Poetic Justice

Where speaking in tongues and child gibberish fall short, poetry does an inspired job of making it certain that no sense is made, that the plot is entirely lost. It doesn't make sense when you read it, and it doesn't make sense that it is a continuing phenomena, once again, i am left confounded. Of course, with English GCSE still ringing in my ears, it is only right to say that many poems do make sense, and posses a tangible story or meaning; one that you don't have to dig until your fingernails are torn away for.

However, it occurs to me that much of what some poetry tries to say, convey or elude to could be said in a far shorter time and in a much less complicated and coded way. Its indirect illumination of topics is a middle man too far. Its closest comparison is giving me braille to read. Why make the message so confusing? I don't need the supplementary experience that arises from working out the meaning of the poem; predominantly rage.

I don't believe anyone actually finds their thoughts about the world floating around habitually in the whimsy of poetic surrealism; such detachment from reality would cause the body to irreversibly shut down. Bizarre, absurd surrealist poetry with incorrect grammar and spelling, and a disorderly structure can only be a form of salvation from writers' block; it can't be judged since it's logical errors are all intentional, the writer has written something, and that something is a fortress of defense against criticism.

It occurred to me that if a poem talks about nature, perhaps its beauty, then you are far better off wandering into the depths of a wood, and appreciating nature for yourself. Why appreciate a beautiful poem when you can appreciate the subject that the poem itself finds beautiful. Any beauty permeating through the poem can never be as beautiful as the thing it describes, it can only ever be superficial in this respect. A poem is a review of the subject matter or concept, an opinion or description of it...why not jump past all these things and just appeal to the subject matter or conceptual idea itself, for it is there that you will get the true 'message' that the poem is trying to deliver, one that is made of your cognitive thoughts that are stimulated by the concept rather than someone elses. If you prefer the poems illustrations of conceptual information, you should also wander into the depths of a wood, and end it all.

In conclusion, i see no real need for it. It has no place in the universe. To say it is an unnecessary evil is perhaps an unfair appraisal of this radical poetry, to say it is unnecessary however, is nothing but fair. It has no bearing on reality, and is inadequate when reviewed in the shadow cast over it by television, music or films.

Such poetic lunacy can be aligned with modern art in terms of its value to society; fuck all. Modern art is clearly a step made by those less able at painting, at sculpture, those that can't do. Instead they've tailored their very own style; interpretive art, art that expresses 'emotions', political discourse, world problems, etc. etc.

I recently visited the Sistine Chapel, just another one of those priceless artifacts that the Vatican hoards greedily. Anyway, it was astonishing, the level of artwork, commitment and genius required to turn this huge blank canvas into an apotheosis of design is enough to make me question my own existence through feelings of inadequacy. Micheal Angelo puts both modern art and poetry to shame. Through the chapel, he tells a poetic fable through the use of faultless art. Simultaneously he makes the modern art community and radical poetry communities look very small and worthless. He probably had great expectations for the evolution of design and writing. In most respects, these expectations should consider themselves fulfilled. However, if he bared witness to the unforgivable regression into modern art, i think he would have never have become an artist, rather, a campaigner to nip this shitstorm in the bud and deem all art as satanist work.

I will stress here at the close, that i find many poems appealing, and also moving, most particularly those written about warfare and loss. This post targets the newer, alternative style of writing, ones that perhaps i will find moving, but have yet to unravel and comprehend.

Cult Fiction: Religious Liberalism

For me, a religious liberal is someone who identifies themselves as a 'Christian', but does not necessarily subscribe to all of the religious dogma, especially some of the hard line beliefs. For the liberal, religion is not about literal interpretation of such scriptures as the Bible, but instead, about personal interpretation, about love, community and finding individual meaning from the words. Faith, for the moderate, is there for strength, to ensure a morally good life is being lead, and to comfort the 'believer'. I have encountered many who will call themselves 'Christians', but have not read the first paragraph of the Bible. Many that call themselves 'believers' but have not stepped foot in a church on a Sunday, instead, they gorge on their un-holy portions of roast. And they will say; "what is the problem? I like to think something is out there and that i can go somewhere when i snuff it. We are all free to think what we think, you can't tell me what to believe!"

Correct, i cannot bestow upon you what i think you should think, after all i am not a fascist, but what i will do is illuminate what you believe, and from the darkness drag up the problems i see with it.

The problem is that the liberal is cherry-picking from a fully documented religion. He chooses what he wants to believe from it, most likely the earliest taught and the easiest concepts to comprehend; Heaven, Hell and the ten commandments. He will also, however, disregard the religious claims that are harder to justify to the modern intelect; that God created the universe in 7 days but 6,000 years ago and put every living organism on the earth as we see it today.

This, much to the disappointment of many millions of liberals, can't be done due to both logical issues and the terms and conditions of subscribing to a religion. It is not logically consistent to accept distant and widely accepted parts of Christianity but reject the rest of the claims that are intrinsically linked to it. The Bible is either the word of God and thus infallible, or it is nothing; meaningless, a marvel comic. If one genuinely believes some part of Christian dogma is true but does not agree with it in its entirety, then they are not Christian, they are in fact, as atheistic and as blasphemous is i am.

Do not take my word for it of course, turn to Christianity itself. If you do not take Genesis seriously, you are not a Christian, and you will suffer the torments of Hell. If you do not believe that Jesus was resurrected and that he will be resurrected once more, you will suffer the torments of Hell. If you do not pray and if you do not go to church, you will suffer the torments of Hell. If you do not accept the every word of the Bible to be true, then you are not a Christian, you have adapted the original dogma for your own ends, and thus, if it is the ultimate reality, you will burn. If you thought my atheistic stance was blunt, now you know how the true Christian thinks of the liberal; that they are nothing but an example of false belief going through life making a mockery of true faith.

Any 'religious' man who stands before you and says this is incorrect, that the Bible is there for interpretation and to act as a guide to perfect morality is, in fact, wrong since this claim is entirely groundless, from whence has he made this conclusion? The Bible claims to be Gods word, to suggest that it is anything other than this is unfounded, he has simply made it up so as to; One, Justify his stance of not obeying the Bibles out of date and, frankly, ridiculous word, and two, to ensure the maintenance of his 'Faith' and his stairway to heaven.

We used to be more reliant on faith, the further you go back in time, the more reliant we were. It was the gap filler, the explanation for the unknown (of which we have an inherent fear of), and as time has progressed, as has our knowledge of the universe. This has meant at each generation, since the enlightenment, religion, as a whole, has been diminishing. Yes, the number of believers, but more importantly, the number of people who can legitimately be labelled, actually Christian, and who actually read the Bible and cling hopelessly to its every word. Instead, given the advancements in technology and knowledge, there has been an emergence of religious liberalism that is growing exponentially.

As belief becomes less devout in families, as a result of science's unforgiving assault upon religious claims, the true teachings of that religion find themselves un-taught. Each generation bases their faith on what they are told about their faith, not what they have read about it. Unless complete purist indoctrination occurs, based on the traditional scriptures, the only result for the modern religious community is Hell (if Christianity be true of course). If they believe because their family does, and they have not read the Bible for themselves, they will be thrown upon a firey stalagmite just like i will because they will not be carrying out the necessary actions, the actions that the Bible order, that God orders. Actual belief does not permeate through inheritance, through hymns or weekly murmurs of the lords prayer, but instead through reasoning, autonomic choice and the true understanding of what the dogma is proclaiming.

These people are religiously uneducated, they do not know what it means to be a Christian and thus live their lives under a false banner. If they actually took time to read the Bibles dangerous, ancient and absurd claims, they would spontaneously combust into an atheist, of that, i have no doubt.

The Meaning Of Life.

In its most basic form, life does not have the scope to fully satisfy the modern human. None of us would be happy to roam around with our spears and loin cloths, hunting down our Big Mac, yet we could survive; we did survive. At each advance in technological resources, we have gone through a conduit of novelty, acclimatization and dependence. This cycle meant every push, over the trench of modernisation, that would play a major role in the life of mankind, would be another irreversible notch forwards, a notch that we would soon be reliant upon. Though i am not eluding that we physically could not survive if plunged back into the dark ages, i am suggesting that none of us, that have experienced the obscenely hedonistic life of post-millennium, could be happy, not until we re-adjusted, and i could not see many of us, if any, making this transmogrification. I recently suffered the unimaginable plight of a power cut. Firstly, in this day and age, i shouldn't have to go through the ordeal, but apparently us country dwellers don't deserve the commodity of an efficient electricity rescue service.

The point is, that i nearly died that day, everything that my life relied upon was taken, just like that, light, tv, Internet, my phone went down and i couldn't charge it, i couldn't cook a meal, i couldn't even have a warm shower. My life had careened into the floor and it was then that i realised how much i rely on these commodities. I could go on about how pathetic it is that we rely on such appliances, and how we should submit to nature, but i won't, because frankly it's too late and it's our natural progression; the evolution of technology. I clench my jaw through existence as it is, let alone when stripped bare.

Life, according to my latest theory, is very simplistic; the ability to live on this diverse planet. What you see is what you get, it's a ronseal job. And as I've already said, we are not happy with this, the human mind requires stimulation to levels above that of any other life form. We need distractions to prevent us spiralling into hellish cognitive thoughts, i like to refer to them as 'rose tints'. Everything is a rose tint. Everything you buy, everything you desire, anything more complex than water, rudimentary food, and oxygen is a rose tint. Even flavoured water...it's there to make life happier, it serves the purpose of releasing us from the reality of how mundane life is, of making sure we are not ragged, loathsome and defeated animals by the time we are twelve. Life, for all of us, is shit. The depressed are the enlightened and the religious the insane. The media spoon to us fairy tales of other peoples lives, injected full of hyperboley, to show us how unbearable their lives are, thereby distracting us from our own life sentence. It further holds us in a cycle of fear and consumption; 'buy our cologne or women will hate you, you smelly, overweight fuck!', 'buy this car...that is unless you personally want to take down the environment...you want to murder more penguins do you? DO YOU?'. We buy rose tints because it keeps us distracted and because the media says we should.

Rose tints also materialise themselves as pass times, clearly pass times occupy the mind much more than just buying things as it normally involves buying things but also using them, often regularly. The more time that can be spent not thinking about your worthlessness in comparison to the the sheer complexity of the universe, that your existence is meaningless to the laws of nature and that life is actually one dimensional, the better off you are, so pass times prove themselves to be very popular. Humans have always turned to pass times, because we have always had the capacity to get bored, it's part of the factor that separates us from other animals, and being bored leads quickly to the realisation of how laboriously dull life is when considered without the glitter and packaging we coerce upon it. As part of our visceral disposition to grow tired of things, we grow desensitised to even our most favourite things, any one man will often have several pass times to juggle in order to weaken our boredom receptors.

What leaves me sat, cross-legged with utter bewilderment showering down upon me, is those pass times, so called 'rose tints', that couldn't possibly have the ability to free our lives from the shackles of Life because they are so insipid, irksome and platitudinous, they surely stop time dead and break the fabric of creation itself. One example of such a pass time presents itself to me above all the others. Vegetable shows...Showing vegetables...Putting vegetables in a show...a show, that is comprised mainly of vegetables...how despicable.

See the fatal error that has been made here, is that vegetable Fayres mix what is often a constituent of pass times; competition, with a basic element of life, the lowest form of nutrition, the earliest cultivated produce; vegetables. The word vegetable is as plain as they taste. I have scrutinized from the tip of the root to the top of the legume, and there is nothing to get excited about, we eat vegetables not because their taste is so irresistible, but because they are good for us, they are a necessary evil. The fayre revolves around being pedantic to the extent that it would make it onto the autistic spectrum, measuring size, straightness, regularity, presentation, weight, roundness, colour and texture of plant growths. Examining waves of the same looking vegetables in such fashions cannot be beneficial to the maintenance of a healthy and sane mind. Nor can the actual growing process, it happens over such a long time that even if the result was the highest reward and the planting stirred up days of excitement, it leaves months unaccounted for. This activity is one of an elite few, that are more dreadful than life itself.

The people who identify with this 'pass time' must, MUST do something else with themselves other than having an affair with their legumes. They could not survive on this alone since it would leave a vacuum in their heads, desolate and self-sustaining. My only salvation in this issue is to assume that whilst they are not planting, picking or showing their vegetables, they are sky-diving, bungee jumping and injecting adrenaline straight into their eyeballs. In fact, i quite fancy this prospect.

Cult Fiction: Spoilt For Choice

In the face of an overwhelming, ever growing religious audience, i thought I'd stop beating my head into the desk, take my fist out of my mouth and some time off the constant unhappiness i seem to feel towards some things, and offer a series of logical and rational arguments, each week, to deconstruct some of the more ill conceived theological arguments and claims. The main focus is on Christianity, it's scriptures and subscribers. Look out for the posts titled 'Cult fiction...'

These are not areas for debate or discussion, since ultimately, the evidence to discredit the Bible and the God of classical theism is copious, hard hitting and potentially devastating. After considering it, using reason as it should be used, there is no coherent argument left to assert that the Christian God is a reality.

Pascal was misinformed. He asserted that you are better off to gamble on the reality of Christianity and the existence of God ringing true than not gamble at all, for if it payed off, you are rewarded with eternal life and if not, you lived a morally sound life. He was wrong, for actually, you may find your self ball deep in an Islamic world of shiite, and eternal suffering for worshipping a false God. You may find the gamble has led into another ten thousand years of birth, death and rebirth through the wasting of a sacred life in the human form.

What is staggering is the Christian (and religious) ignorance towards probability. That actually, there is nothing distinct between their beliefs and the beliefs of others; they all share ill-supported, soft 'evidence' through prayer and miracle, and an astonishingly vacuous bank of real, empirical evidence. How they can say 'Christianity is the one true and infallible religion' and criticise others is beyond me. On what grounds can they elude to this? 'My beliefs are true but yours aren't because i believe them and that's all the counts lah lah lah'. Playground reasoning has never stood highly in my books...

I think what is worse is the similarity between Islam and Christianity. It makes them almost inseparable. Both are (or should be) irrational, unjustifiable and highly dangerous to the eyes of a scientist, but to each other, i don't know how they stand, how they could disagree with the exactly similar claims of the other religion without disagreeing with the claims of their own? After all, the differences in some places is as elementary as a changed name or place. With so many religions, promising eternal life and having a novel written by their God, we're almost spoilt for choice.

There is nothing to say the Gods of old; the Norse Deitys or the Roman divine are any less conceivable or any less a reality than any other God. Just as humankind made the advance from Paganism to the world religions as we know them, i am suggesting that we make the next advance, from the age of the world religions into the age of reason.

Every devout believer holds the same reasons for being a believer, no matter their faith. Yet a Christian will not see a Hindus or a Muslims reasons as legitimate. Despite the copious scripture and extensive writings that illuminate every last detail of their faith and God, their scripture is not infallible whilst the Christians is. Of course every religion's devout followers are guilty of this obscenity, but as i said, the most expansive religion in the world will serve as my rather fitting example.

In the same way the Christian will denounce other faiths beliefs as preposterous and find salvation in their teachings, i do the same with Christianity itself. Every religious believer knows the intense feeling of being an atheist, a non believer, with respect to the other all other religions, They must also, therefore, know well the feeling of frustration and how plainly obvious it is that what they believe is false.

As ever, if you care to show me the differences between the validity of Christian claims and the claims of Islam, the differences that show that one is the word of God whilst the other is the word of uneducated man, i will listen, intently.