Atheism Number Two
This content was originally published March 24, 2012. … Whenever someone writes a book about religion, the writer pays tribute to mammon. Interviews are conducted, TED talks are given, and the printed donkey flogged within an inch of its life. The book of the moment is Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion. The author is Alain de Botton. The idea is that atheists can learn a thing or two from the believers. Mr. de Botton gave a TED Talk about this concept.
We could begin by questioning the entire belief paradigm. Christians believe God exists, and a few other things. Atheists do not believe God exists. What no one seems to be questioning is whether belief is the best way to go about the God issue. The word gnosis (the root of agnostic) refers to having a “knowledge” of God … to feeling her presence in your soul. There are some who say that man and God are one and the same. When all you have is a belief … a strongly felt thought … you just might be missing most of the picture.
Christianity is a religion based on beliefs. One of the central beliefs is the notion that having the correct beliefs will cause you to be “saved”… to go to heaven when you die, instead of hell. This is a big deal to Christians, who find it difficult to deal with someone who is not fascinated by “salvation.”
Atheism seems to be a reaction to the Christianity/salvation paradigm. If Christians did not tell atheists about God, how would atheists know what to not believe in?
“There have been some very vocal atheists who’ve pointed out not just that religion is wrong but that it’s ridiculous. These people … have argued … that believing in God is akin to believing in fairies and essentially that the whole thing is a childish game.”
Oh my, what a terrible thing to say about faeries. Maybe faeries are not something to believe in either. Just wear fabulous fashions, and don’t worry about that silly religion business.
Mr. de Botton laments the lack of community is atheism, and he may have a point. I have often envied the sense of extended family that churches seem to offer. If only those pesky beliefs didn’t get in the way. Does religion fulfill a tribal need for conformity, rather than spiritual fulfillment?
It is a common rule of public speaking… you treat children as though they were adults, and adults as though they were children. The concept of being “born again”, of having a second childhood … these are very appealing notions. Can an atheist church offer these good times? Or would it spoil the fun by treating “worshipers” as adults?
I have a big fat problem with one issue. Jesus worship is an emotional affair. Powerful feelings are stirred up. This power, and fury, can be a terrifying thing if it is used against you.
This use of Jesus driven emotions is an issue in American politics today. The force and thunder of a screaming Jesus worshiper, leading his flock of angry sheep, is a terrible thing to have used against you. It is hoped that an Atheist church would be more “humanistic”.
Two wrongs do not make a right. Jesus worshipers are notorious for interrupting you if something is said they do not like. Perhaps this is another function of the belief based religion. When you believe something, and do not understand why someone does not share your belief, you don’t have time to listen. This rudeness does not speak well for Jesus. Hopefully, atheists can be a bit better. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the social media picture in October 1938. “Crowd, listening to the Cajun band at National Rice Festival, Crowley, Louisiana”
©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Mr. Eno And Mr. Isherwood
I was listening to a conversation between Brian Eno and Rick Rubin. Mr. Eno made a comment that sent me down a google rabbit hole, looking for a digital holy grail. When I did not find what I was looking for, I returned to the conversation. Before long, Mr. Eno said something very similar.
“I’d heard something on NPR. It was a poet, a black poet from somewhere in America, reading this poem called Cadillac. I spent years trying to find this thing. I never found it. I wrote to NPR, and I phoned them up, and everything. It was called Pink Cadillac … this amazing, very rhythmic poem, about how he wanted a Pink Cadillac.” This quote got me thinking about another detail.
There are bits of knowledge that want to remain hidden. One is from Christopher Isherwood. It was in a magazine, sometime before 1994. The author died in 1986. The comment was about when you choose a religion. It is not the doctrine that attracts you to a religion, it is the people who introduce you to this observance. If the right person had told Mr. Isherwood about Catholicism, he would have become a Catholic. Instead, in 1938, Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard introduced Mr. Isherwood to Swami Prabhavananda, and the Vedanta Society of Southern California.
“He (Isherwood) published an account of his spiritual journey at the end of his life, called My Guru and His Disciple. … It’s interesting because it’s so frank and unromantic about the spiritual life. Where Alan Watts basically bullshitted his way to guru status while secretly being an alcoholic and treating his wives like crap, Isherwood is totally upfront about his boredom, his frustration, his vanity, his sexual escapades … he gave us a wonderfully unvarnished account of spiritual mediocrity. As Pema Chodron says, we spend most of our spiritual lives in the middle – not completely lost, yet not completely saved. Just muddling through.”
I did not find the quote I was looking for, but I did find another piece to the puzzle. I went back to Mr. Eno and Mr. Rubin. Then, out of nowhere, came this: “I think that’s the power of religion as well. The power of religion is not the connection with God, but the connection with the rest of the congregation. The connection with all of the people who also believe in that particular story. I’m not really religious myself but i really respond to that idea.”
“I don’t want to be a believer. I want to be somebody who, as far as possible, understands and knows things. Believing things leaves me a little bit unsatisfied. If I find myself believing something, I want to test the belief. I want to say how do I find out how valid this is.”
“I always used to say that artists are either cowboys or farmers really and they’re both both ways of being an artist are fine you know the farmer wants to find a piece of territory and fully explore it and exploit it … the other kind of artist is the one who just wants to find somewhere new he just wants to find the neck the next frontier the next piece of territory and that’s what he gets turned on by so i i think i’m more in the second category though people listening to my work would say but it all sounds exactly the same brian.”
If you want more, you can listen to the complete interview, or other episodes of Broken Record. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Sheldon Dick took the social media picture in 1938. “Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. Beer party in Joe Gladski’s cellar. Mr. Gladski is in the right foreground” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
War And Taxes
This post was published March 28, 2008. … One of the radio whiners was talking about taxes today. (That sentence could get a lot of use). There was some kind of economist guest, and the consensus was that lower taxes stimulated the economy. The thought occurred to this reporter … why have taxes at all? If lower taxes would stimulate the economy, then what about no taxes at all? I am no economist, but I suspect this would not work. To begin with, we have to pay the interest of the debt we already have. If we don’t pay this interest, then no one will loan us any more money.
Second, we have the War in Babylon to consider. Our Government tried to pay for this war with a tax cut before the invasion. The budget deficit went to $410b in 2004. The economy was stimulated, though, and there was regime change in Baghdad. Unfortunately, our army was not greeted as liberators. However, the tax cut was greeted as a liberator in certain circles here. (The budget deficit was $1.78t in 2025. The national debt was $7.37t in 2004, and $36.21t in 2025)
It would seem to this slack Georgia Blogger that the issue is not whether or not to have taxes, but how to assess them, and and at what rates. I have written a few times about the “Fair tax”. one two three The FT has the potential to work, but there are wrinkles to iron out. God/Satan is in the details.
Lets get back to the matter of how to set the tax rates. It is a mess. Tax deductions and tax write offs have produced many jobs, and done much good work. The powerhouse economy of the last seventy years has been a product of many factors. Deficit spending, a print happy federal reserve, and baffling tax laws have all played a part. Should we throw the baby out with the bathwater? Maybe we can go back to an emphasis on tariffs to raise money. This would have the dual effect of bringing in money, and protecting the industries that have not gone south of the border. Nevermind that tariffs were a minor cause of the war between the states.
A tax on the rich would bring in revenue, and is a crowd pleaser at election time. However, some of these people are entrepreneurs who create jobs. Besides, they give political contributions, and are protected. Maybe we could tax political contributions, and other forms of prostitution. Legalizing certain controlled substances would add to the tax digest. In short, I don’t have a clue. I am just a slack georgia blogger who doesn’t get campaign contributions.
This post was published March 25, 2008. … The blog battles are on hold. After being banned by a slew of Jesus Worship blogs, I have been mostly out of combat. Except for a skirmish with AtlMalcontent about Amnesty International, the western front has been quiet. … Renegade Evolution recently alerted me to the seven deadly sins test. I left a comment, and her initial reply started “chamblee54 who the f*** are you”. I mentioned I was a recovering Baptist, and Ren said “Baptist…egads”.
The Baptist experience is very different from the Jew experience. I decided a long time ago I didn’t agree with what went on in church, and was no longer a Baptist. My mother converted as a teenager, and recruited my dad a few years later. There is no long family history, no Seders with relatives, almost no ritual … just a noisy fascination with life after death. Jews, on the other hand, have a long history, and many families have been on the program a long, long time. I don’t know if you are really ever an ex Jew, whether or not you are observant. I also am not familiar with Ren’s story…what people mean when they say they are Jewish changes from person to person.
As for Renegade Evolution’s blog … it is well written, and has some great stories. I read a description of a porn movie shoot that was highly entertaining. She is focused on the sex worker point of view, which is her right as a blogger. It is also my right as a reader to get tired of reading about it. I have always found the feminist anti pornography attitude to be a bit mysterious. I imagine this is a function of being a gay man, from a culture which celebrates smut. Yes, that is the sound of one hand clapping…the other hand is busy.
Most gay porn is cooperative, that is, both men are equals and everyone has a squirting good time. I think a certain percentage of str8 movies are not. I have a str8 tape in my collection where this gnarly baldheaded guy says mean things to the woman. I find it tough to believe that guys are turned on by this, but apparently some are. I can see why some women object to this “entertainment”. I am glad that Ren is standing up for the rights of people like her (and that we live in a country that permits this). I also question how much I really want to read about it.
Back to the Seven Deadly Sins. This is a very old fashioned list, perhaps even obsolete. Listening to the well defended Jeremiah Wright, it is clear that Wrath and Pride are on their way to being cardinal virtues. With today’s prosperity gospel, Envy and Greed are no longer in disrepute. From the look of many waistlines in the modern church, Gluttony is a favored pastime. That leaves Sloth and Lust. Good old Lust … it always did have a special place in the hearts of pulpit pounders.
The discussion with Renegade Evolution is lost in the digital dustbin. Ren made her last searchable post January 13, 2013. As for AtlMalcontent, he made an amusing comment in his 2007 rant. “You argue, in essence, that we should say nothing about human rights abuses in Iran because it might create “ill will against the government there.” Good. Ahmadinejad is a religious fanatic with visions of grandeur. I agree it’s unwise to beat the war drums now, but Iran is not benign. Wouldn’t you be at least a little concerned if they acquired nuclear weapons?” Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library
The social media picture was taken March 16, 1967. “ Chevron Island event ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Jesus Gets A New Nickname
This content was originally published February 13, 2013 … There is a video making the rounds now. The title involves Jesus, and a certain racial slur. When you go to many links, you get this message. “Jesus is my N…” This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Brian Spinney, LLC.” You should not worry about missing out. Just go to youtube, and search for the phrase that pays. Someone else will have posted the video, and you can feel the magic for yourself.
Here is a story about the song, with the edgy language bleeped. “One pastor is trying to spread the word of God with an edgy rap song. The rapping pastor and his wife claim they have “Christian swag” while tossing around the n-word. “Jesus is my ni**a!” Proclaims the pastor in one verse. The video of the rapping pastor was recently uploaded to YouTube but it’s not clear when it was filmed. It was taken at a church in Iowa which closed in 2004.” Another helpful interneter has the lyrics.
In case you didn’t know, Pastor Jim Colerick, and Mrs Mary-Sue Colerick, are melanin deficient. They are, as Bette Midler once said about Karen Carpenter, so white they are invisible. It is not considered good manners for Caucasians to use this word, with or without salvation.
There is another angle to this equation. Many Jesus worshipers see not using cusswords as a sign of righteousness. As a result, many Jesus worshipers use the words God, and Jesus Christ, as tools of their anger. This violates the third commandment. Now, this use of a sacred name, as profanity, is being extended to using a sacred name as a racial slur.
When you call a book “the word of God”, you give certain words too much power. When you decide that the lazy way of saying black is a super duper naughty word, you give those five/six letters way too much power. Now, we see the convergence of these two taboos. Let the party begin.
AI update: Gain of Fauci recently tweeted this golden oldie. @DschlopesIsBack Easily one of the best videos in the history of the internet 😂 · There was a reply: @grok is this real? · @grok The video appears to be an edited compilation of old televangelist footage (likely from Jim Bakker’s shows in the 1980s), with added cartoon effects, speech bubbles, and humorous animations for comedic effect. The base clips are real, but the final product is satirical, not unedited reality. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in April 1943. “Women workers employed as wipers in the roundhouse having lunch in their rest room, C. & N.W. R.R., Clinton, Iowa ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
What Would Jesus Sue?
This content was originally posted February 23, 2019. … This is the story of a Biblical twitterspat. If you are not interested, you can skip over the text, and look at the pictures.
@wartwatch The only thing that matters veto these churches is $$$$$. They must be sued and they must pay a penalty in order to make an impact.
chamblee54 What would Jesus Sue?
@SimeonTheFool If only there was some way to know for sure whether Jesus would approve of causing financial damage on religious leaders who made money by exploiting others. Like, if He’d ever famously done it Himself or something….
chamblee54 “only there was some way to know for sure”
Everything that Jesus did, or did not do, is legend. Everything.
The only things we know about Jeeziepoo are what the council of nicea chose to tell us.
@SimeonTheFool Tua eruditione praestantem es minus habens. Cede studere historia. (Your scholarship is not good enough. Please go to study history.)
chamblee54 Your arrogance is not good enough. Please go to study humility.
@SimeonTheFool Το Συμβούλιο της Νικαίας δεν συζήτησε τον κανόνα της Βίβλου. Αυτή είναι η ταπεινοφροσύνη επειδή είναι αλήθεια. Η αλαζονεία λέει “Ιησούπου”. Σε ευχαριστώ για την προσπάθεια σου. (The Council of Nicaea did not discuss the Bible rule. This is humility because it is true. Arrogance says “Jesus”. Thank you for your effort.)
chamblee54 you have been educated beyond your ability to use knowledge in a meaningful way
אַל־ תַּ֣עַן כְּ֭סִיל כְּאִוַּלְתֹּ֑ו פֶּֽן־ תִּשְׁוֶה־ לֹּ֥ו גַם־ את׃ (This is apparently backwards.)
chamblee54 Do not give it to the people, but to the people of the land. I am throwing in the translator You win You will collect your winnings when the cardboard cookies are finished baking
@SimeonTheFool “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you become like him.”
chamblee54 this religious argument has now moved into the personal insult phase I must be dealing with christians
@wartwatch I used to read over at ExChristians They do a pretty good job with insults as well. 😇
chamblee54 This will teach me not to make a joke about a beloved xtian cliche
At this point I made a mistake. I went for a walk, and thought about this conversation.
@chamblee54 one point has not been challenged … whether it was the council of nicea, or the 7 ecumenical councils, there was a human gatekeeper Some humans chose the texts to include in the bible This is the primary source of stories about jesus christian insults cannot change that
@SimeonTheFool Sorry, but you’re misinformed. Basic history facts: 1. The Council of Nicea was one of the 7 Ecumenical Councils (the first), not “or.” 2. The canon of Scripture was not discussed at any of them. 3. Paul’s epistles as well as the four gospels predate all of them by centuries.
chamblee54 ok who decided what texts go in the bible? was it man or g-d? there were many texts, other than the letters of paul, that were not included. Who made this decision?
chamblee54 you did not answer my question there were dozens of texts which were not included in the canon who chose these texts?
@SimeonTheFool Oh, but I did answer your question. The answer is, “Go do your own homework.”
This debate raged on, long past the point of being either educational or entertaining. St. Simeon the Holy Fool claims to have a PhD from a “large secular state university.” If you are interested, you can use one of the links in this feature to join in the fun.
One other celebrant chimed in. This is a recent convert to twitterism. They have a handful of followers, and have not made any original tweets.
@MRWiggins2 So if this is the case, if everything’s just pure legend, nonsense, myth, why do you even care to speculate as to who He would sue? I dare say, sir, you are a bit confused.
chamblee54 that was a parody of “what would jesus do”
@MRWiggins2 When a fool gets rolling, just get out of their way. Luther’s one of these people not clever enough to realize he’s not clever. Dangerous thing, when you are essentially a combo platter of arrogance and ignorance.
@MRWiggins2 You can’t even communicate at a mediocre level. Mea culpas if you’re a 13 year old boy in the nascent stage of his rebellion phase. Otherwise, please learn to write & reason. Don’t just be a confirmation of the stereotype of the atheist not smart enough to see they’re not smart.
chamblee54 as opposed to xtians whose conversation turns into puerile insults instinctively
chamblee54 you talk pretty good for a person who has not tweeted yet
@MRWiggins2 I didn’t know that was a requirement. I’m not a big social media guy.
@MRWiggins2 Au contraire. I don’t claim to understand the workings of the universe,
I just know Jesus saved me–a small, ignorant thing who doesn’t even understand his teenagers.
OTOH, those who claim there is no God must be supernaturally knowledgeable to make such an extraordinary claim. (At no time in this discussion did I discuss the reputed existence of God.)
@SimeonTheFool is now available to approved followers only. @simeonthefool.bsky.social is open on Bluesky. @MRWiggins2 is nowhere to be seen. @wartwatch continues to do outstanding work.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in November 1940. “Having a beer in “Art’s Sportsman’s Tavern” on a rainy day in Colchester, Connecticut” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
M.K. Gandhi And Truth
This content was posted January 14, 2025. … I identify as human @pixfiber “Truth never damages a cause that is just.” · Mohandas K. Gandhi. This item appeared in my twitter feed on January 6. Being an unreconstructed pedant, I went to the Gandhi Wikiquote. “Truth” had too many search results, so I went to “just.” I found a doozy: “I have always held that social justice, even to the least and lowliest, is impossible of attainment by force.” Harijan (20 April 1940) p. 97
Harijan was another word for the untouchable caste in India. “… Gandhi conducted an intensive crusade against untouchability …” Harijan was also a newspaper that started on 11 February 1933, brought out by Gandhi from Yerwada Jail during the British rule in India. Gandhi popularized the term Harijan across the states of India but he was not the first person to use it.”
Archive.org has much of Harijan available online, including the quote above. The quote is in a tsunami of text. Gandhiji was trained as a lawyer, and could crank out a word count. His positions are well thought out and complicated. This material is more complicated than the motivational Mahatma we are familiar with.
If you don’t mind wading through a pile of results, a search for “truth” on the Gandhi Wikiquotes will yield some good thoughts. Bear in mind that these quotes are without context. If you are willing to do the work, and google the source, you might find that the meaning of these thoughts is different from what you might think. The first three quotes in this list are from An Autobiography Or The Story of My Experiments With Truth By: M. K. Gandhi.
“A man of truth must also be a man of care.” Part I, Chapter 5, At the High School
“But all my life though, the very insistence on truth has taught me to appreciate the beauty of compromise. I saw in later life that this spirit was an essential part of Satyagraha. It has often meant endangering my life and incurring the displeasure of friends. But truth is hard as adamant and tender as a blossom.” Part II, Chapter 18, Colour Bar
“My uniform experience has convinced me that there is no other God than Truth.” p. 453
“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.” Young India 1924-1926 (1927), p. 1285 (context below)
“A seeker after Truth cannot afford to indulge in generalisation.”
“Generalisation”, Harijan (6 July 1940).
“If you want to give a message again to the West, it must be a message of ‘Love’, it must be a message of ‘Truth’. There must be a conquest — [audience claps] — please, please, please. That will interfere with my speech, and that will interfere with your understanding also. I want to capture your hearts and don’t want to receive your claps. Let your hearts clap in unison with what I’m saying, and I think, I shall have finished my work.”
Speech in New Delhi to the Inter-Asian Relations Conference (2 April 1947)
“Impure means result in an impure end… One cannot reach truth by untruthfulness. Truthful conduct alone can reach Truth.” Harijan (13 July 1947) p. 232
“[Government] control gives rise to fraud, suppression of truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self-help…It makes them spoon-fed.” Delhi Diary (3 November 1947 entry)
“It is no use trying to fight these forces [of materialism] without giving up the idea of conversion, which I assure you is the deadliest poison which ever sapped the fountain of truth.”
Mahatma Gandhi The Collected Works Vol 46, p. 203
Wikiquotes has a lively section devoted to quotes that are Disputed and Misattributed. One Disputed entry is especially festive: “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” “The earliest attribution of this to Gandhi … is in a T-shirt advertisement in Mother Jones, Vol. 8, No. 5 (June 1983), p. 46”
Several much loved Gandhisms have a shaky history. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” “An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.” “God has no religion.” “We need to be the change we wish to see in the world.”
Young India supplied one of the quotes above. Here is page 1285. “Some Posers: — ‘A well wisher’ sends these lines for my meditation: ‘The Bible can be read in 566 languages. In how many can the Upanishads and the Gita? How many leper asylums and institutions for the depressed and the distressed have the missionaries? How many have you?’ It is usual for me to receive such posers. ‘A well wisher’ deserves an answer, I have great regard for the missionaries for their zeal and self-sacrifice. But I have not hesitated to point out to them that both are often misplaced. What though the Bible were translated in every tongue in the world? Is a patent medicine better than the Upanishads for being advertised in more languages than the Upanishads? An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody will see it. The Bible was a greater power when the early fathers preached it than it is today. ‘A well wisher’ has little conception of the way truth works, if he thinks that the translation of the Bible in more languages than the Upanishads is any test of its superiority. Truth has to be lived if it is to fructify. But if it is any satisfaction to ‘A well wisher’ to have my answer I may gladly tell him that the Upanishads and the Gita have been translated into far fewer languages than the Bible. I have never been curious enough to know in how many languages they are translated.”
“As for the second question, too, I must own that the missionaries have founded many leper asylums and the like. I have founded none. But I stand unmoved. I am not competing with the missionaries or any body else in such matters. I am trying humbly to serve humanity as God leads me. The founding of leper asylums etc. is only one of the ways, and perhaps not the best, of serving humanity. But even such noble service loses much of its nobility when conversion is the motive behind it. That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake. But let me not be misunderstood. The missionaries that selflessly work away in such asylums command my respect. I am ashamed to have to confess that Hindus have become so callous as to care little for the waifs and strays of India, let alone the world.”
Chamblee54 has written about M.K. Gandhi. 040515 020521 042222 Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. John Vachon took the social media picture in May 1938. “Farmer
Farmer outside the cooperative store. Irwinville, Georgia.”©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Invisible Pink Unicorn
This content was published January 29, 2009. … An Atlanta blogger recently posted “a random list: music artists I can’t stand.” The list: Nickelback, M.I.A., U2, Matchbox Twenty/Rob Thomas, Gwen Stefani, Fergie/Black Eyed Peas, Old Dirty Bastard/Big Baby Jesus, Norah Jones, Bob Dylan/Jacob Dylan/The Wallflowers, Linda Perry/4 Non-Blondes, Natalie Merchant/10,000 Maniacs, Sonic Youth, Kid Rock, T-Pain, Jack Johnson, KATY PERRY, TV on the Radio, Eddie Vedder/Pearl Jam.
The random list makes me feel like an old fogie. This might not be a bad thing. To begin with, I have never heard several of the acts. There is Kid Rock, who got in a fight in a Buford Highway Waffle House. Or Katy Perry, who kissed a girl before she got talking about Jesus. … It is encouraging to see the vastly overrated U2 on the list. Or puzzling to see that not everyone thinks Bob Dylan is fabulous. … But the main reason the list made me feel old was the length of time since I felt hip. When you are an observer, it can be easier to not like something, than to appreciate it.
I had a friend years ago, who we will call Geronimo. He had a lot of influence over my thinking. There were things he liked. Of course, the list of things he did not like, and would ridicule, was even longer. One day, Geronimo started to rant about Jeff Beck. As it turned out, I liked Jeff Beck, and let my pal know it. Eventually, I learned to think for myself.
This was the early seventies. For many like Geronimo, disco was the anti christ. Meanwhile, I started to hang out downtown. One night I was dragged, kicking and screaming, onto the dance floor. I liked it, and enjoyed the music that so many of my friends hated. … The process of learning to appreciate music was a long journey, and is probably still not complete. There was even the time when I stood outside a stadium listening to Black Sabbath … another bane of the 1972 music snob. … Music went into the mtv era, and radio got more and more specialized. I got older and more decrepit, and caught myself enjoying Lawrence Welk.
This content was published January 28, 2009. … There has been talk lately about The Flying Spaghetti Monster. The FSM was originally created in response to the Kansas State Board of Education. The KSBE ruled that alternatives to evolution needed to be taught in public schools, including some contraption known as intelligent design. There was talk about whirlwinds rampaging through warehouses and creating jet engines. … FSM soon appeared, in all it’s meatball glory. FSM is a satire religion, in the footsteps of the Invisible Pink Unicorn. Bertrand Russell wrote of an Interplanetary Teapot, which will provide the beverage for the spaghetti supper.
FSM is often used as a substitute for the G word, or God. In the struggle for hearts and minds, God has an advantage over FSM. The G word is a marketing dream. It is short, and easy to say. Almost everyone has heard someone say God. While people mean different things when they say God, almost everyone knows about the general concept. … FSM has seven syllables. Spaghetti is notoriously tough to spell, and has a silent letter. OTOH, no one says FSM got an underaged virgin pregnant. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. John Vachon took the social media picture in May 1938. “The MacDuffey family. Irwinville Farms, Georgia” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
The Tortured Struggle
This content was published January 9, 2025. … It started out as a joke comment. Thank God for secular humanism. · You’re welcome. I got to thinking, and wondered what the punch line was. Is there a difference between God and man?
Zen and the art of motorcycle repair says that the division of God and man, subject and object, is the dirty work of Aristotle. I am not philosophically grounded enough to know, but suspect that unity is better than division. Is the earth a unified whole, “thou art that”?
Now, the truth just might be that God is separate from man. While unity may sound appealing, it might not be the way things operate. Just because a belief makes you happy does not mean that it is true. Let no man bring together what God has rent asunder.
This content was published January 10, 2025. … X does not like linking to a post. I write a description, and leave a link in the comments. Yesterday, it looked like this: “Is there a difference between God and Man? If so, where do you draw the boundary?
Facebook had a response: “I am so inexplicably bored to tears by that tedious conversation. The only way either side can prove their point is to die. The pictures are nice. Further proof that there isn’t any god, only the tortured struggle between man and his own psyche. Thanks for sharing.”
My smartass reaction was that “the tortured struggle between man and his own psyche” was a good description of God. Or, to quote someone more popular than Jesus, “God is a concept by which we measure our pain.” But I didn’t want to start trouble, so I clicked “Like,” and went on my way.
One person who talked about that tortured struggle was Billy Graham. The GSU library has a picture of the marquee at the Tower Theater, during a 1954 Billy Graham Crusade. The Tower theater is now a parking lot. “The Tower Theater, previously the Erlanger Opera House, was located at 583 Peachtree Street. It was originally constructed in 1790. In the 1950’s the theater was turned into a Cinerama, and the name changed to Martin Cinerama. The theater would also be known as Atlanta Theater, and Columbia Theater. The building was razed in 1995.”
The Erlanger Opera House was probably not built in 1790. I decided to do some checking up, and began by seeing when the North Avenue Presbyterian Church was built next door. This is where the investigation took a curious turn. “The church was constructed from Stone Mountain granite donated by charter members whose family owned the mountain and were in the granite quarry business. It was occupied for the first time for the Thanksgiving service in 1900.”
“The building program was helped immeasurably by the generosity of the Merssrs. William H. and Samuel H. Venable, who donated the granite out of which the building was constructed.” · “William Hoyt Venable (1852-1905) and Samuel Hoyt Venable (1856-1939) were involved with the Stone Mountain quarrying industry. The Venable brothers were the sole owners of Stone Mountain and much surrounding land which they purchased in 1887 at a claimed cost of $350,000.”
“James Venable (1901-1993) was the Imperial Wizard of the National Knights of the Klan from 1963 to 1987, “which he organized as one of several rival Klan factions nationally.” (NY Times) Venable had but continued the family tradition. As a 13 year old, he attended the 1915 Klan resurgence and rally on top of Stone Mountain. He was with his uncle, Sam Venable, who, as one of the owners of Stone Mountain, also became the secretary of the Klan.” … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. These details are from picture #06665, “Bathing Beauty Pageant, 1925, Huntington Beach CA.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Divine Intervention
A strange thing happened on my walk this morning. I was listening to this show about David Foster Wallace. It was a dystopian commentary, about a lot of different things. One of the chief problems is the general f***** up nature of the medical industrial complex.
I was about to turn around, and do another lap, when the phone rang. I decided to take a chance, and answer the call. The call was a lady calling from the sleep disorder clinic. Some of the Medicare claims had been rejected. I went back into the house, got my reading glasses, and woke up the computer. I got a new Medicare card last December, and apparently the sleep disorder clinic never got the new Medicare number. It was synchronistic that I would answer this call, and that it would be an illustration of the story I was listening to.
I had a similar experience a while back. I was riding on the exercise bike at the gym, while watching Female Trouble by John Samuel Waters. FT was just so strange. I was being pulled into this narcatonic vortex that JSW induces in people. He will render them mentally incompetent by the facilitation of “Divine intervention.” In this scene, Divine chopped a ladies arm off, and held her prisoner in a giant birdcage. At this point in the procedure, I get a spam risk phone call. I decided what the hell, life is so much fun right now, what’s another spam phone call?
So I answer the call. It’s from Piedmont Care Connect. PCC was this program that my primary doctor wanted to sign me up for. You would pay to have a PCC blood pressure monitor installed in your house. The device would transmit the BP readings to Piedmont heathcare. I was very skeptical of the whole thing. I got even more skeptical when I talked to the people from the program, because they didn’t know what they were doing. I had already told them not to call me again. After I hung up the phone, I learned that Divine was going to prison, for her crimes against hairstyling.
So yesterday went on and on and finally ended. I listened to the last of the story about Dave Wallace. I was pleased to get to the part about gnosticism. I wanted to listen to it again because I thought I might have missed something the last time. Later, I read a piece about Yahweh. (I did not copy the link). It seems that Yahweh was a minor Israeli God, until there was a hostile takeover of the whole system. Yahweh then issued the Ten Commandments, saying that I am the only God. It is very curious that I never heard this. All Christians ever talk about is life after death.
Meanwhile, the gnostics were saying that Yahweh was the demiurge, or the anti-god. If you go by the Old Testament, there may be a grain of truth to this. You don’t really hear much about God in the New Testament, which is mostly about Jesus, the illegitimate son of Yahweh. … The second thing that I find really bizarre about Yahweh is that two of the nicknames for Yahweh are Allah and God. You heard that right … Allah and God are the same thing.
It is now 121225. When I get up and moving … slowly … I turn on the noise machine, to provide background sounds. Inevitably, I will need to turn it off, so I can hear something else. Today, the first turnoff of the day was a 23 second video about how to pronounce bhagavad gita. To pronounce BG, remember that the h should be after the a, instead of before. BAH ga vahd GE tuh. It is similar to saying Bah Humbug. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in August 1942. “Nashville, Tennessee. Welding parts for fuel pumps. Vultee Aircraft Corporation plant” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Did Jesus Go To Hell?
This content was posted December 22, 2008. … Maybe the problem is Jesus. Like many other issues, there are semantics involved. There is the historic Jesus. The legend is that a virgin mother gave birth to Jesus. He grew to be a carpenter, until taking time off to talk about God. Jesus was too much trouble for the powers that be, so he was killed. Later, Jesus rose from the dead. … There is also the spirit, which many call Jesus. This spirit has little in common with the historic Jesus, except for using the name. The best way to know the spirit Jesus is through those who believe in it.
There is some dispute when the historic Jesus was born. As another blogger put it: ”Israeli meteorologists best guess places the real date of Christ’s birth on September 29th, 5 B.C. The Catholic writer Mario Righetti candidly admits that, “to facilitate the acceptance of the faith by the pagan masses, the Church of Rome found it convenient to institute the 25th of December as the feast of the birth of Christ to divert them from the pagan feast, celebrated on the same day in honor of the ‘Invincible Sun’ Mithras, the conqueror of darkness” (Manual of Liturgical History, 1955, Vol. 2, P. 67).” … The truth is, we don’t know when historic Jesus was born. Four days after the winter solstice just seemed like a good time for a celebration.
There is also the spirit Jesus to think about. Since it doesn’t exist outside of the hearts of the believers, it can have any “birthday” it wants. December 25 works just fine. … The idea for this post was a rant about the hurt that spirit Jesus has put in my life. About the harm done to our society by the leadership of the Christian church, and their followers. About the debasement of our government by exploiting religion. This will not change anyone’s mind, and will only make me feel worse. Jesus is a source of misery to me. His birthday … spirit or historic … is nothing to celebrate.
This content was posted December 3, 2022. … A blogger named Older eyes put up a post about Tim Tebow and Bill Maher, who recently had a twitterspat. It went like this. “Maher Tweeted: Wow, Jesus just f—- TimTebow bad! And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere in hell Satan is tebowing, saying to Hitler, “Hey, Buffalo’s killing them” … To Tebow’s credit, he ignored Maher, Tweeting only, Tough game today but what’s most important is being able to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Merry Christmas everyone GB² (according to Tebow’s website GB²=God Bless+Go Broncos).
I felt obliged to pile on, despite forgiving Denver for Super Bowl XXXIII. I left this comment: “1 – In all probability, Jesus was not born on December 25. The celebration of his birth was grafted onto a pagan festival day. 2 – It sure was fun watching Buffalo run those interceptions back for touchdowns. 3 – There is no good choice here. In both cases, you have the option of turning the TV off, or switching away from twitter. If you are in enforced contact (a work or family situation) with someone who will not shut up, who repeats his obnoxious opinions with disregard for his neighbor, then you do not have this option. 4 – Jesus said, when Satan was through talking to Hitler, please leave me out of this.”
This got me to thinking. If you saw a mushroom cloud rising over Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, that might have been the result. Did Jesus go to hell? The party line is that Jesus paid the price for the sins of mankind. Is forty four hours in a cave enough? When you consider the billions of lies, murders, and fornications, you have to wonder. Maybe Jesus is taking the place of man in hell, paying the price for your sins. … This is a repost from 2012. Tim Tebow’s fifteen minutes are over. Colin Kaepernick’s fifteen minutes refuse to end. Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library The social media picture was taken March 5, 1954. “Atlanta Car for Hire Association member (?) taxicab” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
If I Were A Poor Black Kid
This content was published December 12, 2023. … There is a fuss going on about an article at Forbes magazine, If I Was A Poor Black Kid. I was reading a facebook discussion of the article, and decided I wanted to read the original. I googled white guy writing about being a poor black kid for freakin’ FORBES, and the fun began.
Angry Black Lady Chronicles tells of the day when her (white) mother took a day off, from her job as a copy editor, to get young ABL enrolled in a tougher math class. Greg Laden’s Blog chimes in with Forbes’ Gene Marks Needs To Check His Priv. The last line says it all … “Or, as in your case, not so smart but privileged.”
If you want to read the denunciations of the Forbes article, open your eyes and take a look. You might want to hurry up. Soon, there will be another article, somewhere, that people don’t like. Maybe you can talk about the War on Christmas. This is an example of Christian Privilege gone awry. It is a safe bet that many of the poor black kids are Christians. Maybe one form of privilege will outweigh another. Or people will learn about a grain of salt.
It is ironic that the piece was published in Forbes. Malcolm Forbes was fond of saying that he was loaded with “sheer ability, spelled i-n-h-e-r-i-t-a-n-c-e.” The elder Forbes had a lavish lifestyle, with Elizabeth Taylor as a beard. His son, Steve Forbes, (Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Jr.) was quoted as saying “My father once spent $5 million on a birthday party for himself in Tangiers. Why can’t I spend a few more running for President?”.
This feature was originally published in 2011 It was a simpler time. Pictures today are from the Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken September 4, 1947. “Capital Theater Ernest Tubb personal appearance. ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Turn, Turn, Turn
This content was published November 5, 2023. … We are now in a time of war. One side is heavily armed, and slaughters unarmed women and children. The Prime Minister of the heavily armed country uses Ecclesiastes 3:8 to justify mass murder. … I recently published a poem, that includes the line “Ecclesiastical abomination.” When I wrote that, it was just a clever phrase, rhyming with cultural appropriation. In fact, I considered saying cultural abomination/Ecclesiastical appropriation. Now, Bibi Netanyahu has taught me the meaning of Ecclesiastical abomination.
The word Ecclesiastes has a poetic tingle. “Eccy” is in the Old Testament is between the poetry of Proverbs, and the enticements of the Song of Salomon. Richard Brautigan counted the punctuation marks in Ecclesiastes, and found no errors. Ecclesiastes 3 was even the lyrics for a top forty song.
Turn, Turn, Turn is taken almost verbatim from the book of Ecclesiastes. Pete Seeger wrote a melody, and added a line. “There is a time for peace, I swear it’s not too late”. TTT became a hit for the Byrds in 1965, as the escalation of the Vietnam war was in full bloom.
TTT is about the dualities of life, and how there is a place for all these things. When I was collecting rocks from destroyed houses, it was a time to gather stones together. TTT can serve as a companion to the vibrations of day to day living.
Pete Seeger died January 27, 2014. I first heard of him when he was on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. It was during Vietnam, and Mr. Seeger did “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy”. The CBS censors did not allow this the first time he appeared. Many thought Mr. Seeger was talking about Lyndon Johnson when he sang “The big fool said to push on”.
This content was published November 1, 2008. … After finishing breakfast, I made a pot of coffee and went to look at the battery. Prying the cover off with a screwdriver, I saw that there was almost no water inside. I went to the toolshed to get the distilled water, and saw the sun rising over the trees in the backyard. I put three cups of water in the battery, and tried to start the car. The car did not start, but did make more noise than it did last night.
Back to the dialog about war and peace. The only Tolstoy I had read was a short story about a man called Ivan Ilyitch. War and peace are two constants of man’s existence. There had been a feature about W&P in The Aquarian Drunkard. AD is a blog written by a former Dunwoody resident who now exists in LA. The feature focused on Pete Seeger, and the song “Turn, Turn, Turn”. …
I checked the fishwrapper to see when the Georgia Florida game began. While I was there, I looked in on his other alma mater, Cross Keys High School. CK is riding a 28 game losing streak. Halloween night, they lost to Greater Atlanta Christian 66-7. … This text is written like H. P. Lovecraft. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture is labeled Untitled. It is possibly related to a picture taken by John Vachon in March 1943. “Greenville, South Carolina. U.S. Highway 29 seen from an Associated Transport Company truck” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
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