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A Manifesto For The New Age of Sexual Freedom

The figure of Columbia, with a gender-fluid, two-spirit American native as the model, is VenusPlusX’s icon for The New Age of Sexual Freedom

Editor’s note: republishing it by popular demand …

The New Age of Sexual Freedom is synonymous with the end of sexism and racism (the greatest form of sexual oppression), and the end of nationalism for the purposes of war (the greatest form of racism), in the shortest amount of time (because we are killing each other).

One of our most frequently asked questions is Why A New Age Of Sexual Freedom? Also, what’s that got to do with human rights — equality rights, immigration rights, environmental protections, and safeguarding net neutrality?

In honor of the relaunch of VenusPlusX, I am answering this question in the form of a manifesto, for the express purpose of continuing this conversation on line, which was developed for the most part with Dan Massey before he went on to other shores. Your thoughts and comments are welcomed. We crave your criticism.

To fully understand why VenusPlusX frames the quest for a more perfect world in terms of Sexual Freedom, specifically erotic freedom, first widen the lens a bit for the long view.

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We are all capable of imagining an ideal state of being wherein every baby is born into the world free from all forms of discrimination and enslavement, and where human rights reign, including sexual freedom. These children are free to express whatever their personality wishes, to live and prosper wherever and however they determine. At last, there are no barriers preventing an era of world-wide mutual cooperation and support. Living Peace.

This state of being signifies that we have finally attained the most fundamental and personal human right, our inherited and inherent sexual freedom. Only the achievement of universal sexual freedom, or erotic freedom, will symbolize our civilization’s full maturation — the point when everything that ever interfered with Peace on earth and good will among humans has been eliminated. No more sexism, racism, ageism, certainly no more war or destruction of the earth’s natural resources. Just universal pluralism, a world wide family.

Sexual Freedom is also important in another more basic way, and why VenusPlusX has propogated the more appropriate erotic freedom to get beyond words and get physical. Each human is endowed with health-promoting erotic senses. When a friend puts their hand on your shoulder when you need it, both of you feel comforted. Your electro-chemical systems fire up with the thrill of exercise and sport, and other activities you feel passionate about. Even your adrenalin in an emergency rushes through your every passageway. Erotic senses are your human senses and they operate asexually in numerous ways and also through sexual pleasure all the way to the ecstatic orgasm, something more than 90% experience. All of your erotic senses bring comfort, warmth, and safety in various dimensions everyday, igniting and awakening us to the larger world, even the cosmos itself.

And, more. Whether you perceive pleasure from your erotic senses as the stairway to heaven or just something that makes you feel better, more connected . . . more creative, our awakened erotic senses inevitably bring about much needed healing.These senses bring us into the realm of Love, and the expression of that Love, through Truth (consistency in real time), Beauty (harmony), and Goodness (Love IS the desire to do good to others). Again, another reason the attainment of sexual freedom is crucial to all human progress.

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Your experince of your erotic senses may be mostly inexplicable, but they are there for a reason. You may have felt these, even for a fleeting moment, now try to put together as many consecutive moments just like them, and have a happy day.

These erotic senses are to be revered, even worshipped, for they are what connect each of us with every other human in the world, and beyond.

It’s possible to open the lens wider still, and try to take the longest view possible, to understand how our perfecting world can progress speedily to the ideals we have in mind.

The progression and transformation of civilizations over millenia pass through many stages, from their most primitive roots all the way to universal pluralism (worldwide Peace). The attainment of Peace is the direct result of obtaining the most fundamental right of sexual freedom, the holy grail of all other freedoms.

Progress is a creative act, the ability to transform our selves and our world by adapting to better ways of doing things. Progress is always active and is often upstepped under certain positive circumstances.

Progress has its own evolution and ecology, always preserving and building upon what is old (historical) and also good (humane) while gradually dispensing with all other forms that are old and bad (inhumane, coercive), always in a state of forging a new and better art of living that is free from all forms of local and global enslavement.

All efforts to strengthen communities, the health, housing, and employment of one’s neighbors, especially those most in need, are surely part of this new age. Hospice is an excellent example of an eleventh-century global concept worthy preservation. So is the Internet, now unfortunately under attack by special interest profiteers who would impinge on its free and productive use by everyone on an equal basis.

The military-industrial complex is an easy example of an inhumane and coercive system requiring redirection (say, a green army to protect our environment).

Progress’s natural ecology, then, becomes reflective of how we are getting from Point A (now) to Point B, that perfected world. This concept is nothing new since its been long recognized by agrarians, religions, cults, marxism, feminism, and the transhuman and futurist movement. Progress always synthesizes all that is good, forms worthy of survival and preservation, with everything that is new and also good, on micro and macro levels, so therein is our simple equation, what I like to call a formula for peace. And, progress has scientifically proved to us that the more you apply this formula for peace each day, the better today becomes, not just for you but for everyone that you touch.

Progress is a constant, gradual, sometimes cataclysmic, transfer from coercive systems— created during intermediate and often painful stages of civilization—to new, humane, voluntary associations.

Wherever and whenever an approach, a thing, a process, whatever … is coercive (enslaves another human), a humane alternative can be found with just a tad of creativity. (Love, Truth, Beauty, and Goodness are good places to start looking.)

Expanding and improving voluntary associations are the result of creative, thoughtful, and for the most part selfless people working for the good of humanity, a silent form of mercy on a mass scale. There are those who go through life in an uncaring trance, not really present in any moment to make a lasting contribution to the evolution of civilization, or even be aware of much that is going on around them. The rest of us have to wake them up! (Maybe once they realize that enjoyment of sexual freedom is key to something better, they might become more attentive,see above.)

Most dangerous, the generational uncaringness (learned or invented) of people “asleep at the wheel” turns them into blind fodder for the relative few who would amass power, enslave them, and sacrifice their humanity through man-made, always corrupt at their core, coercive systems. The longer and deeper these maligning systems persist, the more hopelessness ensues and even more people drift into this semi-awake state.

So, there’s no time to wait! Arise!

Eventual, inevitable, universal pluralism is built of mutual
respect and individual responsibility, and is only made possible
through the creative energy of Love, a very
high form of Peace wherein we do good to one another.

Related: A Personal Call to Action

Why Privileged Elites Cynically Oppose Erotic Freedom

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También en español In my last post Who Are You Calling an Anarchist? we examined the important distinction between anarchy, as a legitimate and proven approach to governmental organization, and terrorism, a deliberate technique of chaotic social disorganization, that social elites deliberately and falsely equate to the wholly legitimate practice of anarchy. Now we can examine the tools of hierarchical governmental violence directed against its citizens, recognizing that the chief of these tools, invisible to the oppressed, is sexual repression through false religions, failed ideas of government, and corrupt concepts of commerce. In short, we will show how every aspect of organized human endeavor is corrupted at its origin by the universal practice of sexual and erotic repression, revealing the results throughout all phases of human society today to be worthless superstition reinforced by ignorance and compelled by violence.

The Garden of Earthly Delights

It would take volumes to discuss the sorry history of erotic freedom in the United States, one of the most oppressive of all modern human societies. Let us examine but one chain of events in the 19th century that became the foundation of organized anti-sexism throughout the 20th to see how great social failures come to celebrated as great triumphs for freedom when, in fact, they were nothing of the sort. The historically erased heroes of this story are Victoria Woodhull and her sister, Tennessee Clafin. The villains of this piece are names our warped US history celebrates as great social leaders of the 19th century—Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others deluded by visions of power which had displaced genuine human ideals in their consciousness and behavior. Although the actual disgrace occurred at the hands of men like Karl Marx and Anthony Comstock, the Americans who claimed to speak for equality but who opposed Woodhull were simply fascist butchers of reality, empowered by elites, who fought for false and appallingly limited visions of freedom and equality.

The cause of anarchy is linked closely to issues of sexual freedom, for without erotic freedom, anarchy cannot be a stable system of government. Nowhere in US history is the violent suppression of sexual freedom more evident than in the story of the brave social reformer Victoria Woodhull. The International Workingmen’s Association (IWA), later identified by triumphant Marxists as their First International, was founded in 1864 as an international organization which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist political groups and trade union organizations that were based on the working class and class struggle. The leadership eventually polarized around Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin, representing communists and anarchists respectively. Finally, in 1872, Marx succeeded in expelling his rival anarchists, including Woodhull, from the organization.

Victoria and her sister Tennessee were born into the Clafin family of Homer, Ohio,which included a fair number of carnival workers and professional psychics. Vicky and “Tennie” were trained by their parents in techniques of cold reading. Tennie also mastered psychic reading using techniques based on “frontier wisdom,” a persistent form of neo-paganism that pervaded otherwise nominally Christian communities, of which the early followers of Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith may have been the most notable. Vicky married and divorced an abusive drunkard named Woodhull and thus acquired her surname in history. The sisters traveled across the country plying their trade for the entertainment and seduction of the masses.

Settling in New York, they established a psychic salon and Cornelius Vanderbilt became their sponsor through Tennie’s psychoerotic healing skills. Building on their own success as Wall Street brokers, using Vanderbilt money, they led their entire community into active participation in the IWA. In fact, they became the major proponents in the United States for socialist reformation of the government. They published an extremely liberal journal for six years, advocated the legalization of prostitution, and were the first to publish the Communist Manifesto in English in the United States. They differed strongly from Marx, however, as they advocated free love and other sociosexual changes that were abhorrent to Marx, an emotionally constipated Victorian era German prude obsessed with personal power. The anarchists, led by Bakunin, were friendly to the American perspective; however, after Vicky ran for President of the United States, Marx considered this essentially confirmatory act of established government to be so abhorrent to the emerging international socialist cause that he unilaterally dismissed ALL Americans from further participation in the IWA, declaring them to be anarchists and unacceptable as supporters of the International (which they were, if you think about it). But the persecution of Vicky did not stop there.

Up to her Presidential nomination, Vicky had been arguably the leader and primary spokesperson for female rights and liberties. Vicky bitterly resented Beecher’s refusal to endorse her nomination and carried out her threat to make public his extramarital affair, which she, as a free love advocate, thought ought to be public anyway. Although these interpersonal disagreements disrupted the inner circle of emerging feminism, a few years later she was, essentially, expelled from the suffragist movement she had helped found because of her advocacy for sexual freedom. Stowe, Stanton, Anthony, and others came to believe that getting the vote for women was the important issue and that fighting for sexual freedom (which they had supported in the past) would turn public opinion against them.

Arrest of Woodhull and Clafin

Government opportunists, led by Anthony Comstock, then Postmaster General, seized the magazine and imprisoned the sisters for distributing obscene material in the mail. None would rise to their defense. Vicky was also a spiritualist leader and became entangled in a dispute with some sexually repressed bigots who joined the group and drove her from her position by distorting the meaning of her advocacy for free love. Once free of legal entanglements, the sisters moved to England and resumed their trade in lectures and publications. Vicky married a wealthy banker who supported her cause. Tennie married a Portugese nobleman, the First Viscount of Montserrat, of whom Queen Victoria created the Baron Cook. “Very good family.”

Blake’s Take on British Sexual Repression

What was it about free love that created such a major issue for this broad spectrum of individual attitudes from Karl Marx to Henry Ward Beecher to Susan B. Anthony to Anthony Comstock? The common factor is certainly not socialism or capitalism or women’s rights or social purity. Although all these legacy ideas apply to parts of the spectrum, there are too many exceptions to each classification. You can guess what my answer is—erotophobia—that deeply seated, invisible but all-pervading, blind, screaming, and insanely raging fear to embrace the one thing in your material life that can actually save you from meaninglessness and give power and value to your life experience.

Erotic experience is the simplest inspiration of awareness of transcendent love that erases all conscious objection. Personal and shared erotic experience demands trust and rejects violence. Anarchy requires that there exist no need for government violence against citizens. The balance required for successful and stable anarchy can only be maintained when society is pervaded by the atmosphere of mutual love and trust between all people.

As I have explained in an earlier post, Becoming and Being an Avatar—Uploading Salvation, it is our total rejection of the false myths foisted upon us by religion, society, government, and commerce that free us to find true salvation—freedom from indecision about the loving and true behavior that enables us to participate in the reality called the Kingdom of Heaven.

In a very real sense, universal sexual freedom similarly offers salvation to society—removal of fear and violence as the determinative factors in social development and human progress. Such freedom will, in time, empower true anarchy—the final and ideal form of human government.

The most basic way of achieving and maintaining such love and trust begins and ends with the physically erotic. Certainly people can establish matured bonds of love, trust, and affection without erotic engagement, but those who choose to begin their interpersonal engagement with this ideal, and are sincere in their approach, may look forward to enjoying the realization of the intellectual and spiritual potential that will grow from such engagement if desired.

Erotic engagement is the first real step from the purely material-physical-sensory into the domain of spirit. The joy one experiences is indeed a gift from the cosmic source that leads us onward to higher levels of inspiration. By denying the legitimacy of this first step on the “highway to heaven” the historic oppressors of society would make it virtually impossible for most people to ever engage the path of love and truth, the path of light, their own personal pursuit of happiness, which is unacceptable to the oppressors because it this is the only true path to personal and societal freedom which necessarily dilutes the power of the elite. By trapping humanity in such darkness, religions, governments, and commerce have conspired to destroy all human hope of progress by harnessing human effort for the advantage of a greedy few.

Thus we see that erotic freedom, the foundation of all freedoms, is also the most direct entry for modern humans to the pathways of love, truth, goodness, and beauty. Free love, pan-eroticism, and collective social reversion—the continuing experience of comprehensive personal joy, apart from social and economic duty—are keys to human activity celebrating truth, the active gift of love. And this unity of experience eventuates in the emergence of the brotherhood of all people, and leads to the kind of social network that eventually stabilizes the most desirable form of anarchy.

in Cosmic Citizenship / Library / Transhuman Erotic Freedom by Dan Massey 29 Nov 2011 1 comments

What is the Kingdom of Heaven?

Aphrodite, god of Love

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También en español The Name of God has been a subject of superstition and speculation throughout human history. Much confusion has arisen from an inability to imagine a deity of sufficient power, presence, and knowledge to consistently satisfy all humanity’s putative requirements for a god to satisfy. We have revealed that the single word “Love” is the best description of absolute deity. We have also shown that the existence of Love makes possible the activation of a divine function best described and named as “Truth”—the finite function of deity that creates Goodness and Beauty. And this active god of the finite universe is the true meaning of the phrase The Word of God.

Hermaphroditus, god of Truth

With these names we have abandoned an ancient idea of Judeo-Christian pastfathers that envisioned god as a blend of an elderly patriarch and the fiery demon of Mount Sinai, who, according to myth, personally consorted with the legendary Moses. We have also abandoned the image of the broken body of a blameless human murdered by barbaric crucifixion being in any way representative of the active face of deity at work creating the finite universe. We have suggested that classical pagan images (Aphrodite and Hermaphroditus) can equally well portray the true meanings of the upholding of Love and the creativity of Truth, who is the “son” of Love—the active response to the desire to do good to others.

Humans have been equally obsessed by the idea of a perfected world, a “heaven” that exists in some transcendent reality or in the distant future, where everything “has gotten better.” One of the key ideas of religions is the notion of survival of death to be repersonalized in such a world. Like the name of god and the word of god, this idea has been burdened with so many myths, misconceptions, and total misinterpretations as to be rendered fantastic and absurd to the rational mind of modern humans. It is time to set aside this antique jargon, which imparts a false sense of sanctity and, like the other common terms we have explored, leads to serious misunderstanding, miscommunication, and impairment of spontaneous personal growth.

At its root, the experience of the Kingdom of Heaven is the experience we have previously described as salvation from uncertainty. The core function underlying human behavior is the constant need to decide what to do next. Many functions of this sort are fully (heartbeat) or partially (breathing) automated, and we are unconscious of these. There is a stream of consciousness in which our self-identity must constantly make more-or-less conscious choices of action. Again, many of these are obvious and merit little attention; however, there arise occasions on which higher mind functions must be invoked when no guidance or contradictory guidance comes from lower mind functions.

Finally, such choices may reach a level of importance that requires recognition of personal responsibilities to others and analysis of personal abilities to address those responsibilities. This is the domain of moral choice, a living theater in which, regardless of our self-opinion or our rhetoric, we demonstrate the values that motivate our lives, that define the nature of our souls. When we feel unable to reach a decision, or find ourselves faced with a deep moral conflict, we are actually face-to-face with a choice that will strengthen or weaken our attachment to certain ideals and ideas in ways we cannot anticipate, and may rightly fear should our choice be an inappropriate one.

And this is the great uncertainty from which every wise and caring person seeks salvation. For many it is simply ignored or reduced to the final conscious moments before death. Such only seek salvation from death and may obtain whatever afterlife may be available to them. But the individual who lives a life of obedience to Truth, a life of supreme integration, finds that they know what to do and often simply do the right thing automatically, and this is true salvation from moral uncertainty as well as the key to understanding of one’s permanent role in the universe—the recognition that one’s mortal body becomes an avatar for an immortal soul obedient to truth in the expression of love. Experience of the Kingdom of Heaven, however, is not just about an inner state of confident salvation, but about the results in one’s life as one constant reaffirms that state, for the result is a coordination of one’s own actions, even relatively mechanical actions, with the actions of one’s environment, so that everything either works better or works for the good. In a free and truth recognizing society everyone appreciates this motivation toward cooperation and unity of purpose, while tolerating all constructively diverse expressions of personal will.

Personally entering this state is far easier than making sense out of my attempts to explain. John Mark recalled that Jesus taught:

Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of Heaven. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of Heaven as a little child, he shall not enter therein. (Mark 10:14-15)

The point is that openness, acceptance of truth, freedom from cynicism and skepticism, freedom from myth and superstition—all natural attributes of the child untutored in the delusions and fears of the past fathers—are the necessary human attitudes for the achievement of true happiness, the realization of complete sanity, and the progressive perfection of the human state as we enter and progress through the New Age of realized love, truth, goodness, and beauty; of liberty, freedom, justice, and equality for all.

in Cosmic Citizenship / Library / Transhuman Erotic Freedom by Dan Massey 21 Oct 2011 0 comments

What Happens When Atheists Pray?

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A lot of people seem to think that, by believing in the myths of a religion, they will acquire some sort of privilege above all other people—they can become those chosen by their god to impose his will on the world around them. In return for their dedication, they expect some kind of payoff—a manifold return on their investment. So they pray for what they want. Sometimes they get it. More often they don’t. From this many conclude there is no god. Of course they would be more accurate to conclude that there is no god that fits their image of deity or, if there is, he’s not inclined to give them what they want. At least not just because they want it. And, in the final analysis, if your god won’t give you what you want, what good is he?

But stop and look at this the other way around. Suppose you were a genuine omni-cubed god, how would anybody know you were around unless there were places and times you weren’t around? But you can’t ever not be around if you are omni-cubed. And how could one ever expect that such a deity would be directed by the personal wishes of one person among the vast number populating the universe? So let’s start by accepting that, if a prayer is going to be answered in a personal way, the answer won’t come from the omni-cubed god, if he exists.

Many people think that, if they only believe in god, then he will exist and solve their problems for them. That is mere magical thinking. Suppose, however, a believer comes to know the existence of god and understand a part of his very nature. Such a knower, self-aware of the power and limitations of divine action in the finite realm, will not seek the unattainable. A knower is aware of how to act efficiently in context to foster destiny and how to accept the enhanced understanding of reality that comes from analysis of each adventure.

Put another way, anything you would get from divine reality must be in accordance with the divine will. It must also be a bonus that can be delivered through the higher functions of mind, emotion, motivation, and experience. Even the Bible says that King Solomon prayed for wisdom and was also the wisest of all kings of the Hebrews. If the human mind indeed contains a spiritual connection through which the more positive attractors of behavior can be illuminated and strengthened, this is surely the domain in which the correct attitude of receptiveness to concepts that will fill a cavern of desire can be translated directly into enlightenment.

But what of the atheist, the person who cannot or will not believe in a personal “god”? And here we come to a basic paradox in the human limited concept of spiritual faith. Just as the individual “names of god” have no meaning in and of themselves, so the individual “beliefs in god” are also meaningless. An atheist who needs and knows that he wants a shot of wisdom is going to get it from somewhere. And it makes little difference whether we believe or science shows us it is from some otherwise imperceptible level of divinity or from the associative capabilities of the human mind. And if it comes from that mind, it does not matter whether it emerges from the physical architecture of the brain or from some inherited or learned cognitive process.

In the final analysis, what happens in life that matters is defined by the satisfaction of basic drives, be they human or divine, to make life better for ourselves and the generations that come after us. And that is a high destiny that all may share, regardless of their imagined or real relationship to some undefined “higher power.”

To truly know what you need is to possess it. And that is the key to true creativity. And that is real magic.

—Dan Massey

in Cosmic Citizenship / Library / Transhuman Erotic Freedom by Dan Massey 10 Aug 2011 0 comments

The Crowned and Conquering Child–Transhuman Lord of the New Age

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Throughout all human history, those who understood the central mysteries of sacred sexuality and gender variation as keys to inner joy and outward satisfaction have hidden away their knowledge of such matters. Why did they conceal this marvelous knowledge, now freely available to all?

First, these mysteries are the most direct way to open the inner gates between the purely sensory and the transcendent spiritual experience of the individual. And this inner attainment enables the individual to break free from unfactual and untrue beliefs and habits acquired from the social environment. Once set free, the individual can cast off all sex and gender oppression and refuse any longer to be intimidated by the ignorant braying of the masses. A critical mass of such free people will overthrow the false religious, social, and economic structures of the past. Conservative forces will forever oppose such growth because of their investment in the dead cultures of our pastfathers. Human religions are deliberately designed to thwart such social maturation and at the same time deliberately deface, hide, and twist all past revelations of truth to conform to a false consistency within the foolish myths of human history.

Prophet of the New Age

The second cause of this earlier secrecy stemmed from a real fear of ruthless oppression by powerful social elites who derive their existence from mass ignorance. People are educated to question and resist integrating the evidence of their own eyes, senses, and erotic experiences. They are told that any internal personal experience is a delusion unless sanctified by a self-appointed middle-man who presumes hypocritically to place himself between the individual and deity.

Sex and gender freedom, erotic freedom, is the foundation of all personal rights and interpersonal fairness. When a bigoted bully or other psychic degenerate (who might be a priest, a parent, a pastor, a teacher, a physician, an enemy, a peer, a “lover,” or just about anyone) convinces you to surrender your total personal erotic sovreignty in any way, they have gained unearned, unjust, and unwarranted control over your most basic physical being and made you their slave. Today’s slaves do not understand they are slaves or how they have been enslaved.

In late 19th century England the recovery of lost knowledge became an interest of Rosicrucian scholars who founded a secret order known, for short, as the Golden Dawn. Well-know cultural and social figures, such as William Butler Yeats were active members. Aleister Crowley, another member, most clearly enunciated the ideal of a New Age. He claimed to have received a direct revelation of the opening of the New Age, the Age of Aquarius, at the vernal equinox of 1904, through a supernatural contact. Crowley published his three-day revelation as “The Book of the Law” and built much of his career with occult and secret societies around this text.

Transhuman Lord of the New Age

One of the key ideas that emerges from the book and Crowley’s interpretive writings is “The Crowned and Conquering Child,” who is the deity of the New Age. Superficially, the term stands for the idea that the spirit of the people of the oncoming age will be fresh and open like a child. Child-like, but not childish. And such people will be free of the fears that turn the human heart from the truth. They will truly know the truth and the truth will truly set them free. It is a more complete expression of the concept, “The meek shall inherit the earth.” When one inquires into the esoteric significance of these ideas, a richer, though speculative, picture emerges with grand prophetic connotations. I love it!

Crowley associated the Crowned and Conquering Child with the deity Harpocrates, the God Horus as a child. Much as Sturgeon speculated inVenus Plus X, Crowley visualized the new age wherein the child-like becomes divine, god-like. This new order of being will be distinguished by having an unbiased will to live truth and by staying uncorrupted by impositions of false formalities, responding solely to the truth of each occasion. Thus we see that the Child is also the emerging Transhuman identity, free from the encumbrances of mythic belief, ready to perceive what is, and act constructively on those perceptions.

The Crowned and Conquering Child is not a single special person or even a single expression of personal freedom. The Child stands for the complete action of the new people of the new age, who embrace the future willingly and openly to create happiness and joy. The Child consciousness appears violent to anyone who holds to false ideas because it reveres nothing and is the sworn enemy of all such rubbish. The Child consciousness quickly rejects and overturns systems based on false premises, bullying, and forcible exploitation of others. Once the Child has fully emerged, the overthrow of status quo is intense, rapid, and trusting the pieces will all fall where they belong. In the words of Crowley:

The Quest of the Holy Grail, the Search for the Stone of the Philosophers—by whatever name we choose to call the Great Work—is therefore endless. Success only opens up new avenues of brilliant possibility. Yea, verily, and Amen! the task is tireless and its joys without bounds; for the whole Universe, and all that in it is, what is it but the infinite playground of the Crowned and Conquering Child, of the insatiable, the innocent, the ever-rejoicing Heir of Space and Eternity, whose name is MAN?

The course of the New Age is determined by the actions of the Crowned and Conquering Child. Nothing that does not fit eir plans survives from the past.

—Dan Massey

in Cosmic Citizenship / Library / Transhuman Erotic Freedom by Dan Massey 02 Aug 2011 1 comments

…and The Model is Not the Action (Sex is not Gender)

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The field of General Semantics introduces patterns of thought required for success in computer programming and related subjects, and I’ve been struck by how much its basic ideas of cleaning up human thought by insisting on principles like “the map is not the territory” correspond to real life and all language.

In the 1930s, when Korzybski began to popularize this thought, relatively few people were interested in this subject that had largely been the domain of professional philosophers. Today, this sentiment is so commonplace in many technological areas it is hardly worthy of note, yet the less informed non-technical community will fall into this way of thinking, and propagandists often use it to distort the behavior of their ignorant fellows.

Systems engineering, broadly defined as the application of systems science to the real world, is an approach to solving large problems by assembling smaller components to achieve a goal that is “more than the sum of its parts.” It is an informal way of analyzing situations and synthesizing solutions that emerged in the 1940s from work done on developing a nationwide telecommunications system. Systems engineering knows no recognized debt to General Semantics, although the name/thing dichotomy is fundamental to its epistemology. From the application of systems engineering principles, the use of the scientific method in the evaluation of complex systems, technologists are gaining more advanced understanding of the problems of accurately representing real world experience.

One of the major areas of computer usage today is simulation of complex systems to predict peformance and operating characteristics. A simulation describes a virtual activity as if it were occurring in reality. Thus, a simulation of a nuclear power plant is a bunch of data that describe, in physical terms, the state of every component of the plant. The simulation also determines how the physical state of each component will evolve in time. Thus, core temperature is a state of the core, a data item that represents the expected or known value of a real world quantity. Simulations estimate the state of the system at the next instance of time from all the data and relationships it possesses about the system—the change in core temperature is estimated from current data using credible rules of change. This collection of data and the rules for proceeding from one time step to the next is called a model of the system.

LEGO Model of Ancient Calculator

There are many kinds of models, such as a LEGO block model of a pyramid or an ancient astronomical calculator, that are easy to grasp as different from the function of the thing modeled. In each case materials and processes that may or may not relate to a real world product are used to convey a critical idea of the product, without representing (and thus becoming) the product itself. Put very directly, a model of a nuclear power plant will not light a lightbulb, although the thing that is being modeled can power a large city. The model will simply report that, under certain assumptions, the plant will provide an estimated amount of power. The real power plant is a complex assemblage of material that actually exists. The model power plant is a coarse approximation to some of the behavior of the real plant. It helps create understanding by eliminating excessive detail, but what if the information thought to be mere “detail” is, in reality, what makes the thing work the way it does?

If the model is correct for a wide range of conditions, we have a useful model, which yields a plausible estimate of results in “normal” situations, even though it may incorporate no understanding of the activity it purports to describe. And here lies the danger of loose thinking. Seeing the predictive power of the model, people easily come to believe it represents either the way the world actually works or, worse yet, how it should work. And for many areas of experience, like the matured elements of 20th century engineering disciplines (mechanical, electrical, aeronautical, nautical, automotive, etc.) this is entirely satisfactory for routine projects as long as no situation unanticipated in the model can arise to invalidate the model’s assumptions (like an undersea earthquake and the resulting tsunami).

But consider what emerges when the model is computational and it models another, more complex computation. In this case, since everything, real and virtual, is the product of an abstract computation, it is easy to confuse the model with reality. While no one believes that a LEGO model of a locomotive will inform the design of a device for rail transportation, almost everyone believes that a dichotomous model of sex and gender phenomena determines how human relationships are constructed in reality, although the most casual observation shows that real human relationships do not agree with this dichotomous model in any way, since they emerge from sex distinctions only through a very long and complex sequential development process. This elevation of an egotistical construction of the human mind, based on incompetent observation of reality, to the level that almost everyone in our society is forced to order their lives in accordance with this delusion, represents a temporary triumph of mass insanity over the truth and reality of all our personal experiences and observations.

Existing models of social categories fail the test of rationality for two reasons. First, they provide a small or dichotomous choice of labeled properties of the world as data. Second, they fail to recognize the fundamental multidimensionality of all living experience. Nowhere in all human thought and philosophy is this conceptual failure to understand the nature and role of models in science and technology more profound and more injurious to individuals and society than in the complete misapprehension of the nature of sex and gender that oppresses all human activities on this planet.

First consider the insane idea of the dichotomy of human biological sex. It has been noted that over 99% of all humans have either XX or XY sex chromosomes (but not both) in their somatic cells. This is a biological fact. If one then creates a model that says “all humans have either XX or XY sex chromosomes (but not both) in their somatic cells” that model is not correct. If one goes further to say “all persons with XY sex chromosomes have penises” and “all persons with XX sex chromosomes have clitorides” the model becomes much worse in its ignorance of a growing mass of variant sex presentations. When the ignorant and bigoted satraps of human society go even further to assert “all persons with XY sex chromosomes are men” and “all persons with XX sex chromosomes are women” the foolishness reaches a climax of stupidity. At this point it is correct to quote the late Richard Feynman who would tell his students that their model, their idea, is “not even wrong,” that is, it incorporates so many incorrect assumptions as to have little relationship to the thing it purports to describe. But the foolish, irrelevant oversimplification has hardly begun and grows rapidly to serve the forces of oppression.

The failure of all human philosophy about sex and gender on the biological level is made worse by the failure to recognize the rich multidimensionalty of reality, compressing the common conceptual model even further to dichotomous models such as “men work best with men, women with women” or “men do not dress like women, nor women like men” or “men only share erotic play with women, and women with men.” Not only is the basic biology reduced to a false model, lacking a continuum of intermediate values, but also independent levels of genetic sex, sex expression, sexual orientation, social affinity, gender identity, and gender orientation are assumed to be all one thing, determined by genetic sex. An XY body has a penis and fucks XX bodies that don’t. The XY is socially attracted to other XYs and all of them think they are people who wear pants and fuck people who wear dresses, having no idea of the reality of gender.

And such people have largely succeeded in convincing everyone in the world that their blighted understanding, obviously silly at every turn, is the way the world should work and that anything that does not fit this asinine model should be suppressed.

The growth in application of rational methods of analysis and synthesis to understanding inadequately explored aspects of everyday life, driven by the great growth in general understanding of information and systems technology, at least among us geeks, is bringing for a new generation of thinkers, whose superior vision of the true realities of sex and gender freedom will displace permanently the foolish ideas of their pastfathers. Today’s state of social and economic injustice calls for more than mental exercise, it requires bold action to reverse these false hypotheses that create bad thinking and discriminatory laws.

A more complete discussion of the levels and dimensions of sex and gender expression is provided in my paper, I Am an Intersex Bisexual Transgender and So Are You.

—Dan Massey

in Cosmic Citizenship / Library / Transhuman Erotic Freedom by Dan Massey 18 Jul 2011 0 comments

The Name is not the Thing and…

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This is the story of the great change in the accepted understanding of human language that occurred in the last century and how it is forcing extensive public reevaluation of large bodies of “received wisdom.”

In less than one century a logical/linguistic misconception has become a hallmark of ignorance and illiteracy. It has so dominated popular thought as to give rise to so-called “Christian Fundamentalism” and numerous other literalist philosophies that greatly inhibit social progress. The second part of this story will explain another logical/linguistic misconception that continues to distort human understanding of the foundation of society, specifically the free expression of sex and gender.

Ignorant literalism led to the conflation of terminology with reality in public understanding of sex and gender throughout the last century, a problem that is now being corrected through death and technology. A complex literalism that insists human theories are more correct than observable facts, suppresses counter-evidence, and ignores the rich complexity of life in favor of simple categories and labels, continues to plague our society. However, the application of elements of the “scientific method” to address a wide range of non-technical issues is beginning the liberation of human thought from the simple man’s effort of trying to force the world to be something other than it actually is, again with specific reference to issues of sex and gender freedom and expression.

My first exposure to this dichotomy, the real world as opposed to the real world as described by random men, was when a classmate shared with me The World of Null-A by A. E. Van Vogt. At 13 or 14 years of age, I couldn’t quite understand the plot at the time, maybe because I could only sneak a chapter or two every afternoon during dramatics club rehearsals. Later I was to learn that most people had to stretch their imaginations a lot to make sense of a Van Vogt plot. At the top of every chapter, in italics, was a brief saying, such as “the map is not the territory” or “the word is not the thing defined” and it would be signed with an enigmatic “A.K.” Another classmate (we were all hooked) whispered “General Semantics” to me and I thought that sounded like something really neat, especially since this guy in the story, this Gilbert Gosseyn (that’s “go-sane”) has two brains and all kind of superpowers, especially including the ability to see and understand and react appropriately to whatever is going on. And, an S. I. Hayakawa essay was being taught in class at the same time, and he was a General Semanticist, whatever I thought that was.

Later, The Players of Null-A was published, giving me an even greater thrill of the rational mental powers unleashed by “non-Aristotelian” logical thinking. And, although it was clear that the novels were mid-century futurist fantasy stories, there was something that stirred my imagination and belief that the ideas were not just fantasy and might have some grounding in reality. Twenty years later, I decided to try to learn more about this and many other subjects in connection with my professional career developing computer architectures. I knew that “A.K.” was Alfred Korzybski, who had set forth a philosophy of rationality that he called General Semantics in his 1933 book Science and Sanity. Van Vogt was a believer in General Semantics and incorporated many of Korzybski’s ideas into the Null-A novels. But by that time (1970’s) something much more powerful was in motion.

One of the curious things about the rise of computer technology is that every fundamental and important thing for starting the revolution and interpreting its capabilities and limitations was already in place by the 1940s. In many ways, the developments since that time (before computers) have been in engineering technology to create increasingly better realizations of ideas that were well developed by metamathematicians like Alonzo Church and Alan Turing in the 1930s. Of course, each major generation in technology has brought greater capability, and increasingly powerful applications have abstracted and incorporated these capabilities to create increasingly useful tools for information manipulation; however, the fundamental process of computing conforms to the limits first understood by Turing and Church.

But beyond mere computing machinery and fundamental mathematical limits, we found the job of representing a task to a computer (programming) to require a kind of orderly thinking that leaked over and influenced the way we software designers think ourselves. We early learned to use “variables” or “handles” to allow us to identify and manipulate the data objects on which we wished the machine to operate. We understood that a name of a quantity can be assigned a meaning that has no relationship to the actual quantity or the literal letters of the name. We can use a name like “fuel” to allow us to designate a numeric quantity of liters. And we well know that the letter string “f-u-e-l” is not itself something you can run your car on. Although f-u-e-l identifies and allows us to manipulate such a number. The name is not the thing. Us geeks were first to use these concepts routinely in our work.

When I investigated General Semantics, I found amazing how many their basic ideas of cleaning up human thought by insisting on principles like “the map is not the territory” corresponded to patterns of thought required for success in computer programming and related subjects. In the 1930s, when Korsybski began to popularize this thought, relatively few people, except some professional philosophers, were interested in this subject, Today, this sentiment is so commonplace in many technological areas as to hardly be worthy of note, yet the less informed non-technical community, as well as insincerely motivated propagandists, will fall into this way of thinking or even use it to distort the behavior of their ignorant fellows.

Van Vogt captured from General Semantics and popularized the “cortico-thalamic pause.” Basically, this is the systematic consideration of every conscious reaction in the context of a stimulus. A very simple example suffices. If someone slaps your cheek, what do you do? Although you may instinctively react in some way, the goal of the c-t pause is to give you time to construct a superior, even optimal response. In short, life is not all about quick action/reaction, like a game of speed or agility. Rather, every reaction, no matter how quickly chosen, should be based on sound thinking about what has just happened. Van Vogt’s hero is always reacting in unexpected and superior ways to the actions of others, and, since this is science fiction and he has an extra brain, the mere act of c-t breaking always gives him enough shift of perspective to master the situation instantaneously (even when he has to teleport across the room or wake up in a different body—wow). Although we don’t have two brains, I have always found the c-t break to be rather wise advice and try to employ it when I can muster the patience and good sense to do so. In computer programming and debugging it can be very helpful in clearing the mind of incorrect binding of names as things. In managing one’s life it can be a life-saver.

Next we will examine how overly simplistic thinking and incorrect reasoning lead directly to sex and gender oppression.

—Dan Massey

in Cosmic Citizenship / Library / Transhuman Erotic Freedom by Dan Massey 17 Jul 2011 0 comments

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

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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 Dan Massey 28 Jun 2011 3 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 Dan Massey 10 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 Dan Massey 07 Jun 2011 1 comments