why doesn't god give me a real job?

where do i stand on god today? if god were a doormat i still wouldn't be able to say definitively. but i do like to mull those thoughts around. mmm, mulling. some people frown on it, preferring to decide and whatnot, but a prolonged bout of mulling is SO much better, like tantra!

let me -ahem- clarify. i'm solidly atheist with christian nuances. i believe in 'god' but i believe that god does not exist. rather i do not think the question "does god exist?" is that valid a philosophical question; it's just a reflex response to (the major theistic) religions' fundamental axiom, where religion it would seem is predicated more on a human need to feel purpose than engage intellect.

some see god as creating man in his own image. i see 'god' as having been created in the image of man. this is my main problem with religion. man is arrogant and self-righteous and has very cleverly deified himself through the notion of being the offspring of the divine. i mean, assuming time tested species dominance or propagation is some indicator of divinity then there may as well be a supreme bacterium or virus giving purpose to those things. the average theist's repugnance to that idea is all i need to rest my case for his arrogance.

some see god as an origin. i see 'god' as an end. i don't feel the need to come from somewhere; my concept of self in time, my self-time continuum if you will, is admittedly comical. but i do want to plot a course for the future that involves the optimum solution to that question of universal happiness. you know, the one involving billions of individual agents of hedonistic sentient thought sharing the same space. god as a state of mind will be very useful toward this goal.

some see god as a distinct supreme being. i see 'god' as a supreme moral reference point. with my limited understanding of human psychology i think that submission to some sort of universal concept is essential for constructing a moral code that unifies and sustains human civilization. the difference between supreme being and supreme moral reference is that the former encourages moral behavior through promise of reward, essentially advocating man's selfish nature,"god loves me!"; whereas the latter requires a mindful effort of conscience for its own sake "god is love!". i believe that man should become good by virtue of his own character rather than through stimulus-response behavior premised on admittedly untenable concepts like eternal bliss.

interestingly enough, given that the god concept will almost always have religious connotations one might ask what is the point of using it as a placeholder for the intellectual state of mind described above. i think the conceptual transmutation is natural; the very same neural phenomena and emotional or mental states associated with religious/spiritual feelings -oneness, compassion et al- is what provides moral impetus regardless of belief structure. it is not nearly as much of a paradigm shift as one would think; it's divine semantics. and it would cost nothing to try it out except maybe that "soul" of yours, which at current rates of depreciation probably costs nothing anyway! ha.

and that's the word.

yours truly,
satan.

what marc is thinking about right now

how the fuck could you pass a BABY through the x-ray machine at the airport!!!! i mean, securing the homeland is important or whatever, but, a baby? dude.

times square really loses its appeal on the third trip into the city in three days, but damn those fancypants charmin restrooms are incredible. in any other place i would run away immediately if someone was encouraging me to pee with song and dance.

there's gonna be a FOURTH die hard movie. die hard was the first R rated flick i ever saw as a little kid so you can imagine my excitement. unfortunately, john mclane is now bald and i can already predict the 'let's shoot up these freedom hating terrorists!' script.

why haven't i been successful on jdate? i just can't seem to figure that one out yet. ok ok so i'm kidding about this one.

headlines

Pinkerton, CA - Federal authorities continue its gay immigrant crackdown arresting hundreds of illegal workers at a fudge-packing factory

Warnsworth, UK - Progress made as prostitute held for questioning in connection with the servicing of five local serial killers

Jeddah, SA - Investors disappointed as test run of 'Facebook Sharia' fails for no apparent reason in Saudi Arabia

Tel Aviv, Is - Very, very old Jew arrested for being an antique-semite

applying myself

sooo. i tend to get ahead of myself. i just get in my app to columbia school of engineering and already i'm daydreaming about what life will be as a student there. ah the new york scene. the women. the money. the beats.

cchhhh yeeeeah. gotta get in first marc. next up: apps for nyu and baruch. apparently, after many years of denial, i'm might end up doin some nerd shit, albeit lucrative nerd shit, if it works out anyway. and they said mathematics wasn't worth $$. tsk.

freedom tickles

Routine and systematic torture is at the heart of America's war on terror...

see Article

captions

young americans voice discontent with bush policies

african soldier extremely grateful to
christian god for the life he was blessed with

lone rebel stands against onslaught of rampaging,
fire-breathing, self-aware european cars

malnutrition reaching "even the stripiest"
animals says a UN report

pic of the week

robot chicken strikes again

caution: hot surface

i just came up with a ridiculous line... the metaphors are off the fuckin hook and even the tempo matched exactly with 16 on 16 syllables.

i'm always on the lookout passing rhymes around the cypher's clock, cuz with a mind that rocks this dope the cops will raid my writer's block,

not too bad.

editorial

you know what is really lacking in the english language? punctuation that captures an emotional emphasis that's halfway between a period and an exclamation mark.

i'm mildly annoyed with you, guy who invented punctuation. life's not just a dichotomy between non-emphatic and emphatic declaration you know. wait, maybe a ! is preferable to end that sentence... well no i'm not really that angry so the . should do? dammit, do you see this shit you caused, guy?

what we need is an exclamation mark without all the excitement... a clamation mark, if you will. and until i find such a punctuative device, i propose that we represent the much needed clamation mark with an italic pipeline mark... in other words a |

finally i can rest easy once more|

excerpts from history lessons of 2872 CE

... the evolution of religion saw many interesting and diverse turns. however the mathematics of the process, 'deitetics' if you will, remained oddly simplistic. human beings started off with the many, deigning to assign a pantheon of gods responsibility for the universal processes circumscribing their survival. as human thought became capable of embracing more abstract concepts the many was generally weaned to the few until the few, at the mercy of an arrogant pharoah and an emerging hebrew tribe, was replaced by the One. mathematical unity was a natural placeholder for a concept that was to exemplify perfection and omnipotence. this view prevailed for over a millennium until the final step in the progression, that from "the One" (god) to the Zero... in ancient terms "the None" (god). this change was facilitated by the musings of a megalomaniac scientist who proposed an ingenious philosophical solution to the problem of maximising happiness across the faith/spiritual vs facts/terrestrial divide. if the latter were allowed to annihilate the former both parties would achieve their highest aspirations according to their beliefs. the former, being slaughtered for their religion, would float all the way up to heaven toward glorious union with their one god, while the latter would get to stay on firma terra subject to the boring routines of everyday godless life and survival of the fittest. though meant as a joke in a globally published periodical in 2028 CE, the humans took this idea literally thus ushering in the era of the None God. ironically, religious wars still erupted between rival factions who claimed superiority in their ideas of nothingness. and so it went on until we the Cybernetic Plant Alliance wiped out the humans who kept fucking up our home.