KENTUCKY HAM SONG, or On the Founder of that Great Nonsense, the “Creation Museum” in Northern Kentucky

 

(May be sung to sorta a combination of “Davy Crockett” & “the Beverly Hillbillies”)

Hear the story of Kenneth Ham

Australian huckster slick as jam

Left the creationists at El Cajon

To try to make a fortune out at old Big Bone

 

Kentucky has a state park called Big Bone Lick

Where Ken planned something really sick

Tried to teach “creation science” near those fossil finds

To get little children not to use their minds

 

Here’s what Ken says we should believe

Every kind of living thing lived with Adam and Eve

Forget proof and science and believe Ken’s news

On the Ark there were dinosaurs and kangaroos

 

Ken’s creationists are just plain wrong

We know evolution worked hard and long

Until us humans could evolve a brain

That could keep our minds and money out of Ken Ham’s drain
 

CHORUS:

 

Science deals with problems it sometimes solves

And sometimes finds new truths such as life evolves

Creationists have no questions and no need to look

The answer to every question is in Ken Ham’s book

 

Edwin  Kagin

 

Conceived Again

I understood I was conceived,

And born, in original sin;

And preachers said, and I believed,

I must be born again.

 

But I really sought to know,

And hoped to clarify,

Just what I must do to go

To Heaven when I die.

 

I’d heard baptism and rebirth

Would start my life anew,

So when I left this sinful earth

I’d join the righteous few.

 

But knowing all of that, from God

There came unto me this perception:

Being born again is very odd

If life starts at conception.

 

If I became me when conceived,

I was already me at birth;

So what has any second birth achieved?

What can being born again be worth?

 

We sinners all must be reconceived

So Heaven we can win!

This is the great truth I have received,

We must be conceived again!

 

I know not just how this can be done–

Our creeds will need revision.

But there’s a Heaven to be won,

So make a reconceived decision!

 

Come ye all, and be again conceived;

Be reconceived to be reprieved;

Don’t be born again deceived;

Second birth has not thy sin relieved;

Ye must be reconceived!

 

So consider theology as a whole

And make thee thy selection–

To elevate thy immortal soul

By election or erection.

 

Edwin Kagin (c) 2012

Our species may well be in a transitional evolutionary phase wherein we either use our minds to survive or become extinct in consequence of idiotic religious behavior.  Easter Island is a tidy little microcosm.  Space was limited.  Islands are that way.  The people destroyed themselves, their civilization and their environment by overbreeding and internecine wars.  Religion was their fatal disease.  It might be ours.

We might have settled the stars by now, but we have wasted the lifespace of our species with such nonsense as mythically believing God wants sex used only for making babies.  This defect in rational though alone has produced tragedy for countless humans.

Despite overwhelming evidence that uncontrolled population growth will destroy the human race as it destroyed Easter Island, certain Christians will kill you if you believe in preventing this through contraception and abortion.  That Pope, J2P2, has canceled a visit to the U.S.  He is piqued because the U.S. didn’t support his deadly doctrine, at the world population control conference in Cairo, that population should be controlled by using no population control.  Clearly, religion is a threat to public health.

Christians display another dead give-away symptom of an addictive disease — denial.  Facts are not facts.  Believers have not committed provable crimes.  They are afraid of dying, and rather than deal with it, they invent a make believe world that Pliny described to the Roman Emperor Trajan (1st century, Common Era) as “an absurd and extravagant superstition.”  He further observed, “In fact, this contagious superstition is not confined to the cities only, but has spread its infection among the neighboring villages and country.”  Pliny saw it coming.

The ancient terrors are still here.  The disease continues to threaten democracy, personal freedom, and life itself.  How can it be controlled?  The Chinese have a neat criminal law punishing theft by superstition.  That might help.  So might taxing religion and using their money for repairing their damages.  Religious practices could be limited to certain times and places and be scrupulously kept out of public life.  Under no circumstances should impressionable children be exposed to religious beliefs until they no longer believe in Santa Claus.  Religion must be rated R.  Reason is an effective inoculation.

Religious bigots must be exposed.  They don’t like being called bigots, but they are.  “Bigot” is defined in the New Little Oxford Dictionary as an “obstinate and intolerant adherent of creed or view.”  Yup, that’s them.  They don’t like what they perceive as “religion bashing” either.  This, in their diseased view, is what occurs when potential victims refuse to consent, and fight back.

Would a rational, caring God really endorse what Christians believe?  Fundagelicals are right when they say they are at war with atheists.  If you are fond of freedom, you’d better pray the atheists win.

Edwin Kagin

 

 

Blame for these happenings was imputed to the atheistss.  The Blissful Judgement was upon the faithful, because they had been meek and gentle with those who had sought to control nature and deny god’s plan.

Darkness and death covered the land.  The dead were left to bury the dead.  No invisible electron could be controlled.  Faith was swallowed up in viruses.  The unseen world had triumphed over the seen.

Some time passed before the first of the atheists emerged.  He was an ancient, gaunt man; his hand held the hand of a beautiful young woman.  They had received inoculations, from their people, before their own computers had fallen silent in their secret places.  All electronic information in the world was now forever lost.  The destruction was as complete as that of the righteous fires that once consumed the collected knowledge of the Maya. This time, religion had destroyed itself in its own temple, using its own rules.

“Hypatia,” the old man said, “I want to show you something.” They walked in silence, until they reached an outdoor Altar of Bliss.  He swept away the salt shaker, and shells and salt splattered as the icon smashed on the marble.  He withdrew a package from his bag, and placed it on the altar.  When the tattered, watertight wrappings were removed, he stood back and let the child gaze in wonder at the treasure.  After some moments she said, “Grandfather, it’s beautiful. What is it?”

He looked deeply into the health, and strength, and creativity, and intelligence, and curiosity of her human eyes, unglazed by grace, and said, “It’s a book.”

 

Edwin F.Kagin

 

 

 

THE RIGHTS OF THE UNCONCEIVED

 

Let’s add to irrationality

To nonsense unbelieved

And urge, against free human choice,

The rights of the unconceived

 

The unborn, however unwanted,

Have protestors who defend

Who will not take their misery home

But make sure their paths begin

 

The maimed, the pained, the hopeless

Have rights of tragedy unrelieved

Yet we ignore a great moral sore

The plight of the unconceived

 

We must have laws with iron braced jaws

To ensure new lives are received

It should be a crime at any time

To deny life to the unconceived

 

Should fertile lad and fertile lass

Henceforth with any passion pass

Consummation must be achieved

To insure the rights of the unconceived.

 

Edwin F. Kagin

American Atheists, Inc. January 27, 2012

AMERICAN ATHEISTS, INC. http://www.atheists.org http://www.americanatheist.org For more information, please contact: Dave Silverman, President 732-648-9333 Blair Scott, Communications Director 256-701-6265   AMERICAN ATHEISTS: STOP ALLOWING PUBLIC BIGOTRY AND PREJUDICE OF ATHEISTS   An Atheist civil rights group announced today its disappointment in the remarks made by an Ohio State University football player on Twitter, which called for his followers to “show some hate” to an atheist.   Jake Russell, #21 punter, tweeted at night on January 24th, “my roommate max rouse (look him up on Facebook) is an atheist, please show him some hate.” By the morning the tweet had been deleted but not before it was captured by Twitter users.   Greg Lammers, Missouri State Director for American Atheists, contacted Javaune Adams-Gaston, OSU Vice President of Student Life, who assured American Atheists that the school will investigate the matter immediately.   Dave Silverman, President of American Atheists, stated, “Atheists are the last group against whom someone can publicly show bigotry and prejudice without fear of repercussions or consequences. American Atheists’ policy is to call out this prejudice and bigotry wherever we see it.”   Blair Scott, Communications Director for American Atheists, said, “I imagine that the NCAA, the school, and plenty of sports media would be all over this incident if Mr. Russell had asked his Twitter followers to “show some hate” to a Jew, African-American, Hindu, homosexual or other minority.”   Mr. Scott continued, “It is our hope that one day Mr. Russell and others like him will learn the value of pluralism in our society. The Great Melting Pot still exists and is something we should be proud to support.”   American Atheists pointed out that hateful actions are often the direct result of hate speech, and Mr. Russell will bear some responsibility if his call-to-hate results in violence against his roommate. Mr. Scott noted that the victim can attend meetings of The Ohio State University Students for Freethought, which is a group of like-minded individuals on the campus. The group is an affiliate of the Secular Student Alliance.   AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a nationwide organization that defends civil rights for Atheists, Freethinkers and other nonbelievers; works for the total separation of church-mosque-temple and state; and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.

American Atheists, Inc. PO Box 158 Cranford, NJ 07016 Tel: (908) 276-7300 Fax: (908) 276-7402

 

Whether religious or secular, the self-righteous and the con-artist are sisters under the skin.  Both become outraged if they don’t get their way.  The slightest reasoned refusal to consent to manipulation or control is punished.  The uncooperative mark may witness a presumably well meaning, but terminally self-righteous, friend go into an inexplicable rage, answering disobedience with irrational and unpleasant emotions, until the victim seems, as best worded by Shakespeare, “beyond reason hated.”   To further complicate matters, the person deluded by self-righteousness cannot understand when others are disinclined to share their hostility and fail to concede the justness of their attitudes and actions.  The world as one conspires.

 

The self-righteous are troubled by democracy.  Why debate or vote on any matter of behavior or morality when truth is available by decree, and when correct answers may be so readily had from those who know the answers beyond any need for question or discussion?  To challenge such persons is, in their view, malum in se–in the vernacular, reprehensible, wicked, and wrong in itself—denoting a defect of character revealed in the very act of rebellion against ultimate authority.  Thereafter, every action or motive of the errant sinner will be understood and punished as an indisputably vile thing—another example of evil attacking good.  The psychological mechanism of projection, and the transparent narcissism of the self-righteous, is beyond the scope of this digression.  The analogies to theology are scary.  If afflicted leaders possess small power, they are merely annoying, comical, or pathetic.  If they hold real power over nations or ideologies, the graveyards of history harbour their heritage.

 

The sad part is that they don’t have to be like this.  The self-righteous prigs can get over it, or get therapy for it.  They don’t have to expose themselves to the misery.  Misery is optional, for predator as well as prey, even if one thinks they have no free will.  Rational beings don’t have to live with sustained rage, or with the chronic paranoia of waiting for some other imaginary shoe to drop.  Those who live to control others could, using the power of reason they mock, come to realize that compromise and resolution of disagreements can be something more than capitulation or appeasement, and that, in some things at least, they just might be—as impossible as it seems—wrong. One is entitled to be smug, arrogant, and self-righteous only if one has figured out how not to die. The outcast  may well be the better person.  That’s what the bible story of the Good Samaritan is all about.

 

If we can’t avoid the self satisfied—the better option—we can laugh at them.  A healthy person loves to see the pompous taken down a peg or two, and delights in mocking their phony goodness and proper ways.  This is why the common folk laugh when a stuffed shirt slips on a banana skin.  But what about self-righteous secular humanists who, in hardening their hearts and softening their minds, do real harm to those who actually favor free inquiry?  Maybe we should create a Secular Humanist Hall of Shame.   Here could be enrolled and acknowledged those whose actions have earned them the herein proposed SHAME (Secular Humanist Arrogantly Making Enemies) Award.

 

As adolescent fantasies are best left to adolescents, so childish needs to have one’s own way are best left to children, who will hopefully outgrow them.  Adults should, to borrow again from the bible, “put away childish things.”  It would be sad to die without growing up.

 

For everything there is a season,

For every act there is a reason;

As a garden reflects its seeds,

Deeds of life tell that life’s needs.

 

 

Edwin Kagin

May, 1997

TWO LINES

The future waits in one of two great lines, two endless human queues

And each of us is in one line—there is no other line to choose.

 

Our journey as human creatures has fashioned these two lines

With very different features following very different signs.

 

Through kingdoms and through ages these lines unbroken run

One line snaking into darkness; one line straining for the sun.

 

One line holds shining visions of what humankind can be

When at last we make decisions free of myth and tyranny.

 

Our race, our creeds, our sex, and the religions we proclaim

In this line yield to human needs we cannot always name.

 

Some careless few within this line may hurt you and make you cry

But villains in the other line will kill you to watch you die.

 

Those marching in that other line seek to control not to achieve

By trying to deceive our minds with lies that they believe.

 

Prizing money over friendship, and power over human need

They do not work for kinship but only for their greed.

 

Anyone can leave their line, whenever they see fit

If perhaps they change their mind, from facts, or acts or wit.

 

No one must stay within a line where rules are learned by rote

That dictate how we all must live, and breed, and love, and vote.

 

In the coming great election, one line will finally decide

If our future takes direction from the bright or evil side.

 

Set aside all pious passion of who you are and where you have been

What now must be in fashion is “Which line are you in?”

 

How will you answer to the future when a new world starts to dawn

How will you tell your children which side of history you were on?

 

There are but two great questions to be raised when life must end,

“How did you use your roads and days?” And “Which line were you in?”

 

By Edwin Kagin

 

Copyright by Edwin Kagin, September 2008.

Permission is granted for non-profit reproduction.

If you make money on this, I want some of it. ek

 

A new thing has come to pass in our brief lives. It is called “blogging,” and this is accomplished by writing or posting something electronically for others to read or view, or whatever, on a computer, a device unknown to Moses, Noah, Julius Caesar, and lots of others. Just imagine, if you even can, someone like Moses with access to a working laptop computer and GPS. Why, he could have saved some 39 and a half years or so of wandering around lost in the desert.  And maybe not have wound up in a country with no oil.  A computer would have been so out of the realm of anything anyone had known then, that the operation of such a device would have seemed like magic, and the work of either some god or some demon.

If any readers should wish to undertake this recreation of blogging, they should become familiar with a related phenomenon.  Readers and viewers are able to post “comments” on one’s blog. And they do. The owner of the blog has the ability to decide if a given reader’s comment should be posted on his/her blog or trashed into electronic nonexistence.

Belief in the right of free speech has usually overcome common sense and I

have let anyone big enough to use a computer say anything they want on my blog.  Only completely irrelevant messages, and spam, get deleted from the smorgasbord of electronic verbiage that pours forth on this miracle of communication and learning.

One major speed bump on the electronic highway of knowledge has been the problem of “political correctness.” This is a terror that makes certain words and expressions off limits for proper persons to use in acceptable conversation, electronic or otherwise. “Nigger” and “faggot” are examples of such words that are banned from use by agreement, authority, and good manners. Such speech is not usually unlawful. It is only censored from being used, and condemned when it is used.  Never mind the context or the purpose of such use. There is apparently no way certain words, or even thoughts, can be expressed without drawing fire from someone for some reason.

This creates an opportunity for small-souled individuals who, lacking something worthwhile to say on their own, undertake to attack blogs and to attempt to insult and marginalize those who write them.

You know the type.  Frequently wrong but never uncertain.  Many of their comments are obscene and anonymous.  And they are immune from being subject to criticism and correction by the simple fact that they are wrong.  One critic could use a number of different names.  They could be of Fundangelical persuasion and have created multiple personalities for themselves so they can criticize anything one says on a blog that they don’t like.  Their general line of taste is that whatever has been written by anyone is something they do not like.

And they will criticize, it seems, anything anyone writes.

If blog writers must forever bow to the ever-changing nuances of so called “politically correct” speech, then language will lose its meaning.  Sigmund Freud spoke of “the narcissism of small differences.”  Our struggle is against the might of the Religious Right, not against each other.  We are the natural allies of each other.  We are in a different line than they. A very different line.

Criticism of written works is certainly valid and appropriate.  But certain criticism is neither valid nor appropriate.  Written language that is consistently vulgar, mean-spirited, maliciously motivated, and done to deliberately harm others is not only cloddish but also perhaps unlawful and actionable.

There is an old country saying that says, “Never get into a pissing contest with a skunk.”  Good advice. In the woods or on the blog.

 

Edwin Kagin.

KAGIN’S COLUMN

Edwin F. Kagin is a lawyer-poet.  He believes that, through grace and faith, this will be a regular column, and, if events are predestined, whatever he believes makes no difference whatsoever.  He can be reached in care of this publication, or through e-mail at:  edwin@edwinkagin.com

 

ON A NATIONAL IDENTITY CARD

“`Who are YOU?’ said the Caterpillar.”

Alice in Wonderland

 The advances of humanism in the development of civilizations have involved a balancing test between the possible and the prohibited.

Does the end ever justify the means? Of course it does, sophomoric philosophy notwithstanding.

Thus, a loving mother may bash out her infant’s brains to stop its crying that would otherwise bring certain death to the entire tribe hiding from enemies. To stop an enemy submarine from sinking an entire ship, irreplaceable human beings who have fallen off the ship into the sea may be killed if it is necessary to drop depth charges before they can be rescued.

For a more palatable analogy, consider the moral issue of lying, i.e., of stating as true something that is not true. Not lying is generally held as a moral virtue, and we teach our children not to lie, and reprove them when they do. Yet what person of decent human sensibilities would tell the truth about the whereabouts of a child to a maniac you knew would murder the child upon discovery. When asked, “Where is the kid,” the more moral answer would be the lie, “I do not know,” rather than “Hiding in the closet on the left.” Under these conditions, the person disclosing the child would be considered a monster and a complicitous actor in any injury to that child. Here lying would be good, and telling the truth would be unthinkable.

These, of course, are examples of “situational morality,” the tough stuff of true ethics and decision making, condemned by those, usually of an immature religious bent, who seek absolute, final, and unchangeable answers in commandments or rules from a deity. You’ve seen the bumper stickers, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it,” or something similar. Yet such, if Christians, generally do not sell all that they own to give to the poor, turn the other cheek, pray only in their closets, go to church on Saturday, not covet, abjure statutes and photographs, never kill, honor abusive parents, leave their families to do god’s work, or live lives of poverty and self denial, all as directly commanded in holy writ. Such Cafeteria Christians take only those rules they like of the teachings, advocate them, make laws encompassing them, punish those who do not obey them, and ignore the rest. Thus, they practice situational ethics. Other religions do the same; they just do it with different rules. That’s why we have a First Amendment.

No matter how many ethics seminars are conducted on why we should prohibit the doing of something, if that something can be done, it will be done. Get used to it. If someone can build a small nuclear device, it will be built. If smallpox can be used as a weapon, it will be so used. If humans can be cloned, humans will be cloned.

If it is possible to highjack a passenger plane and crash it into the World Trade Center, someone will do it, no matter how unthinkable you might find such an idea. The idea was obviously thinkable to someone.

What do you really want? At what price do you want it? What are you willing to pay or to give up? Having trouble losing weight on all available diets? Don’t worry. I guarantee I can make you lose weight despite past failures. But you might not like how I do it. There were no overweight prisoners in Auschwitz. Want to stop drunk drivers—really stop drunk drivers? Make a law that you cannot drink and drive, period. No nonsense about .08, or whatever, permissible blood alcohol. Anything over .00 and you go to jail for sure for a long time. Then you stop drunk driving. But our society doesn’t really want to stop drunk driving badly enough to do that, or we would.

Now, after zero nine one one two zero zero one, we are—and this is new to us in America—we are afraid.

Do you want absolute safety? I can give it to you. But you must not object to me having viewing and listening gadgets installed in every room of your house, as well as in all public places, and you must not object to the instant, no delay, no trial, remote control execution of anyone who violates any of the rules you must permit me to set up for your safety. Would you accept having an electronic receiver painlessly placed in everyone’s brain to punish or kill rule breakers. Yes? Then I can keep you safe. No? Then you must take some chances and not be fully safe. Less freedom, more safety. More freedom, less safety. Simple. You cannot have both. How would you care to compromise? What is your safety worth? What is your freedom worth? Some people were willing to die to be able to crash a passenger plane into the World Trade Center. They are willing to die to do other things to kill you as well. How much do you want to prevent them from doing that? How much are you willing to give up to be safe? Are you ready for a much different, but safer, world?

Now that you know how it works, let’s talk about the proposed idea of a national identity card.

I don’t like clerks in stores asking me for my zip code. And I won’t give it to them. I point out that my contract with them to purchase their widget offered for sale has nothing to do with my zip code.  I want to protect my privacy whenever I can, I want to resist having my privacy further invaded, and I will invoke the law to protect it. But I also don’t want to be the victim of drivers who are not licensed, or who borrow or steal someone else’s drivers license. So I will tolerate some loss of privacy by submitting to a photo I.D. driver’s license. Similarly, I do not want a terrorist, dedicated to dying for his cause in the act of killing me, to have a fake passport so he can come into my country and steal an airplane to use as a kamikaze guided missile against me or my fellow citizens.  Am I, are you, willing to let the government put your retina print on a national identity card? Do you want to be required to carry a license to move about in our free land? If such be required, is our land still free?

One gives up a certain amount of privacy by agreement, and of necessity, when they join a society. Every society has its rules. Laws require that your very birth and death be registered. Your society tells you who you can or cannot marry and where or where not you can lawfully travel. Your society can jail you if you don’t file or pay your taxes. These rules are part of the consensus ad idem of a culture, if it is in any way a democratic or representative government, and these are different things. Such rules are something your national unit, or a majority thereof, has, directly or indirectly agreed upon for its governance; something the people governed have said may or may not be done.

Illegal aliens don’t want a national I.D. Nor do criminals trying to change identities. Or maybe they do. Could a dishonest type steal another person’s card and assume that identity? Guess it depends on the information on it, and the guarantees thereon for proof of identity. And therein lies the great questions. Remember, if it can be done, we must assume it will be done and guard against it. What will be on the card? If not now, then later, maybe under a government less compatible with your beliefs than was the government in place when you, or your representatives, voted for the card? Will the card record your credit history?  Your employment record? What an ex-spouse said about you in a divorce?  Your income? Your buying habits? Whether you own a gun? Your hobbies? Your tastes in reading, movies, clothing, cars, food, drink, or sex? Certain Internet sites record this kind of thing right now, whether you know it or not or like it or not. Your political activities and associations? Your membership in controversial groups, like maybe the Masons or Humanist organizations? Your church affiliation or lack thereof? Your psychological profile?

What if some government, now or later, says you cannot be a good American if you do not attend church? And a later government defines the right church? It has happened before. Ask the English Catholics under Oliver Cromwell.

When, and why, will presentation of such a card be required? And who can require its production? Would you need it every time you tried to buy gas, or groceries, so “Big Brother,” for your own good, can know where you are at any given time, and what you eat? Who is to say who cannot require presentation of the card? And who can change the rules?

Why should you object to a national I.D. card if you are a law abiding and loyal American? For the same reason that you should object to an unlawful warrantless search of your home or person, even if you have nothing to hide. To not object to an unlawful search is to invite, or condone, tyranny. The same rules that limit freedom of movement for bad people can limit freedom for you.

Why should you welcome such a card? So you can be safe, and so people trying to kill you can be identified and stopped from doing so. That’s not a bad reason. And to gain this safety, you must trust your government to use the information on the card only to protect your safety, and to not use that same information in a wrongful diminution of those rights that fashion us a free people.

There has been a paradigm shift. And the Attorney General of the United States, who enforces the laws, is having Bible Study Classes in his office, paid for by We the People.

Truly, there is reason to be afraid.

Edwin Kagin

November 20, 2001