Poetry – Hardwired to Worship

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Hardwired to Worship

Hardwired to worship

Subjugation is elation

Programmed to ritual

Bliss through abdication

We have the need to pray

It is a must to believe

The supernatural is quite natural

As the way to perceive

Believing gives us purpose

When faced with mystery

Genuflect without aversion

Through politics and history

God watches over you

Through plague pestilence and death

Give thanks for his bounty

As you draw your last breath

Hardwired to worship

Programmed to believe

Elation in prostration

Nature flatters to deceive

15.4.03

Our success as a species comes from our intelligence. We are programmed through our DNA to see patterns and seek solutions. It made us brilliant hunters, farmers and story tellers.

We could see the habits of our predators and prey, discern the changing of the seasons, make tools, design shelters, transport and use our imagination to create what did not exist.

We tell stories like no other creature we know. Even the whale’s songs cannot compete.

Our greatest talent is our ability to solve problems and seek out solutions. That works brilliantly in our natural habitat but comes up short when faced with things beyond our comprehension.

When faced with the sun, moon, death and purpose our imagination worked overtime but our problem solving proved limited. We invented deities and paradise.

At first it satisfied the curiosity. Now we are in thrall to our own creation and it stalks our days.

Poetry – God

Posted on by Opher

God

God is energy

God is light

God is sound

God holds the atoms

That swirl in the ground

God is flowing

Through you and me

God is the galaxy

And electricity

Religion is dogma

Religion is a lie

That separates us from energy

And puts God in the sky

I don’t believe in

Jesus, Buddha, Krishna or Mohammed

They’re all just people

That lived on this planet

I don’t believe in prayer

Or a God that cares

A force for good or evil

With a face that stares

Religion is an evil

Full of pomp and hypocrisy

Useful by the powerful

There for all to see

If God were alive

In such simplicity

Guiding our lives

On a planet in this galaxy

One tiny speck of dust

In a raging sea

He’d appear the same to you

As he does to me

Not as Jesus to some

Just the chosen few

Jehovah to some others

Creating pagans and true

Giving out commands

Ordering us around

With strange beliefs

And dictats profound

No – God is the atom and the energy

The fuse that makes them dance

And the time to let them be

God is around within and without

With no Heaven or Hell

On this magic roundabout

When I think about religion

Perhaps there’s something I missed

Maybe God’s just punishing me

For being an atheist.

Opher 8.2.99

I’m an atheist. I do not believe in god or religion. I believe in science, carbon dating, Darwin, evolution and the Big Bang.

I believe the Bible and Koran were written by men. They are not ‘the word of god’.

I see no evidence of creation in the ‘design’ of the human body or the universe. I see a lot of things we do not understand with out limited intelligence and perhaps we never will.

I acknowledge the good things that religion has produced: the cathedrals, works of great beauty, poems and writings that move people, morality that helps people live their lives happily, comfort and purpose in times of desolation.

I believe morality came before religion.

I believe in tolerance, peace, love, free speech and the right of people to believe what ever they want. I think we should argue our case with passion.

We don’t all have to agree – just respect each other.

I also see the terrible things that have been carried out in the name of religion (and still are), the slaughter of unbelievers, pogroms, crusades, jihads, persecution, holocausts, genocides, crucifixions, beheadings, burnings and discrimination. I see the crazed fanaticism of the fundamentalists and the intolerance, bigotry and hatred it induces. I see the indoctrination of small children and cultural brainwashing.

I find the beliefs of creationists and fundamentalists (along with the dogged quoting of religious texts) absurd. I have studied how those texts were put together and find their formation, translation and content all extremely suspect. They were written by various men, long after the events, passed down generations by oral tradition and accrued into books. These books were then further culled to remove ‘heretic’ works and mistranslated. What we have is a mish-mash of contradictory offerings, purporting to be the word of god but really a collection of writings from many suspect sources. No more the word of god than my poems.

We seem to have a need to believe in some deity and magic. It is a psychological need. We’ve worshipped suns, moons, rocks, idols, ancestors, cats, trees, and supernatural superbeings who we have placed in the sky in heavens, valhallas, cloud palaces above Olympus, paradises and the rest. We have had gods and goddesses cavorting in human form, creating catastrophes, drinking, fornicating and causing mayhem. We have idolised, worshipped, sacrificed and beseeched them all. Most of the ones that were previously idolised to the point of martyrdom and believed in to the point of death have fallen by the wayside. Once they ‘ruled’ over millions but now we no longer know their names.

It just so happens that we have a few that are presently flavour of the month. Wars will be fought over them, sacrifices made, and much prayer and offerings will be presented up to the gods. The only trouble is that those gods do not exist. They were invented by men (few by women) and are now being used to gain power.

Our present religions will fade and die. No doubt they will be replaced by others equally incredible.

Meanwhile science continues to push back the frontiers of knowledge so that we understand more and more.

I believe all religion is a product of human imagination but I can be persuaded that there are mystical forces at work in the universe. They are probably scientifically verifiable – given time. The energy in the atom; the transformation of a supernova.

My idea of a ‘god’ is more akin to atomic energy. It’s an incredible force that pervades the entire universe. I do not think it is conscious, has purpose or thinks we humans are anything special. It is. It is something in the midst of nothing. It came into being and that in itself is miraculous. Forget the rest.

I am an antitheist because I believe all religion is false, it creates more harm than it does good and it is used by the powerful to gain more power and wealth. It is one more cause of misery, hatred, violence, bigotry, intolerance and arrogance. We’re better off without it.

The end verse is meant to be humorous.

Poetry – God Too

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God Too

I’m the power in your sun

The atom and the wind

Giving light its speed

Its colour

And its spin

Arising out of nothing

To make your sunset glow

Organising your bodies

To your neurone flow

I give life its mystery

Creating all the laws

That keep it all in motion

Its perfection

And its flaws

You make me into Gods

Religions and Holy books

But I evade all your

Interpretations of my looks

You will not find me concerned

With how your life should run

Providing you with morals

For what is

Or is not done

I am not a human

Apart from the cosmic flow

I connect you to the mystic

That you cannot know

Your religions try to capture me

As I appear to you all

But I spiral through the words

Of the prayers that you call

Everything you think is real

You create it from the void

And you are doomed

To live the life

With which your dreams have toyed.

Opher 8.2.99

I suppose I think there is some mystery, some mystical element behind the universe. It comes out of nothing in a big bang – from nothing to the universe in a fraction of a second; atoms out of nothing. There is energy flowing through the universe. There is size beyond comprehension. There is infinity and the void from which it comes. There are atoms that cannot wear out and energy that goes on forever. But is there a plan or purpose? Is there a God that is concerned with morals and human destiny? Is there an after-life? That is too human to me; too convenient. If there was a God it is one God; the God of all religions – no one special sect. The morals and the dogma do not hold with the mystical. I ridicule it. Religion is the biggest tyranny. It has held us back for thousands of years, stopping progress, inhibiting ideas, constraining thought, filling us with dread and fear, sin, evil and paradise, Heaven and Hell. It is human concocted rubbish that does not hold up under scrutiny. It merely moves you on to a series of other questions. So what happens after Heaven? Where did God come from? What purpose could there be to eternity? Mysticism I can equate as some flow of energy but religion is a pathetic attempt to explain things that are beyond human imagination and god is a construct. 

Poetry – TV Evangelists

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Jimmy Swaggart

My name is Jimmy Swaggart

I like, hookers, coke and Christianity.

While Jerry Lee chose Rock ‘n’ Roll

I figured there’s more money in divinity.

Now I’ve got my plane, limousines

And mansion on the hill.

I’m a lying hypocrite

But my fans all love me still.

Jesus takes good care of me,

Gives me everything I wish.

Plenty lines of marching dust

And pussy on a dish.

I said that I was sorry

I’ve been forgiven everything.

I’ve still got my TV slot

Where you can pray an sing.

For Jesus welcomes sinners

Back into the fold.

So just remember folks,

Keep sending in the gold!

My name is Jimmy Swaggart

I like, hookers, coke and Christianity.

While Jerry Lee chose Rock ‘n’ Roll

I figured there’s more money in divinity.

Opher – 24.11.2020

It always amuses me that these hypocritical, smarmy TV evangelists can get away with it. They have they planes, fleets of limousines, bimbos, mansions, yachts and penthouses, their beaming smiles, flash suits and lavish lifestyle, they play around with drugs, hookers and gambling and then break down and plead for forgiveness when caught out – and the poor saps keep sending the money in!! Unbelieveable!!

Poetry – Conspiracies and beliefs

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Conspiracies and beliefs

I’m a patriot and I am free

Nobody’s gonna take my gun off me.

I’m riding along on the very crest

Because I know America’s best.

Ain’t nobody need to convince me

I know socialism’s really tyranny.

I believe in the devils and his ghouls

Evolution is just for fools!

To make it clear for a starter;

God placed fossils in the rock strata.

At risk of seeming very bold

I know the world’s six thousand years old.

Though I may sound like a loon

I know we never landed on the moon.

Personally I’d put a really bad curse on

Those who thinks a fertilised egg’s not a person.

I’ve thought about this for hours:

It was the CIA who blew up the twin towers.

We should rally everyone through the nation

Because the UN is after world domination.

I’d bet my house and my last hat

That the world is really flat.

Regardless of what the Jews all feel

The holocaust was never real.

Ain’t nobody going to inoculate me

With microchips in their chemistry.

Though you might think that I’ve got rabies:

We’re ruled by alien lizards who eat babies.

The immigrants pouring across our border

Are all rapists, terrorists intent on murder.

We’re being controlled by the ‘Deep State’

Only Trump can save us from that fate.

I don’t believe in the news that they feed ya

I get my facts from social media.

As sure as a tree’s a tree

I know god cares about me.

And none of that’s conspiracy!

Opher – 10.11.2020

We unloaded all our religious fundamentalists and extremists by shipping them off to America. They set up their version of utopia.

The reverberation of that religious zeal, along with all its guilt, can still be seen in American society today. They’d rather believe the bible to any text book.

They don’t believe in science and experts and everything is fake news. Education is brainwashing and the TV evangelist multimillionaires are purveyors of truth.

Singapore – Sri Mariamman Hindu Temple -Photos

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Being an atheist I love visiting the religious sites of other cultures and marvelling at the art, architecture and culture. Hinduism is so colourful and the people so friendly.

How to be unpopular on WordPress.

Posted on by Opher

Too many followers? You want to reduce them? Here is the simple Opher Goodwin guide to weeding out your followers.

Start by reviewing what most people want.

Here’s a list I prepared earlier:

  • short articles
  • colourful
  • photos
  • food
  • fashion
  • humour
  • Nature poetry
  • everyday life
  • inspiring quotes
  • travel
  • pleasant tone
  • friendly

I do a fair bit of that.

Here’s a list I prepared earlier of things they do not want:

  • Long articles
  • Discussions
  • Religion
  • Politics
  • Brexit
  • Racism
  • Sexism
  • Trump
  • Political poetry
  • Environment
  • Terrorism
  • Extremism

I do a lot of that. It doesn’t make me popular.

Most people do not want to think about issues. They prefer their news in short bites and would rather be distracted by trivia and entertainment.

If you believe that people are basically good but are being led astray by false news and propaganda in the media, that politics is messing up the planet and it does have to be like that. If you believe that the environment is in danger, that wars are unnecessary, that religious extremism is terrible. That politicians lie and seek power at all costs. If you have faith that things can change for the better. Then you have a moral duty to speak your mind and try to improve things, to make people think and question.

I could have an extremely popular blog just focussing on travel, photos, food, tittle-tattle and humour. That is easy to see from the stats.

I choose not to.

I prefer to at least try to make a difference.

 

Cynicism in the right proportion.

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I think that having a healthy cynicism towards our politicians, religious leaders and experts is a good thing. They need to be questioned. Their motives need to be explored. We need to view what they are doing with a critical eye and be prepared to speak out if they are doing it wrong.

Cynicism can be healthy.

When it goes too far and all our scientists and experts are rubbished I believe we move into dangerous ground. If we do not believe our experts and scientists who do we believe? Do we turn to superstition? To religious extremism? To internet conspiracy theories? To populist leaders? Seemingly so.

Personally, I would prefer to be operated on by an expert brain surgeon rather than have Donald Trump messing with my brain. I would rather have an aeroplane I was flying in designed and built by engineers than have Bolsonaro throwing it together. I would rather we listened to the experts and take action to prevent global warming and the terrible impact we are having on biodiversity than listen to the politicians and oil industry who are only interested in profit.

I know that vaccines and antibiotics have saved millions (if not billions) of lives and transformed the world for the better. I know that no coronavirus has ever been defeated by a TV evangelist who asks you to place your hands on the TV screen, pray to Jesus and send him a cheque.

I believe that the anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists, the Deep State believers and religious fundamentalists are dragging us back to a very dark place where superstition rules, crackpot remedies are sold by snake-oil salesmen and the likes of Trump. Bolsonaro and Johnson are elected.

If I had to choose between scientists and experts and populist leaders or religious leaders I’ll go for the experts any day – and I want the freedom to question them and hold them to account.

What I particularly want clarity on is who is doing the bankrolling?

Poetry – TV Evangelist

Posted on by Opher

TV Evangelist

 

With his hand upon the TV

He invokes Jesus and the scriptures,

Inviting the faithful followers

To join him in his raptures.

 

Fighting with the demons

He drives Covid from the sick.

All you have to do

Is present him with a cheque.

 

He drives in his limo

To his mansion on the hill.

Then to his waiting learjet

Servants tending to his will.

 

He wears the most expensive suits

And eats like a king.

In the business converting lost souls

Who’ll give him everything.

 

Preying on the stupid

Who all their lives did toil.

He’s the holy moly charlatan

The purveyor of snake oil.

 

Opher – 31.8.2020

Phuket – Shrines, statues and bells around the Big Buddha.

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The Big Buddha was not the only thing of interest. The whole area was surrounded with great views and other interesting statues, shrines, flowers and bells.