Note: two days ago there was this huge family blow up between t and mom. The whole house was in an uproar. Except for me of course. Who just sort of minded my own business. Everyone was upset, taking sides, and having their own little temper tantrum. Soon everyone was saying they were leaving. I mean everyone, and taking the five nieces with them. But I would have none of it. I just
kept walking around the house talking to everyone attempting to patch things up between everyone.

When lollie and the three went to the front door to leave I just started moving their luggage and belongings back into the house and said no I'm sorry we have all traveled very far to come out here and be together and we must stay together. Families have problems and we are a family so lets just deal with it. and then I would run upstairs and talk five minutes to someone else. as everyone started to confront one another I just kept everything really light in the air and didn't take sides with anyone. I kept sticking up for everyone instead. I took all the girls out side and taught them all how to sword fight with each other like Beaver and I used to do so the adults could be inside screaming at one another and letting their shit out. then they would wander outside and start arguing. So I would just up the lightness in the air. Someone would come outside and start crying so I would just yell louder at the kids having the sword fight “cut her leg off Jackie! Go for her arm Jordan!” so they wouldn’t pay attention to their mom or aunt or grandma crying. I guess the point is that one, families have disagreements, and two, that's alright, three, that doesn’t mean that they have to leave and run away from it, and four, if you’re caught in the middle of it keep the situation light as all hell so people have the opportunity to hash it out so it doesn’t have a chance to come back next year. let everyone know its o.k. that they feel that way and its alright to express it, that in families that's o.k. things ended up getting patched up that day and no one left mom’s house. mission accomplished. It was very cool.

Current read: the history and tradition of Judaism by Ariel Scholar. A good overview. The last few years started to realize that the majority of the world’s problems have been due to humanity’s various major religions. If its not the Catholics running around killing everyone, then it’s the Christians or the Moslems. And then somewhere in between all of this there are the Jews, who have probably contributed more to the evolution and advancement of mankind than any single race/religion/people—what do you call them??? The current essay I am reading offers no solution and agrees that they are not a race, nor a nationality, nor strictly a religion so the point is mute to try to label what exactly a Jew is except one who is descended from Abraham, or more aptly Judah—all very confusing. and somehow they are always kind of tapped in the middle of a lot of this craziness. But the point is that over the last five thousand years its just been total chaos between all these religions. Perhaps it isn't the religions themselves but the people who use the religions as their excuse for misbehaving. Being vehemently not-religious forever, I have been intensely studying the major religions of the world for the last fifteen years or so just to have that foundation. To try to understand what the fuck is going on. Finally feel that now I am able to have a basic understanding of each one. its like the only sane and rational people on the planet today are the non-religious. The only ones who are willing to throw their hands up in the air and be o.k. with the fact that we really don't know what the fuck is up with our origin or where we’re all going after we die. So the non-religious minority have had to sit and watch for thousands of years while the religious among us have wreaked all kinds of havoc on the earth and killed millions of people in the name of their respective Gods. If you're even remotely spiritual and non-religious it’s a pretty frightening world to live in. For the last two weeks I have been studying all the various religions, reading lots of different essays and books and looking at lots of pictures of gods and messiahs and prophets and holy lands. the irony of course is that the most holy and intelligent and most seemingly God-like of Man’s major religions are Taoism and Buddhism, neither of which have a God in them as much as just a real reverence for life and a respect for the mystery of the universe we live in and the invisible force which seems to operate around us.

you don't read about many Taoists or Buddhists running around the world killing people in the name of anything; that's always a nice bonus when you’re religion shopping... Their underlying philosophy seems to be more ‘do what thou will and harm none.’ Whereas the other religions of the world seems to be more of ‘do what thou will and I'll fucking kill you. if we have the manpower. If not then we’ll just curse you behind your backs. And teach our kids that you're all going to hell unless you join up with us...’ Its no wonder the Chinese, one of the last great communist/non-religious empires on the earth are so fucking scared of religion and are trying so hard to keep their people away from the rest of the religions. [one can imagine the various scenarios recounted by history over the last few thousand years where the Catholics or the Christians or the Moslems have conquered all these different countries around them and all these millions of peoples like the Aztecs, or the Incas, or the Native Americans, where on the one hand they are preaching the ‘word of God’ to them or the ‘good news’ and at the same time they are trying to steal all their gold and land from them and slowly killing them all. you can see these meeker more peaceful peoples saying ‘hey thanks for coming to tell us about your God. We really appreciate it. and we’re really happy for you. it sounds like you have a really groovy thing going there with your God and all. but can you leave us alone and go back to your own country and perhaps we could talk about this through letters or email or something....]

The really scary part is that each of these major religions has its own set of prophecies that need to happen in order for the various truths of their religion to be made manifest. And all these things have to happen in order for these events to take place. The Jews are still waiting for their messiah to come for the first time. the Christians are waiting for their messiah to come again. the Moslems are waiting for the Last Judgment where millions of us will be obliterated and sent to hell if we aren't believers. Why or how anyone would want anyone else to be annihilated and sent to hell is beyond me, since after all, we are all humans and pretty much the same. One wonders why someone just doesn’t stand up and create a religion where everyone gets into heaven and no one gets fucked with or goes to hell. You would think a religion such as that would have a good chance of being embraced by everyone and being pretty popular. It could become the next big thing, like reality TV or something.

I continue to study these religions in order to try to make sense of it all. and unfortunately the future looks pretty bleak for us, mainly because of the various conflicting prophecies that all these religions are looking forward to. I think that the best we can hope for as non-religious humanists (people who just believe in humans and want for the good of all humanity) is that maybe some other life-forms, like aliens from another galaxy, or even machines like in the Matrix movies, might come to earth and attack us all simultaneously and then all the religious peoples would have to come together for once and battle this shared enemy in order to save themselves. I wouldn’t necessarily want to be around when that happens, but I think it might be better than sitting around for the next sixty years watching things keep going the way they have been. [I will never forget this image I saw on CNN a few months ago during the Iraq invasion when this young American soldier stood on top of an army tank and shot off his machine gun in celebration after killing a few Iraqi soldiers, and he was repeating “for God and country baby! For God and country!” it was obvious he was speaking of his God and country, America and the Christian God. Perhaps forgetting or worse yet not even being cognizant of the fact that he was in someone else’s country, not his own, where they believe in a totally different God. So one wonders whose God and country was he doing this for? And why? and who asked you to do this for God and country in someone else’s country in the eyes of someone else’s God? It was right out of an Oliver stone movie. In fact, the last three years since the Dark Side took over America, our lives have seemed like we are playing out some plot in an Oliver stone movie. Its lunacy. Right on our TV. Just pure fucking madness. All in the name of God and country.] So if there are any aliens out there needing a place to land or hide out, please feel free to contact me. Lets talk and see what you have in mind....