Now, this particular church doesn’t appear in that list. This probably means that it is simply holding itself out to be a church under Section 508 of the Internal Revenue Code, without ever going through the 501(c)(3) approval process. No matter – the same rules apply. If it’s going to go around telling folks how to vote, it’s going to lose its tax-exempt status.

The rest of the form is fairly self-explanatory, but the instructions are attached to the form at the link I’ve provided. Once you’ve completed the form, it can be emailed to the IRS at eoclass@irs.gov; mailed to IRS EO Classification, Mail Code 4910DAL, 1100 Commerce Street Dallas, TX 75242-1198; or faxed to 214-413-5415.

Easy, peasy.

Do this, and become a law-motivated atheist activist today.

(This post originally appeared at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2012/11/lesson-one-become-an-atheist-activist-today/ )

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Amicable and Neighborly

I’ve been busy lately. Reason in the Rock is fast approaching, and the last minute details are time-consuming. I’m doing some research and reading to aid those involved in various aspects of the West Memphis Three matters, and there is a lot of stuff there. On top of that, my family is in the process of selling the family farm. After 100 years of deeds being swapped among four generations and various family-owned entities, there are title issues enough to make a saint swear. My brother and I are working on the title issues, and we are far from sainted. I’ve even had to reopen the long-closed probated estates of both of my grandparents and one of my great aunts to resolve matters.

And yesterday, taking a well-deserved break to engage in a little church-related activity, which is always good for the soul, I stumbled across a float of the Flying Spaghetti Monster created by the Seattle Atheists.

 

 

I want it.

The Arkansas Society of Freethinkers needs one. Can’t you just see it in the annual holiday parade here in Little Rock? We freethinkers can dress in our clerical vestments – that is, full pirate regalia  – and toss packages of Ramen noodles to parade watchers. It’ll be Christmas, Mardi Gras, and soup kitchen all rolled into one. We would be able to touch so many people with his noodly appendages!

And I have nothing else to do but figure out how to build a working model of our amazing deity. Really.

(source)

But wait!  What’s this? In my inbox is a missive from the company that manages the condos that lie on the other side of my back fence. Gracious, whatever could they want?

Dear Ms. Orsi:

I obtained your contact information from a mutual friend, David Simmons. I am writing on behalf of the Townhouses-in-the-Park Property Owners Association. I have been asked to contact you in reference to your swimming pool and the manner in which the water is being drained. The POA Board believes that the chemicals in your pool water are killing the ivy and eroding a French drain located below your pool on the TIP property. The POA Board wishes to handle this matter in an amicable and neighborly fashion. Would you please contact me to discuss this issue?

Thank you, in advance, for your cooperation.

 

Mr. Bill
(source)

Not again. This is, sadly, not my first rodeo with these “amicable and neighborly” people.

I clicked on the attachments.

 

 

I swear by the noodly appendages and meatballs of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and by all else that is holy, that these two photos are what I was sent as proof of the evildoing of my swimming pool.

I fumed a bit. I needed to collect my thoughts before I called the email’s author, because I was more than a little irked.  I tend to become extremely sarcastic when I’m annoyed. Sarcasm is not “amicable and neighborly,”  or so I’ve been told. So I called Mom and ranted for about 20 minutes.

When I finally calmed down, I called the contractor who had installed the offending pool in 2009.

“Jimmy,” I said, “you aren’t going to believe this.” I told him what was up. He sighed, and said he’d come take a look.

When I calmed down some more, I called the author of the email. She was out.

A few days later, Jimmy came. He looked. We both peered over my fence onto the hillside between my pool and Townhouses in the Park. He scratched his head. “So, where’s the dead ivy?” he asked. Unable to answer his question, I peered over the fence again. Nope. No dead ivy could be seen.

“What do I do?” I asked him. He shrugged helplessly. He outlined the possibility of draining the pool higher up the hill, still on my property, of course. I asked him for a bid. He left, shaking his head. We both know that the mere existence of my pool bugs the crap out of the Townhouses in the Park Property Owners Association. We’ve been down this road before.

Dad, Summer 2002, on the lake in his boat

My beloved father, whose ashes were spread into the Cache River on our family farm over a decade ago, wrote what our family calls “John Letters.” Sometimes he sent them. Usually, Mom, Susan, Jay or I edited them to remove the most sarcastic and offensive parts. At times, to Dad’s chagrin, we’d edit them into starchless, plain vanilla, politely worded protests that in no way resembled what Dad really and truly wanted to say.

The city of Des Arc was the recipient of at least one unedited John letter a few years before Dad died. The city was not amused. Dad was proud of himself. He was such a clever wordsmith.

I’ve written a John letter to the property manager representing Townhouses in the Park. Oh, I’ve edited it. I’ve refined it. I really, really want to send it. I’m proud of myself. I am such a clever wordsmith.

(source)

 

Dear Ms. Jackson:

The Townhouses in the Park Property Owners Association is fond of complaining about my swimming pool, which apparently exists mostly to annoy them. While I was in the process of building it in 2009, Townhouses in the Park reported me to Little Rock Code Enforcement for building not just one, not even two, but three swimming pools in my back yard. Seriously.

After that, they said that the drainage from the pool was washing out the soil from beneath their asphalt and would cause their parking lot to collapse. Yes, they really said that. To alleviate their concerns that my pool would wash Townhouses in the Park all the way down Cedar Hill to the Allsopp Park tennis courts, I installed a drainage system that diffused the backwashed water over a very large area on my property.

Then, on a Saturday night after a pipe had burst that morning and been repaired, they decided to come over to my house when I was having a dinner party to complain, in front of my arriving guests, that there was too much water in their parking lot. They must really hate thunderstorms.

Next, they claimed that the three year old masonry wall of my pool which faces them, and which they cannot see without coming into my yard beyond the wooden privacy fence that separates my property from theirs– and which even then they could not see since a second retaining wall blocks even my own view – was crumbling and collapsing in decay. It wasn’t.

In their latest complaint, Townhouses in the Park apparently believes that the al Qaeda sleeper cell that is my swimming pool suddenly awoke after one of the hottest, driest summers in memory to unscrupulously assassinate what appears to be a two foot spread of ivy hanging over a wall, presumably just down the hill from my property.

As Townhouses in the Park is aware, the backwash from my pool, which amounts to about a bathtub’s worth every week or so, is eliminated on my property through a perforated pipe about 15-20 feet long into a French drain that is even longer. The diffuse drainage is unlikely in the extreme to have zeroed in on that unsuspecting bit of ivy after four years of peaceful coexistence. From the vantage point of my property, I am unable to discern any dead ivy; I cannot tell where the photo was taken. The plants on my property that are even closer to the point of drainage are alive and healthy. Even the ivy.

But, in the interest of resolving this matter in an amicable and neighborly fashion, I had the contractor who installed the pool and drainage system come to look at it. Unsurprisingly, he said there was no way my pool’s backwashed water was the cause of the dearly departed’s demise. Had my pool water been inclined to murder unsuspecting plants such as that particular patch of English ivy, it would do so from the point of drainage all the way to the wall; it would not have the necessary intelligence or purpose to target a single spot at least ten feet away from the point of drainage, leaving all plants between the drain and the target unmolested. That’s just how terrorist swimming pools and their affiliated suicide bomber drainage systems roll.

The seepage pipe in the wall is similarly unaffected by me backwashing my pool. By the time the water gets from the drain to the wall, it has gone through soil at least ten feet wide, twenty feet in length, and ten feet in depth. There is simply not enough water concentrated in that area at any given time to cause the problem complained of.

Townhouses in the Park should be aware that in the event there ever really is a problem that I don’t already know about (and haven’t promptly taken reasonable steps to address), I may not take them seriously. There is a story about a little boy who cried “wolf.” The Townhouses in the Park Property Owners Association should familiarize themselves with the moral to that story.

 

Should I?

(source)

 

Oh, hell. I know I shouldn’t. But I really, really want to.

 

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Analogy

I’m puzzling out a thorny computer problem by consulting the best authority I can find. It’s my dogeared, well-perused copy of the Complete Authoritative and Perpetual Guide to Computing.

The person who gave it to me hand-copied it from one belonging to a friend of hers, who hand-wrote his copy to make it a reasonable facsimile of a copy that one of his friends had, who translated his copy from a Windows 3.1 manual written an ancient dead language. That one written in the ancient dead language was a hand-written copy of a Windows/286 manual that was written in an archaic form of the dead language, and the compiler referred to his class notes about operating systems that he took in high school to fill in the obvious gaps. Where his notes were deficient, he reached into the deep recesses of his memory and thought he got it right.

Now, the pages of that Windows/286 manual were out of order, but while he looked over his class notes, the compiler hired a kooky homeless guy he had befriended to set everything straight. The homeless guy, who admittedly heard voices that no one else could hear, used the flaky fragments of part of a coffee-stained MS-DOS manual as a go-by, and where the MS-DOS manual was too fragmentary to be reliable, he consulted the manual for an Apple II+.

According to the provenance recorded in the flyleaf of my copy, that Apple II+ manual was cobbled together by combining a couple of pages from a QDOS manual with an early Unix manual, which itself was written entirely in C-language and translated into Pascal by a classroom full of ADHD monkeys on typewriters. So, my copy is no doubt much more authentic and reliable than anyone else’s copy.

Oops. I forgot to mention that the homeless guy confirmed with the voices in his head that the Pascal-translating monkeys were the ones who actually created computer operating systems in the first place, so anything they tapped out on said typewriters was, ipso facto, correct.

I’ll have this problem correctly resolved in no time, and no one will be able to argue that my conclusions or solutions are wrong.

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Because Raped Women are a Series of Tubes

One of the pleasures of living in a world where anti-intellectualism rules a major political party is that it’s fairly easy to spot the political leanings of the shockingly ignorant.

Image courtesy of Matt Katzenberger (source)

These are the people who consistently vote against their best interest, and are completely immune to the cognitive dissonance that rational people encounter when they attempt to hold diametrically opposed opinions in the same brain.  They want to repeal Obamacare because socialized medicine is bad, while protecting Medicare because socialized medicine is good. They want the incredibly rich to get ever larger tax breaks, even though the very rich pay proportionately less than they – the working and middle class – do. They actually believe the obvious bullshit of the ultra-rich Romneys and Koch brothers of the world, who promise they would be creating oodles of jobs (Really!) if not for the unduly burdensome 13% or less that they now pay in taxes. They are the same people who are completely in favor of the death penalty, but anti-abortion no matter what the reason.

They support defunding government grants for poor students since only snobs want their kids to be educated. The budget proposal put forth by Paul Ryan, the new star of Mitt Romney’s presidential ticket, would not only reduce the size of Pell grants and even eliminate access to them for tens of thousands of students but would have cut the Head Start program to ribbons, too. Education? Our kids don’t need no stinkin’ education! We can compete with the educated workforce of countries like Sweden, Japan, and Germany without all that schooling. It doesn’t take education to know stuff.

It isn't legitimate rape if she gets pregnant.
(source)

Just ask U.S. Senate candidate, and current U.S. Congressman, Todd Akin (R-Mo).  He knows stuff. Akin is the guy who has been all over the news in the last couple of days because of his cocksure knowledge that “legitimate rape” doesn’t result in pregnancy. He knows this because “doctors” told him. In his interview with Charles Jaco on a St. Louis television broadcast, Akin said, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole [conception] thing down.” (If you want the full context, watch the full interview. The abortion comments are in the second video, and start at 1:54.)

There are about 32,000 women in America who are now relieved to know that the rape by which they were impregnated last year wasn’t “legitimate” rape. They can now conclude that despite the non-consensual nature of that sexual congress, they actually enjoyed it. And that’s good news for this year’s approximately 32,000 impregnated victims of non-consensual sex, too. Thank you, Congressman Akin, for your words of comfort. All those women can stop going to therapy now that they realize that they weren’t really traumatized at all. That’ll save a bundle on their health care costs, seeing as how your party would prefer not to insure these women’s health, either.

To be fair, Akin did say that he misspoke. He meant to say “forcible” rape, not “legitimate” rape.  Because non-consensual sex with a drunk college student isn’t really rape, whether or not she’s cognizant of what’s happening. And it’s totally not rape if the parties are married, even if they happen to be going through a divorce. It’s not rape if one partner is under the age of consent, because children who have sex know what they are getting into and are making intelligent, informed decisions about it. Especially children who have had abstinence-only sex education.

A woman's body can totally tell if this is rape or not.
Roulette determines the lucky winner. (Source)

 

Life starts at conception, according to Akin. (It’s right there on his website, so it must be true.) Or maybe it starts two weeks before conception, like Arizona recently legislated, which means that women are in a perpetual state of “pregnancy” because conception could happen two weeks in the future at any time. Akin must be right, because he knows this stuff. He sits on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, and pregnancy is sciencey, right?

Oops. No. I’m wrong. It’s God stuff, not science stuff. Totally my bad. Sorry.

 

Where better to look than to God for guidance on, well, everything? Now, God doesn’t speak out loud, or even very clearly, but fortunately he wrote his completely unclear directions down for us. Reading the Bible for instruction on life is tantamount to reading the instructions from Ikea, except that once you’re done with the Ikea instructions you have a piece of furniture that either wobbles, or doesn’t.  Reading the Bible is tougher, so fortunately we have crowds of really, really smart preachers to tell us exactly what God actually meant when he dictated those mystifying instructions. Now, a disturbing number of those really, really smart preachers, especially the fundamentalist ones, haven’t been to college, much less seminary, but they can read Elizabethan English and understand it just fine because they’re touched by God. Yes, we’re back to the refrain of “We don’t need no education.” Thank you, Pink Floyd.

Yes, I said they are touched. Touched in their various God Spots.  (image source)
(source)

The Bible is crystal clear about when life begins, if by “crystal” you mean “obsidian.” If you don’t believe me, check out the Open Bible site, which has all the references its author deems relevant gathered carefully in one place. You can even vote for which verses make things clearest for you. Of the 40 or so verses excerpted from various English translations of the Bible (we know God meant the Bible to be in English), I found two that were absolutely on point and helpful. Oddly, they were the same verse, just in slightly different translation: Exodus 21:22-24, which says that if a bunch of men get together and hit a pregnant woman so that she has a miscarriage, then they either get fined as the husband sees fit, or they get punished to the same extent that the woman was injured. Go ahead and click the link on that verse. Read it in multiple English translations. If you know other languages, read the translation in other languages, too. Now you tell me which one is the best translation, given your expertise in ancient Hebrew.

Now, just for funsies, look at the rest of Chapter 21 of Exodus. It’s all relevant and pertinent to life today, isn’t it? So it makes perfect sense to use it as our go-by.

The homepage of Akin’s campaign website opens with a religious statement that puts the cart before the horse:

First, I want to give thanks to God our Creator who has blessed this campaign, heard your prayers, and answered them with victory. Through the months we have seen frequent instances of His blessing and are reminded that with Him all things are possible!

Evidently he credits prayer and divine intervention with his success in the Republican primary rather than the hard work of his supporters. I suppose that makes sense, seeing as how his list of endorsers lean heavily toward leaders of conservative Christian religious institutions. (Surely there’s no impermissible politicking going on in the churches those endorsers represent. Surely. Because that would jeopardize the tax-exempt status of those churches.)

This situation with Rep. Akin demonstrates exactly why I have a huge problem with politicians using an inconsistently translated collection of  Bronze Age “wisdom” to guide modern government policy. This situation, among others, is why I advocate, agitate, and get politically active – not to mention write passionate blog posts – when elected officials decide it’s okay to blur the lines between church and state. It’s also why I get cheesed off when people want to base their lives on a book of superstitious tales and ancient customs we no longer observe.

When we allow our leaders to cherry-pick verses of this collection of ancient manuscripts, we set ourselves up to go back to that time. Me, I’d rather live in a world of universal health care than a world of leper colonies and plagues. And if that makes me a socialist, then I am a proud socialist.

Furthermore, when a page of platitudes masquerades as “clearly the Bible says life starts at conception,” then I think it’s way beyond time our elementary schools taught critical thinking and logic to children – because if their parents buy the crap on that page as “proof” of anything, they won’t teach their kids to think at home or anywhere else.

Apparently what makes a human different from other living creatures is that we have a soul. How religious people can tell whether we have a soul, and how they know animals do not, remains an insurmountable mystery. Science cannot say when the soul comes into existence, since there is no evidence that such a thing as a “soul” even exists. But ignoramuses like Todd Akin want to legislate matters pertaining to women’s health based on their Bronze Age “wisdom” without any proof whatsoever. If we permit this to happen, we will get the same draconian laws as places like the Dominican Republic, where pregnant teenagers are denied chemotherapy because the life-saving treatment might harm a 13-week old fetus. Yeah, that happened.

The problem is ignorance,  lack of education, and reliance on “facts” gleaned from questionable translations of Bronze Age texts.

The problem is that people with no more background in science that this Akin clown sit on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Presumably he would know something about science if he’s sitting on a major legislative committee devoted to it. Of course, his Bible-based philosophies are contravened by science, so he cannot possibly wrap his head around them. Like that other ignorant politician who attempted to speak about a subject he knew nothing about, Akin apparently believes that women are a series of tubes, tubes that can easily be rerouted just by the nature of forced intercourse, to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

(source)

What complete jackassery.

 

 

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Atheists Banned

According to Article 19, Section 1 of the Arkansas Constitution of 1874 – which my third-great-grandfather helped write – I am ineligible to hold any office in the civil departments of the state government, nor may I testify as a witness in any court.

Why? Because I don’t believe in a divine being.

It will take over 70,000 signatures of registered voters (from Arkansas’s total population of about 3 million) to get the repeal of the constitutional provision on the ballot. Since we are in the buckle of the Bible Belt, the effort to find that many signatures would be Herculean. I seriously doubt many churches would do anything to support the initiative, and most would actively work against it.

That being said, put me down as a scofflaw. I’m a Notary Public and worked for years as a state employee. I’ve testified multiple times and served as a Special Circuit Judge.

Federal law prohibits enforcement of this provision, but its presence still rankles.

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Christian Bigotry

There are people who say they don’t have to accept that people who have darker skin are entitled to equal rights. There are people who claim that simply because I don’t believe in the same god they do, I am not a moral person or that I am not worthy to be in their presence. There are bigots and small-minded people everywhere.

Fortunately, when they come right out and spew their bigotry and hatred for the world to hear, we can see them for the small-minded, hateful bigots they are.

When they name themselves “Christlike” as they vomit this hate, I always have to wonder what their Christ would think of them. If he ever existed, and if he really preached love and acceptance as they claim, wouldn’t he want them to accept the people who are different? After all, according to their New Testament, the vile, bad-tempered, mercurial god of the Old Testament – the one that smote thousands of people for no apparent reason other than they were in the way of his chosen people, who stoned people to death for making a fire on the Sabbath, and who said homosexuality was a sin, etc.  – that mean god wasn’t really the god anymore. Their new, improved god was a loving god called “Abba” or “Father.” New Testament = new rules. New rules = love thy neighbor, not hate thy neighbor.

It kind of makes me wonder why the hate-mongers spew Old Testament hate with such abandon, yet the Jews, who actually follow those old books, are much more tolerant of things like gay marriage.

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Freethinkers Win Lawsuit and Get Their Seasonal Display

Yesterday in Little Rock, ground was broken on something amazing.

I say it’s amazing, because here in the Bible Belt, there is precious little tolerance for non-Christian points of view. If one isn’t Christian, one is unknowably alien, and to some, one is completely suspect.

Isn’t this a Christian nation? (Well, no, actually this country isn’t a theocracy at all.) Without Christian values, aren’t we likely to devolve into moral depravity? (No. Christians don’t have a monopoly on moral behavior – never have had and never will have.) But we all should accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior! (Says who? Jesus? That has all the logic of a parent whose justification is, “Because I said so!”)

“Anne, you’re an atheist.” I hear the condemnation, and I take umbrage. I prefer the term “polyatheist.” There are a lot of gods I don’t believe in. And no doubt, anyone reading this is also a polyatheist. There are lots of gods that have been worshipped over the eons of humanity, and I’d bet my money that not a single reader of this essay believes in very many of them.

Christianity adopted many pagan traditions as it evolved. Celebration of the solstices and equinoxes are among those traditions. Christmas falls within a few days of the winter solstice, as does Hanukkah. Likewise, do the celebrations called Saturnalia, Maruaroa o Takurua, Deuorius Riuri, Amaterasu, Yule, Bodhi Day (also known in Buddhism as Rohatsu), Hogmanay, Soyal, Zagmuk, Beiwe, Shabe-Yalda, Lussi Night, Meán Geimhridh, Brumalia, Lenaea (the ancient Greek Festival of Wild Women), Alban Arthuan, Choimus, Inti Raymi, Maidyarem, Karachun, Makara Sankranti, Ziemassvētki, and Perchta. This list is by no means exhaustive. We will never know the many ways the winter solstice and the days surrounding it were marked by paleo-humans, but they left unwritten records of the fact that the event was noted and celebrated. Places like Stonehenge make drawing this conclusion inescapable.

So what is so groundbreaking in Little Rock?

The fact that a group of non-Christians have been allowed to place a display on the capitol grounds explaining the significance of the winter solstice. Last year the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers asked the Arkansas Secretary of State for permission to erect a display and were refused the opportunity. This year, they again asked permission and again, were denied. So they filed suit through the ACLU.

And WON!

This, in a place where the State Constitution makes discrimination against atheists legal!

You don’t believe me? See Article 19, Section 1 of the Arkansas Constitution:

“No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any court.”

Last February a rational thinking legislator tried to get a resolution passed to pave the way to repealing that section of the Constitution, but, sadly, it went nowhere.

But hope springs eternal. Perhaps even Arkansas will someday be seen as progressive, or at least not medieval.

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Editing Wikipedia

Last night I spent over an hour editing a Wikipedia entry.

I have officially acquired the status of a Nerd Extraordinaire.

The hour was not writing the text. The hour was figuring out how to make the footnotes appear properly at the bottom of the page.

I know, I know – Wikipedia is unreliable because just anyone can edit it. Those of us who are true nerds take Wikipedia seriously, though. We go to Wikipedia as our first source of information, but there is no way that we use it as our only source. The footnotes are there in those articles for a reason. Many of them point to sources available online, either in professional journals, scholarly books in the public domain, or news stories. Wikipedia is the place where we index the facts in a relatively organized way and have the sources listed for easy referral. Nerds like me use Wikipedia as our starting point.

Well… here’s the story. I was on the Google Books site, reading Harvard’s copy of The Book of Jasher, which is supposed to be an English translation of an ancient Hebrew text that gives additional facts about the first four books of the European Bible. I say “European” Bible because I’m referring to the editions of authorized text normally used in the Roman Catholic and Protestant religions. No, Virginia, not all Bibles are the same. I like to read these alternate texts because I think the choices at the Council of Nicaea and the resulting book burnings were a bit unconscionable. Call it my civil disobedience. Actually, call it my canonical disobedience. Better yet, call it my ecumenical public service.

So I was reading along in the Book of Jasher, comparing the text to the Book of Genesis in several English translations, and comparing it also with a different version of Genesis in another book I own. Those of you who know me well know that I am somewhat knowledgeable about religious texts. It’s because I read them. When I say I am a student of religion, it’s true. I study.

Well, I hadn’t gotten very far when I got to Enoch. There are a couple of Enochs early in Genesis. One is Cain’s son, and another is a great-great-whatever grandson of the first Enoch, who also claims Seth as his great-great-whatever grandfather, and was the father of Methuselah, that guy who lived for nearly a millennium. As I am sure you are aware, these early Hebrew texts are big on genealogy, so it’s fairly easy to map out the two Enochs and their relationship to one another.

The first Enoch, Cain’s son, got a city named after him.

The Book of Jasher goes into much more detail about the argument between Cain and Abel and why Cain killed his brother. According to Jasher, Cain’s offering wasn’t as good as Abel’s because Cain brought bruised fruit or something to the sacrificial table, whereas Abel, that brown-noser, offered his best lamb. Afterward, Abel got all sanctimonious and stuff, basically thinking his shit didn’t stink and he could get away with anything because God liked his offering best. He started grazing his sheep on Cain’s crops. (Jasher 1:17)

Naturally, Cain told him to bugger off. Instead of leaving his brother in peace to plow and hoe and weed and harvest, Abel got in his face. Cain was already smarting from the religious offering thing, and as many angry siblings might under such circumstances, Cain lost his temper.

“I ought to just kill you for being such a jerk.”

“Oh yeah? God’ll get you if you do. He likes me best!” Abel taunted him.

Well, that flew all over Cain, who happened at that moment to have a rather sharp gardening implement made of iron in his hand. So, without really thinking about it, Cain smote Abel. (Jasher 1:18-25)

Now, something occurred to me as I read this story last night. There’s a lot of smiting in the Bible, but this smiting was the first. Cain smites Abel, and suddenly people are smiting each other all over the place. I guess whenever we get into a fight with our siblings we can now say, “But, Mom, Cain started it!” It may not stop us from having to march to the privet hedge to pick our switches, but as the hot tears stream down our angry cheeks it will feel better to blame someone.

Naturally, God had to punish Cain for smiting his brother in such a permanent fashion. Cain and his wife were banished from the family, essentially, and were told they had to wander forever and never have a home. (The Book of Jasher says nothing about a mark of a beast.) God eventually relents and allows Cain and Mrs. Cain to settle down. They build a city, which they name after the son they had while they were wandering. His name was Enoch. (Jasher 1:30-35)

Meanwhile, Adam and Eve get another son, Seth, since now they are deprived of sons. (Jasher 2:1)

Cain’s son Enoch had a great-great-grandson, Lamech, who married two of Seth’s great-granddaughters, Adah and Zillah. Adah and Lamech were the parents of Noah, the guy who built that really big boat, so a story of Lamech really caught my attention. It isn’t in Genesis. Lamech was an old man when his wife Zillah gave birth to her only son, who was called Tubal Cain. (Jasher 2:17-24)

One day Tubal Cain and his father, Lamech, took a walk. Lamech was old and didn’t see very well, and when they saw something approaching them, Tubal Cain, who was just a little boy, got scared. He told his dad it was a beast about to attack them, so Lamech smote the creature. When the pair of them got close to the smitten creature, they realized it was really great-great-grandfather Cain, the son of Adam. Lamech was pissed off and yanked up Tubal Cain, who had said Cain was a beast. (Jasher 2:26-29)

Now, remember, at this point Cain was a very, very old man – several hundred years old, in fact – and a child, seeing him walking, might not realize that he was a man. He’d have been all bent over and using a cane and stuff, and probably wearing fur, and the poor kid probably just made a mistake. Nevertheless, Lamech was all pissed off because he had killed Cain, and in his anger he smote little Tubal Cain, killing him. (Jasher 2:31)

Needless to say, Lamech’s wives were not pleased. He killed Zillah’s only son as well as his own great-great-grandfather, who happened to be the women’s uncle, and all this smiting was getting out of control. Adah and Zillah, Lamech’s wives, were sisters, remember, so that makes them pretty close. They decided to cut Lamech off. That’s right, their legs were closed and he was not welcome in their tents. He begged a lot, and eventually they let him back in, but they wouldn’t give him any more children. (Jasher 2:32-33)

Now, Adah and Zillah had a brother, Mahlallel. Mahlallel had a son, Jared, whose son was the second Enoch. (Jasher 2:37)

I tell you these stories so you can put into context what I was searching Wikipedia for. There is a lot of smiting and cousins marrying and complicated generations in these books. To keep things straight I was looking at several texts. When I got to the second Enoch, I was so impressed with his feats that I looked him up on Wikipedia.

The second Enoch was so wise that a whole bunch of kings and princes, over a hundred of them, got together and elected him the supreme king of them all. Enoch, being the humble and godly man that he was, accepted the position immediately. He set about ruling everyone with his great wisdom and godliness. in fact, it might be said that Enoch was the first proselyte. According to the Book of Jasher, he was the first person called by an angel to preach and teach the word of God. (Jasher 3:4-12)

Enoch was a contemporary of Lamech, the Cain-smiter. Of course, people lived for hundreds of years in these early Biblical stories, so Lamech and both Enochs were also contemporaries of Adam, who died at the ripe old age of 930 when Lamech was 56. In fact, the second Enoch is the man who, along with Lamech, Methuselah, and a couple of others, buried great-great-great-great-grandfather Adam in the Cave of Kings. Imagine what a beast Adam looked like at 930! (Jasher 3:14)

Now, Enoch was the High King for over 200 years. He’d been on the high throne for 47 years when he felt the need to commune with God more. He really wanted to withdraw from other people completely and become a hermit, but High Kings really have a hard time doing that. They have to hold Court and all. (Jasher 3:17)

Enoch decided that he’d spend three days in his chamber talking with God, then spend one day being High King and tending to the needs of the masses. My guess is that Enoch was getting burned out on the whole High King gig and was looking for something else to do. Well, the three days became six days, and on the seventh he’d come out and do kingly things. Then the six days became a month, and the month became a year, and the people started to revere Enoch with incredible awe. They only saw him one day a year and the rest of the time he was communing with God. The Book of Jasher says, “all the kings, princes, and sons of men sought for him, and desired to see the face of Enoch, and to hear his word; but they could not, as the sons of men were greatly afraid of Enoch, and they feared to approach him on account of the Godlike awe that was seated upon his countenance.” (Jasher 3:18-20)

God noticed that Enoch ruled all the people by this point, and decided that Enoch was such a good king that he could tutor God’s own people. “Behold, an angel of the Lord then called unto Enoch from heaven, and wished to bring him up to heaven to make him reign there over the sons of God, as he had reigned over the sons of men upon earth.” (3 Jasher 23)

God sent a great horse down from heaven. Enoch rode the horse, and 800,000 men followed him in awe. Enoch rode for six days, and on the seventh day a whirlwind of horses and chariots of fire sucked him up to heaven. (Jasher 3:27-38) He was 365 years old.

The phrase “chariots of fire” caught my attention, especially in the context of a whirlwind. I thought the whirlwind was Elijah or Elisha, who were a couple of generations down the line! I checked the alternate tests.

Genesis 5:24 simply says, “And Enoch walked with God, and he was not; for God took him.” It says nothing about his wisdom, his reclusiveness, his rule as high king over all the sons of man – nothing.

So I went to Wikipedia. I wanted to see what other sources were out there.

The Wikipedia entry was very brief and not very helpful. I am a little OCD when it comes to finding information, and I noticed that The Book of Jasher wasn’t mentioned at all in the article. I decided to remedy that and began adding information and footnotes. I even started a new section.

This morning I logged on and saw that everyone wondered what I was doing on Wikipedia, so I linked to the page intending to show you. Lo and behold, someone else has been at the page, and added even more information! And footnotes ABOUND! This, ladies and gentlemen, is what Wikipedia is all about.

Here’s the entry as I saw it: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Enoch&oldid=266905986
Here’s my addition:http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Enoch&oldid=270598986
And here’s what it looks like now, because someone else saw the activity and added to it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch

And that’s why an atheist spent an hour revising Wikipedia on a religious topic.

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