King Arthur Movie Tristan

Yes, hope…that wonderful feeling that you have even up to the very last breaths you take.

I hope and I hope…that seems to be the theme running through in all of the sixty five years I have spent on this planet. Even in the darkest hours, even in the face of insurmountable adversity I have had hope close at my side.

That is why I understand people of faith; because what they have is much like what I have…it is hope, it is that they have mistakenly placed their hope in a pre-packaged, fabricated, ill-conceived and manipulative formula. This is of course done with their consent and even with their total cooperation and support…these people of faith have placed all their hopes on religious dogma, on undeserving merchants of bullshit so that they can free themselves from having hope.

I hope that this life is not it…that there is something beyond the realm of our biological life-spans…I hope there is some way the essence of me will survive that demise, that unknown and feared end. But to this purpose I am not going to accept somebody else’s fabricated explanations, neither their fairy tales nor their outlandish concepts of creation and that abstract and overwhelming infinite universe…anything besides hope in my book is pure speculation.

I hope that other people would do unto me as I would unto them. I hope that they learn, I hope that they gain wisdom to be able to make intelligent decisions; I also hope that they abandon their faith and adopt a more realistic and healthy philosophy on life, on their relationship with other human beings and most of all I hope that they become humanists with great capacity to love and be compassionate.

I totally reject religious scriptures because I don’t attribute divine inspiration or sacred, direct communication or intervention from a Creator. I think that these writings were done by men with some expectations that they would be able to govern through them and their ability to mislead an otherwise ignorant population…the scriptures are meant as a tool of governance.

I get very disturbed at the way these so-called HOLLY SCRIPTURES are used. I see the way in which some passages are adhered to and others ignored or totally disregarded. Pick and choose, embrace one that more closely serves your resolve or justifies your prejudices. It is sad that most people use these scriptures as a means to discriminate and to persecute others different than themselves.

I am particularly amused by some of the absurdities, by some of the contradictions and the inconsistencies of these scriptures. One peculiar passage is the one of keeping the Sabbath…some religions have gone to great lengths to differentiate themselves from other religions solely on the basis of how they so jealously and literally keep this so-called COMMANDMENT.

The business of resting that seventh day of labor is so absurd that it brings tears to my eyes…not from sadness but from laughter. At some point in history the prescribed punishment for not keeping the Sabbath was death. Now, I have a neighbor who is a fireman; he is handsome beyond belief and nice way past human expectations. He is married…yes, hopelessly straight and has a beautiful daughter. He often works on Saturdays and Sundays. Should I stone him to death?