in defense of "The Lord":

Think of the lord as a stereotype of the person you can't beat (The Man). 6th grade bullies when you were in 4th. The person who has what you need (social acceptance in a new school) They're usually insecure selfish assholes.

It occurs to me that most of the bible is dealing w/ just those types. Like how some king (lord) wiped out some tribe because they didn't make the right kind of sacrifice. We have to assume it was important to wipe them out though the social rules of the ancient tribes don't transcribe to well through 20 translations. Or possibly, when the various books of the bible were put together, the editors had trouble selecting data using the search engines of the time, and they didn't include a preface to explain what they were trying to collect so they got a lot of vaguely germane topics in 1/2 dozen languages (or something, y'know). Ooh, ooh! it was Constantine's idea, he just flew back from his ranch and said "We need a connection between us & God & power, go get some evidence" amazon.com review of the Bible (amazon.com).

But under it all appears to be a social code on how unrestrained lords compel & claim gods blessing afterwards because it turned out ok for the winners. I'm not saying compelling is bad, animals do it, it just is, if I was a lord in those situations I'd do that stuff too, & probably just to impress people because I can. (so fear me) The concept they were looking for though was "Survival of the Fittest", but they may have been limited by their conceptual framework.

Along comes the New Testament: Darwin was a socialist. The main difference is you're supposed to stand up to the Man. Expect to get stomped, do it anyway, speak truth to power, don't destroy anyone, social integration makes peace, & keep on keeping on. The worst that can happen is you get tortured to death, but so what (heh..)? Staying objective while someone is ranting & giving you shit takes guts & perspective to not get caught up in the hormones. As a social model, it commands respect.

But what we got instead is another device to subjugate the masses for the benefit of a bunch of old guys w/ seniority working deals, expecting sacrifice, & claiming ignorance.

Apparent malice usually proves to be ignorance.

Ignorance is no excuse under the law (which also assumes malice when proof of ignorance is lacking).

A negative can't be proved. Therefore:

Bush, Cheney & Rove should be jailed. Reagan should be dug up & jailed.


Conservatives gross out more easily than liberals (physorg.com)
Church of Scientology on trial
Wikipedia bans Church of Scientology