fromthemouthofmoi

The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool --Stephen King Tell people there is an invisible man in the sky who created  the universe,  and the vast majority will believe you.  Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure --George Carlin Every word that comes after, "And the Lord told me…" is a pious lie --Bangambiki Habyarimana Those that are religious oftentimes will tell me that God loves everyone and the job of the faithful is to love one another. So far, in my examination of the Old Testament, I haven't see those instructions. When I hear people quote passages from the bible, old or new, they often quote passages that make no sense in 2017 and even if I were hearing them in 630 BCE, they would still be a little vague. But people utter passages all the times, as though they where there when they were written and saw God utter the words himself. I know that to anyone reading this series who defines themselves a...

Those who are capable of tyranny are capable of perjury to sustain it --Lysander Spooner In the previous chapter,  Mnemonics For Antiquity: Part Three , we have continued to examine the Old Testament with a focus, fashioned after the thoughts of Louis Althusser, of the mechanisms put in place which have been built upon, like a canon, resulting in the duplication of itself, through the worker, creating the world as we know it today. In Part Four, I shall continue to analyze the Testament continuing from the last segment of Part Three. ECCLESIASTES This chapter follows closely behind Proverbs with an almost last ditch attempt by a remaining elder to guide those that did not live in his time. It appears too that this is a personal account of life and experience, rather than words handed down from an unseen entity (God). Are we seeing man come to the conclusion that speaking from the self, relaying the personal may be more meaningful, have more impact and result in...

The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected -- Swedish Proverb Beware of a man with one book --English saying Society or culture or whatever you might want to call it,  has created us all solely and wholly  for the purpose of maintaining its continuity and status quo --Krishnamurti      In my last post, Mnemonics For Antiquity: Part Two , we ended with Kings 1 which introduced the concept of taxes. Since we now are involved with kings and divine right, taxes work like this: you work on the land I own growing and harvesting food for me, and a little for yourself, of course, and after surplus has been sold, you pay me some money for your efforts. Serfdom. And then came sharecroppers and then came you. We have continued with the concepts of cycles and examined canons, which we now can see clearly, are also mechanisms which enforce duplications of work which support systems that benefit a select few. The philosopher, Luis ...

A boy can learn a lot from a dog:  obedience, loyalty and the  importance of turning around  three times before lying down --Robert Benchley The bottom line in a Christian life is obedience And most people don't even like the word --Charles Stanley Obedience is detachment from the self.  This is the most radical detachment of all.  But what is the self? The self is the principle of reason  and responsibility in us, it is what makes us men --Bede Griffiths In part one of this essay I explored a theme which runs through the apocalyptic film genre, which often parallels the Old Testament. We looked at Greek mythology as a precursor to the Old Testament, canons in literature and cycles which are not always seen in a lifetime. I also explored what it means to be human. What I have begun to notice in the Old Testament is how much of it parallels the societies we have built for ourselves, going along with our faith, never no...

Prefer The Leader Who Comes To You --Ugandan Proverb If you look at almost any apocalyptic or futurist film you will almost always see the same plot, or rather, a familiar script, which will allow the world and its selected survivors to continue on thus insuring the world survives.  We are usually presented with some sort of catastrophe caused by war, a natural phenomenon, or of lives led, en masse, which caused such a great imbalance that people (except the strong ones), where unable to overcome. Various, and seemingly random, people come out from rubble, dusting themselves off and searching for other survivors. We will then be introduced to one man, (it's almost always a man and he is usually White as are most of the survivors). It will be immediately known by the viewer that this man is the leader and has the answers to every ones survival. Normally, without question, everyone follows his instructions. He tells people what to do, how to store food and when it is to...