Good Day to you and yourn, folk-heroes. Pope Gregory here again and no, I won't be doing a blog on city-building as I foreshadowed at the end of my last emission. City-building may be bad, very bad. Yes, centuries from now folks may be flitting around on their jet-packs saying, "Hey, remember when we built cities? What a trip, huh?" "Yeah...and what about that internal combustion engine thing, what where they thinking?" But no, not this go-around as the wheel of fate has turned and the muse over my left shoulder is most insistent. It's a beautiful Sunday Morning, a white dove is outside eating birdseed, I've got some coffee down my neck, so let's rock the Rock of Ages.
I'm going to follow up on a few points I made in my last blog Random Woohoos and look deeper into the Semitic god of passive-aggressiveness...Yahweh hisself. Last Tuesday I got sick, reckoned I was in for a few days of a classic early fall cold. I was running a fever, sore throat, fuzzy-headed, I thought Katy Perry had a wonderful singing voice, the whole nine-yards. (Lissen, there are two good things about Katy Perry, but they're all from the neck down.)
I joked on Facebook that I was making no connection between feeling puny and my recent blogs where I was basically pulling Yahweh's pants down and giving him a good spanking with a graven image. That's a pretty good joke, IMHO because YHWH has a reputation for having...well...a homicidal temper. He's big on vengence and preemptive strikes, like Dick Cheney, who himself is like Darth Vader, more machine now than man, twisted and evil.
I mean, this is the same god that Xians and such reference when they say that Abortion is against his will. However, Yahweh killed every first born child in Egypt. He didn't have to do it, because according to the myth, he "hardened Pharoah's heart," with the implication that Pharoah was ready to let the Jews go a few curses and plagues back. This "God of Love" also told Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac to him. And Abraham went ahead with it and was stopped at the knive-stroke, because Abraham knew Yahweh fairly well, and when the Semitic god of cattle-ranching asked this of him, Abraham said, "Yep, that's just like him. Okay, Isaac, pack your shit." I could go on and on with examples of Yahweh's psychopathic behavior in the Old Testament, but y'all can...and should...read all that for yourself.
So you may ask, why would a mere mortal such as I persist in turning over state's evidence against such a powerful, and completely deranged, god such as this? Shouldn't I be put into the Jehovah's Witness Protection program so he couldn't find me? Seems it would be saver to go over to Hannibal Lecter's house and ask him to fill out his census form, when he was feeling a mite peckish.
Well, let's look at what makes a god powerful or not, and that would be worship, right? I mean, let's agree that a god's power and influence and the size of his schwanzstucker (and according to his PR, Yahweh's is enormous) is in relation to just how many people worship him/her/it. Upon examination, I intend to declare that Yahweh is a wanna-be god, a god who was just a couple numbers off on his lottery ticket, a god that had great ambitions but couldn't succeed because he is completely unhinged, not to mention jealous and selfish. You could compare Yahweh to a child in a sandbox who not only wants all the toys in the sandbox, but wants the entire sandbox to himself and needs his mother to come and grab him by the ear and say, "No, Yahweh, it doesn't all belong to you, you have to learn how to share, you brat."
No, I got over my sickness in a couple days. So there. Also, "Jehovah" is just another word for Yahweh, a mistranslation, really. So all you folks worshiping this Jehovah person...nope, we'll delete you from the list. *POOF*
So, here are the witnesses for the prosecution: In my last blog I rather glibly said that the Jews had ceased to worship Yahweh after August 70 AD, because without their temple, they can't practice their religion. They are practicing a religion now, obviously, but it's not worship of Yahweh according to the Old Test. They realize this and neighbors, right now in Israel and elsewhere there are Jews who are trained to perform the ancient rites again. That's right, vegans, the Jews, if they are ever able, are ready to put on their priestly robes and funny hats and sacrifice animals to Yahweh again in Jerusalem. Now that is really kicking it old school. However, since the Jews have not and cannot worship Yahweh sans Temple...delete them from the list of Yahweh Worshipers. *POOF* Sorry, Yahweh, Trix are for Yids.
So, let's next examine those pesky Xians. They worship Jesus, who has been marketed as Yahweh's son and also Yahweh in his fullness. Now of course Jesus has as much in common with Yahweh as a marmoset has in common with a wolverine and it's quite clear that Jesus has a whole different set of principles in mind. No, in Jesus' case, the apple not only didn't fall from the same tree...Jesus is an orange. Yahweh was all about taking care of Israel, except when they were stiff-necked and rebellious (which I'll come to in a minute) but all other peoples could go and get fucked. JOSHUA, GO INTO CANAAN AND KILL 'EM ALL. Joshua answered while rubbing his hands together, "heh heh yes master yes master hee hee kill em all yes master." God of Love, my eye. No, nothing about the Old Test is suggesting he's preparing to sacrifice his son for the salvation of all humanity. It's just not there, which is why the Jews rejected Jesus as Yahweh's son and their messiah.
So Jesus is a deity, but he is not Yahweh, clearly. He could be called a bad Yahweh-impersonator. I mean, picture Jesus at the Improv doing his Yahweh impression: "Love thy neighbor and bless those that curse you," Jesus would say in a sort of deep, booming voice. "You don't sound a thing like him, getoffathestage! BOOO," would be the response. And of course, Xians...if you want to then say that you worship Jesus and Yahweh separately, then I'll have to remind you that is Polytheism. Poly meaning more than one. And one plus one is two. Are you keeping up, this is hard math here. I won't bring up the Holy Ghost, which makes three. Which is more than one.
Now, wait a minnit, what about all the folks who say, God Bless You, or God Bless America or Goddammit...aren't these folks invoking the Judeo-Xian god, Yahweh? Nope. All they're doing is they are demonstrating that the Xians and the Jews have done such a good job separately of selling Yahweh as the God of the Universe that people say God, when they mean Yahweh. Again, Yahweh wants to be the only game in town. But, these people who routinely use the word God, don't really worship Yahweh and most of the time, they're using the word God in vain anyway. No, Yahweh is a god, small G. This equating Yahweh with God is because Xianity and Judaism have, through their propaganda, relegated all other gods/goddesses/shoggoths to the realm of mere myth and legend. But if you believe in Yahweh, you also have to at least entertain the idea that the gods of other cultures could also exist, because you believe in at least one god. But modern man in the Western World demonstrates spiritual incompetence regarding the nature of *G*O*D*. And I'll elaborate on that towards the end of this epistle.
But first, how about those Hebrews before the destruction of the Temple? Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you're being held against your will in Egypt. After a litany of curses and plagues, after several miracles afterwards as you are led to freedom, after the glory of Yahweh appeared above Mt Sinai...if you were to say...oh, I dunno...make a golden idol to worship...are you worshiping Yahweh or a golden calf? Hmm. Yahweh didn't make a very good impression on you, did he? Part of the, or the entire, reason why the Hebrews didn't worship and accept Yahweh after all that is the Exodus story has turned out to be about 180 degrees from what actually happened. The Hebrews were not enslaved or in bondage by Egypt, we have since found a city where we know Semites lived. We now also know that slaves didn't build the pyramids and temples and bowling alleys in Ancient Egypt, skilled laborers did, in cities built close by the worksites. In fact, there is sufficient scholarship to say that the Jews in Egypt were a formidable population of fairly warlike folks and Pharaoh was glad to see them go, and the passages where the Jews are given gold and like treasures before they left could have been bribe money. Here's a few Krugerrands, get the hell out. Then maybe the Egyptians betrayed the Hebrews, came after them in their chariots and there was a mishap at a body of water, because, y'know, Egyptians find it hard to swim what with those big black wigs and all.
But no...clearly the Hebrews, although they physically came out of Egypt, really never left Egypt, did they? In fact, look then to the rest of Old Test history. The Jews had a on-again, off-again relationship with Yahweh and seemed to be continually a-whoring after strange gods. Because again, Yahweh wants a monopoly. So he warned them against socializing or marrying with those other peoples lest they be influenced. But from a perspective, the Hebrews in the Old Test weren't as much a people who had committed themselves to Yahweh and backslid once in a while, but the history can be seen as a people who did their own thing, and recognized other gods while Yahweh is jumping up and down, waving his arms, saying "HEY HEY, LOOK OVER HERE, I'M YOUR GOD." The Hebrews time after time, kept on picking Baal, Astarte/Ishtar, etc to play on their team, while Yahweh is over there with his bottom lip pooched out, "PICK ME PICK ME."
Even today, such mystical and "occult" traditions like the Jewish kabbalah, are said to have their origins in Ancient Egypt and that other traditions like Tarot, etc come from there as well. Which is another reason Egypt is used in general terms by Jews and Xians as evil and satanic and why the myth of the Exodus is so important and why Yahweh is said to have went on his curse and plague rampage to demonstrate his power over the "false" Egyptian gods, and is the rationale why Yahweh murdered all the first born of Egypt when he really didn't need to. Because Egypt has to be demonized and pictured as representing everything bad, from a religious context. The Curse o' Rootintootin's Tomb just being one example.
The last thing Xianity wants is for its followers to have independence and be exposed to things that might interfere with their conditioning and programming. But the evidence suggests that modern religious and mystical understanding came from Egypt and when an Xian says that Jesus was killed by Satan, but then resurrected and was fulfilled as a deity and was triumphant over Satan, the Egyptians already had that, because Osiris was killed by Set and then resurrected as a deity and then is shown to conquer Set. Gandalf fought the Balrog and the Balrog was defeated but it cost Gandalf his life, but he was resurrected to be more powerful than before...it's the same thing, folks. Yes, as the writer of Ecclesiastes pointed out, There is Nothing New Under the Sun. Read Joseph Campbell, you'll see one mystery permeating the human religious experience, there is one Solution, one Truth out there somewhere, if we can just wipe our psychic blackboards clean of centuries of propaganda and misinformation and find a state of tabula rasa so we can go THERE.
Instead of staying away and coming out of Egypt, the opposite may be true. That Egypt may actually be the "Old Tyme Religion." Let's go back to the old landmark and shout hallelujah. I mean, are you an Xian but also read your horoscopes? You're in Egypt.
But the reality, from my perception, is that the vast majority of people who give lip service to Yahweh as their god would poop their pants if they ever had a true religious experience. They have just enough religion so they can feel good about themselves, but are in reality deeply materialistic, carnal, vulgar people, very much concerned about social status, wealth, and whether they're getting enough Vitamin D. Living like the devil during the week and acting like a saint on Sunday is no way to go about achieving your apotheosis. Ol Blue-eyes had it right, the song My Way is the national anthem of Uhmurkah, not God Bless America.
But back to the point...the Hebrews were either in near-constant rebellion against Yahweh or never really did recognize him and the writers of the Old Test used invasions from other more powerful nations as proof that Yahweh was punishing "his people" for their "wickedness." This is an old trick as we have witnessed in recent times. I mean, I didn't realize that the attacks of 9/11 were because of the gays and that the earthquake in Haiti was because of the population's history of witchcraft until some religious leaders pointed it out, did you? I admit I was shocked.
But no...let's hit DELETE and just subtract most of the Jews from the Old Test as worshipers of Yahweh *POOF* and you can see that no, Yahweh is small potatoes. He's an also-ran. He's Michael Dukakis riding in a tank thinking that is a good idea. He's the guy who showed up at the party in full costume but it wasn't a costume party. He zigged when he should have zagged. So, go ahead, don't be shy...kick him in the rear and tell him to get lost. Throw all his CDs and his collectible action figures and his tennis rackets and the rest of his shit out the window and change the locks. He's currently being employed emptying out the wastebaskets and cleaning the toilets over at Allah's place. I almost feel sorry for him. But he had it coming, didn't he? Funny to think the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob finding out that karma is not only a bitch, but it smears Ben-Gay in your jock-strap and drinks your milkshake.
Yahweh is not/cannot be the almighty, omniscient, omnipresent *G*O*D* because we have no real idea who/what that could be. Such a being is beyond our ken. Consider that this being would be cognizant of every single person, and every single organism, every single ATOM on this planet all at the same time. Next time you go to the movies try to look at everyone else in the theater at the same time. No, you can't do it and you really can't imagine how you could. Now understand that not only could this being do that...HE/SHE/IT would also be aware of everything in the past and the future simultaneously. This is beyond our comprehension, we have no frame of reference to understand how that can be. This is not about having faith and saying he moves in mysterious ways. This is about the realization that we could never have a personal relationship or understanding with such an entity because trying to imagine such a thing makes our head swim.
It would be like trying to drink a tidal wave or lighting a cigarette with a volcano or trying to fill the Grand Canyon with a 10 lb bag of topsoil. It is so far beyond our mental capacity that the idea that such a being could enter your heart and all that is ludicrous. What is comprehensible is that there are gods, goddesses, spirits, etc that are expressions of the great collective consciousness that we can relate to, beings we have used our imaginations to fashion into animal and humanoid forms that we can understand and that certain of these entities have areas of responsibility, such as gods of war, love, fertility, weather, language, gods of the sea and the earth and the sky, and so on and so on. We can relate to such gods, because they seem not that different from us in some respects, and they may well also be within, not without, anyway. More on this concept in a later blog. But no, the question isn't "Do gods exist," because there is no such thing as an atheistic indigenous culture, people naturally when they are living with nature instead of isolated from it in hermetically-sealed, air-conditioned hives have relationships with such "invisible sky-fairies," the question is: "Gods exist...but what the heck are they?"
*G*O*D* cannot and does not bless America, or bless you when you sneeze, don't post on your Facebook praising him because it's sunny where you are on earth today, etc. such a being like that is too big, too vast, too cosmic for such small, petty concerns. Yahweh is not *G*O*D*, and he's no better, and in some cases no worse, than some of the other gods. And if your people are from Europe, Africa, Central/South America, etc...Yahweh is certainly not the god of your people. And guess what...neither is Jesus of Nazareth because even though Xianity came from the Greco-Roman world, Jesus is a Semitic god.
You can worship him, if you like, and he's worthy of that...but like I've said before, if you do not love your neighbor...even Barack Obama...as you love yourself, you're not worshiping him. You can sing all the praise hymns and put all the fish magnets on the back of your car that you want, the bible states clearly what it takes to be a member of his organization and you do not meet the qualifications if you think Jesus is okay with killing maybe a half-million Iraqis under false pretenses and withholding welfare benefits and health care to people who need it, even if they can't pass a drug test or if their parents are illegal immigrants. Jesus doesn't know you...and you. do. not. know. Jesus.
In an age of globalization where so many of us are living somewhere other than our ancestral lands, choosing which god(s) to recognize is like going to Shoney's Breakfast Buffet and choosing pancakes and sausage instead of eggs and bacon. So you can worship and recognize Yahweh if you want...but I'd read his resume first. He is not a team player, for one thing, and sausage and bacon will be off your menu if you do worship Yahweh. Would you give up BLT's when you can choose another god, like say...dunno...a more agreeable and less homicidal god like Ganesha and have just as good a spiritual life?
Now tell me, which one would you rather invite to your square dance? A serious, angry-visaged god with furrowed brows and poor shaving habits who threatens to burn you forever in a lake of fire if you don't go steady with just him, or a god with a cheerful disposition that offers to bring you good fortune and remove obstacles in your path, among other things, but is also okay with it if you want to worship someone else? Seems like an easy enough decision to me, chief.
Next time, we'll show how this city was built on a rocky road.
Selah
je suis désolé pour cette classement
ReplyDeleteci vous pouvez m'expliquer çà je serais fière de vous
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