June 2011

Where Did All This F*cking Evil Sh%t Come From?

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom…

También en español It is undeniable that there is often a lot of pain and suffering in a human lifetime. While individual experiences vary widely, over the course of a lifetime most people will experience instances when they are confronted with the reality of an apparently genuine evil. And this inevitably starts the discussion, “Why me? What did I do to deserve this? If God loves me, why is he doing this to me? How can we love a God that would let something like this happen to anybody (not just me)? I refuse to accept the religious proposition that there is a God because I see only evidence of universal randomness, filled with constant strife between good and evil partisans! And even if there were one single personal God of the universe, he’d be way too busy to pay attention to the crap going on down here.”

But there are fundamental assumptions in this line of questioning that often go unappreciated. First and foremost are the implied assumptions about the nature of God. If one assumes that the God referenced is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent throughout time and space, then why isn’t the universe perfect? Surely a universe under the total control of a God of Love would never tolerate the amount of human misery and grief that surrounds us on all sides. Therefore, since the observed world does not match my prediction of what the world would be like if there were an omni-cube God, either such a God does not exist or my predictive method about what the world should be like is wrong. Sounds bad for my predictive methods—what man dare attempt to compass the purpose of God? Well, men have minds that, if you are God-oriented, are surely gifts of God. And my mind tells me that simplistic faith contrary to reason is most definitely NOT what any God I could personally respect would ever require of me. Therefore, if I believe the workings in my mind are True, I must perforce reject the concept of the omni-cube God. There simply is no such deity active anywhere I’ve been in the universe because his existence is refuted by the reality of my own experience.

And from this line of reasoning flows the faith of many devout atheists. It’s not so much that they reject the general idea of some sort of Supreme Being, but they can’t figure out what it would be good for because it doesn’t seem to even try to put things right in the world around us. If it’s out there, we obviously mean nothing more to it than an ant does to the automobile that ran over it in the road. Let’s try looking at this situation from a very different and more hopeful viewpoint.

Suppose that the universe is destined to be a perfect place of light and life—a universe of continuous unbridled joy in loving service, living truth, doing good, and making beauty. By our actions, our relationships, we are building small parts of this great universe of constructed perfection. But the perfect universe is not here today. Only portions are in evidence—the areas where love predominates over the primal emptiness of original space-time—where evil is merely the region into which love has yet to penetrate. Evil is not itself a reality. Rather, it is the absence of meaningful reality.

So evil is not something inflicted on us by an angry God, who abandons us to the vacuum of space-time devoid of Love. Rather, evil is the state of being where there is a weakened or nonexistent presence of Love. Since we are the creatures in the universe who are equipped with the ability to sense the presence or absence of Love, and with the tools of Truth guided reason that enable our will to effectively direct our loving actions, it is necessarily our responsibility to fill the gaps in finite reality where Love does not adequately penetrate.

The response of the finite universe to the force of destiny, the necessity of evolution towards a perfect state of light and life, requires the participation of many beings working together and dedicated to the ideals of Love, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

If you see evil in the world and have sufficient resources of Love, you can make the repair yourself. Our planet seems to have been shortchanged on loving service in the past, so we have a lot of gaps in our Love coverage. Many of these will require the cooperation of many people of goodwill, even entire communities and nations, to bridge vast gaps of lost communication and long misunderstanding.

So let’s get with it. Is there evil in the world? Then let’s work together in Unity to Love it out of existence. It’s our job to do this and this is how destiny is realized. Fear not to act. With Love and Truth you can only do Good and make Beauty.

—Dan Massey

 

in Cosmic Citizenship / Library / Transhuman Erotic Freedom  by 28 Jun 2011 3 comments

#NNLGBT Photos & Videos

Tomorrow we are turning our Netroots Nation LGBT caucus (#NNLGBT) into another strategy session that will build on our work yesterday, Wednesday’s LGBT pre-convention. But tonight (it’s late but still Thursday here in the Twin Cities), a special shout-out and gratitude to Carlos in DC for these great photos and videos from Wednesday. Enjoy.

http://carlosqc.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/the-2011-netroots-nation-lgbt-netroots-connect-pre-conference-videos-photos/

So tired tonight, that’s all. Tomorrow, Friday, we will catch up reporting news, thoughts, impressions, and maybe some inspiration too.

–Alison

 

in Events  by 16 Jun 2011 0 comments

Reporting Live from Netroots Nation 2011

Dan and I are lucky to be attending Netroots Nation 2011 (#NN11) this week, especially the LGBT pre-convention all day today, organized by the illustrious Mike Rogers. NN11 is the in its sixth year and has grown geometrically to the several thousand bloggers and citizen journalists converging on the Minneapolis Convention Center right now. The LGBT pre-convention is fabulous so far because it is entirely hands-on and focused on affecting change. We will try to post transcripts and videos that have been promised.

This morning, the 100+ LGBT bloggers and organizations/organizers worked as a group to raise the on-the-ground issues that most concerned us, how they were being covered, and what support is needed. This session was exhaustive, exhausting, and exhilirating all at the same time, and this spirit continued throughout the day.

Next we brainstormed strategies in small groups to end gaps in the LGBT movement and answering how we can engage more effectively across generations, race/ethnicity, faith/non-faith, and, overall, how we can ensure that the LGBT blogosphere is strong and well-funded.

This afternoon, we broke into two very informative groups. One was about utilizing blogging, social media, and online activism to effect change and offered a future where LGBT organizations would offer breaking news as an exclusive; sponsor fellowships to reliable bloggers; and, as a group establish an endowment or permanent fund to be used to support bloggers financially (for example, sponsoring travel to events). This was prefaced by a brief presentation by Eden James on behalf of change.org which has resources for individuals/bloggers to carry out successful campaigns. Check out change.org, an amazing resource for bloggers/activists as recently shown when truthwinsout.org collaborated with change.org to successfully petition Apple and get them to drop an app for reparative therapy on the grounds that it is an entirely discredited practice to “cure” the gay.

Next up was a rather heart-wrenching panel of young immigrants, most of whom have come out as LGBT and come out as undocumented, whose personal stories disclose the important intersections and overlap of both struggles, namely the DREAM Act and the Uniting American Families Act.

We wrapped up with a fishbowl panel (audience participants rotating in to make a point or ask a question) answering, “How can (same-sex) marriage strategically help us get closer to full federal equality?” And, “What other equality opportunities does (same-sex) marriage open up to us?” Is this the galvanizing issue because “that’s where the money is?” Does this disenfranchise others with more life-and-death issues they care about such as LGBT homeless youth? Transgender equality? Immigration equality? Won’t marriage equality become a chief pillar for diminishing discrimination overall? What do you think?

At the end of the program we joined with a parallel pre-convention, Labor Netroots Connect, meant to strengthen the existing alliance between Labor and LGBT rights, over cocktails.

When it comes to economic and social justice, it was made clear yet again that all of the issues discussed today are connected. Until there is true pluralism, full personal sovereignty for each person, we have to continue fighting them together on all fronts.

Last, we are especially happy to welcome this week Jos Truitt of feministing.com, who plans to cross-post her impressions and ideas here throughout the week. Thank you, Jos!

VenusPlusX helped sponsor today’s event, along with National Center for Lesbian Rights, Human Rights Campaign, Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network, National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, Victory Fund, Servicemembers United, AlterNet, The Raw Story, Gill Foundation, Freedom to Marry, Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, and Evelyn & Walter Haas Fund, providing dozens of scholarships to deserving young bloggers.

Tomorrow the rest of Netroots Nation programs begin and we will continue to report out items of interest.

— Alison

P.S. We brought along beautiful commemorative posters for Netroots. If you’d like to receive one by mail, just send your snail mail address to columbia@venusplusx.org.

 

in Events  by 15 Jun 2011 1 comments

A DC Pride Photo

Soaking in DC Pride, my thoughts drift in several directions.

 

 

 

 

 

The first is topical, these pictures were snapped on P Street, just hours before the Parade kicked off, at the chain store, Lululemon Athletica. When asked, the store clerk said that this was just something they cooked up, not a chain-wide campaign. The whimsy, frivolity, and good nature of this window display was backed by a few employees minding the store with the courage to put their mannequins where their hearts were.

It was great seeing all the young people, many of them straight suburban kids, pour out like syrup from the Metro stations. They come to see perhaps a spectacle but more than that they are following inner wonderings about their own sexuality and they have come not only to check out others but also to check out themselves.

Second, I have dwelled on the remarkable fact this year that the LGBT community-at-large is now raising more money for HIV/AIDS prevention than anyone else, as Rick Rosendall said in his column this week in Metro Weekly, meaning “women and children with HIV will live thanks to those who were once ostracized.” That is a maturity and benchmark for this movement to be proud of.

Last, the gaiety prompts me to again be dumbstruck how a community that is all about love so often itself is the scene where mutual support and success is often sabotaged by personal grudges socked away in the minds of people, sometimes for years. This is always bad, retarding our progress by dismissing out of hand new ideas, initiatives, and people as they join in our struggle. We’ve got to stop doing—not just because it is counterproductive but because it is so small-minded and mean-spirited and should have no quarter in what we are all about. The LGBT movement rather should be a model for others displaying unified action, without requiring uniformity, among its constituency. Get people to say, “Wow, look at how they all get along and treat each other so respectfully. I want to be a part of that.”

Gladly there are signs that this distemper is being weeded out so that growth is steadier, stronger, and more long lasting. For example, it has been a miracle to witness how Maryland trans folk are rising up from the ashes of the failed legislative session and their historic disagreements on approach. The Maryland legislators said no to gay marriage and no to gender identity and expression protections, but gender activists are joining hands in a new spirit of cooperation, putting aside petty competitiveness and time-worn grudges, to win these important battles this year because it is really a grossly overdue matter of life and death.

Nowhere is this more evident than the leadership of a new organization called Gender Rights Maryland, which plans to work non-stop as advocates and lobbyists to first educate and then win the hearts and minds of the state legislators. In May, Maryland Governor O’Malley voiced support for gender identity non-discrimination legislation, and Gender Rights Maryland is going to make him stick to it.

It’s a new day and a new dawn. Happy DC Pride 2011.

—Alison Gardner

Editor’s Note: While not Maryland residents ourselves, Dan Massey and I have been asked to help by joining the Gender Rights Maryland Policy Advisory Board, further deepening our own commitment to these issues, both in Maryland and nationwide.

 

 

in Events  by 12 Jun 2011 0 comments

The Philosophy of Burning Books—Calling It Like It Is

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Last week a truly amazing story of academic support for persecution of LGBT youth by “professional mental health researchers” came to light through the diligent work of Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin and Anderson Cooper of CNN. Briefly, both deal with investigations into the academic and professional life of George Rekers, an ordained minister of the Southern Baptist Convention, arguably the most homophobic of all Protestant cults, as well as the largest. Rekers was a graduate student in clinical psychology at UCLA under Richard Green and Ivar Lovaas, who were responsible for the review and acceptance of his research papers, when the story begins of the tragedy they created to satisfy their lust for academic and financial advancement.

Rekers, with the support of Lovaas and Green, published knowingly false research reports on the case of a child, “Kraig,” who was placed in their care by two very gullible parents. Their own neurotic reactions to their effeminate son resonated with a chord of sociopathy present in UCLA clinical psychology at the time, which was following a path of child development through bullying and deprivation of empathy that had been pioneered by the famous poseur B. F. Skinner, of Harvard. For decades the lies these men wrote, swore to, and promulgated dominated major branches of American psychology and psychiatry.

Over a year ago, thanks to Truth Wins Out and the Florida LGBT press, the fact came out that, in spite of his very public homophobic image, Rekers was actually a closeted homosexual. This was big news in the LGBT press and led to his resignation from the boards of homophobic charities and organizations he had helped lead for so long. This also drew attention to his lifelong history of academic and religious publishing, which has now been proven to be based on deliberate falsification of research results, apparently with the support of his supervisor (Lovaas) and department head (Green) since both were deeply involved themselves in the pseudo-scientific study of effeminate behavior in young boys.

Sorry. Don’t know artist or source.

The work of this blind and bigoted trio has influenced generations of students of childhood development of sexual orientation and gender identity. The published work of these men, and other fraudulent scientists like them, is the foundation of a public relations industry devoted to the marketing for profit of homophobia and transphobia. These institutions are NOT public charities and DO NOT deserve registration as 501(c)3 tax-exempt charities, since they only exist to enrich their organizers and spokespeople by marketing their hateful fantasies as real. I just paid $10 to see the new Spielberg flick. When you leave the theater you know it was all more-or-less meant to be nonsense. At least Hollywood pays taxes on the money it gets from peddling nonsense. The Southern Baptist Convention and its constituent persons and organizations do not. Perhaps Hollywood should claim to be a religion. I know a lot of LGBT folk who would agree.

How can the damage done by Rekers and his like be countered in the intellectual life of humanity? Obviously, the exposure by Burroway and Cooper identifies the problem, but this again will become a one to two week PR event unless the,LBGT community and allies take away a sense of purposive action to stop the further spread of this evil that permeates so much of the generally accepted ignorance of the people. As a minimum, we should identify and disqualify the researchers and the publications that have come about as a result of Rekers’ crimes against academia, science, and humanity.

When one tries to assess the importance of some piece of scientific research, it is useful to know how often and in what capacity the work has been cited by other researchers in their publications. Although the bibliography in a paper tells you where the author used other’s work and ideas, there is nothing to tell you who went on to make use of this particular work of this particular writer. It would, for example, be very convenient to be able to trace out every academic publication that referenced the work of Rekers, Green, or Lovaas, but would require you to examine every bibliography in every later publication that could have possible referenced their work.

Actually the problem was solved definitively 50 years ago by the creation of the Science Citation Index (SCI), which is essentially a reverse bibliography that identifies every subsequent publication that cites the target article. Through SCI one can find not only everything written by Rekers, Green, or Lovaas, and published in a significant peer-reviewed journal, but also everything that cites any of their work. Thus one quickly identifies both publications that should be recalled (since they are contaminated by authorship by Rekers or the others) and other publications that should be recalled (since they are contaminated by citation of Rekers or the others).

This process is then iterated, seeding the new selection cycle with the name of all authors of citation contaminated publications, identifying their other writings and the writers who cited them and their writings. In fact, it is likely one could turn this into a real witch-hunt through the assholes of academia.

Once the offensive material has all been identified, there is an immediate technique for ending further research or credibility for this entire intellectually and morally bankrupt community. Each journal that has published a suspect article simply publishes a formal retraction, even going back 50 years, if necessary. These retractions are indexed by SCI and become a part of the formal record there of the final disposition by rational humanity of a body of published research. Though the discredited documents presenting lies as true will remain in a few archives, every bit of future meaning is gone in the sense that no sane person would waste time by basing further work on it. The injury to academic and science is corrected.

This of course leaves open the place where real injury to real people has been done by these men and their disciples. And this continues through their writing and publication in the very large non-academic press that has no standards of peer review and, in many cases, no concept of truth in reportage. For example, there are 16 titles by Rekers on Amazon. Do any of these books deserve dissemination? Or distribution? Or memorialization in libraries?

Here we face directly the struggle for the hearts and minds of the sane. There is no social purpose in the publication and dissemination of these books. On the other hand, their just and forcible suppression could leave some unconvinced of the evil they represent. Scientists and authors of good will are needed to tell the true stories of human sexual and gender development, uncontaminated by the theological and moral mythology of cult leaders. Such truth will gradually eclipse the lies of the cults, since sane human minds recognize truth and resonate with it when it is heard.

No, I don’t advocate book burning, but I see no reason the false intellectual legacy of men like Rekers, where it can be so clearly identified in the stream of formally reviewed publication, should not be erased permanently from academic history, taking with it the life work of many bigots and homophobes who have hidden (and continue to hide) their neuroses and psychoses behind the false privilege conferred by an academic degree and often tenure.

—Dan Massey

 

in Cosmic Citizenship / Library / Transhuman Erotic Freedom  by 11 Jun 2011 0 comments

Can I Transition to be a Transhuman?

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También en español Of course you can. On a normal world, with decent human lifetimes, it would happen naturally as your personality developed; however, the social structures of present-day human society are intentionally organized and maintained to inhibit such personal growth, assuring a docile attitude to the social bullies who manipulate unearned privilege to enslave the masses through religion, government, and business. But these are easy to override if you are serious about realizing your destiny.

But would you really want to be a Transhuman? Becoming Transhuman carries with it the personal assumption of responsibility for the consequences of your actions. It implies that you love and serve every person as you are loved and served by others. It implies that you are committed to the realization of a supremely perfected society throughout the universe by vigorous development and ethical exploitation of human technical and artifactual ingenuity on all levels of literal reality—physical, mental, and motivational.

Transhumans serve humanity in this way because their reasons for being and acting are completely removed from typical human concerns. The characteristic difference between a human and a Transhuman viewpoint is that, in contrast to the human, whose behavior is based on mythic memes imparted by family and society, the Transhuman sets aside all such myth in favor of direct engagement with reality guided by personal dedication to the realization of love.

It is hard for a human to understand how Transhuman behavior is controlled and directed. Without hard and fast rules of response to each social situation, how can anyone expect to have a coherent social experience, without the markers of privilege and dominance so beloved by the apes? The answer is quite simple. The Transhuman abandons all mythic systems in favor of a solid belief in and behavior towards a transcendent ethical system constructed from Transhuman actions in support of the finalization of destiny.

The guide to such living action, as well as the test of the validity of experience, is summarized in each Transhuman’s personal attitude towards the four supreme realities of existence in service to destiny. Love is the desire to do good to others. We Transhumans express the supreme values of reality when we demonstrate Love by living Truth, doing Good, and making Beauty. We reject all acts that do not contribute positively to the expression of one or more of these supreme values.

Humans transitioning to become Transhumans often experience conflict between the fixed attitudes of their old beast and their cosmic vision of personal destiny. For example, they may easily abandon religious myth, while adhering strongly to equally silly beliefs in philosophy or science. The challenge before humanity today is not to meet endlessly around a table to hammer out some foolish patch on a failed social model, but to abandon the cause of the confusion—the myths of our pastfathers, which never really had any value for us, no matter how we tried to breathe energy into their dead patterns. We may take inspiration from the motivation they displayed in their service to Love without being bound by the limitations of their acts and vision.

Humans who increasingly dedicate themselves to the honest demonstration of loyalty to supreme values in their lives are transitioning to a Transhuman state, and this is the fundamental connection that allows the human mind to interface with the cosmos and become part of the emerging collective consciousness of a joyful universe.

–Dan Massey

in Cosmic Citizenship / Library / Transhuman Erotic Freedom  by 10 Jun 2011 0 comments

We are our pride – Kushaba Moses Mworeko

It was June 5, 1981, when the first cases of HIV were reported (CDC.gov).

Yes, in the USA, this was referred to as a gay disease and to some people it still is. But to a person like me who comes from a place where the disease was and is heavily among heterosexuals, I have to disagree.

As years have gone by, education and awareness campaigns and research on this disease have helped to dispel the myths. It has taken years for Africans to understand that a witch doctor’s diagnosis and prescription of expensive sacrifices for this disease were not only hurting the patient but the whole family, culture, and tribe. On this other side of the world, in North America, where technology flourishes, people have come to understand that HIV/AIDS is a non-discriminatory disease and is not a curse deserved by sexual minorities because of alleged deviant behavior.

While attending an HIV/AIDS conference in South Padre, Texas, two years ago, I shared the impact of this disease on me, and practically everyone on this planet. Everybody has either been infected, knows someone who is, or been affected in one way or the other. Some may argue there has been no personal effect on them personally, but consider that by just going school and hearing about or being taught something about HIV/AIDS, or just listening the nightly news makes an impact on each person’s attitude.

Now that we are no longer pointing fingers at each other, whether straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, young, old, educated, uneducated, upper-class, peasants, white or people, what do we know and what don’t we know still about this disease? How do we feel about ourselves now? Yes, progress has been made in our knowledge, attitudes, perceptions and advancements in technology, research, and medicine, is that all? Are we done?

Definitely NO, people are still getting it and dying, so what are we missing here?

Yes, there must be something missing because in spite of advancements in treatment there has been a RELAPSE. People need to wake up and look at this disease afresh, fear it as if were back in the 80s. Take precautions and use preventative measures at all time. Take medication as prescribed. And, TALK about it.

Last week on Thursday, June 2, 2011, I watched a documentary Messengers of Hope about a gospel choir from Oakland, California, that engages African American churches in conversation about HIV and AIDS. This whole concept of this documentary is a new strong voice about the importance of speaking out, especially in religious organizations where finger pointing remains common. The film goes a step further in urging pride in who we are, one of the choir members saying, “This is what HIV looks like; strong people, people of faith, black people.”

One thing I have noticed after coming to America is that people have taken for granted the privileges and rights that come with being an American. I am talking about the freedom, the liberty, the equality, the power . . . all this is taken for granted.

I was reading Ida B. Well’s (1862-1931) autobiography, Crusade for Justice (University of Chicago Press 1970) and came across this statement, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

Ms. Wells argues that although the United States does have some ‘wonderful institutions’ to protect our liberty, we have grown complacent and need to be ‘alert as the watchman on the wall.’” I totally agree with her because it is still so relevant today, not just regarding the end of slavery, but all human rights.

Last weekend was Black Pride, and this weekend is Capital Pride in Washington, D.C. We must ask ourselves hat are we proud of?

Pride can be one of the times throughout each year we remind ourselves of our rights, human rights that we are born with, not man-made. We should embrace them and ponder what we have and what we have been denied.

Pride reminds me of the unforgettable occurrence of the pneumonia that was found in these gay men 30 years ago. It reminds me of the resistance that people have put on fighting this terrible disease.

It’s time to show the world that LGBT people are great people, with great potential. If gay men exit the church . . . there wouldn’t be any services. If we decided not to pay tax the states would file for bankruptcy. If we didn’t enlist, there would be shortages in the military. We are everywhere . . . we are not silent and never will be.

With Charlie Sheen’s “Winning” mantle still echoing in our ears, we say too,” The only thing I’m addicted to right now is winning.” Recently it seems like everyone is addicted to winning.

The White House launched a new page in concert with D.C.’s Pride Month 2011 called
Winning the Future: President Obama and the LGBT Community.” During its launch, the President said, “We’ve got a lot of hard work we still have to do, but we can already point to extraordinary progress that we’ve made . . . on behalf of Americans who are gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender”

I strongly believe that, we are going in the right direction to WINNING. I am talking about WINNING THE FUTURE.

Let us not be afraid or ashamed. Let us embrace who we are…it is our PRIDE.

— Kushaba Moses Mworeko, independent global LGBT and HIV+ rights activist, guest blogger, and Editor of VenusPlusX’s Global Sexual Freedom Annotated Bibliography.

 

 

 

 

 

 

in Global Sexual Freedom Watch  by 09 Jun 2011 0 comments

Transhumans Have Pastfathers

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Human language attempts to encapsulate how and what we think about a subject and assign a word symbol to that specific encapsulation. Often, however, the more or less random choice of an exact word symbol, either in naming or translation, will change the implicit attitude of the reader to the subject being referenced.

We address such a challenge when contemplating the persons who have lived before us under the generic name forefathers. The meaning is, of course, those who have come before us in time.

As Transhumans, however, our lives are motivated and controlled by our commitment to ever respond to the force of destiny, to be guided by future opportunity. We see time as a dimension stretching into the indefinite future, which gives us time enough to experience love while perfecting ourselves and our universe. We are leading the way for our generation on this planet, while those who came before us, lie in our past not our future.

But if we Transhumans are to truly take the promise of the future as our guide, we must transcend the mythic elements of our heritage from the past. In doing so we recognize that these people, dead symbols of ideas frozen in time, could at best be called our pastfathers.

FM-2030

By this change of term we do not mean to diminish or disrespect the valid contributions of the past to human welfare today. On the other hand, we emphasize that our actions today look forward to imaginative visions of the future, rather than being constrained by the foolish myths of the past. And this is in fact how the living bridge of a true collective human motivational bridge is achieved through joyful experience.

What actually is happening? The past is powerless to control the future except within the physical realms of material causation. Myths laid down in human consciousness across the millennia may have sustained an uncivilized society for a time, but are now seen to be valueless. Humans have ever erred by dreaming of the past. Though Transhumans may be physically constrained by the past, their ideas and ideals, their thoughts and visions, their dreams are the myths of the future—ways in which destiny might be realized.

True stories of the future are the proper replacement for mythic reality. The past can only disclose specific facts, whereas truth must be lived in the moment.

Join me in embracing a joyous and fabulous collective future as the Transhuman fellowship of affinity and obligation builds a better world.

–Dan Massey

 

in Cosmic Citizenship / Library / Transhuman Erotic Freedom  by 09 Jun 2011 0 comments

Can Atheism be True, Good, Beautiful, and Loving?

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Of course it can. But first you have to sort out all the funny things about atheism. For example, there are as many varieties of self-proclaimed “atheism” and/or “agnosticism” as there are varieties of any other dogmatic religion.  Certainly atheism deserves to be considered and recognized as a religion in most of its varieties. Only a solipsistic denier of the sensory world could be considered a fully developed atheist, and that state is hardly viable for life.

Ludwig Feuerbach—Anthropologist of Human Religions

One of the problems atheists have is that they associate religion with belief in deity; they recognize that human religions define deity according to their own fantasies based on silly myths and seek to indoctrinate that concept into their communicants. On the other hand, few would have considered that this is a mentally disordered and invalid way of approaching the motivation of human behavior and is the prime cause of the failure of human society on this planet.

A superior approach for deistic religions would be to begin with a unified acceptance of deity, set aside the varied approaches people take to the subject, and work together to realize shared purposes. Such a concept of religion is not at all satisfied by what people claim to believe, but by what they DO with their time and their lives. Anyone who lives according to their highest ideals of truth, beauty, and goodness, is living a life dedicated to love, regardless of how they may name the intellectual belief system they declare publicly.

No evolved deistic human religion can afford to adopt this position, because it would nullify the vast quantity of delusional concepts to which they are committed. Rather, they persist in propagating silly mythologies, insane homilectics, and delusional hermeneutics. This program of false teaching sustains the interest of the thoughtless in supporting a socially, economically, and politically abusive organization. And the unmitigated and unworthy power thus created is then deployed to sustain this collective disorder of human thought by the illegitimate use of force—always psychological and often physical.

By comparison, full recognition of the supreme realities of un-fantasized human existence in a friendly cosmos is easily available to the intelligent atheist of good will.

There are many self-proclaimed atheist/agnostics who live lives of extraordinary service to their fellow humans while denying the existence of G-O-D. I do not believe in G-O-D. I have an inner belief system, but when I try to explain it to others, the word G-O-D is inadequate and misleading because that word carries entirely different connotations to another person. We cannot achieve better communication about transcendent ideals as long as our conversation is limited to such an overloaded symbol.

I consider myself to be a person of faith, but my faith is in the supreme values of existence—truth, beauty, goodness, and love—not in some mythical ultra-father who is presumed to be functionally omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent within the perceptible universe of time and space. My religion, if it may be called such, is living truth, doing good, and making beauty, all in the service of becoming love. This perspective vitiates all imaginary forms of human religion. One may hold mythic tenets for a time without conflict; however, as one grows in living truth, the ancient and static ideals of the legacy of human religious mythology are finally eclipsed by a transcendent personal experience of a supremely coordinated life experience.

At the same time, we see around us the most outspoken defenders of the most regressive forms of human religion claiming a mantle of moral authority that has no relevance to real life OR real people. No amount of proclaiming “the word of god” contributes to individual growth, and missionary impulses inevitably backfire on the person and organization pushing them. Such actions are the most basic way religionists (people who believe in the value of religion without understanding the idea and ideal of a life based on faith) actually “take the name of their god in vain,” for they place their opinions ahead of the inner moral judgment of others. This hideous practice of interpersonal mental bullying and abuse is most hateful when it emerges between parents/adults and children/youth, but we see it supported by the supposed three pillars of human society—religion, government, and commerce—all of which fail the test of true relevance to the human condition and continue to exist because of their unconsidered and systematic willingness to commit crimes against Love.

As the saying goes, the Religious Right is neither. They suffer from disorders of thinking that result from their willful disregard for Truth, which causes them to fail to do Good and to make Beauty. In sum total, they reject the bounty of Love across time in which they may grow towards divine perfection. Like Lot’s wife of myth, they look only backwards and are doomed by their immersion in fateful decay. Such people are true atheists who live by enacting the false tenets of their faith in the material world while rejecting the voice of inspiration. Such people can never love nor live the truth. They are already dead to everything that is important and have deliberately severed their mental connection to reality.

Atheists that affirm the supreme ideals of living

So how about it? If the most highly publicized religious behavior can be so malign and unworthy of the name, is it possible that there is a quiet atheism that seeks only to become Love, by living Truth, doing Good, and making Beauty? And cannot such atheism be that perfect model of living to which human religions aspire, but universally fail to even attempt? Cannot such secular humanism be seen to express values of Love and doing Good to others? And is not the inner person that guides this behavior more worthy than the fanatical materialistic religionist? For they know that Love is to be given, not taken; that Truth is to be lived, not spoken; that Goodness is to be given freely, not contracted; and that Beauty is to be made, not owned.

So my answer to the question, “Can Atheism be True, Good, Beautiful, and Loving?” is “Absolutely yes.” Nothing necessitates that an atheist exhibit these qualities; however, most atheists are people of goodwill, and that is the true foundation of relevant and progressive faith, which may be easier for atheists since their ideas of history and context have not been corrupted by religious mythology. And this is the legacy of backwards-looking religions, to twist the direction and action of human faith to serve the dead hand of history and tradition. Such chains of mythic belief must fall from the minds of all people of faith, enabling them to unite in advancing human development in fulfillment of our glorious personal and planetary destiny.

—Dan Massey

 

 

in Cosmic Citizenship / Library / Transhuman Erotic Freedom  by 07 Jun 2011 1 comments

What Kind of Trans Are You?

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom…

There is a tremendous eruption of discussion, categorization, and disagreement going on now in the Trans community. Two excellent articles were published by Jillian Weiss and Mercedes Allen on Bilerico and have garnered an astounding number of comments. This is, of course, usually the case when anyone says anything about Trans in a public forum. I have compared it to lobbing a bowling ball into a dense minefield, setting off a chain reaction far beyond anything you might have expected, as each personal expression of outrage triggers several more.

Briefly, Jillian speaks for Trans and LGBT unity idealistically and Mercedes criticizes Trans unity as artificial, yet needed in some better form to make progress. As I understand it, the core issue is how concerns of surgical transsexuals are addressed under the more encompassing term, transgender. The formal distinction is whether the individual has undertaken any form of deliberate body modification to acquire the physical characteristics of the opposite chromosomal sex (biosex). Thus transsexuals are people who have modified their bodies by physical, medical, or surgical methods. In this strict sense, transgenders are people who have any erotic or physical sexual characteristic that is similar to persons of the opposite biosex or unlike persons of the same biosex.

Practical XX and XY androgyny (click)

Thus, transgender really encompasses the intersex, the transsexual, the cross-dresser, the genderqueer, the “admirer” or “tranny chaser”, the bisexual, the polyamorous, and, in some limited sense, both the gay and the straight. It is a true umbrella concept. Since gender is a social artifice, while biosex is a physical reality of human life, we should find ways to remove gender details as a matter for debate and discussion. We need to get beyond verbal battles over the exact meaning of sex and gender, and open the door to social acceptance of all orientations and presentations. All people want to get on with much more important matters. The key concept lies within the term trans-.

In English, trans- can have many effects when applied to a root word. Trans-sexual specifies a sub-attribute of sexual that has a complementary formation, cis-sexual. The same is true of trans-gender and cis-gender. On the other hand, a form like trans-it or trans-portation implies movement from one place to another. Trans- can also imply a movement toward a new viewpoint from which true unities and harmonies can be discovered and enjoyed, as in tran-scend.

Click for H+ link

One interesting modern use of trans- is in the term trans-human. The meaning of the term is quite clear—anything beyond the purely human, whatever that is taken to be by the speaker. The word may be a noun or an adjective and gives rise to the term trans-human-ism, which refers to the study (by trans-human-ists) of what it means to be or become transhuman and how that state or process might be achieved either now or in the future. There is a substantial community of human transhumanists, loosely organized as Humanity+ (formerly the World Transhumanist Association), with a large number of dependent, allied, supporting, and affiliated groups focusing their efforts on different aspects of what it would / will / does mean to be transhuman either speculatively through the imagination, achievably in time, or immediately by simple direct choice from available technology.

Let us assume for the purpose of discussion that heteroerotic cisgender sexplay is, as so many humans agree, the only normative form of human sexual orientation and gender identity (SO+GI). Then transhuman SO+GI is necessarily something more than human and could potentially accommodate all degrees of variation on each dimension of SO+GI. (These dimensions are discussed in the paper I Am An Intersex Bisexual Transgender And So Are You, which presents a model for describing all forms of human erotic expression.)

Thus transhuman erotic behavior necessarily includes all possible forms of SO+GI expression and it appears that the vast transgender population is probably the majority of all transhumans on Earth. As individuals, we may or may not be transhumanists, that is, students of transhuman emergence. But we are all living transgender examples of what it means to actually be and live and love and creatively harmonize the transhuman, through our own personal transphysical, transmental, or transmotivational developments.

Collectively, we are all trans-. And specifically, we are all transhuman, because our experience and expression of the dimensions of SO+GI departs from the human norm. We should claim our place under the transhuman umbrella with many other people who are similarly transhuman because they have augmented their metabolism, nervous system, skeletal structure, mind function, or motivational consciousness by artificial means.

SO+GI is the most fundamental defining quality of our personal identity. From these dimensions of possibility flow all the unique personalities of individuals, being the instantiation of love in distinct persons. Oppressive acts of families and societies that deny the free expression of individual SO+GI fundamentally distort the growth and function of the human personality. No one has the right to tell another what SO+GI to express, and no society has the right to impose any strictures on individual or collective SO+GI expression.

Click for more on transgender / transhuman connections

Transhumans do not pursue a collective agenda. Rather, they find a few important principles on which they can agree and give everyone the freedom to work to realize these principles without uniformity of viewpoint or approach. By itself, unity without uniformity is the transcending method of conflict resolution, and those who will completely devote themselves to its honest application will find the power to achieve any true and loving purpose.

Transhumans, to be successful as a growing body of committed individuals for the indefinite future, will have to be guided, as a group, by some great vision of a transcendent goal that, once achieved, will justify the efforts of transhumans to bring it into existence.

An initial step towards such a goal is to reach towards a position of unity among all trans- that necessarily recognizes the commonality of our desire to enhance our experience of life by the rational development and utilization of scientifically based technology.

I am a transhuman. I believe the time has come for the transgender community to recognize that we are each individually transhuman ourselves. As such, we are the natural successors to the human, hence the current social and economic warfare against us by those who are scared of the consequences of accepting the human transformation. We refute the foolish myths on which much of modern society is built. But this is not an exclusive club. Anyone willing to reorder life priorities based on love rather than hate is becoming transhuman. All transfolk are transhuman by nature. Our goal should be to recognize these unifying transhuman qualities in our transgender selves and visibly express them through the example of our lives.

—Dan Massey

 

in Cosmic Citizenship / Library / Transhuman Erotic Freedom  by 05 Jun 2011 0 comments