From its inception,
By immaculate conception,
This buffoonery is nothing,
But dramatized deception.
That it has escaped,
So many's detection,
And not resulted in,
Popular rejection,
Is quite the opposite of,
Rational perfection.
With meaningful reflection,
We might see some defection,
But as an infection,
It spreads in each direction.
From which few have,
Any kinda protection.
What we need is some correction,
And a modicum of reflection,
To engender some deflection,
Of religions' misdirection.
Or else it's subjection,
To mental vivisection,
And a predilection,
for total misconception.
Widows spend their pension,
Chasing resurrection,
While by extension,
And at the church$' discretion,
Heaven's barred to those,
With extra-marital erections.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
No Accommodation
This is in response to an article which can be found at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pete-enns-phd/does-god-talk-to-us-throu_b_637765.html
You said, "Conservative Christians have pretty much learned their lesson from Galileo: you can't count on the Bible to answer scientific questions." Well, advocates of intelligent design and bible based antipathy toward homosexuals certainly have not learned that lesson. And as for atheists thinking the bible is stupid, I am an atheist and I don't think it's stupid. I think it is inherently dangerous however and has a long history of being wielded like a club by its adherents. Since any concept of god is and must be a mental figment, as the bible itself in places tries to warn, what is really going on is not god worship but book worship. Some books are dangerous because of what people do with them and what they do to people. Both common sense and the instinct for self-preservation should cause us to side with the atheists, Hitchens in particular, when he says, religion poisons everything. Without religion the bible becomes a resource for the objective study of how our predecessors interpreted their world and tried to make sense of it. With religion it becomes a manual for an entire alphabet of horrors. Apologists and accommodationists are naive at best and at worse provide support for an impoverished way of thinking that has rained misery and cataclysm upon us for far too long. Leaving the magic-fantasy thinkers unchallenged damages everyone. They are victims too. Made as they've become before their reasoning faculties could mature.
You said, "Conservative Christians have pretty much learned their lesson from Galileo: you can't count on the Bible to answer scientific questions.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Fantacies Can be Viral
If we could just stop making things up! We have no clue if " what is" had an initiating cause or not since there is no such thing as matter separate from time. This discomfort, this tenacious, stubborn insistence that a thus far unanswerable question be answered even if it requires colossal self-deception and the betrayal of our most distinguishing human trait, consciousness, damages us in ways too ubiquitous to name. These codified musings made solid, given fangs and claws purely by force of will, cloud reality, retard discovery, and set people against each other not in competition
over resources, but whose fantasy is the most compelling. The history of humanity thus far has been little more then but a bloody battle to the death over whose fabrications can entrap and
pervert the most consciousnesses. Dawkin's talks of meme's. I see his point. These distortions become self-renewing, self-perpetuating, viral. The antidote to an awareness distorting virus is first,
awareness of the virus and second, feverish dedication to rooting it out in ourselves and others with a fervor and tenacity rivaling those who carry the disease.
over resources, but whose fantasy is the most compelling. The history of humanity thus far has been little more then but a bloody battle to the death over whose fabrications can entrap and
pervert the most consciousnesses. Dawkin's talks of meme's. I see his point. These distortions become self-renewing, self-perpetuating, viral. The antidote to an awareness distorting virus is first,
awareness of the virus and second, feverish dedication to rooting it out in ourselves and others with a fervor and tenacity rivaling those who carry the disease.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
The Absurdity of Hells
Throughout history horrific visions of a fiery afterlife have been engineered for those among us failing to meet the standards of our societies. No stretch of the imagination is required to understand the mechanisms at work in the creation of these devilish domains. One prominent reason is balance. People were and are painfully aware that deeds committed in the here in now, especially notoriously grievous ones, seem to call out for some notoriously grievous sanction. Hells are a salve for the collective conscious, a catch all punishment for those who through subterfuge, stealth or skill, legal or otherwise, managed to avoid paying the cost of their injurious deeds. Society could rest easy in the "knowledge" that the doers of evil would ultimately pay for their crimes. Thus, from a need for balance, sprang from the minds of men (yes, largely men), post-mortem maleficence; orgies of torment the likes of which no earthly ruler could inflict. Rulers, temporal and spiritual, would came to value these mythologies as effective instruments of control. One might evade the government agent, the jail and the rack in this life, but the gods, who see all, miss nothing and demand obedience would gather up every malefactors at a time when they had left to themselves no place to hide.
Of course, for these other worldly punishments to pack the necessary punch belief in them had to be near universal. Thus, stories were told, paintings were painted and from tot-hood on up, the populace was infected with visions and fears of punishment extraordinare. A study of Hell-type mythologies shows a progression in the severity of these stories. Just like the "one that got away" stories of fishermen, Hells became over the centuries more and more gruesome. The Hindu Hell, predating the Christian Hell by some twenty centuries, paled in comparison both in severity and duration to that of the Christians. It's Christianity that holds the dubious honor of being the first, followed some six centuries later by Islam, to create a Hell that was by design the most painful and eternal.
But, over time, as Hell became more and more, well, hellish, doubts began to arise as to the veracity of the claims. The innate need for balance was threatened by the over-kill of the visions. How could a loving God inflict such tortures? What acts could a man or woman commit while living that required an eternity of ultimate suffering? The more intellectual conjectured that experience and knowledge are transformative and thus even the most hideous sinner in much less than an eternity, would learn the error of his or her ways. Also, people became aware of the usefulness of Hell fables to their leaders and began to see Hell not as a reach for balance, but a reach for control.
A lesson we can all learn from the mythologies of the Hells is that when we indulge our questions, our uneasiness with mind-created delusions, we do not really create anything other than error and its consequences. We cannot actually create an other-worldly hell, but we have created real hells in the here and now. How much angst and fear and psychological torment have we inflicted on our children through these fiery fantasies? What real torments flowed from belief in diabolical damnation? How many normal, healthy people were perverted, twisted and warped into self-doubting mental and emotional cripples fearing each act, doubting each decision, scrutinizing every intention? It has been reported recently that the late Pope, John Paul II flogged himself regularly to drive back the (fictional) demons in his mind. What's even more stunning is that the current Pope, Benedict XVI has judged his predecessor's masochism a cause for sainthood. There is a story arc in the old Superman comics that explores the concept of a "Bizarro" world. In that world, up is down, good is evil and night is day. Only in a Bizarro World can it be considered holy to beat oneself and psychologically disable children by inculcating fear both every choice encountered in this world and eternal suffering in the next. But Bizzaro World is the only destination possible when we choose mind created images over reality; when we try to make existence conform to our under-informed concepts of what we think it should be. Any departure from merely being content to see things as they are, as they really are, will without fail bring us to lands where life becomes not something to be lived, explored, enjoyed and shared, but a fearful test which must be endured. Hell myths and all mind created UN-realities snatch us from "what is" depositing us in flames of error where we burn in ways often unrecognized. Choosing to live one's life in such a manner is, like the Hells themselves is patently absurd.
Of course, for these other worldly punishments to pack the necessary punch belief in them had to be near universal. Thus, stories were told, paintings were painted and from tot-hood on up, the populace was infected with visions and fears of punishment extraordinare. A study of Hell-type mythologies shows a progression in the severity of these stories. Just like the "one that got away" stories of fishermen, Hells became over the centuries more and more gruesome. The Hindu Hell, predating the Christian Hell by some twenty centuries, paled in comparison both in severity and duration to that of the Christians. It's Christianity that holds the dubious honor of being the first, followed some six centuries later by Islam, to create a Hell that was by design the most painful and eternal.
But, over time, as Hell became more and more, well, hellish, doubts began to arise as to the veracity of the claims. The innate need for balance was threatened by the over-kill of the visions. How could a loving God inflict such tortures? What acts could a man or woman commit while living that required an eternity of ultimate suffering? The more intellectual conjectured that experience and knowledge are transformative and thus even the most hideous sinner in much less than an eternity, would learn the error of his or her ways. Also, people became aware of the usefulness of Hell fables to their leaders and began to see Hell not as a reach for balance, but a reach for control.
A lesson we can all learn from the mythologies of the Hells is that when we indulge our questions, our uneasiness with mind-created delusions, we do not really create anything other than error and its consequences. We cannot actually create an other-worldly hell, but we have created real hells in the here and now. How much angst and fear and psychological torment have we inflicted on our children through these fiery fantasies? What real torments flowed from belief in diabolical damnation? How many normal, healthy people were perverted, twisted and warped into self-doubting mental and emotional cripples fearing each act, doubting each decision, scrutinizing every intention? It has been reported recently that the late Pope, John Paul II flogged himself regularly to drive back the (fictional) demons in his mind. What's even more stunning is that the current Pope, Benedict XVI has judged his predecessor's masochism a cause for sainthood. There is a story arc in the old Superman comics that explores the concept of a "Bizarro" world. In that world, up is down, good is evil and night is day. Only in a Bizarro World can it be considered holy to beat oneself and psychologically disable children by inculcating fear both every choice encountered in this world and eternal suffering in the next. But Bizzaro World is the only destination possible when we choose mind created images over reality; when we try to make existence conform to our under-informed concepts of what we think it should be. Any departure from merely being content to see things as they are, as they really are, will without fail bring us to lands where life becomes not something to be lived, explored, enjoyed and shared, but a fearful test which must be endured. Hell myths and all mind created UN-realities snatch us from "what is" depositing us in flames of error where we burn in ways often unrecognized. Choosing to live one's life in such a manner is, like the Hells themselves is patently absurd.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Beyond Reflex
Nine days have passed since the conversation i previously wrote about with my mother occurred. What follows is not reaction but action.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Dear Mom,
It’s been 9 days since we talked on the phone Christmas day and I have to tell you what you said still rings in my ears. I know you and Nan could both use some help and Hector and I are both willing and eager to help. You said, “You can’t stay here. This is a Christian house and I won’t have that in my house.” I know now because of your faith what you really think about me and if you think it doesn’t hurt deeply you are wrong. You haven’t walked in my shoes and if you had you would know as I do that there is absolutely nothing wrong with me. Yes, I am different then the majority of people, but there are hundreds of millions of us who are different in the same way. More importantly, I am the same as everybody else in every other aspect. I think, I feel, I love, I suffer and I try to make sense of a world that is often quite disordered. You know, Hector’s mom is catholic and she begged us to stay with her in Hong Kong when we went there. Is she a worse Catholic then you? Dorothy, in El Paso, has invited us to stay with her. She is not Catholic, but Christian and a damn good person. Are you holier then her?
There have been so many instances in history where Christians have ignored, repudiated, and fought truth in favor of belief that it confounds the mind and heart. Slavery, ban on mixed race marriages, the orbits of planets, the position of the earth in the universe and even the very geography of the earth itself. I wonder why when human knowledge advances through discovery, research and invention (like the telescope), so often the “Christian” response is denial, obstinance, arrogance and even assault, torture and war. You have a heart condition. Did you go to the Bible, a priest or the bishop to treat it? No. You went to a cardiologist as you should have. Do you know what psychologists, psychiatrists, anthropologists, sociologists and others are saying and have been saying since the ‘60’s about homosexuality? They are saying it is a naturally occurring and normal mode of behavior for some humans, primates and other animals. Natural. Normal. Maybe not normal for you since you are heterosexual, but perfectly normal and natural for me.
I am not sure what it is about me that makes my presence in your house a threat or tainting. Hector and I have not been together for very long. But the short time we have been together has been wonderful. He is kind and caring. He is loving and forgiving. He is generous and hard working. He puts others before himself. He is really funny and keeps me laughing a lot. He is affectionate and tender. He is humble, unassuming and certainly not judgmental. I have told several friends about what you said to me and I have to tell you all of them were appalled. Even the Catholic ones who are not homosexual reacted with a shudder when I told them. One of them almost crying said the worst thing in the world is to have a gesture of love returned with a gesture of rejection.
As you know, I am not Christian or Buddhist or anything else and the reasons for that are deep and wide. But I do know something about being Christian and when I think of it words like humble, loving, kind, accepting, non-judgmental, and tolerant all come to mind. Thinking you know more then others is not Christian. Judging is not Christian. I don’t mean to be insulting at all, as I am sure you didn’t mean to be insulting. But, I have to wonder if 400 years ago when Galileo discovered that the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around, what side you would have come down on. Would you, like the Pope, Bishops and “holy” men have been drooling to set him ablaze? You have told me more then once that people find you arrogant and thinking you are superior but you don’t know why. Well, might you know now? I have a Bible and believe it or not I refer to it often. There’s a lot of good stuff in there but I am sure even you must agree there’s also loads of hogwash. If you want, let me know and I will point out some of the more absurd things in there. Searched as I might, I could not find one single word from the lips of Jesus regarding homosexuality. Now, if the topic of homosexuality is of such galactic concern, one would think Jesus might have said at least a sentence on the subject. This is not meant as a jab, but what I did find in there more then once was Jesus taking issue with the Pharisees who thought themselves more righteous, religious and moral then others. Oh, also he didn’t much care for dishonest money changers and on one occasion for some reason he lost it and cursed a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season. Other places in the Bible do say some rather nasty things about homosexuality, but again, I think most of what’s there is based on what people knew and could know at the time. I mean we don’t bash unruly children on the city gates anymore. Eating pork and shrimp and calamari is OK now. Christian men all over the place are shaving their beards regularly, nick names are used, tattoos are worn, menstruating women freely associate with others, people with pimples are no longer put in isolation for 7 days by the priests. I mean really! However, adultery is mentioned by Jesus and many others many times throughout the entire Bible. It plainly states marriage is for life, divorce is taboo and those who divorce and remarry are guilty of adultery, which as we know is one of the BIG TEN. You haven’t felt compelled by that mandate yourself having been married three times. Don’t hide behind, things like civil marriage and annulment…the Bible makes no room for them and is quite explicit on the matter. Of course, Jesus himself after cleverly dispelling the crowd of would be stone throwers, forgave the woman caught in adultery and sent her on her way. Now, I and the experts and loads of other people, even heterosexuals don’t think homosexuality is a sin, but damn near everyone agrees adultery is.
Why are some biblical mandates seen for what they are; archaic, the best of what was possible at the time, while others are clung to like a bone in the mouth of a dog? And, who decides which ones are no longer applicable and which ones are? What danger lurks in thinking oneself to be more able to judge which ones to cling to and which ones to let go of? I think when Galileo looked through the telescope and did the math and wrote a brilliant book on what he saw, not thought, not believed, not was told, but what he saw, he was the one competent to decide and to reveal what became knowable at that point. Many cheered his discovery as a broadening of the knowledge of humankind about their existence. We know what the Church did, tried to burn him, made him recant to avoid the flames, kept him under house arrest until he died nearly 20 years later and refused to allow his body to be buried with Christian rites, thereby, in the belief of the time, sending him to eternal fire. So nice! So loving. So Christian and sadly so typical. Trust me, I could go on. But enough.
I am not asking you to reconsider. Honestly, the way I feel right now I don’t want Hector any where near you. He bruises easily. And personally, I would have trouble being around you now, too. When I told you about Victor, I was surprised and lifted by your reaction, even though you found it necessary to also say it was a sin. Since I was ready to kill myself at the time I chose not to argue that point. In the years since then you have said some really nice things about the homosexuals you have known, I think mostly from when you were at the Center, and I think you even mentioned about one when you were younger. What you said was in general you found them loving, kind, caring, creative and fun. Sounds like good people to spend time with to me. People I like to avoid are judging, self-righteous, holier-then-thou, rigid, arrogant, cold and willing to subjugate others to their own personal beliefs.
Jesus instructed his disciples to go into the towns and spread the good news. He also told them if the good news was not well received they should shake the dust from their feet and move on. What you do with what I have written here is up to you. Consider it, reject it, take it to heart, become even more tight and rigid, it’s all up to you. You know how to communicate with me if you ever want to again.
Love,
James
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Dear Mom,
It’s been 9 days since we talked on the phone Christmas day and I have to tell you what you said still rings in my ears. I know you and Nan could both use some help and Hector and I are both willing and eager to help. You said, “You can’t stay here. This is a Christian house and I won’t have that in my house.” I know now because of your faith what you really think about me and if you think it doesn’t hurt deeply you are wrong. You haven’t walked in my shoes and if you had you would know as I do that there is absolutely nothing wrong with me. Yes, I am different then the majority of people, but there are hundreds of millions of us who are different in the same way. More importantly, I am the same as everybody else in every other aspect. I think, I feel, I love, I suffer and I try to make sense of a world that is often quite disordered. You know, Hector’s mom is catholic and she begged us to stay with her in Hong Kong when we went there. Is she a worse Catholic then you? Dorothy, in El Paso, has invited us to stay with her. She is not Catholic, but Christian and a damn good person. Are you holier then her?
There have been so many instances in history where Christians have ignored, repudiated, and fought truth in favor of belief that it confounds the mind and heart. Slavery, ban on mixed race marriages, the orbits of planets, the position of the earth in the universe and even the very geography of the earth itself. I wonder why when human knowledge advances through discovery, research and invention (like the telescope), so often the “Christian” response is denial, obstinance, arrogance and even assault, torture and war. You have a heart condition. Did you go to the Bible, a priest or the bishop to treat it? No. You went to a cardiologist as you should have. Do you know what psychologists, psychiatrists, anthropologists, sociologists and others are saying and have been saying since the ‘60’s about homosexuality? They are saying it is a naturally occurring and normal mode of behavior for some humans, primates and other animals. Natural. Normal. Maybe not normal for you since you are heterosexual, but perfectly normal and natural for me.
I am not sure what it is about me that makes my presence in your house a threat or tainting. Hector and I have not been together for very long. But the short time we have been together has been wonderful. He is kind and caring. He is loving and forgiving. He is generous and hard working. He puts others before himself. He is really funny and keeps me laughing a lot. He is affectionate and tender. He is humble, unassuming and certainly not judgmental. I have told several friends about what you said to me and I have to tell you all of them were appalled. Even the Catholic ones who are not homosexual reacted with a shudder when I told them. One of them almost crying said the worst thing in the world is to have a gesture of love returned with a gesture of rejection.
As you know, I am not Christian or Buddhist or anything else and the reasons for that are deep and wide. But I do know something about being Christian and when I think of it words like humble, loving, kind, accepting, non-judgmental, and tolerant all come to mind. Thinking you know more then others is not Christian. Judging is not Christian. I don’t mean to be insulting at all, as I am sure you didn’t mean to be insulting. But, I have to wonder if 400 years ago when Galileo discovered that the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around, what side you would have come down on. Would you, like the Pope, Bishops and “holy” men have been drooling to set him ablaze? You have told me more then once that people find you arrogant and thinking you are superior but you don’t know why. Well, might you know now? I have a Bible and believe it or not I refer to it often. There’s a lot of good stuff in there but I am sure even you must agree there’s also loads of hogwash. If you want, let me know and I will point out some of the more absurd things in there. Searched as I might, I could not find one single word from the lips of Jesus regarding homosexuality. Now, if the topic of homosexuality is of such galactic concern, one would think Jesus might have said at least a sentence on the subject. This is not meant as a jab, but what I did find in there more then once was Jesus taking issue with the Pharisees who thought themselves more righteous, religious and moral then others. Oh, also he didn’t much care for dishonest money changers and on one occasion for some reason he lost it and cursed a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season. Other places in the Bible do say some rather nasty things about homosexuality, but again, I think most of what’s there is based on what people knew and could know at the time. I mean we don’t bash unruly children on the city gates anymore. Eating pork and shrimp and calamari is OK now. Christian men all over the place are shaving their beards regularly, nick names are used, tattoos are worn, menstruating women freely associate with others, people with pimples are no longer put in isolation for 7 days by the priests. I mean really! However, adultery is mentioned by Jesus and many others many times throughout the entire Bible. It plainly states marriage is for life, divorce is taboo and those who divorce and remarry are guilty of adultery, which as we know is one of the BIG TEN. You haven’t felt compelled by that mandate yourself having been married three times. Don’t hide behind, things like civil marriage and annulment…the Bible makes no room for them and is quite explicit on the matter. Of course, Jesus himself after cleverly dispelling the crowd of would be stone throwers, forgave the woman caught in adultery and sent her on her way. Now, I and the experts and loads of other people, even heterosexuals don’t think homosexuality is a sin, but damn near everyone agrees adultery is.
Why are some biblical mandates seen for what they are; archaic, the best of what was possible at the time, while others are clung to like a bone in the mouth of a dog? And, who decides which ones are no longer applicable and which ones are? What danger lurks in thinking oneself to be more able to judge which ones to cling to and which ones to let go of? I think when Galileo looked through the telescope and did the math and wrote a brilliant book on what he saw, not thought, not believed, not was told, but what he saw, he was the one competent to decide and to reveal what became knowable at that point. Many cheered his discovery as a broadening of the knowledge of humankind about their existence. We know what the Church did, tried to burn him, made him recant to avoid the flames, kept him under house arrest until he died nearly 20 years later and refused to allow his body to be buried with Christian rites, thereby, in the belief of the time, sending him to eternal fire. So nice! So loving. So Christian and sadly so typical. Trust me, I could go on. But enough.
I am not asking you to reconsider. Honestly, the way I feel right now I don’t want Hector any where near you. He bruises easily. And personally, I would have trouble being around you now, too. When I told you about Victor, I was surprised and lifted by your reaction, even though you found it necessary to also say it was a sin. Since I was ready to kill myself at the time I chose not to argue that point. In the years since then you have said some really nice things about the homosexuals you have known, I think mostly from when you were at the Center, and I think you even mentioned about one when you were younger. What you said was in general you found them loving, kind, caring, creative and fun. Sounds like good people to spend time with to me. People I like to avoid are judging, self-righteous, holier-then-thou, rigid, arrogant, cold and willing to subjugate others to their own personal beliefs.
Jesus instructed his disciples to go into the towns and spread the good news. He also told them if the good news was not well received they should shake the dust from their feet and move on. What you do with what I have written here is up to you. Consider it, reject it, take it to heart, become even more tight and rigid, it’s all up to you. You know how to communicate with me if you ever want to again.
Love,
James
Friday, January 1, 2010
Purging Delusion
I invite you to consider that there are certainly concepts and beliefs in the minds of us all that are erroneous. To conclude otherwise requires one to hold that he or she already knows everything there is to know and knows it perfectly. There are words for this kind of thinking such as: insane, irrational, god-complex, delusional, arrogant and psychotic.
Realizing that we do not and cannot know everything without error does not mean we should not take all reasonable action to reduce the amount of error we hold. Often this means exposing ourselves to information of which we were previously unaware. Until Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek in the 1660's discovered a new process for creating lenses, the world of micro-organisms remained hidden to us. With his new much more powerful lenses what humans were able to become aware of and know was dramatically expanded. I invite you to expand what you know by taking some time to explore richarddawkins.net. (You may have to manually input this link.) Accept that it will take time to digest what you find there and no doubt many of you will experience some mild if not severe indigestion in the process. Don't be deterred by this. Like building muscle by pumping iron, expansion often comes with a little pain. And as always, any comments on what you find, think and feel because of what you come across in my bloggings is greatly anticipated and appreciated.
Realizing that we do not and cannot know everything without error does not mean we should not take all reasonable action to reduce the amount of error we hold. Often this means exposing ourselves to information of which we were previously unaware. Until Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek in the 1660's discovered a new process for creating lenses, the world of micro-organisms remained hidden to us. With his new much more powerful lenses what humans were able to become aware of and know was dramatically expanded. I invite you to expand what you know by taking some time to explore richarddawkins.net. (You may have to manually input this link.) Accept that it will take time to digest what you find there and no doubt many of you will experience some mild if not severe indigestion in the process. Don't be deterred by this. Like building muscle by pumping iron, expansion often comes with a little pain. And as always, any comments on what you find, think and feel because of what you come across in my bloggings is greatly anticipated and appreciated.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Belief and Schizophrenia
If you find the writing in this entry a bit clunky it’s because I will not use pronouns to refer to a god or God. Doing so would erroneously impart gender and further anthropomorphize what is clearly not a human being. There is more then enough error polluting and shrinking the human mind regarding the topic, beliefs, and worship of deity. I will not knowingly add to it.
To believe in a god who's nature and will is presumed understandable requires the fabrication of a split mind. Those who are believers will tell you without hesitation that God is omnipotent, which is to say in possession of complete, unlimited power and authority. Pressed a bit further they will attest that God is infinite and beyond comprehension. God lacks nothing. Cannot be injured or killed. God transcends, which means God goes beyond our capacity for thought, belief and understanding. That is one half of the believer’s mind talking. The other half says something completely different. God is understandable. We, the believers are the ones who know what God wants. God has needs and we must act in certain ways to fulfill them. The contradictions here are more than obvious. If God is infinite in all aspects, we as finite beings cannot know God and cannot know what God wants. Furthermore, if God is complete and lacking nothing, why would God want anything at all? What could a human possibly do to add or subtract something from God? Mental illness is required to be a believer. This state of psychosis is most often initially inflicted upon us as children by our parents who are themselves stewing in error. If there is a God, an ultimate source of all that is, what kind of arrogance and deluded thinking is required to believe such an entity could be understood? If there is a God, how could any human act mental or physical enhance or diminish that entities existence.? If there is a God, how could God's nature remain anything but beyond the scope of our senses and perceptions?
Many believers may agree with me thus far if only to a point. No doubt they would take care to further assert that though I may be correct in part, I am neglecting to take into account what they believe to be Divine Revelation, which is God’s own communication to humans about God’s nature and will.
Let me point out that if God, being all that God is, did communicate directly with humans, I am certain the message would have been clear, concise and beyond misunderstanding. If God has engaged in Divine Revelation, the enormous amount of argument, confusion and violent disagreement over that revelation indicates the failure of both the message itself and its means of delivery.
Over the years the Bible has become for many the primary source of Divine Revelation. Searching there we will find many faces of God. A loving God. A jealous God. A merciful, forgiving God. A vengeful God who not only punishes the wrong doer, but even seven generations of his or her descendants and in many cases, entire nations! So, what is the nature of God? What is God’s will? What does it reveal about a person who believes he or she knows God’s nature, God’s will and what should be done to satisfy God’s will?
Belief is not benign. There are many tragic consequences tied to it. History reveals countless incidents where actual, demonstrable facts were cast aside in favor of religious belief. People were burned alive for asserting the truths of a round and not flat earth, an earth that revolves around the sun and an earth that is not at the center of the universe. Even worse, faith has epidemically been the primary initiator of untold suffering for humankind.. How many wars have been fought, tortures inflicted, bombs tossed and (fill in your own terrors here) because of faith? If you say, well faith also brings forth charity you should stop and consider how insane it is to conclude that faith is required for people to behave and relate well . Secondly, that any sort of charity that might drip down from faith could ever outweigh the damage it has done and continues to do incessantly. Religion, God and belief are fantasies we cannot give further indulgence. When we were still primitive concocting gods and religions to explain what was mysterious in our existence was the best we could do. But clinging to ancient and dangerous mental concessions to mystery is stunting our evolution and progression as individuals, societies and a species. Children may find comfort and amusement in their beliefs of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, but any adult who believed in them would be considered mentally impaired. Belief of any kind in a supernatural deity that can be understood and known is a contradiction of that deity’s nature and will always require a schizophrenic mind. Better to look at the world, at history, at suffering and what really works to lessen it. Better to use our intellect, awareness, talents, resources, strong healthy natural, not supernatural relationships to improve the conditions of all those in need in our world. We have grown beyond the Stone Age. We need to once and forever move beyond Stone Age adherence and slavery to erroneous concepts of a god and dangerously flawed modes of thinking and conceptualization of our existence. We don’t live in caves anymore. Continuing to think like our distant ancestors would be like limiting ourselves to using there tools and knowledge as well. I am sure you, like me, would not hobble yourself by using pre-historic means of acquiring food, treating the sick and injured or even traveling and communicating. Why then should we continue to employ faith and belief in our quest for understanding our existence so that we may all enjoy better lives?
To believe in a god who's nature and will is presumed understandable requires the fabrication of a split mind. Those who are believers will tell you without hesitation that God is omnipotent, which is to say in possession of complete, unlimited power and authority. Pressed a bit further they will attest that God is infinite and beyond comprehension. God lacks nothing. Cannot be injured or killed. God transcends, which means God goes beyond our capacity for thought, belief and understanding. That is one half of the believer’s mind talking. The other half says something completely different. God is understandable. We, the believers are the ones who know what God wants. God has needs and we must act in certain ways to fulfill them. The contradictions here are more than obvious. If God is infinite in all aspects, we as finite beings cannot know God and cannot know what God wants. Furthermore, if God is complete and lacking nothing, why would God want anything at all? What could a human possibly do to add or subtract something from God? Mental illness is required to be a believer. This state of psychosis is most often initially inflicted upon us as children by our parents who are themselves stewing in error. If there is a God, an ultimate source of all that is, what kind of arrogance and deluded thinking is required to believe such an entity could be understood? If there is a God, how could any human act mental or physical enhance or diminish that entities existence.? If there is a God, how could God's nature remain anything but beyond the scope of our senses and perceptions?
Many believers may agree with me thus far if only to a point. No doubt they would take care to further assert that though I may be correct in part, I am neglecting to take into account what they believe to be Divine Revelation, which is God’s own communication to humans about God’s nature and will.
Let me point out that if God, being all that God is, did communicate directly with humans, I am certain the message would have been clear, concise and beyond misunderstanding. If God has engaged in Divine Revelation, the enormous amount of argument, confusion and violent disagreement over that revelation indicates the failure of both the message itself and its means of delivery.
Over the years the Bible has become for many the primary source of Divine Revelation. Searching there we will find many faces of God. A loving God. A jealous God. A merciful, forgiving God. A vengeful God who not only punishes the wrong doer, but even seven generations of his or her descendants and in many cases, entire nations! So, what is the nature of God? What is God’s will? What does it reveal about a person who believes he or she knows God’s nature, God’s will and what should be done to satisfy God’s will?
Belief is not benign. There are many tragic consequences tied to it. History reveals countless incidents where actual, demonstrable facts were cast aside in favor of religious belief. People were burned alive for asserting the truths of a round and not flat earth, an earth that revolves around the sun and an earth that is not at the center of the universe. Even worse, faith has epidemically been the primary initiator of untold suffering for humankind.. How many wars have been fought, tortures inflicted, bombs tossed and (fill in your own terrors here) because of faith? If you say, well faith also brings forth charity you should stop and consider how insane it is to conclude that faith is required for people to behave and relate well . Secondly, that any sort of charity that might drip down from faith could ever outweigh the damage it has done and continues to do incessantly. Religion, God and belief are fantasies we cannot give further indulgence. When we were still primitive concocting gods and religions to explain what was mysterious in our existence was the best we could do. But clinging to ancient and dangerous mental concessions to mystery is stunting our evolution and progression as individuals, societies and a species. Children may find comfort and amusement in their beliefs of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, but any adult who believed in them would be considered mentally impaired. Belief of any kind in a supernatural deity that can be understood and known is a contradiction of that deity’s nature and will always require a schizophrenic mind. Better to look at the world, at history, at suffering and what really works to lessen it. Better to use our intellect, awareness, talents, resources, strong healthy natural, not supernatural relationships to improve the conditions of all those in need in our world. We have grown beyond the Stone Age. We need to once and forever move beyond Stone Age adherence and slavery to erroneous concepts of a god and dangerously flawed modes of thinking and conceptualization of our existence. We don’t live in caves anymore. Continuing to think like our distant ancestors would be like limiting ourselves to using there tools and knowledge as well. I am sure you, like me, would not hobble yourself by using pre-historic means of acquiring food, treating the sick and injured or even traveling and communicating. Why then should we continue to employ faith and belief in our quest for understanding our existence so that we may all enjoy better lives?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)