No, You Don't Want To Do 'Aftersex' Selfies

You really want your aftersex selfie to have Newt Gingrich's mug photo-shopped onto it then circulated with your gf?

There are so many reasons not to do "aftersex" selfies that it shouldn't be necessary to enumerate them. Start with the smug, solipsist nature of the "selfie" itself which embodies all the gratuitous self-infatuation that is poisoning this country - causing it to mutate into a bunch of navel-gazing zomboids with faces pushed into assorted small screens - whether of smart phones or iphones.  Let us also recall what Krimhilde, my sister-in-law and Eck spiritualist,  said:

"These are the creations and obsessions of the immature human, which remains steeped in narcissism, in self-absorption. No truly advanced or advancing human on the path to a higher spirituality takes a selfie. Our true motivation and mission in this life is instead to embrace selflessness. That means placing one's body in proper relation to one's spirit."

Wonder what she'd think of the 'aftersex' selfie?  It isn't difficult to imagine and the clue is in the last line of her comment.

But perhaps one isn't spiritually inclined. Then there are other reasons not to traverse the route of this benighted form of selfie:

1- Any instagram, any selfie can go onto the larger web, and can also be used in ways never intended by the original senders.  One such is displayed above with the aftersex selfie twisted into a mocking caricature by having photo-shopped the visage of Newt Gingrich into the guy's face. The poor girl friend is then stuck being seen with this GOOPr goober along side her, while the delirious face of the cat who sent the selfie is nowhere to be found.  (Let's also bear in mind a truly malicious person would use programs superior to photo-shop to superimpose the face of a terrorist onto the selfie, instead of Newt's!)

2- The GCHQ, NSA's Brit cousin, can snatch it up - as it does millions of instagrams, via its 'Optic Nerve' program. As the Guardian noted (Feb. 27), having gobbled up and stored millions of such images, including "sexually explicit" ones it's become increasingly difficult to keep them from the prying eyes of staff. While aftersex selfies are usually not explicit, one can picture GCHQ staff having some good yucks at the assorted ones captured that they gawk at before permanent storage. Besides, do you really want your aftersex selfie stored in some spook outfit's system for decades?

3- This ought to go without saying, but sheesh, if you actually have to post an 'after sex' visual maybe you aren't getting enough in the first place.  I mean why would you need the selfie? To remind yourself for the next 'dry' six months of what you haven't been getting regularly?  So then you can stare freely at the captured sex-satisfied smile and engrave it in memory until the next time?  Oh wait, it's not that at all, it's that you want to rub it in to your friends' faces how much you're getting and they're not! Again, a fool's errand! Most perspicacious people will still perceive you have to "prove" you are getting at least what THEY are getting! And they'll still end up believing that because you had to post it then you ain't getting what they are!

4- The aftersex selfie is gauche and uncool. No really cool person, at least  from a 60s perspective, would have to advertise having had sex.  A hippie couple from the 60s would view this manifestation not so much with disdain or judgment, but look at the senders with a mixture of pity and sympathy.  They'd also kind of tie it in with the perspective in (3).

5- Sexual relations, as Buddhist philosopher Alan Watts once pointed out ('Does It Matter?') are still a basic form of human intimacy. This extends not merely to the sex act itself but to the prelude to it (foreplay) and the post-coital phase which ought to include light banter, snuggling, cuddling - but not dispatching "selfies" to the digital world of 2 billion staring, peering, judgmental eyes.

6- The person who would violate the  boundaries of social propriety by taking an after sex selfie (also according to Watts) would be blind to what constitutes the off-scene or the "ob-scene" in human relations and situations, and hence would also be likely to send a selfie of him (or her)- self sitting on the crapper taking a dump.  Since the person lacks the social perceptions to see what ought to remain private in one domain (sexual), they'd likely lack it in another (bodily elimination) for which privacy is also warranted. (Of course, the exact analogy here would be the "post-dump selfie").

These are just some of the reasons the wise and mature person avoids taking aftersex selfies. Of course, the really wise and mature person avoids taking any selfies, period!

Of Mangers and Materialism: What Ross Douthat Doesn't Get

NY Times Neolib-cum-Christianoid mouthpiece Ross Douthat in his latest clarion call ('Ideas from a Manger', Dec. 22,  Sunday Review) bids us to "pause for a moment" on our holiday shopping to "glance at one of the manger scenes". Therein, Douthat informs us, we ought to "see the scene not just as a pious set piece but as a complete world picture- intimate and comprehensive".

What, pray tell, is this complete world picture the manger scene offers? Douthat again:

"It's an entire world view in a compact narrative, a depiction of how human beings relate to the universe and to one another. It's about the vertical link between God and man- the angels, the stars, the creator stooping to enter his creation. It's also about the horizontal relationships in our society, because it locates transcendence in the ordinary, the commonplace, the low."

After presenting this, Douthat bemoans that this view is "increasingly losing market share to what you might call the spiritual world picture-   the divine is active in human affairs, every person is precious in God's sight- but doesn't sweat the details."

He describes this view as:

 "Christian-ish but syncretistic, adaptable, easy going and egalitarian. It doesn't care whether the angel really appeared to Mary- the important thing is that a spiritual version of that visitation can happen to anyone - including you."

This "spiritual syncretism"  would, of course, also comport with the worldview of my sister-in-law, Krimhilde, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/08/continued-conversation-with-krimhilde.html

How would Krimhilde respond to Douthat's take on her, and not being invested in literalist biblical traditions? I quote her from the above link:

"Reading those ancient books or bibles is like a college student groveling around in a nursery and still talking baby talk. Worse, the degraded level of the book writers, especially where they depict this “god” killing humans out of vengeance, is a reflection of their own base nature and desire for vengeance. Their degraded, low vibration souls hate so they write to make their god hate, like them. This bible god is no god of love.

The obsession with the 'good book' is based  on the anxiety to be right…..right, right, right….This impulse and need penetrates and suffuses everything. That’s why they clutch their bibles so closely, as if to worship the book itself."


Wow! Quite an eye-opener! But Krimhilde is much more correct in her take than Douthat is on his. Indeed, there is no evidence that any of the narrative reported in the New Testament gospels concerning the nativity is "true" or in any way historical.   Exegetical and historical document researchers have, in fact, confirmed that:  present day Nazareth couldn’t be the biblical city referred to say, in the fourth chapter of Luke. 

One way to verify that is to go back and examine the Old Testament, the Talmud and related documents that precede the NT and determine if an extant Nazareth existed. One will find that  “Nazareth” is not mentioned once in the entire Old Testament, nor do any ancient historians or geographers mention it before the beginning of the 4th century.  The Talmud though it names 63 Galilean towns, names Nazareth not one time.  Not once. More telling, though Josephus does cite Japha - a town about a mile from present day Nazareth, he doesn't mention Nazareth. So much for Douthat's manger scene, because if Nazareth didn't exist then we can conclude none of the other aspects did either, including the manger, the guiding star, the Magi and even that Yeshua was born an actual "God-Man", i.e. God incarnated as human. It is all an elaborate myth intended to communicate a spiritual message - but not to be taken literally.

So, here we have an answer for Douthat on why spiritualist folk like Krimhilde aren't inclined to pay too much attention to "details" that only exist in a mythical sense.

But Douthat isn't content to merely take the spiritual people and groups (like Eckanckar) to task. He goes after secularists as well. He bloviates (ibid.):

"The secular picture, meanwhile, seems to have the rigor of the scientific method behind it. But it actually suffers from a deeper intellectual incoherence than either of its rivals because its cosmology does not harmonize at all with its moral picture."

Actually, no "intellectual incoherence" is suffered because cosmology in the specific definition of the term does not entail any moral "picture". Cosmology refers to the study of the large scale universe or cosmos, its dynamics, behavior and composition - including dark matter, dark energy.  Thus, cosmology is a physical discipline that attends to and investigates physical factors of our cosmos. It does not treat morality so that secularists cannot be said to uphold a "cosmology that does not harmonize with its moral picture."

But, this is not to say that secularists embrace NO moral view. Indeed, in an article published in The Barbados Sunday Advocate in 1991, ('Materialism and Moral Values') I took pains to show how and why the philosophy of scientific materialism is compatible with moral values at their most fundamental level without having to interject mythic entities or gods. I noted:

"It isn’t necessary to wave a bible or the ten commandments at a Materialist, nor quote the "golden rule". The true Materialist, by definition, respects his fellow men and reveres all life, since he recognizes (through his philosophy) that they share a planet that may be unique in the cosmos. Thus, the true Materialist treasures and conserves the Earth's finite store of resources, since he comprehends that Earth also has one life to live - and there is no more after the existing resources are consumed.

With these things in mind, the true Materialist does not give his offspring any and every thing that grabs attention. He certainly does not wish to encourage the sort of wanton greed and over-consumption that has brought our world to its present sorry state. The Materialist knows well enough that the planet can ill-afford more such uncaring people.

Embodied within the above examples is a practical ethics, which has been forged out of the Materialist's reason and his priorities. This has one overriding aim: to cherish the Earth and all life upon it. Consequently, the true Materialist disdains all forms of violence, since ultimately these are inimical to the community and to species' survival. Since violent acts undermine a community's cohesion and threaten its very existence, the true Materialist must regard them as irrational. The Materialist is compelled to co-operate with his fellows and promote a common good, not out of fear for the wrath of a deity, but to held insure a thriving, harmonious community with high survival value.

As William Provine notes in his article Evolution and the Foundation of Ethics [1], young people should be encouraged to think rationally and critically concerning ethics, not out of fear of some divine force's wrath, but to protect their own long-term self-interest.

Any persistent observer of human social interaction will note that the vast majority of people are law-abiding and decent folk who naturally practice a common-sense, utilitarian ethics similar to what has been described. For proof, one need only look as far as the upstanding Atheist or agnostic who inhabits every community and who - though he disdains a deity, nevertheless treats his fellows with compassion and respect. No supernatural law or commandment ordains this behavior. Instead it is the conscious and deliberate recognition that the promotion of the welfare of others is directly linked to the one's own welfare.

Unfortunately, what the religionists have done is to take the natural code of ethics most people follow and embellish it with a blizzard of superstitious precepts and injunctions. These are superstitious since, inevitably, they are linked to the supposed dictates of a supernatural "being" who will not hesitate to "punish" those who disobey "him". This includes injunctions to participate in - or attend, primitive rituals which celebrate a de facto cannibalism.

Christians, for their part, profess a ‘God of love’, but never hesitate to invoke fear (of eternal torment) to have their ethics adhered to. Logically, this suggests that the ethics is insupportable without the additional imposition of some type of "divine" retribution. A punitive ethics, then, is at the very core of the Christian religion, as it is many others. Sir Bertrand Russell, in his book Why I Am Not A Christian, precisely identifies ‘religion’s source of terror’ to account for the hold it has on so many. "

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The article received many kudos from letter writers, who said it was the first time they'd ever seen a coherent and logical discourse on a Materialist-based  ethics. Hitherto, they'd never realized that scientific Materialism and ethics could be compatible.

Douthat makes the same error, as when he writes (op. cit.):

"In essence (scientific Materialism) proposes a purely physical and purposeless universe, inhabited by evolutionary accidents whose sense of self is probably illusory. And yet it then continues to insist on moral and political absolutes with all the vigor of a 17th century New England preacher. And the rope bridges flung across this chasm - the scientific sounding logic of utilitarianism, the Darwinish justifications for altruism- tend to waft, gently, into a logical abyss.."

Which is total nonsense.  As any sensible person can see, on reading my articulation of ethical values based on scientific Materialism, though they are practical - and hence might be said to be "utilitarian" - that doesn't disqualify them from being more useful than Christian morality - which is based on what? Something a god did or didn't do in the Bible?   Or more relevant in Douthat's case: What the Catholic Church rules is moral or not based on its "Canon Law"?

To fix ideas, consider the nun excommunicated by the Catholic Church in Arizona 3  years ago for saving a 27 year old mother’s life at the expense of her fetus. Her moral choice was either to let the birth occur and see both mother and infant die, or prevent the birth (because of the mother’s blood pressure complications) and save the mother.

The nun made the utilitarian ethical choice over Catholic dogma. In this case, the greater relative good is always chosen over the lesser one. Hence, by practical Materialist ethics,  two deaths with two life saving efforts represents the lesser good, while one death with one life saving effort represents the greater one.  The error of the Bishop that excommunicated the nun was in upholding an absolute right to life ethic for both when in practical terms (that exercise of practical intelligence again) both could not survive. But this is the very danger of moral absolutism.

So in fact, contrary to Douthat's take, it is not within utilitarian ethics that absolutism resides, but rather in the goofy supernaturalism pushed by Christians.  If one can believe in the supernatural then, one can believe in an absolute standard which overrides practical reason and practical ethics. We call this "skyhook" thinking.

As Daniel Dennett once noted ('Darwin's Dangerous Idea')  - the hyper-religious like Douthat want to build their world and universe on "skyhooks" not cranes. Cranes, after all, have to hoist from the ground up to effect their constructions. They're prosaic, dirty material-mechanical flotsam and jetsam like cells, electric signals and chemicals. But oh those skyhooks! To toss them upwards and hook on to the ethereal, immaterial realm in the hyper yonder beyond the clouds and gross matter!

"BWAAAAAA....We don't want that! We wanna be GRANDIOSE beings! Made of sky and spirit not filthy matter! "


These delusional seekers fail to comprehend that for humanity to be one in harmony - no single subset can elevate itself as "more special" or more worthy" or more "grandiose" than any other. Irrespective of who or what they believe. And while it might be nice or appealing to believe ALL humanity is skyhook-engendered, in practice it never works! Because once the skyhook meme is admitted, one segment yearns to claim its supreme grandiosity and specialness for itself, and exclude the others! Much better to look at basic evolution out of the mire by natural selection, and how we all came to have the same basic DNA in our cells. "Brothers in DNA".

And once we get off our skyhook  addiction and concede a brotherly, material unity in biology and DNA, then the embrace of a practical ethics isn't far away.  In this world, we need more practical ethics or moral provisionalism, and less absolutism.

Douthat would do well to process that before he next bids us to stop and stare at manger scenes. True, to quote Douthat, "though a few intellectuals scan the heavens, they have yet to find their star." But maybe that's because no skyhook-based,  guiding star exists. We have to forge, as Materialists, our own "star"!
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[1] William Provine, ‘Evolution and the Foundation of Ethics’ (MLB Science, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1988, p. 25)

Brain Studies Show Religious Absolutism Can't Be Defended

In the image shown, from 'A History Of Torture Through The Ages',  designated torturers from the Holy Inquisition are fervently applying assorted torments to a witch (far left), a generic "non-believer" (center) and a heretic. Their reasoning is simple:

They are so emphatically certain of their own religious truths, that they cannot abide any expression of anything contrary.  Hence, the witch who professes belief in Magic must be disembowelled, the unbeliever must have molten silver poured over his body, and the heretic - professing "untruths" - must have his ears, tongue cut out.  Now, by comparison, we examine below the words of a modern Fundamentalist Christian, from his blog - who saw my earlier blog on my niece who has cancer and how her spiritual  support system is Eckanckar.

"Eckankar is just another Satan-led religion to lead many well-meaning, albeit 'blind' souls to hell. The main reason that people cling to these false religions is mainly due to the fact that they seldom - if ever - talk and teach their followers about hell. They'll call us true Christians "hateful," "intolerant," "insensitive," and worse. Why? Because we tell them the truth...GOD'S TRUTH! ("Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?" - Gal 4:16). However, what they miss is its because we love them as God's creations that we tell them and speak of hell. We would be remiss in our obligations as Christians if we did not!"

What is the commonality between the examples? Obviously,  the primary difference is that in the case of the devout Inquisitors - who fervently wish to save the trio they're working on from Hell's fires via physical torment (to get them to change before they die)-  their victims perish. In the case of the fundie's target, she merely gets dispatched to Hell, no pain in the current life. (Fortunately, Hell is a myth, but such overt oral-written consignment typically wreaks mental havoc on the less secure.)

The commonality, however, is the sense of absolutism : the conviction or firm belief that what the attacker upholds as "truth" is the final, absolute truth and there can be NO alternative. Nor can any remote difference be accepted. Thus,  the heretic, witch or unbeliever must be taken apart piece by bloody piece, just as the Eckanckar devotee must be consigned to Hell fire. Absolutist belief allows no wiggle room! "God" or whatever the engrained brain embolism is, has spoken! Now, check again the fundie's further words on Eckanckar:

"It is clear from the outset that this (Eckanckar) is a “religion” created by Satan, the father of lies. But it differs from the many other false religions in its dangerous practices of giving an opening to demonic forces. Satan is "your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour"


We also see here the emergence of an adjunct belief, in each case. To the Inquisitors, steadying their firm hands to rip flesh, castrate, scald or disembowel there was the underlying conviction that witches, unbelievers and heretics were each driven or possessed by "Satan". To the fundie, the follower of Eckanckar is opening herself to "demonic forces" and hence can be used by "Satan".

Now, it is possible to coolly analyze each of the examples, based on recent brain research, using actual scans from positron emission tomography (PET) or single photon emission tomography (SPECT) .  The data, results provide a look inside the brains of the believers forcing their agendas and dogmas, pet credos on others. The advantage of PET and SPECT scans is that they show the effects of active, resident beliefs in real time on the brains of firm believers. Not merely a static image. We see where the brain activity lights up as it were, and where it becomes more muted.

Much of the work has been published in the 2002 book Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief,   by neuroscientist Andrew Newberg and Eugene D'Aquili. Their main findings have to do with the OAA (orientation association area)  brain region. The authors note that in normal circumstances:

The OAA helps create a distinct, accurate sense of our physical orientation to the world. To do its job well….depends on a constant stream of nerve impulses from each of the body’s senses. The OAA sorts and processes these impulses virtually simultaneously during every moment of our lives”

However, in abnormal situations, or when abnormally strong beliefs are held, the OAA can be distorted. For example, a fundy given an image of Christ and asked to focus on it has his OAA go into overdrive within minutes.  Neurological measurements, i.e. from PET and SPECT scans, show electrical discharges spiraling down from the right attention area (right OAA) to the limbic system and hypothalamus “triggering the arousal section of the structure”. The authors’ test results and measurements actually revealed that as the subjects focused on an image of Christ, both the left and right association regions were activated. As assorted cortical thresholds were crossed, a maximal stimulation (given by spikes in the SPECT scans) produced a neural “flood” that generated feedback to the attention association area.

To make a long story short, the visual attention area of the OAA was seen to begin to deprive the right orientation area (responsible for balance) of the OAA of all neural input not originating with the contemplation of Jesus. In order to compensate, and thereby preserve the neuro-spatial matrix (in which the self could still exist) the right orientation area had to default to the attention area focusing on “Jesus”. As the authors put it :

“ It has no choice but to create a spatial matrix out of nothing but the attention area’s single-minded contemplation of Jesus”

In other words, belief in Jesus (and by proxy, his offer of "salvation")  became a matter of life or death. Newberg and D’Aquili go on to note that as the process of "re-cerebralization" continues, all irrelevant neural inputs are stripped away until the only reality left is Jesus. That reality (actually a pseudo-reality confected by the right attention area) thereby takes over the entire mind. Or, in the words of the authors, “it is perceived by the mind as the whole depth and breadth of reality.”

This is a profound insight, and fully explains why it is essentially impossible to wean believers away from their objects of worship or devotion (including their "good books")  based on logic and reason alone. What has happened, in other words, is the subject’s whole existence and identity has become bound up with the focus of his brain’s OAA- or more specifically – the right attention area’s focus on his specific belief,  which channels nearly all neural inputs to that region. (As shown by the PET SPECT scans lighting up)

In the mind of the professed believer, focused on Jesus as his “Savior”, there is no possibility of leaving that focus behind because his OAA brain areas are now exclusively dependent on it for him to survive. Take them away, say by surgically removing the right attention areas of the OAA, and the person will die. He’ll either commit suicide, unable to ground himself in any continuous or recognizable reality, or he will go mad.

In other words, on having their brains' OAA regions adversely stimulated to negate their beliefs (or so they thought) both the Inquisitors and the Fundie were constrained to act in order to eject the challenging meme. The Inquisitors did it via tortures, and the Fundie by mentally dispatching his target to "Hell" - a lurid fairytale confected originally by the Mithraists but later plagiarized in Christian scriptures. (Lauran Paine, in his book, ‘The Heirarchy of Hell’ , observes that the Christian copyists did add further refinements in terms of a number of further denizens of Hell, including: wights, imps and demons. Of course, this compounds the nonsense of it all by the fact of wholesale confabulation and addle-pated frivolity.)

A more recent take on this hyper-belief dynamic has been provided by Michael Shermer in his (2011) book, The Believing Brain, wherein he uses an impressive compilation of research - from neuroscience, to biochemistry to evolutionary psychology- to show that belief inevitably trumps reason. Also, that in many ways, the unchecked brains of believers are like those of drug addicts run amuck...say on meth, or crack. As Shermer puts it:

“Our believing brain dictates what we are seeing!"

Thus, if a person doesn't wish to believe any contradictions exist in his bible he won't see them. He will simply explain any or all objections away by whatever rationalizing arguments he can muster. As an extension of this tendency, according to Shermer, the brains of believers actively seek out any and all sources and information which confirm their pre-existing beliefs. Meanwhile, they actively avert their eyes (and brains)from any information or sources that appear to controvert those beliefs. In this way, they protect their self-running program loops, and auto-approving brain dynamic while keeping irritating skeptics at bay.

Thus, sowing countervailing evidence or presenting rational counter arguments to either Fundie or Inquisitor would have no effect, because in order to accept them, each believer would have to get off his respective belief 'crack pipe'. But if they did that, their very existence would be threatened, since their undermined OAA brain regions would then reduce them to vegetables or total zombies. In other words, to preserve their identities via the OAA brain regions, they need to retain those absolutist beliefs.

Of course, since the beliefs are based in brain dynamics, they aren't real, and all end up as relative. The tragedy is neither Inquisitors or Fundies seem aware of how their own brains have played them.  In the end, the heretic's beliefs are no better or worse than the Inquisitors' Catholic ones, nor are the Eckist's beliefs (say in reincarnation)  any worse than the Fundie's. Though I will say they likely are since the Eckist makes no condemnatory word or gesture toward the Fundie, like he does to her. She then understands  - unlike the Fundie- the fragility and relativity of beliefs. Of course, the Fundie will insist he got his truths from the "Bible" but as we know that invention has multiple belief defects of its own, see e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/05/conversation-about-spirituality-with.html

More to the point, the biblical writers' own OAA brain regions were culprits, or if you prefer, accomplices, in the manufacture of their imaginary confections, like a whale swallowing a man and retaining him alive for 3 days, or Joshua stopping the Sun with his horn. Hence, when the biblical believer alludes to his bible as the fount of truth it's like a leader allowing 2,000 -year old "inmates" to run the asylum--- of his brain!

Will the Fundie accept any of this? Not likely! It would mean having to remap his OAA region of the brain, and that would be impossible without....probably some deep brain surgery and neural rewiring! In her wonderful book, A History of God, Karen Armstrong writes:


"A personalized God can become a mere idol carved in our image. A projection of our limited needs, fears and desires. We just assume then that he loves what we love and hates what we hate, endorsing our prejudices instead of compelling us to transcend them."

It would be well for all the religious, biblical, Deity absolutists in our midst to process this, and learn the degree to which their own brains manufacture their gods as often cruel mirror images of their own  personalities! Listen to them for their "helpful" truth? We'd do better to run as fast and as far as we can!

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