Now we’re a scuba nation. In scuba we trust!
I spotted another version of the Jesus/Darwin car symbol today.
Assorted sordid thoughts about the big new casino in town.
I decided to take a walk this afternoon, an exercise break from a work routine which too often requires that I be hovered over a keyboard and phone. On a lark, I headed toward the northeast corner of downtown St. Louis to check out a well-promoted "Burger Bar," which happens to be located in the largest casino in St. Louis, the Lumiere.
Everyone in St. Louis knows about the Lumiere Casino thanks to its huge electronic sign right in front, only a few feet from busy Interstate 70. On that huge video screen, you can often see pictures of buxom women beckoning you to have fun at the casino. Some of them are showing you to your room, showing you the bed on which you may sleep once you have been relieved of your money downstairs. I've often wondered how many accidents have been caused on Highway 70 by people who were watching the gorgeous women instead of watching where they were driving.
I'd never been inside the Lumiere Casino until today. I wasn't prepared for what I saw: slot machines and other gambling stations as far as my eye could see. The muscle-bound greeter (or was he a bouncer?) told me that there are 2,000 gambling machines and 80 gambling tables on the 75,000 square foot floor. The Lumiere, which has only been open for a couple of years in St. Louis, is quite a step up from the smaller casinos previously serving St. Louis area gamblers. This is definitely a major league casino.
As I stood there, transfixed by the thousands of blinking lights decorating the thousands of slot machines, the Greeter told me that business has been good, even in these difficult economic times. With a stiff smile, he advised me to come by if I had any further questions, and to otherwise go have a good time.
Mangers Endangered
No one else here has yet mentioned this foo-fah-rah that emerged in the Washington state capitol in Olympia, and is spreading to others. Several governors have allowed Nativity scenes to be erected in their Capitol rotundas. In Washington state, the regional atheists got permission to put up an adjacent sign…
We are gods with anuses: another look at “terror management theory.”
Gods with anuses? This post concerns some of the elaborate ways humans seem to compensate for their anxiety about death. A 2008 Harris poll shows that 61% of Americans believe that Jesus was born to a woman who was a virgin. Thus, by a landslide margin, Americans believe that a woman named Mary got pregnant without any of that icky sperm/penis/vagina stuff (whether a human ovum was involved is keeping theologians busy ). To keep the Savior pure and holy, I can only assume that Jesus emerged into the world through some sort of Divine Cesarean rather than out of the vagina, but the Bible is not clear on the actual method of delivery. Ever since the alleged birth of Jesus, Mary (who was “without sin”) has been referred to as “Virgin Mary,” despite her long marriage to Joseph, suggesting that she kept Joseph sexually frustrated for the rest of his life. All of this uneasiness our animal nature is typical of many religions. In order to keep people focused on the other-world, religions work hard to convince people that human animal existence is vulgar and vile. According to many religions, our earliest “ancestors” were taught that human bodies were shameful even as they were being unceremoniously booted out of the Garden of Eden. Rather than considering our bodies to be exquisite machines that constitute and sustain us, many religions portray human bodies as ungainly, oozing, disgust-inducing earth-bound vessels from which we will eventually escape, thanks be to God! We are to God as slugs are to us. Rather than embracing the marvelous functioning of human bodies, many religions disparage them though, paradoxically, they attribute the “design” of our sordid bodies solely to God, not to natural selection. Thus, there is one notable exception to the general rule: only when Believers are trying to fight off Darwin do they consciously strive to appreciate the exquisite function of human bodies. Oh, such a tangled web religions weave . . .
It’s Conflation-mas time!
You'd never know that there was an energy crisis in South St. Louis, based on the extravagant use of Christmas lighting. My family and I walked through one neighborhood that pushed the envelope even further than the usual level of extravagance, drawing dozens of cars. The tradition is apparently to…