A post after too wide of a gap and my continued reading and commentary on Quran.

So my absences have been long on here, even though I am still using blogspot a lot to read other people's blogs. I have been doing a lot of creative writing, so it is not as if I have been neglecting my writing goals.

I would love to use this site more for my journal and non-fiction reading. I shall try harder, as we proceed into the future.

Here is my continued reading of the Quran.

Section A: Over View 


Section 20.

164, seems to be an exaltation of the natural world, with observations on how the rain brings life out of a dead earth, the shifting of night of day, and the sailing of ships. Importantly it tells us that there signs from the sky, that wise people are able to discern.

165 talks about men who take other things beside God, for worship and make them equal to God. The unfaithful person, it states, doesn't recognize the Penalty which God will exact.  The foot-note suggests that the lesson here is that there is a unity of design present everywhere and that certain menn deliberately ignore this evidence.

166 explains that those worshipers of false idols, having seen the penalty, will find that their relations with the false idol quickly dissolve,

167 explains that these worshipers of false ideas, will beg for one more chance, after losing their interactions to the false idol, and will basically come crawling back to the one true God, and it explains that there will be no way for them back from the "fire".

The Commentary after basically states that to avoid all this there must be laws, that extend from external principles. All these laws ethical prescriptions sounds great and if followed would create a better world.


Section 21.

168 instructs us not to follow in the footsteps of the Evil One, who is our avowed enemy.

169 says that the Evil One commands us to do evil, and to speak things about God which we have no knowledge

170 states that many want to hold to the beliefs of their Fathers, but the Quran states that the Fathers were without wisdom and guidance.

171 says that those who reject the Faith are like a deaf, dumb, and blind herds of goats that do not respond to shouted commands.

172 demands that believers eat of the good things of the world, and give worship to God

173 gets into some dietary prohibitions against carrion and the rite of Takbir

174 condemns those who conceal and profit from prohibited items revealed in God's book, and says they will not receive mercy on Judgment Day.

175 further elaborates upon the level of wrong doing when one sins, within and fully aware of the divine command, and how it would be a suffering like swallowing fire.

176 explains that God sent the book not to confuse and provide a tool for schemers, but to lay out a simple code, and so those that complicate the matter for profit are in big trouble!

Section B: My Response

I am interested in section 21.170, concerning the criticisms of the Father's old belief systems. I have been watching this documentary below, by Michael Tsarion "Irish Origins of Civilization",



and one idea he elaborates upon is that there is an active program in the Abraham religious tradition to destroy and eradicate people's ancient religious traditions. These lines in the Quran support this hypothesis. We see that Islam is competing with other belief systems, which pre-date it. We also see in this passage that the rejection of the ancient beliefs isn't from a rational perspective. We are not given a solid concrete argument as to what is unwise about these old beliefs, but rather told they basically that they lack wisdom, because they aren't the new monotheistic belief system. This type of circular logic is especially self-serving.

As always I enjoy and support the ethical prescriptions, but it sort of seems that the ethics are obvious and easy to accept, while this battle for ideas is a much more complicated affair.

I still hope to see more of the narrative, story, elements of the Quran as I move forward. I am always more interested in a story then abstract ethical considerations. Ethics in the abstract seem obvious, but it is the real life employment of an ethic where things become interesting. It is this exercise of the ethic that I think a lot of narrative is concerned with.

Thoughts on Stephen King's "Cell"

*Spoiler Alert. This blog reveals key story points.




So I just got done reading Stephen King’s “Cell”, and I really enjoyed this book (as I enjoy most King). There are a few qualities which attract me to King’s stories again and again. The first thing is what I would label the “meta-fictional” qualities of the writing. I became such an avid fan after reading the entire “Dark Tower” series, and its interrelated texts. The inter-textuality of his works makes it so interesting. Certain themes and symbols are given multiple embodiments, which allow the reader a deeper “relationship” with these things. The meta-fictional qaulities project the work into reality, sucking the reader into the tale in the process.

It is a bold and interesting move to assume another writer’s symbols, or objects in one’s own work. Clearly, and King has stated himself, the tower of King’s “Dark Tower” is based on the Barad-dur, the base of the Eye of Sauron, in Tolkien’s “Lord of the Ring”. Now I won’t ruin the end of the “Dark Tower”, but it is sufficient to say that by the end of that series “King’s tower” is unique and its own. I often reflect what is the ultimate purpose, and affect of this shared symbolism?

I know from my reading that this appeal to other works is not a device unique to King, but an act done by other writers and poets. I think of T.S. Eliot in this regard, which raises an interesting point. What makes the assumption of another person’s work good? I mean it is easy to imagine some hack assuming another text’s creation in a cheap, whorish way. Obviously it is a matter or authorial ability and intent.

The tower symbol pops up in “Cell”, towards the end of the book at the fair-grounds, in the parachute drop tower, which has a blinking red light on top. What are we to make of this recurrent symbol? Why is it always the scene of climax in these stories?

“Cell” begins right in the action, from the perspective of Clayton Riddell, a graphic novelist who has just got his “big break”. He is walking the streets of Boston when a zombie infection begins, passed through of course cellular phones. “The Pulse” as the event is called is never properly explain, one of my “frustrations” with the book. The pulse is blamed on a group of terrorist who have somehow have infected cell phones. Intentionally or not, this raised the question in my mind is King mocking the Western “go-to” explanation of terrorism. At other places in the novel, gossip is shown as unreliable and comes from antagonistic elements.

As always, the reader of a novel brings their own predispositions. I certainly could be accused of reading too much into literature. I reject this accusation whole heartedly and I don’t like its malign implications. To me the type of reductive readings which the accusation would promote is a significant force in the zombification of modern peoples, more dangerous than the pulse.

This leads me to consider the moral or ideological position of King’s work, specifically in the “Cell”. The basic feeling one gets in this text is that we’re all screwed. This is a feeling which permeates much of King’s work. I almost want to label this attitude as “conservative”, meaning that the past is seen as superior to the present, or future.

Included in this thought is the problem of protagonist vs. antagonist. To put it simply, the distinction between the two vanishes in King’s work. With King, we always become attached to the protagonist characters, but ultimately we become very uncomfortable with this relationship. Often the person we thought was our hero becomes a villain. This upsets and offers a paradoxical morality. What I wonder is it symptomatic of a larger moral, ideological, paradox which exists at the present time in our culture? Have we lost our heroes? Here’s a large quote which influenced my perspective:

His last thought before sleep took him was that maybe in the long run, the phoners would have been better. Yes, they had been born in violence and in horror, but birth was usually difficult, often violent, and sometimes horrible. Once they had begun flocking and mind-melding, the violence had subsided. So far as he knew, they hadn’t actually made war on the normies, unless one considered forcible conversion an act of war; the reprisals following the destruction of their flocks had been gruesome but perfectly understandable. If left alone, they might eventually have turned out better custodians of the earth than so-called normies. They certainly wouldn’t have been falling all over themselves to buy gas guzzling SUVs, not with their levitation skills (or with their rather primitive consumer appetites, for that matter). Hell, even their taste in music had been improving at the end. (342)

Here Clayton is forced to consider the ambiguity in the situation, compounded and perhaps founded in the fact that his son Johnny, is currently a phoner and his future remains uncertain. What I like to ponder and find more interesting is, what does this expose about King’s psyche himself? Further, and most important what does it say about our own individual psyches, or a collective psyche, more generally?

I have studied Nietzsche and just recently started reading “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”. In many ways I find ideas from him are finding an allegory in “Cell”. We can understand that to some degree, from the passage above. Here I am seeing a connection between Nietzsche’s concept of the Ubermensch and King’s phoners. The comparison is not forced, as Nietzsche found the source of this “super-man” in our primordial urges as people. I am reminded here of a specific passage from Zarathustra:

Truly man is a polluted stream. One must be a sea to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure.

Behold, I teach you the Ubermensch: he is that sea; in him your great contempt can be submerged. (10)

For this me this recalls the figure of the zombie. The zombie becomes a vessel by which us non-superman can project our own “failures”, failures, to use King’s concept, which are of the “normies” who are unable to rise above societal pressures and to bask in the revelation of our “true self”.

I want to end this with a personal anecdote, which I often recall when reading King. I was around nine years old and my mother said something gossipy about the son of one her friends. She explained that her friend’s son had been getting into a lot of trouble, and gasp, had been reading a lot of Stephen King.

I remember even at that time reflecting, and I didn’t think of it as exactly in these terms, that the author was being made into a scapegoat. Even then I reflected, maybe it is because of his lack of a stable Father, or because of his carousing Mother, that he acts out.

At that point, I had not read any King, but looking back now I trust my observations even more. There is a profound philosophy in the works of King and to see it as mere horror renders us one step closer to zombies. Ugh, I have barely scratched the surface of my thoughts here, but it was fun never the less. I would love to do a more thorough research project on these concepts, among many others. At the least, I hope I have provided some evidence that within King’s work there is a profound social commentary taking place.

*Note. My Nietzsche quote comes from the Barnes & Noble Edition of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"

Some old stuff

I was looking through some of my old writing. This is one thing I found, which got my heart going. It is always nice to find little treats you wrote for yourself, that you had forgotten. It is like somone else wrote it. Forgive the Amateur.


"A Rant On the Verge of Breathing"

When I do a push up do I push myself up,
or the world down?
Is there a snowflake with the face a of a leprechaun,
or a rain drop in the shape of a fetus?
Image worlds within kernels
Fractal pattern mastery
I thought you said this conversation was over.
Are these words fragments or vibrations?
Words don’t matter
Syntax doesn’t pattern
be blinded
Word picture.

How can you say that you know
When you still think in three dimensions
There is an infinite regress
And your vomit wouldn’t matter
Transformed into a bouquet
Of white roses
I wonder where the red went
Master meandering to reaches
Onward necessarily
Stealing the substance of pixilation
Mutt seeing black and white
An owl sees in Technicolor
A Blind man sees through his nose
A deaf man through the pores
How does a dead man sense?
Sensing absolutely
Existing in a continuum
Creatio ex nil
-2 times -2
Equals an opportunity.


I stand on a plane
Of rippling green grass
Surrounded by the tenebris
In principium Deus Creavit

I stand on the wave of the firmament
Dog with his head out the window
Tongue massaging the air
Dad said Dog
Should get off the Fucking
Master’s lap.
I found worlds
Within this embrace
Oxygen
Sustenance
Love
Radiance
That darkness in my eyes
Never seemed so light
My arms never held so tight
With less might
I pull away as does the tear
Deadly
From the gap of fears
I wonder why I came to this place
Realizing that it is my own face
Which provides the container for this path
Which was, what walked
by more feet than mine
Littered with the debris of journey
Half hearted
And misguided attempts
On the celestial high-way
I remain seated
While this thing fucking moves

The grooves of near-by asteroids
Creating new hair styles
And soothing vibrations
Which titillate my biggest organ
Find the end to this maze
Of finger tips
Have to find the start of the pattern

A child wakes up
Groggy
Remnants of dream consciousness
What is your expectation
Dining car of the caboose
Scrap from a U.N. envoy
I can’t tell my Pepsi from my Piss
Pepsid, Lucem, Bilal
Cursed by draught
And no one’s rain dancing
I saw the trees dance
The sway and embraced
Playing Petrachan love games
I laughed
While you masturbated
With images glorified in your Pineal gland
Like your liver
Ki-box
And your snot
Does your soul need a tissue?
Your hair grows faster when you’re thinking
A dead person’s hair grows slowly
Judgement day
Would there be lines
get boring
And where would the lawyers be
Would the public defenders be any good?
I was held down by Demons and raped
I know Satan’s real
I was anointed
Meam lingaum audere audet.

Stuff...

So it is the Holiday Season and I find myself doing a lot of reading which is great; I love it. I got some sixty five dollars in gift certificates to a half-price bookstore and went in and bought about twenty-five books. I also made a trip to my local library and checked out a bunch of comics. It's cold and I have nothing to do to but read, ah heaven.

So I finished Russ Baker's "Family Secrets" and the second half certainly didn't disappoint. Baker covers W.'s administration, the Katrina failure, Bush's failure to complete his National Guard Service and the cover-up, and the problem of Iraq. Heavily noted and researched, if read soberly it will leave a lasting impression. Baker steers clear from the full monster of the attack of 9/11, though he does discuss some aspects of the incident.

I watched a brilliant documentary last night called "Audience of One", about Richard Gazowsky a Pentecostal Preacher in San Francisco, who claimed God came to him on a mountain and told him to make a big-budget, science fiction film, based on the story of Joseph, from the Hebrew text. It was scary, sad, and funny. The whole thing is a complete failure. It is in a similar vain to documentary "Jesus Camp", with speaking in tongues and misinterpretation running amok. All in attempt to make "Star-Wars" knock of for the Christian right. You gotta see it to believe it... 

These types of issues spark my curiosity. I want to know how people end up doing these things like speaking in tongues, and misleading a group of people. So much time, material wealth, and social health are lost in the process. Even worse, little is accomplished while so many suffer...

Growing up as a kid, I never read comics. I just recently started reading them. I love it. I have read a bunch of stuff. I am just trying to go through mainstream stuff like "The Justice League" and all the relevant spin-offs. It is interesting approaching these works tabula rosa, and seeing the whole evolution immediately. I also like the meta-fictional quality of comics, where there is a sort of self critique contained in the story and development. My library in my city actually has a decent comic section. I got "The Flash: Blood Will Run"  created by Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, Doug Hazlewood, and Ethan Van Sciver.

I would love to write a graphic novel...

Book Review "Family Secrets" by Russ Baker

I am half-way through Russ Baker's mammoth book titled "Family Secrets", which does an unbelievable job of documenting the Bush's corrupt and torrid family history. His analysis and ideas on the J.F.K assassination to the Nixon Watergate incident, will leave you baffled at the "coincidences". For anyone looking to get more facts on these issues, among others, will do no better than look to this book. This book will provide a critical piece to the distorted puzzle of American power for any willing reader.    

God I Hate "The Atheist Experience"!

The people I am discussing come a close second on the scale of horrible, to the current manifestation of Fundamental Christianity in the United States. My battle has been with one streaming atheist show called, "The Atheist Experience" and its pack of rabid hosts. The only thing worse then trying to engage these guys in philosophical conversation, might be actually having to hang out with them (I wouldn't wish it on an enemy).

I am so frustrated with these Atheists because they exhibit some of the same disgusting behavior, like censoring dissent, name-calling, quote mining, scape-goating, group think, as the parent organizations that spawned these devils. I truthfully hate modern organized religion so much more, for creating the market for this type of organization.

Atheists are in fact devils, and I mean in the true sense of the word "deceiver". They like to employ reason and empiricism when it suits their case, and then revert to other thought patterns when it doesn't. They offer an empty present and when you try to tell them there's nothing in the box; they react like children.

I have been trying to engage some of these atheists as of late and its been muddled at best. They seem unable to accept any form of criticism, even when I acknowledge their strong foundation. I have never disagreed with a person who says "I have seen no good reason to believe in god and so I don't". My disagreement arises in the enactment of these beliefs, what shape they take in reality. The shape is of a hammer, where any spiritual or super-natural belief is blasted as ignorant and non-scientific.

I want to lead a campaign against these villains! If any like-minded readers encounter this blog, I say let's unite against "The Atheist Experience". Let us become A-Atheists! Our army is non discriminatory, our goal is simple, our resolve is concrete!

ugh, I just wanted to get a post up in the moment...I still plan in the next post to talk more about my research (a paper connecting esoteric spiritual ideas with the infamous rapper Tupac Shakur), and I am going to present some of my conversations with my enemy...and life reflections...and reflections about a book I am writing called "The Boy and the Witch"....until then go to the atheistexperience.blogspot.com and get em!

Introduction

Hello, I am going to blog about news events, culture, Literature, politics, and art. I am going to write about projects I'm working on and about my interactions with different people. I just wanted to get a quick post up, but my next one will be more lengthy. I am going to right about my experiences with some Atheists and my own developing religious views.

I am also in the early stages of a writing project and I will probably discuss that at more length. If there are any writers out there I would love to hear about your own projects and talk about the craft.