RUTHLESS: Dissecting the Book of Ruth with The Fierce Humanist

Those of you who are familiar with this blog may be familiar with my series of posts aimed at preparing the Atheist camp for using Biblical Chemical Warfare back on Thumpers. If not, here: Genesis 1: 6-10 and Genesis 1: 26 And those of you familiar with me from twitter ( @adriananyway ) have undoubtedly seen my back and forths with my favorite twitterer (sorry @pooroldkilgore ) known ironically as The Fierce Humanist ( @humanistfury ). The most ironic part is that he really is fierce about his humanism. In this post, that bad, bad dude was willing to knock out The Book of Ruth for me. And he did so in miraculous fashion. Enjoy. 

If it weren’t for the Bible, church services would’ve been unbearable.  As my faculties of reason matured, it became clear that actually participating in worship services did not impact my happiness or chances of success.  As a teenager, the only acceptable diversion was reading one of the Bibles placed along the ancient oak pews.  Doing so, I didn’t have to feign Give-A-Fuck for the gospel reading, the prayer requests, or the preacher’s strained, awkward attempt to make Bronze Age Jewish folklore pertinent to our suburban lives in what was probably the most boring decade of the past century.

I rarely read the Bible, but when I do, I go for the Good Stuff.  Fortunately, the Old Testament is dense with dick jokes, instructions on how to fuck, and all sorts of advice on how to manage willful women.   The most absurd stuff – apart from all the magic – was the casual exchange of women, almost as a denomination of currency.  Of course, the objectification and devaluation of women in the Old Testament is widely acknowledged, even among many conservative Christians.  Usually, they use the topic as a springboard to discuss the New Testament’s “grace” and “salvation,” whatever that is.

Whatever.  It’s still there, it’s still vile, and it’s still the inspiration for immeasurable human misery over the past two millennia.  There’s a reason the Council of Nicaea, or King James, or the Holy See, or anyone else hasn’t edited out that shit: They believe it.  They accept it as the revealed Word of God.  Pointing out misogyny in the Bible is to religious scholarship like T-Ball is to Major League Baseball: Insultingly easy.

Far more difficult, of course, is the converse: Identifying Old Testament stories that celebrate female independence and agency.  I’m familiar enough with the first five books of the Old Testament to know looking there would be a fool’s errand.  Since I’m not afflicted with the intellectual masochism necessary to read the entire awful, jumbled anthology of myths, I decided to focus my efforts on the first book of the Bible titled after a member of the fairer sex: Ruth.

Truth be told, the most attractive aspect of the Book of Ruth is its brevity.  The entire text can comfortably be read over the course of a lunch break, or during a protracted, leisurely bowel movement.  There is no God Magic, a bare minimum of Who-Gives-A-Fuck genealogy, and absolutely zero genocides or attempts at genocide.  There are only a few deaths and just one instance of sexual assault (Canaanite Date Rape? You decide.)  The story reads like an uninspired, formulaic chick flick: women find themselves alone, support each other, form a deep friendship, and eventually help each other get laid.  I’m surprised the Lifetime Network hasn’t adapted Ruth as a mini-series.

Summary: Lady (Naomi) gets married, has two sons who grow up and get married.  Naomi’s husband and then her two sons die in short succession.  Naomi seems to inherit her dead sons’ wives, her daughters-in-law.  The book seems to imply that the two women are in some sort of status of indentured servitude to their mother-in-law.  Naomi decides her best bet is to return to her ancestral homeland in Judah, and she departs with the two young widows in tow.  Soon after, she decides to release them from their apparent obligation to her.  One splits soon thereafter, but the other, Ruth, wants to stay with her mother-in-law.  Naomi pleads with Ruth to abandon her:

Turn again, my daughters: why will ye go with me? Are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands?

So, we need to understand that one of the possible courses of action for the women was for the mother-in-law to get herself pregnant and give birth to two sons, who would presumably be betrothed to grow up and marry their dead brothers’ wives, who’d be at least 15 – 20 years older than them.  In comparison to the rest of the Old Testament, this is some heavy, RadFem thinking.  Where else can we find a woman independently offering sons as “payment” to fulfill an obligation to two other women?  Admittedly, Naomi doesn’t think the scheme is viable, given her old age, but it’s remarkable nonetheless.

Accepting the unlikelihood of Naomi’s ability to manufacture her a new husband, Ruth nevertheless opts to accompany her on her return to Judah.  Here, our story becomes more… involved.  Consider:

And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

Remove this passage from the context of the story.  Were we to erase the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law background, how would we characterize the speaker’s feelings towards her subject?

She’s in love.  Ruth 1.16-17 is a tender, unequivocal expression of one person’s lifelong commitment to another.  She will follow her anywhere.  She wants to start a new life with her.  She wants to become part of her family.  She will change the most fundamental aspects of her identity to become part of her life.  Ruth wants to be with Naomi for the rest of her life, and in death: Absolute, Eternal Commitment.

The sentiment hasn’t gone unnoticed.  Ruth 1.16-17 is a popular scriptural reading in Christian weddings.  Somewhat amusingly, this includes those between believers holding staunchly “traditional” (read: “bigoted”) positions in our “debate” over “same-sex marriage” (read: “marriage”).  The fact that this striking expression of undying love is expressed from Ruth to a much older woman is apparently lost on those whose politics would have Ruth and Naomi’s love remain invisible, denied, and sequestered on the fringes of society.

Our Traditional Marriage neighbors need not despair.  A mature, wealthy male capitalist soon enters the story.  Boaz is ostensibly a farmer, though he almost certainly hasn’t pulled a weed in his adult life.  In her characteristically submissive dedication to Naomi, Ruth volunteers to find work at one of the nearby farms.  She meets a group of women working on Boaz’s farm, and they let her work alongside them in return for a portion of the harvest.  Making his rounds, Boaz notices the young woman, and asks,

Whose damsel is this? And the servant that was set over the reapers answered and said, It is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab. And she said, I pray you, let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves: so she came, and hath continued even from the morning until now, that she tarried a little in the house.  

Ah, yes.  There’s that Good Ole’ Testament Misogyny: “Whose damsel is this?”  Ruth is a commodity.  It’s not difficult to imagine Boaz as a warehouse manager asking a foreman, “Where’d this extra forklift come from?”  Boaz is, after all, a successful businessman.  He’s a job creator.  He keeps track of his resources.  Boaz allows Ruth to stay at his farm and work with his servants.  She’s understandably grateful, but confused.  She doesn’t understand his compassion for her:

Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger? And Boaz answered and said unto her, It hath fully been shewed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother in law since the death of thine husband: and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore.

The relationship between Ruth and Naomi already makes the Book of Ruth plenty awkward for social conservatives.  Boaz certainly doesn’t make it any easier on them by using his personal wealth to promote socially responsible behavior.  Ruth made personal sacrifices to care for a “senior citizen.”  Boaz recognizes her sacrifice and effectively gives her a job on the condition that she continues to do so.  Furthermore, he’s actually thanking Ruth for immigrating to Judah.  Take a moment to fully digest that: A wealthy, prominent citizen is thanking an unemployed recent immigrant for coming to start a new life in his homeland.

Ruth recounts her fabulous day to Naomi, who’s delighted.  Boaz, it turns out, is one of her close relatives.  Even better, he’s unmarried.  Being the devoted in-law she is, Naomi gives Ruth detailed instructions on how to fuck Boaz while he’s drunk, seemingly obliging him to marry her.  In contrast with the rest of the Old Testament, all the relationships in this story thus far have been uncharacteristically consensual.  Carefully following Naomi’s instructions, Ruth waits until Boaz is good and sloppy drunk, then sneaks into the “threshing floor” where he’d passed out. 

And it came to pass at midnight, that the man was afraid, and turned himself: and, behold, a woman lay at his feet. And he said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman.  

If you interpreted “spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid” to mean “Fuck me now,” you got it right.  That does seem to be the consensus.  Shockingly, the old, rich, drunk man actually is willing to lay his impoverished young employee.  In a touching love scene, they fuck in a barn in the middle of the night.

The rest of the story consists of a dull and confusing real estate deal between Naomi and Boaz that’s somehow contingent upon his marriage to Ruth.  The only interesting aspect of the transaction is that we learn that Old Testament women – Naomi, in this case – are just as willing to use other women as a form of currency as are men.  An ad-hoc commission of village elders validates the transaction and the marriage, and Boaz and Ruth get hitched.  Ruth gives birth to – you called it! – a son less than a year later.  While we might assume that a rich dude like Boaz wouldn’t have any trouble arranging child-care for his young bride, such turns out to not be necessary.  In an act of civic generosity that has absolutely nothing to do with wanting to remain an indispensable part of Ruth’s life, Naomi volunteers to be the nurse to Ruth’s son.  Everybody seems fine with this arrangement.  Boaz scores a hot, loyal young wife that’s somewhat out of his league, Ruth has a son and lives out her life in comfort with the constant, devoted companionship of her… dead first husband’s mother?  Right.  That’s the story, and they’re sticking to it.

Acknowledgements:

The Skeptics Annotated Bible, annotated by Steve Wells, is an absolutely invaluable resource for anyone at all interested in understanding the Good Book past the various party lines.  You can buy it on Amazon or access it online at http://skepticsannotatedbible.com.  I used it as my primary biblical reference in writing this post.

Adrian Fort is a good dude.  I appreciate his invitation to write this guest post.  If you’re reading this, you know he writes about humanism, secularism, reason, and other worthwhile stuff at The Secular Superhumanist.  You should also follow him on Twitter at @AdrianAnyway.

All images are understood to be in the public domain.  If that’s not the case, please contact me at humanist.aggressor@gmail.com, and I’ll remove them promptly.

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United Under Art

To Those About to Live, We Salute You

One of the problems I had while my faith was fading is that I've always had issues with depression. And if there was no forever, no galactic memory card, no ultimate score board, I was, quite frankly, afraid I would lose all hope and drive to do better. What point could there be in a finite playground? And after watching Christian/Atheist debates, I've come to understand that however shortsighted that feeling was, it was not uncommon. In fact it was a founding principal in at least one of the monotheisms. Isn't that the precise thrust behind Matthew 6:34, "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself"?

Fortunately this is a faulty paradigm.

Often times it seems the message of atheists, especially online, is overtly aggressive and/or sarcastic. This is to combat the extreme-conservatism of religious strongholds, not to convert the idling near-free-thinkers. I often wonder if I, the oft-contrarian that I am, would have realized my own atheism had I only been exposed to this intellectual climate.

Instead of an online community (or onslaught,) I was fortunate enough  to have found the place where dialogue happens between the standpoints. From there, I turned in. Undoubtedly this is why the internet is dubbed in pop-culture as the place where religions go to die. And their end will, hopefully, be as final as our own.

When the individual turns inward, reflection is inevitable. Upon further reflection, I realized that though this life may be fleeting and capricious, there is value in it. In fact, it is because of the impermanence of our experience that these moments must be lived fully. And not only must they be pursued, captured, and engulfed with purpose, but on purpose. This is living.

This is the tender triumph which is often lost in the Pro v. Anti argument. But it is not something which the converted atheist will ever purposely devalue.

And so; to those about to live, we salute you.

ADRIAN FORT is a writer, blogger, and essayist from Kansas City, Missouri. Follow him on twitter @adriananyway. His work has appeared in Existere, decomP magazinE, The Bluest Aye, Bareback Magazine, Gadfly Online, Chrome Baby, The Eunoia Review, Linguistic Erosion, and Smashed Cat Magazine. His Master's Degree is from Lindenwood University. 


Also By The Secular Superhumanist: 
Coming Out
Humanist, All Too Humanist
Hitchens-Jefferson Day An Atheist/Humanist Holiday
Gay Marriage, God Willing

Humanist, All Too Humanist

We're branded. Worse than just labeled, we're branded. This is, people don't know who we are when we say we are atheist- they know what we think and what we'll say and where we've been. That's how branding works. They probably even know which Christopher Hitchens videos we have favorited on Youtube.

Unfortunately, as is often the case with unpopular beliefs, our branders are not ourselves. We have been branded by the majority, by theists and believers; we have been branded by those who have no idea how we wonder at the universe, let alone that we wonder at all. And so, we are considered empty. We are viewed as loveless and prideful. We are seen as selfish and without imagination.

I fear we are to blame.

We've made this too easy for them to do. After all, we are atheists. Our label itself infers a "non." A non belief in god. We're making a non claim.

So why not take it a step further?

We do not believe in god. This leaves one real option for us. We believe in people. Every breakthrough our species has made has been through the power of one. We know that.

We are humanists.

It is through the power, prescience, and propensity of the individual that our species has been able to commandeer and cull an entire planet. That there is, at least, one corner of all reality which is governed and sustained by an erect, bipedal mammal is a stunning fact. And it is a fact because of the power of the individual.

Not only is it important to accept the label of humanist because it's time, but also because of the difficulty the opposition will have in speaking down the term "humanist." And the moment of hesitation that it will take for them to mock the term "humanist," a term which exploits the integrity and autonomy in each of us, may be all that it takes to force them into questioning their own label as well.

Questioning beliefs is when answers start changing.

And changing our very label jolts the starting position of our interactions and conversations from, "why don't you do believe?" to "how could people have done all of this on their own?" That difference alone may provide the vantage point necessary to instill some doubt. And that's before the dialogue really begins.

The point is we need to force change for the world we live in, not simply create tolerance for our beliefs.

If we embrace the responsibility of a positive claim instead of running from it going forward, we can surely find some islands of common ground.

 From there we stress the importance of science and children who read voraciously. These values, when stated seriously, are extremely difficult to dispute. They are also values that the theist position has not treated as premier in the past.

But so long as the majority debits the prestige of our species to some meddling teller in the sky, we cannot agree on the value of this life.

The value of this life is incalculable.

This is what it means to be humanist.



Also, don't forget to get your shopping in for Hitchens-Jefferson Day.

ADRIAN FORT is a writer, blogger, and essayist from Kansas City, Missouri. Follow him on twitter @adriananyway. His work has appeared in Existere, decomP magazinE, The Bluest Aye, Bareback Magazine, Gadfly Online, Chrome Baby, The Eunoia Review, Linguistic Erosion, and Smashed Cat Magazine. His Master's Degree is from Lindenwood University. 

Hitchens-Jefferson Day, An Atheist Holiday

I think you'll agree that one of the most naggingly frustrating things about being atheist (besides the "where do you get your  morals form" nonsense) is that we're always celebrating other people's (read:Christian/Pagan) holidays. It's like having 364 friends, and no one ever gets around to celebrating your birthday.

Sure, I can kill a Reeses' Easter egg like few others, and I know all the words to "Baby it's Cold Outside" and it takes me a full 31 days to talk myself out of dressing up as a Naughty Nurse every October, but working retail for over a decade has never let me forget what all those holidays are really about: Margin.

And what they certainly are not about: Free Thought.

So, why not have an atheist holiday to propagate that? My suggestion is that we dub 13 April as Hitchens-Jefferson Day. It is, of course, the day that both of these Free Thought icons (is that oxymoronic?) were born. Instead of mulling the change of Christmas to Newton Day among ourselves and friends, in a Yankee-Doodle type of protest, I suggest this date for more than the one reason, First, making our claim on a previous holiday is a combative answer when we should be aiming at peace for this move. Second, Spring is the season of birth. Of beginnings. Third, Easter is wishy-washy with it's date. We'll set our claim and let them work around us.

Of course, drug stores across the nation will be in no hurry to clear 100 square feet from their Easter Aisle to sell the Jefferson Bible or "Letters to a Young Contrarian," and while it would make a good deal of symbolic sense for tobacco to factor largely into celebrations, perhaps we should shy away from that.

So, I propose, we shift our concentration and efforts of the glamorous aisles of Wal-Mart and take them deep into the dark recesses of your local book store.

Yeah, I'm suggest we continue the act of gift giving. Sue me. What could possibly be more fitting for a Free Thought holiday than an exchange of books? Book s represent the most complete single thoughts  that our species is capable of producing.

There are two "Also's" which make a more compelling case to perpetuate this behavior.

Also #1: A massive and diverse book exchange will directly assail the practice of certain individuals who claim to only need "One Book."

Also #2: The publishing industry is far from healthy. There will always be Bibles and Korans and Torahs published. Always. It's sort of on us as a community to guarantee that authors not named god stay in print too.

One last thing, instead of "Merry Christmas," or "Thoughtful Hitchens-Jefferson Day" or even "Here, read a fucking book," maybe each Hitchens-Jefferson Day gift should come with the phrase, "I'm an atheist and a free thinker."

Corny? Sure. But think how corny "Merry Christmas" really sounds. Yet it gets uttered billions of times per year. And the effect is that it normalizes the idea of Christianity. It is a type of branding for Christians which conjures thoughts of family gatherings and Christmas trees and gifts.

If we do our work, "I'm an atheist and a free thinker" will conjure thoughts of books instead of, well, whatever it is that the phrase conjures now.

Anyhow, here are the books I bought and the thought process behind each of them.

For a fellow atheist. A delectable morsel of Hitchens. It is readable, quotable, and off the beaten Hitchpath (God is not Great, Letters to a Young Contrarian, Thomas Jefferson: Author of America)

For a fellow reader who has dabbled in Palahniuk. The book is far from flawless, as many of the characters are indistinguishable, but the scope and ambition of the project should classify it as required reading.

For a friend who is aiming at becoming a stronger reader. Sure, he probably won't get the full depth of Hemingway at first read, who does? But Hemingway is exceedingly smooth to read, and upon returning to Hemingway, you always notice more.

A bit of a different look than the other books, but the giftee in question has quite a bit of reading to do for school already. One of her interests is fitness, so this book should get some use even while she is doing her imposing readings for school.

Don't question the worth of comics. This is for a local film-maker who is looking at making an adaptation of Hamlet. Therefore I believe this is going to be a helpful tool for him when entering the visualization portion of production. 

ADRIAN FORT is a writer, blogger, and essayist from Kansas City, Missouri. Follow him on twitter @adriananyway. His work has appeared in Existere, decomP magazinE, The Bluest Aye, Bareback Magazine, Gadfly Online, Chrome Baby, The Eunoia Review, Linguistic Erosion, and Smashed Cat Magazine. His Master's Degree is from Lindenwood University. 

Gay Marriage, God Willing

Even so recent as ten years ago, the gay marriage debate was not nearly so prevalent in the public sphere, let alone was it gaining success. At the time, one of the arguments used against the "gay lifestyle" by bigots with enough tact to try to avoid citing god was that "they" are so promiscuous. The gays, you know, they just sleep with every one. AIDS, it serves them right, no?

In the wake of the gay marriage tidal wave, this argument of promiscuity evaporated. Poof. And the bigots all lost their tact. Poof. After all, if the gays can be proud, why can't the Christians? (Besides the whole persecution-complex, that is.) So they are proud, and they argue strictly from their religious texts for the same type of society that Islamic states have. 

Care to dispute that? Here is my challenge to anyone arguing against gay marriage: You must answer the following question, "Why not?" The moment you mention a god that those whose rights are in question may or may not believe in, and that they are in no obligation to respect, your argument is dismissed. 

There will be no argument. None. Nothing. 

So let's play their game for a bit. Pretend there's a sky-daddy to throw curveballs into the design that he himself created. Because of this concession, we'll go ahead and pretend that homosexuality is unnatural (a claim for which there is [like the sky-daddy claim] no evidence.) Further, in this world, the act of homosexuality is sinful. Sounds like a pretty compelling case against gay marriage, yeah? Don't suppose we could shoot that down...

Free will.

Done. Argument won. Otherwise the act of murder is less egregious to Christians than two men marrying. 

But, the argument can be made, that murder is against the law. So how can I say that?

Because the state (a secular institution, mind you) is not required to authorize the legitimacy of a murder. The question of murder is proven as a matter of fact, or it is not. 

Under god's design (plot hole?) of free will, the Christian who tampers with an individual's ability to sin without victim is, simply, doing it wrong. 

So we are left where we started-- with the naked act of bigotry. 

I just hope they are sure not to lay with each other while naked-bigoting. It would be an abomination to see them getting their irony all over one another.


ADRIAN FORT is a writer, blogger, and essayist from Kansas City, Missouri. Follow him on twitter @adriananyway. His work has appeared in Existere, decomP magazinE, The Bluest Aye, Bareback Magazine, Gadfly Online, Chrome Baby, The Eunoia Review, Linguistic Erosion, and Smashed Cat Magazine. His Master's Degree is from Lindenwood University. 

The Future of Barbarism

There is a growing conversation between non-believers and the moderates of the religious world, predominantly in the interest of self-preservation in the age of mutually assured destruction, and this conversation circles around the future of religion and how to ensure that the future is less, perhaps, abrasive. In my estimation there are two conditions to this argument which, if you'll allow the phrase, murder this argument in the street of public discourse.

The first is the assumption by the religious that their chosen text is, in fact, infallible. So long as this is the assumption, there can be no common ground. Even for moderates. This is where the word "tolerance" gets its power as a tool of the moderate cause, when its utterance should be abhorred. For example, one shining sliver of the Decalogue proclaims that, "Thou shalt not have no other gods before me". Buried in this proclamation are three assumptions; 1. Thou shalt be Jew/Christian/Muslim, and if not, thou art lesser. 2. Thou shalt, in fact, have a god. If not, thou art not (art'nt?) lesser, thou art essentially non-existent. And 3. If thou havest other gods, it's totally cool, just knowest where thou's bread art buttered. Now, because of the infallibility of this commandment, the religious may be able to "tolerate"people with other beliefs, but they can never accept them. No matter how urgently they are compelled (read:forced) to love their neighbor.

So, because the religious person is the owner of the ultimate truth, what good is a secular argument that comes from a fallible and faulted soul? Due to this, at any point of deep-rooted departure, any true schism between what is reasonable and what is religious, the holyman can simply shrug his shoulders and tap his book, thus claiming authority. Ultimate authority.

The problem of infallibility leads directly into the second issue with any true type of progressivism-- and this is a problem rooted within the literature itself--  these books were written by men who didn't know better. This is an admission which must be made regardless of whether one believes the authors' hands were divinely driven or no. No page of the Bible mentions DNA. The Torah clearly avoids germ theory. I'll not mention the Koran's take on the women's movement. Sure, this may seem like a trivial charge. But imagine looking no further than Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" when trying to debate race relations. What's the problem? The human genome has been sequenced, fully putting to rest any hope for a claim of superiority springing from the tint of one's flesh. It's bullshit.

In this vein, the very nomenclature of religious texts is impregnated with assumptions, biases, and claims from ignorance which are no longer of any appreciable value to any society. Let alone a first world nation. Don't give credence to the retarding effects of a simple set of subtle language-based assumptions? Note the importance of female virginity peppered throughout the Bible and contemplate that in regard to the dichotomy, observable in contemporary popular culture, between male sexuality and female sexuality.

Because of these two hinges of the religious world-view, I fear it may be a fair claim to say that the religious future, and the future of religions, will be prone to relapses into their barbaric past much more so than open to progressing into a world where they are not necessary to a cohesive world view.

That is, we are more likely to get more events reminiscent of Charlie Hebdo and 9/11 while struggling towards tolerance than we are to enjoy peace and acceptance.

ADRIAN FORT is a writer, blogger, and essayist from Kansas City, Missouri. Follow him on twitter @adriananyway. His work has appeared in Existere, decomP magazinE, The Bluest Aye, Bareback Magazine, Gadfly Online, Chrome Baby, The Eunoia Review, Linguistic Erosion, and Smashed Cat Magazine. His Master's Degree is from Lindenwood University. 

United under Art

Often, what happens when the newest video from ISIS pops up, is a simple thing. We see acts of brutality committed by half-wits and full-of-shits and we are able to judge them for their actions. This includes feeling sympathy for the victims, vindication that our own beliefs don't lead us to barbarous acts, and anger that these events continue to occur and ISIS has found a vein on the internet which allows them to enjoy a Kardashian-like popularity (though they send fewer obvious ripples through the fashion industry.) But these emotions are normally brief before we return to the lives that we have chosen to live.

But one of the more recent ISIS videos caused me more pause than a routine beheading. And instead of pass judgment on cretins for being cretins, I was forced to judge myself for not reacting how I thought a proper humanist should react. Why had this video caused revile in a way that someone losing their life had ceased to do?

The video showed men acting, with the sort of aggression that can only come as a result of sexual non-to-do, by taking sledgehammers to ancient statues. I was offended at a depth that one of their videos (videos of senseless murder) had not offended me since, well, I can't remember when. These goons were destroying art.

Even the fucking Nazis collected art.

But, perhaps, therein lies the rub. For as truly disgusting as the Nazis actions were, their motivations were forward. They had goals. Ridiculous goals, sure, but even they were working towards something.

I guess so long as the thugs with ISIS were forcing people to praise allah before executing them, I allowed myself the convenience of imagining that their motivation was world domination in the name of a child rapist.

Like a bad episode of G.I. Joe.

But it seems they truly have no endgame. Even a child crying in the night has a purpose, even if that purpose is simply to gain attention. But these acts are sub-toddler in their nature. One is tempted to say sub-human, but their justification of "god" is far too human. It seems ISIS is simply acting with no drive, goals or motivation except for the destruction of everything humankind has heretofore constructed.

Do not confuse this for Nihilism, which often gets its point muted when shouted in accusatory tones by someone with a pop-culture education (see: "its just a theory.) Said Russian Nihilist Dmitri Pisarev of the philosophy, "Here is the ultimatum of our camp- What can be smashed must be smashed, whatever will withstand the blow is sound. What flies into smithereens is rubbish. At any rate, hit out right and hit out left, no harm will or can come of it."

Sure, this sounds right after watching the video of these buffoons, no? But Nihilism is a philosophy, and the "blow" to be sustained is philosophizing. Not sledgehammering. In this way, ISIS acts less under the banner of Nihilism and more under the banner of Annihilationism. Which may be where the initial rebuke comes from when watching that video. It is sad when someone loses their life. But art is symbolic of civilization itself, for and under which every Homo sapien sapien has the duty to protect and the right to live. So when these things are destroyed in such mindless acts, it is an attack on everyone who has ever lived.

Also, the ISIS stooges have put their precious, third-hand, mostly plagiarized, babble-book in a hermetic box before the job of delivering the blow was executed. Hence, there are no blow jobs in Islam. And any ideology which is not subject to or accepting of the proposition of blow jobs, is an ideology which I clearly wish to be free from.

Those ideologies tend to leave their followers with more daily frustrations than I'm willing to deal with.



ADRIAN FORT is a writer, blogger, and essayist from Kansas City, Missouri. Follow him on twitter @adriananyway. His work has appeared in Existere, decomP magazinE, The Bluest Aye, Bareback Magazine, Gadfly Online, Chrome Baby, The Eunoia Review, Linguistic Erosion, and Smashed Cat Magazine. His Master's Degree is from Lindenwood University.

The Walking Un-theist

One thing that strikes me, and did even when I was a Christian, is just how little god happens. How seldom does the supernatural sit upon our shoulder? He is a distracted god if you sit and listen to the vast majority  of conversations which happen in the course of daily happenstance. Part of this is the banality of the any-moments which we have a habit of stringing together. Is the divine, the creator of all things, the beginning and the end of totality, really there when I'm brushing my teeth? And did that cavity happen despite Jesus, or because of him? You know, it's no wonder my wisdom-teeth were such trouble, they weren't faith-teeth. (I'll leave the "faith has no teeth" arguments for you to make or dispute.)

But you don't have to be a voyeur or a dentist to take notes on the secular tilt to actual popular society. Just turn on the radio. Take thirty minutes to tally the number of sins or sinful things you hear wailed across your favorite FM station. How many Honda Civics full of seventeen year old girls are barreling down the highway at this very moment "singing" right along? And how many guardian angels are there too?

In short, we operate as if there were presently no lord-savior-ghost in an overwhelming number of instances. During these times, the Christian, the Muslim, the Jew, the Jain, the Buddhist, the Hindu, and the Sikh alike are not atheist, but neither are they theist. During these moments of mundane, we are all un-theist. And for the religious, whose god is ever present, this must be accounted for. But it is not.

And that is what makes it so maddening when and why god does get the credit.

They are the extreme cases, not the regular cases, for which god gets the worm. The times people are emotional and that they will remember later. No one worth talking to thanks god that they got to the bottom of the cup while the coffee was still warm.

There's an old lesson you probably remember from your high school psychology class about dog torture. You put a dog in a cage, or maybe someone else does it, that bit doesn't matter much. Then, every so often, you play a little bit of terrible music. Also, you course some electricity through the floor of the cage. The dog, yeah? She'll yelp and hop around, she'll dance until the combination of pain and exhaustion is simply too much and she collapses. Eventually when she hears the music, she'll just lay down and take it. There is, after all, nothing she can do. Then you divide the cage in two. One half electrified, the other half shock-free. And when you play the music, Spot will lay prone until the terrible music dies. There is, after all, nothing she thinks she can do. This is called learned helplessness. She has apparently become numb even to the electricity which was the initial cause of her distress.

This is why, during tumult or joy, we evoke religion. We feel either that there is nothing we can do, or that there is nothing we have done, to deserve the high or low which is happening. We simply lay down and take it, knowing that the status quo will return.

But is that any way to navigate your sole existence? Is it really the banal which we wish to debit to reality while we credit the meat of the worldly experience to something otherworldly?

Get up, walk around, enjoy life. The terrible music is dead.


ADRIAN FORT is a writer, blogger, and essayist from Kansas City, Missouri. Follow him on twitter @adriananyway. His work has appeared in Existere, decomP magazinE, The Bluest Aye, Bareback Magazine, Gadfly Online, Chrome Baby, The Eunoia Review, Linguistic Erosion, and Smashed Cat Magazine. His Master's Degree is from Lindenwood University.

Spider-Man, the Sexist Pig

Some time late last night Marvel Studios regained cinematic access to one of the three most popular comic-book characters of all time. They moved swiftly to employ him into their plans, plans which already included movies that fit Spider-Man both thematically and as timelines/story lines which are true to the comics. There was also nary a fan who didn't clamor for the Webslinger to be included in the fold at Marvel. Because Marvel is moving immediately with Spider-Man, the Thor, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and Inhumans movies were bumped a bit later in the timeline. In short, almost everyone was elated.

I barely need to tell you what happened next.

If you've ever been on twitter, or tumblr, or reddit, or any of a number of other time wasting sites, you know that this clearly means-

SPIDER-MAN IS A SEXIST AND A RACIST, BUT MAINLY A SEXIST!!!!!

This is the latest "feminist" rallying cry from people who don't understand what feminism really is. Captain Marvel, for those who don't know, is a woman. And Black Panther is a Black man.

I pointed out to several of these "intellectuals" that Spider-Man's popularity is unparalleled in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I was promptly told that my gender afforded me little or no opinion on the matter.

Upset that my gender was addressed and not my argument, I point out that this is actually a sexist take.

Pop Quiz, what happens when you point out obvious sexist tropes in a "feminist" argument?

You get accused of "playing the reverse-sexist card." This is a statement which means less than nothing. First, "reverse-sexism" insinuates that the mechanism which necessitates the sexist act is inherently masculine. This is an obvious self-defeating argument, if it is an argument at all. Second, and perhaps more contemptible, is the fact that "playing the X card" is a cliche. And a bad one. But matters of taste aside, dismissing/denying someone's opinion/argument based on gender is sexist. Guess what happens if you point that out?

Well, I was talked down to, called uneducated, and told that I should "get a liberal arts education." I don't think I need to relay the shame that my Associates in Arts, my Bachelor's in English Literature, and my Master's in Creative Writing  felt that I had let them down so forthrightly.

Now, apparently, I've been added to some type of internet list which was clearly so important that it warranted capital letters. Which I must say is truly terrifying as I have never been to the website. The worst part of these types of exchanges is that the troglodytes remain completely oblivious that they are instituting the same type of ignorant and boorish behavior that they claim to be combating.

Besides, the Thor movie was pushed back as well. Did these social justice warriors bash Marvel for being Norse-ist? The Inhumans movie was delayed as well, clearly this means that Marvel is Inhumanist. But the inclusiveness of those arguments does not match the internet "feminists" M.O.

Also, Batman will be rebooted in the D.C. Cinematic Universe and appear either concurrently or slightly before (he does already share a title card...) Wonder Woman, and a probably Black character in Green Lantern. Does this draw cyber-"feminist" ire? No, the information is too nuanced.

Though I do have testicles, I dare say that true feminists would be disgusted with such disorganized, malformed garble, and especially that it was shot-gunned into the public sphere under the banner which they labored to erect. In fact, perhaps the true argument here is that these characters should get their films when the characters and their directions fit thematically, and not in order to meet some imaginary quota. As that type of shoehorning is both degrading and self-congratulatory in a white-man's-burden sort of way, no?

But perhaps my testosterone is effecting my thinking as I have been doing extra pushups and drinking more beers and catcalling at an inordinate rate recently.

It is that type of situation that makes me claim humanism rather than feminism. What was once known as feminism has been hijacked by individuals who are careless with their words, unfocused with their anger, and simply unskilled in the art of criticism.

The self-congratulatory nature of these "feminists" is a far cry from the mettle of intellectual warriors that sparked a revolution.

When individuals enter the arena of public discourse with an "education" that outweighs their critical thinking skills and observational faculties the argument can only suffer.


ADRIAN FORT is a writer, blogger, and essayist from Kansas City, Missouri. Follow him on twitter @adriananyway. His work has appeared in Existere, decomP magazinE, The Bluest Aye, Bareback Magazine, Gadfly Online, Chrome Baby, The Eunoia Review, Linguistic Erosion, and Smashed Cat Magazine. His Master's Degree is from Lindenwood University.