Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Free Exercise of Religion



What makes the animosity of phony, drama-queen atheists so sad and maddening is that, in trying to define religion so as to "wall it away" from every connection with secular authorities, they remain so blind on so many fronts to their own unavoidable and hypocritical religions.

FIRST, the very idea of being an atheist (a theist?) tends to the absurd. Avowed "atheists" don't (and can't) share any rigorous idea --- of what a god, a religion, or even a (first or ultimate) cause --- necessarily would be. So they blow nonsense about terms that are largely undefined outside specialized limits (often contrived to trivialize a circular "explanation""). Yet, they think they are making better sense than non-atheists. 

Indeed, when one considers tenets thought essential to any particular philosophy, one will tend to find that some adherents of each such philosophy consider themselves to be atheists and others to be non-atheists. What mortal knows --- as opposed to believing, doubting, or ignoring --- what is or was the nature or character of the creation or unfolding of the cosmic bubble we happen to share? 

Without knowing (or having any way to prove) the ultimate nature or character of the cosmic matrix, and without any clear definition of god, religion, or even causation, what sense can it make for anyone to say (with feigned gravitas -- lol) whether he believes or doubts that there is a true god or true religion? 

Indeed, how can he even measure the "quantity" of his believing or doubting? So long as he believes he does not know, the other side of the coin of his spiritual belief is necessarily doubt. And vice-versa, the other side of his doubt is his gnawing apprehension that there may abide some true Source beyond absurd happenstance out of nothingness that is really somethingness. 

He can lack belief in any particular or literalistic silliness (such as a giant spaghetti monster), but he cannot articulate any basis for a complete disavowal (or knowledge of lack of existence) of a Source that abides beyond our quantifiable measure, but that yet may qualitatively influence or even reconcile our intuitions, empathies, apprehensions, and participations.

To have religious or spiritual faith in God (or a Godhead), it need not be considered necessary that one believe any special "revelation" in harps, tridents, eternal prisons, lakes of fire, monsters, genies, meta-virgins, meta-raisens, etc.) Rather, one may simply, to his innate intuition and empathy, believe there abides an inexplicable Source-Reconciler that nourishes and is nourished by its holistically reconciling feedback with its variously limited, passing, and particular Perspectives. A Source that reconciles all unfolding manifestations of degrees of freedom within the defining parameters of a matrix --- that happens to be shared by all Perspectives that happen to be availed to communicate in respect of it.

That is not to say that tenets specific to a particular church are devoid of sensible value. But it is to suggest that most such tenets concern ideas that tend to be more qualitatively figurative than quantifiably literalistic. That need not diminish their value as attractants, to avail forums and churches for people to congregate in good faith and good will, to seek to assimilate and appreciate shared values and purposes. Without the need for Knowitall Gov Masters.

So-called atheists often say they simply do not believe in any "particular god." Well, neither do I! I do not believe in a part-icular god. Part-iculars are passing mortals and fleeting forms and patterns. I do not believe in the literalisms of any particular religion. Yet, I do not consider myself un-Christian or an atheist. Rather, I believe (intuitively, empathetically, via my "sense of beingness," that a Reconciling Holism (a basis for higher-mindedness) abides. 

Wthout turning schizo or sociopathic, I doubt any person (even "Dexter") can long function without respecting some kind of Moral Code. As a person respects a Moral Code -- which is not knowable or provable in science, math, empiricism, or purely objective logic -- does he "really believe" a basis for it exists, or does he only act (sociopathicly) like he believes when he finds it convenient to his basest pleasures? If so, how can he claim any standing based in reason to advocate that the ideas of the Great Commandment and the Golden Rule, as being based in meta-reality, should be exiled (walled away) from the public square? Indeed, how can he reasonably advocate what anyone, or any government, SHOULD do?

SECOND, the idea that religion can be "walled away" from the secular affairs of the body-politic is itself, absurdly enough, religious --- notwithstanding protests of howlers. It presupposes that "real atheists" exist (i.e., that they can "really know" their own minds) and, absurdly, that they can assimilate "objective" moral values ("oughts from is"). 

Such an idea can be considered among the most absurd of "spaghetti monster religions," in that it is based in faith that higher mindedness can be coherently and consistently assimilated, without faith in any actual source or basis for such higher-mindedness. It is faith in morality, based on faith that morality does not really exist. As such, it tends in practice to be used to "justify" reduction to the lowest animal pleasures of conniving and deceiving people farmers. Because it denies that empathy is innately interpenetrating with the cosmos, it denies a real existential basis for good faith (Great Commandment) and good will (Golden Rule). Often, it is used to "justify" the confusing, conflating, abusing, and farming of the most gullible among useful idiots.

THIRD, the idea that elite scientists can derive ought from is easily leads to the killing of representative republics, to replace them with elite rule under phony moral scientisimists, whose strings tend to be pulled by the worst dregs that are floated to the top among filth-competing oligarchs, who themselves tend to be spiritually suffering under the abysmal blowback of their faith in their rotted pride and hubris.

BOTTOM LINE:  To my intuition, the spiritual cause of Moral Darkness is rampant and stubborn non-receptivity to the Source of spirituality, morality, direct intuition, and interconnecting empathy. And the giving over of all reason and morality to a scientism that has no capacity to derive "ought from is." The consequence is the floating of oligarchic crap to farm the people as if they were of no more worth than cattle. Evil flows and agglomerates from self-godding as surely as water flows downhill. Hedonists with no faith higher than pleasure naturally fall for and flock to lying, false-promising, bribing Oligarchs. The Godforsaken Uniparty of Rinos and Dinos is a tale as old as agriculture, although it has been called by different names throughout the ages.


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Marxist Christianity is neither Marxist nor Christian. -- Jacques Ellul
The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion. – Karl Marx
If some few passages of the Bible may be favorable to communism, the general spirit of its doctrines is, nevertheless, totally opposed to it. -- Frederick Engels
Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism, of the theory and practice of scientific socialism. -- Vladimir Lenin

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Jesus was primarily concerned with the spiritual, not the material.
Unlike Marx, Jesus did not see Church and Family as obstacles to utopia.
Marxist atheism requires vastly different assumptions about metaphysics than Christianity.
A Christian does not deliberately set about raising a child or any other person to be an entitlement-minded and incompetent ingrate.
Jesus invites followers. Marx would dictate to the collective.
Christian equality stems from equality before the evaluation of God. Not from equality in results, forced by governmental redistribution.
Jesus valued people as individuals, not as Marxist widgets.
Jesus advocated charity as a safety net. He did not call upon government to equalize wealth.
Calling on individuals to do charity presupposes that they have been allowed to accumulate property and wealth. Nowhere does Jesus advocate or intimate that temporal property is theft.
Jesus did not judge against voluntary communal living, but neither did He advocate force of government to require it.

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"Privately entrusting resources to St. Peter, in subservience to God, differs greatly from "robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul" through a distant bureaucratic apparatus inspired by the humanist god of power. The Bible never endorses involuntary socialism administered by secular governments."

"The Puritans rapidly abandoned communalism – "that conceit of Plato's" – in favor of vigorous free enterprise, which proved both consistent with their strong religious sentiments, and a rapid path to prosperity."

"Communism fails except as augmented by fear (and ultimately there too), because forging "New Socialist Man" remains forever beyond the state's grasp. Only God can change men's hearts. Our base instincts betray us. When we see someone slacking and still taking - we produce less. When we see others taking beyond their share – we take more too. Without private property and opportunities for profit through honest toil, living standards stagnate."

"[T]the soft spoken women sitting next to the one pronouncing Jesus a communist simply said, "I lived in Communist Romania for thirty-one years. Don't tell me about Communism . . . Communism is death.""

-- http://www.forbes.com/sites/billflax/2011/05/12/do-marxism-and-christianity-have-anything-in-common/#73f295a06676





































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