Poetry – Bums in the Air

Bums in the Air

Bums in the air

Indoctrination everywhere.

Allah and sweet Jesus,

Jehovah

And God above.

How absurd they look

With their array of holy book.

Spouting words

From Neolithic lords

Dressed in fancy costume –

Medieval bride

And modern groom.

Opher – 14.9.2016

Bums in the Air

People are great joiner-inners. They go with the majority. I find it quite startling to see how conservative and fundamental things have become. Back when I was a lad my Muslim friends were all westernised. They didn’t take their religion to extremes. The girls did not go around in head-scarves let alone burqas. In Islamabad University in Pakistan the students wore jeans, T-shirts and listened to the Beatles, Stones and Pink Floyd.

How things have changed.

The children are taken off to their Madrassas where they are subjected to religious indoctrination.

I see families walking down the street, in the summer heat, with the poor woman completely enclosed in heavy black robes, breathing stale air behind a mask, while her husband is cool in T-shirt and jeans.

I am a believer in freedom but I hate misogyny, indoctrination and superstition.

Spirituality is about harmony with nature and the universe. Religion is about power, indoctrination and division.

George Carling on Religion

Thank you Moshe – It’s a while since I’ve watched this one!!

George Carlin – Stand Up About Religion – YouTube

Poetry – We used to worship

We used to worship

We used to worship the sun and moon;

We thought they were gods,

But now we understand what they really are –

Only rock and gas –

And the mysticism has dissipated on the solar breeze.

We used to worship trees, rocks and streams

And pray to the spirits that resided within,

But now we understand the molecules

Possess no spiritual qualities

Other than the wonder that resides in our own minds.

We used to worship Zeus, Apollo and Baal;

Make sacrifices, follow rituals

And offer up our prayers.

Now they, and the tens of thousands like them,

Are banished to the past.

Their universal power no longer of consequence.

How many virgins;

How many sheep, goats and cattle,

Had their throats slit

In a futile attempt to curry favours

From an all too human god?

No lessons from the past

Seem to impact upon us now.

Our beliefs in Jesus, Mohamed and Moses,

In Shiva, Rama and Buddha,

Will last for ever.

They will surely not, like all the rest, eventually

Follow the sun.

Will they?

So I will sit in awe and thrill to a sunset,

Lie beneath the stars and absorb the majesty,

Smile with soft eyes at the spectrum of life

And relish the warmth of love and friendship.

It is the closest to worship I can achieve.

It’s enough for me.

Opher 22.6.2016

We used to worship

The lesson of the past is that things come and go. So many gods who were universally worshipped have toppled into oblivion. Gods and Goddesses thought so powerful that they constructed the universe and ruled all things, and either gave or withheld their assistance to humans, have been long forgotten. Where are Hrouda, Rura, Tiwaz, Vercana, Amon, Ash, Hu, Ket, Mut, Ptah, Aife, Blai, Clota, Cred, Ixtab, Mudu and a million others. People put their faith in them. People willingly died for them. Prayers, rituals, costumes and sacrifices were conceived to satisfy these deities. Their assistance was sought and praise was heaped upon them when it worked, and excuses found when it failed (we were not following the instructions were we?). So many forgotten tribes were the ‘chosen’ ones.

So many religions waxed and waned.

Yet the ones we presently subscribe to are the real ones; the only real ones. They will never wane.

For one who does not believe, such as me, the prayers, costumes, rituals and entreaties, of such superstition look interestingly absurd. While I adore the pageant, majesty and colourful creativity I share with Freud the view that I am witnessing a mass hysterical psychosis.

If there is a mystical force it is within all of us, all the fabric of the universe, and not embodied in some human created god. I do not believe there is such a human construct as paradise or hell. I cannot wait for the waning; for an awakening. We have life, an incredible universe and we live in the midst of great wonder and majesty. We are surrounded with astounding wonder. That is surely enough.

Poetry – Imagine

Imagine

Imagine a world with no dance;

A world of silence

Filled only by prayer,

Where no music stirs the soul.

Conceive a world without fashion

Or cosmetics.

Where women are hidden

Behind the bars

Of a social prison.

Think of a world where history is denied

But which is trapped

Within a medieval system

Of primitive law.

Envisage a world without sport

Or fun.

Where entertainment

Is a sin.

Visualise a world where science

Is denied,

Ruled by superstition

And words written in ages past.

Picture a world where society

Celebrates slavery, martyrdom,

Mutilation and death.

There are those who believe

God demands a drab

And soulless life

Based on mindless recitation

And total acceptance.

I am not one of these.

Opher 16.5.2016

Imagine

Fundamentalism is a contagious disease that is inherited through a vaccination of ignorance, as one generation injects the venom into their children.

Once someone accepts that every word of their holy book is sacred, is the exact word of god, must be taken literally and acted upon, they are lost.

It is the end of tolerance and freedom. There is no discussion.

Once a parent believes that they have the right, in fact the imperative, to brainwash their children into the same doctrine, they are all lost. There is no doubt or questioning.

Once a person accepts that the only truth is the version they hold and all other ‘truths’ are wrong we are on the road to division, hatred and war.

Once a person believes that women a lesser breed and should be segregated, hidden away, disabused of rights and freedoms, and always hidden from male gaze, we have abuse.

Once someone denies science, entertainment, music, sport and dance we are heading for a totalitarian fascism.

Once we have a regime that accepts mutilation, torture, slavery, arbitrary execution and martyrdom we have a society without human rights.

Fundamentalism is a scourge of insanity that needs opposing in all its forms.

The world I want to live in is alive with fun, beauty, tolerance, variety, fairness, freedom, awe, wonder and justice.

poetry – Righteous Arrogance

Righteous Arrogance

There is a righteous arrogance

That is only matched by ridiculous ignorance,

As we give our allegiance

To the indoctrinators of innocence.

And they betrayed us with impudence

With child-molesting expedience.

They did not even believe their own penitence

As they exploited with diligence.

From the portals of time

When all was complete mystery;

When conjecture was prime

And truth lost in the history,

They devised the excuses

For ‘what was’ and ‘what would be’;

They devised scriptures

To explain earth, sky and sea.

Without instrument or knowledge

We scanned heaven and earth

And gave ‘holy’ men a pledge

Of what their status was worth.

With their tall hats and rich cloaks

They ruled the warm hearth.

While we toiled in the fields

And they watched us with mirth.

In this time of great understanding

We can now clearly see the story;

Based on the evidence we are handling

Of the battles so gory

And the parts that ‘they’ stand in

As they assumed the glory.

Heaven and hell they were peddling

Fear the currency so hoary.

We find that the Ark does not hold water

The stories were fable

To ensnare sons and daughters;

Tales for dark nights round the table,

Not facts to take to the altar

Or Gods on which to hang a label.

For we have intelligence that does not falter

And knowledge that makes us more able.

It was all a pretence

That should remain past tense.

Opher 10.8.2015

Righteous Arrogance

I am an antitheist because I do not believe there is a ‘god’, I believe the scriptures were all devised out of the minds of men and religion does more harm than good. So I would like all religion to end.

That does not mean that I would actively persecute religious people or that their beliefs should be mocked. I believe that as the evidence stacks up and the scriptures are revealed as medieval products of superstition – belief will wither naturally.

I have respect for anybody who chooses to believe in whatever they want.

I will oppose anyone who wishes to indoctrinate children or force their views on others. Religion should be a free, personal choice.

I would oppose any fundamentalism or theocracy. I do not see religion as having any place in schools or governments. That is dangerous and reprehensible.

Modern history has clearly demonstrated the hypocrisy in religion. The priests who abuse children clearly do not believe their own doctrine. The Jihadists who kill, torture and rape clearly have a perverse view of religion. The drunken, fornicating monks and cardinals, the Borgias all flouted their own doctrine. If they had really believed in what they were spouting they would have lived quite differently. Then we have the intolerance and viciousness – inquisitions, pogroms, crusades, Jihads, genocides, witch burnings and torture.

It is still going on today.

Our knowledge of how these scriptures were put together by primitive Middle Eastern cultures clearly shows that they are contrived.

Religion has its basis in the ignorance of men exposed to the mystery of life and the universe. The viewpoint and intuition of thousands of years ago does not hold any truths for me. It was superstition not wisdom.

I decided to put these personal views of mine into a poem.

Roy Harper – If

A superb track off Once.

Roy Harper – If – YouTube

Roy Harper – The Black Cloud Of Islam

Another track from the album Once. Roy vents his spleen against religion and Islam in particular.

Roy Harper – The Black Cloud of Islam – YouTube

Brazil – Salvador De Bahia – Candomblé, Capoeira, markets and art.

There is such a lot to see in this former capital – from the grand decaying colonial architecture to the weirds religious statues.

Brazil – Salvador De Bahai – Photos

Travelling around Salvador is strange. There seems to be an unholy alliance between Catholicism and African Shamanism. The two have melded together into a weird belief system.

It was also strange to go into a church and find a room all hung with prosthetics – as if all these crippled people were cured by belief. Yeah. Of course.

Poetry – I WANNA BELIEVE

I WANNA BELIEVE

I wanna believe

I wanna believe

You have to believe

I wanna believe

I see the mystery

I feel the awe

I wanna believe

Show me what it’s all for

Give me a break

Give me a sign

I just wanna believe

It’ll all work out fine

So the universe is big

Life is so complex

Time lasts forever

And mystery comes next

I wanna believe

I wanna believe

You have to believe

I wanna believe

There must be a reason

There must be a why

Looking up at this wonder

You could fall into the sky

I’ve got this mind

I feel and I breathe

I look through two peepholes

To a reality I perceive

I wanna believe

I wanna believe

You have to believe

I wanna believe

It’s hard to imagine

 it could exist without me

Does a tree really fall

With nobody to see?

Still it doesn’t make sense

All this wonder and awe

Believing in afterlives

Does not explain what it’s for

Heaven’s so crowded

Everything nice for eternity

So pleasant and twee

Bored to death by perpetual ecstasy

I’ve trouble with this purpose

Your God’s eternity

It doesn’t make any sense to me

You see

When my brain gets no blood

There won’t be a me

I wanna believe

I wanna believe

You have to believe

I wanna believe

It’d be nice to think

That there would

But wishing it so

Does not mean that it could

Our thoughts are so profound

Our consciousness great

Our galaxy spins

In an infinite state

It’s amazing and impossible

So we can’t comprehend

But with no greater purpose

One day it will end

It can make you feel good

To think of other stars

But the purpose we need

Is to do better with ours

I wanna believe

I wanna believe

You have to believe

I wanna believe

But I’m afraid I cannot

Books written by men

Do not thrill me a lot

Paradise invented for power

To put despots

In their ivory tower

And religions created

By the hour

I do believe

There is no

No heaven or hell

I do believe

There’s no sea

In this shell.

OPHER 20.9.96

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a purpose to life and we all toodle off to paradise for eternity, meet up with the rellies and friends and live happily ever after?

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a paradise somewhere where everything was wonderful?

Wouldn’t it be nice if all the different religious sacred books were right (at least the nice bits) and there was a God?

Unfortunately it all looks too human and contrived to me.

Religion has been used for power and control and still is.

Too many children have been indoctrinated from birth and too much insane cruelty inflicted.

I look around me and see beauty, awe and wonder. I do not even glimpse creation.

The human imagination and psychological needs have conjured up an elaborate charade to fill in the gaps.

Why should be fear death? What has formed this wondrous universe? What is the purpose of life?

Don’t worry. I have all the answers.