Trauma Nation (part two)

I'm not going to try to get into the science of all of this. Seriously, it's just too much. Too much picking apart of every piece of information I want to talk about, and too much data to try to introduce in any kind of concise way, and I want to do this in one post, not 40.

The thing about trauma is that you don't always know you're suffering it. This is especially true if the trauma has been caused by a series of small incidents built up over time rather than one large trauma event. It's even more true if the form of abuse has been institutionalized so that the people around you are telling you that it's not really abuse.

So you don't like the way the old geezer in your church is always touching you? Putting his hands on your shoulders or, maybe even, patting you on the ass? "Oh, don't worry about him. He's harmless. He does that to everyone." Eventually, you do quit worrying about it because you get numbed to it, and who are you going to tell, anyway? Once your parents have dismissed the inappropriate contact as harmless, and your church leaders have as well, and your friends are all putting up with it, what are you supposed to do? Who do you tell? These are the people you trust, so you learn to ignore it no matter how it makes you feel.

When the message from the church is that women should keep their mouths shut and shouldn't be in leadership and it must be true because the Bible says so (and the Bible is NEVER wrong), who do you turn to? No one. You learn to keep your mouth shut because, if you don't, you face disapproval from everyone.

You wonder why your whole congregation is white, and the message that you get from the people you have grown up with and have learned to trust and who are your family is that White People are the chosen People-of-God and will be the ones to inherit God's Kingdom, you accept it and, without realizing it, you look down on black people and any other minority, especially Jews, because Jews were the Chosen People, but they spit on God and killed his Son, and the Bible says that they deserve all the punishment of the world for the rest of time.

But most fundamentally, you are a worthless piece of shit. You are a piece of shit who is destined for Hell where all of the pieces of shit go. This particular message is pervavise; after all, it is how the church survives. It needs to convince you of your shittiness before it can offer you the only chance you have of escaping Hell: Jesus (and $20 in the offering plate). This is the root of the trauma we face as a nation, the buy-in of "christians" that we are all pieces of shit and deserve to burn for it.

Of course, "christians" have their "get out of Hell free" card, but that doesn't change the fact that, at their core, they have bought into the idea that they are worthless pieces of shit. Only "Jesus in their hearts" makes them valuable at all. And, since they are worthless pieces of shit, everyone else, all of us heathen liberals and minorities and gays, are even more worthless pieces of shit.

I know how this works, because I grew up in this, with this belief that people are worthless and that it's only through "the precious blood of Jesus" that anyone has any value. Everyone else is just going to get heaped on the fire, so you need to save everyone you can. The problem is that it becomes so ingrained, this notion that people are worthless, that you can't separate it from your actual feelings and thoughts.

I grew up with this idea that the inherent state of people is one of depravity. I'm just going to say that middle school and high school may not be the best places to learn that that might not be true. By the time I was in college, my whole world view stemmed from this place of people starting in the negative position and not even being able to get to neutral without some kind of divine help, not even the very best of people.

Was this view mine? Or was it just ground into me at church? How do I separate out from that what my own views even are? Because, now, I know that people are just people. They may not be inherently good, but they certainly aren't inherently evil, even if people do tend toward being selfserving. I know this in my head, but I can't just pick out of myself the feelings around all of this. It means that I have to always be on guard against my own emotional reactions to things, because they may not be my emotional reactions, just the reactions implanted in me by the fucking church.

This is trauma. And, for at least some portion of my life, I visited this trauma upon other people by allowing my reactions to them be ones of suspicion and distrust or mere avoidance. During high school, I enmeshed myself with my church and my youth group and forsook, basically, all of my other social connections. Staying in your church group and not socializing outside of it is part of the paradigm. And you can't see or feel your own trauma while you're stuck inside of all of this.

This is the state of being for a significant portion of the US poplation, right now. They are living in the trauma that the church has buried them under and have no idea of what their own thoughts or feelings might be, because they have never known any other thoughts and feelings than those the church has given them. And, so, they visit this trauma on those around them because they don't know any other way.

Trauma Nation, it's what we are.
And we can't begin to heal the trauma until we can break the hold that the church has over the nation; specifically, the hold it has over the politics of the nation. This was never supposed to be the state of things in the US. The framers of the Constitution came from a country where religion cohabitated with government, and they knew how dangerous it was. It's time for us to, to co-opt the phrase of another moment, defund "the church." "christians" already think we are at war with them, just for wanting to live our lives in peace without them moralizing to us, but I think it's time for a real war against "the church," one in which we take an active stance and depowering the church and deprogramming the cultish thinking they're living with.

Because, make no mistake, "christianity" is, indeed, a cult. It is a cult that is bent on bringing about the end of the world (I'm not exaggerating, but I'll get to that in a later post) so, if we want a future, we have to start taking an active stance against "the church" and religion in politics. It's time to work on healing the trauma.

Some Sunshine

I haven't done one of these blogger award things in a long time, and I'm not exactly doing it now, BUT!

My friend, Squid, has gifted me with the Sunshine Blogger Award and wants me to answer some questions. So, you know, I'm going to answer some questions.
I don't know, it could be fun, right?!

So let's just jump into the questions:

1. If you could live one year of your life over again, which year would you choose and why?

Wow! What a way to start! I've actually been thinking about how to answer this question for two days, and I don't know that I'm any closer to an answer. The problem, of course, is that it's a time travel question and how do you know what the results will be if you go back and mess with stuff? And I'm probably over-thinking the whole thing, but, then, I also think Squid knows me well enough by now to know that I would over think it.

I used to also be pretty content with my life and my life choices, but I have had more than a few ideal shifts in the last few years and there are now many things I wish I could change about my past, things I wish I had not wasted time on, like "christianity." It was always a struggle being in "the church," and, I realize now, that that was because I actually believed in the things "the church" only claims to believe in, none of which has to do with the white-washed "Jesus" they hold so dear.

At any rate, none of the things I would change could be encompassed in a single year, so the idea re-living just one year seems a little pointless.

Unless it was 2019. 2019 has been a... difficult year. It feels like it was the year of home disasters for us. Maybe reliving it could be away to deal with some of those things before they became catastrophic.

2. If you could learn to be an expert at something without putting in the work, what would it be?

That's a pretty easy answer for me: drawing. Or whatever you want to call it. It's clear to me now that I had no small amount of skill in this as a child, way beyond my peers, but I was persuaded to believe that drawing and things of that nature were... frivolous. A waste of time. My time was better spent toward math and science, other subjects I was way beyond my peers in, so I quit drawing. I wish I hadn't.

3. If you could learn a new language instantly, which would you choose and why?

Hmm... I don't know? I mean, Spanish would be the most useful, especially out here in California, but I also have no particular desire to learn it.

How about the language of whatever extraterrestrials we discover first.

4. If you could give $1,000,000 to any charity, which would you choose?

So this is going to sound bad but, probably, none. $1,000,000 for most charities these days, at least the big ones, is virtually nothing and most charities spend most of the money they receive on internal bureaucracy. The thing I am most interested in supporting, at the moment, is housing. I believe in free basic housing for all. We shouldn't have a homeless problem in the USA and, yet, it's been getting worse all across the country since 2016. That's an objective statistic, not a political spin. A new report shows that homelessness began a pretty steep rise after Trump (#fakepresident) took office. The political spin on that fact is that the Trump White House is trying to blame that solely on California. While it is true that California has seen the steepest rise (thanks Climate Change!), California is not outsourcing its homeless problem. In fact, the homeless from other states come to California. All of that to say, $1,000,000 toward housing the homeless is less than a drop in the bucket.

5. When was your Robert Frost moment a la "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood..."? The poem (read it here) says you can't go back and that is true. "Way leads on to way" and so forth. But if you could, would you? What is the difference you think it would have made?

This question to me feels a lot like the first one. I don't have a better answer, I don't think. Well, I don't know. There was definitely a moment where I chose to start collecting comic books and, maybe, I would choose to not have done that, despite my love for comic books. I know where that led me: to a garage full of comic books I'm now trying to get rid of. Or, more probably, I would not make the choice I made into "christianity." That way was Fool's Gold, and it took me a long time to realize how false that path was. I definitely wish I had not chosen that route. I'd rather have the garage full of comic books.

6. Time travel: Where would you go and when? Why?

Considering the earlier questions, I'm going to assume this is an observational trip through time. In which case, I'm tempted to say I'd go to the future. No one ever says that for these kinds of questions. Skip getting the lottery numbers: Look ahead and see which companies to invest in. Though that's not my reason. It would be great to know if we even have a world left in 100 years.

But I'm only tempted to say the future. If I could travel back to the years of the "ministry" of Jesus and find out what really happened. Not that it would matter other than for me, because you can put actual facts in front of Conservatives only to have them close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears, and start singing "la la la la!" I'd like to know, though.

7. Who would you want on your fictional character bowling team? You get to pick four.

Whaaaat? Bowling team? Okay, okay, I get that bowling is not the point of this question, but, still... Bowling team? How would I even know who can bowl? Okay, fine!

Gandalf: I feel like he would always bowl a perfect game. And he's Gandalf.

Anakin Skywalker (Clone Wars era): I feel like he would also always bowl a perfect game. Maybe. Because I also feel like Obi-Wan would try to keep him from doing it even if they were on the same team. Which brings me to...

Obi-Wan Kenobi (Clone Wars era): Because I feel like having Anakin and Obi-Wan would be hella fun to hang out with. Imagine the conversations between Obi-Wan and Gandalf. 

Peter Parker? Thor?: I'm not sure. Either of them could be a fun addition. My team needs a fun addition.

8. What would you want for your last meal?

I don't know if I care that much? If I knew it was my last meal, I probably wouldn't be thinking much about food. I'd have other things I'd rather be doing than eating. But, you know, maybe a really great burger.

9. What's your favorite song?

I don't know how to answer this. Favorite right now? That's totally different from, say, what I think is the best song. I hate favorite as a way to describe things because it's an emotional answer, and it can change. All of that said, I'll go with two:

"The Sound of Silence" -- best song ever written

"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" -- because it's a good default U2 song to choose even though "Bad" is probably my favorite song by them

10. Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

Is this a trick question? It feels too easy after all of the other ones. Introvert, of course.

11. If you came over to my home and I offered you a drink, what would you want me to serve you?

Actually, anything. Well, okay, something I hadn't tried before, but I think that would be an easy thing for you to do. I wish you lived closer just so we could do cocktail experimentation together.

And that's that. That was pretty fun, though I probably spent way too much time on bits and pieces of this. Especially the bowling question. Of all the questions to cause me angst, that was the one. I even asked me wife if she had ideas, and she had the same response as me: Bowling? Is the objective to win? heh She suggested Bullseye if winning was the goal but, you know, psycho! So a hard no. I don't think he'd be much fun to hang out with, even though I'm sure he'd make sure everyone on your team had perfect games every time.

Considering I'm not really into all that many blogs anymore, I'm not forwarding this to anyone else. The only person I feel like would be interested, anyway, is Squid, and he just sent it to, so... Yeah.

But I do hope you all enjoyed my answers! Maybe it was informative.

"Nothing You Can't Handle": Why "christians" Think They're Better

I don't know if this will come as a surprise to any of you, but the Bible is full of things it doesn't actually say. Things like
there were three wisemen
cleanliness is next to godliness
god helps those who help themselves
abortion is a sin

Also, god will never give you a burden you can't bear.

"What?" you say, "That's not in the Bible? How can that be? People ("christians") say that all the time!"
Because of course they do.

Some of the examples I gave above have no Biblical basis whatsoever (actually, none of those things have any Biblical basis whatsoever), but this one does -- sort of; at least, it has a root cause for the thought -- so let's take a look at the actual verse the thought comes from.

I Corinthians 10:13 NIV
"No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it."

This verse is specifically dealing with sin and temptation. So, like, you're walking through a room and there's a fat piece of chocolate cake on a table, and you're tempted to eat it. This verse is saying that "god" won't allow you to be tempted in any way that goes beyond you're ability to resist it. Or, if it is a temptation beyond your ability to resist it, he'll offer some kind of escape hatch so that you can get away without sinning.

Which begs the question: why is the chocolate cake a sin? And, of course, it's not, but try convincing a "christian" of that. [Look, the cake is a metaphor (or, if you prefer, the cake is a lie).] At any rate, whether the cake is a sin is a topic for another conversation (and one I may have had on here? I can't remember, but I'm not going to go digging around looking for it, right now). The point, right now, is whether seeing the cake on  the table is a temptation beyond which you can bear and how, exactly, you can get away from it if it is. I don't remember ever seeing a special cake trap door appear in anyone's floor so that a tempted person could escape, and I'm pretty sure that would have made the news.

However, a "temptation," which happens in the moment, is quite a different thing from a "burden," which is ongoing. So the saying goes that any burden you have in your life, you only have because "god" knows you're strong enough to carry it. But let's take a closer look at that, too.

I think (and this is entirely my thought) that the verse cited above from I Corinthians may be being conflated with the verse from Matthew about taking up your cross to follow Jesus. You take up this burden, and "god" will give you the strength to carry it.
BUT
Not even Jesus was strong enough to carry his cross (his burden). Someone else had to step in and carry it for him.

And a lot of "christians" will say, "See, he couldn't carry it, so "god" provided someone to help him out because it was a burden beyond what he could bear." And that's all well and good except that it means that everyone who is burdened beyond their ability to carry the load should have someone there to take it from them. Right away. As soon as it's too heavy.

But that doesn't really ever happen, now, does it.
[In fact, the general response in modern evangelicalism is to decide that any person who becomes "burdened" in some way is, in fact, being punished by "god" and, therefore, no one should help that person. They need to fucking learn their lesson! Goddammit!]
There's definitely a failing somewhere in this whole concept, the most likely being that "god" doesn't hand out burdens or have anything to do with them or keeping them from getting too... burdenful. "He" couldn't give a shit about any burdens you may or may not have, either because "He" doesn't give a fuck about individual humans (anymore than we give a fuck about individual ants or bees) or because "He" doesn't actually exist (something I know I've talked about, but I'm also not going to go dig up that link).

The other main option is that "god" does monitor all of these burdens and has "provided" people ("christians"?) who will come along, as Simon did for Jesus, and take up your burdens for you so that you can make it BUT these "people" have free will and, so, are doing shit about helping other people, which is entirely true. Being someone who spent decades working in churches, I know exactly how "christians" feel about helping people in need. If it's someone white and in their congregation who suffers some kind of catastrophe, they are more than happy to step in and help but, if it's someone poor, especially if they are of some shade other than Caucasian, "god" suddenly only helps those who help themselves and they can all go fuck themselves. It's their own fault anyway and, if they didn't want to be poor or hungry or addicted or whatever, they would and could certainly do something about it.

Because, see, it's all about choice and, because "god" always provides a way out, that means that at some point that person made the cognitive choice to ignore that option and do something to put themselves into the situation they're in. You know, they chose the temptation. Or the burden is punishment. Or whatever. But whatever it is, it puts the "christian" into a position of superiority because, you know what? The "christian" doesn't have some undue punishment or temptation that they're giving into (other than the pride and arrogance they will never see) so that means, must mean, that the "christian" is favored by "god" while the suffering person is not. It gives them carte blanche to shrug their shoulders and go about their business.

Personally, I don't know how they get around the verse in Philippians that says, "...in humility value others above yourselves," but I guess I'm not the only one who has a "fuck Paul" attitude because, as much as "christians" hold Paul up as their idol, they never seem to get beyond his judginess in their dealings with other people. Paul also said to make the rich sit at the back of the church in the bad seats, but when's the last time you saw that happen? Oh, yeah, never.

So... If you ever wonder how or why it is all these "christians" in the United States don't seem to care at all about helping the poor and the destitute and the burdened, well, this why. They aren't compelled to because, obviously, "god" would take care of it if they deserved it. It's their burden to bear and, if they aren't able to handle it, it's their own choice.

Is that a great way to get out of helping people?

The Weekly Pep Rally: Churches Without a god

Being someone who grew up in the church and who, then, worked in churches for about two decades, I know what church is like. Or, well, I know what church is supposed to be like. Church used to be a place of moral authority, which is what it's supposed to be like, sort of, but, these days, it's become more of a... slot machine. It's a change largely instituted by Boomers through their wholehearted embrace of the prosperity doctrine and the idea they've pushed that church should be FUN! WooHoo!

And I'm not saying necessarily that church shouldn't be fun, but it shouldn't be about being fun. Of course, the whole fun thing is really only about making money.

And I'm also not saying that those morals in the "moral authority" were correct, but, at least, the people who attended paid some semblance of respect to those morals and tried to live lives that matched.

Without going through the history of the decline of the church in the United States, it abandoned any pretense of moral authority with its embrace of Trump (#fakepresident). You can't tell people they shouldn't commit adultery while supporting a man who views adultery as a victory. You can't tell people to "love your neighbor" while supporting a man who abuses his neighbors of other skin tones. You can't tell people to "love God" when you support a man who only loves himself.

I could go on...

Church is no longer about "being good" or "bringing people to Christ" or helping the needy. In fact, "christianity" is no longer about following Jesus at all. "christianity" has become a political position, and church is nothing more than a weekly Right-wing pep rally.

Which, you know, was a very eye-opening thought. It explains why a fairly small minority of the population is able to stay so organized and retain so much power.

Lookit, "the moral majority" Right-wing fundamentalist fascist fuckheads makeup, at best, about 30% of the population, and, yet, they have been able to stay in control of the reins of power for far too long because they are able to stay focused on a small number of issues. It keeps them motivated, and it's why they turn out for all of the elections.

It's like this:
A "friend" of mine from Texas with whom I went to college told me he "literally would have voted for the Devil rather than vote for Clinton." He used abortion as the excuse for his stance (though it sounded more to me like it was about having a woman in charge because "christians" hate women in power). Another "friend" (also from Texas and also from college) quickly echoed the sentiment. Having their votes be about an issue also allowed them to be able to doublethink (look it up if you don't know), "Sure I voted for Trump, but I'm not a Trump supporter."

But let's not go down all of those rabbit trails, as appealing as they are. Or not appealing.
Tempting?
Anyway...

All of that to say that I think those of us on the Left could probably benefit from some kind of similar weekly pep rally that would help us to stay focused on particular issues and motivated about getting out to vote. We could call it Church of the Godless, which would not be substantially different from "christian" churches, but it would be more honest.
But, then, it is rigid fundamentalists who are the ones more prone to hypocrisy. It must hurt to have so many planks in one's eyes.

The Rich Man Who Went To Hell

There was once a rich man. 1% for sure. In fact, if you're not the 1%, I don't think the term "rich" should be applied. The gap between the 1%, maybe 2%, and everyone else is getting so wide that there's not much left to be called "rich" among people not up there at the top.

So there was this rich man who liked to wear expensive clothes. The most expensive he could get his hands on. He was known for it.

He also ate pretty well.

There was also a homeless man. The homeless man was Lazarus, and he was suffering greatly from being homeless, so much so that he wasn't able to get around on his own anymore. He had oozing sores because he didn't have any healthcare, and he couldn't keep the dogs and flies off of them. The dogs because they like to lick gross stuff and the flies because... well, for the same reason, I suppose.

The homeless man had a few of his friends, if you could call them that -- people willing to give him a hand, at any rate -- drag him over and leave him in front of the rich man's house. Not right in front, you know, because that would be trespassing, but on the sidewalk near the gate. Maybe, just maybe, the rich man would allow him some of the leftover food from his amazing dinners, though, really, any food at all would have been amazing to the homeless man. To Lazarus.

Lazarus lived out his days there on the sidewalk in front of the rich man's house. I'm going to just assume that those days were not very many, though I don't know for sure. But we know that he was starving, that he was unable to seek shelter because he wasn't strong enough to walk, that he was suffering from oozing sores that wouldn't heal. None of those things bodes well for a long life. When he died, the angels came and carried him away. Or maybe those were just the first responders who showed up when they got the call about about a body.

Some time later, the rich man also died. I'm going to go ahead and assume that it was some years later, though I don't know for sure. After all, we don't know how old the rich man was, and we don't know what he died from. Maybe he lived decades because he probably had great healthcare or, maybe, he died the next day in a car crash. It doesn't really matter. What matters is that the rich man got sent straight to Hell. I imagine this rather like a game of Monopoly: He did not pass "Go" and he did not collect his $200.

Now Hell is a pretty awful place. Or so they say. Evidently, it's hot, or there wouldn't be a saying about it being "hot as hell." It seems there is also no water, because the rich man was dying of thirst. Okay, sure, he was already dead, but it sure felt to him as if he were dying of thirst. At any rate, he looked up toward Heaven (because you can see it clearly from Hell), longing for water, and, what do you know, there was Lazarus, the guy who died in front of his house, just hanging out and having a good time.

And drinking water.

The rich man wanted some, and he wanted Lazarus to bring it to him. The answer, of course, was no. Not just no, but, "Hell, no!" heh

Some of you may be familiar with this story. It's pretty popular in churches and comes from the book of Luke. Yes, that's in the Bible. So let's look at some things about this particular story, shall we? Yes, we shall.

Jesus was telling this story to the Pharisees because he liked to tell stories that were also lessons. That he was telling the story to Pharisees presents us with a small problem: The Pharisees were all rich, hyper-uptight, religiously educated dudes. Let me make one distinction, though: when I say they were religiously educated, that means they were educated in Jewish law. And they knew it backwards and forwards but, basically, it made them lawyers. They weren't actually interested in spirituality; they were interested in the law and how to keep the letter of the law.

So Jesus was speaking to a bunch of lawyers, experts, about an intersection of religious law and spirituality, and today's church-goers are hardly experts in, well, anything to do with the Bible at all.

Jesus was speaking to the 1%. When pastors are preaching this particular message, they are most assuredly not speaking it to the 1%.

Jesus was speaking to hyper-uptight... Oh, well, that's still the same.

But, really, pastors today are not delivering this message to the intended audience. Let's look at why that matters:

Jesus was delivering his message to the rich. Based on other things he said to the rich, like "give away to the poor everything you own," I'm going to take this story as a warning to the 1%. I think that warning is, "Don't be rich," which is a warning that rather flies in the face of the oh-so-popular prosperity doctrine. [For those of you who don't know, the prosperity doctrine says that "god" will make you rich if he likes you. Conversely, if you are rich, "god" likes you.]

Of course, pastors tell this story as if the rich man was being punished because he didn't do anything to help Lazarus, and I can see the temptation in telling it that way, but we don't know that that was true. The story Jesus tells says nothing about whether the rich man offered Lazarus food or not. Or what he did or did not do for the man. What I do find interesting, though, is that the rich man knew Lazarus' name, not something I would expect if he had taken no interest in Lazarus at all or if his interest had only extended to, "Get that wretch away from my gate!" In fact, we know that Lazarus lived in front of the rich man's house until his death. Maybe the rich man kept Lazarus fed all along but Lazarus was just too sick for it to do any good. We really don't know.

Pastors also tell this story to the poor of the world as a comfort story rather than to the rich as a warning. Not what Jesus intended if we look at the audience Jesus delivered this particular message to. No, the message pastors today want to deliver is this: Don't worry about being poor and sick and abandoned; you will get to go to heaven. As if Lazarus got to go to heaven because he was poor and sick. That also doesn't follow from the rest of the accumulated teachings ascribed to Jesus.

Basically, what we have here are two completely divergent messages.
The first, by Jesus:
Hey, you, rich people, watch out. You're going down.

The second, by modern pastors:
Hey, you, downtrodden people, be accepting of your fate. You'll get rewarded for your suffering after you die.

That second message is kind of sick if you ask me.

What I do know is this: No matter what you believe, the 1%, after they die, are going to end up in the same place as the rich man from the story. I suppose they better hope that "christianity" doesn't turn out to be true, because an eternity of nothingness has to be better than an eternity in hell.

Grass (a book review post)

One of the modern myths of American protestant religion is that God wants to have a personal relationship with you. With you, specifically. The best part about that is that "christians" think that's how it has always been, that that thought about God has always been there. But that's just not true. The idea of a "personal God," a God who wants to be "friends," originated with Enlightenment thinking and has only been around a couple or few centuries, but didn't really take off till the middle of the 20th century through evangelists like Billy Graham and his whole inviting Jesus into your heart schtick.

Prior to that, the thought about God had been more... communal. God didn't know or care about you as an individual person, only as part of humanity. That's the reason in the Catholic church you didn't appeal to God directly but worked through advocates. God didn't have time for you, but St. Joseph or St. Matthew might. It's something like the owner of a large company not knowing who every employ is, but your manager knows who you are and you can talk to her with any concerns.

As such, according to Tepper's presentation in Grass, people don't have individual purposes handed down to them by God. People have a purpose as a race, and God isn't up in Heaven handing out purposes to everyone like ice cream cones. It's up to the individual to help make sure the purpose of humanity is fulfilled, and that's as close as you get to having a purpose.

I like Tepper's view. It makes sense.

Not that that's how she presents it.

But if mankind were to have a purpose, what would it be? Something like taking care of the Earth, maybe? Which we have done a piss-poor job of and many of us, especially those in power, try to pretend like everything is perfectly fine. Nope, no climate change happening here! Move along. Because, you know, it doesn't really affect them, and they all have the money and position to avoid the negative consequences of the global devastation that is already beginning to happen. If they, the rich and powerful, are going to survive, why worry about anyone else or curing the plague at all?

And, now, I've told you a bit about the book without telling you anything at all. I suppose you'll just have to read it to understand what I mean.

Which brings us to the question of whether the book is worth reading...
I would say yes. It's a quite good book. Generally speaking, Grass is regarded as Tepper's best book, though I would say The Gate to Women's Country is better. I can't do better than that; those are the only two of Tepper's books I've read so far, though I do have a couple more on standby and just discovered that Grass is the first of a trilogy, so I'm going to have to look into the other two of these, also.

What I can say for sure is that Tepper is under appreciated as an author, and I can't really figure out why that is. Unless it's because she was a woman writing in the male dominated sci-fi field, and I'm not saying that, but I probably could, and could probably make a strong case for it. As someone who's read a lot of sci-fi (A LOT), I would say that Tepper is among the best I've read. But, then, I wouldn't expect The Gate to Women's Country to be raking in the male fans, and men and the patriarchy don't fare much better in Grass.

None of which is to say that the book isn't without its flaws. She gets a little overly explain-y when she gets into the plague, what causes it and... all of that (no spoilers!). Also, it takes a while to get to what the point of the book actually is, but, then, the protagonist, Marjorie, takes a while to come to grips with that herself, so I suppose that's understandable.

But the flaws are slight, like coming across a salty bite in your eggs, a momentary unpleasantness before returning to your scrambled goodness.

I would mention, though: Tepper seems to like telepathy and mind powers. Out of two books, so far, both have had elements of this. And I'm assuming the next two books in the Arbai sequence will also contain these elements since they're sequels to Grass. On a personal level, I'm not sure how I feel about all the telepathy and stuff. That's still something I'm dwelling on.

Anyway! Read the book! It's good!

Why You Worship a False god (Part Two)

[You should go back and read part one of this, because I'm not going to provide any kind of recap or summary, and this probably won't make sense without the previous post.]

I left you all last time with "Christianity is the worst," and I meant it. Why? For one simple reason:
"Christianity" provides a solution to the linear god problem then turns its back on it and walks away.

Imagine three cages with people all locked up inside each one, one for Jews, one for Muslims, one for Christians. No one can get out. Except there are people inside the Christian cage with keys to the door, but they like being in the cage and like having all the other people locked in with them, so they don't bother to tell anyone. They could, but they don't want to. That's pretty despicable. At least there isn't anyone in the other cages concealing keys.

Look, it's even true of Paul. The asshole. To paraphrase:
When Paul was approached with the idea that sin didn't matter anymore because all sin was forgiven under Christ, Paul said, "Sure, you're right. Don't sin anyway." Basically, get back in your cage and sit down and shut up. Because Paul was a legalistic douche bag, kind of by his own admittance. He was a Pharisee among Pharisees.

And this is where we get to the point:
The whole point of the idea of Jesus is that he was a final sacrifice for all sin. All sin. Everyone's sin for all of time. Yes, you have to accept it, but, if you do, all of your sin has been atoned for. All the sins you've already done and all of the sins you'll do in the future, because it's only past and future for you. God sees you as a whole human being throughout the entire timeline of your life, so the one act of accepting the forgiveness offered through the sacrifice of Christ cleanses you of all of the sin. Therefore, it doesn't actually matter what you do; all sin is forgiven.

Now, this is the point where you really need to pay attention to get to the same place that I'm going.

Only a God outside of Time can do this. Only a God who can see your whole life at once and take away all the sin at once. That's what makes God, God.

If your god demands constant repentance and/or sacrifices to be on good terms with "him," then your god is no god at all. A god who is locked into judging you based upon your latest prayer, act of contrition, or sacrifice is a fraud. If your god is a fraud, then there is no sin, and it doesn't matter what you do. If your god is a fraud and you insist on dogmatically following some esoteric list of rules, you are also a fraud, propped up only by your legalism.

If your God is outside of Time and able to look at a person as a holistic being and has given you a way to purge your sin once and for all, then there is also no sin, and it doesn't matter what you do. Because let me be clear, no little prayer of "asking Jesus into your heart" is going to fool that kind of God into forgiving you. Whatever that means. Either that kind of God is up there judging people and it doesn't matter if you've "prayed the prayer" or not, because "He" knows more about what's going on in you than you do; or that kind of God is not judging people at all because, seriously, why would God even need to do that? Either way, it doesn't matter what you do. Neither can you "be good enough" to get into Heaven, nor can you be bad enough to get kicked out.

Which leaves us all in a very uneasy space, I know. A place of real moral ambiguity.
I mean, I've just stated that it doesn't matter what you do! How will we know if people are good or if people are bad or whether they're going to get into heaven or go straight to hell or whether we should look up to them because of how "righteous" they are or look down at them and spit because they're dirty, rotten sinners?

But here's the thing, man clearly has a moral compass of sorts. Humans have a pretty standard idea of what's right and wrong across cultures. It doesn't matter whether you believe if that's something divine or if it's some kind of genetic inheritance because we're a social species, there is a clear call to uphold the social good. Maybe the idea is to be good for goodness' sake, not out of fear of some kind of punishment. Maybe the idea is to do the Right thing because it's the right thing.
And God doesn't matter in that decision.

Here are the things I can tell you for sure:
1. Any God is so far above man that we are incapable of any kind of understanding about who or what God is. Anyone who tells you differently, anyone who tries to tell you what God is about and what God approves of and what "he" doesn't, is a liar and a fraud. Any person claiming to know God's mind worships a false god. Anyone who ever utters the phrase, "You need to get right with god," worships a god trapped in a linear timeline, and that god is not a god at all.
2. The current "christian" establishment in the United States (possibly the entire "christian" establishment across the world) clearly worships a linear god; therefore, the current "christian" establishment worships no god at all.
3. Anyone supporting "christianity" and Trump are clearly not even "christians," let alone a Christian. There is nothing in "christianity" which supports the support of a person like that. He is the antithesis of what it is to be a Christian, so anyone supporting him is clearly paying lip service to a religion they know nothing about. Clearly those people are worshiping a god they have made up in their own minds, not a God who lives outside of Time. The fact that they can't see the glaring divide between the character of Jesus in the Bible and the caricature that is Trump highlights their ingrained hypocrisy.

What I'm saying here is that most of you out there, if you believe in "God," have no idea what you believe. You've been told what to believe by other people and your idea of God is flawed. If your idea of God is flawed, you can't believe in God, only god. You have no idea what the Bible is about or what it says because you've never bothered to read it. And reading the Bible should only be the beginning of your learning about what you believe. That is, if you believe it. Because, really, most of you don't believe in anything; you just think you do.

Why You Worship a False god (Part One)

Let me just say upfront that I'm probably going to lose a lot of you with this "discussion," and not because of the offensive material but because of the metaphysical material. My experience is that people don't tend to be able to keep up. For example, my first college roommate was a Calvinist (you can look it up), but he was a Calvinist because he didn't understand the doctrine of predestination or what they mean by it. In his mind, since "god" knows everything, "god" also causes everything to happen. There is no free will. Foreknowledge equated control. Basically, "god" was upstairs with puppet strings attached to everything, and no one had any choices about anything.

How boring.

The problem was that he really just couldn't see the difference between foreknowledge and complete predestination (of everything) no matter how many times or how many ways people (not just me) tried to explain it to him. Some of the people who tried to explain it to him also didn't understand the differences in the concepts; they just knew that they had been told that Calvinism was wrong.

I only bring this up because it relates. We're going to talk about God and Time and why your god isn't actually God. And, sure, that part might be offensive, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose most of you way before we get far enough along for you to be offended. Unless, of course, you're already offended.

So let's start with something pretty basic:
For god to be God, He has to be outside of time, the maker of Time. That's pretty standard thought nowadays, in theory, at least among "christian" theologians, so I'm probably not losing anyone yet, theoretically. Until we get to the part where we're dealing with what it means to be outside of Time, but I'm not got to get into that, because that's kind of like asking a fish what it's like to be outside of water. And the fact that most of you probably don't get the part where Time is not some linear stream that has always existed.

Maybe you're wondering why that even matters, but it matters in that, for god to be God, He has to be omniscient, and He can't be omniscient from within Time. To know everything, you have to be outside of everything, including Time.

And it matters because of sin.

Before I go on, let me state quite clearly that I am NOT just talking about Christianity here. I'm also talking about Judaism and Islam. It's all the same god, and all three religions suffer from the same issue: sin.

Here's where we start getting tricky...

Men are linear creatures, time-wise; therefore, our views of people tend to be pretty tied into whatever they did last. The quality of a person is based on his/her most recent actions. That's the linear view.

And that's the view religious people, of whatever religion, tend to take, too, hence all of the sin, repent, repeat nonsense. Because you can't go to heaven if you have sin, and you're only as good as your last repentance.

Christianity, theoretically, deals with this issue. Jesus was intended to be the one and only sacrifice that would wipe sin from your life both backwards and forwards. Hebrews 10:10 -- "...we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." The idea for the need for constant repentance (sacrificing) has been dealt with by the one sacrifice of Jesus, so sacrifices are no longer needed. Provided, of course, that you accept the One sacrifice of Christ as your own. This is what the writer of Hebrews is saying. [Note: The writer of the book of Hebrews is unknown, but it was almost certainly NOT Paul. The asshole.]

Of course, the writer of Hebrews couldn't reconcile this idea with himself and, a few verses later, says that, basically, since you've been forgiven of your sins -- all of them past, present, and future -- don't ever sin again. I mean, if you're accepting the grace of God but, then, go out and sin again anyway, you deserve to go to straight to hell. STRAIGHT TO HELL, I tell you! Because he couldn't take himself out of a linear mindset despite the words of Jesus himself claiming to be the one and only sacrifice ever needed.

This is where we run into some problems, because neither Judaism not Islam have any mechanism for dealing with sin in a non-linear fashion. Their god is completely Time-linear and can only deal with men based upon their most recent actions. This causes two problems:
1. You have a man who has lived a horrible, despicable life full of sin and mayhem. The worst possible person you can think of. But, shortly before his death, he "sees the light," repents, offers the appropriate sacrifices, then dies and goes to heaven. [And some of you are saying, "But that's the great power of "god" and his offer of forgiveness to man!]
but...
2. You have a man who has lived a pretty great life of being good and just to other men as much as possible. A true saint among men whom everyone looks up to. But he "stumbles" and commits some sin or other and, before he can repent or make the appropriate sacrifice or whatever, dies suddenly. Because he dies with sin, he is denied heaven. AND GOD CAN'T DO A DAMN THING ABOUT IT! Just, oops! That's too bad, but you have sin and can't come in.

Let me tell you, that's the kind of god I want to follow. One who is bound up in his own arbitrary rules and inability to see beyond the same linear timeline as man.

You "Christians" can stop patting yourselves on the back, because, in a lot of ways, you're even worse. Probably in the most important ways, you're worse.
But we'll talk about that next time.

Playing God and the Fundamental Problem of Fundamentalism

Let's have a bit of a thought experiment, shall we?

If you espouse at all to Judeo-Christian mythology (because that is the correct term to use in this case, so don't go getting your undies all twisted in a knot and stuck in your bunghole) and, actually, to Islam, since it has the same roots, then there is a basic premise you have to acknowledge. Actually, it is the basic premise, the one without which there is no Judeo-Christian mythology, no Judaism, no Islam. That premise? Free will.

Yes, the basis of Christianity is the idea that God gave us choice. This is the fundamental concept of Christianity: God made man so that man could choose to love Him. Or not. Love has no meaning without the power to choose not to love.

Or to obey.

[I'm not offering this point as up for debate. This is my given, and I'm not going to enter a discussion in order to prove it. For one thing, that would be a whole other post. Also, it's been an accepted idea for... I don't know how long, so plenty of other people have already argued the point. If you don't agree with me, go find some of those arguments. Or offer your own counter argument, though I probably won't engage in some long, drawn out discussion over it. Not that I might not want to, but I just don't have time for that these days.]

The truth is that, on the whole, people are bad at "choice." We don't want to have them -- or, at least, not too many of them -- and we don't want other people to have them, especially if they are choices we feel like we don't get to make (because, you know, then that's not fair). We so much don't want to have them that we -- again, if you follow Judeo-Christian mythology -- demanded to God that He give us some rules to follow and, thus, we have the Law.

Conservatives love rules. I'm not being snarky. Conservatives tend to be rigid thinkers, and they like clearly defined boundaries and parameters. Rules. If you have a rule, you don't have to stop and figure out what choice you should make: It's clearly laid out for you. And, more importantly, it tells you what other people ought to be (or not to be) doing.

Also, if you are good at following the rules, that makes you better than everyone else.

Sound familiar Republicans?
(Now I am being snarky.)

Fundamentalists are the BEST at following the rules and doing what they're told. So good, in fact, that they come to believe it is their job to enforce the Rules, as they see them, on everyone else. In effect, they choose to play god.

How is this playing god, you might ask. What's wrong with making sure that people are doing the things they're "supposed to do"? What's wrong with enforcing "the rules," the Law?

[I'm going to use Christianity as my example religion here, but this behavior is by no means restricted to Christianity. Christians, however, seem to believe that they do NOT engage in these behaviors, so I think it's important, especially in the United States, to deal with this from the "Christian" perspective.]

Problem One:
You are choosing to enforce your version of "the rules," and those rules are not necessarily correct or moral. "But! The Bible!" Sure, I believe you believe your rules are in the Bible or are "Biblical," but, cherry-picking is an all too common occurrence with Christians, so it's quite likely that your rules are not going to match the rules of the denomination next door.

Now, I bet you think I'm going to get into that whole thing about who's rules are the correct ones and all of that, don't you? Well, I'm not. Because, you know what? No one is correct, because it doesn't really matter if anyone is correct. As soon as you try to enforce your version on someone else, even if it's 100% correct, you are in the wrong and it completely invalidates what you're doing. Yeah, crazy talk, I know.

Look, God gave us free will, gave us choice. Who are you to come along and take that away by trying to make me follow your version of the rules? We'll even go with the assumption that you are correct, but big deal. If God Himself as left it up to me, who the fuck do you think you are to come in here and tell me that it's not? God? Of course you do.

Problem Two:
Jesus.
Yes, really.
Jesus came along and said the Law didn't matter anymore. See, prior to Jesus, you proved you were "good" by following the Law, but Jesus said that wasn't going to work anymore. Well, it never worked to begin with because people followed the letter of the Law and tried to enforce it on each other without paying much attention to what it was all really about: being good to each other. So, Jesus (God) said, "No more Law." And, of course, what did everyone do? They double-downed on the Law.

What that means is that when anyone starts "Bibling" at you, they are saying that what they are saying is more valid than what Jesus (GOD) said.

Problem Three:
Paul.
And Paul is a problem. Paul is the reason so many "Christians" are still clinging to the Law.

See, people are pretty savvy, and people realized that since the Law was no longer valid (everything was grace) that there was no more sin. Paul's response? Well, Paul said, "You know what, you're right; there is no more sin. Follow the Law anyway."

Paul, with a full understanding of what Jesus said about having done away with the Law, said that people should do it anyway, then he went around exhorting everyone to keep following the Law.

And "Christians" for the last 2000 years have done all they could to follow Paul's example and make people do as their told. Because, you know, they know better than God what ought to be going on. Forget "love your neighbor" and shit like that; just do as you're told. So say the Republicans.

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (a book review post)

To put it mildly, I am not overly fond of "Christianity" right now. To be clear, when I say "Christianity," I do not mean Christianity; I mean the modern farce that people pretend is Christianity, whatever that actually is. Because it's clear that there has been a division about what is or is not Christianity right from the very beginning.

Which has nothing to do with what "Christianity" is, and has been for the last several decades at least, in America today. "Christianity" is a religion of hate, exclusion, and fundamentalism; the religion that supported a man to the Presidency who is completely antithetical to everything Christianity represents. Or says it represents.

And, no, the book has nothing to do with modern politics, but it does deal heavily with how different a thing can be from the actuality, the truth, that it was based on.

I think the audience for a book like this is probably fairly small, and not because it's not good. It is. It's well written, well researched, and well supported. However, "Christians" will dismiss the book as, I'll just say, liberal propaganda, which is sad, because it's "Christians" who need this book more than anyone. "Christians" need to be challenged to think beyond the shallow tripe they are spoon fed on Sunday mornings. Of course, being a book ostensibly about Jesus, there's no reason non-Christians should have any interest in the book... unless it's someone just curious about the history.

I'm not going to go into detail about the book -- you can read the blurb from the book for yourself -- however, I'll touch on one part:
The latter part of the book deals with a division within the early church between James (the leader of the church in Jerusalem) and Paul, who was one step removed from being a heretic. Much of our modern church, modern "Christianity" is built around what Paul wrote, a man who never met Jesus, yet claimed to speak with greater authority about him than Jesus' own brother (the aforementioned James) and the rest of the apostles. The piece that history loses is that in his day Paul was an outlier, someone trying to peel off members from the main body of the early church with heretical teachings and who stayed in conflict with James for much of his ministry.

In fact, Paul was losing. And bitter.

Probably, we would know nothing of Paul today had not two things happened:
1. James was assassinated.
2. The Romans leveled Jerusalem, the side effect of which was destroying the central power structure of the early Church.
Basically, this allowed the Church to become a more gentile-centric organization than it would have been if it had remained centered in Jerusalem. It allowed the New Testament to become a book of Paul's teachings rather than a book of Jesus' teachings, and the current "Christian" church relies much more heavily on Paul than it does Jesus. Not that the representation of Jesus is completely accurate.

Anyway...
As a Truth seeker, I found the book fascinating and would highly recommend it.

Since When?

Facebook has a lot of things going on that we don't know about. It's not that facebook is actually trying to hide this stuff, it's just that it's not right out in the open, and, well, no one ever really looks. Of course, we all agree to it by being on facebook to begin with, so it's not like you have any right or grounds on which to complain. If you don't like it, don't be on facebook.

But I digress as all of that is really beside the point. Or behind it. Or something. I only bring it up because what I'm about to talk about came out of one of those "hidden" facebook things.

Unsurprisingly, facebook labels you in different ways based on the kinds of things on which you click through and all sorts of ways. A lot of it has to do with advertising so that their advertisers can target you so that they're sending ads to people who might actually be interested in them rather than just whatever to whomever and hoping something sticks. One of the labels they attach to you has to do with how you lean politically.

Yeah, I checked  my label.

It said "machine wash, hot."
Oh, wait! Wrong label.

Oh, yeah, I know what a lot of you out there are thinking: "We don't need you to tell us your label. We all know you're one of those crazy, hippy liberals." Well, as it turns out, not quite. See, there are three categories: liberal, conservative, and moderate. Makes sense, right? And I fully expected to get pegged in the "liberal" category. But, no, my label... You want to know my label? "Very liberal." Not just liberal but "very liberal."

It's funny, because I don't feel "liberal." What I feel like is someone who believes that all people; independent of their race, sex, sexuality, financial status, whatever; ought to get a fair shake. What I wonder is this: Since when did that idea become "liberal"? Because I have a hard time with the idea of people being treated fairly and equally being a liberal idea. Not today. Today, that ought to be the norm.

Why?

Because we use the Declaration of Independence as one of our founding documents, I'd like to point out a few things. All men (mankind) are created equal, not just white men and not just rich men and not just rich, white men.

All men have the right to life, which does not include being shot dead by people working for the government, especially not for walking down the street or driving your car.

All men have the right to liberty. I'm going to say that as freedom. People have the right to choose how they want to live. As long as you're not hurting some other person, you should get to live the way you want to. And, honestly, I don't understand why this is even a thing. What you do in your own house is your own business (as long as it isn't beating your kids or your spouse). Or it ought to be. I don't want you coming in my house telling me how to live, so I shouldn't be going into your house telling you how to live. That's a metaphoric "I," people.

All men have the right to pursue happiness. Again, as long as it doesn't mean harming someone else or denying someone else their right of life or liberty. You get to decide what makes you happy and pursue that thing and, just because that is not a thing that makes me happy, it doesn't make it okay for me to tell you that it shouldn't make you happy.

These do not seem like "liberal" ideas to me. They seem like fairly decent human ideas. But let's take it back some more. Now, if you are a Bible believer, you have to get the whole part where God created man to be free. See, the angels were not free, and God wanted some piece of creation that would have freedom of choice. The freedom to live as that piece of creation would choose to live. So it seems to me that the people who should be most invested in protecting the right of choice for individuals would be Christians. Or "Christians," if we're speaking politically.

Not to mention that it should be Christians most in support of social programs that help the poor. Seriously, what do they think it means when Jesus said, "Feed my sheep"? But that's really a different topic.

The point is that I don't feel liberal, certainly not "very liberal." Which is not to say that I feel conservative, because I don't feel that, either (although I think I did actually feel conservative when I was young and growing up in the South). I don't think of myself in those kinds of terms.

As I said, I do think of myself as someone who believes that people deserve and should receive equality. Equal opportunity. Equal pay for equal work. An equal chance at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. My wife frequently says I'm the best feminist she knows, but I don't think of myself that way, either. I'll say equalist. I believe in equalism.

And, again, as the title says, since when did that idea become liberal?

Fallacies of the Church (part four) -- The Corollary

The real problem with the idea that God rewards the good (as I talked about last week) is the corollary to that thought: God un-rewards the not good. I don't want to say that God punishes the wicked, but that's certainly what people tend to think. It's rather similar to that whole "angels are beautiful; demons are grotesque" thing. The idea this instills is that it's okay to not help those less fortunate than us; after all, they've done something to deserve it.

It's an attitude more than it is anything else. I mean, it's not something people come right out and say, at least not most of the time, though there have been plenty of people who have. If God "liked" that person, that person would have more money, right? Because God blesses people who go to church and tithe and all of that. People who do those things and are poor must have some (secret) sin in  their lives or God would be blessing them, too. You know, actually, I've heard people say that one out loud. I've heard pastors say that one out loud.

It goes right along with hurricane Katrina being a judgement against the depravity of New Orleans and other such things that have been said about horrible natural disasters.

My favorite, though, is that miscarriages are punishments from God. And, yes, I've heard pastors say that. In fact, one of the pastors I worked for believed that (and expressed that belief freely) which made it very awkward for him when my wife had a miscarriage a year or so before our younger son was born. I could feel the tension of the unasked question from him, "What secret sin are you hiding that God would punish you so?" It was palpable.

Of course, this is the same pastor that told me I needed to check in on one of our church members, a friend of mine, because he was a big tither, and we didn't want to lose his money. Yes, those are the words that he said to me. It's always about the money.

I was long gone from that church when his oldest (perfect (because his family was perfect, as he often pronounced from the pulpit)) daughter had a miscarriage during her first pregnancy, but I often wondered how he took that and whether he accosted his daughter over some secret sin her life.

There are a couple of places you can look in the Bible to see that misfortune or a bad lot in life is not something visited upon people because God is punishing them or just doesn't like them.

The first is Job. God loved Job, and Job loved God. Along came Satan and told God that Job only loved Him because of all the stuff God had given him, so God let Satan take everything away. Job's wife and all of his friends came along and asked Job what horrible thing he'd done to piss off God. Of course, Job had done nothing wrong and had, in fact, done everything right, but, still, they all came in with the assumption that all the bad stuff was Job's fault.

The other is the story of the blind man that Jesus and his disciples passed on the road one day. The disciples asked Jesus whose sin, the man's or one of his parent's, was responsible for the man's blindness. Jesus' response was that no sin was responsible.

No sin was responsible. No one did anything bad. The blind man wasn't a bad person just like Job wasn't a bad person, just like there aren't "bad" people and "good" people. There are just people. Bad things and hard times are not judgements from God. They are just things that are.

If you go to a church that fosters the belief that God punishes people by sending any kind of ruin upon them, you need to get out of that church.

Fallacies of the Church (part two) -- All You Need Is God

Maybe you've heard the joke:

There was a man caught in a flood because he didn't leave his house when he was told to evacuate. Rather than leave, he put his faith in God to save him. The waters rose higher and higher until he was eventually forced to climb out onto his roof. Once there, a man in a small boat came by and offered to carry him to safety. The man replied, "No, thank you. God will save me."

The waters continued to rise until he was sitting on the very top of his roof. A couple of men came by in a fishing boat and offered to carry him to safety. The man replied, "No, thank you! God will save me."

The waters continued to rise until he was forced to climb to the top of his chimney to sit. A helicopter came by and lowered itself and dropped a rope. The man replied, "No, thank you! God will save me!"

The waters continued to rise, and the man was swept away and drowned. Upon entering Heaven, he said to God, "God, I put my faith in you. Why didn't you save me?"

God answered, "I sent two boats and a helicopter. What more did you want?"

** ** **

Unfortunately, this joke is the perfect example of one of the greatest lies of "the church": God is all you need. And, hey, I get it; there are plenty of verses you can point to in the Bible that seem to say that, plenty of verses that talk about how God will supply your needs. Your physical needs. Except, the problem there is that those needs, with the exception of manna in the desert, don't magically appear. People provide them.

The thing is this: This is one of the most harmful lies of the church, this idea that God is all you need. It's always delivered in the context of someone needing help, which is what makes it so destructive. Are you going through an emotional upheaval, like a divorce? Don't worry; God is all you need. Are you going through a financial difficulty, like you just lost your job and can't make your house payments? Don't worry; God is all you need. Did you just suffer a physical trauma, like you found out you have cancer? Don't worry; God is all you need.

This line is always delivered in an effort to get the human(s) saying it out of any responsibility to be of assistance in the situation. "Oh, you don't need me. God is all you need." Then, if that situation doesn't turn around and end up in a positive manner? Well, there's definitely something wrong with the individual who had the problem. That person didn't "trust" God enough or, maybe, and even worse, God didn't like that person to begin with.

"All you need is God" is a cop out from "the church" and its members delivered on a weekly basis to people "the church" doesn't want to associate with.

What's worse (and it's worse because it's more insidious) is that it teaches people to not accept help, just like the guy in the joke. Accepting help from other people is some twisted kind of weakness and proof that you're not trusting God to... what? Who knows. Materialize a stack of money in your living room? "Fix" the spouse who is initiating the divorce? Heal you over night of the cancer? I'm just going to say this: If you're in need and someone offers help, fucking take the help! That's what people are for. Because God is actually not all you need.

What I know from experience from the use of this statement against people (and, yes, I do mean "against"), either from getting out of needing to offer help or people refusing to ask for it, is that when things don't work out, people feel abandoned by God and, therefore, abandon "the church," which, actually, might be for the better. However, destroying someone's faith is never for the better. And "the church" was put here to help people, not to tell them that they only need God and everything will be okay.

Look, I'm not going to get into a tit for tat verse argument about the validity of the statement; that would be pointless. Instead, I'm going to look at one particular event in the Bible, a foundational event, you could say. It doesn't even matter if you take this event as literal fact or some sort of metaphor, the truth that comes out of this is the same either way if you believe that God created man as a being meant to be in a relationship with Him. Let's look at Adam:

God is sitting around up in Heaven and, evidently, being a bit bored. All He has are Angels who don't have "free will," whatever that means considering a third of them rebelled against Him. Whatever the case, God decides to make a man, and He does. For a while, everything is great. God comes down to the special place He made for the man, Eden, and hangs out with him every night. Maybe they played poker? Or, maybe, they had a long running game of Monopoly going? You know with just two people that game can go on for ages. Or, maybe, they just skipped stones on the lake. I don't know.

What I do know is that, after a while, God realized that He, He being God!, was not enough for Adam. Adam was lonely and bored and couldn't handle all of the work of taking care of Eden all by himself. God was NOT all Adam needed. The end result of that is... well, people. Social people that need to depend on each other and cannot get by on God alone, as it were.

And I could go on and on. God appeared to Moses and told Moses that He would be with him, and Moses said, "Nope, I need a person." David had Jonathan. Paul had Barnabas. Jesus had his disciples! God, as man, needed people! Obviously, God is NOT all you need.

That the current iteration of Christianity is full of this message, "All you need is God," from the pulpit and pews to Christian music, is, well, it's horrible and destructive and a lie. In fact, it's undermining to the whole message of true Christianity. Of course, what we have in the United States today is more of a political movement, not a faith, and that message fits right in with that. A church that is preaching the "all you need is God" teaching is, more than likely, not a church you should be attending. Unless, of course, you're already bought into the same idea as a way of avoiding helping people.

Fallacies of the Church -- An Introduction (part one)

As I've talked about before, I grew up in "the church;" specifically, I grew up Southern Baptist. Beyond that, I've worked in "the church," across several different denominations. The difference between me and most people who grow up in "the church" is that, from a young age, I began exploring Christianity on my own. What I mean by that is that I did not rely on Sunday School or the pastor or the youth pastor or whomever to teach me what's what about what's in the Bible and anything and everything related to that. I studied on my own.

My tendency to do my own studying (I was the only one in my youth group when I was a teenager who had read the Bible (even worse, when I got to college, I knew ministerial students who had never read the Bible (that, actually, was more than 90% of them))) led to many disagreements between me and authority figures at my church when I was a teenager. They would say something like... Let's use a great Southern Baptist example! "The Bible says it's a sin to dance." And I would reply, "No, it doesn't." Then, there would be some complicated rationalization about how all these other things the Bible said arrived at the conclusion that "dancing is a sin." It's very clear that God thought it was excellent when David, so overcome by joy and praise for God, danced naked through the streets. I'm sorry, but it's hard to get past that.

The thing is, whenever I would get into one of these disagreements with an authority figure in my church (and remember, I was only 16-17 years old), they would always have to concede to me that I was right. Because I was. They had just accepted things because of the tradition that the church had that the Bible said these things (like "God helps those who help themselves," and "Cleanliness is next to Godliness"). The only one of these I didn't get a full turnaround from the other person had to do with the rapture and when that will happen (in relation to the other events of Revelation, not what year it will happen). He couldn't bring himself to tell me I was right, so he came back with, "I'm not saying you're right, but I will say that I was wrong."

Now, you might be thinking right about now, "Why does any of this matter? I don't care about the rapture or what Baptists think about dancing," and I get that. Totally. I don't care about what the Baptists think about dancing, either, even if I can't do it (and you can ask my wife, even after lessons and more lessons, I just can't dance). However, some of these things "the church" teaches are damaging to people, including what it teaches, mostly, about the rapture. I don't mean damaging in a little way, either. I mean damaging in a big way in that it becomes damaging to society in general.

Now, I am not setting out to be offensive, but I am sure that some, if not all, of what I say will be found to be offensive by at least some of the people who visit my blog. I'd like to care more about that, but I kind of don't. If I did, I wouldn't do this series to begin with. People in "the church" tend to believe too much and trust too much what pastors say just because it is a pastor who is saying it, pastors who have never read the Bible all the way through or ever bother to learn the historical context of what they were reading. I have had people tell me, "You don't need no schooling to be a preacher, all you need to do is have a Bible." And that attitude explains the abject ignorance of at least 80% of "the church." [Yes, I pulled that figure out of my butt, but I expect it's more like 95%, so I was being extremely generous. Remember, I spent decades around people in "the church" and found very few of them to be any kind of enlightened. About anything.]

Anyway... back at the beginning of the year, I promised to be more offensive, and this is just another of the ways I intend to do it. I don't have an issue with tackling difficult topics.

All of that being said, I am a Christian, but I am only a Christian in that I believe in the Kerygma (as I talked about here). I am certainly not the current iteration of cultural "Christian" who is so far removed from anything that Christ taught that if Jesus walked into their church, they would turn Him out. Or barely tolerate his presence in hopes that He would leave on His own. I'll put it like this: I find "the church" to be offensive. I find a significant number of right-wing nutjobs supporting their actions by waving the Bible around (like Kim Davis) to be offensive. I find the people who hold rallies for those people and wave the Bible around as an excuse (I'm looking at you Mike Huckabee) to be offensive. Well, it's time for you to own up to what's not actually in the Bible and to start treating people the way Jesus said to: with love.

Clone Wars -- "Jedi Crash" (Ep. 1.13)

-- Greed and fear of loss are the roots that lead to the tree of evil.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]

This episode opens with one of those huge, spectacular battle sequences. We don't get those all the time in Clone Wars because, I'm assuming, of the time and expense in producing them, which, I know, sounds weird for animation (it's just coloring, right?) but is true nonetheless. And I do understand that they're "just animated" (but, after all, that's what CGI is, too, and this stuff is basically the same), but they're still spectacular.

This is another episode which features on a fan favorite Jedi from the movies: Aayla Secura. I think when you look at the character, you can easily identify why she's such a favorite. heh

This is an interesting episode in that Anakin and Ahsoka are coming to Secura's aid, but Anakin is badly wounded and it's Secura and Ahsoka who have to rescue him. Amidst many, many complications. Including incorrect hyperspace coordinates which, as Han Solo told us, can lead to flying right through a star. Um, yikes! Because that's right where they're headed.

This episode centers on a philosophical question, which the series does from time to time:
Does fighting for peace justify fighting? As one of the characters says, "It takes two to fight." It is a legitimate question with no good answers. After all, Jesus said, "Turn the other cheek." It may be something that's easier done by an individual rather than by a whole society, though, because how can you choose to let an aggressor subjugate or enslave a group of people unopposed? The show doesn't try to answer the question; it merely poses the conflict between the two ways.

I think that's the mark of a good show, though: It poses the questions and doesn't try to tell you how to think about it, just that you ought to think about it. So, yeah, what if someone did a throw a war and one side just didn't show up? Is that even a possible thing? Maybe not, but maybe it could be.

Abandoned Places: Ypsilanti State Hospital

The Ypsilanti State Hospital was kind of a rush job. Evidently, the 20s weren't good for the mental health of Americans and by 1930 the existing mental institutions were experiencing some overcrowding. Okay, a lot of overcrowding. So the Ypsilanti hospital was thrown up in Michigan and opened within a year of when construction began. In its first few years, it was one of the only mental institutions in the United States to get favorable reviews based on its conditions for its patients.

That's not a condition that would last. By the end of World War II, two new wings had been added and the hospital was still overcrowded. Perhaps because of this or, maybe, because it was one of the newest facilities, the Ypsilanti hospital was used for various types of experimentation: early flu vaccinations were tested, studies on the effects of milontin, and, um, LSD. During the 50s, the hospital facilities were used for several films about psychological practices, including two about the effects of prefrontal lobotomy.

Perhaps the most interesting thing, though, was some early work and experimentation in group therapy. It seems that during the 50s Jesus was one of the patients at the hospital. Actually, there were three of them. I guess they didn't get the memo about the trinity not all being the same dude, because they were all going for the Jesus aspect. At any rate, Milton Rokeach thought that putting all three of them in a room together, making them confront their delusions, might force them to see reality. That's not really how it worked out, but he did get a book out of it, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti.

Generally speaking, the 80s and 90s weren't a great time for mental institutions, and the Ypsilanti facility was shut down in 1991 during the push in Michigan to close down all of its mental hospitals.

All photos courtesy of opacity.

Your bonus for today: pictures from the York Street Jail.

The Religion of Writing: Part Five -- Gastromancy and Other Voices

I first talked about gastromancy back in April and how it was the beginning of ventriloquism. It was also the beginning of people using "the voice of god" as a way of manipulating people. "God has told me that you should all give me all of your sheep and do whatever I say!" Okay, well, that part probably went back before gastromancy, but gastromancy made it that much more believable since other people could hear the voice of god rumbling in the prophet's tummy.

The truth is that people throughout history have claimed to have heard "god" and used that as a means of making other people do what they say. "If you don't obey me, god will smite you! I know because god told me so!" And how do you deal with that? I mean, how do you know whether that person is hearing god or not, especially if you're not. And what do you do when different people are saying that god is saying things that conflict with each other? That's simple: more than one god.

That's one of the things I like about the Bible. Very often (more often than not), the people in the Bible demand proof that it is, actually, the voice of God they're hearing. Moses needed a burning bush, then the pharaoh, along with all of the Israelites, needed a bunch of plagues before they were convinced. And, even then, they didn't do such a great job of doing what they were told. Gideon had to play "wet my fleece" with the Lord before he'd do what he was told. And Jonah... well, he just disobeyed. But being puked up on the shore by a giant "fish" was pretty good evidence for the people of Nineveh that God was talking.

Things aren't so dramatic these days, though, and I have to doubt any time anyone ever tells me "well, God told me to do it." Why? Because 99% of the time, "God" just happens to be telling them to do the thing that they already want to do. Even if that thing is wrong. What amuses me most, though, is when, later, they quit doing that thing, or do the other thing that is opposed to the first thing, also because "God" told them so.

Personally, I don't ever want God to show up and actually talk to me. Seriously. Look in the Bible and give me one example where God shows up to tell anyone something good. You know, like the lottery numbers. No. God shows up and says things like, "Build a giant boat," or, "Surprise! You're gonna have a baby!" or, even worse, "Saul [before he was Paul], you've been bad. Stop it! Oh, and I'm gonna make you blind for a while just to prove my point." So, yeah, I've know people my whole life that have said things like, "I wish God would just tell me what to do" [because He's been busy telling other people what to do], but I think I'll pass on that. Usually, whatever it is they're looking for guidance about is already covered in the Bible, anyway, and they're just hoping God will show up and tell them something different.

All of that to say that all those people I have known in churches that are always going on about "hearing the voice of god" and what god is saying to them, or what he's telling them to do, or telling them to tell other people to do, remind me a lot of writers that go around talking about hearing the voices of their characters in their head. I just never know quite what to make of it.

I mean, I get it. I get the whole thinking about your story all of the time, but, me, I never hear my characters talking in my head. And it weirds me out more than a little to hear so many writers talk about that all the time. Am I supposed to be hearing voices in my head? I don't think so. That sounds like crazy talk to me. I mean, like, you need to get help, real help, crazy talk. Or do they just mean they're thinking about their stories all the time?

See, the thing is, not only do those people in church go around talking about how they "hear God," many of them actually believe it. And, yeah, you could say, "Maybe, they are just so much more spiritual than you, and they really are hearing God," and that may be true for some of them, but, with a lot of them, it's just like the whole speaking in tongues thing: they've made themselves believe that it's a really happening when it's not. What? How can I tell? Well, they spend their lives going from one mess to another doing what they "heard" God tell them to do. They wreck other people's lives, destroy friendships, and hurt people, and that just doesn't fit in with the whole "be excellent to each other" thing that Jesus said to do. But, then, maybe these people have some other god that they're not telling anyone about. Or, maybe, they just want to use the responsibility escape clause, "God told me to."

A lot of these writers that talk about hearing the voices of their characters are kind of the same way. I mean that in that they are always talking about the messes their books are in because they've been listening to their characters and they don't know how to fix the steaming pile their manuscripts have become. Well, short of trashing them and starting over. Which always makes me think, "Why are you listening to these voices? It's your story; make them do what you want." Which is not to say that I don't believe in character integrity, because I totally do, but, still, take some control! And, if you can't, if the voices in your head really are that powerful, maybe you really do need some help. Or, maybe, it's just another way of getting around not being able to produce a complete manuscript, "No, really, I am a good and competent writer; it's just that these characters in my head keep telling me to write stupid stuff." It's their fault, not mine.

So, yeah, I know this particular thing may be a sacred cow I don't really want to take a bite of. Everyone has (and should have) their own process, and if yours involves hearing voices in your head, well, I don't want to get in the way of that. But, then, I have known a few people who really did hear voices in their heads, and none of those situations turned out well, so it always leaves me wondering when writers talk about this phenomenon. I guess, if you do hear your characters talking, make sure they stay just characters for your stories. And, well, be the boss of them, too.