Solstice Blessings

I see those around me gearing up for Christmas, doing their best to meet the cultural and commercial expectations our mamas all raised us with. I’m not unaware of the change of the soundtrack as I shop for my daily dose of chocolate milk at the local King Soopers or stroll the aisles at Wally World restocking hobo essentials. Santa-branded candy is as overpriced as a class at the late Trump University which is slightly abated by the recent heavy discounts on Bronco-branded merch. You can also pick up some heavily discounted pumpkin-spiced croutons for your salad right now if you know the right aisles to shop.

The sounds of the season and the Xmas themed end-caps at the stores were in place long before Thanksgiving eve. This is the Christian holiday snatched from the pagans and assigned as the birthday of Baby Jeebus fully re-dedicated to the American God of Retail. O’Holy Night and all that and “get your grimey ass back to Mexico” says Tucker Carlson on God’s Chosen Channel. I’m eternally and daily thankful I’m free of the cognitive dissonance required to carry water for this imaginary monster. Hippie Jeebus I could stomach.

Now what to celebrate? Are we totally screwed? Maybe for those whose imaginations need to be filled by self-righteous holy pricks imaginatively interpreting The Goat Herders Guide to the Galaxy. Somebody give these people a science book ferchrissakes.

This Rambo Jeebus, this malignant Christian Nationalist Jeebus, this “FU dirty hippes!” version of Jeebus has soured the entirety of the American religious landscape and made many realize that the true history of Baby Jeebus is as nebulous as the the position and speed of an atomic particle. At least an atomic particle leaves a reliable footprint. Though we may sometimes tire in our attempt to hang onto that which is most precious to us it’s best to maintain a firm grip on the reliable atoms in the rope than to let go and pray for a miracle against gravity, and everybody dam well knows it.

As for me? The most blessed all of the hobo heretics the high mountain meadows can muster? I’ll continue to spread honesty, cheer and happiness around me in as eager and prolific a manner as the spirits of an aging hobo and his old hobo hound can muster, fully leveraging the utility of the companionship my cute publicity-loving-pup adds to the mix. There may be some weed involved, all legally obtained and distributed under the laws of my totally utopian state. I’ll always strive to maintain as much of a positive public image as can be had from such a minimalist perch as this poverty-tainted platform will allow.. Build new friendships and try to maintain the many acquired along the happy trails.

At this most blessed of holiday seasons, I’d be remiss not to note the most serendipitous of the many hobo blessings (that coincidentally happens to make a fundamentalist Pentecostal wince hardest) is that I am living as close to the purported lifestyle of the beloved Baby Jeebus as is humanly possible in the 21st Century. That noted, I’m not nearly as incommunicado, nor has my army of a dozen female apostles completely gelled, just yet. I’m less inclined to push against those wishing to form a religion around me the older I get. It’s a feature, not a bug. Hoocoodanode?

Chalk it up to the curiosity of my nature. It’s what my mama raised me with. That, and a round Earth.

Enjoy.

New Year Thoughts and Plays

I pause once again to thank the goodness of my friends for helping enable the “level of success” I have achieved since returning to the US as a shell-shocked (yet surprisingly fabulous) senior citizen expat widower three years ago.  One thing I’ve learned from the experience is that there are more people out there actually paying attention to my content and concerned for my well being than I would ever anticipated. They’ve been the difference between survival and what I define as surthrival, which is at least halfway up the fourth tier on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  Self actualization can only be achieved in a sunny high mountain meadow sipping fire-brewed coffee and passing one of Willie’s Reserve around the tambourine circle, but I don’t want to give away all the secret society stuff.  Come visit and we’ll talk.

The Hobo Heretic Has Arrived

I’m claiming my rightful throne as Hobo Heretic of the high mountain meadows.  It’s the direction that providence has pushed me.  A retirement position that combines talents acquired lately in the fine art of minivan living with my lifelong fight against the disruptive effects of belief in things that cannot be tested.  As always, my content will reflect that which interests or concerns me, untainted by the concern of mass appeal or monetary manipulations.  Expect a mix of the usual eclectic high mountain meadows magic, notes on van life along with the occasional political screed, because, well….just because.  (He’s guilty as shit and everybody knows it)

Enjoy.

Mysterious Ways

If you are of a certain religious bent then the correct answer to the question of “Why did the religious extremist do a heinous act?” is that God made him (it’s almost always a “him”) do it. I suspect the reason that God channels most of his most heinous acts through the hands of men is that Eve made him suspect the feminine reliability of following insane orders from men very early on.

Enjoy. 

On Faith

Debating God Slobberers

Long before they go cosmological or ontological on you, there’s this bit of pablum you have to wade through with almost all of your run-of-the-mill God slobberers.   Here’s the short list of the debating tactics of those on the religious short bus and how to deal with them:

The Gob Slobberer Starter Toolkit

1. You are mad at/hate God.
2. You wish to masturbate (more enthusiastically?) without oversight. (Masturbation just manages to squeeze out “practice homosexuality” as the ‘go-to sin” above the Mason-Dixon line).
3. You are lashing out at “the church” because (e.g.) a priest masturbated you a little too enthusiastically or you had some other negative experience at church.
4. You haven’t looked for God in the right places.

The Skeptics Responses

1.  I wish there was a God to be mad at but since that’s s a fantasy of yours I don’t share I’m going to have to hold you personally responsible for all the chowder-headed nonsense you’re spewing and the damage that occurs as a result.

2.  I do the best I can not to embarrass the ghost of Oscar Wilde.

3.  The soft hand of a Catholic priest would have been a Godsend in lieu of the total subjugation of my mind which was attempted in order to help me find comfort in the patently ridiculous notions being promulgated by mindless goobers like you.

4.  I looked everywhere for God as a child, but it was all to no avail. Were the father, son and holy ghost all too busy for for my toast?   Upon puberty it finally hit me.  Vaginas seemed the likeliest hideout for God that I hadn’t already searched in my youth.  Checked a bunch….nada God there..

I’ll keep looking to broaden the sample size but I’m skeptical I’ll find anything other than an echo in even the largest of vaginas.

Maybe God is too ashamed to show his face after looking around and seeing what a horrible job he did in the first place.  That’s a distinct possibility and the one I’d run up the flagpole if I was a master goober in religious apologetics.

Enjoy.

Another Pastor Quits God

There’s a story floating around on the internet about a preacher who is joining the secular swim team.   Ryan Bell has come out as an atheist and rationalist after a year of ‘testing the waters’.  He’s concluded that trying to triangulate God into the equation of life is more difficult than actually doing real scientific equations!  Congratulations Ryan!

That said, I picked up this bit from an interview he did here on the subject of atheist values.

“I recoil from a one-track-minded scientism that I sometimes encounter—as though science has all the answers for every question that a person has ever asked”

I wish he would have named names because I know of no outspoken voice in the field of “scientism” (wtf?) who speaks in such certitudes.  I’m sure I’m late to the party on calling him out for this, such is the eagle eye of Jerry Coyne at Why Evolution is True, but it deserves a bit of pushback.

Ryan Bell, the ex pastor, can be forgiven for an inability to fully visualize the truth about science because he’s probably still got a lot of God slobber in his eyes.  The bedrock of modern particle physics is the Uncertainty Principle which ought to have given him some clue as to where science sets the limits!  Quick! Somebody get him some science books…. and a box of Kleenex.

Enjoy.