An Agnostic Back From The Dead

The Triumph of the Green Man

2006-09-14T06:13:00.000-07:00

An announcement: some of you may have noticed a certain amount of belligerence in Voltaire Reincarnate's attitude towards The Green Man. He made the mistake of translating that belligerence into action --and so The Green Man is shutting this blog down. A potato and a comic book turned out to be all it took to reduce Voltaire Reincarnate to a quivering pile of ash and slime. I don't think we'll be seeing him around any time soon.

No one escapes the vengeace of The Green Man.

--The Green Man's Literary Agent

Walt Whitman Gets Fair Warning

2006-08-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

After much research I have located the reincarnation of Walt Whitman: he is going down very shortly. I do not wish to give too many details, as it could complicate the operation, but in the spirit of fair play, I am letting Walt Whitman know that I am aware of his present incarnation and its location and am coming for him.

Now some may object that I ought not destroy such people. After all, Walt Whitman's religious views were not Christian. Is atheism not more fundamental than bad literature? Would I really prefer Chesterton with all of his superstitious and atavistic Catholicism to the author of Leaves of Grass?

This is an honest question and deserves an honest answer. According to many atheists, atheism is simply one small part of a worldview. If atheism is supposed to be more basic than literary preferences, it can hardly be considered a small part of a worldview. The challenge to other atheists is to be consistent.

Not only so, but facts are facts: very stubbornly. However we try to manipulate them, they tend to stay the same. And the fact is that Walt Whitman sucks. He imposed his gross and, even worse, uninteresting egotism on the world in the name of art: and in the name of art, in the name of humanity, yea, in the very name of evolution he shall be made to pay!

As atheists or agnostics we must be hard-headed: we must not allow ourselves to be carried away by sentiment or sympathy. Walt Whitman tried to find significance in himself, without regarding the cosmic, and in the process wrote a lot of drivel. As much, then, as I might admire his lack of Christianity, I cannot spare him. As one who cares above all about facts, the facts must be known and acted upon. His bowels will shortly begin to twist within him (perhaps I should say her --or is that giving too much away?). He cannot escape my doom: he is Madeline Albright! The tide of progress must progress; and Whitman is too gaseous and bloated egotistically to move forward.

Evolution sheds no tears.

A Tricky Operation

2006-08-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

I apologize to the multitude of adoring fans for the posting delay. My 102-year old body was fast decaying, but I didn't want to go through the whole 'realms-of-the-dead-waiting-in-line-to-reincarnate' thing. The line is longer than the heat of summertime at Cedar Park. So I had to be creative. I used one of my many inventions (in a previous incarnation I was a renowned Arabic inventor whose story has, unfortunately, been lost to humanity) to force a transmigration of souls. I transferred the soul of a wealthy Tibetan recluse into my aging body, where he woke up completely disoriented. He has not died yet, but I expect to inherit from him anyday now. So now I am young, wealthy, and in possession of a nice temple/mansion in Tibet, with high-speed internet. The downside was that once I transferred I realized I didn't like his wife --so I transmigrated her into the Lhasa Apso. The Lhasa Apso was nice, so I moved her soul into a Spanish bull waiting to be released in the streets of Pamplona. The Lhasa Apso will go out in a blaze of glory this time. Of course, that created a problem with the bull's soul. I was going to move it into Brad Pitt, but realized I had a 'trash' button on the machine. That was so much fun that I went ahead and dumped Brad's soul anyway. I don't think Angelina will notice, as he should carry on as usual. Not having a soul didn't make any difference to him, or to Alan Greenspan. I take that back: Brad has quit chewing gum. It was his one aesthetic outlet.

My Secret

2006-08-22T09:18:00.000-07:00

People want to know how I did it. It does not (pace, Smithsonian) involve hypnosis. I can't be too technical, or some bright engineer might duplicate it, but I have developed a machine that by sensing subtle patterns in the R-complex of the brain can identify the previous incarnations of people currently populating the imperfect sphere we call Terra. It is a foolproof method. In this way, people who got on my nerves in previous incarnations, and people who tortured the world with their nauseous semi-literary waffle will get vengeance. Even the Green Man has no parallel for this machine. From generation to generation, my bitter vendetta against the onetime soul of Ralph Waldo Emerson will continue unabated. If he returns as an artichoke I will serve him at a party with horseradish sauce. If he returns as a whale I will have the Japanese or the Icelandic spear him. Should he return as a mineral I will cast him into the blankness of space.
Reincarnations of Ralph Waldo Emerson and other similarly irritating people, you have been warned.

A Quote Very Appropriate To Me Since I Am Not Only The Reincarnation Of A Prominent Agnostic But Also A Truly Sensitive Soul

2006-08-19T19:56:00.000-07:00

, which, incidentally, destroys the notion that agnostics are all hard-boiled eggs. Sometimes tears trickle gently down my wrinkled cheeks and I feel close to the universe.

"The love scenes I did years ago were sensitive and romantic, but in today's lovemaking, couples are trying to swallow each other's tonsils."

I will give you a free pass from one acerbic comment if you identify the source of that quote without running it through any internet search engine.

Out of Hiding

2006-08-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

The Green Man has brought me out from hiding.
My purpose in life is to crush the reincarnations of fatuous American semi-literary figures. Ralph Waldo Emerson has already gone down. He had been reincarnated as Ken Lay.
For kicks, I like to watch Christians squirm on the altar of their mental incompetence. The most fundamental and convincing argument against Christianity is that there are stupid Christians. Whereas we know that God would have wanted to 'save' only the intelligent: but since he didn't want to save us, he must not exist.