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Woot, thanks!  

Yeah, I've been writing again. It was quite frightening how quickly it all came out, two poems, Non and Sense, dunno if you'll find them interesting, but here we go.

NON, by Us.

Wibble, haddock, fish?
The pea is on the dish
Kablooie! It went Nish
Doth the genie wish?
Fiddle 'i' fi
Brave men always die
the funeral man cries
Why do you try? Fiddle 'i' fi
Ia Ia Ia
Octopi have ears
Do they like beers?
What is it they fear?
Schnikedy-hoo and Schnikedy-hey
The teddy bears come out to play
With bright colours so clear and gay
How much blood will they spill today?
Wibble-hee-hee, Wibble-kee-boo
They come out today to play with you
With eyes so large, and claws so keen
They'll giggle and laugh when they eat your spleen
Ki Ki Karound
That so eerie sound

corpses hit the ground

Tear and blood dancing all around

Nibble ad-ad-ad
Mad
I am quite sure that I am mad
My scribblings make none glad
Some puzzled, some scared, some sad
But now I think I better had--
SHIBEN! SHIBEN!

Now did you listen?
I hope you paid attention
if you did not learn the lesson
You will soon be making a confession
To the men whose sight is lengthen--


Sense, by Them.

Disregard the previous poem;
It was written on a whim
The techniques shown were inferior.
It did  not meet our criteria

The poet has been summarily shot.
We will not except such shoddy work.
If you enjoyed that piece of crap
Our men will arrive to take care of that.

Disregard the last two lines.
The man who wrote them has been fined.
Poetry will not threaten!
He has been reported to the commission.

Return back to your mindless stupor
Do not worry; dangerous thoughts we shall neuter.
Just sit and stare at your picture box
As we ensure your country rots.

Irreverend Hugh...


Do you believe that?

I just stole it from blackadder... when he is pretending to be insane in the last Goes Forth episode...

I always use it when I say something about being insane...


I AM NOT AN ADMIN!11!11

*flees*

Whaaaaaat?

::eyeshift::

There is a religion of sorts in every culture, yes, this is mostly true. However, have you considered that this is due to the way the mind works, and doesn't actually justify it in any way beyond that?

There was a study conducted on the aboriginal tribes and their religion, as it is the oldest religion, and it has (near as we can tell) changed that much. The conclusion reached was that- if this is how all religions formed- it is a way for man to attribute human characteristics to impersonal forces so that man can feel that they can appease them in some way.

For instance, there is a totem to the storm-god, appease the storm-god, you get rain/rain stops etc.

It was hypothesised that this could be taken to its next logical step- apply this concept to Christianity, for instance, and you have the worship of crosses/the Bible etc. Apease the biblical god, follow the book, you'll be rewarded. The baddies get what the are coming to them in the end.

Good things happen to good people, bad things happen to bad. The universe can be seen to be 'fair'.

It was further hypothesised that if there wasn't some way for the developing human cultures to be able to say that things always work out for the best for those that are 'good' people, civilization wouldn't have worked, and people would go mad.

But I am pretty sure the atheism movement has proven that we don't need that any more, I don't believe in god, I know that bad things happen to good people, and I'm perfectly sane. And mostly civilized.


Wibble.

Religion, on the other hand, is where someone thought really highly of themselves and decided to push their shit on everyone else.

Here here!

Hmm, okay, you got me on the references front-  I really can't think of anything off the top of my head (beyond the nazi scientist counter-reference to my point, and the whole embryo/genetic engineering thing)

However, looking at science/religion distanced from the people, but as a concept that people would be willing to kill for, religion is clearly far more deadly.

Human experimentation is very much a no-no, there are even great questions being raised as to animal testing, but there are many, many situations right now where religion is directly involved in motivating people to kill- such as the various terrorist attacks of late. Clearly there are other motivators as well, but religious fanaticism is definitely a major motivator.

I... couldn't possibly disagree with Zurtok more here. Well, for the most part, I'm not going to comment on magic, on the basis that I don't feel I know enough about it or the people that believe in it to make any judgment.

But a couple of statements really stood out to me here.

First

And, as I've said before, these people are no more or less dangerous because they happen to believe in whatever it is they believe (after all every atheist I've ever met has a belief in science...). Just because they have or haven't had religious experiances makes them no more or less dangerous.

Bullshit, your average atheist is NOT likely to support killing people in the name of science, nor are the majority of scientists, religious followers are far more likely to support the idea of killing in the name of (insert religion) than atheists. Okay, not every religion, and not every atheist, but still.

Secondly

Religion is simply another tool to be manipulated. The mythology of it inparticular, but it all has it's uses if we choose to utilize them

Again, wrong, religion at its most fundamental level- with the possible exception of Buddhism though I don't know much about that one- are simply ways for the rulers of the countries at the time to gain control over the masses. Christianity in the dark ages was a prime example of this, where religion was used to justify the hard work and toil of the average peasant from birth to death, promising a reward in the afterlife for their obedience.

Religion is not a tool to be manipulated, religion is a tool which manipulates on behalf of those precious few that wield it, and the stranglehold that the major religions have on the general populace is such that any "modern religion" which could come along and adapt to modern circumstances as you put it, would be crushed, dismissed as a fanatical cult, or otherwise discreditted, it would not take hold. How could it, without genuine 'miracles' with which to sway the people?

Religion and spirituality are two entirely seperate entities, sure, some religions can lead to spirituality, in the same way that some roads can lead to a holiday camp, and some to a prison. But the religions that lead to genuine spirituality are so overwhelmingly in the minority that stating religion leads to spirituality is a statement that is clearly flawed, most religions do not, most religions lead to subservience and thought-regulation, as opposed to Spirtuality.

I am also uncertain as to what you meanwhen you say the problem we are currently encountering, as though it will work itself out. The religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have been around for hundreds of years, and each is incredibly rigid. It is true that they have changed slightly over the years, such as Christianity (reluctantly) accepting that women actually -do- have souls, but only slightly, and only so that they may better keep the masses under control- in the above example, to keep women happy and docile.

There will not be a religion that will adapt at a reasonable pace to the modern world, because it simply doesn't suit religion to accept change. Change brings a disruption to the order of things, weakens its authority, and as people accept things like the need for scientific evidence, erodes its most fundamental pillars. If anything, I can see Christianity becoming even more restrictive; with the Intelligent Design fiasco crashing down around it, it is likely to back away from trying to 'prove' the existence of God, and just scream Faith a lot.

I hope that made some kind of sense.

I have come to the conclusion that life is a game, pure and simple, more than that, in fact. That life is a game, and it has to be in order for us to survive as a species.
If one looks at humanity objectively, we certainly don't seem as suited to our environment as many of the other animals on the planet. We have to wear other things over our skin to keep out the cold, or else have to suffer as the sun actually burns us. Physically, we are weak. We don't adapt to our environment, we force our environment to adapt to us.

Of course, its easy to say from a modern point of view that that is fine, because we have technology to back us up and don't have to worry about physical worries quite as much as we used to. But, looking at human society objectively, I think I can see how the game instinct is necessary in this situation.

If we have to force our environment to us we are clearly born with an aggressive instinct- to say, screw this, I'm going to change everything else until it fits /me/

So, for the first few thousand years or so its easy to see how the game could be Us vs The Environment, and that worked great, because it gave us an incentive to work together to change everything to fit us as a group, we could all agree that we needed to be warm and have food... but we've won that battle for now. We have the environment pretty much how we want it- we can ignore it, we don't have to worry about the environment any more, except for the odd few cases where some mountain lion mauls a little kid before getting pumped full of lead, we have that pretty much in check.

So, when you can't turn that aggression to the outside, where do you turn it? Simple! To the inside! The Game has become ever more complicated, we built up a scoring system- money- we built up factions, and hey, you can even belong to more than one of them! You've got your race, your religions, how much money you have, what job you do (and if you do it for yourself, or if you are on someone elses team) and where does that leave us?

Well, if this crazy hypothesis is right, that humanity has evolved with a biological need to funnel an aggressive I'm Right You Change instinct, and all we have to channel that at is ourselves, well I suppose we'd get massive conflicts between opposing viewpoints, like the Crusades for instance, or the World Wars.

Oh look, yup, there we go.

So, we have the game in place, and its not a very good one. Everyone is a bit confused about what side they are on, or even what they are playing for any more... what can really be done about it?

Well, not a lot really. If you don't play at all, you don't get money, if you don't get money, its difficult to see how you can survive for long. Certainly  not with the luxury of things like computers, cars... all those modern luxuries that, now you've tasted them, it'd be a real bitch to give up.

So what? You can try and break the game, sure, but that won't work... you haven't got enough Points to make a difference in the long run, nobody does, its all Communal now, you put your points in a big pot to make your Faction win, because you can't win on your own.

All that is left to do is pick a faction, and play the game, and play it as well as you can. Who knows? It might even be kinda fun.

and that is the end of my babbling.

People talk about how hopeless it all is and so on... but really, I think it all depends on what your objectives are.

If you want to bring The Machine crashing down, then yeah, hopeless. Not going to happen, certainly not in my lifetime anyway, and probably not in that of my children, or their children, and so on.

But... what we can do is try and lay the foundations for change, the way I see it, things have gotten so bad because of the fact that people don't see people as people any more, so try and change that perception.

Sure, you can try and snap people out of their boredom and so on, but (generally) all it'll do is irritate them, and sometimes just solidify their belief that everyone else in an asshole, so why the hell should they treat them like equals?

Hell, we've gotten to the stage where -my- generation (I'm 17) has it so ingrained that nobody else is really human, that they literally KILL their grandmothers for the rainy-day fund in the cookie jar. And others are mugged for pocket change and left to die.

If things are going to change, what needs to happen is an entire ethical shift back to where words like Respect actually mean that, rather than mean some kind of vague fear/dominance thing.

So... what am I trying to get at?

Simple, try and make people think of you and the others around them as other people. Do nice things for them, just little things. Hold the door open,  offer up your seat on the bus to the elderly/pregnant/injured. Nothing earth-shattering, but you can be damn sure that they remember that as something that brightened their day. Lead by example.

Even if it doesn't work in the long run, at least you'll know you've done something nice for a few people. And who knows, if we haven't managed to cleanse the planet of all life a few generations down the line, maybe people will have advanced to the point where they actually do treat others as equals...

And that is one step closer to breaking free of the dominance/submission cycle completely, and thus bringing down The Machine.

Wibble![/quote]

Thanks for all the positive comments guys! And yeah, it can be taken in a lot of ways, its part of the point.

I think that is the best thing about poetry- that people can see so many different meanings in the same bit of text.

And call me crazy, but I'm glad I haven't been stabbed... yet  :P

Thanks for the welcome  

After actually posting and such last night, I figured I should try and be active a little more- might as well add in what I've got.

Yeah... I wrote this little poem, and posted it a couple of places. Realized I hadn't posted it here... and I'm in the mood to share, the only insights into it I've had are that 1) apparently its an entertaining narrative, and 2) Its a metaphor for some part of the bible or other- and hey, I'm not going to try and tell people what to read into it! So... yeah, enjoy!


The Resounding Maybe

Whenever he old man speaks
The children gather round
To receive the pearls of wisdom
He scatters on the ground.

The ask him many questions
Though his answers may never change
He speaks from long experience
And the response is always the same.

The children ask of his long life
Of his lost loves and of his joys
They sit listening in rapt awe
Be they girls or boys.

The questions are quite difficult
Although he never slows
As his answer is stated readily
Because he always knows.

"It the outside world large, Grandpa?"
A little girl may cry
And his smile never changes
And his answer will never die.

"Is the ourside world small?!"
Another will demand
And the old man whispers his answer
Whilst taking the askers hand.

"Will the crops come this Summer
as they always have before?"
Asks a hardy lttle boy
And the old man doesn't pause.

The village does have doubters
Those who decry his help
And these people never see
The truth that is always felt.

The children are ever loyal
As they look in the old mans eye
They see the spark of wisdom
Of a man who is still a boy.

Childlike in his simplicity
And in his words and acts
His wisdom is undeniable
Though he doesn't speak in facts.

Adults deny his knowledge
And call him a liar and fool
They mock and they insult him
But he does not lose his cool.

For though the answer is frustrating
The honest are never shady
There is a glimmer in his eye as he speaks
That ever-sacred maybe.