To those who celebrate, Happy Easter. I myself do not now (though as a youngster, Easter was this very simplified and innocent “holiday” with the Easter bunny like the above, making colored eggs, Easter egg hunts, and of course, Easter themed candies during a family gathering). My thinking about this changed as a I grew up. BTW, this post is going to really be one of those “stream of conscious” types of writings.
In terms of immediate family, we weren’t religious either but being 3rd/4th generation Japanese American, any semblance of a practice was unsurprisingly towards Buddhism. For example, we’d attend Obon services, Bon dances, Hatsumode, and most memorial services were Buddhist. Myself, I’ve written sparingly about being pretty much “irreligious” where I view things in a more spiritual manner (which borrows from the various philosophies but not adhering to any single one).
As I grew older, I learned my dads side was mainly Soto Zen Buddhism (aka Soto Mission) and my moms side was Jodo Shinshu Buddhism (aka Hongwan-ji). Both paternal and maternal grandparents had a butsudan; my parents never did buy one but I am now taking care of the butsudan (a small/medium sized one which is manageable) that previously belonged to my paternal grandparents which my father was originally taking care of (before being placed into a foster care home).
Another thing as I grew older was learning about this Easter tradition which mainly my maternal grandparents celebrated because they enjoyed having the family get together where there would be large amounts of food plus an egg hunt for us grandchildren. There was never any religious aspect to it; it was all very much in that innocent narrow vein that we’d grown up with. As most of us grand kids got older (outgrowing the egg coloring/hunts), the family went out to a Sunday brunch/buffet. I probably learned and really began to understand its religious backgrounds probably beginning in middle school.
During my first semester in college, I took religion 101 (or whatever it was called), and that was one of the most confounding classes I ever took. The good thing is it exposed me to a lot of religious beliefs/practices globally. But it turned into a confusing mess when getting into the details in what was a necessary time-limited need to also gloss over large parts of it during lectures. The end result is the class left me uninterested to the point where just reading the required text book and going over the lecture notes, left me feeling that a lot it was open to interpretation (but that for exam sakes, you needed to know certain obscure details). I recall getting a “D” grade in that class because I didn’t even bother studying for most of the exams (I should’ve actually withdrawn but it filled an elective credit).
It also highlighted why I think and look at things the way that I do (more so going forward). This was especially true of religions that attempted to impose their line of thinking on you. Years later in 1999, George Carlin’s (who passed away in 2008) expletive filled monologue really put it into perspective in this humorous but equally blunt philosophical way. But from the point of view of those who might be deeply involved in certain religions, it is often times sacrilegious when someone speaks/writes their opinions about this.
And I know this particular post will offend some folks who will disagree with this. I also know some will automatically go to the “you need saving and you will burn in hell for not being a believer” line which again, proves the point of what Carlin said early on. It’s why the usual advice is to not talk about politics and religion because of how polarizing those subjects can be (especially in this crazy timeline we live in).
For the longest time, I did just that (keep my mouth shut). But now, I am also at this point in my life now where I literally do not give a shit about writing what I think about this stuff. If the response is “brimstone hellfire will reign on me and that I need to be saved”, that speaks more about the deeply embedded prejudice in that person and not me. As the saying goes, look in the mirror when spouting that kind of stuff out.
I do know people in real life who disagree with my views on this. But we’re able to have mature/reasonable discussions about this and just agree to disagree. My sister is one of those; she became a Christian (the good old school type not to be confused with the Christian Nationalist type) and I respect her reasons (because having that faith helped her during a rough period in her personal life during the same period when covid was happening and our mom was in hospice care). At the same time, some of the crazy things happening in the world, are things that had I brought up to her before, she would’ve thought I was crazy.
Myself, I’ve long been in the “most everything that we humans know is a human created abstraction” line of thought (which really helps when dealing with the unknown because face it, while our science and knowledge level is great, there are also so many things we do not know because we’re limited by the abstractions we created to define the constraints within a three dimensional universe that we’ve also created abstract concepts for to explain it). Science equally has its limits there where in one simple example, analogies need to be used to describe what the 4th dimension may be like.
Religion is one of those human created abstractions that has been abused to explain away the unknown. What I don’t appreciate is being dismissed in that manner; it’s a condescending lack of respect and intolerance for others who have a different belief system and a different faith (and it is normally one religion which has individuals that consistently warps it in order to engage in that sort of preaching).
I also know people who used to be deeply religious (and most of these folks were previously of some Christian faith), and ended up having this epiphany that lifted the veil. It’s probably even more profound for those who grew up this way (where that level of indoctrination from early childhood, makes it seem all normal — that is until they expanded their world view by leaving that small corner). I’m not saying Christianity is bad. I’m saying that people with ulterior motives have long twisted it into these alternative forms in order to justify their actions in the name of religion.
Some early form of religious indoctrination has long been imposed on us from an early age. I was in elementary school during a time when the daily ritual once the school bell rang to start class, was having to recite the “Pledge of Allegiance” (standing up, right hand over heart, and facing the American flag).
This also highlights the hypocrisy of this thing we have in the U.S. called the separation of church and state. Why? Because that allegiance pledge recital has the words “one nation, under god”). Our currency is emblazoned with the motto, “In God We Trust”. And in some areas of the country, oath taking when it comes to matters of civic duty, requires the placing of the right hand on a bible while reciting back the oath (where some add “so help me God” at the end).
Let me go one step further… American propaganda is a real thing (which more are at least waking up and getting wise to). I actually have an article still in draft form about this that I need to wrap up and post (there’s actually a lot of material I have long had in draft form for years but have to go back and edit because well, my “stream of conscious” style was definitely far more exhaustive and long running in the prior decade). But I also believe it is important to address that.
I’ve learned over time that empathy has limits and that wasting energy on those who are deeply indoctrinated into a certain belief (where they find it highly offensive that if you do not believe in a god, in Jesus Christ, in some supreme being, that you will suffer this wrath while your soul burns when you die) is just that, wasted energy. With less than peaceful thinking like that, it is unsurprising we have global conflicts that uses religion as a tool to stoke those tensions (and this is the case in the U.S. with the Christian Nationalists who are running the country who are also trying to impose their views on the rest of us while ignoring the fact that we have this thing called “freedom of religion”).
Which brings me back to Easter Sunday. The Pope put out something which is what any rational person would call reasonable and morally correct regardless of their religious beliefs. “Pope Leo urged global leaders to end the conflicts raging across the world and abandon any schemes for power, conquest or domination.” The pope (the first from the U.S.) has emerged as an outspoken critic of the Iran war and has chosen to use more forceful words to state that people “are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent”.
As I’ve noted before, I am no supporter of the theocratic Iranian regime. But there is this agreed upon thing called international law with how to conduct such operations. If some hostile force was sending rockets into any territory in the United States, how would we feel? Would we not defend ourselves in the same way that Iran is doing? Instead, any retaliation by Iran is characterized as an aggression (our now useless/complicit media is very much to blame for performing this same narrative). It’s absolute hypocrisy that more people are beginning to call out.
In direct contrast from Pope Leo’s message, the POTUS (aka Pedophile of the United States) chose Easter Sunday to put out another unhinged profanity laced rant that is unbecoming of any political official that is the head of state. Israel and the U.S. are the ones acting like terrorists while openly committing war crimes. The sycophants (including so called religious leaders like Franklin Graham) unsurprisingly praised their dear leader as being a “true man of God”.
Excuse me while I throw up at the utter hypocrisy these gaslighting assholes represent. The above is unbecoming of what Easter is supposed to represent for Christians. But these same clowns label others who are agnostic and side with what George Carlin said on this (self included) as being the one who will burn in hell. And if they even bring up Carlin’s language, well look at the above and all of the rest of the previous hateful garbage their “dear” convicted felon child molesting sexual abusing leader has said in the past. Give me a break you hypocritical shit heads.
This also highlights the level of ignorance of those in our own regime in the U.S.; they DON’T understand Iran in any meaningful capacity. They are just racist supremacists in every way imaginable. The Iranian presidents open letter to the citizens of the U.S. highlights the sort of articulate explanation that our own government is incapable of. Some of us already knew this having interacted with Iranian natives before. Underestimating your opposition (which our own government is guilty of) is the worst thing you can do; this kind of rhetoric will only serve to backfire against the United States where if they put boots on the ground, it is not going to be pretty (I went on a long tangent about this in this other post, but will quote it below) and likely turn out worse than Vietnam.
The other irony is the national security of the United States; it’s being run by criminals who are the national security threat as I write this (aka, the national security threat exists on the inside with the people in charge of the key government institutions). China can just sit back and watch this regime in the U.S. do itself in. What’s going on in the middle east similarly has both the governments of Israel and the United States, acting like terrorists (that entire situation with Iran is having global economic ramifications).
Gas here is just under $5/gallon ($1.32/liter) while in parts of California (Los Angeles and San Francisco), it’s already close to/over $6/gallon ($1.60/liter). We just got notification here that electricity bills will be going up by 20-30% beginning this month. And we’re still lucky. In late February, the Philippines declared a national emergency regarding their energy crisis that is a result of the Iran war (caused again by Israel and the United States).
For those who aren’t paying attention to any of this, the domino effect is only beginning. Most have no clue what is potentially coming. The world hasn’t yet felt the effects of fertilizer scarcity (as a result of the conflict; urea and ammonia shipments from the region are being impacted by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz). Translation: this will impact farming and thus food supplies (shortages plus price increases).
Bringing this back to AI; all of those data centers require HUGE amounts of energy for the ones that aren’t being powered by renewables… guess what this Iran war is doing to energy prices globally? The compute cost for AI is only going to increase. Who is going to pay for that? A lot more consumers are going to get pinched even further. What about the AI market bubble I’ve mentioned many times before? Whenever that blows up, that represents TRILLIONS of dollars (making up peoples savings, retirement, etc). Some of us have been through this “house of cards” bullshit before.
This is a potential global disaster waiting to happen (caused by these war criminals running Israel and the United States with this war they created in the middle east). I’ll be transparent as I’ve always been. I just converted $50,000 cash into gold this past week (when the spot price took a dump off the $5k high) and will be done with another this week (I may also decide to lower my exit price on the open sell orders I have on around 15K shares of Apple in order to just hedge that cash into gold). I have no idea where inflation is headed to though
Why am I writing this as part of this AI cybersecurity incident? Because should the U.S. military put boots on the ground in Iran, expect the global economy to take a massive dump/collapse (taking that AI bubble and global equity markets down with it), expect the U.S. to be labeled as a global pariah, and expect the USD to lose its status as the global reserve currency (which the PayPal mafia of Thiel, Musk, and Sacks want in order to push crypto over another centralized fiat currency).
Countries that own massive amounts of U.S. debt (treasuries) like China and Japan; do you believe they will hang on to that? The U.S. will be up the shit creek should both countries dump those (the USD will plummet and guess what that will do to markets globally since so many things are arbitraged against the USD). Guess how much of the US population will be left in ruins when the value of the USD tanks. Businesses and Wall Street have been playing with fire by treating the POTUS/regime like it was a normal thing (making market bets like this was all a game).
His deranged speech to the nation the other evening plus his threat to NATO allies (of pulling out of that alliance) is just the tip of the global chaos these morons are potentially about to cause. And the DUI hire of a defense secretary war criminal purging more top generals (who probably advised against a ground invasion), is a potentially huge tell that these buffoons might just do it. BTW, some of the things they want to do would be war crimes under the Geneva Convention.
The rest of the world should pull up a seat to get this front row view of a global hegemony and empire potentially collapsing right in front of their eyes. This isn’t even hyperbole either because various countries are already feeling the strain from this. The U.S. Congress could put a stop to this if the Republican majority weren’t so ok with violating their oath of office and allowing their dear leader to steer the country off of a cliff. Myself, I’m partly prepared and just included my monthly vent (about this idiocracy) in this post. I’m hoping this scenario does not play out/would like to be completely wrong about this.
Oh but Mura, this is unpatriotic talk. You know what I respond to that? Go fuck yourself all the way to the hell that you believe of. Speaking truth to power is not unpatriotic. Simply going along with what is not ethically and morally the right thing to do and being lied to blindly by those in positions of power and not saying anything, is unpatriotic. Because just giving in and not using any critical thinking skills makes you just a tool, a sheep, a willing useful idiot that is blind to the psychological manipulation that has long been taking place not only in the United States, but in every single country on this planet.
