Category Archives: Society

Why early abortion is no big deal

whitish material in petri dish
Tissue from five weeks of pregnancy to nine weeks. Photograph: MYA Network

What a pregnancy actually looks like before 10 weeks – in pictures. In 13 US states, abortion is banned even in the earliest stages of pregnancy. But we rarely see what such tissue really looks like.

The full article in The Guardian, with individual photos, is here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/18/pregnancy-weeks-abortion-tissue

In the Bible, abortion is not considered murder because life doesn’t begin until breath. There are even rules for how a priest can induce an abortion. Causing a woman to miscarry can be a crime, though, because it is a damage to her and a loss of her property.

Religion and Politics

It’s always sad to see a country sliding back from Science, Justice and Democracy, towards Religion, Corruption and Kleptocracy. Russia made that rapid turn when reforms failed in the aftermath of the Soviet Union; the US began that slow turn under Ronald Reagan, leading to the corruption of Donald Trump and the packing of the Supreme Court with justices hostile to the will of the American public.

The huge irony with the “religious right” taking away the right to abortion in the US after 50 years is that it is unjustified by the Bible that they are always quoting. Life, in the Bible, begins with the first breath. Abortion is used by priests as a test of marriage infidelity (Numbers 5:11–28). Jesus makes no mention of abortion other than to implicitly agree with the above passage, in saying that not one word of the Old Testament Law can be changed. (Because Jesus was a fundamentalist Jew, not a Christian, of course.)

The “cafeteria Christians“, on the other hand, decide that “Thou shalt not kill” applies to the unborn (ignoring the fact that priests are told in the Bible to cause an abortion when appropriate, and how to do it), while deciding to ignore a host of things that are termed “an abomination”, including:

Crucifixes… Deuteronomy 27:15 – “‘Cursed be the man who makes a carved or cast metal image, an abomination to the Lord, a thing made by the hands of a craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ And all the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’

Bacon… Isaiah 66:17 – “Those who sanctify and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following one in the midst, eating pig’s flesh and the abomination and mice, shall come to an end together, declares the Lord.”

Statues of saints… Deuteronomy 29:17 – “And you have seen their detestable things, their idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold, which were among them.”

Shrimp and lobster… Leviticus 11:10-13 – “But anything in the seas or the rivers that has not fins and scales, of the swarming creatures in the waters and of the living creatures that are in the waters, is detestable to you. You shall regard them as detestable; you shall not eat any of their flesh, and you shall detest their carcasses. Everything in the waters that has not fins and scales is detestable to you.

Clothing of mixed fabrics… Leviticus 19:19 – “Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.”

Tattoos… Leviticus 19:28 – “And a cutting for the dead you will not make in your flesh, and writing marks you will not make on you; I am the Lord.”

All Christians are “Cafeteria Christians”, because Paul, abandoning strict Judaism in the name of a “new testament”, commands them to do things that Jesus implicitly forbids.

The US Supreme Court would be better off without any Christians on it, and a full separation of Church and State.

Poem by Marcus Bales: ‘Perhaps’

When Christians started out they had to find a place to hide,
For Romans were not pleasant to the Christians found outside;
They taxed the Christian buildings, and their jokes were rather snide
About the rude productions when the Passion Plays were plied.
But Christians turned the other cheek and counted up to ten —
Perhaps we ought to persecute the Christians once again.

The Romans built in marble and they carved in alabaster,
The Christians built in wood and lath, and covered it in plaster.
The Romans mocked inversion of the humble with the master,
And laughed at how the Christians stole their Christ from Zoroaster.
But through it all the Christians acted virtuously then —
Perhaps we ought to persecute the Christians once again.

But once the Christians got on top they went on the attack,
So long abused they thought they’d do their own abusing back.
Mean-spirited and mean, it’s Christian charity they lack,
And ever since they’ve warped their woof by talking trash and smack,
They’ve sought out cheats and pedophiles to be their clergymen.
Perhaps we ought to persecute the Christians once again.

L’envoi
The worse the Christians have it, why, the better they behave:
They’re rotten as the boss, but they are brilliant as the slave.
They ought to be reminded of their teachings now and then;
Perhaps we ought to persecute the Christians once again.

*****

Marcus Bales is one of the leading formalist poets writing today – he is a master of poetic form, from parodies of Kipling and Poe to the creation of his purely original work as in ‘Perhaps’. His collection “51 Poems” is available from Amazon.

Credit: The inside of a jail of the Spanish Inquisition, with a priest supervising his scribe while men and women are suspended from pulleys, tortured on the rack or burnt with torches. Etching.
Wellcome Collection.

The Bible says abortion is OK

Jesus never mentioned abortion, and the Bible never condemns it. That’s because according to the Bible, life doesn’t begin until the first breath is taken (Genesis 2:7).

Causing a pregnant woman to miscarry so that she loses the child is not considered an injury (Exodus 21:22-25).

If a pregnant woman is accused of adultery, the recommended way to seek proof is for a priest to abort the fetus (Numbers 5:11-31).

And God is constantly threatening to kill unborn fetuses (2 Kings 8:12, 2 Kings 15:16, Isaiah 13:18, Hosea 9:10-16, Hosea 13:16).

This puts anti-abortion activists in the same category as fundamentalists who wear clothing of mixed fibers, or eat shrimp, or eat bacon, or plant different types of seed in the same field, or a man who fails to marry his brother’s widow (and the Bible allows polygamy). They are all hypocritical, irreligious “cafeteria Christians”, picking and choosing what to accept and what to ignore.

Anti-abortion activists are anti-Bible. Life begins with the first breath. American “fundamentalists”, so-called Christians who don’t know what is in the Bible that they claim is God’s unchanging word, are linked to the Republican Party whose symbol, an elephant, can be appropriately modeled with a coat hanger…

Sonnet: ‘Fat-Shaming’

Gorging on food, an atavistic trait
useful, essential, in the paleolithic–
like a man’s lust for teenage girl as mate–
is one not needed now, shamed as horrific.
It’s healthy, though, to recognise such drives,
note where they came from, why they once were good:
these traits in which the primitive survives,
inbuilt components of our personhood.

It’s acting on them, though, that we deplore:
those who fuck teens and those who overfeed,
like those who steal, or lie, or start a war,
aren’t shamed for primitive desire, but deed–
like those who pray to gods, follow religions,
or skry the future from entrails of pigeons.

This poem is about a lot of things, but the punchline is: religion is an atavitic trait of humans, as useful as overeating in prehistoric times, and as counterproductive today.

About the poem itself: it’s not PC these days to even mention various issues, and I seem to have covered a lot of them in this sonnet. But it’s a decent enough Shakespearean sonnet (iambic pentameter, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, volta between the octave and sestet) and also a good enough expression of an opinion, so what is there to complain about? Originally published in that not-always-comfortable but always formal ‘The Road Not Taken – A Journal of Formal Poetry’. Thanks, Dr. Kathryn Jacobs!

If you like formal verse, you can find more in my formalverse.com blog.

“Young and Fat” by Tobyotter is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Sonnet: ‘The Fall of Rome’

Jesus, a preacher with fake miracles,
his “Sea” of Galilee just eight miles wide–
rebelling against Rome and crucified–
his failure clear (though words were lyrical)…
you’d think “Messiah” was satirical!
But epileptic Paul a chance descried
to shut out other gods and thoughts worldwide,
thus sealing up Rome’s vital spiracles.
So, building on apocalyptic fears,
the Jewish Jesus ends where Paul begins.
Scientists, artists, poets, engineers,
are suffocated as the new faith wins.
All progress is set back a thousand years.
The Roman Empire died for Jesus’ sins.

Belief is strange. Take Covid vaccination: two thirds of us believe it’s an effective way to save lives, one third of us believe it’s a dangerous and unscrupulous way to make money and control people. Virtually no one has actually done any research and analysis of the issue, we just listen to our preferred sources of information and the community we’re a part of.

Or take religion: for the most part, children raised in Christian families remain Christian believers all their lives, Muslims remain Muslim, Buddhists remain Buddhist, and so on. Which makes it all the more impressive when someone can radically change the belief structure that surrounds them. Kudos then to the epileptic Paul of Tarsus, who created a Jewish-Mithraist-polytheist mishmash that has lasted almost 2,000 years. Pity about the Roman Empire, though.

This happily Petrarchan sonnet (iambic pentameter, and rhyming ABBAABBA CDCDCD) of mine was originally published in Rat’s Ass Review, where respectfulness and respectability are not required. Thanks, Roderick Bates! (More of my poetry is at http://formalverse.com)

“Darkness Falls in Rome” by Storm Crypt is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Religious evolution: appropriate clothing

Religion, and religious practices, and religious attitudes, all evolve without their followers even being aware of how far they have drifted from the original intents.

That’s not to say that this Romanized drapery is what Jesus would have worn. He would have favored something more standard classical Arab/Jewish.

So much for Imitatio Christi, living in imitation of Jesus’ life.

Social Warfare and Religious Genocide

From Gombe’s chimps to interstellar space
We will have war. Sanctioned by the Divine,
Moses first led the Jews to Palestine
Telling his tribesmen not just to displace
But to kill all, and wipe out without trace
Each adult, child, animal, tree, vine.
Genocide’s justified, cleansed ethics fine,
To get resources for your tribe and race.

Believers justify war’s bloody courses:
We’re right, they’re wrong, so therefore they’re to blame.
Conquer through war to grab and keep resources,
Aztecs or Spaniards, everyone’s the same –
Victory to the best guns, swords or horses,
And put defeated scriptures in the flame.

I’m pessimistic about the chances of humans being able to stop warfare. It seems built into the nature of social creatures – when you define your group, you are defining everyone else as not in your group. Then, when it’s a question of who gets limited resources, groups compete and the most ruthless groups tend to do the best.

The sonnet highlights one of my personal religious irritations, that people can walk into a neighbouring territory, wipe out the inhabitants, and create a justifying fairytale of how the destroyers are the persecuted victims. Think of the Pilgrims and other British immigrants in America… think of the Jewish tribes coming into the Promised Land: when they captured a city outside the core area,

“when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword:
But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.” (Deuteronomy 20:13-14)

But when they captured a city in the heart of the Promised Land,

“of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:
But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee:
That they teach you not to do after all their abominations.” (Deuteronomy 20:16-18)

It is hard to see a future without warfare, when even the most revered “holy books” teach genocide and justify it as doing God’s will.

The monotheist God is so small!

The God of the monotheists, especially as he appears in the Jewish scriptures, is such a small humanlike creature. He is irritable, petty, boastful. He seems more like a Norse-style second-level god, a Jewish Loki, than the creator of a universe of a hundred billion galaxies.

Consider his personal discussion with Job and Eliphaz in Job, chapter 42:

After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.

So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.”

So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the Lord told them; and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer.

And a couple of billion people still think that this is an accurate depiction of how the universe runs? What a joke! Somebody please spend a bit more on education. A course in comparative religion would be a useful start.

Burqa Pride Confusion

Burqa Pride

Burqa Pride???

The Dutch have managed to create a political statement that is confusing everyone on both the right and the left. A Labour party councillor in Amsterdam dressed up in a yellow niqab for recent LGBTQ Pride celebrations, because the Dutch government has banned face-covering garments in government buildings and on public transport.

Burqas and niqabs are not required in the Quran, but they are symptomatic of the repressed role of women in old-fashioned versions of Islam (and Judaism, and Christianity). The freedom to do whatever you like because of your religious misapprehensions is a dangerous position to support; it leads to all kinds of antisocial behaviour, including genocide, female genital mutilation, and waving a live chicken over your head to cure disease.

But Jesus, being gay and an otherwise fundamentalist Jew, would probably have approved…