PapaRatzi has shat in the Woods! Benedict 16 - or Baruch Sechzehn as the boys in the back call him - has Spoken From the Chair! He has 'Ex Cathedra'ed the fuck out of Dick Dawkins and his Imps! Cathedra is what Papists call the chair from which a Bishop channels the Will of the gods. When the Pope - the Bishop of Rome - speaks Ex Cathedra, his words and their intentions are Infallible. It is god - or at least 1 of the gods - speaking thru the Seat, the Throne, the Bishop. It's as fucking simple as that. The Chair is his Auctoritas. So listen up! Pope Benedict XVI has signed his second Encyclical titled: 'Spe Salvi.' Saved by Hope - which has a 4th Reich ring to it, a 'Kraft durch Freude' resonance. The KdF - 'Strength Thru Joy' - organization was created by Hitler to reward the German workingman with a State Sponsored Holiday so that they could travel throughout the country and spend their Marks on the Nazi Sponsored Economy. It's biggest success was the production of the KdF-Wagen - or 'People's Car' which we call the Volkswagen Beetle. A car which we always knew was the Spawn of Satan - getting stoned and fucking monkey girls in a VW was the spiritual essence of the 60s. But Spe Salvi is not so generous as the KdF. The infallible encyclical brands Atheism as leading to the "greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice" ever known. Strong words from the Ex-Hitlerjunge. It also decries the Modern emphasis on Individual Salvation and cryptically states that Jesus wanted Every Swingin' Dick saved. All hands and the cook. Even Monkey Girls - the Vas of the 1st big Sin. Even Monkey Girls have to be saved. The fact that Catholic dogma limits Complete Salvation to Catholics is worrisome but this Epistle from PapaRatzi is aimed right at Ricardo Dawkins and his Legions of the Damned - Atheists.
That's Moloch above - part of the Last Judgment fresco on the curved surface of the Dome in the Duomo in Firenze - the image is Big Scale, Skippy stared up at it for too long. I remember him shivering as it dawned on him - again - what an odd set of beliefs was Christianity. The opening image above left is by Floris and is called: "The Fall of the Rebellious Angels." You can see the 'Good' Angels Gangbangin' the Old Dragon with a bunch of Shiva Sharpened Edges. So the Christians - whom Lucky calls the Kiki Boys - will tell you that the Old Dragon is the Devil. Satan. Lucifer. The Serpent from the Garden. All that middleworld baggage of forked tails and tools, and Horns. Which is less than half right. Yes, the Dragon and the Icon of the Serpent as it was historically used in the Middle East are interchangeable. So the Old Dragon - OD - may, in fact, lurk behind the Snake talking to the Monkey Girl in Eden while her old man sleeps off a little bliss. Dragons and 'Reared' Serpents have always been Guardians and Watchers with a list of Questions. They stalk the edges of Temene - of Temples - and of the Boundaries of Sacred Space. They arrest Intruders. They question them - Like Murmur will question you at your Weighing - to see if they have the Capacity to understand Mysteries. And Secrets. And things which pass on Earth as Treasure. The OD is from that Sippe - that extended family. But the Dragon/Serpent in the protomyths from which the Judeo/Christian myths were formed, was not connected with Evil. Not at all. It was the bearer of Wisdom. As Merlin so often reminded anyone who would listen - Merlin and the Dragon were One. It would be better to imagine this problem: you need an emblem or symbol to stand for all of the combined Data/Wisdom of the Earth. Everything that Nature knows. Sub-Problem: Data/Gnosis like this seems to emanate from 2 sources, 2 Springs, one Above and one Below. Profane Wisdom is worn on the face of the world - it's the gnosis of the Seed and of the Breeding Grounds and of the Threshing Room Floor. But the other Gnosis comes down to us in Abstractions, Analogies, and Metaphors - it's the wisdom of the Kabbala and of Alchemy and of the Narratives of Sacrifice and Blood. That Philosopher's Gold rises up out of the Profane Shit and Ficksaft and seeks a Higher Ground. The higher it rises the less it desires the Breeding Grounds of Earthy life. So the Symbol of this Wisdom/Gnosis should have a Duality. It should be High and Low, Haut et Bas, Above and Below, Spiritual and Profane, Male and Female, Good and Evil, all at once. A Winged Serpent or Dragon is perfect for the task. As Serpent - it rules the dark interior of the earth and matter. As Winged - it rules the light exterior of the heavens and the Spirit. So first, the Old Dragon is the earliest Amalgamation Metaphor of Nature's Hidden Wisdom. It was the OD who whispered the True Names of Everything to Adam so that he could begin to navigate his ecology. And it was the OD who whispered to the lithe and taut young Monkey Girl as she contemplated what was hidden in the flesh of the Fruit.
"It is that which everlastingly devours its own self; it is Mercury as an image of burning thirst or hunger or the blind impulse towards gratification, or, in other words, Nature enthralled and conquered by Nature, or the mystery of the lunar world of change and becoming as opposed to the world of immutable being . . . Böhme, in De Signatura rerum, defines a Will which desires and yet has nothing capable of satisfying it except its own self, as the `ability of hunger to feed itself.'"

- Cirlot, on the Old Dragon -
Pick the Apple to start a Slide Show featuring the OD as Christians would have us see him.
Daniel Dennett - one of the 4 Evangeli of Neo-Atheism - says in his book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon: "There is an asymmetry: Atheists in general welcome the most intensive and objective examination of their views, practices and reasons. . . . The Religious, in contrast, often bristle at the impertinence, the lack of respect, the sacrilege, implied by anybody who wants to investigate their views. I respectfully demur: there is indeed an ancient tradition to which they are appealing here, but it is mistaken and should not be permitted to continue. This Spell must be broken, and broken now." Rage on, John Donne! He is bemoaning the fact that there is this Taboo about seriously investigating the whys and wherefores of a weird image like this Column Capital to the left which is at Notre Dame in Paris. Pascal Boyer, the Luce Professor of Collective Memory and Individual Memory at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri has an explanation of why this Taboo is a 'Natural' defense of Religions.
Boyer's brilliant book is called: Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought and it's a Mindful. Boyer knows that the Monkey's Mind is a Natural Organ and therefore has a Natural History and not a Supernatural Etiology. You can hear PapaRatzi rummaging around the Papal Apartments looking for a can of Charcoal Starter. What the hell do the Oddities of Religion - like the Pornographic Image above of Adam and Eve Jacking Off the Tree of Gnosis which is the body of the Old Dragon - have to do with the Natural Histories of Religion? Religious Monkeys are always stunned to find out that their Holy Icons have pasts just as shady as Anita Berber. And just as predictable. Boyer writes: "Serious religion makes use of the same notions found in the nonserious repetoire, plus some additional features." So Jesus and the Tooth-Fairy are cut from the same intuitive cloth. The mind builds "complex supernatural constructs out of very simple conceptual bricks: Ontological Categories, Violation Tags, and Inferences." Boyer agrees with Marvin Minski at M.I.T.'s Artificial Intelligence Lab. - as well as most Neurologists: The Mind is composed of many 'minds' - We have a 'Social Brain.' One evolved to abstract data from all the little minds and then generalize these data points into Ontological Categories or Ontologies. To make 'reason' out of all this info, the mind uses a complex amalgam of Inference Systems which draw conclusions and truths from the data pool using Bayesian Algorithms. When you simply say it - it's not that complicated. The mind, Boyer says, is like a great estate with several classes of help: maids, servants, cooks, wenches of all stripes, livery, garden workers . . . All have specific tasks which the others Cannot Do. None of the 'little people' have an Overview of the Estate itself. The System is - and must be - Invisible, Transparent. So a Guest would think it Magic, or Supernatural, or Religious - the way the mind sets things into places and forms. One might think of some kind of Divine Inspiration. Food appears, cleaning is done, horses get shod, wenches get seduced into showing what is hidden. Most of Religion, Boyer says, is like this. It's invisible and transparent and happens without conscious processing. As Pascal puts it: thoughts cannot be adequately explained by 'Reasons' for having such thoughts. Reasons come to us from Rationalization or Backward Masking. After the fact Truth-Stuffing. Jamming Reality into spare Forms. Some thoughts - like most Religious thought - have no reasons except they are the Inevitable and Necessary Blowback of the way the Minds work. There is no `Reason' why Monkeys remember faces but forget names - that's just the way that Monkey Memory has evolved to work. "The same applies to religious concepts, whose persistence and effects are explained by the way various mental systems work." The gods and their dogmas turn out to be Emergent Phenomena oozing from our Tool Systems. The oozer itself is called an Inference System. Inference, you will remember, is the ability of recovering hidden information. It is the ability to leap from a Generalization about a Class to a Truth-Statement about a Specific. I cannot see the back 2 legs of a chair but since I can see the 2 in front I know the 2 in the back must be there because a chair is a member of the Class of 4-Legged Objects. So I have inferred the hidden data on the 2 unseen legs. Boyer claims that Monkeys - as well as all sentient beings - live only in worlds which are Mental-Constructs of their Inference Systems. Religions are the products of these systems and have no independent reality outside the minds which construct them - except in the manner that our Ecosystems provide data to the minds - you could in fact argue that the Old Dragon is the sum of the data in Nature - and takes the form of the metaphors which Folksonomically Emerge by how we relate to that Nature. Hunters get Animal Guides as Bush Souls. Farmers worship the yearly process of the Seed. Both faiths can be inferred by the differences in the way Hunter/Gatherers and Agriculturalists relate to Nature. To the Garden. The Old Dragon is The Garden - or the sum of the Garden turned inside out. Umwelt. Innenwelt. Weltanschauung. Every Ecology is a system of Signs - that is, parts of the environment which contain data necessary for survival. Color, in nature, is an Attraction/Warning system - our Inference Engines will turn Color into Psychology and Emotion and then into Art. Every Ecology fosters and molds the kinds of organisms which can to some extent: Read the Signs. Grasp the meaning of the bloody red finger scribing: mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. Animals have Senses to grasp precisely those parts of the Ecosystem which contain survival data. Monkeys see the gamut of Color which corresponds to the ability to differentiate ripened flowers and fruits. Later, they will paint images - charged with spiritual meanings - of abundances of Fruit and Flowers. They will evolve to 'Love' Fruits and Flowers. The predilection of all Monkeys for Sweets is a testimony to our Diets in the Canopies of the Trees. So is the universal Fear of Falling related to the Ecology of Living off and in the Trees. So is the urge to climb. So is the yearning for Tree House Architecture. So is the Universal Semiotics of Up as the direction of completion, safety, and Heaven, and the gods. And Down as the dimension of Evil, death, darkness, Hell and the Demons. If you wring a Monkey's Minds out so that you can see their Inference Systems - you will have everything you need to predict their Arts, Poetics, and Theologies. Dennett and Boyer see the Old Dragon as Syntactical - a Personified method of transforming Ecosystem Dynamics into a Totem.
Atum is the Egyptian Proto or Urgod. He's all Monad and lonely in the Dark of the Void. So he Masturbates into the Emptiness and his Ficksaft/Jism becomes the Universe of Matter. All of which can be inferred by simply playing with your dick. Other versions say Atum spat, or shat, or pissed into the Nothing. See? It's all about the Ooze. Which makes Body-Sense - because where does stuff come from?
Racism is the product of Inference Systems tied to the Ontologies of Novelty, Danger, and Infectious Disease. All Human Beings are genetically predisposed to Racism.
The idea that Morality is tied to Religion is foolish and has been deconstructed into an Urban Myth. Everything we are learning from Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, and Zero Sum Games Theory, shows that Morality will develop in Monkeys "Instinctively." From the Inside-Out. Not from a Culture - from the Outside-In. The Meme Morality is easy to spread because it is based on genetic wisdom. Animals will act "Morally" [or Altruistic, generous, etc] for one or all of 4 reasons: 1.Genetic Kinship - we will give and give to 'Ours' and if there is competition, we will take from you and 'yours.' 2.Reciprocation - Favors Out = Favors In. Scratch/Scratch. 3.Darwinian Benefit of Reputation - Mother-Teresa syndrome. Monkey's sometimes are very good because then people will think they are saintly and love them. If they are ugly monkeys or otherwise hard to love, this is a good strategy. 4. Propaganda - Potlatch Effect - Advertise your Superiority thru Conspicuous goodness and giving. Morality is a Biological Program among Social Animals to do what the Amerikan Constitution suggests: To keep the Peace and Promote the Public Weal. The History of Religions is the History of Wars and Genocides and Holocausts. There has never been an Atheist War. PapaRatzi has his head up his holy ass.
That's interesting - about the US Constitution displaying Sociobiological Wisdom. It's almost as if you could claim that all of the Monkey's Creative efforts - whether they be Artistic or Religious or concern the Social Contract - are predictable in the Forms which they will take. Because the Forms they will take are borrowed from the Forms they occupy in Nature. This makes the gods the Ooze/Ficksaft of the Umwelt/Innenwelt partnership. Inevitable Mothas. So you cannot say so much that Men create the gods as you can say that Men allow the gods to Ejaculate from their minds. Like Atum, the Egyptian Meat-Beater. And that their minds are Formed from the Intercourse between the Monkey and his sitz em leben. You are what you do to get what you need to survive. So is god - and all god's rules. The first rule of Religions is also the 1st rule of Yahweh, the Big Wind. I am the only ... you will love me ... and make your kinder love me ... and write this down, and in your heart, and on your doorposts, and Your Gates. Write this down in your Genes and your Memes. So any question of the 1st rule is Verboten! Heresy! And those guilty of not following the Hive's Zero Sum Deal with its Devils are freeloaders, and cancerous, and should not be allowed around children. There is, as Boyer points out, a special Inference System which guards Dogma from its corruption. Witches and Heretics should be burned! Apostates and Atheists should never be given any freedoms, on any dimension. It makes perfect Biological Reason why Nature should design the gods to defend themselves. Deicide - the Death of the Gods - is the end of the Glue. No wonder the Pope's shitting in the Woods.
When Skippys come in Trinities - The Devils come in 3s.
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