[b]I have discovered the works of the Lebanese poet Khalil Jibran[/b] about two years ago while I was in Manila, traipsing along within the nifty caverns of Robinson’s Malate, killing time and having a whole weekend to spare. I noticed a bookstore and I immediately went through the entrance. Whenever I am in a bookstore or in a library, my juices run like wild horses and I feel like a fish in my own ocean. Books are the staple of my soul and you could say my life would not have been as sublime if I was without them.

My first Gibran book was [b]“The Garden of My Father and Mother” [/b]while the next one was [b]“The Prophet” [/b]. The minute I first paged through his poetry, I felt immediately an elevation of the mind and soul as if the words he spoke where the ones I have craved. As if Khalil knew everything about me and he knew my soul like the palms of his hands. This may sound self-indulgent but forgive me for this one instance.


I may infringe on some copyrights but I could not help but present to you one of the chapters in Gibran’s “The Prophet”. This is Chapter 17. Here it is:
[i]
[b]THEN said a teacher, Speak to us of Teaching.

And he said;

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.

If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding.

The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm, nor the voice that echoes it.

And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither.

For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.

And even as each one of you stands alone in God’s knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth.[/b][/i]

[b]This is the poet’s mind,[/b] complex yet subtle like a calm ocean slowly swept by a gentle wind, under a full moon and silent weather. Khalil Gibran believes that the astronomer, the musician and the scientists could not conduct you thither. We must all stand in God’s knowledge although we stand in the knowledge of God in our own distinct ways.

Many speak highly of Gibran and speak of him like he belongs to some and not to many. Gibran is a man of great spiritual gift and he stands alone in his knowledge of the existence of man and of God, he is unparalleled in this manner.

Finally, someone from Experiment-Orange site answered to the issues I have raised in my recent entry "In Defense of Religion" [Thursday/2.17.05] but sadly, he was such a letdown. His name is Hallmark Garcia [I am not kidding.] and here's what he got to say:

Where has our editor, the brilliant yet  overweight Mike Villar gone you ask? Word from the grapevine is that Mike got married sometime before Valentine’s Day and is currently in Singapore with his beautiful wife on vacation. Either that or he’s doing time for substance abuse again.

Anyway, that mean’s bad news for all of you because Mike’s Absence + Mark Garcia = sardonic and libelous fun! You heard it right ladies and gentlemen; you’d be seeing so much of me this month that the sagely wisdom I am going to impart you will literally ooze out of your nose like the viscous mucous thing they use to fill Bavarian donuts.

I have been on hiatus for quite some time now but I have been reading the articles posted by my colleagues here in Experiment Orange as well and I have to say that one of my favorite posts this month has got to be Religion is an underwater blowjob. More interesting than the article itself was a comment made by an idiot named The prophet..

I just wonder what’s gonna be your alternative to religion. Would you be a hedonist who just go wandering without the hope of a continous existence after this lifetime? Religion may be a parasite at times but without it, the world is chaos and mayhem. We all know that sexula excessiveness leads to indolence and diseases and irresponsibilities as well as social maladies like abortions, unwed mothers, rape and incests to name a few.

You may not like the sort of persons like Brod Pete or Brother Eddie but don’t be stupid that these persons alone consist of religion in the world. Religion is far more complex and formal than that. Philosophers like Nietze are the fathers of guys like Hitler and Marcos, and besides if you only study their works so closely, they just borrow so many things from the bible. The world without a God call itself a n accident, and a person who could blowjob underwater is such an accident despite the complexities of his or her body structures.

Who the hell is S. Roberts, Are they worth their cent? Their nobodies.

Without religion, everyone steals and kills, you must thank God that He gave us rules and ethics ever since time immemorial otherwise you wont even be here

This pisses me off because Gibran is one of the authors I have been reading lately and to use one of his best literary pieces as your handle entails a lot of eloquence. But fuck no; this is NOT the case my friends. The prophet’s site is hideously irritating and pretentiously self indulgent at the same time. The site’s fucking color scheme and design itself is enough to inflict severe injury to your eyes upon prolonged exposure. Ugly sites has long since lost their capacity to irritate me but this is an exception my friends; this site is so fruity that it practically shits skittles. With post titles such as Adobong Kangkong and Robbery in Twilight , You know you’re in for one hell of a mindfuck. His site, The Daily Prophet is comparable to the efforts of JeffK but at least the latter is funny and I daresay the horrendous layout on his site is done intentionally while the former struggles hard to try and sound more profound than he really is and fails miserably.

I would’ve let this one slip but I just hate it when religious turds like the prophet overanalyze things and blow things out of proportion every single time. I would like to say a few things to you sir:

·  Experiment Orange is a satire site. People who take what we write seriously and think that putting huge, annoying animated GIFs on their site would compensate for their dick sizes are in dire need of a lobotomy and a facial…oh and sea weed mask treatment.

·  Spam should never be dipped in mayonnaise.

·  We would’ve listened to you if you only knew the basics of subject-verb agreement. And for somebody who doesn’t know S. Roberts, you are an arrogant little fuck.

·  Don’t fucking tell us what to write on our site. (Yes, I saw the entry in your blog, and I can’t blame you for deleting it; we kinda have that daunting effect that causes dimwits like you to tremble in fear.) I mean come on man, do we come to your workplace and take the squeegee out of your hand while you’re cleaning windows? Do we kick the can of coins you spent a whole day begging for? NO. So fuck off.

·  Spitting in the wind is a bad idea.

Okay now that I got my groove back, let me proceed with my update which surprisingly, is a follow-up to Mike’s Religion is an underwater blowjob article. While I agree with most of Mike’s points in the aforementioned article, there is one thing that I am not putting up with; and that is resorting to hasty generalization. I am not going to stoop down that level and in fact, I am leveling the playing field my friends. I am not going to generalize but rather try to insult all the religions in the world individually. Bow to me, I’m a genius!

The differences between various religions have been a cause of disunity for ages now. People like the prophet live their lives around religion like it’s the most important thing in the whole world and will almost always gladly be cannon fodder for a religiously dictated war like lemmings. The reason for this glaring problem is that people tend to be intolerant. They rely on generalizations and half-truths to inform them about other religions. I’d like to solve this problem of hate and confusion once and for all! I have compiled a dossier (well not really a dossier) on all the major religions in the world and I’m providing you with the facts people, straight and no BS.

Atheism

Atheism consolidates all the fine points of the other religions in the world and purges the common factor that makes all religions suck…a God. Contrary to popular belief, atheists are not savage, anarchic animals but rather are very cultured, intelligent and some are even good looking. You could see them sipping their caramel fraps at Starbucks, wearing their knitted sweaters and talking about highly intellectual stuff that common people like us could not comprehend. On Tuesdays they even talk in Latin and Ilocano. Wow!

Atheists worship nothing and are vehemently opposed to all deities to the extent that they will regularly be arrested for beating up random people who look like Aliens.

·  As babies, Atheists are not baptized but rather are soaked in vats full of fake blood Marilyn Manson uses for his concerts.

·  They don’t eat Easter eggs, can’t have sex using the missionary position, cannot sing Mary had a little lamb and cannot say “Jesus Christ!” even as an expletive. Doing the said activities causes them to melt into pools of vomit-like liquid.

·  Atheists have smelly feet.

·  Atheists don’t die as they do not believe in the afterlife; they live over a hundred years until finally getting bored and decide to make up their mind about a supreme being and a heaven-like place where horny, nubile young women abound.

Buddhism

This religion was a splinter sect of Taoism; Buddhism became a trend because of their cool orange robes, bald heads and crane stance kung fu moves. Many Buddhists like Adolf Hitler are pacifists although sometimes wayward followers of The Great Buddha are notoriously known to sodomize cows and eat children. The Jesus-ish character of Buddhism is Buddha who is a jolly old man with about 10 million wives and about twice the number of children. Rubbing Buddha’s belly is said to bring good fortune or genital warts.

·  Multiple Buddhist monks can “fuse” together sort of like what they do in Dragon Ball Z to form a huge Mega Monk which can destroy entire cities and breathe fire out of its mouth.

·  Not all Buddhists can levitate; only the ones who don’t masturbate.

·  In battle, Buddhist monks can regenerate severed limbs kind of like the Hydra in Greek mythology. Sometimes, mutations occur and they would grow penises where their arms used to be or grow heads on their asses.

·  The path to being a total pacifist is a long and grueling one. Before a Buddhist monk can claim that he is a pacifist, he undergoes Navy SEAL training and is deployed to four continents where in he must slay at least 10,500 innocent civilians and about 40 cows.

Catholicism

When the Aztecs accidentally stumbled upon a well-preserved corpse of a mountain gorilla in the deep forests of the Amazon, they worshipped it for the lack of anything better to do with it, much like ants might worship an oversized shoe. Over time, the mountain gorilla had his influence diluted by a bunch of poseurs and hangers-on like Neptune, Achilles, Mars, Bacchus, Athena and Totoy Sanchez. Catholicism was a splinter sect of the dying Aztec culture and it embraced the Mountain gorilla as a singular and all-powerful god. The only other aspect of Aztec culture that Catholicism kept was the use of a warrior to do the Mountain Gorilla’s bidding, replacing him with a warrior named Jesus Christ.

·  The rapture is Catholicism’s ultimate weapon to coerce its constituents. But contrary to popular belief, the rapture’s an awesome display of divine fireworks which should be awesome to behold. Just be sure to bring beer and nachos.

·  The Pope is actually the last remaining descendant of a Unicorn named Miktoz who ate human fetuses and enjoyed eating grass like all horse-like creatures.

·  Catholic college students are fucking lazy. They have a saint who celebrates his/her birthday, canonization, death anniversary and what not. Catholic college students are very pleased since this means more reason not to go to school for them.

·  Catholic school girl outfits are kinky.

·  Catholics do not eat fruits nor do they like trees because those remind them of original sin.

Islam

Islam is a considerably new religion developed back in the late 80’s by a secret organization of fashion designers. These designers designed a clothing line that encourages horrendous facial hair and funny hats and had their models injected with olive oil. One’s rank in Islam is determined by their blood’s olive oil content. Ayatollahs have significantly higher olive oil content in their blood stream and Jihad soldiers have the least so they are usually expendable pawns and cannon fodder for Islam’s fun wars.

·  Muslim women do not have mouths that’s why they cover the part of their heads where their mouths should be with long pieces of cloth whatever the fuck those are called.

·  Muslims are battery-powered and need replacements every week.

·  AK47’s come free with purchase of Korans, oh and a year’s worth of ammunition too.

·  Muslims are required to pray 3,000 times a day or whenever they say bad words like “Hotdog.” Prayer is a grueling process involving bending on all fours and smelling the behind of the person praying in front of you.

Mormonism

Mormonism was founded by the same people who founded McDonalds. Currently they are also partnered with Electrolux and secretly sell vacuum cleaners and water purifiers on their door to door visits. If you’re not familiar with Mormons, they are the white dudes who disturb you while you eat, take the liberty to let themselves in and finally discuss to you the reasons why you shouldn’t believe that man and woman came from a split bamboo tree. Oh and they have a funny Utah accent too.

·  Mormons are poseurs pretending to be American. They bleached their skins, had their hair dyed blonde, and they try to speak in incomprehensible Filipino when they have to.

·  Almost 90% have halitosis.

·  They eat weapons-grade plutonium which explains why they never ride public transportation and can walk the entire continent without getting tired.

·  Just like the gremlins, they multiply when you pour water on them. And they become cranky when you feed them after 12mn.

Okay that’s the end of part one people! More to come in a couple of days. cheers!

I answered in the Experiment-Orange comment box :

Hey HallMark Garcia, (No pun intended on the greeting card insinuation)

 

I say what an ass you’ve got there and thanks to me, your ass is now famous as hell. How I wish that Redhorse beer bottle should have been stuck deep right into it.

 

I was expecting a decent and pointed debate the way grown-up people do but alas, what I got is an idiotic counterpart like you.

 

And what’s to know that your site is a satire page? Does it have some announcement that says “Hey world! We are a satire blog. Do not take us seriously!!!”

 

About my grammatical compositions, well, you can say I lack mastery of the English language, but can you help that? Is that your problem? English is only my secondary language for I was born knowing Filipino as my mother tongue. You do not get it. Maybe you’ve got a lot of time and money to go over and over your entries and correct every word you put into your site but I just do not. I have many other things better to do. I assure you the errors are inadvertent and not intentional. I was an Editor In Chief in Ateneo de Zamboanga when I was in college, only if you should know. Despite of this, I still do not claim mastery of the English language.

 

I am not that poor Mr. Garcia but my Internet connection is not as unlimited. In the blogworld, where everything can happen so fast and there are just a lot of blogsites to visit and ponder upon, you could not be careful enough to watch over the things you comment every time.

 

I have not deleted any of my comment or entries and you are a liar. You think I am a coward? Do you mean it that way? Huh? How come you call me an idiot dickhead?!!!

 

Now what’s with you defining and explaining religions in such a sham? It feels and look like shit just hit the fan. It is so messy and you of all the people there is to criticize the salient features of my site is quite amazing and mind-boggling. I mean, huh???

 

Without researching from resources just in my hands, I must clarify to you that Bhuddism did not sprout from Taoism for Lao-Tze and Siddharta were born in different time and place if you examine the writings supporting these two mentioned religion, you could have said you are looking at night and day. For your information, and for your proper education, Bhuddism came into this world when a Hindu prince from Katmandu named Siddharta just got fucked-off with a lot of god characters in the Hindu religion and wondered why there is death and suffering in this world. I pity you that you have not apparently seen Bertolucci’s classic “The Last Emperor”. You missed half of our life. 

 

About Catholicism, Islam, and Mormonism, you just fail like a beaten dog and your description of these great religions are not even funny. It is completely absurd and stupid. You are not being funny, man. You are being bankrupt.

 

Atheism is not necessarily the belief in the non-existence of a god figure. People who just do not believe in religion practice popular atheism; maybe they just got tired of the highly ceremonial and procedural nature of many religions. Now, there is the absolute form of atheism where its practitioners just do not believe in God at all.  Atheists do not even believe in Satan so you could not say that Satanists are atheist.

 

I wonder if Mike was married in an underwater altar, the way movie stars do. If he did get married in the church, then who contradicts who? By the way, extend my best wishes for them

 

I am not a zealot as you said that I live my life around religion. On the contrary, I do not go the church that often although I pray always in my own way. I live an ordinary life and I listen to music ordinary men listen to. I am a fraternity man and I have been a politician in the university I attended. I listen to Guns N’ Fuckin Roses even though they have songs like “Mr. Brownstone” and U2 despite their “God Part II” elegy on godlessness and watch “Friends” and “CSI” often. How zealous can I be? You can say I am part of the MTV generation and I grew up in the time when the “Next British Invasion” happened in the 80’s. You might ask what “invasion” was that, but I will let you research on that.

 

You should discuss matters in a decent manner Mr. Garcia and be careful for I am not a man with great patience and restraint. I am not threatening you but the way you put your ass on public view, and the pedantic nature of your writing, you could do even the basest of all malediction.  You have no manners and you are a rogue and you belong to the dirtier streets. If I know the school where you came from, I would have disdain that school also.

 

When I was an editor in chief, I had numerous trainings in journalism and if you have the time, I am going to give you an online seminar about good writing.

 

Now, perhaps you could edit this comment of mine and for certain you might see some grammatical errors here and there, but do you think you are worthy enough to waste my precious time editing and re-editing this one? Are you really sure that all blogsites, including mine, should ought to be perfect. You must be out of touch with the reality of blogosphere. If you are just to well-entrenched among the many blogsites there is in town, I am pretty certain you would find errors and mistakes as prevalent as the sun in the sky.

 

Do not challenge me on writing “Mr. Greetings Card” for the way you write could not even be compared to my ass, I assure you that. It is just CRAP.

 

Please stay away from my blog and me for I just do not know what to do with a person like you.

I want to apologize to my readers if I appeared so agitated in my answer to Mr. Garcia but please pardon me. Can I help it? I was just so furoius.

I am not seeking support nor symphaty but with the way Mr. Garcia presented his rhetorics, I need not speak no more.