Friday, August 13, 2010

Zeitgeist


A close person to me told of this documentary that I must see. Zeitgeist a documentary by Peter Joseph has 3 parts to it: part 1 about the astrological and pagan origins of Christianity, part 2 about the 9/11 conspiracy, and part 3 about the Federal Reserve and its true characteristics that many aren't aware of. I'm not a big 9/11 truth-er, if fact I believe the planes took down the towers, but I am deeply interested in the origins of organized religions. Zeitgeist has an excellent chapter explaining how natural astrological phenomenon centered around the Sun's movements in the sky led to the creation of the myth of Horus, an Egyptian God, who was a precursor to the story of Jesus.

Horus was born on December 25th, around approximately 3000 B.C. His birth was accompanied by a star in the east and 3 wisemen. He was baptized at age 30, had 12 disciples, and performed miracles. There are too many similarities between Horus, and Jesus to be a coincidence. Horus gives us insight into where the Jesus myth originated from. I'm not sure as to whether Jesus was made up entirely or was an actual person whose life was mythologized. Either case involves a re-tinkering of the Horus myth to accommodate it to a new audience. Check Zeitgeist out and learn.



For a deeper look into our monetary system and all its ills take a look at the second documentary by Peter Joseph. It has many interesting points:

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Crossroads...


Where do I go from here? Which path is right for me? Fear lurks in every direction.

The pain of debt. The humiliation of owing others. The sadism of interest. The masochism of borrowing.

Who's design was this?

Who masterminded this perfect storm? Who kept us ignorant of its ways?

Who lied to keep the wheels in motion? Who greased this ugly machine?

Who will liberate my madness? Where shall I go?

Monday, August 9, 2010

Moving to New York...


It's amazing how many people want to move to New York, the big exciting city. I meet so many people from other countries, including tourists, people here doing internships, as well as people from around the U.S. who come here and fall in love with the city and want to stay. I remember not that long ago, just back in the 90s when all I heard was negative things being said about New York. The crime, the pollution, the noise, the small apartments, foreigners! I still remember a time when people wanted to move out of New York so bad. Most of my white friends growing up moved out to suburbia during the 90s. I stayed and I'm glad I did.

I'm worried that my area will become too nice an as result, completely unaffordable. So what happened was the exact opposite of what the fears of my white friend's parents were worrying about. The areas got better instead of worse, crime went down instead of up. As a result of those white families moving out, the city became more ethnically diverse. This is a classic case of white flight: fear that minorities will bring crime up and reduce property values cause whites to flee to suburbia, resulting in those neighborhoods becoming much less white.

Now however, whites are moving back into New York, drawn to it by the culture and diversity, that was a result of earlier generations of whites moving out because of the increasing diversity. Irony works in mysterious ways.

I can definitely understand why one would want to move to NY. If I grew up anywhere else I'd want to live here too. Suburbia is boring, as is the country life. Nice places to visit, but not to live. So what does NY have to offer a newcomer? Nightlife, culture, history, and an incredible cityscape to envelope you. Market rate rents are atrocious, however. All the new construction is luxury apartments or condos designed and built for the upper middle class and the rich. I've long worried about the fate of the middle class in NY.

NY does offer the chance to live in a secular society unlike many parts of rural America. I couldn't believe how religious some people were when I was down south. They use religion like a crutch to cope with daily life. I can see the glow in their eyes, when they speak of the God that is out there who loves them personally, and cares about their suffering and wants them to be happy. These are all the things that make religion so appealing to its victims. You don't meet a whole lot of those kind of people in NY. The ones you do see who are like that in NY are usually shouting from a street corner or a subway train, while panhandling.

I'm glad I live in NY, and my area, Queens, is urban and diverse. It's not Manhattan, but still no doubt the city. I can only hope I live here for a long time.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Random Thoughts


Oh what is there to do on a Saturday night, when your friends are all broke and/or homeless? I guess that means it's time to write a blog.

There is a video of Christopher Hitchens on the internet now of him during Chemo therapy, bald with a few scraggly hairs. He looks bad, and his type of cancer, esophageal, which I never heard of before, doesn't have a kind record of survivability to its victims. So he may be on his deathbed. I hope not because I only just recently got into him, and I really want him to live as long as he can and remain as a loud voice for Atheism. If he dies I'll be really sad.



How has my life changed in the past year? I'm not sure. I have realized that I want to spread atheism around the world, to be a voice for it, and to instigate a new enlightenment for those people still stuck in the 20th century, or the 7th. What the world needs now is love, and secularism. No mosque at ground zero or anywhere else. No tax dollars of mine or anyone else to be used to print Korans for our prisoners; to pay the salaries of chaplains in our military; to drop Bibles out of U.S. military airplanes along the Afghan border; or to fund Jewish settlements on the West Bank for fanatical Zionists.

No no no no and no.

What else is on my mind?

The rich. High society. Something I'll probably never be a part of, and don't necessarily mind. Typewriters. What we used to use before computers. I wonder how scary it was to be a writer not have a computer, to not have a spell check, to have to print onto paper, which could be damaged or lost or to make a mistake on the last word of a well-written page, scary thoughts. I guess back then people had to be very good at spelling and grammar. I use spell check far too often to image having to use a typewriter. I guess you could always whiteout a mistake and retype over it. Did they have whiteout back then? When was it invented? Oh now I have to Wikipedia it. Just a moment....Ok it seems whiteout first appeared on the market in 1951. Earlier than I expected. So at least since 1951, typists and writers have been able to blot out mistakes. Still not as good as a delete button.

Angry drunks. I don't like them. Never got along with people who can't handle their liquor. I've known too many people who turn into complete assholes when they have a few drinks.

Food. Food is on my mind. I'm hungry. Time for some... KFC? I don't want to but I have little choice right now. It's late and New York City, contrary to what they say, does sleep.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Addiction...


I don't normally write about my personal life but I recently have become completely addicted to Google's SketchUp artist program. I have been spending the past 3 days making models of various buildings in Queens. I'm obsessed with Google Earth in general and can be on it for hours on end. Once I learned that I too can make 3D buildings like the thousands that are in Google Earth, I just couldn't stop. I've literally spent all my waking hours for the past 3 days making models. I even have skipped meals to continue models that take especially long.

It's crazy. I've made some good renderings though. I want to make models for all the tall buildings that are not inside Manhattan particularly in Queens. The other night I was up until 6 a.m. making models. I justify it by thinking that I'm not just doing it for me, I can share this with the entire world and benefit millions. Who doesn't benefit from their world in 3D? No one that's who. Some complex building models like the high rises that are in Long Island City can take 6 or more hours. Simpler buildings can take 20 minutes. I keep getting better at it every time I do another. I even want to do more now but its getting rather late and I don't want to be up until 6 a.m. another night.


I'm going to have to fight the urge.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Change is the only thing that's constant


I'm starting to learn that many good writers write daily, sometimes for hours. I've noticed that I make usually about a half dozen entries on this blog a month. Maybe I should be writing more. After all the more I write the better I will become at it. Great writers also read a lot also. I read a lot on the internet. I read a lot of news, but a great deal of my knowledge lately has come from watching videos on YouTube that explain concepts of science and philosophy and economics. This is very typical of the young today who can't even deal with the cliff notes anymore and have resorted to watching and listening to videos instead of actually reading about any of it. It is a pattern that a friend advised me to not get comfortable with.

Spelling is not an issue anymore thanks to the spell check mechanism. But spell check cannot make you a exceptional writer. I hate the laziness that comes and goes in me. I don't even have to get off my couch to do what I am doing now, and still I find an excuse to be lazy and not do it. Remember when you had to actually go out to obtain knowledge about a subject, to the library in the freezing cold? Those days are long gone and with it, that energy one had to have.

I did keep a written journal for years at a time and wrote several notebooks worth of events, documenting various stages of my life from high school to as recently as a few months ago. I still have one that I stopped writing in and for some reason I guess I stopped, maybe because of this blog. But in my notebooks I would write much more personal things regarding my personal life, and on this blog I've chosen for it to not be about my silly mundane day-to-day problems. My old journals I burned and destroyed years ago so no one could read them. I guess I wish I could have saved them until now, they'd be fascinating to read.

I really wish I was writing about my experiences hanging out with metal heads in high school in the 90s. It was a great era and subculture to document since a lot has changed in New York in the past ten years, and also because the heavy metal culture that existed back then has significantly waned. Change is the only thing that's constant. And that's never more true than in the secular metropolis.

High school was tough. I had a really hard time fitting in. Even among my own clique I was kind of the outcast. It took me a really long time to find myself, and to find my place. I'm still kind of looking but I'm a lot more focused now. I really wish back then I had the knowledge I have now, or at least (since saying that has become so cliche) I wish that I was as passionate about the same subjects back then as I am now (namely atheism and philosophy). I was always into atheism pretty much, but never had the passion to really dig deep into the philosophy behind it and religion. Also, I wish I had payed attention to more of the cultural changes over the years as they evolved slowly instead being shocked by seemingly abrupt changes that were really just the result of years my neglect towards them.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

A Confusing Message About Faith


I hate how we in America like to stress the importance of faith, but at the same time like to stress the importance of moderation, religious moderation. The two seem contradictory to me. How can you embrace faith strongly and be moderate at the same time? Are these ideas stressed by the same parties or different ones? It seems to me like they are coming from the same source.

I remember during the Bush era especially the emphasis put on our nation to keeps its faith strong and secure. Then they urge the Islamic world to move towards moderation. What I really get from this message is the urge to embrace the Christian faith. What the right wingers and conservatives really want is for all the people of the world to embrace Christianity, but they can't come out and say it like that because it might offend Jews, Muslims and Hindus. So, instead they spew out this debatable message to embrace faith while urging some towards moderation. What they want is people to embrace Christian faith, while people of other faiths should embrace moderation. I agree that Muslims should move towards moderation, as I think all people of faith should. I'd go a step further and urge all people of faith to move towards Atheism, in a calm and timely manner.

This issue of moderation is another thing. What does it mean to be a moderate? It plainly means that one must disregard all the beliefs of their faith that seem outdated and don't make sense anymore. For example a moderate Muslim, might look at the prohibition against alcohol and say, "Ok I'll scrape that." He might look at rules forbidding sex before marriage, the mandatory praying of 5 times a day, the rule to distrust Christians and Jews, the allowance of slavery and the subjugation of women and say, "Ok OK I'll scrape those too." And voila! Now we have the modern Muslim, compatible with Western culture, able to live amongst infidels without conflict. Or do we?

Whenever a Muslim is accused of being or having ties to, right wing Islamic fundamentalists, there's always that inevitable defense of the claims that they are very moderate and harbor no extremest beliefs at all. So, then the accused must now put on this show about how they're actually very westernized and not one of those types of Muslims, who takes their faith literally. So if taking ones faith literally means being an enemy to the West, or an enemy to freedom, then why is faith a good thing? Why must we keep this silly parade going on about faith being a good thing? When will the world realize that less faith is a good thing, not more? The whole world is never going to embrace your faith, you Muslims and Christians. And even if it did it wouldn't make the world a better place at all. Just look at how Sunnis and Shiites and Catholics and Protestants alike have been hating and killing each other for hundreds of years, all while praying to the same God. More faith is not a good thing and it is my duty to spread this word.

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