Asking Alexandria - Final Episode...OH MY FUCKING GOD!!!

Following my last two music posts, here's something at the very least refreshingly secular...

From their debut album, Stand Up and Scream. Lyrics:

Oh my God.
Oh my God.
If only he knew,
If only he knew,
If only he knew about the world without the bullshit and the lies,
We could have saved him.
They could have saved me.
But instead I'm here drowning in my own fucking mind,
And I'll be damned if you're the death of me.

Blood and ink stain the walls.
Silently with bloodied knuckles, I carry on
Hoping it's not too wrong.
You said the nights were far too long.
'Honey, it's just the start of it.'

Oh my God.
If only he knew.
Oh my God.
If only he knew.
If only he knew!
If only he knew.

Just stand up and scream.
The tainted clock is counting down.
(Faster and fast!)
You gave in to me.
Would you say the nights are far too long now?
(Faster, faster and fast!)

Oh my God!
Oh my fucking God!

The tears that stain my cheek must make me look weak!
I wear them proudly!
I wear them proud!


Just stand up and scream.
The tainted clock is counting down.
(Faster and fast!)
You gave in to me.
Would you say the nights are far too long now?
(Faster, faster and fast!)

Your knife,
My back!
My gun,
Your head!
[x2]

You need a doctor baby,
You scared?
You need a doctor baby,
You scared?
You need a doctor baby,
You scared?
You need a doctor baby,
You scared,
You scared,
You scared!
Yeah!
You need a doctor baby,
You scared!
You need a doctor baby,
You scared!
You need a doctor baby!
You need a doctor baby!
You scared!

OH MY FUCKING GOD this is a great song. I think I'm making it this blog's unofficial anthem :)

Just to squeeze some anti-stupidity sentiment from it, does anyone else hear this line:

If only he knew about the world without the bullshit and the lies

...and just find themselves thinking "creotards..."?

Sabbath School 9/04/11 - P.C. Jesus

Heard someone try to give a defense of Original Sin last Sabbath. It went something like:

Imagine you catch a thief in the act of breaking into a car. The thief runs away and you remain guarding the car. When the police arrive, would they not be justified in holding you under suspicion? It would be up to you to prove your innocence.

That won't work for one reason in particular: God is meant to be omnipotent, no? The two characters being equated here, the police and the supposedly all-knowing, all seeing, ever just deity, do not possess the same qualities. Given this, we are still left with the image of a vengeful, malicious, short-sighted god.

Original sin is, without a doubt, one of the most repulsive doctrines of Xianity. I have heard it argued by very ordinary, average Christians, that a child born to sinful parents who died at birth or young age would be judged according to its parents' sins and burn, with justification given by the numerous passages in the Old Testament that state that the sins of the fathers are visited upon down to the third and fourth generations. To top it off, I remember once a little debate I had with a lady friend over the morality of God wiping out the entire population of Sodom and Gomorrah. I said that even ascribing to the bigoted view you have ascribed to God that homosexuality is the worst sin imaginable and that the women of Sodom were equally as evil as the men, you simply cannot justify punishing the children as well. Know what she said? The children were evil as well.

And this was a normal, fun loving, otherwise caring and empathetic young woman! She couldn't see beyond the narrow-minded view she had been fed her entire life and see the utter objectionability of what she had just said. This is the same kind of reasoning that causes much emotional suffering and, I believe, permanent scarring to young children who are told that they are essentially evil, and that justifies the abuse and murder of children in Nigeria because they are "witches". This is one of the reasons I am so vehemently against religion and indoctrination.

Comment cross-post - Sadventists, badventists(Pharyngula)

Cross-posted from http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/04/sadventists_badventists.php, comment #65

Just want to say, even here in Africa, the Adventist church has had a propensity for producing all sorts of kookery. A few years ago in my home country, Zimbabwe, there was a breakaway movement labelled the "Fugamists" after the Shona "fugama"(to kneel) because one of their core identifying beliefs was that people should kneel every time they pray. They'd go from door to door proselytising people (I think they targeted other mainstream Adventists specifically - they probably gathered intell by lurking around neighbourhoods on Saturday mornings and noting those who left as families all immaculately dressed like), using Ellen White's writings to back themselves up.

They also believed Jesus was coming sometime in 2005 (I think) and pulled their kids from school. Needless to say, this got them in trouble with the authorities plenty times. Eventually, the date of their rapture came and they all went to some remote wilderness spot to wait. And wait. And wait. Eventually, they ran out of food and water and had the authorities had to intervene.

Something similar is brewing in Botswana (where I'm currently based) with some fellows calling themselves the "Present Truth" movement. They're a bit more extreme and ultra-conservative, even boycotting services led by women, in the spirit of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.

By the way, I'm an apostate 4th generation SDA (still in the closet, though). My great grandfather on my mother's side was quite an Adventist trailblazer, establishing churches wherever he settled. My dad's uncle was an Adventist pastor who established his own ultra-conservative sect (though it did stay within the fold - they were more concerned with morality issues).

Adventist Review - La Sierra University Granted Window to Show its Faithfulness to Church’s Creation Belief

Three days ago, this article appeared on the site for the Adventist Review, "The flagship journal of the Seventh-day Adventist Church". Some may remember the fracas over La Sierra University science faculty teaching science instead of church-endorsed myth that got a lot of people all heated up and ready to burn those evilutionist professors at the stake. Well, the university finally bowed to pressure and announced it would comply with the church's demands. The article I've linked to reports that the university has been given until the second quarter of next year to show its compliance with church dogma by the Adventist Accrediting Association.

I find it kind of ironic that people who clamor for science curricula to "teach the controversy" are so close minded themsselves when it comes to a scientific theory that has been studied, ratified and approved by the majority of biological scientists in the world. Church heads should never have the right to dictate what science professors teach in their lecture halls. Outside of church-affiliated organisations, I doubt La Sierra graduates are able to get a job anywhere.

Heidevolk - Ostara

Today's little ditty comes from Dutch folk metal band Heidevolk...

From their album Uit Oude Grond.

Lyrics (Dutch):

In het veld gehuld, in mist en kou
Schijnt een glinstering, in de dauw
Als de hemel kleurt van zwart naart blauw
Ostara
In het oosten waar de nacht begon
Ontwaakt het licht der morgenzon
Haar ochtend zegent onze bron
Ostara

In de vroegte, als de dag begint
En de zon het sterrenveld verblindt
Als de lente winter overwint
Ostara
Bij de dageraad, door ans aanschouwd
Baant zonlicht zich een pad von goud
Door de kille nevels in het woud
Ostara

Nacht en dag bereiken evenwicht
Langverwachte terugkeer van het licht
Als de zon herrijst en kou verdwijnt
En het levenslicht het land beschijnt
Voel de warmte in de morgenstond
Weelderig groen ontspruit uit koude grond
Als het Saksisch volk de zon begroet
Op de heuvels badend in haar gloed

Lyrics (English):

in the field covered, in fog and cold
shines a sparkle, in the dew
when heaven colors from black to blue
Ostara (spring)
in the east where the night began
wakes the light of morningsun
her morning blesses our well
Ostara

early in the morning, when the day begins
and when the sun blinds the starfield
when spring conquers winter
Ostara
at dawn, seen by us
opens sunlight a path of gold
through the chilly fog in the woods
Ostara

night and day reaches balance
long expected return of the light
when the sun returns and cold vanishes
and the light of life shines on the soil
feel the warmth in the morning
abundant green shoots from cold soil
when the Saxon people greets the sun
on the hills bathing in her glow

As many may know, according to the sources the fictional Jewish Zombie's death occured around the time of the Jewish Passover. Now, all know the Catholic church's method of converting the pagan cultures consisted of a mixture of brute-force coercion and cultural assimilation, so the chronological equivalent they found to their Zombie Master's death and resurrection was the Spring fertility celebration, Ostara - Ēostre in the Anglo-Saxon dialect. And thus Easter was born.

So, always remember...

Nacht en dag bereiken evenwicht,

night and day reaches balance

...is the real reason for the Easter season.

Reading Hercolubus

As I said earlier, I've been reading Hercolubus or Red Planet by V.M. Rabolu. I'd have finished it in less than an hour had I tried but I just had to take a long break to avoid bursting my sides with laughter. The book is just full of the most ludicrous and absurd New Agey and anti-science woo-woo man has ever seen. Or I've ever seen. I've kept my interaction with stupidity to a minimum since I became a skeptic.

Rabolu obviously has(or had - he's dead) something against "those we falsely call scientists" - and it shows: he has absolutely no scientific knowledge whatsoever. Take the section "Nuclear Tests And The Ocean". He talks about the sea being in contact with "the fire within the Earth" and causing cyclones and earthquakes. The consequence of this will be the Earth sinking into its ocean. How a planet sinks into its own ocean is beyond me. Maybe he's a flat-earther too? Somehow, getting cooked isn't the worst consequence of the boiling of the oceans, but darkness and planes not being able to fly is. Yah. And the sea is also apparently a living organism that breathes and contaminates our air.



Rabolu's description of the consequences of undersea nuclear testing (which was banned in 1996, by the way) sounds like he learnt it from The Simpsons... you know, the three eyed fish, laser vision squirrels and tentacled trees that live in Springfield? Apparently, something like that is happening in our own oceans. And Rabolu's sea monsters can't be destroyed by mere bullets. They "developed from atomic energy", therefore they are "atomic".

The real laughbucket of the book is the section on extraterrestrials. He apparently thinks sci-fi movies are in fact polemic documentaries produced by the despicable North Americans. He obviously knows better of course - he's actually been to Venus and Mars.



For some reason, the picture of physical perfection the Venusians possess sounds a lot like miniature versions of Hitler's Aryan race - blonde hair and blue eyes, only 1.3-1.4 metres tall. Rabolu's description of ET life contains some of the oddest, most useless details, from belts that flash like lighthouses to the fact that they grow trees on their house roofs. He also seems to think fish are not meat - take this quote about the Venusians' dietary habits:

From there, they go to machines, where the fish are pulverised and more natural vitamins are added [as opposed to artificial ones?]. This is another of their foods. The same is done with vegetables. No one eats any kind of meat there.

After this graphic description of the fishes' evisceration, we are told they do not eat meat of any kind? Lol.

The Venusians can also control weather with their thoughts. I'm wondering - everyone has different tastes of the weather, so how do they sort each other out? Do they take turns?

I guess what is meant to be the most important part of the book is the esoterica on death and astral projection that comes at the end. That's where the mantras come in, and Rabolu instructs us on how we can do what he can too, and see Mars and Venus and the alien spaceships and the Red Planet itself. The cornerstone of his projection techniques are the mantras: La Ra S and Fa Ra On. I'm a bit surprised there were no drugs involved.


I did not at all take Hercolubus seriously - it's very difficult to, many may agree. Especially when I'm rhyming like I'm under an apple tree. The sad thing is that some people buy this stuff - obviously very rich people too, who are financing the whole free book thing (small wonder they don't ask for peoples' money like others of their ilk - they've already snagged some pretty big fish). In a few years, the whole 2012 catastrophism thing will have blown over and its sheep will have moved on to whatever new woo will be fashionable at the time. Unfortunately, the damage will already have been done and some well-meaning, philanthropical soul will already have had his money blown on some stupid piece of stupidity instead of giving their money to real world causes. I hope someone investigates the Alcione organisation, which is perpetuating all this nonsense and exposes them for the frauds they really are.

EDIT: You can still order the book for free from www.hercolubus.tv.