The Effing Elites … Again … Still

I have been watching a number of documentaries of late about ancient Egyptian societies, which have fascinated me since I was a boy. Egyptian kings were considered gods, at least having one foot in godhood status. I don’t know if they invented the “god-king” concept but they were, at least, an early adopter.

One has to ask, why did the vast majority of the population give so much power to these people? Clearly the power was usurped by two means: force and religion. So-called kings who were just battle leaders kind of liked being able to order people around and so extended their hegemony into peace time, their loyal soldiers becoming “palace guards.” In many other cases, shamans or other “holy men” saw protection and a meal ticket by running interference for the powerful secular leaders and so made a marriage made in heaven, literally. The Secular-Religious Axis was a joint powers agreement.

Apologists will respond with points like “religion supplies order and is a salve for the vicissitudes of daily life. Religion a salve? Not hardly. Take the word of Tony Castaldo who started reading the Bible as a pre-teen: “And by the time I finished “Numbers”, I did understand God — I understood that God was a superhero story, like Superman or Spiderman, just one invented by brutal men that used violence and murder to subjugate women (so they could rape them at will with no repercussions) and children and slaves.”

Watching myriad Egyptian citizens (not slaves) muscling millions of stone blocks into the shape of a pyramid (two and a half million blocks in just the Great Pyramid, weighing approximately six million tons) over decades requires me to ask about the opportunity costs. What would those tens of thousands of healthy workers been able to do had they not been “assigned” stone carrying duties? Economists explain that whenever you tackle any task, you incur and “opportunity cost” in the form of giving up on what you could do on another task. And archaeologists have identified over 118 to 138 distinct pyramids in Egypt.

And who ordered these to be built? The Egyptian Kings, of course. And, then there are the grandiose temples (e.g. Karnak, Luxor, Abu Simbel, Edfu, Dendera, Hatshepsut, and Ramesseum and thousands of “lesser” temples) to be built for the priests, gotta keep them happy, too. (Google AI says, “These sites primarily served as homes for deities, built by pharaohs to showcase their devotion and power.” Exactly, vanity projects and political sops traded for priestly support.)

It is the Effing Elites who order such grotesque vanity projects, who decide to make war on neighbors, etc. What if instead, all of that labor and wealth were applied to controlling the flooding of the Nile? Or building affordable housing and providing affordable food and drink for ordinary Egyptians)? (I can hear the GOP caterwaulers screaming “Socialism!” already.)

If you then follow the history of the human race for the next 2000 years, you will see the same pattern, e.g. autocrats like Louis the Fourteenth, Mussolini, Hitler, and Trump with their grandiose building projects and wars at the drop of a hat.

So, why do we yield our power to these assholes? Especially when the U.S. was formed as the first nation “of the people, by the people, and for the people” and kings could go eff themselves.

Everything is an Emergency with a Drama Queen

In his first eighteen months back in office, Trump has declared at least eight national emergencies. Not because the nation was actually on fire. Because aging drama queens love emergencies. (Carolyn Beccia on Medium.com February 24, 2026)

The whole post is Members Only and is worth reading.

I Wonder If Trump Sought Approval from his Board of Peace Before Attacking Iran

President Trump, you know, the anti-war President, has decided making war is not so bad.

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” – Albert Einstein.

The only major board Trump, aka The Fraudfather Don Snoreleone, aka Donnie DoLittle, aka Dog-Whistle Don is qualified for at this point in his “career” is the Board of Human Stupidity.

Why Christians Stick to their Guns

Hint: For the same reasons Trump supporters stand by their man. It has nothing to do with facts and everything to do with belonging. I was reading a post by Dan Foster, a recovering minister, who stated this:

For most pastors, faith is not just belief. It is their employment, and sometimes even their housing. It shapes their community, their friendships, and their sense of identity. It often determines how they provide for their families and how they explain their life story to themselves and others. (Dan Foster)

This was stated after making reports on polls showing that a great many preachers/pastors experience doubts about their own faith. Some lose their faith completely but stay on the job because what else are they qualified to do?

Belonging is a heady mixture of acceptance, recognition, feelings of love and understanding, and more. When the religious or Trump supporters are presented with uncomfortable facts, they tend to dig in their heels and resist in a sort of “My Country Right or Wrong” kind of way (Republicans invented that one, too, no?). These are challenges to their identity as a member of their particular group.

These are not the only people who feel this way, I suggest that all people feel this way. We all identify to some extent as members of a group: Real Americans™, Real Christians™, real Boston Celtic fans, or members of the Republican Party, or Democratic Party, or the good’uns (good people, moral people, nice people, etc.). Rarely do we admit character flaws, such as being racists, or being prejudiced in any way. We need to maintain our membership in whatever groups we see ourselves in.

Over and over we are told that Trump supporters, or the religious, will not be changed by arguments based upon facts and logic. This is why.

I claim that feeling doubts is a good thing. At one point in my life I realized that my values had been programmed into me by my parents and that I had never really examined those or taken possession of them, they were just part of my programming. So, over a period of a year, year and a half, I examined as many of these values as I could identify and either confirmed them as something I wanted to be a part of me, or endeavored to change them.

I suspect that religious doubts are especially pernicious, especially in faith-based religions. Since faith is belief without or even in spite of evidence to the contrary, it is particularly hard to examine. Part of that examination includes, I think, asking “How do I know this?” and “How did I come to this understanding?” or “Who told me?” and so on. And most Christian religions discourage such questioning, especially in the young. Once they are “confirmed” as being indoctrinated, an occasional question is allowed, but ask too many in any of those churches and you will find yourself out on the street.

Shame?

The story of Adam and Eve in the Bible is a nasty piece of religious propaganda, being a classic case of blaming the victim for any and all subsequent things that go wrong.

Immediately after eating the fruit, we are told Adam and Eve felt shame, guilt, and fear, realizing they were naked and covering themselves with fig leaves. Now apologists will argue that they felt shame as they realized they had disobeyed a direct commandment of Yahweh’s, but this undermines the whole story. If the fruit allowed them to understand they had committed a sin against this god, then before they ate from that fruit, they had no idea they were committing a sin.

As to “shame” and “realizing they were naked and covering themselves with fig leaves” … why would nakedness be a source of shame? Were there any other inhabitants of the Garden who were wearing clothes? And even if any of the other gods were walking around wearing clothes, they were creaqted without any and would feel that that was normal.

Of course, this is just a religion’s way of getting a handle on human behavior, with one of the most powerful driving forces being sex. If they can establish themselves as the arbiter of all human behavior and especial human sexular behavior, then they will have established all the control they would need to bully their flocks into any position whatsoever (even missionary position).

Interestingly, for literalists, the bible rejects the historicity of Adam and Eve, since their “original sin” was never mentioned nor lamented in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, after the opening chapters of Genesis, which were quite obviously grafted into the Hebrew Bible at a very late date.

Now what man of intelligence will believe that the first and the second and the third day, and the evening and the morning existed without the sun and moon and stars? And that the first day if we may so call it, was even without a heaven? And who is so silly as to believe that God, after the manner of a farmer, planted a paradise eastward in Eden, and set in it a visible and palpable ‘tree of life’ …No one, I think, can doubt that the statement that God walked in the afternoon in paradise, and that Adam lay hid under a tree, is related figuratively in Scripture, that some mystical meaning may be indicated by it. (Origen, an early “Church Father”)

So, why are Biblical Literalists still insisting that this story represents actual history and is not a fable meant to teach lessons (even if the lesson involved blaming the victim via nasty propaganda)?

Idiot Christians In Charge!

BREAKING NEWS: US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee tells Tucker Carlson that Israel has the Biblical right to take over all of the Middle East. “It would be fine if they took it all.”

According to the Bible, the Hebrew Bible, you know the original one, Egypt has a better claim to “the Holy Land” by right of having controlled that territory for more years than Israel has ever done.

Christians, like Huckabee, don’t do their homework, apparently. I mean, who appointed that guy … oh …

American Exceptionalism

There isn’t much talk about American Exceptionalism just now, possibly because it is at the core of federal policies currently. The definition of exceptionalism (the belief that a nation, group, or ideology is an exception to a usual rule or trend or is exceptional in relation to others of the same kind) is a bit misleading as this is the application of the term to political entities. The term originated, of course, from religion.

The main point is that human beings are exceptions to every rule that governs the behavior of other animals because we were divinely created, don’t you know. I have always found this a bit of a weak tea argument because according to the religious, all plants and animals (and every damned other thing) were created by a divine being.

But those other creations weren’t made in “God’s Image.” So, we are exceptional! I know this is a bit of an aside, but “God’s Image” is a bit of a conundrum. So, if we were made in God’s image, is this god male or female? Or are we just excluding women as being “Made in God’s Image (Modified)” or “God’s Image, v2”)? Poor Eve (and then all women) don’t get no respect, I tells yuh.

It wasn’t that long ago that the religious refused to characterize human beings as animals. The distinction they were looking for was that humans were not to be dumped in with “dumb animals” but that distinction was too fine for the Unthinking, I guess. BTW, animals classified as dumb animals are so classified because they do not speak (a language, obviously many vocalize), not because they lack intelligence. If that were the case we would have to admit this country is current being lead by a troop of Dumb Animals. Maybe that is true because, even though they can speak, they are awfully damned dumb, as in stupid.

Okay, human exceptionalism was maintained as a philosophy so that we were not associated with other animals, we were “Special, dammit!” (“I told you so!” Shut up, Church Lady!)

So, the claim of American exceptionalism, which is actually damaging to America, comes from the foundation established by that religious claim and is yet another indicator that this country is one of the most backward religious countries in existence.

The reason that attitude is damaging to us is that we don’t accept evidence of policies that work like gangbusters in other countries, but don’t get implemented here, because we are exceptional, don’t you know. The rules don’t apply to us. And example is universal healthcare. It works in many other countries, but couldn’t possibly work here, because, well think of all those starving health insurance executives that would cause.

This attitude is rampant in the Republican Party, which from time to time dusts off their narrative of deferring federal policies to the states, letting the states be “laboratories for democracy.” But do we then take their advice for more general policies, hell, no. That ploy was just to prevent a federal policy the GOP didn’t like allowing their states to forbid it, presenting another roadblock to a comprehensive federal policy. And then there are religious exceptions to various tax laws, inoculation requirements, etc. for no good reason.

Exceptionalism in its political form needs to be binned for all time. It is a blanket claim that “the rules” don’t apply, with no argument as to why, just a kind of smokescreen for “God wants it that way.”

Give Me a Fucking Break

The Louisiana state house thought it would be a good idea to post the Ten Commandments in school classrooms and so passed a law to that effect. An injunction against that law was immediately slapped upon it, but of course the federal appeals court in that region has decided that the law is fine with them.

“Don’t kill or steal shouldn’t be controversial,” she said. “My office has issued clear guidance to our public schools on how to comply with the law, and we have created multiple examples of posters demonstrating how it can be applied constitutionally. Louisiana public schools should follow the law,” said Attorney General Liz Murrill.

Of course not murdering or stealing are not controversial, but they had to go to the bottom of the list to find “commandments” that are not controversial.

But how about Commandment No. 1 on that same list (there are at least three such lists in scripture, all different, of course): “I am the LORD your God; you shall not have strange gods before me!” which is often reworded as “You shall have no other gods before me!” (Having the chutzpah to reword the Holy Bible is a common Republican thing.)

And Commandments No. 2 and No. 3 are just as bad: You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain. and “Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.”

Kids aren’t stupid, the first thing they will ask (if they are allowed to) is “Who is doing the commanding?” If this gets asked in school, it is bound to get asked in church where questions get slapped down faster than Trump tariffs.

If you are a child of Islamic parents or of Hindu parents or of Sikh parents, how would you feel that your gods are referred to as “strange gods”? How will their parents respond if they are asked “Is our god strange?”

If kids are serious or just shit disturbers, they are bound to ask what “in vain” means. Can you explain it? Also, the Sabbath when these rules were written was Saturday, does that mean there will be no high school football games scheduled on Saturdays or on Sundays because the Christians moved their Sabbath to suck in Romans?

And the brightest kids in class will point out there are another 603 “commandments” in the Bible, and what about them? Snarky kids will ask why they are being taught out of the Jewish Bible. The smart girls will look at the tenth commandment and ask “Will I be the property of my husband? If so, you can forget about it.”

It is clear from this religious pandering while blithely ignoring constitutional law they are sworn to uphold, the judicial class and political class are shown to be incompetent, unfeeling, and sycophantic.

Wasn’t there a movie some time ago where the world was run by stupid people? Maybe that was more prophetic that I thought.

Will the Incompetence of the Trump Administration Save Us?

In a post on The Guardian (on line) I encountered this:

Department of Justice prosecutors across the US have suffered a string of embarrassing defeats in their aggressive pursuit of criminal cases against people accused of “assaulting” and “impeding” federal officers.

In recent months, the federal government has relentlessly prosecuted protesters, government critics, immigrants and others arrested during immigration operations, often accusing them of physically attacking officers or interfering with their duties.

But many of those cases have recently been dismissed or ended in not guilty verdicts.

In several high-profile cases, the prosecutions fell apart because they relied on statements by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers that had no supporting evidence or in some instances were proven by video footage to be blatantly false.

Criminal defense lawyers said it was unusual for federal prosecutors to pursue a high volume of charges over minor clashes with law enforcement, and that it was extraordinary to see the DoJ lose case after case across jurisdictions.

If the gross incompetence of the Trump Administration does end up saving us, what does that say about the resilience of our government structures, I mean depending on the incompetence of enemies, rather than our own competence, checks and balances, etc.?

Postscript And … shouldn’t lying to a court carry consequences? Do these twats just get away with that with impunity?

How Do They Know?

Note—Okay, it is Sunday again and you know what that means! S

I have been reading a book of transcripts of Christopher Hitchens’ debates with theists. And while I don’t agree with every word that came from Hitch’s mouth I am constantly shocked at claims made by apologists/excusigists.

A common claim is that their god is so far beyond us it makes a two-year old trying to think like an adult to be not even close to the difficulty of us being able to understand this god. I immediately had to ask, how is this known? Who was the first to winkle this out of the conversations they were having in their head? Basically, if a two-year old can’t figure out how an adult thinks, and this god is much father away intellectually than from a two-year old to an adult, how is it that these folks know about how their god thinks?

“God is ineffable” The definition of ineffable is “too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words.” So, the first person twigging to this god-property surely didn’t have the concept explained to him in words, because … well, you know? So, how is this known? Who was the first to winkle this out of the conversations they were having in their head? Conversations without words, of course.

“God is transcendent!” The definition of transcendent is “beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience.” So, did the first person to come up with this god-property have an extreme range of human experience, so that this god could be experienced? Or was he just full of shit?

“God is immutable!” Uh, where this idea came from, well it wasn’t scripture. Yahweh starts out as a member of a family of gods, becomes the main, then sole god of the Jews and then ends up as part of a Christian triune godhead. If that ain’t changing, I don’t know what is.

“God is eternal!” Gosh, were you there? You know, before the universe was created? And after we all die, you’d have to go on for an eternity to confirm this wild speculation. Let’s just agree that this is speculation, at best.

“God is truthful, incapable of lying!” And all-powerful, too. There is nothing He cannot do! Well, maybe….

“God is incomprehensible” Uh, how can one know this? One can admit they do not comprehend someone or something, but this is a claim that no one comprehends that deity and no one ever will. I gotta ask: How can anyone know this? Who was the first guy who extrapolated this from the mumblings heard in his own mind?

“God is impartial!” Tell that to “God’s Chosen People.” Why would he single out a single family line (Abraham’s) to rule much of the region we now call “the Holy Land” if he wasn’t going to be partial? I am beginning to believe that people make this shit up.

“God is self-existent, self-sufficient, and not dependent upon any external cause or support for his existence.” (This property is called aseity.) So, why did it create a race of sentient animals for the sole purpose of worshipping it? Sounds more than a little needy to me.

“God is infinite!” How could anyone find a measuring tape that large to confirm this? I tend to think that the made up god-property of omnipresence, aka “God is everywhere” was accepted and then since the universe is so fucking huge then God must be, too. The only problem is that omnipresence may seem like a likely god-power but it has no use to a god who is all-powerful and all-knowing. It doesn’t need to be anywhere to learn or do anything, so omnipresence is clearly made up by religious idiots who didn’t think it through. (This god is also beyond space and time but also everywhere and everywhen within space and time … I wish they would make up their fucking minds!)

“God is just!” Ask all of the tens of thousands of soldiers of King David who were killed because Yahweh says he ordered David to not take a census then he did! Scripture does not show Yahweh making such an order, but He is inerrant, so David didn’t stand a chance in court. And the killings of his men were a punishment for David, not the men themselves. I am sure that meant a lot to the dead soldiers relatives left behind. How the fuck that shows “God’s justice” is beyond me.

“God is righteous!” He is always righteous and does what is right, right? He never does the wrong thing … except when he declared that making human beings “was good” and then shortly thereafter drowned almost all of them like rats, along with all of the other animals, plants, etc. whose creation was also deemed “good.”

“God is strong!” But what about that rock he created that is so heavy … ?

“God is Unconquerable!” Unless, you know, you have iron chariots, but otherwise, yeah.

Gosh, very little of this makes sense but I guess that’s the charm and the draw of it. Believing weird shit to become a member of an exclusive club has always been attractive. Just ask the Masons, the Illuminati, the Republican Party, and those type folks.