SNM Horror Magazine

This is our own Darkened Version of The Statue of Liberty! 

Welcome, dark horror writers. This section is dedicated to your voice and viewpoint. It is the editorial section of the magazine where authors can discuss a philosophy or comment on current world events. Indeed sometimes there is nothing more horrific than reality! With that in mind, you can submit your articles or respond to other contributing authors. We want to get enough interest to have it be a regular part of the magazine. So start weaving some words and be heard in less than 6,000 words. Make a good point! It can be about any current event, horrific news topic, the economy, war viewpoint or general philosophy. Authors featured on this page have a permanent placement on this page for the time being. So submit your ideas and let's stir up some controversy in our crusted cobweb part of the world! First, read the four selected articles below to get a feel for it.

Let's Not Invade Iran -- Ken Kupstis

UNACCEPTABLE! -- Stephen Charles Long

What They Were Wrong About -- Tamara Wilhite 

This Godless Universe -- Steven Marshall

The U.S. Congress has betrayed the American people! Our trust was misplaced in the faith of our countries leaders. To protect and serve the people was their oath. We were told by men who no longer serve that Iraq was a threat. This threat however, has not come from Iraq but from members of our government that have not investigated all the accusations. Our President, whom under oath swore to uphold and defend the very United States Constitution, quoted by a journalist after signing the Patriot Act "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a God xxxx piece of paper." How dare he. He swore under oath to defend and protect the Constitution! Sir, it is what my country was built upon and how dare you belittle it. For over a hundred years men have fought and died for it!

I see the returning troops, casket draped coffins, hidden from public view, and it is sickening! These are heroes -- is it not sad enough they SACRIFICED everything for a lie? But to hide these brave men and women is an act of violation for services rendered! Those who have returned face medical obstacles still unaddressed, hampered with many commiting suicide or becoming homeless or both.

My new country sickens me! I offered my life as did my father for the country we loved. Where has the country been mislead? By men who think the immigrant farmer is the same thing as the illegal immigrant who comes here to work and sends his money back to his country of origin. Or to get free medical benefits for himself or his family or so that his children maybe born American. Where I live an illegal immigrant just killed a young woman because he was upset and set her body ablaze, then ran home!

Unacceptable!

Our administration and congress are more worried about gays, stem cell research and giving themselves a raise, rather than care about the welfare of this country and it's citizens.

Unacceptable!

I watched in dismay as the President stood before our country and forgot what he was saying.  WAVED his hands and said take my word for it!  NO SIR, I take your word on nothing now.

How many dead returning from Iraq will it take to prove to this government that sometimes we are all wrong; sometimes the answer is no and most of all...SOMETIMES WE CANNOT WIN!  Just because you think you can does not justify denying you are wrong after five long years and over 4,000 dead!!!

Unacceptable!

The media share a guilt here. You talk about the fire on the other side of town, then barely cover the war. It's as if you are afraid or are paid to keep silent. If things do not change the people will take over. It has happened before, it will happen again. Why?

Because this is our country, supported by our taxes. Because  the trade agreement set forth by Mr. Bush will not benefit America. But it will in other countries like all the items recalled from China. When we import from countries whose guidelines for the construction of items are lower than ours we put the people in America at risk; our very children, pets and lives. We send our jobs overseas because the CEO's and men who stand to make great profits off our willingness to be made second class citizens. How can we make a fair, honest wage when the government of China has slaves as a work force?

Unacceptable!

Time for a change folks help make the change or get out of the way. Many in our government seem to have become "senile." Gentleman in congress, if you love your country, then step down. You are no longer leading but in the way. We need new and fresh ideas.  It is essential and over half of the people in this country demand the impeachment of the President Mr. Bush and the Vice President. The charge is war crimes. Iraq is not and was not the threat. The distribution of fear and the war mongering spins are now the real threat. For Iran is now the target...

                         Stephen Charles Long © 2008

             www.myspace.com/stehencharleslloyd 

In the mid-Twentieth Century, there was a Second World War.  Fortunately for the survivors of that conflict, Atomic Energy had barely been developed into a portable weapon. However, a much more serious threat had been developed – the use of petroleum. 

Plastics saw only a very limited use in the Second World War.  Immediately after the war, their use expanded dramatically. The next century was once called ‘The Plastic Age’ or aka “Petroleum Age”. Petroleum used for fuel and industry before this point, but its use literally exploded. 

However, the material pumped from the ground had merely changed form. The petroleum underground was transformed, used then unused above ground. The disposal problem had appeared first. ‘Landfills’ were disposal sites where these unwanted remains were simply buried, thinking the problems with them somehow just vanished as they were now out of sight. As ‘landfills’ filled up, ocean-dumping of this trash expanded. This poisoned the oceans and made the sea-life, which used to be a safe food source, grew toxic and inedible.

Petroleum reserves existed in the most inhospitable lands, for both people and ideas. This fuel, of course, naturally had to be paid for with both money and loss of control. Those who sought to spread primitive ideas via oil wealth even built their own nuclear weapons, in the hopes of forcing others to bow down to the Moon God. Some ancestors worshiped one god, others goddesses, others none. The power of the Atom God, though, was our salvation.

Atomic Energy was practical, non-polluting, non-petroleum, and as recyclable as plastic. That path was blocked by those ruled by fear. Wind and Water power efforts were held back by those who thought only of their forest or mountain views, and not of all the world’s needs. Then there came the time to seek energy from the living world. Living from the land, fuel for machines via food.

It was not a good time to live through. Food riots began as mandated biofuels drove up the cost of food. Disruptions in transportation brought lack of water and food to other places. Fighting over resources brought war and panic and refugees with disease. And refugees brought bad ideas for the world into the few places that were unharmed by human action. All the world was dying, and those who worshipped the Moon god rained down plagues and human bombs to frighten us into their death.

A large death of human population levels occurred worldwide, though not as quickly as our ancestors had planned. This was because the nuclear weapons used pre-emptively by our ancestors on the large, consumer based cities did not kill as many as expected. It did, however, end those who worshiped the Moon god, and the breeder mentality and violence they brought. The bombs upon the Moon God worshipers and those alike, also made the oil reserves across the world unreachable for all. There would be no more downward circle. When the air cleared, it would clear for good.

This Second Nuclear Age brought about the end of the age of waste. The nuclear bombs detonated among the largest hundreds of cities reduced the world population drastically, while the fire bombs of our ancestors kept those who had succumbed to that unsustainable life style within the fallout radius. Like a cancer that must be burned away, much was burned. Yet it ended all of those who lived the age of waste. And although such mass death was violent, it spared those innocent tribes that had never stepped into the Age of Waste as well as those that turned their backs to the Age of Waste and had chosen to live in harmony upon the land. The weapons built by the Moon God worshippers had been stolen, yes, theft, but used to make the world safe for the Green Mother to reclaim. All who harmed her and who could not live without harming her were gone, along with all they had built. Balance was restored.

That brings us to our present day. We are back to a level that is sustainable via efficient, organic agriculture and home-grown industry. We recycle the materials we mine from the “land fills” to provide the few essentials we cannot grow ourselves. The ubiquitous plastic bags they carelessly disposed of now act as rain catches for our clean water. The plastic waste that they could find no use for burns for our boilers to boil our water, so that we do not die of cholera and other water borne diseases of our less advanced neighbors. We appreciate our ancestors who brought the better old ways back so that we may live as we are meant to live and the second Nuclear Age they brought.

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                          Tamarawilhite@hotmail.com

          In this spontaneous combustion we call life, we somehow feel the need to credit this act to an invisible entity of worship called God.  As soon as man began to question his place in the universe, mythology was introduced as a pillar of comfort.  It offered a promise of a better afterlife and a way to explain those unanswered questions.  Society needed some placating tool to explain the creation of life and what lay beyond the grave.  Kings and rulers now needed to convert all individual thought patterns into a universal wisdom to gain a sense of community.  For millennia, this ideology seemed to serve its purpose, until the introduction of the Holy Book of Life that Christianity called the Holy Bible.  It was a collection of myths and stories from an older civilization.  This book was rewritten and interpreted by each culture and transcribed into many languages – adjusted accordingly by each – until man forgot he created God and not the other way around.  All he really had was the Earth inside the galaxy of a Godless Universe all along.

            We have barely maintained 2000 years on this planet since the first introduction of Christianity.  How miniscule a timeline in comparison to that of the galaxy.  Over time we have evolved our knowledge of science and medicine.  We even learned to build nuclear technology.  Yet it was only 500 years ago we realized the Earth was round and there was more land across the ocean.  Only 250 years ago since we invented fuel based forms of transportation and about 50 years ago since we developed network based computers. 

          How evolved or advanced do we think we are today in comparison to 2000 years ago with less than 100 generations of lifetimes since the Christian Era?  Indeed, atheist be thy name and I have been deemed by others to be one of those individual thought patterned thinkers.  So long as God does not exist in any name or form in my world.  Attend your church and preach your beliefs but I will not be brainwashed or corralled into any mass fantasy of ignorance and irrationalism. Yes, to me organized religion is a refuge for weak minded people who do not have the courage to face the universe on its own terms and cannot accept that life was a biological coincidence.  I see no logic in people bowing on their knees humbling themselves before an imaginary Lord of Creation, who despite which version of the Bible they subscribe to, still share the same sick delusion.  Are these people ignorant or irrational otherwise?  No...just misinformed on a mass level.
 

            The individual thinker relies not on what others have told them but is innately guided by the principals of secular humanism which neither entertains God nor the Devil -- or anything that covertly or remotely suggests divine intervention or superstitious propaganda.  We were born unto this Earth, not as children of a God, but perhaps a slightly more advanced intelligence and genetics than that of the ape.  Many people cite the complexity of life as proof of the existence of a higher power; think that animals and plants are so varied and fit for their purpose that there could be no chance that they were transformed by their environment; so they must have been created by God.  The fact is, the universe hosts more stars and galaxies that grains of sand on every beach in the world.  It’s mathematically impossible for us to be alone in the universe.  That will be the next big discovery for us following "the Earth is round" revelation. 

            Do we suggest extraterrestrial life was also created by God?  When ‘Intelligent Design’ is advocated, it is often argued that evolution is only a theory; not tangibly proven.  However, relativity is also just a theory and yet it explained and solved some of the major problems in physics.  By that point physicists had to disregard all their previous notions of the universe.

            Aside from all the “where do we come froms” and the “how did we get heres”, religion is also misconstrued in faith, hope and prayer when a sudden tragedy occurs.  When our lives are touched by devastations so enormous, so emotionally overwhelming and too difficult to bear, the temptation to seek mystical solace from an invisible gesture, or spiritual guidance from a clergy viewpoint, may seem comforting at the time.  So does drinking alcohol to escape one’s problems.  Whether its health or wealth, there’s no reason to wish or pray for anything other than to placate something with delusions.  Yes organized religion is like alcoholism, a disease of the mind.  It’s deeply embedded in a politically correct society that is programmed to believe no other way. Whenever the truth is too unbearable, placate it with religion and drink down your sorrows – it’s nothing more than a coping mechanism and temporary fix.  And like alcoholism, it can be cured through individual thought patterns that simply accept life for what it is: a function of our own metamorphosis as a species.
 

            When religion is used as a tool to control and oppress the masses – whether in church or an evangelist on television – it’s an emotional enslavement making up your mind for you.  Have we all wandered off the path of reason and fallen into a chasm of superstition?  Should we just simply trade all of our independent spirit, self-reliance and intellectual integrity in exchange for some half-baked dreamy promises of an afterlife filled with togas and harps?

            The afterlife in spirit form might be a more plausible theory without the elements of a miracle event; certainly more plausible than that of God.  To apply that theory using logic…if there is no afterlife, if each individual’s existence ends entirely in the grave, then the collective destiny of the human race is exactly that of the individual being. After death: emptiness, blackness, nothingness.  Unfortunately, nothing can arise from nothing.  We can’t claim a higher purpose for the species as a whole when there is none reserved for the individual spirit.  So mathematically and scientifically we probably rotate on some conveyor belt of existence.  Molecules, atoms, DNA all get consumed and regurgitated then replanted and grown again.  It's a genetic code of production, death and then reproduction.  Science has already demonstrated this without attributing it to faith, religion or an act of God.  There is no blasphemy in saying this, as much as it is a secular enlightenment for those afraid to consider that viewpoint.

            Where religion has failed to make any rational sense, science, in all its infancy, has not conclusively proved itself across the spectrum; at least not yet.  And where God and Satan are hereby renounced, the fact that there might be a force greater than us out there is not ruled out by scientific deduction; at least not yet.  Where life and death have logical components, (not just dogmas and doctrines), it may then also suggest an afterlife is logical and may be a perfectly natural step of our existence.  Just like the caterpillar is a stage of life evolving into a butterfly that’s interrupted by a short process of death in between called the cocoon.  All three may be stages of a natural evolution with no religious aspects whatsoever.  Thus the metamorphosis of the flesh and soul may just be a transformation of a higher order than that of a caterpillar.  No need to cling to the false hope that Religion deserves any credit for this act.
 

            In today’s new world, we rely so heavily on hard fact and proof that religion has become the gesture of a misguided fantasy.  We see events transpiring around the world that some would equate to problems of Biblical proportions.  There has been more worldwide war, colossal hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes; now mass suicidal bombings to support so-called Holy Wars.  The worst crimes in humanity have involved killing in the name of a God.  They are nothing more than terrorist attacks by other brainwashed believers of prayer and faith.  True, we have to take life to its extreme to get to evolution but since everything is subject to interpretation and so subjective to begin with, it keeps us that much further from the truth.  The simple truth is we were hunched over creatures before we could stand.  We live, breathe, eat and die like all living things and nothing living is impervious to death.  We are no wiser to the mystery of life than 2000 years ago.  And the way we’re headed, 2000 more – if we make it that long.  There is still no tangible evidence or direct proof that God exists, and like alcoholism the first step is admitting it.  So, if you were to follow the same motto of AA and “grant yourself the power to accept the things you cannot change and the wisdom to know the difference,” you might just stumble upon an even deeper truth.  Then and only then can you be your own God.

            So when I say that I do not share the viewpoints of others and my beliefs are very personal to me, these are more than a few reasons why.  This artcile is merely a tribute to the individual thinking self, not an arbitrary attack on God as a believe, or people who dedicate themselves to religion.  I do stir some controversy over my politically incorrect viewpoints, yet still nothing will alter the beliefs of this individual thinker who sees life for what it is: a Godless Universe!

            We should morever consider The Ringmasters of our puppet world here on Earth as more false example of Deities.  They pre-scribe a vision for you to sub-scribe to in hopes that you will execute their will.  It might be argued that the greed of man is the ultimate thread which creates a divide in the human race.  In a world of monetary enslavement, where the value of a dollar is greater that the value of the species, we divide our own kingdom into those who financially prosper and those who simply starve on the street.  Here there are only victimizers and victims of a higher manipulation at work and can be found here on Earth.

            We must always keep in mind ‘man is a self-conscious Nothing’.  Throughout the century, humanity has fallen victim to the conquering and slayings of greater nations dominating lesser ones to further some crusade justified by war, or worse, Holy War.  We have granted ourselves the powers of Godlike messiahs to seek the standout guinea pigs in nature’s grand laboratory as we claim our dominion of Earth.

            How blind we are to the horrors of our existence, standardized to a monetary ambition that by which defines our status as a species.  I have come to a positive estimate that our lives are simply all in our heads.  Such arguments as “To be or not to be” in the veins of our existence have been uselessly debated down to our own fragile and temporary being. The few who have gone through the pains, trials and tribulations of doing so might as well never have existed to begin with once they meet their graves.

            History has proven that people will change their minds on just about anything, from which God to worship, to what car they drive to determine the value of their being. Sadly, we can only find truth with logic if we have already found truth without it. And if the truth you found is not the same as that with whom you are arguing, then it is resigned and cancelled null and void inside our mind.  This is why seeming can be everything inside the heads of humanity.  So if man is indeed a self-conscious Nothing, at face value that statement is a paradox and horror in one.  Being self-conscious and nothing should by definition cancel each other out. Yet they are coupled to suggest an unreal monstrosity like a co-existential paradox like that of an undead being.

            Take the suicidal bomber who would strap bombs to themselves and claim to receive messages from worshipped illusions of a higher manipulation. They would tell you they have some greater cause, yet they themselves are nothing as an individual.  It is a prime example of an oxymoron when the individual only acknowledges themselves in a group form of identity yet has none of their own.  It is the prime evil of man inciting religion as a cause to manipulate impoverished nations into believing anything that offers the promise of hope.

            They are living puppets helpless to act on their own, unless guided by powers unseen to claim a cause for being.  And being self-conscious they suffer the twisted illusions that they are now something.  Ultimately, nothing can arise from nothing.

            Take a moment to consider the purpose of a puppet.  It is an object made in the likes of mankind, somewhat in our image, but has no ability for individual thought.  It is designed for us to believe it can talk, if manipulated by others moving its mouth with unseen hands behind its back or perhaps some strings overhead, communicating through some  clever kind of ventriloquism. (Nowadays we intimately call them politicians but puppets nonetheless!)

           Our minds undeniably have their wanton moments when a puppet seems at one point to have come to life, standing up or moving its mouth or eyes, says something human-like that catches us off guard for a moment.  Then a psychological conflict erupts within us briefly, a discordance of perception that sends a supernatural horror up our backs with a morbid awareness that we did not know.  Yet it is merely man who is possessing it.  There is an actual manmade condition for the anxiety evoked when inanimate forms of beings (puppets, dolls marionettes, toy soldiers, begin to disport and reveal human like qualities.  Regardless whether we believe in supernatural manifestations and/or inhabitances, they terrorize us because it is only natural for us to consider only ourselves as conscious beings.  A puppet exists but cannot know that it exists.  It is a know-nothing. And yet it still just may have something to tell us about the darker nature of our selves!

            Puppets are simply effigies of humans created by our own hands and minds, designed to portray actors in a world of their own, one that exists inside of our heads and reflects back upon it.  What do we see in this reflection?  Only what we want to see when we can stand to see it, as long as it doesn’t encroach upon the demise of our narcissism.   Through the egotism of man’s self-illusion, we hide from what our minds disbelieve.  We deny ourselves of a bigger picture in the face of truth just to save face and defend our stubborn pride.  So naturally we hide the truth at all costs, both monetarily and even with our lives as evidenced by the war.

            But puppets, on the other hand, have nothing to hide.  They are more than willing to betray a secret too terrible about our demeanor as a species for us to know.  (Or perhaps my perception is just too much for you to agree with?)  Puppets might simply see us as naked apes or embodied angels…if they themselves could see.  Still the logical will tell you when puppets are in motion, we know that they are being moved by another source.  When they do speak, their voices come from someone else.  Their orders come from someone behind and beyond them.  And should they ever become aware of that fact, they would collapse and become lobotomized by it. Maybe the scariest revelation is the same analogy describes us.  With an added self-consciousness, our narcissism blocks the reflection of humanity, because we see only what we want to see when we can stand to see it.

            Finally, when we are done playing with puppets, we put them back in the closets.  They are merely objects of our own aspirations much like corpses in a casket.  The dead do not return except in horror stories, movies and nightmares.  If they were not, our world would be a paradox itself; a true horror in which no one could be certain of anything.  Perhaps we are just puppets whose orders come from behind and beyond us.  All supernatural horror depends entirely on a state of confusion of what we believe and are told to believe by our own master puppeteer.  Many scientists, philosophers and spiritual figures have all attested, our heads are constantly filled with illusions interpreted by the individual who is trying to make sense of their world by subscribing to the most logical of them.  And none of them is quite what they seem to others. 

            One certainty we know which has been proven to us repeatidly is nature makes no mistakes; but if it did, we would do everything to block out this knowledge from our minds.  So thank whatever force if there is nothing in the world to worry about.  I believe we are natural beings, if not puppets, whose lives have an inborn value, only until the grave.  If no one can prove or disprove that our lives and existence are a paradox or horror, then surely everything is alright with the world.  To expound on a Shakespeare quote: “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely…puppets, being strung along on invisible strings in this mindless charade that we call...life.

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                        www.stevenmarshallhorror.com