(A flight of imagination)
The United States of America is a Jewish country. It was founded by Jews. More than 85% of the population is Jewish, with small minorities of Muslims and Christians and a smattering of other faiths. That’s the mix in this country, as everyone knows.
On September 11th, 2001, as we are all so painfully aware, a group of radical right-wing Christians from other countries hijacked two airplanes and flew them into the World Trade Center, destroying it, along with thousands of American lives. Mostly Jewish lives of course, although quite a few Muslims and even a few dozen Christians died in the attack that day.
Now a group of so-called ‘moderate’ Christians actually want to build a CHURCH a few blocks away from the attack site. Right near the ‘hallowed ground’ of ‘Ground Zero!’
This is obviously a terrible thing to do, right on the face of it. The sensitivities of all those good American Jews who lost friends and relatives, mothers and fathers and sons and daughters in the 9/11 attacks are being trodden upon; they can hardly be expected to sit by while a so-called moderate Christian group tries in such an obvious manner to put stick into their eye. Why, it's practically spiteful.
What are those ‘moderate’ Christians even thinking? We’re good enough to tolerate their religion here, and of course they have a constitutional right to build their church wherever they want to, but really this is too much!
Why, the very idea of Christians building a church there is a lot like a group of neo-Nazis wanting to build an ‘Aryan cultural center’ right next to the Wailing Wall!
Sure they say that they’re moderate Christians and not radicals like those who killed so many of our people on 9/11. And they say that they’re trying to ‘build bridges’ between our two communities by doing this. But this is a bridge too far. If they really were sensitive to our needs here, sensitive to our Jewish feelings, then they’d build it somewhere else, right? They'd get the hell out of there. That place is reserved for us. For Real Americans who feel the pain of 9/11.
If they want to get us to like them, best to go away, build somewhere else, and not bother us like that, not hurt us like that, no?
So it's in their own self-interest to go away. It's a 'win-win.'
I mean, after all, they should know how scared we all are now of their religion. If it can even be called a religion; why, it's more of an ideology or a political movement when you really look at it.
So why try to build it there of all places, if not to taunt us?
I mean, c'mon! Christianity is the religion of those who attacked us! They did it for their religion! For Jesus! That’s what they said! So obviously we need to take a closer look at this Christianity, be more aware of it, be more proactive. Looking at history it's obvious that Christianity is a religion of conquest and war, a religion of hatred and death, no matter that some of them insist that it's really a religion of peace and love of others. Sure, some of them claim to be ‘moderates’ but you can’t trust that, as evidenced by how many Christians right here in this country have become radicalized. They’re very active on the Internet, and they recruit American Christians to their side from their terrorist safe-havens in Rome and England.
And Texas.
No, they should know; they should realize that the best thing they can do for themselves is to build that church elsewhere. They need to know their place. They can’t pretend that only some of their most radical believers do these horrible things anymore. We're onto them now, thank God for Fox News. They can’t pretend that they’re Good Americans like us anymore; we know better. They must accept their share of the blame for what they’ve done, all of them, and build it somewhere else.
Not in my backyard of course, but somewhere else.
It's not that I have anything *against* Christians of course. I'm not a bigot. I'm just thinking of them here.
It's for their own good.
***
(And also, some people are saying that the President is a closet Christian and carries the ‘seed’ of Christianity! His mother, apparently, was 'one of them!' Pass it along...)
Shalom.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Good Book, Evil Book
As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.
-Voltaire
Beliefs are terrible things, since they're very often wrong, and even when they're right the world goes and changes on them and they never, ever adjust to that cold, hard fact.
-Saint Brian the Godless
***
Is it possible that the Good Book, the Bible, Old and New Testaments, is in reality an Evil Book, the source for much of the ills of society?
The Bible is hailed as the Word of God in Christianity, and many believe in it as such. The literal Word. From His mouth to your ears.
Er, eyes.
Presented for your convenience, in case you’re ever tempted to think on your own. No need; it's all in the Book. In fact, right there in the Book it clearly says not to think on your own, not to believe anything that even hints at contradicting the Holy Word in the Holy Book. Unless of course the thing that's contradicting the Bible is also something written in the Bible; then it's fine and dandy. You just hafta believe both in such cases. Good luck.
Obviously I think the Bible is a heavily flawed work, both technically and morally. One of the main ‘evils’ that I see in it is its internal inconsistencies, its self-negating paradoxical and illogical statements or sets of statements, all of which are expected to be believed; nay, demanded that they be believed at the cost of your Immortal Soul and entrance tickets to the Big Amusement Park in the clouds.
The Bible presents contraries, statements which utterly contradict each other, together in one book, and demands that they both be believed at the same time, or else. It does this again and again, over and over, which causes believers to eventually slowly lose their minds, and never suspect a thing.
That's how we get Republicans.
Allow me to illustrate:
-God is love; He loves you more than anyone else does, and He'll send you straight to hell if you don't believe that.
-An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but turn the other cheek while you're doing it.
-Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild, 'Love Thy Neighbor' Jesus, Lamb of God, returning with a Sword in His mouth and a fiery halo or something like that, come back as the Lion to slaugther off the evil ones. (More on this one below)
The depths to which all this mindbogglingly stupid self-negating (in more ways than one!) religious programming affects (distorts, even) our society at the most basic levels is not always obvious, either. We're mostly pretty much blind to it. Heck, it's been going on practically forever, so most folk just accept it as the way it is.
Take the confusing dichotomy of God the Father (OT) versus God the Son (NT). The first is an authoritarian super-hypocritical murdering genocidal misogynistic hateful over-reacting all-powerful and all-knowing Father Figure, the Ultimate Father Figure in fact. Our Father Who Art In Heaven. So, we think of him as Dad, the ultimate Dad, a really strict and mean Dad, who loves us (somehow; we can't realy understand that part, 'cause it's a *mystery* and all) but will fry our asses forever in a heartbeat if we give him one iota of crap. A fearful Father Figure indeed. An archetype, in fact.
An archetype designed to scare the shit out of people. As was needed at the time.
Embedded firmly in our group psychology and thus in our society as a result, from this how many wives and children over the centuries were beaten and abused by fathers (small 'f') who were only acting like their archetypal Ultimate Father Figure Himself (Big 'F') would act, indeed DID act, over and over again, in the Bible? How many were just following God the Father's Divine Example that He set in the Bible (and then said not to follow?) (heh heh)
A lot of them, I assure you. It's not like it's done consciously.
God is the hypocritical Father who says "Do as I say, not as I do, OR ELSE!!!" but just like all defective fathers who say such absurd things to their children, *their examples are far more often followed than their words.*
So thus we have God the Ultimate Bad Example of what a Father Should Be. Or God the Ultimate Good Example of what a Father Should Not Be.
Amen. Just what society ordered.
But wait! Not enough confusion yet!
Let's introduce God the Son, Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild! Who in fact, is credited with *many* great words and statements. Many poignant examples. Many good works. Much real Truth with a Capital ‘T.’
He sounds a bit nicer. More approachable. A decent sort. And He did say a lot of 'good words' in that book there.
And yet, are these ‘good words’ in the Bible which are attributed to Jesus Christ, the very person that Christians named their faith after, at all *prioritized* over all of the other horiffic mishmash in that so-called Good Book? Does one ever hear the Christian say "Well, Jesus Christ Himself said to be gentle and loving, so that must trump Vengeful God in the Old Testament where he smites everything in sight all the time' so I'll ignore that part and live by Jesus' words of peace and love."
Hardly ever happens. Unfortunate, that.
So we have crazy hypocritical Old Testament Yaweh God with his Gentle, Loving Son, *but they’re both God!* No difference. Canya dig it?
What a mindfuck.
How to know then, whether to be severe, or gentle? Vengeful and wrathful and jealous, or loving?
One can and should follow Jesus, of course. His path seems more correct somehow, than that of His sadistic Father in Heaven. I mean, any real God should be, at the very minimum, good, no? Or why bother?
But then again, *which Jesus?* Ahh, dilemma.
Most of the New Testament is all about "gentle Jesus meek and mild," but hold on a second! Just in case you were thinking that one should obviously choose Jesus' path, that of peace, since after all, the religion's named after Him, hold your horses! As previously mentioned, we also have Revelations Jesus tacked on at the end of the Book, coming back to smite about the place with a sword depending from his mouth and fire and death and punishment and the Final Conflict, and all that great horror movie fodder at the end times. Just in case you were starting to think that Jesus was a non-violent, loving God.
How rapturous! Can't forget about Him, now can we? I guess we saw shades of Him back when gentle Jesus cursed that fig tree to die for not happening to be in fruit at the time, or telling his followers to bring those who do not bow to Him before Him and kill them. What seemed so out of character at the time makes sense at the end after all, apparently.
How conveeeeenient, too. Now we're free to just choose being an asshole.
Are we confused yet, my droogies?
To reiterate, we have the Mighty God of Gods, Yahweh, mean and nasty and an immortal all-powerful psychotic maniac God who loves us with eternal torture, along with his polar opposite all-loving non-judgmental hippy tree-hugger boozing and carousing son, who is nonetheless completely identical to His Father Yahweh (nevermind how,) but who WAIT, has yet another polar opposite psycho 'version' of Himself who will come back at the end times, and He won't be the Lamb anymore but will return as the Lion and basically beat the everloving crap out of evil, including of course, people like me, because He’s tired of taking our shit, and besides, that lamb schtick only got him killed.
This means that if a Christian is a mean, selfish bully by nature, not a problem, he can simply justify it with Gods #1 and #3, can't he? No need to even read the parts about 'love thy neighbor' when all that mushy stuff isn't really what Jesus/God was all about. That Jesus is a pussy. Macho Jesus Rules! Now where's my glock?
(I’ve actually heard ‘good Christians’ maintaining that Jesus wasn’t really about loving all others; that such is just a common misperception)
***
Let's examine the 'fruits' of the Book for a minute.
Is the Christian religion a true religion of *peace?* Absolutely and emphatically not. Constantine introduced the idea of a 'just war' and ever since then, why, any old ruler can get the Christians to fight, to kill, to even embrace cruelty and the torture of others, and to give their lives for the cause not of God, but of the ruler. It's easy; all the ruler has to say is "I am inspired by God" or whatever variation of that is appropriate to the audience. And demonize those who they need the flock to hate. That's how it was designed, after all. And looking back through history, we have bloodbath after bloodbath to thank the religion for. Over and over again, the Religion of peaceful Jesus found it necessary to slaughter.
It's an evil Rorschach test, that Bible. One can see whatever one wants to in it. It's way too cloudy, too unclear, and since it tells you right there in it that it's the word of God and that you must believe every last damned word of it as if The Burning Bush had whispered it right into your cockleshell ear, the result is a schism from reality in the minds of the believers.
Their brains break, in other words.
They lose their minds, lose all touch with reality, and pursue happiness in a selfish delusional ego-world wherein they’re practically the Master Race, chosen by God, and destined for paradise, while all others are evil and deserve the hell they’re destined for
Halleluiah. How nice.
And we wonder why there are so many nutcases and idiots in this country? They’re being manufactured on an ongoing basis, by belief in a self-contradictory and hypocritical philosophy; A philosophy whose Good Book, is anything but.
-Voltaire
Beliefs are terrible things, since they're very often wrong, and even when they're right the world goes and changes on them and they never, ever adjust to that cold, hard fact.
-Saint Brian the Godless
***
Is it possible that the Good Book, the Bible, Old and New Testaments, is in reality an Evil Book, the source for much of the ills of society?
The Bible is hailed as the Word of God in Christianity, and many believe in it as such. The literal Word. From His mouth to your ears.
Er, eyes.
Presented for your convenience, in case you’re ever tempted to think on your own. No need; it's all in the Book. In fact, right there in the Book it clearly says not to think on your own, not to believe anything that even hints at contradicting the Holy Word in the Holy Book. Unless of course the thing that's contradicting the Bible is also something written in the Bible; then it's fine and dandy. You just hafta believe both in such cases. Good luck.
Obviously I think the Bible is a heavily flawed work, both technically and morally. One of the main ‘evils’ that I see in it is its internal inconsistencies, its self-negating paradoxical and illogical statements or sets of statements, all of which are expected to be believed; nay, demanded that they be believed at the cost of your Immortal Soul and entrance tickets to the Big Amusement Park in the clouds.
The Bible presents contraries, statements which utterly contradict each other, together in one book, and demands that they both be believed at the same time, or else. It does this again and again, over and over, which causes believers to eventually slowly lose their minds, and never suspect a thing.
That's how we get Republicans.
Allow me to illustrate:
-God is love; He loves you more than anyone else does, and He'll send you straight to hell if you don't believe that.
-An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but turn the other cheek while you're doing it.
-Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild, 'Love Thy Neighbor' Jesus, Lamb of God, returning with a Sword in His mouth and a fiery halo or something like that, come back as the Lion to slaugther off the evil ones. (More on this one below)
The depths to which all this mindbogglingly stupid self-negating (in more ways than one!) religious programming affects (distorts, even) our society at the most basic levels is not always obvious, either. We're mostly pretty much blind to it. Heck, it's been going on practically forever, so most folk just accept it as the way it is.
Take the confusing dichotomy of God the Father (OT) versus God the Son (NT). The first is an authoritarian super-hypocritical murdering genocidal misogynistic hateful over-reacting all-powerful and all-knowing Father Figure, the Ultimate Father Figure in fact. Our Father Who Art In Heaven. So, we think of him as Dad, the ultimate Dad, a really strict and mean Dad, who loves us (somehow; we can't realy understand that part, 'cause it's a *mystery* and all) but will fry our asses forever in a heartbeat if we give him one iota of crap. A fearful Father Figure indeed. An archetype, in fact.
An archetype designed to scare the shit out of people. As was needed at the time.
Embedded firmly in our group psychology and thus in our society as a result, from this how many wives and children over the centuries were beaten and abused by fathers (small 'f') who were only acting like their archetypal Ultimate Father Figure Himself (Big 'F') would act, indeed DID act, over and over again, in the Bible? How many were just following God the Father's Divine Example that He set in the Bible (and then said not to follow?) (heh heh)
A lot of them, I assure you. It's not like it's done consciously.
God is the hypocritical Father who says "Do as I say, not as I do, OR ELSE!!!" but just like all defective fathers who say such absurd things to their children, *their examples are far more often followed than their words.*
So thus we have God the Ultimate Bad Example of what a Father Should Be. Or God the Ultimate Good Example of what a Father Should Not Be.
Amen. Just what society ordered.
But wait! Not enough confusion yet!
Let's introduce God the Son, Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild! Who in fact, is credited with *many* great words and statements. Many poignant examples. Many good works. Much real Truth with a Capital ‘T.’
He sounds a bit nicer. More approachable. A decent sort. And He did say a lot of 'good words' in that book there.
And yet, are these ‘good words’ in the Bible which are attributed to Jesus Christ, the very person that Christians named their faith after, at all *prioritized* over all of the other horiffic mishmash in that so-called Good Book? Does one ever hear the Christian say "Well, Jesus Christ Himself said to be gentle and loving, so that must trump Vengeful God in the Old Testament where he smites everything in sight all the time' so I'll ignore that part and live by Jesus' words of peace and love."
Hardly ever happens. Unfortunate, that.
So we have crazy hypocritical Old Testament Yaweh God with his Gentle, Loving Son, *but they’re both God!* No difference. Canya dig it?
What a mindfuck.
How to know then, whether to be severe, or gentle? Vengeful and wrathful and jealous, or loving?
One can and should follow Jesus, of course. His path seems more correct somehow, than that of His sadistic Father in Heaven. I mean, any real God should be, at the very minimum, good, no? Or why bother?
But then again, *which Jesus?* Ahh, dilemma.
Most of the New Testament is all about "gentle Jesus meek and mild," but hold on a second! Just in case you were thinking that one should obviously choose Jesus' path, that of peace, since after all, the religion's named after Him, hold your horses! As previously mentioned, we also have Revelations Jesus tacked on at the end of the Book, coming back to smite about the place with a sword depending from his mouth and fire and death and punishment and the Final Conflict, and all that great horror movie fodder at the end times. Just in case you were starting to think that Jesus was a non-violent, loving God.
How rapturous! Can't forget about Him, now can we? I guess we saw shades of Him back when gentle Jesus cursed that fig tree to die for not happening to be in fruit at the time, or telling his followers to bring those who do not bow to Him before Him and kill them. What seemed so out of character at the time makes sense at the end after all, apparently.
How conveeeeenient, too. Now we're free to just choose being an asshole.
Are we confused yet, my droogies?
To reiterate, we have the Mighty God of Gods, Yahweh, mean and nasty and an immortal all-powerful psychotic maniac God who loves us with eternal torture, along with his polar opposite all-loving non-judgmental hippy tree-hugger boozing and carousing son, who is nonetheless completely identical to His Father Yahweh (nevermind how,) but who WAIT, has yet another polar opposite psycho 'version' of Himself who will come back at the end times, and He won't be the Lamb anymore but will return as the Lion and basically beat the everloving crap out of evil, including of course, people like me, because He’s tired of taking our shit, and besides, that lamb schtick only got him killed.
This means that if a Christian is a mean, selfish bully by nature, not a problem, he can simply justify it with Gods #1 and #3, can't he? No need to even read the parts about 'love thy neighbor' when all that mushy stuff isn't really what Jesus/God was all about. That Jesus is a pussy. Macho Jesus Rules! Now where's my glock?
(I’ve actually heard ‘good Christians’ maintaining that Jesus wasn’t really about loving all others; that such is just a common misperception)
***
Let's examine the 'fruits' of the Book for a minute.
Is the Christian religion a true religion of *peace?* Absolutely and emphatically not. Constantine introduced the idea of a 'just war' and ever since then, why, any old ruler can get the Christians to fight, to kill, to even embrace cruelty and the torture of others, and to give their lives for the cause not of God, but of the ruler. It's easy; all the ruler has to say is "I am inspired by God" or whatever variation of that is appropriate to the audience. And demonize those who they need the flock to hate. That's how it was designed, after all. And looking back through history, we have bloodbath after bloodbath to thank the religion for. Over and over again, the Religion of peaceful Jesus found it necessary to slaughter.
It's an evil Rorschach test, that Bible. One can see whatever one wants to in it. It's way too cloudy, too unclear, and since it tells you right there in it that it's the word of God and that you must believe every last damned word of it as if The Burning Bush had whispered it right into your cockleshell ear, the result is a schism from reality in the minds of the believers.
Their brains break, in other words.
They lose their minds, lose all touch with reality, and pursue happiness in a selfish delusional ego-world wherein they’re practically the Master Race, chosen by God, and destined for paradise, while all others are evil and deserve the hell they’re destined for
Halleluiah. How nice.
And we wonder why there are so many nutcases and idiots in this country? They’re being manufactured on an ongoing basis, by belief in a self-contradictory and hypocritical philosophy; A philosophy whose Good Book, is anything but.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Are You Self-Aware?
“In other living creatures the ignorance of themselves is nature, but in men it is a vice.”
-Boethius
***
This is not one of my usual posts. It's me wanting to generate a different conversation.
Other bloggers post their posts and do not seem to want to encourage lengthy conversations. For me, I prefer the resultant converstions to my own posts.
So I ask you, are you self-aware?
If you are, how can you tell? How do you know that you are?
What do you think the term means, if anything?
Do you think that a religious person can be self-aware?
Can an atheist be?
In my opinion, the beginning of self-awareness is whan a person starts to realize how incredibly fallible they are. So then, humility might be considered the beginning of self-awareness. Or not. Tell me I'm wrong.
From humility comes a lessening or perhaps better to say a contraction of the ego, which removes many blinders. With humility comes the realization that perhaps it's not a bad idea to *question one's self.*
And from there, the whole world opens up.
For as Burns said, 'O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!' *
In other words, it's a good thing.
-Boethius
***
This is not one of my usual posts. It's me wanting to generate a different conversation.
Other bloggers post their posts and do not seem to want to encourage lengthy conversations. For me, I prefer the resultant converstions to my own posts.
So I ask you, are you self-aware?
If you are, how can you tell? How do you know that you are?
What do you think the term means, if anything?
Do you think that a religious person can be self-aware?
Can an atheist be?
In my opinion, the beginning of self-awareness is whan a person starts to realize how incredibly fallible they are. So then, humility might be considered the beginning of self-awareness. Or not. Tell me I'm wrong.
From humility comes a lessening or perhaps better to say a contraction of the ego, which removes many blinders. With humility comes the realization that perhaps it's not a bad idea to *question one's self.*
And from there, the whole world opens up.
For as Burns said, 'O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!' *
In other words, it's a good thing.
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