Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Love and Lies


Why would anyone lie? The truth eventually shows itself, to anyone who matters. :) You may feel it's okay to have people in your life who are living under a delusion, but someday you will want to reveal your truths to someone, to let that someone get close to you...and if your history is full of lies and deceit, you may drive that person away. So then you start lying to yourself, keeping your lies to others intact, and pretending to be that false person so you can keep that false relationship. That lie. The delusional relationship. Yes, you can keep your lover, keep getting what you "think" you want, through deceit. But someday you may realize that you have never found out what you truly want: You have been lying to yourself about what you want. And that relationship? It's a lie, too. A lie to you, by you.

This goes beyond people. It applies to politics, to religion, to music, to groups that you choose to belong to. Society teaches us to lie, so deeply within its foundations that few people can see it. Santa Claus is an obvious example. You may say, "What's wrong with Santa?" It should be common knowledge that suicide rates are higher during the holidays. Why is that? Because the truth is, love should be real. It should happen every day. It should not be conditional. If you give me something for Christmas, do you have the expectation that I owe you something for Christmas? You may deny it immediately, but inside, I believe that is something most people feel.

Organized religion is a more devious, and demonstrably evil, example. You cannot have rational discussions with people who choose to be stupid, so if you choose to be stupid, I do NOT want to hear from you. :( If you have an opinion, and can provide evidence to support it, and are willing to listen to my opinions about your evidence, and willing to look at the evidence against your evidence, :) then I will be happy to discuss it with you. Politics and religion are two arenas that have very little evidence to support common opinions, however, so tread these carefully.

So, what's wrong with religion? It was taken over centuries ago, by people who did not understand its basic precepts, and did not exemplify them, and were not capable of passing them on. ANY (visible) organization is eventually taken over by people who are not competent to run it. That's partly because there is an inverse correlation between intelligence, and the desire to be in charge. Therefore, MOST people who are in any position of authority, are not likely to be of average intelligence. That means they do not have the ability to understand the thoughts of others, or the interest in thinking long enough to understand them, anyway. It has been said that stupidity is the LEARNED inability to learn; I saw it in these words in Popular Psychology a few decades ago. I suspect that is the function of the Boob Tube, aka television in its current implementation.

I have a firm, unshakable belief in God. But God is not what they teach in any religion I have found. Anyone who does a serious study of any mainstream religion can see that they are not taught by spiritual people. Period, full stop. I'm most familiar with Christianity, so I will tear it down first. :) It should be obvious that the ones who call themselves pagans are more likely to be in touch with the actual teachings of spiritual masters, including Christ, than the people who believe church propaganda. For example, churches want you to join, then they want to spend your money. No denying that. They all want your money. Sure, they all have a story, a rationale: "We're feeding the poor, or we need to pay our minister, or our secretary, or we need to pay the electric bill for the building, or we need a building..."

Bull. Look deeper. Why do they need any of that? Ask, and ask, and dig. Don't settle for the obvious answer, because that is not the true answer.

What does a Christian church teach, as they pass the plate and claim that you should tithe? Generally, they quote Jesus, when he said, "Whose face is on this coin?" The Government's. "Give to the government what is theirs, and give to God what is his." Oooh, great wisdom, please all, even the synagogues. But....what does God ask for? When did God ever ask for money? When did God ever spend it?

God asks for love. Love God, love those around you. When a church asks for money, when it has put itself in a position to need money, it has obviously lost sight of the spirituality it purports to represent. I don't believe God ever asked us to assuage our feelings of guilt and shame by giving to multi-national organizations, when we have a neighbor in need. Symbolic charity is blood money. Don't pray for man (that is, for appearances); pray for yourself and God.

Prayer is another issue. "Our Father..." Um. Is your heart in those words? Is your mind even ON those words? I doubt it. Are words prayer? I doubt that, too. I won't teach you how to pray. I'm not teaching you anything, really; but I hope you are learning how to think for yourself. Please, try to be honest, at least with yourself.

1 comment:

Mike said...

Mike! How have you been? I hope this comment reaches you. I'll be in the Austin area hopefully in July, so if you're still in Fredericksburg, maybe we can visit.

Good blog post, though. I pretty much agree with you wholeheartedly. I was going to e-mail you at your GMail account, but decided to come check your blog first.

Hope all is well, my friend.