the religious people — most of them — really think this planet is an experiment.

That's what their beliefs come down to. 

Some god or other is always fixing and poking, 

messing around with tradesmen's wives, 

giving tablets on mountains, 

commanding you to mutilate your children, 

telling people what words they can say and what words they can't say, 

making people feel guilty about enjoying themselves, 

and like that.

Why can't the gods leave well enough alone? 

All this intervention speaks of incompetence. 

If God didn't want Lot's wife to look back, why didn't he make her obedient, so she'd do what her husband told her? 

Or if he hadn't made Lot such a shithead, maybe she would've listened to him more. 

If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn't he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? 

Why's he constantly repairing and complaining? 

No, there's one thing the Bible makes clear: 

The biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer. 

He's not good at design, 

He's not good at execution.

He'd be out of business if there was any competition

“But for me the sweetest contact with God has no form. 

I close my eyes, look within, and enter a deep soft silence. 

The infinity of God's creation embraces me.”

― Michael Jackson

 Nobody has ever been in an empty room 

 

The first teacher never went to school 

Words that do not appear in the Bible

 Trinity

Rapture

Second Coming

Original Sin

Omniscience, 

Omnipresence, 

Supernatural,

Transcendence, 

Afterlife, 

Deity, 

Divinity, 

Theology, 

Monotheism, 

Missionary, 

Immaculate Conception, 

Christmas, 

Christianity, 

Evangelical, 

Fundamentalist, 

Methodist, 

Catholic, 

Pope, 

Cardinal, 

Catechism, 

Purgatory, 

Penance, 

Transubstantiation, 

Excommunication, 

Dogma, 

Chastity, 

Unpardonable Sin, 

Infallibility, 

Inerrancy, 

Incarnation, 

Epiphany, 

Sermon, 

Eucharist, 

the Lord's Prayer,

 Good Friday, 

Doubting Thomas, 

Advent, 

Sunday School, 

Dead Sea, 

Golden Rule, 

Moral, 

Morality, 

Ethics, 

Patriotism, 

Education, 

Atheism, 

Apostasy, 

Conservative (Liberal is in), 

Capital Punishment, 

Monogamy, 

Abortion, 

Pornography, 

Homosexual, 

Lesbian, 

Fairness, 

Logic, 

Republic, 

Democracy, 

Capitalism, 

Funeral, 

Decalogue, 

or Bible

 When an infection destroys a cell, the surrounding cells signal each other to wall it off. 

They isolate the infected cell to prevent it from spreading and harming other parts of your body. The isolation is temporary but important. It gives your body time to trigger your immune system and stop the infection from spreading. Until isolation is no longer needed. 

Much like the cells in our body, humans often isolate to avoid harm.

The truth is, no single part of the body can thrive on its own. Your organs work together as a system. They'll compensate for each other when one gets weak. 

People can do the same for each other, stepping up when someone else is down. 

Isolating ourselves often makes us feel more alone. 

We're usually better together,

 even when we're struggling.

Years ago, a New York physician discovered a gene mutation that causes congenital insensitivity to pain, or CIP. It's an extremely rare condition that blocks people from feeling pain. 

Sounds good in theory, but pain is important. It tells the body when it's in danger and helps keep it alive. 

Put your hand in fire, get burned and you learn not to do it again. 

Or, put another way, living hurts. 

As long as you're hurting, you're living. We know this. 

Pain is an excellent teacher. 

And life is full of sayings that remind us of its upsides:

 "Growing pains. Labor pains. Happy tears. So good it hurts." 

Pain warns us. It protects us. 

And most of all, pain makes us appreciate life's pleasures. 

Cherish good company, good health, savor the moments after the hurting, when you're all better, pain free. 

At least for a while.

 

In 1963, Dr. Thomas Starzl performed the first five liver transplants. 

One patient bled to death on the operating table. The other four died within days. As a result, the operation was considered too dangerous to be performed on humans and liver transplantation was suspended worldwide for the next four years. 

It wasn't exactly an auspicious start for a surgery that has saved countless lives. 

Progress doesn't happen overnight and setbacks are all but inevitable. Sometimes, it can make you feel like Sisiphus, endlessly pushing the same boulder on the same hill. 

But where we would be if doctor Starzl hadn't persevered to perfect the liver transplant, if he had let the setbacks win? 

As tempting as it can be to throw in the towel, sometimes you have to take the obstacles as they come and find a new path forward.

 

At the height of the Great Depression, Harvard scientists started tracking students in hopes of discovering the key to a long and happy life. They looked at participants' mental and physical health over 75 years. It is the longest study of happiness to date. 75 years and all they did was confirm what we've known since the beginning of time. The most powerful predictor of health and happiness is the quality if our relationships. Strong relationships protect us. Loneliness, on the other hand, can be deadly. Over the course of our lives, our relationships ebb and flow. We get together, break up, move away, or fall out of touch. It's prolonged periods of loneliness and toxicity that wreak havoc on our health, our brain function, and our longevity. Sometimes, being alone can be so terrifying that we trap ourselves in harmful relationships. But in order to really thrive, you've got to be ready to cut and run. Your life just might depend on it.

 

Researchers say the average length of a dream is two to three minutes. 

But many people experience their dreams as hours, if they can remember them at all. 

The science of dreaming has been questioned for hundreds of years. Some hypothesize that dreams are our way of processing real events that occur when we're awake. They may also serve as an outlet for repressed hopes and desires. 

Neuroscientists introduce a new theory every few years. 

But honestly, no one knows why we dream or why we have nightmares. 

We just hope that after the dream, we wake up. 

Some people spend their lives trying to make a dream come true. They set a goal, then make a plan on how to achieve it. It works for some people. 

for others, it's not so easy. 

As hard as you work towards the dream, it can feel like the whole world is plotting against you. As you get further away from it, you cling to any sign of hope. And the longer it takes and the more it costs you, you start to consider whether you should give up.

 Do you find a new dream? 

Or do you stick to the one that started you on this journey in the first place?

 Oh to be in England 

now that April's here 

April

 

April

 

The Romans gave this month the Latin name Aprilis but the derivation of this name is uncertain. The traditional etymology is from the verb aperire, "to open", in allusion to its being the season when trees and flowers begin to "open", which is supported by comparison with the modern Greek use of άνοιξη (ánixi) (opening) for spring. Since some of the Roman months were named in honor of divinities, and as April was sacred to the goddess Venus, her Veneralia being held on the first day, it has been suggested that Aprilis was originally her month Aphrilis, from her equivalent Greek goddess name Aphrodite (Aphros), or from the Etruscan name Apru. Jacob Grimm suggests the name of a hypothetical god or hero, Aper or Aprus

April was the second month of the earliest Roman calendar, before Ianuarius and Februarius were added by King Numa Pompilius about 700 BC. It became the fourth month of the calendar year (the year when twelve months are displayed in order) during the time of the decemvirs about 450 BC, when it was 29 days long. The 30th day was added back during the reform of the calendar undertaken by Julius Caesar in the mid-40s BC, which produced the Julian calendar.

The Anglo-Saxons called April ēastre-monaþ. The Venerable Bede says in The Reckoning of Time that this month ēastre is the root of the word Easter. He further states that the month was named after a goddess Eostre whose feast was in that month.

April's birthstone is the diamond. The birth flower is the common daisy (Bellis perennis) or the sweet pea.

The zodiac signs are Aries (until April 19) and Taurus (April 20 onward)

April

 

April 

I open wide the portals of the Spring 
To welcome the procession of the flowers, 
With their gay banners, and the birds that sing 
Their song of songs from their aerial towers.
 
I soften with my sunshine and my showers 
The heart of earth; with thoughts of love I glide 
Into the hearts of men; and with the Hours 
Upon the Bull with wreathed horns I ride.

 

Jesus waited three days to come back to life. 

It was perfect

 If he had only waited one day, a lot of people wouldn't have even heard he died. 

They'd be all, "Hey Jesus, what up?" and Jesus would probably be like, "What up? I died yesterday!" and they'd be all, "Uh, you look pretty alive to me, dude..." and then Jesus would have to explain how he was resurrected, and how it was a miracle, and the dude'd be like "Uhh okay, whatever you say, bro..." 

And he's not gonna come back on a Saturday. Everybody's busy, doing chores, workin' the loom, trimmin' the beard,

 NO. He waited the perfect number of days, three. 

Plus it's Sunday, so everyone's in church already, 

and they're all in there like "Oh no, Jesus is dead", and then BAM! He bursts in the back door, runnin' up the aisle, everyone's totally psyched, and FYI, that's when he invented the high five. 

Easter Sunday

 

Easter Poem (for John Cotton), by Ted Walker

I had gone on Easter Day
early and alone to be
beyond insidious bells
(that any other Sunday
I’d not hear) up to the hills
where are winds to blow away
 commination. 

In the frail
first light I saw him, unreal
and sudden through lifting mist,
a fox on a barn door, nailed
like a coloured plaster Christ
in a Spanish shrine, his tail coiled around his loins.

 Sideways
his head hung limply, his ears
snagged with burdock, his dry nose
plugged with black blood. 

For two days
he’d held the orthodox pose.

The endemic English noise of Easter Sunday morning
was mixed with the mist swirling
and might have moved his stiff head.

Under the hill the ringing
had begun. As the sun rose red
to press on seemed the best thing.

I walked the length of the day’s
obsession.

 At dusk I was
swallowed by the misted barn,
sucked by the peristalsis
of my fear that he had gone,
leaving nails for souvenirs.

But he was there still. I saw
no sign. He hung as before.
Only the wind had risen
to comb the thorns from his fur.

I left my superstition
stretched on the banging barn door.

Easter Sunday

 

The Easter Sunday is celebrated for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It marks his return from the dead, which is the cornerstone of the Christian faith. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is prominent to the Christian belief that salvation and eternal life are possible by having faith in him

Jesus came to earth to save humanity by dying on the cross on Good Friday and resurrecting on Easter Sunday. By enduring and defeating death sacrificially for people, He swung open the gates of heaven making a way for sins to be forgiven and usher Christians into the presence of God 

Easter Sunday is a religious Christian holiday that is observed globally to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ and while holidays like Christmas have fixed dates, the date for Easter changes from year to year. According to the Bible, it marks the third day after Jesus was crucified when he rose from the dead.

The resurrection narratives in the Gospels portray Jesus as raised to life on the third day in his crucified body, leaving behind him an empty tomb.

Jesus referenced Jonah's three days in the belly of the great fish as a metaphor for his resurrection. Hosea spoke of God's resurrecting work for Israel as occurring on the third day

The early church believed that after his death Christ descended into hell in order to rescue the souls of the righteous, such as Adam and Eve. Jesus descends and breaks down the doors of hell, unbinds the prisoners and leads the just to heaven.

Based on the wording in 1 Peter, there's an argument that Jesus spent the weekend between His death and Resurrection in Hell preaching to the souls who were already there, giving them a chance at the forgiveness available through His sacrifice not previously available before His death.

Acts 1:1-3? First, it indicates that Christ's ascension occurred fully 40 days after Easter. In other words, he was on earth, at least intermittently, for substantially more than a mont

In His revelations to St. Faustina, Our Lord asked for a special prayer and meditation on His Passion each afternoon at the three o'clock hour, the hour that recalls His death on the cross.

 

So don't knock the guys on death row

Maybe they know something you don't

 

There was only one guy in the whole Bible Jesus ever personally promised a place with him in Paradise.

 Not Peter,

 not Paul, 

not any of those guys.

 He was a convicted thief, being executed. 

 

In religion people’s beliefs and convictions are  gotten at second-hand,

and without examination, 

from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue 

but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, 

whose opinions about them were not worth a thing 

 

Every faith in the world is based on fabrication. 

That is the definition of faith―

acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove. 

Every religion describes God through metaphor, allegory, and exaggeration, from the early Egyptians through modern Sunday school.

 Metaphors are a way to help our minds process the unprocessible. 

The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors.

 

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities

 

The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. 

They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different.

 For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven.

 But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.

 

Take the Kama Sutra. 

How many people died from the Kama Sutra as opposed to the Bible?

 Who wins?

Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God

Good Friday

 

Good Friday

 

Commemorating Jesus' crucifixion, Good Friday is a solemn day of mourning and reflection for Christians, who often attend special church services and prayer vigils. Good Friday is a part of Holy Week, which includes Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday, and Good Friday, leading up to Easter Sunday.

That terrible Friday has been called Good Friday because it led to the Resurrection of Jesus and his victory over death and sin and the celebration of Easter, the very pinnacle of Christian celebrations

Christians believe that when Jesus was executed he sacrificed his own life so that everyone can be forgiven for their sins. Because of this Good Friday is one of the most important dates in the Christian calendar.

As such, special Good Friday services are held in churches in which the suffering Jesus experienced in his death is remembered and mourned.

On the morning of Good Friday, Jesus was taken to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. The governor didn't like the fact that people called Jesus a king, but he didn't think Jesus deserved to be killed.

Because of this he told the large crowd of people outside his palace that they could decide whether Jesus should be freed. Nonetheless, the crowd called for Jesus to be crucified.

Jesus was then beaten by the Roman soldiers and made to carry a heavy wooden cross on his back all the way through the city to the place he was to be killed. The soldiers mocked him and made him wear a crown made of thorns which made his head bleed.

Jesus's terrible journey through Jerusalem with the cross is known as the Stations of the Cross. On the journey he met many people, including his mother, Mary.

Finally, Jesus was nailed to the cross he had carried, and placed between two thieves who were also being crucified. At noon the sky turned black and the Earth shook. Eventually Jesus died.

Eostre