We all have ideas about how the world should work. That's great. One person focuses on helping people, another thinks about fairness and rewarding hard work. Both people are, in their own ways, following what they believe is right.

Some people look at candidates waiting to hear what they say about particular issues, and then they vote for that on issue.

Knowing what you believe about how the world should work and being informed about candidates positions is a good thing. Listening to candidates and voting your conscience is what voting is all about.

Unfortunately, it is mostly irrelevant.

I've heard this for a long time now, that we really have a single political party with two faces, that the policies are made behind closed doors, and the political stage is filled with a bunch of puppets who dance for our amusement and distraction. It sounds plausible some how, but it feels too cynical, too unlikely.

But as I get older and as I read more I am beginning to see not just the possibility of this, but specific evidence that explains it. Now, this is not really new to me. I watched The Money Masters years ago. I have my copy of Tragedy and Hope, The Naked Capitalist, and The Creature From Jekyll Island. I heard about the plans for the Ameri-Dollar and the American Union way back in the 80's. I remember when the European Economic Community was just a crazy conspiracy theory.

But still I valued my own Libertarian ideals, and I strongly felt that if we could just spread the word, people would understand that freedom and responsibility are as important today as they were when this country was new.

I still believe that if the people of this great nation decided to actually embrace freedom and responsibility, that we would have it in four years or fewer. But we don't. Of course one reason is that the money interests run the media. Wouldn't you, if you were in their position? But another reason is that the time we spend on political thought is often spent on abstract theoretical political positions like abortion, gun control, immigration, and such.

Now, those issues actually are important, and being involved with them can and will change lives, but if we look at issues only, and ignore the broader financial and geo-political underpinnings of What's Happening, then we're missing the forest because of all the trees.

Go to the book store and browse the political, current events section. All of the Bush insiders who wanted to tell their story have had their books published by now. Just read the flaps of a few and you will start to get the picture that there's more going on here than just another bad war.

It is well understood, after decades of practice, that to move a nation you need to shock people with a threat or perceived threat. Perl Harbor, the sinking of the Lusitania, Communism, Twin Towers. If you want to go to war, give people a reason.

To believe that the actions on September 11 were the result of independently motivated islamic terrorists is, at this point, to be intentionally ignorant and misinformed. If you think the War On Drugs is being fought in earnest, you haven't looked deeper than your own political theories. Try google searches: "CIA heroine" or "clinton cocaine". Information that US government agents have been involved in the drug trade, and that US banks have been deeply involved with laundering the money is easily available, and not just from fringe media outlets.

I'm reading one of the books I found on the current events bookshelf. Crossing The Rubicon by Michael C. Ruppert. He also has a website: From The Wilderness that chronicles his journey through international drug trade and the motivations of governments to chase the dwindling oil supply.

Do you really think Blackwater is just running warehouses and fixing jeeps, or Halliburton is really just there to put out oil fires? Maybe. But dig just a little and there's more going on than Katie Couric and Brian Williams are talking about.

Remember that, for the moment, you still live in a free country. You can still go to the bookstore and actually buy books that tell you all of this. There's a lot of crap on the internet, that's sure, and you can't believe everything you might read, but just because you haven't heard it before or it seems unlikely doesn't mean that it actually is unlikely.

After all, what good are power, money, and influence if you don't use them to rule the world and enslave everyone in a fantasy monetary system that keeps them under your thumb?

Did you notice something about a 700 billion dollar cash grab lately? Or was it just an accident that banks flooded the market with sub-prime mortgages and then suddenly constricted credit? And before you laugh and say, oh that's just crazy talk, think about it and do a little research.

There's a lot going on in the world that people don't talk about, but you can find out if you look around a bit. Is the Iraq war about oil? Yes. Duh. Afghanistan was about heroine and a gas pipeline, and the Taliban was about US support of islamic radicals to fight the Soviet Union in the 80's. We helped make Saddam Hussain to use against Iran.

People are pulling puppet strings of the world. Maybe they think they're doing some sort of good, shepherds of the people, pulling them into and out of war for their own good. But if you do evil in the name of good, you're still doing evil, and there's a lot of evil that is right at our own doorstep.

But we would rather argue about the political theories about abortion, guns, the merits of universal health care, and wealth redistribution.

Look again at that 700 billion dollar pay-off. There's your wealth redistribution.

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

First, you can't blame the current financial problems on capitalism. What is happening, and has been happening, is far removed from the competition and innovation of the free market. It is corruption at its most ruthless and professional. People acted carelessly, selling and buying worthless financial bilge, counterfeit paper promises, and got the government to take your money to pay for them. This is no more a failing of the free market than creationism is a failure of science.

But here's the second thing, the bigger and perhaps more troubling question is: can a free market exist without becoming corrupt?

I was an active member of the Libertarian Party for several years, and I came to understand how things can work in a libertarian system. People would argue, "That will never work," and what I heard was, "I'm to close-minded and unimaginative to consider it." Usually we were both right.

I was right because an open, free market is the most honest and effective means for achieving the greatest prosperity, health, and happiness for the largest number of people. Taking money by force and using it for someone's perceived social good is, in fact, a great evil. The idea: from each according to his ability to each according to his need, is a tremendous evil, because it encourages need and punishes ability and initiative.

The other person was usually right because they just didn't see how we could get people to play by those rules.

The whole point of Libertarianism is to reward innovation, hard work, and ability while punishing sloth, irresponsibility, and ignorance, you really can have a better society.

The free market thrives when the force of government is used defensively, as punishment for one party using force and lies against another party.

The idea is embodied in the pledge that all Libertarian members must sign: "I certify that I do not advocate the initiation of force to achieve political or social goals."

When this is the rule, and when breaking of the rule is punished, you can have a just judicial system, an honest government, and a legitimate free market.

But most people who want to succeed take a different oath: I certify that I will fuck you as hard and raw as it takes to achieve my political and social goals.

These people run for government. They get elected. They run the media. They run the country. They take your money and run.

Do not let corruption of one kind let them sell you on swallowing the deeper and more subtle corruption of socialism. They screw up, take our money, and the answer is taking more of our money?

We are going into a tunnel. More so even than before people will be defaming free market capitalism with even more renewed vigor. Even as the boa constrictor is squeezing the rat, the rat will cry for more compassionate snake intervention.

But keep the light alive.

Remember that we should want to encourage intelligence, ability, hard work, compassion, sobriety, and peace. We should want to discourage ignorance, incompetence, sloth, greed, addiction, and war.

Whatever you use to get there, by whatever name, seek out the good.

Socialism is not good, unless it is run by good people. Like any tool, it can cut. And I wouldn't trust this mob with limited representative federalism, much less a goodie bag full of trillions of our dollars.

Likewise, capitalism is only good in the hands of people who understand that limiting force and deceit is better than using them harder and faster than the next guy.

Just keep your eyes open, seek out the good, and seek out leaders who will do the same.

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

Simply, our opponents were playing to win while we were trying to be wise and good.

Consider two men. The first is a calm and gentle speaker who aspires to help you achieve the best of your life and all who are touched by your life. The second will happily beat him to death with a stick and then turn his attention on anyone who dares notice because the speaker doesn't preach the right things.

Who will win the debate?

The mob always wins.

People lie and cheat, because lying and cheating work quite well. Shake downs, cons, crash and grab - all effective means for thugs and governments to get the job done.

If you can convince billions of people to bomb anyone with an opposing point of view, you're going to win. Until someone gets a bigger stick.

As an atheist and Libertarian I am always searching for what is right and what will work. Sadly, those are often opposed to each other. We like to pretend that good will triumph over evil, simply because it is good and evil is bad. It doesn't work that way.

A mob of gibbering goons gets the run of the town. That's how it works.

But, strangely enough, thuggery must still masquerade as good to be accepted. We want to think that politicians and church leaders are wise and good, and then we let them lie, cheat, and steal from us, and we thank them and give them more money.

Might does make right, and being actually right doesn't matter one bit.

Christians love to denounce evolution. Does it matter that they are utterly and absolutely wrong? Of course not. They're right by definition, because everyone they know nods and amens them when they talk. Their opinions are extensively peer reviewed, and it doesn't matter what they say, as long as it's what the mob wants to hear.

But the tide is turning - Finally!

Christians are in retreat. It is becoming more and more difficult for them to talk about sneaky snakes, global floods, living inside a great fish, and salvation through murder, because the sane among us are starting to risk the inevitable stoning to say, "Wait a minute there. What was that about a fish?"

Christians get away with their nonsense only because they think they have a big crowd of people behind them with stones locked and loaded toward the heretic who would dare challenge them.

It's time to pick up our own stick, the one card at the bottom of their house of cards that causes it all to tumble down, and that is simply this: Make them explain.

For centuries they have demanded that unbelievers step up and explain why they dare believe differently than everyone else. "How can you say that there is no God? Everyone know God is everywhere. Isn't that right everybody?" Then millions of sheelple shout "Yeah!" and go in search of bigger and sharper stones to throw.

But now they're on the defensive, and it is not always as easy to look over their shoulder and find a mob of people willing to accept their pat nonsense answers. It's time for people making extraordinary claims to back them up with extraordinary evidence.

You say there's a God. You prove it. You say there's evidence that Jesus lived? Go get it and show it to me. You believe in miracles? Do one now. You say the Bible is true? Bullshit. It's nothing but a book. If you want it to be more than that, find some evidence. History? I want corroboration. I want the Egyptian side of the exodus story.

You say religion is a force of good in society? People need it? No. Religion tears people down, feeds them fears, teaches them to be intolerant and superior, tells them that they're right and good to do that, and sells itself as the cure to the fears it created. That's not good, unless you're the puppet master.

Here's the kicker: There is deeper wisdom, deeper grace and goodness, but it's not going to be found by lying to people about genetic science, history, or by drinking the blood of a two thousand year old god.

Your heresy, your disbelief, is the big stick. Just ask questions and don't back down, because -- believe me -- they have no real answers, and most of the time they're fighting every day to not think about those nagging questions themselves.

Ultimately, people believe because they believe others believe, and they don't want to be the only ones with their pants down. So run naked. Don't soft-peddle it. People who believe in the literal truth of any holy book are criminally insane, and they need to account for inflicting that insanity on others. Make them aware that people can't live inside big fish, and that believing that is no different than believing that a giant lives at the top of Jack's big ol' bean stock.

It childish and stupid and its eating our brain.

The world is being brainwashed, and if you are one of the few people able to see a world out from under the thumb of one of the three major Abrahamic religions, you need to help undo the brainwashing that is destroying the greatness of this nation and contributing to the instability of the world.

Just ask. Make them explain exactly what they mean, and don't play their games. You have nothing to explain.

Your doubt is a big stick because it is a mirror of their own. Place it upon the fulcrum of their own uncertainties and push.

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

I'm a little tired of always having to be a-theist, un-believer, and non-conformist, when actually I'm simply being non-insane, un-rediculous, and a-delusional. I think we are so often defined in contrast to the religious norm, and tend to look at ourselves this way, because many of us grew up with God's divine tit in our mouth and we had to move across that line in our own lives.

Maybe we all have to go through this phase. Maybe parents, Santa, and Jesus are steps to maturity that we must go through and overcome to be able to be fully awake.

But when the dust settles, when you get through the last lingering liturgical let-down, there you are, standing face to face with nothing, the big God Shaped Hole in the universe.

Now what?

The answer is simple, and you can call it the meaning of life, or your sacred journey, or just another idea in the soup. That is, to be the best person you can be.

Steven Covey called it Seven Habits. Dale Carnegie called it winning friends and influencing people. Religions all want to claim it.

I don't remember the actual quote, but this truest wisdom came from Basil Fawlty, John Cleese as the curmudgeonly inn-keeper. He was complaining one day, and his wife, his frigid frau asked rhetorically, "Well then, why go on living?" His answer, "I don't know. We're stuck with it I guess."

And there it is. The destiny of forefathers conspired, for reasons unknown and unknowable, to bring you into existence into a world not of your making. You are not responsible for the unimaginable nastiness of the world, unless you are somehow adding to it. You can't save the world, but you can change yourself.

At any moment, in everything you do, there is always one most perfect, most right, thing for you to do or words that you can say. Each breath you take can be placed in service to the best you can do in your life, or can be wasted in fear, anger, and other little things.

Peace. Joy. Creation. Love. Tenderness. Acceptance. Listening. Smiling. Your life is a marvel, and can spread good, or evil. You can be defensive and petty, or confident and grand.

When you do something that you know is not good for you, or for the others around you, you know it. You don't need anyone else to tell you to stop it, or to do the right thing. Eat well. Exercise. Read. Understand. Turn off the TV.

Life, every second of every day, is a marvel. Breathe. Take in air. Let the air fill your cells and carry energy to your muscles, and know that this is all happening so that in your little corner of the planet, in the space that your life consumes, there will be peace and a gentle glow of the good.

There will still be times when you feel threatened, or afraid, or impatient with the insensitive fuckmook who claims this highway in the name of his big floppy dick, but you can always retreat into the glow, turn up the music, and know that whatever some mindless animal does with his sports car or sloppy mouth could not possibly matter to you.

You are a human. You are the source of magic, and of light.

As long as you choose to be.

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

There are countless cultural icons that fall into our daily speech. If you tell someone, "That was awesome. You should have a cape," anyone knows what you mean.

To this day whenever someone is passing out cake, I can't help but say in Milton's voice from Office Space, "Last time I did not receive a piece," or, "The ratio of people to cake is too big."

"I love the smell of (fill in item of current relevance) in the morning!" In Apocalypse Now, the quote is about napalm, and there are times when nothing captures the sentiment better than drawing someone's attention to that moment in that movie.

Spend a night in the box. You boys are as dumb as a bag of hammers. I'll have what she's having. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. He's dead, Jim. How you doin'. Jane, you ignorant slut. And don't call me Shirley.

I'm sure you have your own movie quote list that you draw from the make a point or say, hey this is like that, without just coming out and saying it.

Movies are quotable, because they are a shared experience. People used to use Shakespeare, but we're post literate now.

Which brings me to tonight's word: Allusion.

This is the mechanism by which we can best understand the New Testament and the early church.

What happened two thousand years ago is actually pretty simple. There was a story to tell about self-discovery, which was told through allegory, parable, and allusions to draw people to the ideas. Once initiated they would be taught the symbolism and relevance of those stories.

When the Roman Empire transitioned from withering dictatorships to the Holy Roman Church, the initiate gospels were canonized, declared literal, and the original, deeper levels of the myth were forgotten.

The gospels that everyone knows so well are only four from a large group of other gospels, which when taken as a whole give a much richer picture of what was going on back in the day, particularly because of the jumbled mishmash of mythical retreads.

Just about everything that Jesus did, as told in the gospels, had already been done by pagan, Egyptian, and Greek gods. In fact, if you take away from the Jesus stories all the events and allusions to other myths, there's practically nothing left. (This is the so-called Jesus Mysteries theses by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, from their book The Jesus Mysteries)

The gospels seem to be an attempt by mystics to teach their brand of spiritual growth and transformation to the Jewish people, and to relate meaning and symbolism they used traditional Jewish motifs. Moses wandered forty years in the wilderness. Jesus mirrored this by wandering in his contemporary wilderness for forty days (Numbers 14:33 and Luke 4:2 for those keeping score at home.)

Bible scholars often look to common passages in the bible, or between the Old and New Testaments, as some kind of proof that the old stories were prophesies that later came true. Take a look at Psalm 22:15, and that part about having his hands and feet pierced. When in John 19 we are told of the details of the crucifixion, is this the witness telling us of facts foretold long ago, or is the story teller making a literary allusion to an earlier Jewish writing?

If you get caught up in trying to understand all this symbolism, metaphor, and allusion as some kind of factual history, you just end up chasing your tail.

Why else would Jesus have his lineage traced to David, if not as an allusion to an old prophesy? Because it's actually true? But Jesus isn't actually the son of Joseph, unless Mary wasn't really a virgin, and even if she were, the lineages in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 are completely different.

Why? Because they're stories, people. Stories for another time and another people. Stories meant to teach something to people long ago.

The literalists took over and then persecuted the very people who came up with it all in the first place, and then stomped them practically out of history until all were left with is the empty husk, images stripped of their intended spiritual meaning and presented as some strange history that we're supposed to believe in.

It has led people to embrace crazy and bizarre ideas that in any other arena would be delusional ravings of the criminally insane. To believe without evidence or reason is a testament of their faith, and most people don't even have a clue that most of those stories have been told and retold, packaged and adopted to new cultures since it was Dionysus performing miracles with wine.

Everyone's worshiping a discarded snake skin. And they call me crazy.

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

What is it about all this god stuff that makes people so crazy?

In a nutshell, it is because humans are primates, and we naturally seek out an alpha male to follow. In fact, a great deal of our daily motivations are related to our little lizard brain and the furry monster around it.

We seek status and dominance within our peer group. Our social structures, from work to the cliques we build, are hierarchical, and we are constantly seeking to find our place within that structure.

Do people look up to us? Do they listen to our opinions or return our calls? Do they include us in their thoughts?

One of the reasons crazy conspiracy theories stick like tar (apart from the fact that the crazy theories are often more true than you know) is that people would rather believe that a cabal of evil overlords and Bilderburgers are running the planet than all this chaos and misery be accidental.

We want someone in the driver's seat, and if there isn't anyone there, we'll just go ahead and make it up.

Can you think of a deeper and more entrenched conspiracy theory than Christianity itself? We love these Big Lies, and we love to cuddle up under them like a favorite blanky.

When I was a more active Libertarian, I often encountered people whose alpha god had migrated from god to government. To be libertarian is more or less political atheism, and people's reaction was often very much the same.

Who is it that maintains order, punishes the wicked, provides for the general warfare, and rewards unfettered procreation? God! Government!

We are an alpha-seeking species, and to paraphrase Mr. Orwell, some people are more alpha than others. People seeking power will use and propagate whatever tool they can. Businesses, governments, and churches are all pretty much looking for the same thing - your mind and your money.

Being atheist shouldn't stop with god. If you find your faith moving toward government, or the free market without understanding the mechanisms and trade-offs, you have only changed onw god for another.

Power seeks power, and you must seek your own. Politicians, CEOs, Priests, and you boss all want you to think they have everything well in hand, so you can just sit back and do as you're told.

I think ultimately you have to pick one. Are you going to lead or follow? There's not much of a middle ground. Once you start leading, even a little bit, people will throw themselves at you. All you need to do is act like you know what you're doing, or be a young movie star.

A wise Bob once said, reality is what you can get away with.

That pretty much defines the world, and once you really get this you can be pan-atheist, and stop believing in all of their vast and thickly spread bullshit.

So what's really real? Your an ape. Have a banana.

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

I'm sure there are religious people who get the mythic imagery. As Joseph Campbell once said, that's not Jesus on the cross, that's You. Maybe the Jesus Freaks get that on some level

The point of the Blood Of Jesus Christ isn't that your Lord And Savior is taking your punishment for you. That's the cookies and milk for spiritual kindergardeners. The so-called Good News that the Christians can't help regurgitating is just the barker outside trying to get you into the tent.

The whole point of the crucifixion is that taken together with the resurrection represents a transformation from one state to another, specifically the state from being a confused animal (the death of the body) to being a creature of enlightenment (resurrection as spirit). This is the ritual performed through baptism where Christians, like Jesus, are transitioned to enlightenment, i.e. born again.

The gnostic traditions that became the early Christianity of the brutal Flavius Valerius Constantinus, I mean Saint Constantine, sometime after he murdered his wife and oldest son, seem to be focusing on these transformations, ritualized through a series of baptisms (water, air, and fire). (See The Jesus Mysteris.)

What else might be lurking behind the misplaced, mistranslated, and misrepresented ideas of the early Christians that could actually have spiritual value, despite the tangled years of European dark ages and superstition?

Could God Himself be in there somewhere?

There is something tenacious about these Abrahamic religions, as though the adherents sense there's something really there even though they can't put their finger on it and the only thing they get from the Bible or the pulpit is a bunch of bedtime stories, fear tactics, and the cosmic guilt trip.

The point of my last post was that, whatever there might be left for science to discover about the possibilities between the quantum foam, you're never going to find it looking at the bible stories as history lessons.

Where do you go once you abandon the facade of Christianity? Atheism, of course, but there has to be more to Atheism than being against something. The very word presumes the existence of theism, and then describes us as being against that.

I also don't believe in leprechauns or volcano gods, and the only reason I'm not called an amagmist is that there's not millions of people running around knocking on doors telling us all to go throw money into Kilauea, (because there's no way to spend that money on tax-free property).

If there is anything to all the ravings of the religious rabble we have to look forward to science, not backward into the twisted history of Jesus and Mary Magdalene or by continuing to bicker about irreducible complexity, for crying out Darwin.

But even before cracking open the quarks and delving into the subtle mechanisms of how consciousness manifests and reflects amid the aether, there's a simple starting point.

Bottom line: You are God.

That is, you are able to imagine and then execute. You are God because you can think of a new patio design, and then build it. You can hum a tune and put words to it. You can think a thought and write it down. You are the creator. The more of that you can do, the more in the "image of God" you are and the better and more enriched your life will be. If you don't bother to think, act, plan, and all that, you end up in the pit of unrealized mental potential energy and your life, money, and relationships will crumble.

The whole gambit is to get you to give your power away, to the Church, to the political machine, to the fear-mongering of drug companies, or the cheap promise of get-rich-quick, no-money-down flock fleecers.

Keep your power and take care of business.

What I don't know is how deep this mystery goes. Sure, it's easy to say, "I should cut the grass," and then go out, cut the grass and not notice that you have done something deeply magickal and profound.

When we write music, blogs, and stories, when we make things with our hands, we are doing great magick.

The real magick starts inside us with imagination, and I think the whole point to Magick is being able to focus our intent in such a way that we perceive new opportunities.

One of my favorite examples is Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker. This has a lot of examples about how poor people think differently about money.

Is wealth really as simple as thinking differently about money? Mostly, yes, because when you start thinking differently you start learning differently, and then you start acting differently. If you know you're poor, you're right. If that's just the way you are, then okay, be broken. You don't have to be. That's the secret.

In all things, how you see yourself controls or liberates you, and getting a hold of that is the purpose and magic of Magick.

Like the man says in Cool Hand Luke, you just got to get you mind right.

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

One exchange was a question put to the Christian community about why God would choose to create an animal kingdom full of suffering where animals have to kill and eat each other.

The answer: (This is precious!) Perhaps God made all animals vegetarian, and only after the fall by Man into sin did they start all that nibbling upon one another.

Interesting. Maybe the serpent should have tempted Eve with some baby back ribs.

All of this and similar proud nonsense is bred from the mistake of interpreting an essentially mystical allegory as literal history. Once you try to make sense of it as a real thing, you just look more and more ridiculous.

Christianity was originally built upon early Gnostic teachings that retold Jewish stories to represent various states of mind, life transitions, and spiritual perspectives. When this is reduced to literalism and placed beside the cold, resolute determinism of science, the result is the unending parade of excuses and general unmitigated balderdash that makes up the bulk of religious debate, and to be quite honest, we really wish you would all stop it.

Let me see if I get it. You want me to believe that God came to earth as a man to teach us new law (because apparently he screwed it up the first time), that he was murdered by crucifixion, that his (somewhat temporary) sacrifice grants a place in heaven for anyone who believes that his sacrifice grants a place in heaven for those who believe, and that after being dead for three days he came back to life, told everyone preach his gospel, and then rose into Heaven to sit next to God (who was himself) and that we need to celebrate this with a ceremony of ritual cannibalism, in which we are supposed to eat crackers that become transformed into human meat and drink grape juice that becomes transformed into blood, but to enter heaven we must first have had water sprinkled on our forehead or have been dunked under water. Good luck.

All of these things are actually symbolic rituals with mystical connections to our lives and society, not historical things that actually happened. There is some value in discussing Christianity as a mystical journey, and even in considering the spiritual subtext of these very stories, but there is no value remaining in continuing to consider these stories as being remotely historical or factual.

Different disciplines of Christianity peel back different layers of the mythic onion. Some ardently believe that the Garden of Eden really existed, while other sects see it as a story. Some understand Noah and the flood to be a fable of enduring through great hardships, while others are still running about looking for old ark wood on mountain tops.

But always, for any Christian to be Christian, God and salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ must be seen as actual realities.

Here's the thing, if you want to take all of this, God, Jesus, Creation, Salvation, as literal things, you need to deal with the what this actually means.

For example, God is either all powerful or not. If not, that really blows the pooch, so let's not go there. When you see God as actually and fully omnipotent, then everything Satan does is utterly condoned and accepted by God.

If you insist on seeing God as real, the all-powerful creator, then God created and allows evil. Maybe for some unknown purpose, but it's all by His will.

God created Hell, when as an omnipotent being he could have invented any number of ways in which souls might have been brought into existence to interact with one another. Is it impossible that God might have created universal knowledge, peace, and Goodness? Of course not. He just didn't want to.

Knowing that God had this choice, but instead chose to create a place of eternal torture where we will reside if we don't listen to his human puppets, suggests that the Christian God is really some kind of sick sadistic monster who likes watching his beloved children writhe like a worm on a hook, forever, by the millions. You go ahead and worship that.

And one of my favorites: If Jesus died for me, why isn't he dead? God didn't give his only begotten son. He loaned him out for a bit of a show.

Basic observations like this never make it through to Christians, who usually are so utterly filled with doctrinal explanations pounded into their heads week after week, that they don't seem to notice these most obvious disconnects. One of the favorite excuses we hear on the board is that suffering and Hell exist because we have to be able to choose right from wrong, good from evil, and otherwise we would be robots with no free will.

First off, free will with a gun to your head is not really all that free. "Love me, worship me, or so help me Me, I will pull this fucking trigger."

Second, I love how this argument places Christians as defending the serpent in the Garden of Eden. "Come here my pretty. You don't want peace and love and eternal happiness in this beautiful garden. Here, eat of the knowledge of Good and Evil. You don't want to be a robot, do you, Eve?"

Until Christians can wake up and throw off the oppressive mantel of literalism, there's really no way for us to relate to them except as spiritual children.

You might want to check 1 Corinthians 13:11 again.

The whole point of religion and a spiritual path is to help us deal with this crazy planet with as much grace and civility as possible under the circumstances. If all it means to you is to be right, despite everything your reasoning mind is trying to scream at you, it's just in the way.

Thinking of any part of Christianity as literal or historical sets you on the wrong path from the very beginning. Go back. Throw away your religion, and when you try to rebuild it from the ground up as a reasoning adult, without excuses, fear, or pretzel logic, you will find the same thing everyone finds when they do this.

It's sad, and traumatic, but it's the only way to begin to grow spiritually.

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

Die die die die, fucking die.

And furthermore...

Die!!!!

Are you dead yet? Suck it and die. Get a life, and then Fucking Die you worthless over-grown cum-stain. I hate you all.

Die.

The most recent call to infect my aura is a recording from some company that wants me to extend our car's default factory warranty - on my cell phone - on my way home - with caller id blocked.

A recording. You can't kill a recording.

When I do answer, in vain hope of being able to actually to cuss someone out, all I get is that soulless soul-sucking robot. Once, I finally listened to the message all the way to where I got to press 7 to decline the offer. Then it called again. Then again. And it won't go away.

Jesus, I'm Sarah Conner.

Why do we have to put up with this when there is no doubt a very simple technological solution here? It's not like some series of tubes and gimbles couldn't simply shunt these worthless calls into the nether regions of electronic limbo.

It's even worse on land lines. You get to pay extra for caller id, or some wonky service called privacy manager. It's a start, but why can't I just have a white-list like with email? Or a completely different protocol for incoming numbers based on area code, stored number lists, time of day, day of week, and whether the caller is a person, business, or another fucking recording. All we get are phones that let you program in a short list of numbers and assign a few ding-dony ring-tone kidnapped from a 1986 video game.

Maybe there's just not much of a market for a fully configurable phone system that you control through a USB port on your computer. Certainly there is nothing left to invent here.

I guess I should be lucky to have even this rudimentary mnemonic memory circuit built from stone knives and bearskins. Look back only a few more years where there's no cell phones, no caller id at all, no ring tones, and - luckily - no reality televion.

I guess that's the real moral of the story. The reason telemarketers are so annoying, apart from the fact that they are unapologetically rude and noxious by their very nature, is that we have come to expect more and more control over our lives, who we talk to, when, where, and exactly how.

Which brings me to the point of my post.

The level of control we have over our cell phones and related communication can't help but spill over into our digital video recorders, our home thermostat units, and our most beloved droid of all, the family car.

Again, there is nothing left to invent if what we wanted to build was an open-platform electric hub-wheel chassis that could be augmented with a variety of after market power plants, communication plug-ins, and sport packages.

The automobile industry - or should I say the flagging, withering, relic from last century - is utterly tied to the old gas-burning, big steel, paradigm. The car paradigm was perfected by maverick companies who had to produce everything from the tires to the repair tools in the field, and who created whole city-sized factories to bring into existence a marvel of the modern world, when the only other option was a hayburner or your own tired feet.

But a big engine and shiny chrome isn't what draws us in anymore. Horsepower and bright paint just won't suffice for an interconnected, digital, configurable world. We will soon want our cars to be as programmable and personal as our ring-tones.

The entire internal combustion world is on the brink of utter collapse. Electric cars will work better, be easier to maintain, and ultimately will be much cheaper to build and throw away.

We will be able to plug them in, run diesel or gas or corn, maybe even plug in a Mr. Fusion one of these days. We will have more internet, GPS, and cellular streaming media into and out of the cars than we have for our own homes. Commercials will be selected and custom delivered based on our current GPS location and whether there's a Taco Bell around the corner.

And then those little fuckers are going to start calling our cars, I just know it.

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

There was one post that started a thread of over 400 replies and discussion. The first post was one of those perennial Christian favorites: wouldn't it be better to believe and find nothing in the afterlife instead of not believing and have to face the wrath of God?

What strikes me about questions like this is how utterly wrapped within their own paradigm they are. Christians are so utterly unable - unwilling - to step outside of their own tunnel vision that there's little point in pretending that you can have anything like a constructive conversation with them.

But aren't I the same, they ask? Aren't I just as dogmatic and fundamental in my beliefs that there is no god, and unwilling to consider their evidence?

No.

I am completely ready to turn my world inside out and follow the truth where it leads. Show me God, not your feelings or some pedantic review of your bible, and I will get with the program. You need to actually convince me, not simply shout me down, wear me out, or set fire to me.

Here's the dirty little secret about Christians and other true believers. They don't know, and they know they don't know, and so they find hundreds of little ways of reinforcing their belief system rather than face the truth that they believe simply because they want to believe. Once you take that away there's very little left, so hold on and hold on tight.

Most Christians I know begin with the premise that their faith is right, and everything else follows from there. You can't debate with that. Everything becomes a mobius strip where all points lead to their side.

The tricky part is that a lot of what fills the life and intent of Christians is genuine and real. They feel a connection with their community, experience great joy at the wonders of life, and share love and trials with people they care about. Because they believe that these things come from God they usually can't help but see it all as evidence of God, and must then see me as being strangely disconnected, not only from a particular abstract belief, but separate from the very sense of love, of the sacred, and unable to see right from wrong.

This is the usual attitude I see in a lot of these online discussion groups, so I have all but given up trying to have a dialog with such Christian debaters, except to dismiss and ridicule them when I bother to take the time.

To me it's a desperately sad that so many people have been taught that goodness is only granted from a church mascot hanging dead on a pole, and that every sense of hope, love, goodness, charity, wisdom, and kindness that they feel are tainted with the premise that these things can only exist under the aegis of a brutal and abusive father figure who loves them, but will cast them into Hell if they don't do it right.

So if you want to be right, be right. But don't forget that if you ever look into that darkest place of doubt that you dare not go, you will see me looking back at you and probably laughing my ass off and pointing.

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

It seems that the most direct way to turn the corner from oil to something else is to replace the internal combustion engine and transmission of every automobile with an electric drive train.

The type of energy source, from hydrogen fuel cells and household outlets, to hamster wheels and zero-point energy, doesn't matter nearly as much as making that fundamental switch.

It seems that once we cross over to an electric drive train, the actual power source would be relatively simple to change. There could be an extensive after-market industry to make different types of power plants for cars, trucks, busses, and boats.

Attach a diesel powered generator for long trips. Take that out and put in a fuel-cell option, or use the perfect transitional power plant: a gas tank and unleaded gas engine. Whatever the form, we should have electric drivetrains and standards for building separable and replaceable power plants, battery units, and motors.

Now you get regenerative braking, no idling at red lights, and every car could have a roof-top of solar cells to eat the sunlight while it sits parked at the office each day.

Next time you are at a large busy intersection, imagine all the gas being wasted moving the engines but not the cars, and then multiply that intersection and the hundreds of cars in your own line of sight by the number of intersections in the entire world.

Even if we did nothing else but switch to an electric drivetrain and powered the motor and batteries with the same old gasoline, it seems we would be better just avoiding all that idling waste. But the cycle would be broken, and you could soon throw away that oil-burning transitional power pack and plug in the latest fuel-cell pack as soon as they finish inventing it. Take out the lithium-ion battery component and drop in a new capacitor.

We are close to the tipping point. When was the last time you considered buying a dot-matrix printer or a CRT television? Soon the only cars that you can buy will be electric, and your power options will be open sky.

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

This is missing the point. Just as the abortion debate should not be about pro-choice or pro-life, but should really be about preventing unwanted pregnancies in the first place, the energy debate is not about oil.

There is little that any one person can do to challenge the premise of his civilization. I didn't create the industrial revolution, the car, or my need for it. I play my part in this world much as a citizen of Rome played his part.

We can all think differently about our consumption. That is good, but no amount of bike riding on my part will put a dent in the millions of other cars chewing through petroleum.

To change the direction of a nation or of the world, you need the right lever and the right fulcrum. If you happen to be a member of a research team at a car company, you are sitting much closer to a potential fulcrum than I ever will. Car designers can imagine new types of hybrid cars and can play a roll in making them available. A smart car dealership is a fulcrum. If you run a smart car dealership you enable others to do their part by buying them.

Again, these are all good, but it's the thousands of little fulcrums that we need to work on. In fact, if we don't take care of these little pieces, there's going to be a major drag on the big fulcrums.

Let me demonstrate this with a negative example, by pointing out all the things that we might have, but don't.

Why doesn't every house have a small windmill next to that ubiquitous satellite dish? Why can't I buy a panel of photovoltaic cells and plug it into my breaker box? Why doesn't every house come equipped with plug-in energy packages? Every house has a water heater, and cold water from the ground goes into it where it gets heated by electricity or gas. But if those tubes took a run across the roof before going into the tank, I might get by with a lot fewer watts to heat it the rest of the way.

Every day I see television commercials for companies that want to redo my carpet, gutters, or windows. Why don't I see commercials for companies that want to install solar, wind, and other energy alternatives in my home? I would gladly buy them. Where are they?

There are thousands of building codes in place regarding the size, capacity, and hookup of electrical home service. It is possible, but very rare and unusual, to place in your home self-generating power and a bank of batteries.

Building codes need to change to adopt this new direction. Until that happens, innovation can't happen because much of it would be illegal.

The car industry is full of regulations of what a car must be and must do. Cars must have a particular strength and size of bumper. Cars must withstand various types of crash tests. From lights, to mirrors, to hundreds of form and function details, American automobiles must all satisfy a particular set of mandates, which pretty much means that the only legal cars are very much like those already on the road.

Again, no amount of innovation in body form, size, structure is even allowed. Safety regulation must advance to include new forms and new ideas. Until then, the big-iron monopoly of auto manufacturing will be unchanged, and none of us will be able to do a thing about it.

There are many jobs that depend on things staying as they are. Many jobs of auto mechanics, especially oil changes, would go away. Gas stations and the entire infrastructure are locked in place. Road construction equipment makes roads to support semi-trucks that deliver parts to make machines that build parts that go into road construction machines and everything else.

Everything is deeply related into a particular way that the world works, and these bricks have become mortared in place by legislation ranging from materials, practices, codes, pay, and even how contract bids are considered.

Imagine how different the world might be if we could escape from this web of inertia.

First, every car would be electric. We know how to do this. Diesel locomotives have been running turbines to power electric wheels for over fifty years. With electric cars you can power them in a number of ways, from traditional gas-powered motors, to plug-in, to solar cells on the roof, regenerative braking, hydrogen fuel cells, and it would be much easier to take out a gas motor and replace it with a diesel engine modified to run on vegetable oil. Once you switch to an electric drive train, you have dozens of plug-in and after-market options that would welcome innovation.

Why not make cars out of hollow carbon tubes or plastic? Why not have city cars that are more like golf carts? Why not a lot of things. It's easy to imagine, and we have no technological barriers. What is holding us back are hundreds of little laws, building codes, car regulations, all off which have to be updated to continue advocating safety, but allowing very different designs.

There are submarines running around the globe with tiny nuclear reactors in them. It's not like we don't know how to build them. Could an economy of scale, and a level of reliability be reached if we put a small submarine sized-reactor in the basement of one house in every neighborhood? We will never know until someone is allowed to try. Imagine what that would do to provide fuel for hungry electric cars.

There's only so much we can do as consumers, and only so far that manufacturers are allowed to innovate without disrupting the apple cart, changing laws, and putting people out of work.

In 2001 several electric cars produced by General Motors were recalled and destroyed, and there has not been any significant replacement. Imagine if in 2008 we were seven years ahead of those models. But now we are back to ground zero. With and oil-man in the White House, it's no wonder.

We don't need to drill in Alaska. We simply need to be left alone to do what we know how to do, to innovate and lead the world in a new direction.

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

A lot of people like to hold up their sacred stories and call them the Truth. Of course they do! That's what their religion tells them. I am the truth and the way. Nobody comes to the father but by me. Really, why would he say it if it weren't true?

No, I'm talking about a search for truth not as a destination, but as a journey. It's easy to get off your horse, pitch your tent, set up a fire and sing the truth of your belief. What happens if you stay on your horse and keep riding, keep asking, keep looking, and decide not to rest until there are no more unanswered questions. Then stay on your horse just in case?

I realized early on the basic difference between religious truth, which is more or less fixed, and scientific truth, which by design grows and adapts when more data becomes available.

The hard part about following the facts where they lead is that you must be open the possibility that there is no god, never was, and never will be, except for the perceptions that exist in your own imagination. For a long time I was very open to the possibility that what was told to me in church was true. Even today, if someone can summon up real, unbiased evidence that proves there is a god, then I'll even consider that.

However, I was also willing to consider the alternative, that there is no god. It has been my experience that once you open the door to the possibility of no-god, and are willing to consider this as a legitimate possibility, you will eventually see religious faith and truths in a very different light.

The question that you must face as an atheist is this: If there is no god, why does everybody think that there is?

This is the cross-over point. Once your journey takes you this far and you face the question of why churches teach what they teach and say what they say, and consider this in the context of no-god, you will see these religious truths differently.

If Jesus is not really the son of God, what is the driving force for churches and church leadership to promote that idea? Certainly and by far the most common reason would have to be that the church leaders really believe that, and they believe they are doing good by teaching that.

But that alone doesn't make it true. It merely means that these ideas are popular.

You must look at the history of the church, how it was founded, why, under what circumstances, and how it has changed through the centuries. Certainly, if you would like, consider the possibility that Jesus died on the cross, and that his death and resurrection offers salvation to anyone who believes that his death and resurrection offers salvation to those who believe. But is that the only viable explanation under which the Roman Catholic Church and its descendants could have come to this particular configuration?

The role of a church in a society can offer stability to an unstable people. Telling people that an angry god will punish them can have quite an impact. Can you think of any institution that has an interest in promoting its ideas, attempting to maintain membership and interest, and acts in the interest of maintaining the institution? That's right - all of them.

It is certainly possible to see why a church organization would prosper and proliferate. Rome never fell. It just changed shape from republic to empire to ecumenical.

Then there are the easy questions such as, if god loves me why would he want to torture me forever? If my salvation comes through the sacrifice of Jesus, why isn't he still dead? I mean, that's not much of a sacrifice now is it? If we are made in the image of God, where is the Goddess? Why does God need so much money?

All of these questions, the simple ones, the silly ones, and even the deeply philosophical ones, all have answers in both secular and religious paradigms. When you put the secular no-god answers next to the miraculous god-said-it answers, the religious side tends to look a little silly.

Bring in the gnostic gospels and set them alongside the canonical texts within the historic Hellenistic backdrop of the mid-to late Roman republic. Suddenly the story of Jesus takes on different, perhaps richer context. Borrowing from the Egyptian Isis and Horus, Dionysus from the Greek tradition, as well as Moses and Joshua from the Torah, early Christian texts seem to be telling the story of personal spiritual transformation through ritual baptism.

As a mythic icon, dying to a life bound in suffering and awakening in spirit, the death and resurrection of Jesus mirrors our own awakening. His transformation becomes our salvation as we too ritually die to a life of sin and carnality and rise into a life of spirit.

Bound to the modern perspective which requires adherents to accept Jesus as a literal figure, and the circumstances of his birth and death as critical physical anomalies, we lose the opportunity to understand the point of the original Christians and must be forever bound in pointless and pathetic arguments about how many angels can dance on pinheads.

Modern religion demands that we lose all historical and mythical context, and with it the possibility of understanding a truer and deeper awakening than you can get by following the literal storybook version.

The Church teaches that to question The Church is not merely wrong, but a sin. With the carrot and stick, love and torture, they keep the story going so they can keep the story going.

You have to be able to throw the entire thing away and stand utterly naked before the void before you can begin to put the pieces back together in a meaningful way. The truth is we don't know everything about the Truth, and our journey is not yet complete.

But you can't take that journey until you step out from under the stories and lies told to children to keep them afraid and under control. If you prefer, stay in your bed and hide under the covers from the monster in the closet who will bite your toes if you get up.

Maybe the bulk of religion is just a way to keep the kids sleepy and in bed so the grown ups can have some fun.

As Paul Harvey used to say, "...and now you know, the rest of the story." Ain't it the Truth!

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

I have been thinking of taking it down, and yesterday I decided would be the time. I really planned to spend only ten minutes or so getting a feel for what I was in store for. What's the situation?

On the wooden ladder I looked down on the top of the fiberglass corrugated roof. There was a miniature forest of maple saplings growing from the collection of dirt, leaves, and seeds. Nails with rubber washers holding it down. I can do this.

I had my mini crowbar and hammer. Work gloves and goggles over my glasses.

Tap - Tap, I nuzzled the crowbar in to pry out the nail. Okay - lever back this way where there some wood under it. Good. Pull - a little more - and POP! the nail head folded up like a set of bug wings. Okay. I can deal with that. Tap tap again from the other side, wedge it in, pull ... and the head popped off.

Hmm.

Ok, but that's one. The dirty fiberglass lifted right off the headless nail. The next one came out just fine, so I climbed down the ladder looked through the fogged goggles and found the little blue tub to hold all the nails.

Back to the ladder! After another nail decapitation I was able to lift the edge up a bit, but it was still attached under the roof of the garage where I couldn't quite reach it.

I rolled it back and the fiberglass began to rip. Okay, that'll work. I moved the ladder under and pried some other nails up, or levered the brittle covering right over the nail head. Move the ladder - still all very prim and more or less proper. Goggles fogged completely now.

I rolled the whole sheet back, dirt, treelets and all, and popped it off. The little ripped section under the garage roof came right out. Excellent!

One sheet down, but now I was blind, so I replaced my glasses and foggles with some over sized safety glass. Fuzzy was better than blind.

Cool, now I could swipe some of the dirt pile off before working on the next sheet. It turns out if you just give the fiberglass a good whack, most of the time it will pop right off its nail. If not, that's what the long end of the crowbar is for.

I pushed, punched and dislodged the nails of the second sheet and bent it in with much crackling and snapping and a sprinkle of seed dirt.

Actually, you don't really need to pry. If you just smack the flimsy sheet with your fist you can knock it out pretty well. The next one got folded, and stuck, and One Stupid Nail would not let the fuck go! I pulled, and I think that's wen the pile of dirt went down the back of my neck. But ok - second one - Folded and broke, but down.

Actually, there's not much use for the ladder. Fists and a wild crowbar will usually knock the sonofabitch loose. What you can't whack off, you can rip, and if it doesn't rip just put a shoulder into it. Bend it, smack it down, and don't mind the flying bugs, dirt, or the maple seeds in your mouth!

Tiny trees flew, spiders ran for their life, dangling and scurrying. Run! Run from the man storm. Ants! Big mothers! Crawling out of the rotted wood! On I slashed. Actually, the crowbar pretty much just gets in the way. Just reach up, punch it, grab it, twist it, punch it again, grunt, pull it, snap it, and thrown the dirty mother down.

Sheet after crap-clad sheet snapped and popped and bent and got taken down.

Melissa came back from mowing the lawn and saw me standing in a pile of broken fiberglass, three inches of dirt covered with twigs and tiny maple trees, and a blue bucket with a single nail in it.

She brushed some spiderwebs from my brow and then threatened to hose me down with the sprinkler before letting me in the house.

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

I have spoken out for liberty for a long time now, and my reward usually has been to be called everything from an idealist to an idiot. Once, when discussing the benefits of privatizing education, people told me that most parents don't care enough about their children to bother to send them to school if they didn't have to. I even ran for office twice. First for state representative, then as a group challenging our township board of trustees.

Eventually I gave up because I realized I was preaching atheism to big government believers.

People have forgotten how to be free. They want security, and so they are willing to let the government do whatever it wants to give them that illusion.

Sometimes it takes something as egregious and extreme as the Patriot Act to get people's attention. It is tempting to wonder how long it's going to take before The People rise up, march in the streets, and, as Mr. Jefferson said, refresh the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

But that's not necessary, there's a much easier way to take the country back. Easier, I mean, than bloodshed and mayhem. It is, however, quite a bit more difficult than watching syndicated sit-coms and yet another episode of Law and Order - again.

We have become accustomed to quick fixes, pills, and no-money-down real estate riches.

You don't get healthy popping the latest pill cocktail from the pharmaceutical-industrial complex. You get healthy by eating well, exercising, and generally keeping your life in order. But why bother if you can take a pill?

Why bother actually being free when we can imagine the quick fix of a gun? A pill and a bullet are not that different. I could swallow a bullet if I wanted to, but I don't think it would help very much.

Like the health of your own body, the health of the body politic comes from doing healthy things. What does it mean to be part of the We The People if you don't act like it, if you only show up to vote once every four years or so and you don't even recognize any names on the ballet except the presidential candidate or a senator?

Imagine what it would take to drive people to literally take up arms against an oppressive government, and then compare that to the effort involved in doing some very simple and mundane things, such as sitting through your city's board meeting or a session of the school board. When was the last time you spoke to your state representative? Do you even know his name, or if he's a him? Did you even know that you have a state senator? Do you know the names of your Representative in Congress or what committees he or she sits on? You probably know at least one of your senators, but do you know anything about their voting records?

We don't need a civil war. All we have to do to take back the country is to show up. We don't need heros jumping over fences with loaded rifles. We need heros who will run for local office and tend to the business of the people.

Imagine a militia of grass roots freedom fighters. You don't have to march barefoot in the winter or be away from your children. These heros wouldn't have to fire a shot. Go to your town council meetings. Volunteer for that open position in the tree council. Learn how your community works. Run for office. You don't have to take over the government. Everything is in place, right now, for the people of this country to rise up and be the government.

We have become separate from the government not because of despotism and tyranny, but mostly because we simply don't give a damn. It's easier to point and complain than to step up and be a part of the solution.

And in the presence of good men doing nothing, evil will do what it always does.

The sad thing is there are probably more people who would prefer to take gun in hand and get it over with than to sit down and help the nation be everything it is supposed to be. But, sadly, that wouldn't work. The only thing you get with guns is a different dictator. True patriotism lies not in showing anger against the government, but in taking part in the ...

Oh! Gotta go. Two and a Half men just came on!

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

There are three levels to consider here. First, the simply secular; second, the natural but beyond our understanding; and third, the outright supernatural. Let me take these in reverse order.

When viewed as a mechanism of the supernatural, the Law Of Attraction becomes simply a modern definition of god, and it lends credibility to all that praying and fuss over the centuries. This is where it gets muddy. If we begin to consider some viability to quantum wish fulfillment, would this not be a reason to take off the skeptic hat and start going to church?

No, because Christianity is not interested in miracles being brought about by you and me. Christians believe that salvation is granted through the blood of Christ, and by his sacrifice are we saved. Prayer, if it works at all, comes from their god, and not from my own divinity. In fact, being my own god and fulfilling my own miracles is a near opposite to what Christianity tells us of our place in the spiritual realm.

If the Law Of Attraction is in fact real, then we can consider that its source is supernatural, and that even if they don't get it, or have twisted it, Christians have been saying it all along; or it is natural but possibly beyond our current ability to explain it scientifically, and hence magic by our current definition.

Let's presume that it is valid and is supernatural. At some point, down deep between the quarks, something is happening. That mysterious something is either in the realm of cause and effect, action and reaction, or it is an effect without a cause. This is where quantum theory meets spiritual speculation. But if we can classify something, even if only as a probability, then we are able to label it, classify it, and bring its definition into the world of science.

In other words, we can choose to define something once thought to be supernatural as now part of nature.

So if this works, then we can claim it as part of an emerging science, and if after that, the Christians or other groups want to claim it, as they claimed the Big Bang as their moment of creation, go ahead, it doesn't matter much at that point.

I love the mystical sense of hope and open-ended possibility fostered by The Secret. I like thinking that there are minions of the Universe with clipboards manifesting my thoughts as reality. I like the metaphor that divinity and consciousness are the same thing, and that I can dream my world into existence using the power of my mind.

It is magical and wonderful to, at one moment, want to see a beautiful deer on the path, and then turn the corner and feel that hope spring forth from the trees.

But even if we step back even further, into the realm of the seriously mundane and the clearly secular, there is still much use and benefit of the idea of the Law Of Attraction.

I don't want to discount the possibility of the magickal side of The Secret, but it is in the mundane where I think the idea really springs to life. It becomes so vibrant, specifically because we can believe in it utterly, without having to resort to Things We Don't Understand.

Now, it may be that my ability to think, to exist, to have creative thought is itself a miracle of complex quantum science, but let's not worry about that side of philosophy. We know that we can speak, have ideas, make plans, and such. It is in this purely secular mode that I think a neo-religious movement could take hold, because a thought is both obvious and profound.

It works like this. I want a bookshelf. Visualization. I drive to the store and I buy a bookshelf. Wow. Magick! Or maybe I drive to a lumber store, buy wood, and make it. Even more magick because I am creating its form. I want money, so I comb my hair, put on nice clothes, and go to the interview. Or I go to school. Or I decide to join a multi-level marketing company.

In any of these cases, visualization precedes reality. It gets interesting when we realize that the actions we take depend not only on one level of visualization - what we want - but also depend on several other beliefs and thoughts regarding who we are within society, within our family, what we are capable of, interested in, or allowed to do.

So much of who we are, what makes up the limits of our lives, are thought.

I'm a computer programmer, and I have a certain comfort zone about what I do and how I do it. I am comfortable going to work and typing all day at a computer to build software. The reason I do this, as opposed to, for example, spending my afternoons at banks securing loans to manage rental properties, is a construction of by beliefs about myself.

The magick is that I can change my beliefs about myself. I can choose to believe that I am capable of managing rental properties. I can believe that I am capable of doing the job of a senior vice president. I choose to limit myself and follow my comfort zone.

I think what sets Those Who Get It apart from others is that we understand that we are self-programming ourselves. We are not victims. We can imagine ourselves into any role, we just have to want it.

This is the basis of why visualization works. Our brains are programmable, and once programmed resist change. You can practice change. You can practice being good at being good at things. You can practice being confident and open to all sorts of possibilities.

So there is much fertile ground in a social/religious teaching related to understanding the programming of our mind, our self-image, and what we want to attract into our lives. But wishful thinking is only the first step. It only matters what you do, but what you do matters completely on what you think you can, or are supposed to, or allowed to do.

There are also very practical lessons to be taught about how to do this, and how to be ready to take advantage of opportunities or that million-dollar-idea when you have it.

It has been said that luck can be defined as the intersection of preparation and opportunity.

It is a miracle, but it is also mundane. The first step is to conquer the mundane, get control of the image of yourself and what you can do and know that it can change, and you can learn to do anything anyone else has ever done. First crawl, then walk, and then maybe you will be ready to take on the supernatural.

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

It's part of the new trend in applied spiritual thinking. I remember thinking several years ago that the next religion needed to be firmly grounded in our best understanding of physics and psychology. What nonsense to know one thing about the world but believe something else. I saw Stephen Covey and Tony Robbins as early leaders in reshaping our spiritual intent away from Christianity and its related anachronisms and toward a solution to solving the very practical problem of how to get things done.

For some time I have wondered whether ancient religions in general, and Christianity in particular, could adapt to a modern perspective. After reading The Jesus Mysteries I thought that it might be possible for a modern Christian movement to return to some of the original gnostic direction and then introduce some aspects of what might be called visualization-directed, success-oriented methodologies or, as those who Get It call it, magick.

Of the old school beliefs, Taoism seems the closest to what these new gurus are trying to tell us. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. When you know that nothing is lacking the whole world belongs to you. But the Tao always left me in an odd balance between wanting to accomplish things and accepting there's nothing that needs accomplishing.

The new Magick of the self-help quantum pseudo-scientific what-the-bleep crowd does have a bit of an old-world eastern mythology feel. But that's still not quite us.

And Christianity, I must say, is simply too utterly broken for repair. I know, if you go back to the gnostic roots and see baptism as a personal transformation of enlightenment, and the resurrection as the archetypal icon of that, then maybe. But there's just too much lost in translation.

I will spare this blog entry the many examples of how Christianity in its modern sense is fundamentally broken, but I will include just one as a demonstration: Heaven and Hell. More to the point, why Hell? To accept the idea of eternal suffering, or if you prefer eternal separation from god, as non-metaphorical, something actual, we must wonder why would a god choose to create a place of suffering, hide from us, and punish us for asking too many questions?

Wait - back it up further. Why even create such a place of suffering for any reason? With the capacity of infinite love and compassion it seems this god could have chosen a better scenario. Think of an abusive father beating his little girl in the face with a belt screaming, "Why do you make me do this to you?" Um, nobody made god invent Hell. Put down the whip and try showing up once in a while.

That sort of thing. It's all just too charged and clogged. So, except for a minor sense of amusement pointing out the insanity of the blood cults of the various Technicolor Jesi, let's just get on with it.

I think the self-help, think-yourself-rich paradigm is the beginning of what could be a real modern replacement for the communal religious experience.

It really matters what you ask the universe for in that Ask / Believe /Receive protocol of The Secret, but only to the extent that it affects your actions.

Getting a grip on your mind is critical, because most of what we think of as reality is just made up in the first place. All I mean is that things like justice, debt, the United States are all things that exist only as shared concepts. If you can stretch your self-image inside this imaginary world, you end up doing things differently with your actual meat.

It's the hero's story. You don't win if you don't play. If you never bother to buy investment properties, then you will never make millions in real estate. If you never tell that pretty girl with the brown eyes that you love her, then just go home alone again.

I'm even willing to consider the possibility of quantum probabilistic wave collapse every time I decide to scratch my ass or imagine a pile of money at my feet. But you don't need to borrow from the supernatural to know that studying, applying yourself, and generally doing things opens doors that open more doors that open more doors.

My favorite money book is Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker. He basically says that people have a money bucket in their head, and when that money bucket gets full, no more will go into it.

It really is all about who do you think you are, to be asking people for money in exchange for your time, skill, and services. If you think you're worth it, people will pay you, which is why so many people get rich by telling other people how to get rich. Once you decide that it's okay to be paid, people practically throw money at you.

It all starts in your head, but it has to come out in your hands and your confident voice.

I used to say all the time there are only two steps to getting something done. Step one: Decide what to do. Step two: Do it. The punchline to that was that the first step is the hardest.

It's all about getting your head right.

Some day soon I will have a pay pal account, and I will get rich by telling you all that you can get rich by telling people they can get rich. Just put your hand to your head and say, "I have a Millionaire Mind."

You don't even have to get up early on Sunday.

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

It has been so long since I have had what most people would recognize as religious belief that it seems very strange to me. What if someone told you that he believed in leprechauns, really and utterly believed, and that if you didn't close your eyes and think about His pot of gold and believe that the Little Ones granted sacred wishes that you were some kind of dirty, evil wretch who might as well kill wantonly or steal to survive?

I have about reached the end of my patience of being put on the defensive for not believing in other people's gruesome fairy tales. How could I not believe, they wonder, in an invisible creator who came to Earth two thousand or so years ago to be murdered on my behalf?

It is well past time to turn that around and demand that they defend their beliefs. How and why, in the name of simple decency, would they believe that?

If their god unzipped the sky and winked at me from above - ok, there's something to believe. But anyone insisting on holding on to that utter madness is very simply insane, and should be treated accordingly. Someone was killed for you? You rejoice in the fact that a man was made to suffer for you so you could have all your sins washed away?

The whole religion, from soup to nuts is utterly delusional, and it's time for the sane people of the world to hold up their hands and say (gently if possible, but forcefully if necessary) you're a freakin' loon, and you need to sit down.

But it's just not that simple.

Religion is all twisted up with spirituality, mysticism, and personal enlightenment paths. There's a lot that goes on in religion that is perfectly rational. I mean things like the nurturing of community, investing your thoughts toward the happiness and well-being of others. Even voices raised in song is a joyful thing.

Even the Jesus story itself, which on the surface is gruesome and despicable, reflects our own trials and our symbolic death of sin and rebirth in enlightenment. In fact this symbolic story was the original idea, which is demonstrated quite well by The Jesus Mysteries.

When we treat this symbolic resurrection as literal fact, or consider the virgin birth as a strange and miraculous biological anomaly, we completely miss the point.

But to simply dismiss the mythical underpinnings of these stories, or to dismiss the communal benefit of gathering with others is also short-sighted.

But I'm not willing to accept Christianity even as metaphor. It has been so deeply abused by literalism, and so much evil has been done in its name, that it is simply time to start fresh. The blood cult is beyond repair.

Certainly we can imagine a religion that is in alignment with our modern understanding of the world and our minds, but which still lets us reach to that ineffable joy of spiritual transcendence.

But there remains the questions of what to do with those who, under any form of spiritual message, will always simply react to the basic carrot/stick paradigm. Can we move away from the anachronism of literalist liturgy, or will we simply be replacing a bloody cross with some other equally pointless icon?

Maybe what we need is a new religion for those who Get It, and let the hopeless holy heathens languish in their unwavering devotion to their side of the story. But when they try to influence school boards to teach their religion as science, we should stand them down hard. When they push their nativity onto public land, tell them no and hit them with a newspaper.

We need to stop letting them think that they still run the show.

The curtain has fallen on them, and they are left only with the lingering stink of their rotting religion. Christianity is a zombie, walking dead, and if you don't see the irony of that then you probably don't Get It.

So I think that's the idea: a two pronged approach. First, move on and find our own spiritual journey and don't worry if they can't keep up. Second, never give another inch to their petty demands that they were here first so they get to decide everything.

The truth is they weren't here first. Everything Christianity has was stolen, twisted, and corrupted. The original message was lost and the shadow of what was left was turned on them.

Let them have the empty husk, commanders of the ghost ship. We will tend to the core and remind them to sit down when the grown ups are talking.

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers

Remember that? Nobody says it anymore. That's because the rules have changed. It used to be that eating out at a restaurant was such a rare, exclusive thing that to bring a baby would be as unheard of as sitting down to dine next to a rhinoceros.

But we all eat out more. Our lifestyles are changing, and families spend more money per table per hour than my wife and I do. I get that.

But where is the line? How much child noise is acceptable these days? It's somewhere between sleeping quietly and screaming non-stop, but is there even a thought these days about when child noise in public crosses a line? And what should be done about it if you won't quite your children?

We had lunch today in a near empty restaurant. For some unknown, unknowable reason, we were seated next to small family with an infant. Empty booths everywhere, but we're right next to the Swiss Family Bothersom. We had the occasional two to three minute span of quite, but for the rest of it was crying, fussing, whimpering - constant baby noise.

I know that when you are at home listening to your precious ones scream all day, that a bit of whimpering and crying before bottle time is practically invisible to you, but when I'm trying to have an adult conversation three feet away it's intrusive and an abuse of my tolerance.

When they start screaming, fussing, crying, and you just sit there and ignore it, or tell it unsuccessfully to hush, you're abusing not only my patience and my ears, but you are abusing and taking advantage of civilized society.

Tell me, if your child is screaming in my ear, why should I not turn around and scream back at you, "Shut that god damned thing up!" The answer is that I'm old enough to know better. I'm an adult and I know it's wrong to cause a disturbance like that.

Well you are also an adult, and you should not have to be told that we don't give a damn about your family planning decisions, and we should not have to put up with the fact that you're too inconsiderate to get a baby-sitter, stay home, or leave the baby in the car next to your yipping dog that barks at every person and falling leaf in sight.

When did it become acceptable to let your braying bohemian brats spoil everyone's space around you, but to comment on it, to suggest that you cork the damn thing somehow, is to be the rude one?

Where's the line? How much of your noise pollution should I be expected to tolerate? How many times am I supposed to listen to you tell the ill mannered man child, "Shh honey," before its okay for me to lean over an tell you, "Listen you boneheaded broad, that's not working, and the screaming hasn't stopped." Or is the new rule that there is no limit, and you get to inflict any level of disturbance because you decided to breed?

But maybe you are beyond hope. If you are too wrapped up in baby to know what a nuisance you are, maybe the waitress, or manager, or usher, or librarian needs to start reminding you to shut the hell up or get the hell out.

Your baby is not above the rules, and some of us are getting sick and tired of anything goes. We'll tolerate a little fussing, or maybe the occasional outburst, but only if we see you get up and take it away, but we're getting tired of being forced to sit in your transplanted living room, listening to your loud ass kids.

Be offended all you want, but if you don't know right from wrong, someone's going to tell you, and it might be me. Neither of wants that, so here's some ideas:

• Don't take your babies to the movies - ever.
• Don't take your children to a restaurant unless there's a prize in the box and a playground in the lobby. It wasn't my choice for you to have that baby, so maybe you're the one who should stay home until you can teach the little raccoon some table manners. Oh, and here's an afterthought. Try actually teaching some table manners.
• If your kid cries or can't be still, get up and take care of it. This is a restaurant not a playground.
• If it's after nine o'clock, why the hell isn't the poor kid in bed?
• Just because I'm not saying anything doesn't mean you're not being rude.
• When I do say something, suck it up and at least try to pretend that you understand how much of an inconsiderate jerk you have been.
• There's no such thing as a little crying. Either its crying or not. If it is, you are being just as rude as if I stood up and started singing Blue Suede Shoes at your table.
• Don't hide behind your children. If they are annoying, smelly, noisy, and in the way, that means that you are annoying, smelly, noisy and and in the way.

There is still a line, even if we are letting you cross it. But do us all a favor and see the line before we have to make an issue of it.

Copyright 2008 Daniel LaFavers