They're Taking Our Jobs!

Fun With Foliage

This post is dedicated to tree fanatic

Mike of Billions of Versions of Normal 

who regularly posts photos of 

beautiful and bizarre trees 

from around the world.

Mike is also not above enjoying

a good off-colour joke,

so here's a couple!

Post of the Week

This week's favourite post

from the blogosphere is 

a fun, fab retrospective!

Give it a well-deserved

Funk Engine fanfare,

Her Royal Highness,

if you please!

"The Evolution of Dance 1950-2019"

video posted by Miss C

of Miss Cellania blog

(which you can watch by clicking here)

Five amazing dancers show us

70 years of dance moves, music

and fashion in only 6 minutes!

It's well worth your time to watch!

Be sure to put it on Full Screen too!

Literal Belief and Its Accompanying Danger

While I regard all deities as mythological, I have no problem if other people believe in some divine being's literal or actual existence. "Whatever floats your boat and harms none" is my philosophy. However, there is a very real danger in literal belief if it is also accompanied by another belief, namely, spiritual or religious supremacy, which holds that Only One Truth exists and therefore every other belief is Wrong and Heretical.

From that supremacist belief flows all manner of evil. It becomes permissible (indeed, often a duty) to shun, condemn, exclude, punish, torture and/or kill non-believers. Proselytizing and conversion, even forced conversion, are seen as admirable. Wholesale destruction of non-believers' beliefs, culture and lives is encouraged. Anything goes if it elevates and strengthens the supremacist position.

All major religions are guilty of this. Historically, Christianity is a prime example. Around the world today, Islamic supremacists wreak havoc in various countries. Judaism still teaches that only they are the Chosen People. Buddhists are not immune from this evil either, as evidenced by the ongoing persecution and genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. Hindus and Muslims have long been at each other's throats in India and Pakistan.

And it's not just persecution of non-believers. Supremacist doctrines, whether concerning religion, gender or race, usually bond together like cement for even more devastating effect. How often has religion been used to justify theft, subjugation and exploitation of other races? Virtually always. What religion has historically treated women equally, or even well, compared with men? None whatsoever. Supremacist thought of every variety is toxic to human welfare and freedom, plain and simple.

The opposite of supremacist thought in religion is known as Universalism (today often disparagingly referred to as "moral relativism"). Universalism holds that spiritual truth, healing and salvation (to use the standard religious terminology) are available to all, regardless of what religion (or none) is practised. The foundational principles of Universalism are tolerance and respect.

All supremacist religions, of course, teach that Universalism is wrong, misguided and/or evil.

But is it?

Is it really?

How different would our world be today if Universalism had been the guiding doctrine over the past couple of thousand years or more?

The Dessert Spiral of DOOM

Behold my downfall!

How do I repeatedly fall into 

the Dessert Spiral of Doom?

HOW?

Is it Fate?

Is it the Will of God?

Surely it cannot simply be 

my own weakness?

Do I talk myself into it?

Do I have no self-control?

Am I too good at 

self-persuasive excuses?

And hey, did somebody mention . . .

. . . COOKIES?

Am I my own worst enemy?

Happy Beltane/May Day (NSFW)

Once again it is BELTANE/MAY DAY,

when horny pagans around the world

do their duty to ensure the fertility of the Earth

by celebrating with May Pole dancing,

bonfires and outdoor sex.

Not every religion, of course, has

such a liberated or freewheeling attitude to

ESS   EEE   EKS.

Her Royal Highness the Cat 

tries to keep a paw in 

EACH camp, of course.

But I know the REST OF YOU

will gladly join me in some

NSFW humour!