🚀 go-pugleaf

"Robert Carroll" <rcarroll@bestweb.net> wrote in message
news:<uhkqt4r7us6650@corp.supernews.com>...
>  
> > >U.S. Court Says Pledge of Allegiance Unconstitutional

> > Well, some of us who learned the Pledge before the "under God"
> > bit was put in never did add those words.  Now that my dirty
> > secret is out I expect Homeland Security Agents to knock on
> > my door as I post this.  I'll doubtless be held incommunicado
> > for the next several years as an enemy of the state.
> 
> Exactly right.  Since the "under God" shoehorn, I've simply omitted those
> words when I recite the pledge.  (yes, I remember when it happened).  I
> always thought it was "beyond the pale"  Nice to know that the law is
> catching up.  I have nothing against religious sentiments, it's the
> mandatory part that bothers me.

It shall soon be overturned by the Supreme Court
before you can say, "Amen." Simply put... this IS
a "nation under God." Period. It's nice to believe
that humanity will progress towards a time when
it shall not longer promote superstition; but that time
is far, far in the future. (Perhaps evolution itself
might have to put in its tweak or two before this 
happens.) 

Just feel lucky we live in a country where superstition
is not after your hide ... any longer. My neighbors
believe in all manner of supernatural critters, gods,
ghosts (spirits, souls), angels, demons, wonkers &
baboongers... but at least they don't practice human
sacrifice any longer, and that's gotta be worth something!

Sure, it's awkward when the horrors inflicted upon us
by Islamic superstition occasion NOT a call against
the stupidity/dangers of superstition but claims that
The Great Baboonger doesn't really sanction that
sort of mass murder (as other of His faithful followers
assert as sincerely)... but that He's really a nice guy, 
once you get to know Him. But if I can live with cretins
like these and those, and I don't see why you shouldn't.

I think I've always known there was no God. And, to
be honest, I've never met anybody who has claimed
to know God existed somewhere. Sure, some cretin
who claims he knows there's a God will usually reply
(to your, "No kidding! How do you know this?): "Because
the little flowers bloom in the Spring!" Or some such.
Good Lord! I mean, I thought that was what made the
internal combustion engine go, after all!

However, you all know perfectly well that only madmen
speak to God, don't you? That's the usual litmus test,
at any rate: "And, you say you can speak with Jesus?"
"I should say I do." "Well, do you or don't you?" "Watch
this: O Jesus, I would like to ask you for a fiver?" And, as 
Jesus replies: "What is Jesus saying?" "He is saying 
that I can certainly ask, but whether I'm gett'n it... that's 
something else entirely." Results: "Nuts. Next."

The problem is that the brain finds itself in a curious
predicament: Ours is necessarily a reality where there
can not be even the slightest exception from the law
of cause/effect (there cannot be a causeless effect), and
that pretty much precludes true "free will" and all the other
delusions the brain has evolved ... to "delude" itself into 
the "feeling" that we are conscious beings "detached" 
from the absolute slavery of cause/effect that all the other
objects of this reality must obey... billiard balls & rain drops.

IF there were no God/soul/etc. whom would we sue for
the hot coffee we spilled on our lap? (It would certainly
bring down human civilization as we know it.) However,
"things are NOT a matter of cause/effect," God works in a
mysterious way His blunders to perform, and, being the
imperfect creations of a clumsy God... the coffee-heating
attendants at MacDonald's are eminently culpable and
sue-able for their mistakes/errors. Otherwise every moron
who hits himself over the head with a brick would have to
accept the self-evident judgment of Fate (that he or she is
a moron), and that would be unacceptable: "What?! This
brick didn't carry any warning against hitting myself over
the head with it--I'm suing those brick-making bastards!"
[Jenny vs Thick Bricks, settled out of court for: $134,000]

As long as there are men they will believe in God: I myself
know for a fact that not only is there no God but that there 
could NEVER have been NOR even ever could possibly 
be a God and yet I believe in Him ("one of'em" at any rate),
for I cannot go for more than 60 seconds without praying
to Him: "O thou Nameless God, please hold the green!"
(Of course, I usually shorten it to, "Hope I make it!" or some
such. But, after all: WHOM the "fone" do you imagine
I'm talking to sitting by myself in my car, for Heavens' sake!?
And never you mind what I pray to Him when I don't make it.

A simple truth we all accept is incompatible with the
existence of God IN the world: "The whole is greater 
than the part." (Unless God is just some guy living in
Cleveland, of course.) But, as you saw above, belief
in (a) God is irrational, and not subject to reason or
logic. (Don't try this on Georgia Christians because they 
know this is why God had to send Jesus INTO the world, 
instead of worming in here Himself. Or some such)
Others, of course, will think we are traveling through 
God's tripes (but I wouldn't put too much stock in this, 
as it's all liable to become quite enematic).   [sic]

But, "seriously," the case against God is easily made by 
your dog, of all people, who NEVER checks to make sure
the room he's ambling into hasn't, by some miracle (Act
of God), been turned into the belly of a shark (it could
happen... God might be feeling mischievous that day):
This means that across the millions & million of years
the animal brain (ours included) has been evolving: it 
hath never needed to adapt to a God in its environment.
Man, on the other hand, has... needed to adapt to God
in his environment, and to pixies, leprechauns, little green
men, as well as alien abductions and conspiracy theories.

The thing that gets my goat is that the Pledge of Allegiance
is one of the few stupid things I've managed to memorize!
Now they're getting rid of it?! (I mean, is it, "gave proof through
the night" or "through the fight"?) Shouldn't it have been,
"gave proof at the sight ...?" (Ok, maybe, "at its sight...") "Site?"
Oh, well, maybe that's why I just can't seem to remember it.

I do remember that once down in Florida, when pledging
allegiance to the flag ... out of the blue some Seminole kid 
spat on the damned thing! Well, we almost fainted en masse.
We were certain the teachers were obliged (by Law?) to
immediately take the kid out and hang him from the flag pole
or something (at least, that's the impression we all had from the
sacred solemnity inspired in us by the holy ritual of the Pledge 
of Allegiance). And we were all unbelievably relieved when all 
they did was to make the kid take a note to his parents--That's 
when I first realized how lucky were were to be living in this 
country, superstitious or not. It's like that here. And Western 
civilization is the end product of a historical process spanning 
thousands of years of democratic values triumphing against 
superstition (so that even when people carry on with their pet
superstitions, they know enough not to surrender democracy 
to them)... for the most part.

Perhaps this is the best we can hope for: that we pay but
lip service to our superstitions. Certainly I cannot imagine
a "human" brain free of the superstition that, regardless
what causes it to move towards this or that, it yet has the 
ability to weave life into whatever it ultimately picks/chooses 
... without such a conviction leading to a complete loss of 
confidence and sense of purpose ... a sort-of fatal paralysis.
I can certainly cite many dumb things in my own life such a
conviction has certainly kept me from enjoying.

So I don't think it'll be the end of the world when the Supreme
Court puts "the nation's under God" claim back into the Pledge 
of Allegiance; or does nothing about the dollar's "trust in God"
although, no doubt, all the atheists will be praying against it.

The world is a funny place, after all.

S D Rodrian
poems.sdrodrian.com
physics.sdrodrian.com