Thoughts of a Heretic

I've never understood the concept of prayer, even when I was a thoroughly inducted RC back in the days of Holy Cacklick Ireland

I am surrounded by prayerful people here who throw "thoughts and prayers" at any crisis, global, local, familial without a shred of irony.

Well good for them, they must feel better. They have a direct pipeline to the Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper (ICH for short).

Thing is, when thoughts and prayers are ignored, it is ICH's will, which for us lesser mortals, is only understood by ICH who seems contrary and brutal. Given that little kids get cancer and suffer and die in spite of the pleas. It's all ICH's plan of gathering billions of child-angels home. For what? Oh we're not privy to that. R-right.

When thoughts and prayers are attended to, say for a really sick friend or relative, it is the glory of ICH that is acknowledged profusely and those who prayed to ICH. Not the medical team, the paramedics, the brilliant surgeon, the radiation technicians. Not science. No sirree bob.

Such mental jigging and juggling. Such pride and smugness in the successful prayers when all becomes well and the storm is over. The inference being for those not so lucky, ICH was displeased with their prayers. There was a right way and a wrong way to pray and some had access to the ear of ICH and others were just doing it wrong.

It does my head in. I need to tune it all out.

30 Days - Day 30

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Maxed Out

Well yeah, I missed a few days. Daughter came to stay. Friends arrived for 4 months in a house I found for them. There was a town/beach/roads clean-up, there was TIRED happening and a requestioning of what am I doing on this planet which is an increased improvement over the "What is the Meaning of Life?" dilemmas of my younger self.

My atheist isolation in a town of full-on worshippers is rarely commented on. But that also means I don't get to read church bulletins which broadcasts everything local. Separation of church and state doesn't happen much out here. Down to the Christmas Crib on municipal property. Along with all that I attend 12 step-fellowships when my tolerance metre is on "high". I'm not known for my subservience. Never have been. But now and again, yeah, all the doings of the very selective cruel ICH* who cures, say, certain children of disease whilst making others suffer prolonged pain and horror as victims of rape and torture and trafficking, being justified as "God's Will" makes the last surviving brain lobe explode. Well. Who can blame me and my logical brain?

Once upon a time, I explained it all here and there and everywhere.

And I do take comfort from sharing and writing here.

It sure gets lonely hiking the road less travelled when you never, ever meet any other travellers

*Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper.

30 Days - Day 7

Big Question.

At times, I write about the bad old days. The days when women and children were treated like chattel and given no voices, no land, no vote. Beaten.Abused. Told what to wear, how to behave. Deprived of education and rights. All encouraged by the various religious despots pounding their important books, dictating laws offering forgiveness for transgressions - at a price of course.

And I bring up the hundreds of years of oppression and paedophilia, castrations and genital mutilations - and to bring it closer to home my mother's symphysiotomy - and the answer always comes back:

"Well, those were the old days, they didn't know better, we are more enlightened now," or some variant on this.

And I am flabbergasted.

So in the "good old days" these clerics and their male acolytes didn't know that when they raped and abused women and children that it was wrong? That when they burned witches and sent women to work free in laundries for life that it was truly evil? Women's suffering wasn't quite human, was that it? That banishing the bad seeds of unwanted pregnancies (unwanted by the male impregnators/rapists who remained anonymous, of course)to the dungeons of an orphanage was the RIGHT thing to do?

And tell me again how the ICH* approved of and condoned these horrific acts? After all he wrote The Good Book? Oh, only for men? Slaves and women and eunuchs are like animals and should be treated as such?

I don't think I'd care to be saved by such a misogynistic pedarest - however many times his stripes change according to the times and his interpreters, thanks. Why couldn't he do it right and respectful to begin with?

*Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper

Surreality

View from the Tigeen

I'm up over the trees and the birds and the ocean in my Tigeen. Where good stuff happens. Like writing. Like musing.

And then, a half an hour ago, I hear the sounds of the cemetery mass floating on the air towards me. Crystal clear. Something I'd never hear in my house below.

This is a combination of the placement of the Tigeen, the prevailing breeze and acoustics.

The sermon arrives at me intact. The bits of singing, the readings. The sounds of my childhood and some adult years. The pray-for-usses, the pleadings, the begging of Himself, the Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper, to do what he is requested but only if it is his will - a wonderful form of circular thinking. And a win-win for those requested to intercede to end the suffering, or grant the wishes. I used to wonder - even when practising these rituals - about that. As in why bother praying (and paying) if he's going to do what he damn well pleases anyway?

I am so detached from all of that mumbo-jumbo now, a bemused ear is thrown over to the graveyard. A reflection on all the money collected for these lamentations and laundry lists.

"Oh Lamb of God" I hear as I type this, "Fear not I will come for thee". Yelled very loudly by he who officiates, white biscuit held high above his head I would imagine.

And then I imagine ICH convulsed on a cloud, snorting uncontrollably, finally collapsing in helpless laughter.

The World is on Loan From our Grandchildren?

Whatever happened to that wise old saying? If we carried this truism like the sacred trust that it is, deep in our consciences and the minds of those we elect to safeguard us, would we have this current dilemma:

Man's catastrophic damage to the environment and disparities between rich and poor head the daunting challenges facing the Rio Summit in June, experts said on Monday.

The summit must sweep away a system that lets reckless growth destroy the planet's health yet fails to help billions in need, they said.

"This century is special in the Earth's history. It is the first when one species -- ours -- has the planet's future in its hands," said Martin Rees of the Royal Society, Britain's academy of sciences.

"We've invented a new geological era: the Anthropocene," he said referring to an epoch shaped by Man, not nature. [...]

"Under a worst-case scenario, it's very likely, I think, that the Earth's system will move to a new state of some sort, with a very severe challenge to contemporary civilisation," said Steffen. "Some people have even talked about a collapse." [...]

The UN's goal of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is already out of reach, said Bob Watson, former head of the UN's climate panel and chief advisor to Britain's environment ministry, as he presented the laureates' study.

"If you look at the commitments today from governments around the world, we've only got a 50-50 shot at a 3 C (5.4 F) world, almost no chance of a 2 C (3.6 F) world, and to be quite honest I would say it's not unlikely that we will hit a 5 C (9.0 F) world," said Watson.

"That is clearly a world with significant adverse consequences for ecological systems, for socio-economic systems and for human health."

He added: "We have to realise that we are looking at a loss of biodiversity that is unprecedented in the last 65 million years... We are clearly entering the (planet's) sixth mass extinction."

Read more here.

Where is the Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper when you need her?

Sorry, My Head is Exploding

Per capita government debt in 2010 in descending order, thank you Irish Times. Big changes in 2011?

I wrote here quite a while ago that I would only touch upon this crazy world of ours and all its ills if I felt my head exploding.

My head is exploding with the confluence of all that is happening. I have many questions. And very few answers.

Why is everyone so shocked that the global economic meltdown is happening?

Did everyone seriously think that this unsustainable way of life would continue forever?

Didn't the serious imbalance of food, water, housing amongst the wealthiest and the poorest (of which there are far, far too many) weigh on those who are so privileged?

Why on earth was the population of the world allowed to explode (and continue to explode) to a completely unsustainable level while the majority of the Woo practitioners and their worshippers condemn birth control and abortion? And allow thousands upon thousands of birthed children to die each and every single day?

When and why did we allow psychopathic corporations to dictate who gets into the highest offices of government and then allow them to pull the puppet strings of their patsies?

How on this tiny planet did one country spend one trillion dollars illegally invading another (not to mention all of the others) and not expect it to come back and haunt them. For generations yet to come.

How can we be so flip as to say “technology will solve everything” whenever the subject of finite oil (peaked and gone in my humble estimation) is mentioned. And people run out and buy these great gas guzzling rigs to get their weekly groceries? Using decades worth of gas and oil that would supply tiny cars like mine for another 50 years if we all drove environmentally responsible vehicles?

Do those in charge (Demz Wot Rulez) not give one single shyte about their own grandchildren?

Whatever happened to making the way we run our little portions of the world smaller – i.e. Locally supplied power, etc., community gardens, etc. Instead we are planning multi-billion dollar hydro developments here in Newfoundland. I won't get into the destruction of tribal lands and environmental degradation this will entail. Mortgaging our great-grandchildren's lives (if they survive) and doubling our utility rates. All this in a province where wind and waves can be harnessed at a fraction of the cost. And locally.

Gaia is beginning to shrug us off like the pesky bunch of fleas we are, is there anything we won't destroy for money?

But, of course, the ICH* will save the repentant and the prayerful, like Rick Perry.

*Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper

Thanks for the Enlightenment, Joey!

With the appalling upsurge in the suicides of TGBLT youth in the states, it is comforting to know that the Catholic Church is opening the arms of understanding, compassion and sympathy as per the doctrine of its Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper channeled through Joey's writing on the topic long before he was a made man.

"To choose someone of the same sex for one's sexual activity is to annul the rich symbolism and meaning, not to mention the goals, of the Creator's sexual design. Homosexual activity is not a complementary union, able to transmit life; and so it thwarts the call to a life of that form of self-giving which the Gospel says is the essence of Christian living. This does not mean that homosexual persons are not often generous and giving of themselves; but when they engage in homosexual activity they confirm within themselves a disordered sexual inclination which is essentially self-indulgent".

"As in every moral disorder, homosexual activity prevents one's own fulfillment and happiness by acting contrary to the creative wisdom of God. The Church, in rejecting erroneous opinions regarding homosexuality, does not limit but rather defends personal freedom and dignity realistically and authentically understood."

To be totally simplistic here:

I love the part about the Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper's Sexual Design. Logic says: If (S)he made TGBLT
naughty bits, surely (S)he would want one to use them?

AND as to "disordered sexual inclination" - personally I would be more inclined to apply that to the paedophiliac proclivities of the RC clergy themselves, wouldn't you?

Have a Question about Religion?

If you have a question about religion, your best bet is to ask an atheist.

According to the Toronto Star atheists are the most well informed about all religions than any religionist.

The survey polled 3,412 Americans who defined themselves in one of nine groups, including atheist/agnostic, Jewish, Mormon, white evangelical Protestant and white mainline Protestant.

The group that garnered the most correct answers on the 32-part questionnaire was atheists and agnostics. As a group, they answered 20.9 questions on the Bible, Christianity, world religions and religion in public life correctly. They were followed by Jews (20.5) and Mormons (20.3).

and

principled non-believers performed so well because they had deeply considered their choice to opt out of organized religion. They also tended to have higher levels of education.

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Amen to all of that, I say.

See other posts on atheism here, here, and here

A Day in the Life of a Solitary Woman

I live alone - well, apart from Ansa - but I am rarely lonely.

Like last night, I came home from the day’s events and find that Leo had filled the woodbox. Not only that - and this is so special - he had laid a fire in the grate, ready for me to put a match to it. We place a lot of value in each other, Leo and me.

Today, I entertain a gentleman caller to lunch. My famous woodstove soup, some lovely smoked salmon and soda bread, a camembert cheese and small salad. He is 89 going on 40. He teaches me a lot and is a considerable and well respected artist in wood.

We enjoy talking to each other. We are both coming from the Church of Reality and are surrounded by the Cult of Christianity where we often dare not speak openly of our beliefs. It is a blessing to talk freely and spontaneously with each other about so many events and changing times without the pall of a mystical Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper hanging over us.

Later on, I moved my laptop out of my office and in front of the fire. Not a good thing, perhaps. No reading, writing (apart from this) or knitting is being done as I play on it in front of the flames, toasty and warm.

Tomorrow I head into town for The First Annual Sparks Literary Festival which promises to be a day overflowing with authors and readings.

I sometimes ask myself, where would I squeeze in a full time relationship in all of this? He'd have to be a very busy man indeed.

The Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper

People ask me about God.

What do you believe?

Do you have a deity?

Are you a lapsed Catholic?

lapsed
 
–adjective
1. expired; voided; terminated: a lapsed insurance policy.
2. no longer committed to or following the tenets of a particular belief, obligation, position, etc.: a lapsed Catholic.

Well, yeah, I guess you could call me that.

Personally, I’d prefer the word “recovered” though, if you don’t mind.

re·cov·er v. tr.

1. To get back; regain.
2. To restore (oneself) to a normal state: He recovered himself after a slip on the ice.
3. To compensate for: She recovered her losses.
4. To procure (usable substances, such as metal) from unusable substances, such as ore or waste.
5. To bring under observation again: "watching the comet since it was first recovered—first spotted since its 1910 visit" (Christian Science Monitor).
v. intr.

1. To regain a normal or usual condition, as of health.
2. To receive a favorable judgment in a lawsuit.

As in: I’m now restored to a normal state.

I’m in fit mental condition.

I believe in logic.

I believe in science.

What’s that you say?
No, I don’t believe in religion.
Yes. Of any kind.
Yeah, it does seem that that’s hard for you to believe.
What’s that about the bible?
It was written for people like me?
By whom?
No, I don’t think God wrote it.
Oh, he dictated it?
How do you know that?
Oh, the bible says so?
Well, that doesn’t compute for me, that logic thing I have. Sorry.

Thanks for asking. But if I did believe in God the whole scene would go like this:

My god has no religion.
My god has no gender.
My god has no agenda.

Basically I don’t believe in an Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper or ICH for short. Especially one who is always whining for more money and the biggest fanciest house in the poorest neighbourhood.

Blasphemy you say?

Well, I’m quite cool with that.

No, really I am.

And another thing I really believe in, you want to hear it?

My rights end exactly where yours begin.

Namaste.