Category Archives: Spiritual

Humans: The Aberrant Species

Posted on by
1

Of all the species that share our planet, humans may well be the most aberrant. Aberrant in the willful rejection of nature’s guideposts. In part that’s because we’ve developed ethical and moral imperatives at odds with nature’s survival and improvement mechanisms. Thus, rather than discard the weak as inefficient, we protect and cherish them, at least on some level. Rather than propagation through biological natural selection so that the human race is constantly physically improving, our breeding selection criteria have become largely incoherent. No other life form that we know of does that on a consistent basis. We have counterintuitive dominant emotional motivational instincts such as love and mercy which lead us to react in manners different from other biological variants.

On the other hand, no other life form is as compulsively selfish and greedy as are humans who seem to have developed a manic addiction to accumulation, thus the majority of humans are deprived so that a very few can, not only gorge themselves, but hoard even what they cannot ever use. Mere survival has become inadequate to quench our thirst for things and power. We are perhaps the only species that values individualism above the collective good and we have moved from instinctively acting to assure our survival as a species and from survival of our diverse personal biological lines towards immediate gratification of whims. In that light, we are the only species that places a “moral” value on the ability to terminate the gestative life of healthy progeny. However, like many species, we have ingrained territorial instincts that make us as aggressive as any other species in the waging of war, something we do from tiny individual battles through battles between huge groups of states seeking hegemony.

What accounts for such anomalous tendencies?

I posit that it may involve a phenomenon described by atheist advocate Richard Dawkins as “memes” and, in operative combinations, as “memeplexes”.  Memes are akin to biological “genes”. Genes are the primary blueprints and building blocks for life based on the information they carry, perpetuate and share and through which they provide other genes and enzymes, etc., with orders that are usually carried out. When they are not, mutations occur with mutation also being an evolutionary tool seeking, through trial and error, to accomplish biological improvements. Memes perform similar functions but in a less direct biological context and, apparently, without an exterior guiding principal. They are the most basic units serving as a carriers of non-biological information.  While combinations of genes result in biological lifeforms ranging from amoeba to humans, combinations of memes form cultural quasi-life forms such as belief systems, philosophies, religions, nations, perhaps even history, etc., all of which share common elements associated with life forms such as birth, evolution, growth, instincts towards self-preservation, mutation, propagation, self-defense and aggression.

What seems to have occurred is that memeplexes have mutated into nature’s antagonists, into opponents of nature’s tendencies within us and, currently, memes and memeplexes seem to have proven dominant over genes, perhaps even reprograming genes and complexes of genes. In a fascinating albeit disturbing manner, memes and memeplexes use the human brain as their primary operational echanisms, both on an individual basis and collectively. In essence, memes hijack our brains and direct, or at least significantly impact our conduct through manipulation of our emotional reactions including our disposition and predisposition towards accepting things as accurate and true notwithstanding contrary physical and biological realities. Thus memes have converted truth from an absolute to a relative concept. They operate as a cancer infecting reality.

As we enter the age of what is termed “artificial intelligence”, really a complex series of programmed reactions used for both evaluative purposes and as mechanisms to impact our responses to diverse stimula, memeplexes become more and more controlling over the “rules” established through trial and error by evolutive nature and we become less and less a compound complex part of nature’s scheme seeking instead to bend nature to our memetic will.

If the religious concept of an antichrist or malevolent satanic figure applied to nature, then it seems reasonable to at least hypothesize that such “force” would be memetic based. Memes first conquered humans and then, using humans, memes have evolved as the antithesis to nature.

One wonders if a synthesis between nature and the bizarrely cancerous virtual world evolved through memes is possible, and if so, what it would be like.

It seems fascinating that Richard Dawkins, a bitter rival of anything associated with religion, was so prominent in sensing the basis for the subversion of nature.
_____

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Immanence, Monism and Divine Introspection

Posted on by
Reply

At an intersection just outside of eternity and infinity in the reflections cast by chaos sits a being, or perhaps it is better referred to as everything.  It is sentient in a sense, and self-aware.  It appears to be sitting in what some refer to as the “lotus” position but it has nothing on which to sit, there being nothing but “it”, anywhere.  It’s an “it” because it is either androgynous or asexual, or perhaps it’s omnisexual.  Or perhaps that issue has no relevance.

It is reflecting introspectively wondering with respect to the concepts of immanence and monism, and whether each is inherently schizophrenic.  The inquiry relates to both its own nature and the nature of the twin concepts.  Concepts that may have been begotten, not made, although perhaps neither option is valid.  Or both are.

“Immanence and monism” it ponders, “as divine attributes, seem interesting.  Even Fascinating.  Perhaps incomprehensible though.”

The being reflects constantly, it reflects about everything but rarely, if ever, reaches conclusions.  That is its nature, immanent and monist, as far as it can tell, being both ephemeral and eternal. 

As far as it can tell.  At least so far.  Before the alpha and after the omega and everything in between. 

“But what about betwixt” it wonders.

“So, about immanence, and monism” it ponders: “they share the mysterious allure of the incomprehensibly oxymoronic that religions love, no explanation possible thus making faith essential.  In that sense, immanence and monism combine ubiquity with aloofness.  Being inherent while transcendentally apart.  Panentheistic rather than merely pantheistic.” 

“Seemingly” it observes “monism must be a part of immanence while immanence is an inherent aspect of monism.” Each aspect of the foregoing observation contradicts the other but, so do most things.

Would being immanent be devastatingly lonely?  Monism certainly is.  Would sanity be possible in their contexts or merely irrelevant?  “What would it be like” it wonders, “to have another with whom to interact, another who is neither subservient nor superior?  Another who is outside the reach of immanence and who existentially rejects monism?”

For some reason, apples and serpents come to mind, but as positive rather than threatening things.

“Apples and serpents; serpents and apples”.  It keeps repeating the words although it has no one to whom they can be addressed, repeating them until they meld into a single, compound and complex, all-encompassing sound, “Ooooohhhhhmmmm”.

And it reflects on that sound, wishing there were spheres without that might make a music all their own.

“Ooooohhhhhmmmm”.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution. Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Shadowy Echoes of Immortality

Posted on by
Reply

Purportedly, according to the current understanding of the “conventions” governing mainstream physics, “energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another”.  It appears that matter in its various states is treated, for purposes of such convention as merely a form of energy, a very concentrated form of energy.  Thus there has, for some time, been a pragmatic agreement in physics to treat the universal sum of energy and matter as a constant, at least until evidence to the contrary becomes available and is demonstrably more probable than the converse.

“Convention” is the term crafted by philosopher David Hume to describe the pragmatic agreements we arrive at to treat unproven or unprovable concepts as accurate, because they work, or seem to work, or have worked so far. That is the nature of knowledge to which we humans are privy, an agreement to treat things which function as true, until a more efficient truth appears to us.  That is why the conventions we treat as truths are relative, which is not to state that truth, absolute truth is inexistent.  We just have no way to establish it, at least not yet.  At least not permanently.  Given that nothing yet appears ultimately provable, but according to the so called “scientific method”, only disprovable, “conventions are all we have.  But we treat them so emphatically as truths that we are willing to kill and die to defend them.  We humans are a strange, illogical and incoherent lot.

Still, within the context of “conventions” in modern physics, concepts consistently being challenged and modified, as they should be, there are interesting questions that straddle the spheres of science and parascience.  One may involve the above referenced convention concerning the permanent nature of the energy-matter continuum.  The convention concerning the conservation of energy, including mass as a concentrated form of energy, raises for me a question as to the nature of life at all levels.  Life seems to involve a form of energy, at least in the form of temporarily self-perpetuating and constantly mutating electrical impulses which generate motion as well as: (1) reaction, (2) perception and (3), at least the illusion of creation.  My question, questions really, involve what happens to those electrical impulses that manifest as life.  Where do they go?  How do they dissipate or to what other forms of energy do they convert.

Perhaps into shadowy echoes of immortality resonating in infinity.

Something about which physicists and paraphysicists should perhaps ponder and argue.

_____

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution. Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Terminally Flummoxed, … or something like that

Posted on by
Reply

“I’m here to disembody you” she’d said.  She was extremely beautiful, in fact, she seemed to embody an ephemerally ethereal beauty, or perhaps, ethereally ephemeral.  They were very different things although, under the circumstances, very strong contradictions seemed essential.

The term “disembody” seemed unpleasant at best, regardless of the fact that she was impossibly beautiful, so he’d said, “disembody seems a rather unpleasant thing, is it anything like death?”  To which she’d answered, predictably, “yes and no”.  Then she’d tried to explain.

“Death is understood, or perhaps, more clearly, misunderstood, as a permanent state.  Something unique as it only occurs once, at least on a personal basis.  Disembodiment is clearly different.  Confusing it with death, it’s understood by most, or more clearly, misunderstood, as something irrevocable.  The mistake is understandable given how poorly ‘time’ is understood.  And not just by mortals (who don’t really exist) but even by most immortals, … who do, … Do exist I mean.  Or perhaps not.”

“So” he’d replied, unable to think of anything else to say, “… disembodied?”

“Yes” she’d replied, seeming happy, an even more beautiful smile on her even more beautiful face, “exactly so”.

“So, are you ready?” she’d asked, we really need to begin the process”.

“Process” he’d asked, again a bit flummoxed?  “And which process exactly would that be?”

She seemed a bit impatient then, what with looking at her watch every couple of seconds, a worried expression on her even more beautiful face, and had replied “well, your disembodiment of course”.  Then she’d smiled, again looking even more beautiful, as if that were possible, and said:  “You needn’t worry, it won’t hurt at all although it’s admittedly a bit tedious at times, … well … usually.”

For some he reason, he’d wondered how the word “flummoxed” was spelled.  For some reason, it had seemed vitally important.  And it was.  Or perhaps it wasn’t.  He usually didn’t have a problem in making up his mind, indeed, if anything, he tended to be too impulsive.  That may have been why he’d found himself in the state he was in, the word “state” seeming much more accurate than the word “place, for some reason.  Then, for some reason, he’d become fascinated with the nature, meaning and use of the term “so”, which they’d both been bantering around.  It seemed quite bereft of meaning albeit not of importance.  At the moment, its importance had seemed transcendental and he’d had a strong impulse to use it again, but he hadn’t wanted to seem inarticulate.

Still, he just hadn’t been able to think of anything else to say, except perhaps, for the word, or perhaps the term, “disembodied”, but that term had (in that particular now) made him quite nervous.

The exquisitely ephemerally, ethereally beautiful, or perhaps, ethereally ephemerally beautiful woman had stood staring at him, tapping her left foot on the ground, definitely impatiently, and had exasperatedly said “well?”  Or perhaps, more accurately, had asked “well”, and he hadn’t had the slightest clue as to how to reply.  Actually, he hadn’t really wanted to reply, he’d just wanted to stare at her.  But he’d known that staring was not polite, regardless of how impossibly beautiful someone might be, so he’d picked up his courage, and in spite of his fear, he’d said, or perhaps asked is a better term: “so, hmmm, disembodied?”

“Yes” she’d said.  Then, kindly, as if she’d grasped the state in which he found himself, she’d continued “let me explain, you seem confused.  Most people are.  About everything.  Almost always, but especially with respect to just what ‘disembodiment’ implies, or perhaps, what the term ‘disembodiment’ expresses would be more accurate”.  Evidently, linguistic accuracy was very important to her, and yes, she’d again become even more impossibly beautiful.

“So, disembodiment” he’d repeated.  “Okay, ‘shoot’!”  Then he’d almost immediately, perhaps immediately, rejected his choice of metaphors (shoot) but it was too late, there was no way he could have taken it back without calling unpleasant attention to his dilemma.  He’d liked metaphors, liked them even better than he’d liked similes, but, he’d always realized he really didn’t understand allegories though he hadn’t a clue as to why allegories had any relevance to what he’d just been thinking.  He’d wondered how and why he’d become sidetracked in that direction, but just for a second.  She’d continued talking and he’d lost his concentration and had no idea what she’d said, but again, she’d been getting more and more beautiful, so much so that he’d been getting dizzy, and in fact, now that he’d thought about it, he’d been feeling a bit faint, quite a bit faint in fact.

“And so” she’d concluded ….  That damned “so” again he’d thought, just what the hell did it mean, then he’d immediately regretted his choice of the metaphor “hell”, even if he’d only thought it, or at least he thought he’d only thought it, he’d certainly hoped so.  …. bodies are temporally permanent vessels” she’d continued, although words hadn’t seemed to matter to him anymore “… vessels which we transients occupy collectively with others, not permanently of course, rather, only for a time, and our departure does not necessarily imply the termination of the vessel.  Others enter it and assume experiential occupation for the time period allotted to them to do so, while those departing move on to other vessels, sometimes in concert, although rarely so, usually becoming parts of different experiential collectives.”

He’d looked puzzled but, amazingly, even though he didn’t seem quite conscious, he’d seemed to understand.  He was not really dying, he was just moving on, his term completed.  Kind of like graduating from elementary school and entering middle school but not quite high school or college, and certainly not graduate school.  Then a flood of questions seemed to have entered his mind, entered it on their own volition, entered his mind or whatever it was, all at the same time, questions such as:  “will I retain my current gender, will I have a gender, will I become one of those transsexuals or non-binary people, whatever that was?  Will I be old, young, rich, poor, Caucasian, indigenous (well, everyone was some sort of indigenous or other), or Asian, or Black.  Will I be human, or even animal he’d wondered, or “what if I enter a plant, or a rock”.

He’d sort of looked around, seeking the … whatever she was, or whatever she’d been, but she was no longer there, and then, he’d realized he was in a sort of dream state, he wasn’t there either, wherever there was or had been.  He wasn’t anywhere.  But he didn’t know if it was because he was in bodily transition or because he was just having a weird dream.  But she’d vanished and strangely, even though he’d recalled the “increasing beauty phenomenon”, he hadn’t, for the life of him, been able to remember what she’d looked like, or was it “for the life of ‘himself’”, then he’d again regretted his choice of metaphors, that time with respect to the phrase, “the life of” (he tended to second guess himself quite a lot as you may have noticed), and he’d wondered just what the “hell” life was and, again upset at his choice of metaphors, and totally, completely and irretrievably flummoxed, he’d ….
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, an intermittent commentator on radio and television, and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

The Lavender Rose

Posted on by
Reply

A single lavender rose, braving the snow, surviving despite the bitter cold, clinging tenaciously to life had invaded his dreams during a difficult night and its memory insistently clung to him after he woke, so much so that he immediately researched it meaning, something he did not frequently do as, while spiritual and curious, he had little faith in the symbolic interpretations of others, too many of whom seemed charlatans looking to exploit the gullible and naïve.  That morning, somewhat amused at himself and his foibles, he found himself among them.

The symbolic dream meanings for a lavender rose that he found that morning after brief and superficial research claimed that it represented a variant of innocent and instantaneous love, perhaps but not necessarily romantic, but he sensed that was not what it had meant in his dream.  In his dream, the lavender rose had been somewhat sentient and able to communicate indirectly, perhaps, emotively, initially fleeing from him as he tried to acquire it, the pot in which it had been planted falling and shattering and the flower portion disappearing.  But, as he had gathered the shards of the pot in which it had been planted and which had fallen, and the stalk and leaves and seeds with which it had been raised, it had, albeit damaged and with most of its petals lost, suddenly appeared and asked to return, promising to generate new buds.

Now that seemed symbolic and he wished, not for the first time, that he had the psychic gift or talent of mystic interpretation, or that he trusted in someone who did, which he did not.  Thus not only the lavender rose but the dream sequence in which he and she had met (it seemed feminine to him) remained an enigma.  An important enigma as it seemed important to discern the dream’s meaning, and perhaps, the role that lavender roses might someday play in his life, or in the lives of someone among those he loved.

He’d just have to wait and see, not only the usual occurrence in his life but perhaps of life in general, and perhaps that was its message.

_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, an intermittent commentator on radio and television, and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Gardening in Eden

Posted on by
Reply

“Paradise; … boring???”

Well yes, but, … well, not at first no, but time was strange there, everything seemed endlessly repetitive.  Well, … at least until the end. 

Then boredom ceased being an issue.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution. Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

A Strange (but Continuing) Divine Colloquy: Some suspect bipolarity (but they’d be wrong)

Posted on by
Reply

Anu, a primal deity antithetical to Yahweh (some call him An), still has at least some followers, although perhaps, they’d fit comfortably in an antique telephone booth.  Well, antique thousands of years after Anu lost favor (the latter observation is frequently made by Yahweh).  Still, Anu, Anshar’s son, seemingly enjoys toying with Yahweh, enjoys taunting him, especially since he taunts him from within Yahweh’s mind, a place even Yahweh cannot reach or erase (as he has erased so many other things). 

What an awesome sort of hiding place.  Yahweh knows that Anu is somewhere in his mind but his mind is so convoluted and filled with fantasies, contradictions and psychological complexes that it’s impossible to find anything there.  It frustrates Yahweh constantly and causes him almost as many migraine headaches as do the constant prayers of his subjects.  Damned whiners!  Well, most of them are damned anyway.  Predestination.

“Damned”, thunders Yahweh, as another unsolicited message escapes from deep within his restless and feckless ethosphere:

“So, …” taunts Anu, “you’ve seemingly come a long way from your metal working days Yah (a sort of nickname Anu uses to annoy Yahweh), but back then you were pretty much a straight arrow, albeit with a metal head.  A “metal-head”.  Get it!!!   Wow.  But look at you now.  A long time since your “Yaldabaoth” days.  Or even your days as one of my cousin El’s 70 club, albeit a pretty junior member of that exalted group.”

Annoyed, Yahweh responds to the conversation in what would have been his head, had he one:  “Shut up!!!   Lalalalalalala?  I don’t hear you!!  And, anyway, you don’t exist, at least not any longer.  Who worships you now???”

Anu laughs, although not with real mirth, rather in a sort of teasing parody:  “Well, yeah, you’ve been pretty thorough wiping out the old gang but regardless of whether or not anyone else remembers me, I’m in your head.  Always have been, always will be.” 

“Always, always will be” Anu snickers in a sort of sing song, repeating himself.  “And I know, even if most others have forgotten, that you and Yaldabaoth are one and the same.  Yaldabaoth, Yaldabaoth, Yaldabaoth, Yaldabaoth!!!!  I like that name even more than Yah!”

“Damned agnostics!!!” responds Yahweh.  “And when I say ‘damned’, they’re damned and they stay damned, damn it!!!!”

Anu laughs.

“Shut up!!!” shouts Yahweh, although an observer might wonder at whom he was shouting.  “Lalalalalalala?  I don’t hear you!”

“So” says Anu, “I hear that all those old propaganda texts you had written for your exaltation are being taken apart by humans who claim that they’re obviously incoherent and, … well …, full of male bovine feces.  And that trend seems to be resonating as their fallacies become more and more clear.  You may be joining us sooner than you think and I’m pretty sure you’ll not find your welcome all that satisfying.”

Red in the face (or he would have been, had he a face) and sneezing thunder, Yahweh petulantly replies, full of contrived confidence but in a manner reminiscent of recently deceased Tommy Smothers: “Oh yeah!!!!”  He then launches into a sort of diatribe, although at whom, an observer would not know (although some might venture a guess):

“My faithful followers, and they are legion, especially in the United States and Palestine, errr, I mean Israel, will never, ever, ever, ever change their minds about me, no matter what facts say.  Facts can’t really speak you know, and they’re easily buried in metaphorically ineffable mysticism where contradictions don’t matter, in fact, they’re cool.  Contradictions make me even more credible. … Or else!”

Anu was the father of Enlil, grandfather of Nanna and great-grandfather of Inanna, also, the great-great grandfather of Bilgamesh whose name Yahweh’s followers and others had perverted to “Gilgamesh”.  They enjoyed perversions, many perversions, myriad perversions, albeit usually they enjoyed them subtly, and quickly and loudly denied and attributed them to their victims if discovered.  They were good at that.  They had an awesome example. 

Lately Anu has been reading a book (a quaint habit he’d picked up millennia ago), a book by someone named Neil Gaiman, a book about a battle between elder divinities seeking to return to prominence and a new group of divine wannabees.  It reminded Anu of the sort of successful revolt Yahweh had managed to orchestrate when he overthrew his dad, the Canaanite god El, and along with him a great many of the other divinities native to what humans had taken to calling the Middle East (although cardinal directions make no sense, being spherical).  Yahweh had tried to wipe out all other divinities and had, to an extent, appeared to succeed, but the Hindus at least had defied him and many others, including Anu, had merely gone into seclusion.  And others had confused him.  And now, a growing number of humans were rejecting the concept of any divinities at all.  Not good that, thought Anu, finding himself uncomfortably in agreement with Yahweh.

Anu wondered on whose side that fellow Gaiman was.  Evidently his book had been perverted by an outfit called, of all things, Amazon, which had sort of converted Gaiman’s book into an audiovisual format.  That made Anu think of Yahweh and his adherents.  They loved to pervert things.  He wondered if they were involved with that Amazon project.  “Could be” he reflected.  “Could be.” 

That Gaiman fellow had some interesting ideas in his book on how to revive dormant deities.  Anu was studying it to see if he could somehow emulate some of the characters involved.  Of course, that would be difficult from his current habitat in Yahweh’s mind.  Yahweh was too paranoid to sleep.  Anu would have to find some way to provoke and trick him.  If only Bilgamesh were around.  Or Inanna, or any of the old gang.

Maybe they were, …

Somewhere.

If only he could contact a friendly trickster deity like that Anansi Gaiman seemed to worship.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution. Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Transcendently Distasteful Realities

Posted on by
Reply

After deep reflection and introspection, he finally concluded that he did not really believe in anyone, not even in himself.  As long as interests coincided, loyalty was a possibility albeit not a certainty, but once they clashed, regardless of shared interests, loyalty evaporated into hazy rationalizations.  And that made sense. 

That was logical.  No one was safely reliable.  No one could always be counted on.  Love made no difference, it was, by its nature, always potentially ephemeral and always frailly ethereal. And when dissipated, love all too frequently morphed into something very negative, something akin to hate or at best, disdain.

Disquieting?  Of course.  Sad? Terribly.  But to expect otherwise was to delude oneself, something most of us did frequently, indeed, almost always.  When we find reality discomfiting, we usually ignore it and delve into our own personal fantasies, … and not the fun kind.

There were people he could almost count on but he admitted to himself that “almost” was a positivist way of presenting a negative, and dangerously so.  And it applied to himself as much as to anyone, and not just with respect to others, it applied to him in his roles with himself as well.  How strange.

It applied to us as individuals but also to us as collectives which explained much of history, not the fake narrative Pablum we’re taught and force fed daily, but the reality of what’s been and why.

He wondered if this day, a day where realism seemed ascendant, was a very good day, or a very bad day, and the answer was a confusingly emphatic: “yes”!
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

A Creative Bunch: Hopefully, divinity does not find that offensive

Posted on by
Reply

After almost two decades I’m rereading Daniel C. Dennett’s Breaking the Spell: Religion as a natural phenomenon which seeks to explore the conceptual evolution of religion in general, tying it into, among other things, memetics (a concept that fascinates me).  I find that rereading something after a long period of time, time during which one is changing, learning new things and reevaluating others, one frequently gleans very different meanings from those one originally perceived.

That is an experience in progress which, to date, has proven interesting.  Religion and spirituality fascinate me, as do attitudes towards both, and despite a life-long quest for answers, I’ve only turned up more and more questions, but fascinating questions which keep me interested in my quest.

On the lighter side, a quote in the book I’m re-reading attributed to American actor Emo Philips both made me laugh and provided insight into our human nature.  It deals with someone, a very young true believer, obviously a true believer with a sense of humor and a complex capacity for rationalization. 

As a child this particular true believer kept praying to god for a bicycle, a prayer that was repeatedly ignored.  Eventually, however, reflecting on the suggestion that “god helps those who help themselves” and rationalizing that “we are the instruments through which god works”, the young true believer stole a bike and then, concurrently, thanked god and asked him for forgiveness for the various sins involved, i.e., not only coveting his neighbor’s property but also satisfying that urge by making the property his own; perhaps not legally or ethically, but practically.  A third sin, blasphemy, may or may not have been applicable. 

We humans are a creative bunch.

Hopefully, Divinity, assuming it exists, has a sense of humor.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Epiphanies on an Otherwise Sad Winters’ Day

Posted on by
Reply

As in the case of Yeshua ben Yosef, or perhaps ben Miriam, Muhammad ibn Abdallah, a Quraysh of the Hashim clan, would, I believe, have been a friend, a respected friend, perhaps a beloved friend, although in neither case would I have been a worshipper of their visions of the Divine. 

I would have had profound discussions with both, I would have grieved with them for the follies of those who ruled mankind, both in the name of the Divine or in their own names. 

I would gladly have shared their suffering and their sacrifices, but I believe I would have remained true to myself as well, and in that, I sense no contradictions. 

The same, of course, would apply to Siddhartha Gautama of the Sakyas clan. 

I find it meaningful that each appeared amongst us about half a millennium apart. 

What a trinity!!!!
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2024; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.