Neither my mother nor my step dad had any strong sense of religion, so it follows that I didn't grow up having one myself. It was possibly one of the nicest things they ever did for me, or didn't do for me, to not instill in me some prefabricated pre-supplied preordained required belief system regarding religion and religiosity.
Whether or not they knew they were doing me a favor, their own general silence on the subject left it to me to do my own searching, comparing and questioning, which I did do pretty early on in life. I think that's pretty much the norm too, to do this kind of searching and questioning early on. Doing this exploration on my own enabled me to approach the subject with a very open mind, without pre-supplied expectations, preconceived notions or ideas of any kind.
Even though my mom never went to church or talked much about religion, she very much encouraged me to go along with school friends who often invited me to church with them. My closest cousins were Catholic and their mother, my aunt, made them go to church every Sunday even though she often didn't attend with them. She still sent them to church and to years of Catholic Sunday school too. So I was able to sit through many a Sunday service at various churches in the area, visiting the Catholics, the Mormons, the Jews, the Presbyterians, the Unitarians, the Scientologists who are extra creepy, and various assorted others.
Hollywood has done a great job depicting "the church" as a place of benevolence and caring for people but truth be told, the last place I'd ever run to in a time of need is some church. While I know there are good churches with good people who really do get it and who don't turn the church into a power playing game show, there are plenty who do.
Official church structure is a standard Power and Control template that looks the same in government, officialdom, and any hierarchical status obsessed self important supposedly authoritative conglomerate of borderline and/or flagrant narcissists, control freaks, power junkies and attention addicts. It's all about them and about you doing it their way, or else. Or else what? Or else you suck like a terrorist dog while they act nonplused, arrogant and vindictive with you. Because they're such nice people.
Well that's what they claim to be. Not just any nice people but THE nice people. The BEST people EVER. And it must be so because they say it is so. That's enough to make it so, isn't it? If you look the part and say the words, everything you say is true, isn't it?
Simply by virtue of them saying, "We are the best people EVER. We are above reproach, above suspicion and above having to prove ourselves to anyone at any time. We represent the highest good and the highest truth. You're either with us or you're against us. You're either one of us or you're on the other side, you're the enemy, the misguided, a danger to our goodness and light keeping the world safe from evil people. You have to believe us and never question us because we are never wrong, even when we're wrong. We never do wrong because it's impossible for us to do wrong because we represent the highest good and the highest truth. We're the good guys and we set THE ultimate standard for what being good means and what doing it right means. We are your role models AND we live up on pedestals because we're more special than other people. And that's that. Period.", that makes it all true. Simply because they make these claims, (albeit not in so many words but that is their modus operandi go ahead and tell me I'm wrong), simply because they represent this queer philosophy, people believe them. Most everyone believes them and takes them at face value, en masse. Because that just makes so much sense, doesn't it?
No, actually, it doesn't make sense. It makes no sense at all. It's stupid. You'd have to be dumb as a rock or have the IQ of a kindergartner to think that just because someone is some kind of authority figure they can be believed and trusted. They can't be trusted. They're total strangers. Why would you trust them when they feed off public money and don't appear to be suffering for it in the least? When they're better off than you they're not your servants dear one, they own and control you. Grandiose authority figures least of all deserve public trust.
It's a real shame that our public education system is so useless that a sack of farts would do you more good than 14 years of public indoctrination; because if people knew the slightest amount of history they'd know this. They'd be able to recognize horse hockey when they see it. They'd be able to tell the difference between a big fat liar and a statesman. They know the difference between facts and faith, between manipulation and honest discourse, between hypocrisy and fairness. I'm afraid Americans have been so deprived of education they can't tell the difference between their own ass and their elbow.
That's why being able to come at all of this with an open mind, a clear mind, allowed me to see it and hear it, experience it and evaluate it for myself. What I can tell you about doing it that way is this: when you are able to see something without having been propagandized about it first, you stand a much greater chance of seeing what's actually there, not what you've been told is there. And that my dear friend, is no small thing at all. It's a honkin' thing. It's the crux of the biscuit.
I didn't understand a thing about organized religion, it was completely foreign to me. And coming at it from that kind of a blank slate in mind and heart, it soon became apparent to me that there was nothing much that organized religion had to offer me. It was clannish and fraught with pomp, curious behaviors and hypocrisies; plus churches were not friendly places at all. In truth they were often down right ice cold.
Sitting through services in a variety of churches didn't do anything for me beyond boring and confusing me, and sometimes even offending me. Organized religion is about as clear as mud, and the fact of the matter is that you have to be indoctrinated into it, brainwashed, programmed, whatever you want to call it, but it has to be pumped into your head first and thoroughly or it can't make sense. The reason for this is self evident, to me at least. Organized religion is not natural. It is unnatural. It's an invention of man, a club, a social structure, a political organization, a good old boys thing. Whatever you want to call it, it isn't real. If it was real it wouldn't need to be explained to me, I'd be able to experience it and understand it all by myself.
Things that are real, things that are true, don't need to be dressed up funny and propagandized to get everyone seeing the same thing.
Do you need the ocean explained to you when you're standing on a beach somewhere, looking out at that vast expanse of moving water? Nope. You sure don't. You can take it in all by yourself and you can understand it well enough all by yourself, you don't need any help at all. The ocean will speak to you the same as it speaks to anyone who stands in its presence. It's majesty, beauty, mystery, complexity, it's sensuousness, speaks to one and all, even as it speaks directly to you personally. You experience it personally, you have no choice. Your senses will take it all in as your mind expands and focuses. The sound of waves crashing, the feel of soft sand beneath your bare feet, the invigorating clean smell of energized salty ocean air. The warmth of the sun upon your face, the tickle of wind whipping through your hair, the shrill calls of seabirds flying nearby. This is reality and I don't need it explained to me.
I also don't need any help feeling the spiritual aspects awakened in me just by standing there taking it all in. At that moment and every moment I'm there, I feel fully alive. Every moment feels laden with meaning and truth. I'm sure of my experience and it is unforgettable. It is profoundly inspiring, relaxing and exciting all at the same time. This is the truth.
Most of all, in the context of this subject, I don't need a thing about it explained to me. In fact I'd venture to say that anyone presuming to tell me anything about the experience would be way out of line. They're not qualified to tell me a dang thing about what I experience or feel or see or think about while I'm there. What arrogant stupidity it would be to wag your finger in my face and tell me how to perceive the beach and what to think, do or feel while I'm there. How bizarre you would be to approach me and say I need the Holy Book of The Ocean before I can properly go to the beach and understand the rules and the hierarchy and do it right. If you did that, what could I say but, "Who the fuck are you wookie, to tell me anything?" Such impertinence could only invoke from me my usual helpful and to the point response, "Kiss my butt".
Before I get anyone all ticked off as I am so prone to do whenever I bring up the subject of religion, nobody needs to rush in to defend their beliefs and nobody needs to attack me as if I'm an actual threat to your religion's domination of the country and most of the whole dang world. Trust me. Nothing I can say or do will so much as put a teeny dent in religion's stranglehold on the human mind. So please, just exhale and let your anger float away. You're fine. Your beliefs are fine. I'm not judging you and you don't need to judge me. I am stating my views which are different than yours. It's not that what I'm saying is all that horrible, it's common sense. If you're upset it's probably because what I'm saying is not the same as your current dominant viewpoint on religion, and you just can't tolerate a different view point. But you need to tolerate it. I have to tolerate you and it's no big deal on my part. Why not do the same and we can both have what we want?
I'm not saying that churches and organized religions are all bad. Then again, maybe I am saying that. Maybe that is how I really feel, but even I suffer from some of the cognitive dissonance that the deeply indoctrinated true believers suffer from so profoundly. It is really hard, painful even, to believe that people who are supposed to be good and right and decent and caring leaders of the people are in fact big fat nasty ass liars and thieves and child molesters and scum bags. That's hard to let take root in the deeply indoctrinated, trained brain. It means letting the feeling of extreme and brutal betrayal set in, and nothing, I mean nothing, stings quite as horrendously as the feeling of being betrayed.
In the case of important leadership, important people the whole world follows, finding out they have betrayed you does more than cause upset, it would cause social collapse. Pandemonium. At least for some people for a while. Mostly only those who it actually comes as a shock to that all those glowing public personages are just mere mortals like everyone else and they, especially, are prone to do Big Fat Evil for the simple reason that they can. They can and you can't, so whose going to do the big bad things, them or you? High crimes mean just that, crimes done by those in high places, and that's exactly who I'm talking about here. It is sadly some of the most beloved and well trusted names in the world who are in fact people we should not trust because they're fuckers. They really are. And it's not a secret, the proof and the reality surrounds us and persists. All the evidence you need to wake up and smell the bastards is right under your nose. But it's like they say, you can lead a betrayed sucker to the bastards but you can't make him smell. Or something like that.
And while I've got some of you in a raging state of strong offense I might as well carry it all the way to the finish line. If what I'm saying is true, and it is, and you CAN check it yourself, if only you would, if these famous faced leaders are liars and thieves and fuckers then it must follow that their entire spiel, all of it, is high falutin' horse crap. I know it hurts and I know it's even harder to believe but the FACT is, it's true. Everything you think you know is wrong. That is if you've been hooked into the mainline of dis-info and Pablovian Brain Training all of your life like most everyone has. Just like religion isn't "real" because it's not a product of nature, politics and most of what you think of as modern life isn't real either. All of it is products of men. They're all created, they're an illusion, a game we all play. Some of us know it's a game and others aren't capable of understanding that. Some people can't handle it so they refuse to see it. It is pretty awful when you suddenly realize nothing makes sense anymore and your whole world and life is a lie. I can understand not wanting to look at that. But only to an extent. If you want to claim that truth matters to you then you can't stay there for too long. You have to march down that scary abandoned back road all by yourself and deal with whatever jumps out at you. And good luck to you, not everyone makes it. But for the record a good many do make it, and they're infinitely better off for it when they're through.
Getting back to the subject, let me make clear that I am talking about formalized religion and the formalized church. I am not talking about anyone's bibles. There's a lot that can be gotten from any spiritual writing, if you go at it sincerely and on your own once in a while. I think the Bible as well as the Koran from what I've read of it, have plenty of truth in them. The truths that monotheistic religions share are moral truths and that's a good thing that religions do. We need morality taught to us and repeated and expounded upon and repeated again or else we're screwed.
We're all watching right now what happens when your lunatic psychopathic greedy elites forego morality like trimmed off bread crusts. Everything turns to stinking depraved shit. It may be fun for them but it's causing the whole rest of the world a whole lot of suffering. And that is the very nature and definition of evil and wrong doing and crime. What else could it be but achieving pleasure from acts that cause others harm, loss, suffering and death? What's worse than that? Not much.
And that's what morality is and that's why morality is so tremendously important. It's just too bad that it has to be left to formal institutions to be our earthly representatives of morality because they're all manned by ordinary people like the rest of us. They're not 'just as prone' as the rest of us to behaving badly, but are exponentially more prone to it because they have access and means to do serious damage and they encounter hard core temptations on a daily basis that the rest of us can't even imagine.
When you or I screw up we usually don't hurt anybody but ourselves and maybe a few people closest to us. But when these Power and Control elite windbags screw up, a lot of people die. A lot of people get hurt. That's why when they do it it's so important to hold them fully accountable and make a big production out of it. If we don't do that it's like signing a permission slip that says, "Dear Scum Bag Elite fuckers, it's okay to have your way with us and our children and our lives and our prosperity. Don't worry about us, you just have yourselves a good time at our expense". But I don't feel that way. I wish so many others didn't feel that way too but apparently they do or this shit wouldn't keep going on while the scum of the earth elites kill us all off one way or another.
How many high level government officials getting indicted for felonies is it going to take before we stop telling ourselves it's only a fluke? How many more thousands of people coming forward to talk about being raped by priests is it going to take before we face the fact that pretending to be a goody two shoes is the perfect disguise for life long committed pedophiles and that there's a whole shit load of them in the Catholic dream world? How many more cops do we need to see getting off after committing cold blooded murder and engaging in cover ups to protect themselves before it starts to soak in that officials and authorities can be criminals too because they're just people too, in fact that's all they are. They ARE NOT their clothing or their guns or their bibles. They are not the flag or the red white and blue. They are not truth, justice and light, they're ordinary mortals, imperfect and flawed like everyone else. They're often selfish, self serving and ambitious. They're wealthy, arrogant and in with a whole different thing and a whole different crowd than you and I. They are plain old people who frankly are obligated to us because they live off of us. They're supposed to be doing us good, not having us serve them while we're down on our knees letting them get away with everything from murder to fraud and waste to abuse to rape to all kinds of crime. When are we going to get it that these people are just plain people, they're not special, nobody's special, we are all flesh and blood?
As soon as anybody presents themselves as "special" to me I already know they're full of it. Nobody's special, least of all, nobody taking a public salary. There's no such thing as a pope in nature, go look for one, you won't find one. Go look for a cop in nature, or a president, or a king, you won't find any of those either. You won't find any because they're all totally made up ideas, guys wearing costumes and play acting these roles, they're not a truth or a reality. Do you really think that some guy has a hotline to heaven? A special pass to God? Really? And how did that happen, the day he was elected to his job by some other guys? Come on, get a grip. Nobody's holy. If anyone is holy then we're all holy and you know, maybe we are. Maybe that's the problem right there.
All these people want you to believe that you are less than they are. You are less of a person than they are. You know less, understand less, deserve less, are worth less, have less ability to understand truth, less knowledge, less potential, less importance than they do, and if they can get you to believe that then maybe they can get you to obey them and follow them and treat them like special people who deserve to be rich and pampered and butt kissed and never disagreed with and held to an entirely different set of rules and standards than everyone else. But I have to ask. If anyone's all that special why can't they follow our rules and standards like the rest of us do? What's so special about them that they can't be like we are? What's wrong with being like we are or rather, what's wrong with them that they can't? Something is very wrong there folks, it doesn't make sense. Are we really to believe that some people's path in life is so important or so special that they are above the law? Above every rule of decency and morality and justice? That they have some right or need to order others to death or imprisonment based on their personal ideas and not based on laws and rules that exist to keep things sane and safe and fair, at least to the extent that that's possible?
I know nobody's that special. Why doesn't the general public know that? Why do so many people assign "star" status to famous names and faces and grovel before them just because they've heard of them or seen them on TV? Does that mean something? What does it mean? Does it change the fact that they're only ordinary people like everyone else? Certainly they're better off, they're spoiled rotten, they've had a much nicer quality of life in everything from food to homes to education to opportunity to adventure. I think there's more there to resent than admire but that's just me I guess. I just don't see how people get to idolizing other mere mortals; following them, blindly believing them, letting themselves be lied to and crippled and stripped of dignity and strength and intelligence to the point of spending one's lifetime waving a stupid little flag or threatening to punch out anybody who has a different God than you. These are the actions of the truly stupid. It is sad to say it, but there it is man, I'm not making it up. I'm just reporting it. There it is. What would you call it? It's stupidity.
If anybody has the right to perpetrate deadly force against another then we all have that right. That's a reality. If you're forced onto your knees before the court or the king then you're being lied to and treated like dirt by liars and thugs pretending to be superior beings when they're clearly not superior. If they were all that superior they wouldn't have to resort to being thugs, liars and thieves, engaging in censorship, threats, fixed courtrooms, political filth and ploys, spying and double dealing until they turn the whole world into a dirty cesspit. How is that superior, exactly?
Which brings me to the point of all this which is that we are not meant to follow others. Respect is to be earned, one on one, not blindly granted, not required by law, not given away more cheaply than free popcorn. We are better served to be dubious and suspicious of people we don't know, taking public incomes and prancing around under authority of auspicious labels and titles and other ridiculous means of hiding one's true intent and behavior. Evil specifically hides in the guise of good, that's where you'll always find evil. It's in your church, it's in your government, it's every place that officialdom hangs out. People demanding to be seen and treated as better than anyone else are full of crap. So if you follow mortals unquestioningly don't be too surprised when you wake up one day only to find out you've been used, abused, lied to, cleaned out and taken for everything you've got. There will indeed be much wailing and gnashing of teeth. That's what happens when you put ordinary men up on pedestals. Because as much as these types go on and on about how great and right and chosen and holy and patriotic they are, the only unshakable truth is that nobody, nobody, has it all together. Nobody has all the answers. Nobody knows "the truth" in totality and nobody could possibly know your truth, that's for you alone to figure out. And nobody else can make any of your life choices for you because they're not you and they can't know what's right for you.
Don't say nobody ever told you. You've just been told.
Now get out there and question authority. Question everything. Start acting like you're every bit as good as Joe Biden in his expensive suits and every Senator and Banker scum bag on Wall Street. Because you are. And it is only liars who believe otherwise and want you to believe it too. Why? Because it makes it so much easier for them to rape and pillage the world if you don't think you deserve better and if you don't know that right is right and wrong is wrong no matter who's doing it.
And that's that.
Bravo, Ang, this is really going out on the ledge. Holy Book of the Ocean, huh, you really slay me sometimes, is that the bible of the worshippers of the great and all-powerful god aBeach, and his only child, Son of aBeach, and the Holy Coast? I’m waiting to see how this goes over in the comments section, I’m guessing that, even with the enlightened mindset required to be a follower of your heresies, this probably pissed off about half of your subscribers. Wish I were as tolerant as you, but I find that I do judge people by their absurd belief and acceptance of religion ( any religion). How could anyone read Deuteronomy and not conclude that these people were batshit insane, or on a really paranoid LSD-induced trip? Believing in this awful tripe is no different, to me, than an adult who would still believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy. Children are eventually told, or discover, that these entities don’t really exist, but are pleasant fictions. And while I understand the terrible and tremendous power of indoctrination of any concept pounded into one’s head from birth, I cannot respect the intelligence of anyone who hasn’t been cloistered from the world since birth, and has not eventually recognized organized religion for the fiction it is. And the tool of power and control that it is. If someone showed up at your door tomorrow preaching about the great magic of Santa Claus, or the local pastor featured a sermon on the guiding principles of the Tooth Fairy, wouldn’t you judge such a person to be brainwashed, ignorant, or just plain stupid? I cannot see why you would worry making such a judgment. If you lived in a town where the people were convinced that the earth was the center of the universe, and you were the only one who didn’t, and you judged them to all be mistaken, you’d be correct. Wouldn’t matter whether they were brainwashed, ignorant, or just plain stupid. They would still be wrong. And, as comedian Ron White says, ‘ya can’t fix Stupid.’ Well, you don’t win friends and influence people with an approach like this, but I’m way past caring about that. I’m much happier with one or two close friends, and a few acquaintances, whose intelligence I can respect, as opposed to having a boatload of friends with part-time cognitive abilities. And if this piece should prove costly to you by alienating any of your subscribers, well, so what, I remember when you had but 3. I don’t think you got to 65 by pulling your punches, and as for those who would leave, just remember, and mentally deliver, Jack Nicholson’s line from A Few Good Men…”you can’t handle the truth!” Or, the truth hurts. Or, the truth shall set you free, whatever, you get the idea. Just keep telling it as you see it.
ReplyDeleteJC,
ReplyDeleteIf I lose readers because of the way I look at life then that would be sad and too bad but there's little I could do about it even if I wanted to. The point is that it really doesn't matter so much what anyone believes. What matters is how people treat each other in this world, in this life, not in some other life or a before life or a life that may or may not be after you die. Everybody is going to believe something and that's why judgments are preposterous. Nobody knows the answers to the questions that can never be answered. All we can have is beliefs or theories we come to based on the sum total of what we think we know and what makes sense to us and how we believe the world works or should work. Perspective is very different from person to person because it can't be otherwise.
I don't have a problem with anyone's bible, I have a problem with people using their books as an excuse for being rude, ignorant, judgmental, intolerant, mean spirited, violent, hypocritical, intrusive duplicitous busy bodies who act in all these obnoxious ways for God. Their books can lay about in piles all around me and they'll never bother me, it's just selfish and obnoxious people that get on my nerves. We don't all need a book to be good and decent people. If you need a book, fine, help yourself but it shouldn't be any problem for you if others don't need your book. Why would it be a problem for you? It doesn't interfere with you having your book. You've got what you need, what you think is right for you, you're covered, so what business is it of yours if somebody else made a different decision and didn't do things the way you did? What's it to you, really? It's none of your concern, that's all there is to it. It's not your place to presume to tell me anything about what I need to believe.
All I'm saying is live and let live. Retain a little humility, enough to remember you can't prove that what you believe is true or right or even that it's not total nonsense, you just believe what you want to believe for whatever reasons. No proof exists you're right, so show a little respect for your fellow travelers, we're all on the same boat. We all have to get from here to there, we're all responsible for our own choices, we're all trying to do our best even if our best sucks.
I also don't think it helps very much to bash people for their beliefs. It's really none of my business what anyone believes. It's only my business how people behave in this world especially when it affects me. But also when it wreaks havoc and injustice on others, that also affects me because it causes problems in my general reality and I don't need or appreciate upset.
I have yet to see anyone be better off after being attacked and insulted because they are wrong about something. It doesn't seem to me to be either helpful or charitable, or very kind for that matter to crush people, literally or figuratively. We have to let people make their mistakes, it's something we all have to do. That's what life is. You get it wrong, you get it right, you mess up, you fix it, you change. You have the option to change at any time. That's why we shouldn't give up on people necessarily, or judge them and throw them away. Getting life right is never a straight line nor is anyone perfect.
It's just really no skin off anyone's nose to just be courteous with people because let's face it, that's what we'd want. Disagreeing isn't grounds for hate, it's either a matter of interest or it isn't. If it isn't skip it. You know? I mean, what's this bizarre thing about needing to have your viewpoint prevail? Screw that. It's stupid. To each his own.
Thanks for your excellent comment.
Ang
Ang,
ReplyDeleteI so much agree with you. Church folk have wronged me far more than those who are not. And the cut was always deeper because they're supposed to know better and be better. Then one day, I accepted the reality that they're just depraved people like me acting out of that fallen nature and struggling to make themselves feel better and more important, never comprehending that isn't what it's all about.
Jesus said that we would worship God in spirit and truth and I see little of the three in evidence in most churches - worship, spirit or truth.
I have a question - how do you feel about the beliefs of folks like Vyz, Gordon and Paul while you're putting the ezine together? Not to be confrontational, I am just curious how you view their beliefs (especially since they're not what most would consider typical of church folk and they're not church folk - I think they're real followers of Jesus).
John
John,
ReplyDeleteThat's an easy one, not at all confrontational. It's like I said, it's not about personal beliefs, it's about what kind of person you are. These are good people. That's all I care about.
Ang
Religion = Lethal Beliefs
ReplyDeleteAngie,
ReplyDeleteDo You Realise How Delighted I Was To Read Your Words Again...
I wanted to reply with an incredibly personal message
But I had to go on an old person's pub crawl instead
And I have not yet read your other two pieces
But anyway I said this
Don't vote for them.
They are Politicians and are not worthy of your vote
But when they come to power...
Sure they can watch you - monitor your phone calls and your movements
But we can monitor them
We can find absolutely EVERYTHING ABOUT THEM
They have Decided They Want To Do This Job of Controlling Us....
They Want To Be In The Spotlight
Lets Shine it On THEM
Tony
Hello Ang,
ReplyDeletethank you for your sane and humane perspectives, for expressing your thoughts in an unambiguous, truthful form without making compromises to any group or community.
You are a non-conformist in the best sense. Have you ever come across the work of one of the few but most influential non conformists of the last century? He died in Ojai/Cal. in 1986:
http://kfa.org/intro-video.php
http://www.jkrishnamurti.com/index.php
This man was a light in the dark, without the result of lighting up fire to burn humans on the stake and/or in ovens, or in houses/churches of competion religious affiliations.
Much love and respect to you.
Karl
ang very profound....
ReplyDeletesomeone said that humpty dumpty nusery ..is programing.early....
what a disgusting bible ,how to win friends and influence people...dale carniege...
how to deceive people and fool them and control them.
question are the deceivers evil......
or are the just a mirror of the nature world.
i feel very strongly that they are evil...and laughing at us.
you know if are in the right in any given play
there is a good chance for a favorable outcome...not always no....but it really does make a difference with being correct..and being morally right.
it can be all the difference...if evil groups fight it out for top dog..well...but haveing truth and moral backing...can ineed make your chance of success increase greatly.
they have beared their teeth,they have lost and are losing any ilusion of moral high ground,oh they are trying like hell to keep it up..with the buffett gates moneygive away
and now we know we have been wronged.
with the moral high ground,is our advantage
they will be going for this somehow.
this is our source.our king our queen.....
they know this better than us...so
yes they are evil,it is not healthy competion.
we have been wronged,we have the advantage.