Jesus is Gonna Kick Yo' Ass!

¡Hola! Everybody…
Seems like the rapture is upon us proving Glenn Beck was right all along. Now, don’t you feel like an idiot for not purchasing his Rapture Survival Backpack^© ($149.95 plus shipping and handling)? Ha!!(h/t Lionel)

* * *

-=[ The Rapture ]=-

Quick! Look busy -- Jesus is coming!

Apparently, a certain religious nut from California has predicted the end times begin tonight. I refuse to give him any more publicity than he has already garnered, so Google “rapture” if you want the details. If you’re too lazy, I’ll explain about the rapture…

Pretend you’re a big time Hollywood executive I tried to pitch you this story:

“Okay, let me start with some context. It’s the 21^st century, but millions of people still believe in this invisible Super Ghost who lives somewhere way, way up in the sky somewhere. You see, he created everything, sees everything, knows everything, and knows everything that had ever happened or will happen. Something like a huge security camera in the sky.

The people who believe in him think of him as a magic helper who protects, punishes, and watches over them. It’s a take on the Santa Claus thingee: He sees you when you’re sleeping, He knows when you’re awake (and engaged in socialist activities), and so on.

Yet even though this ghost has, like, all the superpowers of all the superheroes rolled into one, he’s in actuality very insecure. He demands that you follow him or else you get an eternity burning in a non-stop, super-duper fire, boiling in lava-like shit and being constantly stabbed by devils with pitchforks. Oh yeah! I almost forgot, two thousand years ago he sent his only son (which he conceived by fucking a married virgin) to earth in order to redeem humanity from their wickedness by getting him nailed to a cross and, you know, that whole Gospel According to Mel Gibson treatment.

Now, bear with me because this is where the story gets interesting: after two thousand years of watching humanity slaughter itself, getting really fucked up, and having wild orgies, and basically just slacking off, The Son plans to return to earth from outer space. But before he does, he’s going to beam up to Heaven all those people who have continued to have faith in him, yup, levitate them right out of their clothes, wherever they are -- on an airplane, asleep, having sex, on the toilet, and (get this!) in the freaking grave! Yup, corpses and cadavers blasting out of the ground! Think: Saw meets Night of the Living Dead, with some touches of Superman and Terminator thrown in.

Meanwhile, the people left behind are freaking out. I mean, imagine you’re on an airplane to Puerto Rico and suddenly the pilot fuckin’ disappears! Flies right by your window!

Dang!

Then you look and you see hundreds of naked people whooshing by (of course, we’ll make them up to be gorgeous, size zero, big-breasted, no ass-having blonde white babes and maybe throw in an old dude just for laughs). And then the plane just nose dives, crashes smack into the side of a mountain. Families are broken up and companies have to close because, like, the entire sales department just flew through the AC vents out the window!

Meanwhile, the people left behind are in a mass panic and MSBNCNNFOX is blaming it on the Muslims and the liberals. The president is pissed because he thinks it’s some secret pentagon weapon he wasn’t informed about. Cut to a religious secretary as she tells him, ‘Mr. President, it’s the Rapture.’ Since he’s secretly a Nigerian postcolonial Socialist Islamofascist, he’s never heard of the Rapture. The secret service sweeps him away to an undisclosed location where they fill him in on the details.

And this is just the first seven minutes! In the rest of the movie, the people left behind are going to suffer a seven-year nightmare of wars, plagues, attacks from supernatural creatures, asteroid collisions, and rivers of blood… ”

Would you buy a pitch like that? Well, considering the really inferior crap that gets produced these days, maybe a studio would produce such a story. But if I insisted that I actually believed the story to be true, most of you would have probably called security and have me kicked to the curb, right? Right? Right?I

As many as a hundred million Americans believe in this story, which is known as the Rapture, a scene lifted out of the last book of the Bible. Yeah, that part, the crazy, hallucinogenic part. The part with the Apocalypse and its Four Horsemen, the Whore of Babylon, a seven-headed dragon, and crap that looks straight out of a badly crafted segment of Lord of the Rings.

It’s hey-Zeus (!) on steroids come back to kick some major Muslim (and Jewish, and Pagan, and Wiccan, and… etc.) ass!

If you’re a Christian and never heard of the Rapture, then shame on you, you didn’t read the Bible all the way through to the end. In any case, this book isn’t for believers of the rapture. It’s for you, Heathen! Unbeliever! Doubter! Satanist! Secular Humanist Socialist liberal! If you're curious about what 100 million people find so compelling about the Rapture, then this book will do the trick. If, on the other hand, you’re the kind of person who values reason rather than myth, then this book will literally make you laugh your ass off.

Quick! Look Busy!

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Sunday Sermon [The Revelation Will Not be Televised}

¡Hola! Everybody…
In case you didn’t get the memo from the Beckerheads and Palinites, the apocalypse has returned (again) and the first people to get hit are the Japs for having the nerve of not blindly worshiping a high-in-the-sky, hyper-masculine, jealous God.

* * *

-=[ The Rapture ]=-

Quick! Look busy -- Jesus is coming!

Pretend you’re a big time Hollywood executive I tried to sell you this story:

“Okay, let me start with some context. It’s the 21^st century, but millions of people still believe in this invisible Super Ghost who lives somewhere way, way up in the sky somewhere. You see, he created everything, sees everything, knows everything, and knows everything that had ever happened or will happen. Something like a huge security camera in the sky.

The people who believe in him think of him as a magic helper who protects and watches over them. It’s a take on the Santa Claus thingee: He sees you when you’re sleeping, He knows when you’re awake (and engaged in socialist activities), and so on.

Yet even though this ghost has, like, all the superpowers of all the superheroes rolled into one, he’s in actuality very insecure. He demands that you follow him or else you get an eternity burning in a non-stop, super-duper fire, boiling in lava-like shit and being constantly stabbed by devils with pitchforks. Oh yeah! I almost forgot, two thousand years ago he sent his only son (which he conceived by fucking a married virgin) back to earth in order to redeem humanity from their wickedness by getting him nailed to a cross and, you know, that whole Gospel According to Mel Gibson treatment.

Now, bear with me because this is where the story gets interesting: after two thousand years of watching humanity slaughter itself, getting really fucked up, and having wild orgies, and basically just slacking off, the Son plans to return to earth from outer space. But before he does, he’s going to beam up to Heaven all those people who have continued to have faith in him, yup, levitate them right out of their clothes, wherever they are -- on an airplane, asleep, having sex, on the toilet, and (get this!) in the freaking grave! Yup, corpses and cadavers blasting out of the ground! Think: Saw meets Night of the Living Dead, with some touches of Superman thrown in.

Meanwhile, the people left behind are freaking out. I mean, imagine you’re on an airplane to Puerto Rico and suddenly the pilot fuckin’ disappears! Flies right by your window!

Dang!

Then you look and you see hundreds of naked people whooshing by (of course, we’ll make them up to be gorgeous, size zero, big-breasted, no ass-having blonde white babes and maybe throw in an old dude just for laughs). And then the plane just nose dives, crashes smack into the side of a mountain. Families are broken up and companies have to close because, like, the entire sales department just flew through the AC vents out the window!

Meanwhile, the people left behind are in a mass panic and MSBNCNNFOX is blaming it on the Muslims and the liberals. The president is pissed because he thinks it’s some secret pentagon weapon he wasn’t informed about. Cut to a religious secretary and she tells him, ‘Mr. President, it’s the Rapture.’ Since he’s secretly a Nigerian postcolonial Socialist Islamofascist, he’s never heard of the Rapture. The secret service sweeps him away to an undisclosed location where they fill him in on the details.

And this is just the first seven minutes! In the rest of the movie, the people left behind are going to suffer a seven-year nightmare of wars, plagues, attacks from supernatural creatures, asteroid collisions, and rivers of blood… ”

Would you buy a pitch like that? Well, considering the really inferior crap that gets produced these days, maybe a studio would produce such a story. But if I insisted that I actually believed the story to be true, most of you would have probably called security and have me kicked to the curb, right? Right?!!

As many as a hundred million Americans believe in this story, which is known as the Rapture, a scene lifted out of the last book of the Bible. Yeah, that part, the crazy, hallucinogenic part. The part with the Apocalypse and its Four Horsemen, the Whore of Babylon, a seven-headed dragon, and crap that looks straight out of a badly crafted segment of Lord of the Rings.

It’s Hey-Zeus (!) on steroids come back to kick some major Muslim (and Jewish, and Pagan, and Wiccan, and… etc.) ass!

If you’re a Christian and never heard of the Rapture, then shame on you, you didn’t read the Bible all the way through to the end. In any case, this book isn’t for believers of the rapture. It’s for you, Heathen! Unbeliever! Doubter! Satanist! Secular Humanist Socialist liberal! If you're curious about what 100 million people find so compelling about the Rapture, then this book will do the trick. If, on the other hand, you’re the kind of person who values reason rather than myth, then this book will literally make you laugh your ass off.

Quick! Look Busy!

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Monday Madness: The revelation Will Not be Televised

¡Hola! Everybody...
In view of the unprecedented number of religious whackos running for office this midterm (click here and here for just two examples), I thought re-posting the following apropos...

* * *

Sinner Ines Sainz' sinful backside: blame for grown men to lose minds

-=[ The Revelation Will not be Televised ]=-

Or: Quick! Look busy -- Jesus is coming!

Pretend you’re a big time Hollywood executive and I tried to sell you a story with the following pitch:

“Okay, let me start with some context. It’s the 21^st century, but millions of people believe in this invisible Super Ghost who lives somewhere way, way up in space. You see, he created everything, sees everything, knows everything -- everything that had ever happened or will happen. think: something like a huge security camera in the sky.

“The people who believe in him think of him as a magic helper who protects and watches over them. It’s a take on the Santa Claus thingee -- he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, and engaged in terrorist or masturbatory activities and so on.

“Yet even thought this ghost has, like, all the superpowers of all the superheroes rolled into one, he’s in actuality very insecure. He demands that you follow him or else you get an eternity burning in a non-stop, super-duper fire, boiling in lava-like shit and being constantly stabbed by devils with pitchforks. Oh yeah! I almost forgot, two thousand years ago he sent his only son back to earth in order to redeem humanity from their wickedness by getting hung on a cross and, you know, that whole gospel-according-to -Mel-Gibson-let’s-hate-Jews treatment.

“Now, bear with me because this is where the story gets interesting: after two thousand years of watching humanity slaughter itself, getting really fucked up on drugs, and having wild orgies, and basically just slacking off, the son plans to return to earth from outer space. But before he does, he’s going to beam up to Heaven all those people who believed in him, yup, levitate them right out of their clothes, wherever they are -- on an airplane, asleep, having sex, on the toilet, and -- get this! -- in the freaking grave! Yup, corpses and cadavers blasting out of the ground! Think: Saw meets Night of the Living Dead, with some touches of Superman.

“Meanwhile, the people left behind are freaking out. I mean imagine you’re on an airplane to Puerto Rico and suddenly the fuckin’ pilot disappears -- flies right by your window seat! Dang!

“While looking out the window you see hundreds of naked people whooshing by. Of course, we’ll make them up to be fine babes (think: an army of Ines Sainz look-a-likes and maybe throw in an old dude just for laughs). And then the plane just nose-dives, crashes smack into the side of a mountain. Families are broken up and companies have to close because, like, the entire sales department just flew out the window through the AC vents!

“Meanwhile, the people left behind are really freaking out and CNN is blaming it on the Muslims and Fox News is blaming Obama. The president is pissed because he thinks it’s some secret pentagon weapon and he wasn’t informed. Cut to Rahm and he tells him, ‘Muthafucka!, it’s the Rapture.’ The president doesn’t know what the rapture is, they didn’t teach the rapture at his childhood madrassa and the secret service sweeps him away to an undisclosed location where they fill him in on the Rapture.

“And this is just the first seven minutes! In the rest of the movie, the people left behind are going to suffer a seven-year nightmare of wars, plagues, attacks from supernatural creatures, asteroid collisions, and rivers of blood… ”

what would your reaction be? Would you buy a pitch like that? Well, considering the really inferior crap that gets produced (the Rocky and Die Hard franchises come to mind), maybe a studio would produce such a story. But mostly you would have probably called security and have me kicked to the curb, right? Right?!!

As many as a hundred million Americans believe in this story, which is known as the Rapture, a scene lifted out of the last book of the Bible. Yeah, the crazy, hallucinogenic part. The part with the Apocalypse and its Four Horsemen, the Whore of Babylon, a seven-headed dragon, and crap that looks straight out of a badly crafted segment of Lord of the Rings.

It’s Jay-sus (!) on steroids out here to kick some major fuckin ass!

If you’re a Christian and never heard of the Rapture, then shame on you (you didn’t read the Bible all the way to the end!). In any case, this book isn’t for believers of the rapture. It’s for you! Heathen! Unbeliever! Doubter! Satanist! Secular Humanist liberal democrat! If you’re curious about what 100 million people find so compelling about the Rapture, then this book will do the trick. If you’re the kind of person who values reason rather than superstitious thinking, then this book will make you smile smugly.

Quick! Look Busy!

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon (Easter and the Promise of Spring)

¡Hola! Everybody...
On Good Friday, my grandmother, a devout Catholic, would not allow any electronic gadgets to be turned on. That meant no music or TV. And the women would prepare a huge meal consisting of Puerto Rican-style escabeche -- a marinated type of fish dish. We weren’t allowed to eat meat or do much of anything on Good Friday, which was a huge drag for the teens.

On Saturday, “The Curse,” as I used to call it, was lifted and music and life would seep back into our household. My mother would make this shrimp dish that’s to die for and we would eat it with real Italian bread, so fresh and hot, it burned your hands holding it.

As a teen, Easter Sunday was a huge holiday. We would beg our (mostly working poor) parents to buy us new outfits and we would all go to Coney Island. In fact, when we were on welfare (which we did several times while growing up) my mother sometimes used welfare money to buy us new clothes! I know many of you don’t like this shit and that’s why I’m putting it out there.

Tens of thousands of teens from all over The City would meet up there to usher in the warmer weather, the promise of spring like a new song in our young hearts.

* * *

-=[ The Promise of Spring ]=-

“All isms end up in schisms.”

-- Huston Smith

I have little patience for the people who lump all of spirituality or belief systems into the same category. I find this with many modern-day atheists. They tend to throw out the spiritual baby with the bathwater. Their favorite refrain is that religions have been at the center of much suffering in the world. In that, they are correct. However, I can level that accusation to any human endeavor -- politics and science, for example. Science, while yielding many fruits, also has been at the center of much hardship and danger. Scientism (which is a form of corrupted science) is just as nasty as any organized religion. I would argue that neither science nor religion is at fault. It's human beings that have corrupted both.

Big fucking difference.

The Easter holiday is one that most resonates with my way of thinking because, like spring, it promises renewal and new beginnings. It’s a story that tells us that we can put together again our fractured lives; that we don’t have to be slaves to our past mistakes. It’s a powerful message. I would submit that the world’s sacred narratives help us make sense of our existence. The problem is that when interpreted literally rather than symbolically, the spiritual essence of religion loses its creative energy and becomes instead a destructive force.

Fundamentalists of any faith are drunk on a rapture of certainty, secure in their righteous belief of an exclusive covenant with God. In that way gay human beings become an abomination. And please spare the bullshit "hate the sin, not the sinner" hypocrisy. In fact, we can say our world today is embroiled in a clash of fundamentalisms as predicted by the great mythologist, Joseph Campbell.

Such thinking exists not only in religion, but in all of us -- whether left wingers, scientists, and secularists alike. We all have an inner fundamentalist right there in our amygdala, the tiny organ in the midbrain that triggers the fight-or-flight response to danger. It also originates from the tendency to attempt to split thinking and feeling that exists throughout the brain.

Which brings me to my Easter story of this year. I write it down now, as I prepare to address a group of worshipers at a local church.

Several years ago, I was having a very rough time at a community meeting. I was trying to educate a group of people on the effectiveness of alternative to incarceration programs. For me, it was a no-brainer: treat the root causes and crime decreases. Treat the addiction and it has a double effect. It’s more effective and cheaper than incarceration which is extremely expensive a tragic failure. Address education -- invest in smaller classroom size and make the schools friendlier to parents and we prevent crime before it ever begins. I had the charts, the facts -- in short I had everything I thought I needed to help people see that locking up millions of individuals (mostly young people of color) wasn’t a very smart or effective way to create a moral and just society.

Man, was I getting beat up that day! LOL

At one point, during an intermission, this young white man came up to me and asked if he could address the audience briefly. I don’t why I trusted this individual, I had never seen him before, and I had had it to here

::grabs dese nuts::

... with angry white men. However, inwardly acknowledging that the meeting couldn’t possibly get any worse, I shrugged and told him, “Go ahead, finish putting me out of my misery.”

He got up and told of how two men brutally murdered the woman who raised him, his grandmother -- the only family he had. He told of the agonizing pain and hardship; the anger he felt -- how he wanted those who took his grandmother’s life to be punished -- possibly to have their lives taken also. Then he spoke about something that floored everybody. He spoke about his journey from a heart filled with vengeance to forgiveness and compassion. In the process of speaking of that healing process, he managed to do what all my facts and charts didn’t: he opened people’s hearts to the possibility of a different community; of a different society. A society based not on revenge and killing -- an “eye for an eye,” -- but a society predicated on empathy and compassion and equality. I was never so moved as when I heard this man speak so openly about being torn down only to be arise again. What a lesson! And, no, he wasn’t a religious man, at least not in a rigid sense.

I think this man was able to touch upon the essential nature of vengeance and forgiveness. Vengeance comes from desire -- a desire to make aright, no matter what the expense. If you killed mine, then I must kill you. And in the short term, vengeance serves to alleviate our pain. But in the long term the desire for vengeance -- like all unskillful desire -- erodes our humanity. It eats at us from the inside until we become empty of anything even remotely resembling an enlightened species. Compassion and empathy comes from the part of the brain that triggers love, creativity, collaboration and, physiologically, it releases chemicals and responses that heal -- that strengthen the immune system and encourages fellowship.

I would suggest a different form of spirituality: one that recognizes a universal energy in everything, the humility to admit mistakes, one that promotes flexibility instead of rigidity, and a willingness to tolerate differences.

And isn’t that a story that mirrors any kind of resurrection? Couldn’t such a shift be an evolutionary quantum leap? In fact, this is where we stand today: at the precipice of an evolutionary and spiritual chasm, and leap we must or become the first species to make ourselves extinct.

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon (Blind Faith)

¡Hola! Everybody...

Yesterday I went to the movies and decided on watching a film I never heard of. It’s called Maldeamores (Lovesickness) and it’s an excellent little independent film from Puerto Rico (Academy Award winner Benicio del Toro produced). It probably won’t be coming to your town (unless you live in a cosmopolitan city with, like, people, and buildings and shit like that). The film is a great story told well.

Actually, it’s several stories. It’s an ironic look at what we all call love. In a very sense, we look for love to escape what can be a very mundane, sometimes seemingly meaningless existence. We want our lives to have meaning and we couple because, in a real sense, that’s where we find our deepest meanings. It’s an excellent film, well crafted, and at times hilarious and at others touchingly poignant. It’s all here: love, death, betrayal…

* * *

-=[ Blind Faith ]=-
“He who knows, doesn’t say;
He who says, doesn’t know.”

The above quote may sound profound until you figure out that whoever said this… didn’t know! LOL

A king many centuries ago was having troubles with his ministers. They would argue so much that nothing could get decided. The ministers, following in the ancient tradition of politics, each claimed that they alone were right and everyone else was wrong. When the king organized a special public festival, however, the ministers all agreed to take the day off.

The festival was a spectacular affair held in a large stadium. There was singing and dancing, acrobatics, music and all manner of entertainment. Then for the finale in front of the massive crowd, with the ministers in the best seats in the house, the king himself led his royal elephant into the center of the arena. Following the elephant were seven blind men, known to have been blind since birth.

The king took the hand of the first blind man, helped him feel the elephant’s trunk, and told him this is an elephant. He then helped the second blind man to fell the elephant’s tusks, the third one its ears, the fourth the head, the fifth the torso, the sixth the legs, and the seventh the tail, telling each one that this was an elephant. The he turned to the first blind man and asked him to say in a loud voice what an elephant was.

“In my considered and expert opinion,” said the blind man, feeling the trunk, “I state with the utmost certainty that an ‘elephant’ is a species of snake, genus Python asiaticus.”

“You stupid fool!" exclaimed the second blind man, feeling a tusk. “An elephant is much too solid to be a snake. In actuality, it is a farmer’s plough.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” sneered the third blind man, feeling an ear. “An elephant is clearly a palm-leaf fan.”

“Incompetent boot-lickers!” laughed the fourth blind man., feeling the head. “An elephant is obviously a large water jar.”

“Impossible!” ranted the fifth blind man, feeling the torso. “An elephant is a huge rock.”

“Bullshit!” shouted the sixth blind man, feeling a leg. “An elephant is a tree trunk.”

“What a bunch of poosies!” exclaimed the last blind man, feeling the tail. “An elephant is really a kind of fly whisk. I know! I can feel it!”

“Bullshit! It’s a snake!” “Can’t be, it’s a jar!” “No way stupid! It’s a… ”

The blind men started arguing so vehemently that soon enough the fists started flying as fast as the insults. Though they couldn’t see who or what they were hitting, it didn’t seem to matter because they felt they were fighting for principle, for integrity, for truth.

Their own individual truth, that is.

While the king’s soldiers were separating the bruised blind men, the crowd in the stadium was mocking the silent, shamefaced ministers. Everyone that was there understood too well the point o the resourceful king’s object lesson.

Each one of us can only know part of the whole that constitutes the truth. When we hold on to our limited knowledge as absolute truth, we are like one of the blind men feeling a part of the elephant and inferring that their own partial experience is the truth, all else being wrong.

Perhaps instead of blind faith, we should have a conversation instead. Imagine the consequences if the seven blind men, instead of opposing their data, had combined their experience.

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon (Beyond Belief & Disbelief)

¡Hola! Everybody,
Okay, so yesterday was a good day. If all goes accordingly, by next week I should be able to seduce you in private. ::grin::

Some people here are afraid that if Obama wins the Democratic nomination, that it will guarantee a McCain presidency. The often unspoken implication being that there’s no way “Red” states (as in: the Old-South where the-Confederacy-flag-is-still-flown-and-watch-out-we-don’t-drag-your-black-ass-while-we’re-at-it South) will vote for a black man. Heck, some of my friends are nervous about any state voting for a black man with a funny name.

I say, fuck all that shit! Tell yo mama you’re voting for Obama!

* * *

-=[ Beyond Belief and Disbelief ]=-
“In the process of defining myself, I have a tendency to set up rules and boundaries and then forget that rules are made to be broken, as are boundaries to be expanded and crossed.”
-- Kathleen Casey Theisen

In Orphans of the Sky, science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein depicts a civilization lost in space. The problem is that it doesn’t know it’s lost. Centuries before the novel begins a mammoth spaceship is built. It’s built to resemble a miniature planet, complete with its own ecosystem, sky -- everything the earth would look like. What’s left of humanity is herded into this spaceship in order to escape a ravaged and dying planet. What happens, however, is that early on, the “pilots” located in the secret upper echelons of the spaceship are killed during a vicious radiation storm. It is also here where all the information is sequestered. The ship is set adrift wandering aimlessly in space and as time passes and succeeding generations replace the older ones, the memory of who they were and where they came from is lost.

Radiation has also infected the masses, resulting in mutations and for those living within the spaceship, it is all they know. Their concept of the universe is encapsulated by the boundaries of the spaceship. To them, the universe is that spaceship. As the centuries pass, philosophical and religious thought is dictated by this limited worldview. Everything is hokey dory until a group of renegade kids, in defiance of social norms, begin exploring the upper echelons…

It’s a short book not more than 200 pages, but I think it’s one of Heinlein’s best works. And it manages to bring up a slew of moral and philosophical questions, not the least of which includes the concept of God.

I’m not interested in entering a debate about God. I think such discussions are a huge waste of time. It’s a lot like being fatally shot with an arrow in the woods and refusing treatment until you find out who shot you, why, and with what.

It remains that we’re awed -- intimidated even -- by the very fact of our existence. Thousands of years of philosophy, religion, myth-making, and war are the silent monuments to humanity’s attempts to make sense of existence. The one thing I can say is that the more things change, the more this most human of basic instincts remains steadfast: the need to believe we’re groping the controls that are real, but which we sense are not.

Our quest for something to believe in is our collective response the The Cosmic Joke of our lives. All we really know is that we’re gonna die, and that’s a fucked up joke. This instinct to believe is so powerful it sometimes overrides our instinct for survival. A quick look at our shared history will show that we will defend, with our very lives, the gods, and dreams that others have created for us.

(The Kool-Aid is extra thick today, boys and girls. LOL!)

Of course, there’s also disbelief. To exist and to be aware is to be conscious of our sense of disbelief. In fact, the major way we interact with the world is through disbelief. We begin to disbelieve our previous opinions when we are confronted with something so marvelous, hideous, or outside of our small sense of self that we’re compelled to throw away our set of beliefs when we can no longer categorize or pigeonhole something. In other words, if you had never before seen a horse and were all of sudden confronted with the sight of a man on a horse, your shit would be all fucked up.

Are we significant in the grand scheme of this Cosmic Joke? What is pour place? Why are we alive? Why the fuck do we ask all these fuckin’ questions?!! LOL! Are we really who we think we are? And please, I’m not looking for your answers to these questions. I am trying to point out that questions are sometimes more important than answers.

But I’m getting ahead of myself… (<--- dot dot dot)

Disbelief pulls these questions from us we turn to the heroin of religion, politics, and addictions for the false relief of numbness they supply. For many of us, that numbness – the zombified state of not feeling – is preferable to the very real pain we feel when we come face-to-face with our lives and the inadequacy of our beliefs.

Most belief systems are unnatural corruptions of our original and affirming state of disbelief. They stifle human potential and creativity. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying that a belief in a god or an ideology is a bad or even evil thing when used as a tool for personal or spiritual development. It is when we confuse the tools for the work that we become deranged and lost. It is when we worship the style over the goal and the form over the content that we die a little everyday, with every thought we make.

We’re clever in creating and cultivating beliefs, tragically stupid when we confuse them with the real thing. What happens is that the symbols of belief become more important than what they signify. Millions of people died in the vain effort to prove the superiority of one symbol of belief over another. It’s as ridiculous as arguing over which brand of jeans are the correct ones to wear. Duh! They both serve the same purpose. They differ only in style.

Belief systems can become like prisons in which we cage our free-flowing original selves. It is only when we limit ourselves to one worldview that we become trapped, like the characters in the Orphans of the Sky, by our tunnel vision. The vast spaciousness of our souls demands that we break down the false walls of our beliefs. Disbelief is like a quality of surprise like the feeling you get when you’re thrown a surprise party. In fact, it’s a surprise party thrown for you by your awareness.

Use beliefs as tools, appreciate them as art, but don’t confuse them with the real work at hand. Never be afraid to let them go once they’ve become useless and destructive. Despite what others may tell you beliefs are not life preservers on the tumultuous sea of life. Rather they are more like anchors, limiting us to one point of view, one range of experience.

Dang! I’ve gone on and there’s so much more! I’ll leave you with the following:

Who we might become is an act of spiritual transcendence of who we think we are to who we really are.

Love,

Eddie