PUZZLED? Don’t Be; Take Back Our Language.

No-Bid Contracts Being Let By Blackwater Subsidiaries and Successor Companies As We Speak! Dozens In New Orleans Alone! Get In On The Ground Floor! Just Chip The Christianity Right Off That Baby!

Redevelopment as Spectacular New Multi-Purpose Facilities Awaits These Gems. Tools Supplied! (Project Depicted May Not Be Typical. Your Experience May Vary. Citizenship of Employees Verified by Federal Government.)

“They Constantly See Coupling in Temples:” Herodotus

“It was the Egyptians who first made it an offence against propriety to have intercourse with women in temples, or to enter temples after intercourse without having previously washed. Hardly any nation except the Egyptians and the Greeks has any such scruple, but nearly all consider men and women to be, in this respect, no different from animals, which, whether they are beasts or birds, they constantly see coupling in temples and sacred places –and if the god concerned had any objection to this, he would not allow it to occur. Such is the theory, but, in spite of it, I must continue to disapprove the practice.”

Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey de Selincourt, Revised and with Introductory Material by John Marincola. Penguin books: New York. 1954.pp. 109

A Certainty of Something So Patently Absurd: Gerald Callahan

“Instead, I write in my notebook, Faith is belief in something you have absolutely no reason or right to believe in. Mentally, I list: faith in God, faith in the church, faith in your spouse, faith in the next sunrise, faith in motions of the stars themselves. Then I write: Faith is beyond thought. Faith is an absolute certainty of something that is so patently absurd you could never justify it to anyone who didn’t already have the same faith.”

Gerald N. Callahan, Ph.D: Faith, Madness and Spontaneous Human Combustion: What Immunology Can Teach Us About Self-Perception. New York: Berkeley Books, 2002. Pp 162

A Species of Evil: Sam Harris.

“It is time we realized that to presume knowledge where one has only pious hope is a species of evil.”

Harris, Sam: The End Of Faith. 2004: W.W. Norton, New York. pp. 225

Anyone But A Madman: Herodotus

“For if anyone, no matter who, were given the opportunity of choosing from amongst all the nations of the world the beliefs which he thought best, he would inevitably, after careful consideration of their relative merits, choose those of his own country. Everyone without exception believes his own native customs, and the religion he was brought up in, to be the best; and that being so, it is unlikely that anyone but a madman would mock at such things.

There is abundant evidence that this is the universal feeling about the ancient customs of one’s country. One might recall, in particular, an account told of Darius. When he was king of Persia, he summoned the Greeks who happened to be present at his court, and asked them what they would take to eat the dead bodies of their fathers. They replied that they would not do it for any money in the world. Later, in the presence of the Greeks, and through an interpreter, so they could understand what was said, he asked some Indians, of the tribe called Callatiae, who do in fact eat their parents’ dead bodies, what they would take to burn them. They uttered a cry of horror and forbade him to mention such a dreadful thing. One can see by this what custom can do, and Pindar, in my opinion, was right when he called it ‘king of all’. ”

Herodotus: The Histories. Translated by Aubrey de Selincourt, Revised and with Introductory Material by John Marincola. Penguin books: New York. 1954.