Faith.

The only thing one need know about Christianity is that Christ probably never existed. The Story of Judas was plagiarised from the Old Testament story of Joseph being sold for twenty pieces of silver; the journey to Bethlehem was conjured up out of necessity in order to fulfill the Messianic prophecy; Genesis was a plagiarisation of a Sumerian creation story; the Flood was plagiarised from the Babylonian story of the Epic of Gilgamesh; the story of Exodus is a misinterpretation resting on a mistranslation of a Hebrew word which means 'reeds' and not 'red' - Moses never went out of his way to lead his people - all 600,000 of them - for 40 years (yeah, right) through the desert to cross the Red Sea (they crossed the Reed Sea - a small, shallow bog - in the north of Egypt; the story of Jesus is a plagiarisation of such stories as Horus and Mythra; Jesus wasn't born on December 25th, and no historical accounts of the Biblical Jesus exist. Where's your 'faith' now? Still got it? Thought you would.

Adendum (made at 9.43 - several hours after post):

I concluded with 'Thought you would' because no matter what the contradictory evidence, people of faith will always go on believing certain things through ignorance. Caesar Augustus never issued a decree for people in the Holy land to register for tax purposes in an empire-wide census. There is no record in Roman record-keeping of it; and Roman record-keeping was very thorough. However, a decree was issued by Quirinius dating from 6AD onwards - if a mix-up is the case, then Luke's gospel is to be treated as meaningless. If Jesus was born, he was born in Nazareth - and certainly not on December 25th (as I've said, countless times, that's a date made purposefully - it's the date of the winter solstice (although it would have been December 21st before the Gregorian Calender was made standard in the Christian world)).

Hearts.

Hearts are soft,
But can be made frozen,
And used to smash you to pieces with all the ferocity
Of a mind hell-bent on a type of revenge
That only the creulty and majesty of life can stir.

An unknown face.

An unknown face.
I appear in all your stories.

I walk in;
I walk out:
The unacknowledged.

I leave the scene
And ask for no raised heads,
Or polite smiles,
Or fiestas in my name.

I partake in everything
But you scarcely know I'm present.

I arrive,
And I'm gone;
Before you even know the present's present,
Or reflection has cast its hands upon you.

An unknown face,
With no requests,
Will burn on inside you until your stories
Are buried with your crumbling vessel.

An unknown face
Will be cast to the wind
In an offering to some memory
That passes through you
As a brief shudder,
Which you soon discard.

An unknown face
Makes unknown bones
But permits a quiet dignity,
Existing on the fringe of all you might ever see,
That those of fame will never know.

I ask only that you be,
And smash mould against mould;
And from the dust make new moulds;
And never live by example,
Because example begets lame children
That know not the fullness of reason or purpose.

An unknown face
Will never haunt your dreams
Or infect your nightmares;
It will only pass you by,
Quiet in all its triumphs and horrors.

An unknown face is yours,
And mine,
And theirs;
As we stumble in the dark,
Searching the features.

One day, I will pass you by,
And you will not know me;
But you will feel my actions
In the ripples I make in the world;
And I make few ripples:
My ripples are absorbed by the features of the Earth.

Evening.

I wait for the evening to bleed away.
I wait for the evening to die,
In hope of being greeted with a more fruitful morning.

I wait for the fog to clear,
For colours to appear -
Streaking the sky like they mean to impress.

I wait for night to envelop me
And steal me away to a land of dreams,
Where maybe I'll be gracefully interred;
Just for a little while.

I wait for you
Like a lame child
Waiting for medical care;
Waiting for his parents' interventionist God to commit him to death

I wait for the evening to clear;
The air to settle,
And the morning to kick up the cobwebs,
Which will soon re-form.

I'm waiting for the evening to inculcate in me some deep yearning
For a time when night-time means more than just shambling ghosts
And a longing to be refreshed.

I wait for the evening to leave,
Not knowing that it lives within the dark of my soul;
Morning, too.
I guess I'm waiting for a more pleasant happening to arrive,
And bring with it a routine with no items:
Just a blank space,
Like night.

I wait for the evening to give peace to the wind-blown,
Although it will only heighten their coldness,
And leave me feeling like being warmed up might kill me,
Or turn me into some creature wandering, lost, under the Sun.

A few songs by John Lennon.

Winter - a poem.

A few of my songs.

Voices (haiku).

Washed out in a sea
Of echoes, we fire off
In loud unison.

Winter.

I stand beside nude trees,
Under a bare sky.
It’s cobalt-coloured – like stripped-bare dreams;
It’s leaden, and naked of life.

The Pavilion is risen tall;
Its grandeur all too clear.
If you’d like to take a winter stroll,
Why don’t you meet me here?

My skin is chilled
And my dreams hang low –
Like a frosty, morning fog.

And I pine for you,
In grumbled tones –
After my keeper,
Like a dog.

If you should see me upon the pavement
With desolate-looking eyes,
Know there’s a sparkle present
And, because of you, my tears have dried.

And I feel I’m not kidding myself
With the undulations of my mind;
No matter what my temperament,
I know you’ll soothe me in tones kind.

The sky is cobalt-blue
And the leaves are in dank piles.
But I’ll walk these paths with you –
And I’ll walk them for miles.

A lighter shade of me....

I know most of the stuff I write is over-serious and leaden, so here are a few uplifting videos courtesy of Nalts:

Judeo-Christian religion and women.

To be a Born-Again Christian means to be as a child - just as Jesus advised. To be born again isn't to see the world through the eyes of a thinking adult who's had his or her views changed; it's to be re-born as a child. We don't need more children on this planet; we need thinking adults.

Throughout the histories of Judaism and Christianity, women have been subjugated and subjected to the most extreme oppression. This sort of thing only stopped occurring towards the end of the nineteenth century. For hundreds of years, women could not vote nor own property; nor could they escape their domestic settings. The first American woman to ever strive to become a lawyer was blocked by the Supreme Court (with an 8-1 majority) some 100 years ago.

The 10th commandment alludes to the fact that women were seen as property to the early Jews. Many Christians will fail to recognise this or wholly deny it. Many don't know that early Jewish men were polygamists who had many wives - King Soloman had 1000 (or so we're told in the Bible).

The 10th commandment states: "Thou shalt not covet your neighbour's house, or his wife, or his plough, or his ox, or his ass." Houses and oxen and ploughs were property - and so were women. Women were 'chattel' (they were personal possessions who could be moved around). Another striking thing about the Old Testament is that it was perfectly acceptable for Jewish - and early Christian - men to sell their daughters into the sex trade. People also kept slaves (provided that these slaves were taken from foreign lands - just as the Egyptians did with the early tribes of Judea; it seems some people never learn).

Before you go to bed tonight, just think about some of the tortures your great-grandmothers had to endure. Think about how women have been treated throughout the centuries. Think about how in some Muslim states (as well as in Israel and some Christian states in Africa and the Far East) women are oppressed and controlled (all because the early Moslems aped the Old and New Testaments). I'm an atheist, but if you wish to pray tonight please pray for all those around the world whom are in dire need of their human rights. Pray for your loved ones and your enemies. Pray for everybody. And if you're not no spineless and idiotic as to think to pray, make real change and help others in your communities.

God in the 21st century.

A few words on prayer by John Shelby Spong.

A talk by John Shelby Spong.

Plan Colombia.

Since 1998, America has been destroying the Colombian countryside under the guise of a collection of anti-drugs policies called 'Plan Colombia'.

This involves spraying large amounts of defoliant (herbicide) over coca fields in order to halt the production of cocaine. There's one thing Americans aren't aware of, though - something entirely more sinister and nefarious: American agribusiness companies are moving into these affected areas and farming crops. These companies employ jobless, displaced peasants and make them work in the agribusiness industry for low pay, under dire working conditions.

Also, vast areas of Colombia are handed over to mining companies and oil companies. Vast swathes of land are strip-mined and destroyed. These acts are the product of American policy and they're supported by western countries such as the UK.

The following videos will provide you with some information: