You Be The Judge, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Jephthah went to battle
Against the Ammonites
Asked for God’s favor
Help him win the fight

He promised him
A burnt offering
That of anything
First to be entering

His doorway.

Then it came to be
He found victory
It was his virgin daughter
To first make entry

He told Mizpeh
The promise he had made
He had to sacrifice her
For the reward he had been paid

Out to the mountain tops
Two months for to bewail
It was all about her virginity
This story does so tell

Would this logic work
If it wasn’t in that holy book
Would it be ok
If the Soldiers of D-Day

Said:
“God help me
Beat the Germans
The nasty Arians
And when I get back
And my daughter
Walks through the door
Fire the virgin for sure”?

This isn’t God’s enemy
This is his loyalist
A man with faith
A man with trust

I like what Christopher Hitchens said
About Isaac and Abraham
He wouldn’t give a damn
If you asked him to do such a deed

His answer would be emphatic
Resounding with no static
To ask for something barbaric
Would be immoral and sick

Would you collect kindle
For Katherine, Kaylee, or Carol?
Would you murder your child
If God requested such bile?

I hope not, I hope
You have better morals
Than the this character
Who asks you to kill your child.
(end)

This poem is based on the bible verse Judges 11:30-39.

Let Me Get This Straight, By Brianrrs37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter/X)

Why the long wait, was boredom on his plate?
13.8 billion years ago, a universe on his slate
Of our planet’s 4 billion years, 5 mass extinctions
Only 250,000 years ago to get to the human trait
Only 10,000 years ago to get to human’s writing
Of that time today religions never stop fighting
Sunnis and Shiites cant agree
Jews and Muslims cannot see
Protestants and Catholics truce tentatively
An eye for an eye for mythology’s lie
They stole this Yahweh from the Canaanite pie
All of them willfully ignorant, needlessly die
Over a fictional guy in the sky.
And you dare to ask me why?
I don’t believe in fever’s call
I don’t want to attend the zealot’s ball
I don’t see that it has brought peace at all.

Edamame, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter X)

When I was a little kid
This is what my parents did
When I didn’t know
How to spell a word

And for spelling
I was no good
“Look it up
In the dictionary”

Was a torture
A punishment
As bad as bamboo
Slivers under my fingernails

It would make me scream
It would make me
Have bad dreams
What did I ever do to them?

But now Google is my friend
Far easier to use
And comprehend
Now I fear no word when first heard

I don’t have to be perfect
I can spell it really bad
Google gives me suggestions
So I don’t stay mad

So today in a space
Into my life it made pace
Edamame entered my ear
I had to find it’s place

Soybeans boiled
In their pods
Fancy sounding name
Didn’t intimidate me at all

Neither does a bramble
Nor a preamble
Nor anthropomorphism
My brain has no more spasms

I know this may sound banal
But my parents were really anal
I never put my feet on an ottoman
My empire was a mere foot stool.

So now I know what edamame are
That dictionary never got me far
But by the grace of Google and Simone
I just enter what I don’t know into the search bar.
(end)

Growing up words that sounded fancy to me, or long words with many syllables, would intimidate me. If it sounded foreign it would intimidate me. I was a horrible speller, still am today. But when I was a kid the most dreaded thing I could hear from my parents or a teacher was “look it up in the dictionary”. I fucking hated that. It didn’t encourage me, it made me feel stupid, unworthy. It made me hate reading.

I struggled through school. But when spellcheck first hit, all it did was underline a misspelled word. But being in college at the time that frustration forced me to either look it up, or have someone proofread my paper.

Now today, Google is very forgiving with bad spelling and if you come close google will suggest “did you mean” and give you a correct spelling, and when you click on that, it gives you a definition, in layperson’s terms. So now, I am never intimidated by any word anyone uses now.

Simone taught me a new word I heard for the first time today “edamame” and now I know that is a Japanese soybean/dish.

All the other words like bramble, and banal, and ottoman and anthropomorphism were words, when I was a kid would have shut down my brain and made me feel dumb and stupid.

Bigger Than Yourself, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter/X)

Often skeptics are frowned at, scoffed at
Theists are puzzled by and can’t get by
Why we don’t see a magic man in the sky

A bigger picture we do see
I am merely one of 8 billion living currently
There is humanity, certainly bigger than me

A bigger picture we do see, that of nature’s glory
Earth, our only home, 24,901 mile circumference
There is our planet, certainly bigger than me

A bigger picture we do see, that of nature’s glory
From the sun, to the edge of our solar system
That’s 17 billion miles, certainly bigger than me

A bigger picture we do see, that of nature’s glory
The observable universe 93 billion light years a cross
The universe’s 2 trillion galaxies, certainly bigger than me

I am humbled and amazed by everything I see
The universe, life on earth, and all it’s diversity
I simply don’t attach all this to old Bronze Age mythology.

Power Ball, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter/X)

Odds are certain that someday
You number will come up
A call for your final curtain

It could be a heart attack
It could be a stab in the back
It could be a deadly wreck

It could be a deadly bacteria
It could be choking in the cafeteria
It could be cancer from smoking

It could be drowning while surfing
It could be a slew of things
Then off to heaven so they claim

“They’re in a better place”
Then why the tears on your face?
I don’t understand

Their number was drawn
Now they are gone
They won the Power Ball

So why are you crying at all?
They are at the cosmic ball
To a fancy soiree they’re call

This logic becomes even more absurd
If a murder has occurred
If they are ‘in a better place’

Then the offender should get an award

I can tell you the real reason why
And it isn’t a a super hero in the sky
Evolution is the why

It reminds us of our own mortality
When we observe others fatality
It also reflects our evolutionary empathy

We don’t like being in pain
To inflict on others
Benefits no gain

Real psychiatry, real psychology
Real neurology, real biology
Are why nobody wants to win

That Power Ball.

Ant Farm, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 o Twitter/X)

I pour the sand between the glass
I stick you in, but alas
You’re just an ant, no out to pass

I can sear you in the window sill
I can magnify heat , burn you to hell
I can dump you in a water well

I can shake you up, and burry you
I can destroy you in one breath
You’re just an ant in an Etch A Sketch

I can make you scatter, you don’t matter
I can make you scared, never aware
I can make you grovel, your home a hovel

If you dare to think, if you dare to leave
I will punish you, with no reprieve
I will tell you it’s for your own good

I am the ant farm creator, I am God.
(end)

I just watched a face book short and this lady said it best. God doesn’t want an equal, he wants a hierarchy.

That is what a dictator wants, a mafia boss wants, an abusive spouse wants.

Just Another Brick, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter/X)

His letter to the Danbury Baptists
Was eloquently dear for the republic
Separation of Church and State was quite clear

The glaring absence, absolutely no presence
Of the words “Jesus” “Bible” “Christian”
Was a deliberate omission in the Constitution

Jefferson’s Virginia Religious Freedom Act
Became Maddison’s 1rst Amendment model
The founders did enact

In the Constitution’s Oath Of Office
“No religious test”
Makes the neutral obvious

To claim this nation “Christian”
Is theocratic and spurious
Subjugating and injurious

Barbary Treaty article 11
Blatantly says in unambiguous terms
We are not based on the Christian religion

“Question with boldness”
Jefferson’s famous quote
Paine’s stance on pulpit politics
Was hardly remote

They do need an education
All in all, they do need
More bricks in the wall.
(end)

Beat On The Brat, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter/X)

What can you do?
With barbaric logic
Always on your back
What can they construe?

If you kill your slave
It shall be avenged
If your slave survives
No harm in the end

Don’t you break
That which makes
Your dough and bread
Don’t kill them dead

Yoke the restraint
Don’t make a complaint
Thoughts of freedom
Always faint

Beat your slave
Don’t gouge an eye
Don’t break a tooth
To get them to comply

Nowhere in
Commandments of 10
Does this God
Of slavery condemn

Countless verses
In that book
One could point to
That they overlook

Bequeath you shall
To your loins of male
Your property shackled
Forced labor dwells

Of rods to spoil
The slave does toil
Humanity’s cruelty
Makes my blood boil

I’m reading it wrong
Out of context they say
Their vulgar apology
Has no sway
(end)

The bible doesn’t just have 1 verse or 2 verses about slavery. It has dozens and dozens, and not jus the O.T. But the NT as well. It only tells you how to beat your slave without leaving a mark, and to not break your money maker, like not breaking your saw or drill or nail gun. If you kill your slave, you hurt your ability to make money.

It does allow you to own, buy, sell trade, slaves with other tribes. Hebrews can only be slaves for 6 years. You can own females as slaves too. Point is the bible does not flat out condone slavery. It is ok under certain conditions, according to the Bible.

I find these morals to be 100% inexcusable and repugnant and evil. And the only argument you get is apology in saying “You are taking It out of context”. Or, “It says not to hurt them, see?” It says not to hurt your money maker, but nowhere in any of those verses does it say word for word, “It is never ok to own another human, or to have indentured servitude.” It allows for ownership of other human beings, and forced labor boy proxy of debt.

https://www.openbible.info/topics/slaves_beat There are dozens of verses condoning slavery and indentured servitude at this link.

Notes on this poem:

The title of this poem is an ode to the Ramone’s song “Beat On The Brat”, which is my metaphor for wanting to take a time machine back in time and beat the crap out of the writers who wrote those vile verses.

Never A Bride, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter/X)

Great Scott, or maybe not so
Norwood did not help them win
When, if ever, will their big dance begin

Roman Numerals XXV
Wide right kicker
Couldn’t keep them alive

Are they the new Cubs
Of the NFL
Are they destine to always fail

Bass fishing, ice fishing
Lake effect snow
Win the Lombardi

They never know
Underdog, Underdog
It will be ok

You’ll be wearing a ring
If only one day.
(end)

The Bills losing to the Chiefs was not only a heartbreak for their fans, but for fans of the Cinderella/Underdog gang. That was PTSD for their fans that are old enough for sure.

I really do mean this as a sincere poem for their fans. It sucks losing. I can’t say much for my team Washington. We don’t make the playoffs at all. I’ll be rooting for Buffalo again next year.

Dogs Deer & Dollarbirds, By (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter/X)

If horses had gods
Xenophanes once said
The gods would all have
A horse’s head

Ever see a dog bark
At it’s own reflection
With every god ever claimed
It is just our projection

Ever see a deer
Smash through a door
It’s reflection a rival
It want’s to gore

Ever see
A divebombing bird
Crash into a window
And think “that’s absurd”

Anthropomorphism
Is what humans do
Projecting our qualities
On the world around you

It is why early gods
Like Pele punished us with fire
It was just our fear
We’d end up in a pyre

Our early gods
Reflected nature
We’d see them
In almost every creature

The clouds had controllers
Like that of Poseidon
Thor strikes you down
With a bolt of lightening

The dog in the mirror
Is the God in you
It’s in your head
Like the horses glue

Pegasus never flew
Centaurs gallop on
Into mythology
Are both now gone

Mirror mirror
Projector in theatre
The movie mere fiction
The director’s reflection

Abraham, oh Abraham
Cant you see, eventually
In future annals of history
You’ll be classified as mythology.
(end)

All gods are mere projections of our own human qualities. Early gods took the form of nature, like volcano gods, animal gods, weather gods. Polytheism mixed nature with human forms, and monotheism simply became human in form but with super powers. All of it in any case is all just humans projecting their own desires to control their environment and survive. It is a false perception regardless.