Now let seth mcfarlane say it...

bodhi-fucking-sattva

let's get a lil buddhist action goin' on here, shall we? i mean, the buddhists are just as crazy as the christians and muslims and jews (perhaps even more crazy considering their very detailed 'other' worlds)... it's just, they're polite enough to not shout that crazy in the public's face. they leave everyone alone.

which is awesome.

but i wanna talk about bodhisattvas... and the only one worth my time is this lil gem from my youth by the one and only steely dan:

HOLLA!

My affair with siddhartha

i read herman hesse's siddhartha the summer after 8th grade... right after discovering that reading could actually be an enjoyable experience. i had finished kafka's metamorphosis earlier in the year, and, having loved every second of it (i've probably read that novella over a hundred times now), a teacher mentioned i might like hesse's take on spirituality.

so i gave it a read.

and i loved it.

there are many reasons why, but first and foremost, it was different. it promoted oneness with the universe -- this big, giant, intangibly tangible thing that i couldn't even begin to wrap my thoughts around -- and it taught the virtues of simplicity, of being "good". being alive.

those are virtues that i hold onto today. i've mentioned it several times, but there is no need for an invisible sky daddy (no matter what name one might assign him, or her, or them) to embody this philosophy.

all one needs to do is be aware. be aware of his surroundings. listen. follow the golden rule.

it really is that simple. no need for blowing people up 'cuz they don't agree with you. no need in forcing one's highfalutin beliefs on others by sanctions or force.

no need to stick one's nose into my business.

i treat others the way i want to be treated. is it really too much to ask others to do the same?

(image via skull swap)

I'm all over this thing...

democrat (for the most part), environmentalist, abortionist, fornicator, gambler, pervert (not the bad kind though, just your normal pervert), idolater (i have a thing for putting albert pujols up on a pedestal), liberal, high falutin (he spelled it wrong), sophisticated swine and sports nut.

whew.

but, i gotta agree, "emos" and "loud mouth women" are the worst.

HILARABS!

Press your fucking luck

when i lived in china i spent a lot of time doing research at a series of buddhist and daoist temples and was consistently amused at the amount of wayward folk spending time at the altars of the god of wealth and the god of luck (both entities exists in each religion).

they'd crowd around in droves, fighting one another for the opportunity to give offerings to these "gods" and then leave feeling lucky... like they'd end up getting money or some awesome thing in return for their tributary efforts.

what.

the.

fuck.

i know humans have the ability to be completely fucking stupid, but i also have some sort of innate faith in our species' ability to see through the bullshit, to really know that ya can't get something for nothing, that the idea of some invisible sky daddy just randomly showering me with FUCKING MONEY and GOOD FORTUNE is as believable as a talking snake and a worldwide flood that left no geological evidence.

then sometimes i'm just like, "ah fuck it, give me a beer."

Get outta the way

all y'all delusionoids blocking human progression with your bibles, your korans, your talmuds, your fairy tales, your hate, your discrimination, your intolerance, your backwardness, your FUCKING IDIOCY...

get

out

of

the

way.

we're trying to make real moves here.

in fact, there's a good fucking chance stem cell research will help keep your sorry ass alive longer, so you can spit more lies into the face of fact.

win... win?

Sadness has gotta go?

i'm pretty sure the idea of 'sadness' exists in the minds of other animals too, but the point i wanna make about it is that, for so long i've subscribed to the idea that it's gotta go.

right? wouldn't life be so much better without sadness? i don't like being sad. no one likes being sad.

so... how do we fucking beat that shit?

i've gone through points in my life where i could definitely cover it up. where i could mask it with toughness. with substance. with fists and fury where i could grit it out.

but sometimes ya just gotta let it in, so it can get the fuck out.

i think buddhism is just as nuts as the rest of the religions, but i do believe one of the buddha's mantras to be very helpful: life is suffering. without suffering, we can not know what is good.

shit happens. it's gonna hurt. feel it and move the fuck on.

oh...

and give me your money.

if you want ;-)

(image via smbc)

Avoid the tailspin

i think about my grandma. every single day.

she's been dead for six years now; and not one fucking day goes by where i don't think about her. not one.

she was my biggest fan. my strongest supporter. my best friend.

and when she died, i was so hurt -- so damaged by the loss -- that i went into a self-destructive tailspin that stole away two and half fucking years of my life.

two and a half fucking entire years.

forgiving myself took almost as long.

i used to sit there, wasting away...

no one ever taught me about loss. no one prepared me for it.

for people who aren't ready, that shit can do some real damage real quick.

i can see how people find comfort in jesus and buddha and the whole gang. if you think your dead grandma is at a party in the sky with muhammad and jeebus, i can see how handling the death might be easier.

but i -- we -- know better. we know that all we can prove is that when you die, you're fucking dead -- erased from this existence. forever. for good.

done.

once something you hold close is lost, that something is fucking gone.

and you better handle your shit.

Things that should scare the shit out of you

Never stop asking, never stop learning

part of what makes the human race the superior race is our ability to think, critically. to ask questions. to sift through bullshit. to keep asking WHY, WHY, WHY.

and that is WHY the mental stagnation of those who "believe" in christian/hindu/islamic/jewish/buddhist/whatevs thoughts absolutely baffle me. if those same people had been in charge of disease prevention instead of people like louis pasteur, we'd all be fucked up, STILL.

with questions comes knowledge; with knowledge comes responsibility.

the religious fucksacks intent on destroying the progression of human thought are succeeding. we're being sucked backwards in time as society considers it polite to let them have a free pass, to never question their outlandish worldviews...

if only other discourses suffered similar retrogression, perhaps they would see the IDIOCY of their ways and just...

fucking...

STOP.

You can't ctrl-s

one thing that gets me scratching my head a lot is the question WHY do religious folks feel the need to control everyone around them.

you MUST take jesus christ as your lord and savior.

you MUST stop and pray five times a day towards the direction of mecca.

you MUST give invisible sky daddy 10% of your fucking income.

as a human being there is only ONE person i can control. one. and that's me. myself. i can control me. you can control you. he can control himself.

that's it.

and we're not talking about policing ourselves, we're talking about beliefs. so don't give me that bullshit argument please.

stay out of my fucking business, stay out of my fucking bedroom, stay out of my fucking checkbook.

forever.

(image via 9GAG)

The inexcusability of mormonism

look. i get it. sorta. i mean, christianity has been around for a couple thousand years. islam and buddhism too. hinduism. judaism, even longer. i know that cleaning the brain of these ages old traditions is gonna be tough, that it will take time, that falling prey to their teachings is pretty plausible considering how dumb most of the world is.

but mormonism? the church of ladder day saints? joseph fucking smith?

inexcusable.

they are just as nuts as the crazy-ass charles mansons of the world.

an angel gave a book to joseph smith? in an unknown language? a language that only he could understand?

please. that shit ain't even good enough to be on a soap opera, man.

no excuse, mormons. you have no excuse.

The power of suggestion

people are stupid.

really. especially in groups. that's when people get really stupid.

think about it. all the major cuckoo clans that you hear about... the heaven's gate group, the taiping rebellion, branch davidians... most of us (religious or not) would admit that all three of those groups were fucking bat-shit nuts... that each group's members were sucked in by having weak minds and being susceptible to suggestion.

well, the major religions of the world are no different. the craziness has just been around longer, and most of those involved have never been allowed to think for themselves. ever. those who joined later on in their adult lives, well, they probably never realized they even had a choice (when they had it!), or were simply just susceptible to the power of suggestion of a bunch of looney-tunes who look and act like they really know what's going on.

even though they're clueless.

yep. it's the biggest fucking lie ever told in the history of the recorded universe.

and like they say, ya can't fix stupid.

Children are easy prey!

i know i've mentioned this before -- beat it into the ground perhaps -- but i don't fucking care 'cuz it's important.

fuck world hunger. fuck nuclear war. fuck all that. the minds of children are being hijacked every single day by crazy nutballs and no one flinches or says a thing.

leave a baby around a pack of dogs, and of course, eventually it will start acting like a dog.

leave a baby under the influence of close-minded, fairy-tale believin', religion-lovin' lunatics and you have reinforcements for the crazy-train army.

and that scares the shit out of me.

Can i give thanks?

i mean, does giving thanks imply some sort of acknowledged higher being? who should i give thanks to?

don't get me wrong, i'm a thankful person. appreciative. someone who doesn't take things for granted. i like to give credit ya know.

but i don't have to give thanks to an invisible sky daddy.

if anything, that just seems... fucking ridiculous.

"hey, thanks make-believe sandal guy!" "hey, thanks improvable thousand armed buddha!" "hey, thanks allah who i can't see, hear, touch, taste, feel!"

when one gives thanks like that, i think they're sorta missin' the point and crediting the wrong folks, ya know, the ones that are right here, right now, and totally provable.

(image via ursovain)

How to deify your child's toy

step 1: buy child's toy

step 2: buy more of said child's toy and rip the arms of them

step 3: stick ripped arms on to just one child's toy

and voila!

BABY DOLL GOD!!!!

is this the same way they came up with visnu and avalokitesvara and those guys?

(image via ihmp)

Poor, poor zeus

sometimes i get to thinkin'... thinkin' about zeus.

feelin' sorry for him.

sorry he's been forgotten.

sorry zeus.

so

so

so-

rry

Just a baby-religio-fallacy metaphor

these babies are... babies. they have little control over... well, anything.

they were put in those buckets. they did not put themselves in those buckets.

yet the buckets they are in (determined by someone else) will dictate how they live the rest of their lives. and that fucking sucks.

'cuz one of those buckets is christianity, one is hinduism, one is islam, one buddhism, one judaism...

all slaves.

(image via the friendly atheist)

The golden rule, bitches

it amazes me that our species has gotten so far and accomplished so much towards the continuing realm of progress; yet at the same time, as a whole, we still can't exercise the most basic, most practical, most beneficial life-guiding maxim:

do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

i learned this in fucking kindergarten.

now, i will freely admit: i didn't really get it until i was about 27 years old... but once i got it, i really got it. everything sort of made sense after that. i didn't have to question my every move anymore. it was quite the mind-freeing experience.

and nowadays i treat others how i would want to be treated and it fucking works!

but on a large, worldwide scale, we are not even close to putting such good advice in practice.

why? what's the fucking problem? we put a man on the moon but can't stop murdering our fucking neighbors?

differences. intolerance. hate.

all tenets (okay, maybe not tenets, but definitely by-products) of religion... like it or not.

my advice? ditch jesus, muhammad and whatever other invisible friend ya wanna cling to and stick to the golden rule.

ya can't ever go wrong in that.

This cannot be said enough...

please, let the madness stop.

let kids think for themselves.

they're not as fucking stupid as you think they are.

(via smbc)