Why Capitalism Sucks: Part 4 – Systems, Identity & Motivation

A New Feudal System The feudal system in the “dark ages” was justified by the belief that one group of people (the nobles) was inherently better than the rest (peasants, serfs, general peons, etc.) – there was a natural hierarchy due to their “breeding.” The “strong” could repress the “weak” because it was their natural…

Why Capitalism Sucks: Part 2 – Definitions: Communism & Socialism

DEFINITIONS Let’s define some terms to eliminate some usual misunderstandings right away: Communism Communism is derived from the same root as community, common, and commune. Because of all the baggage, a better word is probably “commonism.” Communism is everything that is shared in common, owned collectively by we the people, including even now public roads,…

On Being An Artist (or: How to be a creative person in a prefab world)

What is an artist? Creative? Intuitive? Weird. Outside the box. What box? Outside of my own box. Raconteur? That sounds “rakish” but it really just means “storyteller.” We’re telling our stories and we must be arrogant enough to believe enough other people will relate to them for us to make a living at it. Freaks…

Neckties That Blind

Who decided that if I tie something tightly around my neck I will work more effectively? What the hell is that? It’s bad enough that we’re judged by what we look like, what we have, what we do, who we know and how hip we aren’t. All of those assessments are based on the shape…

Better Late

A little thing i wrote years ago, but, better late than never… Who needs coffee? Just wake up late enough so that if you catch one stop light red, you’ll get fired. It may take awhile of being late to work up to this point, but so much the better. I wake up by screaming…

Trinity of Humans

The word “trinity” is not in the Bible and i think it can block people out when we add “doctrine” to try and categorize all the different things Jesus said. But i do get the concept. We could say that i as a human have a physical body, a mind or personality (some may disagree LOL),…

Who Left The Dogs Out?

Just a quick one, for an explanation of this parable about a Syrophoenician woman, children, dogs and crumbs. It always seemed harsh to me given that Jesus taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves (even towards people who hate us, as Jesus’s example the “good Samaritan” did). But as usual Jesus puts a twist on…

Oneness

I think i will preface this by noting one big difference between the Pharisees (as portrayed in our Library of Writings known as the Bible) and Jesus. The Pharisees created a lot of separation between themselves, and the Jews and others: Don’t talk to the Samaritans, don’t touch the lepers, hate the tax collectors (who were traitors and…

But What About Punishment?

(First, see my previous article, “Christianese Substitutions Part 3 – “Hell” which reviews the actual Hebrew and Greek words that “hell” is substituted for throughout the Bible, and their meanings.) I understand the need or want for punishment for people who hurt people; what about murderers, torturers, rapists and thieves (and those of us who…

Christianese Substitutions Part 2 – Names Etc.

This set of documents is a list of words that are Greek, or transliterated directly from Greek, or are OLD and do not belong in the Bible. This second part is mostly about names. Even the word “scripture” just means “writings” and the word “Bible” just means “library of writings.” Why not speak clearly in regular…

Christianity Breakdown

Here is a summary of Christianity as i understand it now. You can also check out my Christianity page on my old website (which badly needs to be updated). And i really love the site YHWH.com; wish i wrote it myself! I tried to summarize this all in a few key sentences, but this is the best I could do,…

About Me – Tom Minkler

To start, you can check out All About Me: A Short Spiritual History on my original website that i hand-coded in HTML around the year 2000 (and the rest of the website is accessible from there). As everything there was written so long ago it is hopefully more immature than i am now  ? and is written somewhat “off the cuff.”…