Saturday, July 08, 2006

snopes.com

If you have seen my Rubber Chicken set of paintings, you know I am a fan of history.
When someone asks me a question, my answer is not based on what happened today or yesterday, but on all of history, and probable outcomes for the future.
Someone asks, "Ain't it hard doin plumin and stuff?"
I say "Yes plumber is a trade thats messy and full of math and planning but imagin what plumming was like in 55B.C., all the pipes were made if lead so ya had to work for people who'es minds had been melted by lead kissed drinking water,now that's craftmanship!"
The first Christians were nothing like the Christians of today. They were a rebel sect from Judea, following one of the many messiahs that were popular in those war-and-plague-ridden times.
Before Constantine Ceasar decided to switch Rome to the more "user-friendly" religion of Christianity, they used to throw Christians in with the lions for entertainment. This was both cruel and uneccessary, as lions are adapted to eating big, grass-eating animals, & dislike humans. Imagine thinking you were getting dinner, only to find it had very little meat or fat, and was criss-crossed with thousands of little tooth picks, guess what buddy, you have no thumbs to take them out, so sad..
Then, someone figured out that monotheism makes a lot of sense, as all the money goes to one god/government organization, and the Cristians, who were numerous, could contribute to the enonomy. So they converted to the hippy-like religion.

Now, the Christian paradigm has come full circle, and has become as facist as its poytheistic predecessor. They have revived the eagle as a national symbol, & based their ideology on plundering foreign lands.
Now, all Chritstians are not plunderers, but the modern Christian propaganda reiterates these talking points:
1) If you are not Christian, you are bound for Hell (sorry, Eskimos & Bushmen).
2) the Earth will burn after Armadeggeon (the word means "like the city of Geddah," but that's its own article), so lets tear up all the natural world, and get all the gas, because we have Eterntiy in heaven, in which to breathe clean air.

Which brings me to stopes.com:
check out this quote I found on the internet while studying Julius Caesar:

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war, in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.

Turns out, this is not a real quote from the man; I looked it up on snopes.com and it was there, someone just thought it would be a good idea to say Caesar said it.
Bummer that its made up, cuz it could apply to what's going on in Washington with all the stealin and killin and such.
But, in a way, its being mis-quoted makes a piont:
Our understanding of history is very flawed.
Words can change their meanings over the course of decades. Imagine the changes over millenia, and across languages.
Don't take my word for any of this, look it up, in your time, in your space and in your language.

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