#modern day americans still in church worshipping False idols

[harrelltut]

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Gender roles, witches, demons and Hereditary. A film essay and review.

An opinionated and biased essay ahead, perfectly imperfect. This writer is aware of said bias's and welcomes your ideas respectuflly. Proceed. 

Halfway through his movie, I turned to my husband and said, “I think we might need therapy when this is all over.” I’d like to start with a caveat that we are a household that loves horror movies. In my opinion, horror is an under-appreciated genre. I'm not talking about franchise horror films, of which we are not a fan, with the exception of Insidious. I'm talking, The Shining, Blair Witch Project, Suspiria, Mommy, Let The Right One In, Babbadook. Classic horror tales and the like. Greek tragedies, even Shakespear. I have a lot to say about this one. So fair warning, this essay is long. 

A QUICK BACKGROUND

I grew up reading Steven King, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelly, Edgar Allen Poe, Anne Rice and Mark Danielewski. I would argue that even my favorite fantasy and science fiction writers like Tolkien and George R.R. Martin borrow from the horror genre. 

What solidified my interest in horror was actually a class in Chinese and Japanese cinema and art history. I enjoyed studying the nuances of the culture through the stories they told. Most of which were ghost stories. Ancestral worship is part of their culture. When visiting someones home, you might find a shrine to their passed loved ones. Ghosts are a normal, everyday part of their spiritual life. So too are their ghost stories. 

This connection to the dead is apparent in many cultures. The Celtic festival of Samhain, The Buddhist Obon, Dia De Los Muertos, Chuseok in Korea and Gai Jatra in Nepal. All have ceremonies and celebrations that honor ancestral spirits. Essentially, the ghosts of your family. I joke that even the Bible is one long ghost story. Full of death, rebirth, angels, demons, spirits, voices and apocalyptic visions. But where eastern religions and ancient cultures differ is around the premise of fear. Specifically spirits.

Take, for instance, the Buddhist Obon and Del Dia De Los Muertos. Celebrations designed to honor the people who came before you. Essentially, one envokes the spirits of your ancestors come back to visit the living. One would light lanterns or lay a path of flowers to guide those spirits back to earth for the celebration. You are literally inviting ghosts to come and have dinner with you. These rituals are not fear based spiritual practices. You will find no children running away in horror from the ghosts of great granddad. They are beautiful rituals full of dancing, prayer, and community.  

I grew up going to Church for a large part of my life, so my religious experiences of adolescence are based on my experiences with the Chrisitan church. Here notes my personal bias. I have no such memories of honoring my ancestors in a such a way from the Church. In fact, anything involving something seance-like would have been viewed as the devil. The dead are mourned in quiet reverence but one must be careful in creating any false idols. The only ghost that is ok to envoke, is the holy ghost. It's still very old testement thinking when it comes to this one. 

I have a vivid memory of sitting on a picnic bench at Jesus camp, 13 years old, sobbing uncontrollably. I just listened to a fiery sermon about hell and I was truly conflicted. I was already "saved," having said the prayer and done the ritual at 8 years old. But my father was not. He was an atheist. I didn't want him to go to hell. I was terrified and felt guilty. My counselor at the time kept pressing me to call him. She wanted me to "get him saved," right now. 

As an adult, I see how flawed that moment was. I did not call my father that night. I couldn't understand how my Christian peers thought less of me for doing so. I thought for sure that God would understand my compassion. My father and I had already discussed his feelings. He always respected my right to choose a religion, and I liked that, so I respected his. But that is not how I was treated by members of the Church. Needless to say, my relationship with the Church ended shortly thereafter and became an agnostic in my adult life. 

I could give many instances of examples of why I feel that Christianity is a fear based religion, but I am not defending that point for this essay. Let's assume that it is. 

I think it's interesting that our writer for Hereditary uses Goetia as it's religious influence. Goetia, an ancient Greek word that literally means sorcerer, get's its roots from the 16th century. Later, during the Renaissance, it became dubbed "black magic." The backdrop for the ending of the film and it's 17th-century Greek influence, we will explore later. But culturally, I think it's worth looking at this film through an American lens, of which, most of the population is Christian, making the comparisons I make relevant. Hereditary is an American film, written by an American writer. So I don't think he is trying to say anything specific about religion, other than to use it as a horror construct. This writer is obviously aware of his audience and is using that within his film. 

We like horror films about evil, possession and ghosts almost as much as we like superhero movies. That classic good versus evil fight. We love it when the lines are drawn in the sand and the tension is clear. We don't get that kind of clarity in life. In fact, life is made up of many unknowns and gray areas. Those two, a cause of our fear and anxiety. 

Hereditary doesn't put this idea front and center. Which is why I love it. The supernatural takes a back seat up until the second act. It dives headfirst into the gray areas to establish our characters and keeps us in the deepend with our worst fears. 

ABOUT HEREDITARY - NON-SPOILER REVIEW

Hereditary is brilliantly written and performed. If I were awarding Oscars, I would give one to the writer and one to the lead actress. The writing and specifically her performance is award worthy. It is visually stunning and draws from some of the best ancient storytelling techniques of the ages. Its greek tragedy influence is what makes the whole story so strong. The best moments are the long takes, the timing of the edit, the absence of music and truly breathless performances. 

But I would argue that the best thing about Hereditary is what it doesn’t explicitly say. Like a Greek Tragedy, it’s about the things that take place in-between the lines that make it so terrifying. It’s a spiritual horror film that speaks to our fears of inheriting the tragedies and traits of our ancestors. It’s about secrets between parents and children. Grief and it’s emotional manifestations. How tragedy can transform a person. It’s about the unspeakable terror that leads to more questions than answers. If you are looking for a nice bow-tie ending, you won’t get it. You are more likely to walk away going, “huh?” I loved the ending, but I think it will turn a lot of people off. It’s not what you are used to these days. 

The best thing about the movie, in my opinion, is about women, spirituality, possession, and emotion. Which leads us to the essay below. I won’t be diving into Greek Tragedy or deconstruction of its uses in horror films. That’s for another day. I think it’s been widely documented in reviews thus far. I’d like to take a look at Gender, Christianity, Religion and how this film plays with those larger social constructs. 

GENDER ROLES IN HORROR FILMS 

Gender roles in horror films are one of my favorite things to pick apart culturally. If you want to dive in more, this is an excellent place to start. Women in horror films have a long history of being gas-lighted by the male characters they interact within the plot. They are scorned with male “logic,” that the things they are experiencing aren’t real. Usually, they are tortured, shallow characters that look pretty and scream on cue. Often viewed as “crazy,” and spend most of the plot running from danger. This isn't always the case, there are a few standouts. But for the most part, I think the above is true. Women are either victims or "witches," in the majority of horror films. I also think it's interesting how we treat women who are having spiritual experiences. In our stories, we are uncomfortable with female emotion. Therefore, if someone is having an extremely emotional experience, we are likely to view them as scary.

We are at our roots a Puritan nation. One whose fear of “the devil,” allowed us to pillage “savage Indians,” in the name of that fear. Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries persecuted thousands of witches. Whole villages of Swiss women were wiped out in the hysteria.

In America, we have the Salem witch trials. 

I recently got to visit Salem Massachusetts. I read this fantastic book before I went called, “A Delusion Of Satan, The full story of the Salem witch trials.” Which outlines in more context the conditions and beliefs that lead to the "witch hysteria.” Today, those Puritans have received their Karma. Salem is a joke. It’s become a tourist Halloween town. Complete with haunted houses, tarot readers, and hippie spiritualists. The “devil,” they so fought to destroy has won. I laughed thinking about the righteous judges jumping through time to see children running around in witch costumes pretending to put spells on each other in their beloved village.  

The story of Salem became a cautionary tale of the dangers of religious belief. But the book attempts to take it one step further in outlining the gender roles of women, power dynamics between men and women and femininity, creativity and inspiration. Unlike the modern telling of the story like “The Crucible,” the book deliciously researches connections from historical records. The trials were meticulously documented. Which may be why the story has been passed down to new generations and became taught in schools. But the book makes some connections for me that my 5th-grade classroom reading of The Crucible didn’t. 

Life was hard as a puritan and men made all the rules. Imagination was stifled among children. Art was functional. Creativity was not encouraged, survival was. Sexuality was almost exclusively prohibited as a sin of the flesh with the exception of procreation. Pleasure was not allowed. Expression among women was silenced. These are all feminine values. Women who express extreme emotion are “crazy,” while men who express themselves in extreme ways are “passionate.” Soon “crazy,” became “a witch.” Any outburst of extreme emotion and a woman could be accused of being possessed by the devil. Witch hunting thus became inherently female and while anyone a could be accused of being a witch, most of the persecution was of women. 

As a little girl, I played a lot in an imaginative space. I experimented with all kinds of storytelling and play acting. As a teenager, I was emotional and dramatic. I guarantee if I had been observed by a Puritan priest, they would have convinced the town that I was possessed. I think most artists would have been accused of witchcraft in that era.

These tropes still exist today. We still silence women. We write stories where they are silenced by others. In a large majority of our horror films, women are either the victims or for lack of a better term, "witches." As time moved on, we stopped persecuting witches and started locking women up in asylums for misbehaving.  Thus replacing "witch," with "crazy."

I’m sure at some point, we have all thought our mothers to be “crazy,” through this lens too. Extreme imaginative outbursts or expressions of emotion are squashed in our society. We can barely handle a crying baby on an airplane let alone a woman who cries in public. 

And here marks the line of spoilers people. If you wish to continue, do so at your own risk. I am about to talk about the details of the story. 

GENDER, DEMONS AND WITCHES IN HEREDITARY

 Hereditary begins with our main character, Annie, in the midst of working on her art. She creates model dioramas. It is implied as the story chugs along that these dioramas are her emotional outlet. This is how she processes grief, anger, and fear. The tension between imagination, memory, and reality play nicely here. Why in the world would someone make a miniaturized model of the death of her mother? 

I enjoyed the duality of the models with life. The idea that I could take memories and tragedies out of my head and examine them as real-life objects. To see if I could make sense of them, process them differently. This process apears painstaking in the film. The details are fussed over, out main character possessed with the idea of recreation. A rebirth of her pain. Nicely done. 

Next, we meet Charlie. Charlie is different. She makes you uncomfortable but we trust her slightly more because we assume it’s a mental disorder. The play on gender here is masterfully done. Our young actress is phenomenal but I question the casting choice. We love to put our humanly different in horror films and this borders exploitation for me. It's akin to pointing at her and calling her "freak." I get that we are establishing a long line of mental health issues for our characters, so I'll leave this one be. But do better next time. 

Next, the shocking tragedy that propels our characters into some of the best moments of the film. Personally, I did not see that one coming. The car accident begins our true emotional terror. 

Annie experiences real grief for the first time in the loss of her daughter. She was relieved when her own mother died, having been released from the burden of that relationship only to be thrust forward into the guilt of playing a part in her own daughter's death. Grief is not handled lightly here. Our main character moves through hysteric fits. She retreats. She creates twisted dioramas of the accident. All the while her husband grows more and more suspicious of her behavior. Her husband literally acts as men have throughout history. Questioning the intensity of her emotions and wondering if he should send her away. If we are sticking with our horror metaphors, Annie is possessed by grief. 

My favorite scene to illustrate this concept is at the dinner table. Tensions mount in the household to an emotional breaking point. Our male characters confront our female lead and claim that she isn’t being truthful about her feelings. They invite her to express herself. 

She does. This eruption is the best scene in the film. Rarely do we get to experience female emotional flow on the screen. The sight of a woman in full emotional and visual expression makes our male characters physically retreat from the scene. The very thing they invited her to express is the very thing they can not handle and rather than applaud her completion of this expression, they squash it. The men refuse to join her and instead they persecute her almost as if saying, "burn the witch.’ The refreshing length of the shot and the stellar performance by the actress is noteworthy. They do not shy away from the complexities of extreme emotions. 

I think all of us are afraid that if we let go on some level, what comes forth would be bad. Tapping into our emotional flow is scary. So scary that as a society we can’t handle people doing it in front of us. We tell each other, “don’t cry,” when comforting one another. We tell our men, “crying isn’t manly.” And when we see our lead actress express herself on screen, we too as an audience are scared. We question her sanity, if only for a moment. Can we pause for a moment to admire the cinematography choice here? It's like an 18th century painting. 

I mean, look at that still shot above. Gorgeous terrifying women in full power feeling herself fully. Just hand Tonni Collect the Oscar, please. This scene is fucking amazing. I applauded Annie's capacity to let go and laughed when the men wouldn't join her. Granted, it has taken me a long time to be ok with my own extremities of emotions but now that I am, I was praising this goddess on screen. I honestly can't think of another on screen performance that accomplishes this as well as Hereditary does. 

Emotoins escalate as the film begins introducing the supernatural to the plot. Annie, meets with a new friend in her grief group, this friend conducts a saence to bring back the spirit of her grandchild. It seems to work and despite her reservations, she tries it. This triggers the climax of our film and leads to its ultimate resolution after discovering that her mother had a secret spiritual life. Spirituality “literally," kept in a box and hidden away until the very end of the film. I think spirituality is what our writer wants you to infer as the "hereditary trait." It’s the thing that our lead character doesn’t want to inherit from her mother. Her secret life. Her mental illness. Her spirituality. One might even say, she demonizes her mother. 😉 

 CHARLIE

The gender play with Charlie is also worth noting. At the conclusion of the film, we learn that Charlie is a male demon reincarnated into a female body. His name is Paimon. His rencarnation into Charlie was a mistake, as we learn at the conclusion of the film. The whole film is a plot to correct this mistake. Charlie referenced as she presents more like a tomboy with an androgynous name. While women are often “Witches,” in our scary stories so to men are painted as “Demons.” 

I always wondered why this trope existed in our storytelling. Sometimes I think it's about dominance and submission, Witches serve Demons. Men subservient to women. Demons are usually powerful creatures in our stories. Females are usually the victims of demon possession, either used for literal possession or for impregnation. But it wasn’t always that way. 

In the pre-Christian era, demons were both male and female. Much like the ancient polytheistic religions that had many gods and goddesses, so too was the gender spectrum of demons. It’s Christianity that spun the gender roles and made them sexless. Technically, Christian demons are fallen angels, as referenced in the Bible. They are sexless beings whose purpose is to test human beings on their faith in God and lead them to sin. 

 "For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. 14. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 15. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.” —2 Corinthians 11:13–15

 I always wondered, why then do we paint demons as masculine throughout history? See that winged creature demon up there - - - what sex do you infer when observing it? For context, the above painting is Dante and Virgil in Hell - William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1850. It’s a scene from Dante’s inferno, in which there are several biblical references used to describe the journey into hell. This painting is terrifying in person btw. It’s the size of a billboard and you can see the demons eyes staring at you from all angles. Notice the color palet and the lighting on the main figures in the foregroud. Remind you of any shot from before? 

Back to Hereditary … 

Why does Paimon need a male body? Why is he unhappy in a female body? Paimon is supposed to be a Prince not a Princess. If you don’t know who Paimon is … you aren’t alone. I had to look it up too. He’s one of the kings of hell with Goetic orgins, also referenced in Persian and Iranian stories. The “King," denotes man right? 

Paimon is referenced in a demonology spell book called Lesser Key Of Solomon. Therein lists 72 demons of which, one is Paimon. Each demon has a symbol, which was a clue in the film. Annie wears one around her neck. Guess she should have googled the symbol before wearing it. 

 So essencially our demon "man-king," is pissed because he was born a woman and his followers work to correct the issue. Wow. Talk about some gender issues right? The wiki page for Paimon also gives us a hint at a sequel btw… go read it if you like.

SO have you made it this far? 

If you have, cheers to you. Welcome to my geekery. I spent a lot of money on my education in art history, English and film critique. Literally wrote a paper a day for 4 years. I’m still paying off the bill. Blogs are more refreshing though, I don’t have to worry about being perfect or getting graded. I can just share my passion for picking apart social and cultural references in storytelling. 

That said, if Hereditary made me spawn a long essay like this, imagine what it might do for you. I will warn you, my husband is still having nightmares from the visuals. Which I didn’t even get a chance to geek out about here. That said, I do think that our tales of horror are the most interesting things to look at in society. Our relationship to fear or lack thereof is still taboo. Last year marked the first time a horror film was nominated for an Oscar, and I think to Get Out was nominated more for its cultural relevance and discussion of race in our time. I’d love to see more from this writer. I was seriously impressed. It’s well researched and smart with an excellent understanding of pace and emotional landscapes. 

So just like our movie, here ends my essay. I’m not going to neatly tie this up.

What did you think of the film? 

[extroversive-introvert]

your antichrist is orange.

What passes for a sorry excuse of “Christianity” in American evangelicalism today is just repackaged folk religion baptising the gods of whiteness, war, wealth, and fertility masquerading as “Christlikeness”. They’ve deified guns, politicised pandemics, with fear as the hypodermic needle where groupthink masses are hopelessly addicted. This folk religion of America is free and easy to follow, because the only sacrifice that's demanded from it is the body of the “undesirables” different from you, and not your own or your kind. 'Lay down your neighbour's life, that you may keep your rights and amendments at any and all costs. What a fucking 'bargain'!

Moreover, the sacrifice of our neighbour is done in the name of liberty, freedom, and 'God-given' individual rights. Baseline human rights are not up for partisan debate. Jesus isn't Lord in America; He's relegated to a genie mascot blasphemed by zealous charlatans and heretics to reality itself who misrepresent His holy name. This is not new. This is the same genocidal route the KKK, Nazi Germany, and the Crusaders went down. It's the manner in which America has viewed 'their' lands since Columbus first massacred and raped the Indigenous Americans in 1492, and since the Pilgrims of the Mayflower first colonised it in 1620.

Au contraire to the white-supremacist-in-chief, the press is not the 'enemy of the people'. The people themselves are their own enemies; willingly choosing fear over love, self-protection over self-sacrifice, "rights" over bodies, valuing the worth of their semi-automatic over the life of another human being. History for centuries has proven time and again that violence begets more violence, and that pragmatism is a false religion that exalts itself against the worship of the God who raised Israel up out of Egypt and Jesus up out of the grave.

“#ThoughtsAndPrayers”

We are so given over and desensitised to a depraved collective hive-mind now that shootings now don’t even provoke robust conversation about guns and the Second Amendment now. The most we ever get or give is a nonchalant shrug with an “it is what it is” or sociopathic “that’s sad”. Or worse still, a lackadaisical "thoughts and prayers". It's gone from phrase of sincere condolence to hackneyed cynical meme which is funny, but not in a "lol" way. It’s acerbic political commentary that exposes the hollowness of that sentiment when it's paired with legislative indifference and netizen slacktivism in both civilian and political contexts. This deafeningly silent complicity becomes collateral damage that only serves to exacerbate the issue that our insatiable bloodthirsty is greater than our value for the sacredness of human life. In other words, we hate Others more than we love guns.

The Blood Sacrifice of our Future

After the cobblestones of Sandy Hook Elementary ran red with the blood of twenty 6-and-7-year-olds, America said "never again". Over two thousand more mass shootings have happened since the eight years of that incident. Politicians are frequently taken to task and to town for tweeting their "thoughts and prayers" because of their relational and financial ties to pro-gun lobbyists like the NRA that demand the blood sacrifice of our children on the altar of their 5.56 caliber automatic rifles. The media does jack shit to alleviate this problem; specifically in their double standard hypocrisy of acknowledging reality with their "thoughts and prayers" while continuing to market entertainment that glorifies/romanticises/glamorises/deifies gun violence. And we eat that shit up to attenuate the conniving guilt of our inaction so that when we tweet our "thoughts and prayers", it's almost reflexive because we've engrafted it into our systemic addiction to social media narcissism. How many more bodies of children and youth must America gleefully sacrifice on the altar to appease, mollycoddle, and caress this bloodthirsty god of guns? These are idols made by human hands to save us from the Other, when all we really need is saving from ourselves.

Jesus is a Middle-Eastern refugee.

Furthermore, what national rhetoric consumes America's consciousness in the last four years? “Invasion” from “undesirable” Middle Eastern refugees. You know who else was a Middle Eastern refugee? You guessed it, Jesus Christ Himself. Born in geographic Mediterranean, present-day Middle East. Fled from Herod to Egypt, not Sweden or Britain. Modern-day evangelicalism likes to whitewash and sanitise their depictions of Jesus. Historians agree that Jesus had olive skin, which falls closer to black than white on the Fitzpatrick scale of tone colour. This means Christ’s skin contains more melanin than we’d like to admit.

Non-irrational fear of Mexicans and Muslims in the Middle East are based on craven lies peddled by self-proclaimed watchdogs who poison the populace with their fearmongering. Mass violence is mostly perpetrated by radicalised white men in America with legally purchased fire-arms. That’s the truth we are afraid to tell.

Flawless “Logic”

Instead, sure, let’s spend millions sending troops to the "liquefied" border to protect us from fragile dirt-poor seeking asylum, and sit idly by while another synagogue, church, school, nightclub, or bar becomes a bloodbath, riddled with lead bullets and limbs and guts are shot to hell and sprayed against the walls. Clearly the danger is “out there,” not “in here.” It’s a demonic mass delusion.

The worship of Jesus is mutually exclusive of a racist, misogynistic, xenophobic folk religion that exploits the poor, rapes creation, and bows at the barrel of a gun rather than the foot of the cross.

[asinineapotheosis]

Modern Christian Idolatry

Religious Rant incoming:

*TLDR* - I have observed that Popular Christian America while certainly hypocritical is really more self-servingly idolatrous and Jesus would probably quote Matthew 7:21-23 if confronted by them.

Note: I don't make any comments on how to solve this, these are just observations.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So, I was having a discussion with an online friend the other day about church experiences. Now, for a little background, I was practically raised in a church, by the church, and with the hopes of one day serving in a church role. I've spent a long time studying and observing and I've been to ALOT of churches and spoken a great many people with wildly different theological ideas. What I'm saying is, I've seen a lot of this and much of it comes as no revelation or surprise to me (and I'm sure not to many of you as well) and while I'm no longer religious, being that I'm an Atheist, my online friend is so these observation they made were somewhat upsetting to them.

They start by recounting an experience with their mom. I'll just post their quote:

"Today in church my pastor said in the sermon that Jesus told us to help the poor, and taking money away from public schools to give to charter schools only widens the gap between the rich and the poor. The pastor then added that Jesus spoke against adultery and lust and would not have approved of bragging about sexually assaulting women. According to my mom, people actually got up and walked out."

They then later say:

"The pastor also started the sermon by noting that they'd heard of another minister who read the entirety of the Sermon on the Mount at the pulpit word for word, only to be told by the so-called Christian parishioners after the service that it was offensive and they didn’t agree."

For those of you that don't know, the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus' own words. Reading it verbatim leaves very little room for opinion or interpretation. It's not exactly something you can just "disagree" with and still call yourself a Christian. Or maybe that's just my opinion.

Now again, this comes as no surprise to me in any way and again I'm certain that many of you have witnessed or experienced hypocrisy in church. But that's not what I want to talk about. Instead, I would argue that it is more than mere hypocrisy. I would argue that it's a matter of Mass Idolatry.

What a lot of these people are is idolators.

Not in terms of the realness or unrealness of who or what they worship, but more in terms of how they’ve warped their focus away from the reality and turned it towards a fantasy of their own construction.

Let me define my terms here. When I say "idol" I mean a concept or image with no god behind it.

So, in essence, what they have done is taken the idea of Jesus and created a false image of him, which is very much unlike the Jesus portrayed in the Bible. And they carry this Pseudo-Jesus around in their back pocket, or wave around on signs, and pull out it and shove in people’s faces to justify all manner of unChristlike behavior.

It is a form of “worship” that is fundamentally self-centered rather than deity-centered, wherein the deity in question is more of a pocketbook get-out-of-jail-free card than a typical directive to live by, and more of a status symbol than a guiding force.

It amazes me that people will, without a shred of self-awareness, rest themselves assured that Jesus would want them to tip their waitress with a Jesus pamphlet made to look like folded-up money (to take only one example out of many). Is that not the ultimate dismissal of everything the original stood for? I know many of you have seen and interacted with these sorts of people, in fact I know some of you unfortunately are these people.

Where Jesus says "If any one of you is without sin, let him cast the first stone" they will say "God Hats Fags".

Where Jesus says "All who draw the sword will die by the sword" they say "Slay ye every one of them, and God shall sort them out."

Where Jesus says "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto God what is God's" they will fight against the separation of church and state.

Where Jesus says "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." they will say "Sow your seed of $58 and the Lord will multiply your blessings."

Where God says "Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." and where Jesus says "For I was an hungry, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in" they will vehemently oppose the taking in of refuges.

A great number of churches and organizations throughout America that call themselves "Christian churches" are more like "Christianist Cults". In addition to the usual nonsense of so-called Christians being pro-war, anti-immigrant, racist, and so forth, there are a lot of sects/movements that are just completely toxic and not Christian at all, even though they use that label. Again, I may be relatively young but I've been in this game for a while and if you are Christian and want to have some nightmares, Google “Christian Dominionist,” or “Prosperity Gospel.”

There is a line in the Bible (several really) where Jesus meets his false worshipers and says “I never knew you”. It seems like plenty of so-called Christians have beaten him to the punch with how quick they are to say they don’t know him.

I find it funny, as a final observation, that Popular American Christianity is, at this point, like the Cult of the Emperor in ancient Rome. Which is simultaneously both ironic and appropriate given the history involved.

Sorry, for the length of this all and if it seemed a bit preachy. To be fair, it is something I trained to do for a while. Anywho, thanks for your time and I hope you all have a good one.

[apprenticebard]

I'm not a particularly big fan of many of our other national landmarks, but I think the SOL is by far the most egregious example. I'm disinclined to say that depicting pagan deities is inherently wrong; the trouble comes from granting them importance. So when you depict a pagan deity, you need to be careful not to vault over the line from "retelling ancient stories" to "identifying with a false god and making it synonymous with your nation". The SOL was actually created to do the latter.

Hm. So the difficulty comes when we grant pagan deities symbolic importance, even if we don’t “worship” them. I don’t think I agree that that’s necessarily a sin, but it strikes me as the sort of thing that reasonable people can disagree about, and I grant that using pagan deities as national symbols is the sort of thing that could certainly lead to trouble.

I suppose I have to admit that if I didn’t have any sentimental attachment to the statue (and the poem), building a giant statue of a Roman goddess and making it a symbol of the country would seem like a bad idea.

God is the only one who creates things ex nihilo, so all sin is only a corrupted form of something God created to be good. Much sin or perhaps all of it can be defined as putting something before God. It is good to be endlessly forgiving of your spouse, but it’s bad to “stand with your spouse right or wrong”, because God is the right thing, and doing the right thing should come before your spouse, or before anything else; it’s the same way with patriotism.            

There is both figurative and literal idolatry. Many Christians believe that idolatry is what I’ve described, putting something else before God, but that’s only figurative idolatry. Literal idolatry is something we’ve forgotten, blocked out of our minds, even though it’s obvious - the creation and worship of an inanimate deity intended to represent what we put before God. We’re all figurative idolators, ie, sinners, but America does both in parallel; this is certainly and harshly condemned.            

Hm. We’ve established that neither of us has an “America, right or wrong” attitude, so we haven’t actually put our country before our moral system (which I would hope, in our case, is founded on our understanding of the will of God). I suppose my specific objections here are 1) I think you’re exaggerating the importance that people place on the SOL, and 2) I don’t see how people “worship” it, even as a lesser deity than God. As I said, I like the Statue of Liberty (….I will admit that I liked her more before I realized she was meant to be a Roman goddess, but I still love that poem). I probably like her more than the average American, but I’d say that the way I interact with God and the way I think of the Statue of Liberty are very clearly different. I don’t think of the statue as an entity that can do anything for me, I don’t ask it for help, I don’t tell it how great it is, I don’t often tell other people how great it is, and I’m not trying to please it or do what it wants. I don’t think of the statue as having a will. It doesn’t even represent something that has a will, except insofar as it represents America. I guess America has about 300 million wills.

The point is, I care more about my mom and my friends and my job and the novel I’m writing than I do about the SOL. I don’t see why caring about the SOL should be idolatry if those other things aren’t, even if the statue is meant to depict a deity.

I think that in the foundational documents of our country, you can find a truly good ideal of liberty, something that’s fundamentally true and consequently is Godly wisdom. But the SOL is a physical manifestation of our twisting that ideal and putting it before God; as long as it stands, we can know that we are fundamentally on the wrong path. One could see it as a message from God through sin that we have made a terrible mistake.            

I will admit that I don’t know enough about what went into the creation of the SOL in order to agree with or dispute the idea that it’s celebrating something different than the right referenced in the Declaration of Independence.

I only partly intended the abortion connection as evidence that the SOL is an idol; rather, my primary intent was to demonstrate that if you accept a Biblically-informed view of the nature and consequences of idols, the otherwise-inexplicable sudden-onset insanity of the sexual revolution, legal abortion, and abortion culture all suddenly make sense: that’s just what idols do; that’s a common historical symptom of idolatry, that’s why idols are bad, all kinds of sin are done in their name.            

I don’t think the sexual revolution or abortion came out of nowhere, and I think it would be very weird if the consequences of the idol didn’t occur until almost a hundred years after its design. Everyone involved in the SOL’s creation was already dead by 1970! Why should the consequences hit us that decade?

As I said, I don’t think all of the sin the US has committed is a result of the SOL; that’s obviously, trivially false.  I mostly think that it’s a dark beacon of our sin, that it’s such a stupidly blatant sin that of course we’d be cursed by God to commit worse sins than the ones whose cessation we were celebrating, and that in the unlikely event that we get wise to it and tear it down, our national lifespan would increase as a natural result.            

I don’t know that God curses people to commit sins. (I know the verses in exodus where God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart”, but that’s the only relevant example I can think of.)

I’m glad you acknowledge that plenty of awful things happened before the Statue of Liberty was erected.

And most of all, when I realized how the SOL is the exact sort of thing the Bible most harshly condemns, that induced the realization that a depressingly low number of people historically have been as spiritually observant as they’d said.  If we’ve really gotten so much less religious in the past century and a half, how on Earth did an ostensibly very Christian nation allow a new pagan idol to become one of its chief symbols?            

Oh yeah, I definitely agree with this assertion. We were never as Christian as the right-wing Christian patriots want to believe we were. If anything, I think the way that I was taught American history as a child comes closer to idolatry than anything I was taught about the Statue of Liberty. We were told we were a chosen people, a new Israel, the greatest country in the world, and that we’d taken the lands of the Native Americans and broken all our promises to them because God had “blessed us with expansion”. If that’s not the sin of pride, what is?

A lot of our Christian heritage was a skin-deep cultural thing, I think. That’s not to say that the Puritans in Massachusetts or the Quakers in Pennsylvania or the Catholics in Maryland weren’t sincere in their belief–certainly it takes sincere belief to risk your life for the sake of being allowed to worship freely. It’s just that in any culture where a certain religion is expected, people will go through the motions for the sake of their neighbors, not for God. Just as giving the Church earthly power leads to people claiming faith to gain power, giving the Church social power leads to people claiming faith to avoid ostracism. These aren’t mechanisms that lead people to genuine faith very effectively.

I agree with you on the cosmic insignificance of America; in fact, though I desperately want to save it, I don’t believe it’s going to happen, and I currently hope to move out sometime in my lifetime - I just worry I’ll put it off too long.

I don’t know what’s going to happen. Nobody down here does, I don’t think. But that’s OK; I know the important things, and there’s plenty of work left to be done down here, for as long as God gives us to do it. I’m not looking for opportunities to leave–I think I can help more people by working here than I could if I worked anywhere else.

I hope things go well for you.

I also agree with you about the corruptibility of combined spiritual and political power - though that’s the primary reason I’m not a Catholic! (I’m not one of the types who thinks Catholics aren’t saved or that they’re the final boss, though.)  

I like to think we’ve learned a bit since the middle ages. The modern Church doesn’t hold anything close to the level of political power it once did, and I think that’s for the best.

In any case, I’m glad to hear you count us as part of the faithful. It’s a bit of a relief; I’ve spent too much time with protestants whose first association with idolatry is “you know, those Catholics make wood carvings of Mary sometimes.”

I’m glad that you’re intrigued by my position; it’s been very pleasant interacting with you, and I hope to do so more in the future, though I’ll be very busy for the next few days.  I’m also a writer; I wish you good luck in those endeavors.  :)  Praise God. +            

I’m glad you’ve found it pleasant! I love interacting with people who believe things I’ve never heard of, especially if they have reasons to back them up. I used to get a lot of that from the Catholic forums I’d visit (for a group with more official teachings than perhaps any of the Protestant sects, faithful Catholics hold a very wide range of opinions when it comes to specific questions that fall outside those official teachings), but I haven’t had the energy to read those threads lately. So this has been nice, and I want to thank you for sharing your perspective with me.

Best of luck to you, too.

[thewalkingchurch]

Prophecy Still Happens

The fact is that we can sit here all day long and show images of the decay or the prosperity of a nation, this behavior is called confirmation bias where people seek out evidence to support their beliefs; if you believe that Africa is a shithole, then you will find evidence to support that Africa is a shithole. Putting your opinions into the meme format doesn't render them true, and half truth is still deception; I could just as easily post a meme of photos of the urban decay of America and claim it is a shithole country, and it would be partially true; rude and inconsiderate, but true. I'm sure that people will take things out of context, intentionally misunderstand, and such as they discuss how wrong they think I am; most of them won't do it here, as they already know they won't win their arguments based in false perception and understanding against me. Earlier tonight I attempted to educated a misguided and very self righteous friend in Africa about his error in judgement, as well as about his own country and it's people; he was talking about what Trump said about Africa is true, then began putting down Africans for not standing up to their corrupt leaders. He apparently didn't realize why Africans have such an independent and strong will, that they have overthrown corrupt government after corrupt government, only to have that government become corrupt as well; such is the power and influence of wealthier corrupt nations, that because of the theft of resources and forced slave labor, utilizing paid Africans to enslave poor Africans, they have had to learn how to survive without the help of governments, gangs, militants, thugs, or even the wild predators of the actual jungle where they may reside; why do you think the "Negro" slaves of the colonial United States were so difficult to "break" in their strong willed pride, even with nothing but a name? Especially if they came from one of the British slave trade colonies that still exist and do trade to this very day in Africa, because those slaves knew it was the influence of the rich white man that their brothers were selling their brothers and sisters; are you getting how deeply embedded this programming is yet, they knew that these wealthy nations they were being shipped off to were exploiting their resources, and they understood they were one of the resources. This was not the first time I have had to correct this brother's behaviors or words, and he constantly argued against everything I said and even inferred I was evil several times; yet we remained friends, and my unfriending him had nothing to do with this participial incident, it had to do with his chronic behaviors and constant denial of any wrong doing whatsoever. He chose to berate me, challenging my understanding of Africa and African culture, not knowing that I was standing in solidarity with South Africa during Apartheid in the 1990's; he wasn't even born yet, nor did he seem to bother going through my friend list and filtering my friends that live all over Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. I actually pay attention to my brothers and sisters on the continent which contains the Garden of Eden, I think I have a pretty good understanding of the modern everyday life in the constantly developing infrastructure of Africa, much less life further out in the country of Africa, in many nations of Africa; I also read and share many articles about the developing African nations, recently the west African nations are discussing banning or have banned used clothes from America, it seems that those Goodwill donated clothes that aren't fit for the American consumer is just fine for the African consumer. There are many African companies, industries, and technologies developing all the time, as the African people are choosing to take their independence to a state level and investing in one another; there have been many American rappers returning to invest in Africa over and over again, how do you think 50 Cent went bankrupt? There are people all over the world, especially China, investing heavily in the future of Africa; being ignorant or in denial of these facts while laying the blame and guilt trip on your fellow Africans is not cool brother, while there may be some truth to what you and Trump had to say, partial truth is still deception. The plight of the African people is not because of their lack of standing up to corruption, it is losing faith that the next won't just replace the last corrupt leader; they have been paid to enslave their own neighbors by those nations you are applauding for "speaking the truth" with deception on their lips, if Africa were fairly compensated for the resources stolen from all of the nations for generations, the African people would be drenched in gold and worshiped like gods. Africa has the potential to be the greatest Unified Nations in the world, the power and resources there is why civilization rose from the Nile valley; research Michael Tellinger and you can learn all kinds of wonderful things about the hidden ancient (modern) culture and understanding of the ancient Africans, it is a wonderful revelation which even many Africans are unfamiliar with, but in some remote locations still utilize. I do plan to travel the world before I pass into the cycle and am born again, and I do plan to be born again; the suffering is well worth the experience, and I really don't get to get out of my home dimension very often, it is like an extended vacation here in this life. I have repeatedly told this brother that I am a messenger of the revelation, of which he denied and argued against me, offering to pray for my "lost soul" and I must pause to laugh out loud; if he only knew my true Spiritual form, he would bow and want to revere me as someone special, not realizing we are all special and unique while being the same. You cannot win every soul and you cannot force the blind to see, it is like the horse which is put out to pasture and refuses to eat or drink, no matter what you provide it is never enough to those who desire to starve themselves to death; absolute truth is called so because it is an absolute constant, it cannot be proven wrong, it stands on its own merit, the only argument which defeats it is ignorant denial. How can I say this any more plainly, my desire is for hypocrites to take the name of Jesus off their tongue and stop calling themselves Christians; they are giving my spiritual beliefs and teachings a bad name, a house divided against itself cannot stand. The divisions of the ministry of Christ are the foretold prophecy of the divided church, the literal division is called denominations, and their faith is a Roman abomination unto God; the Beast is the nation of the United States, the Eagle which comes from the West, what is it that your wolves in sheep's clothing have been telling you about the signs and prophecies? Did everything happen as they said it would, or were they wrong in their predictions and assumptions; they use beautiful imagery for such blind fools, standing in their stadiums, casting their guilt trips, passing their offering where you render unto them, praying to a ceiling, worshiping idols, vicariously indulging in sinful and carnal desires if not actually indulging; screaming how you are forgiven but no one outside of your denomination/church, and even some that are, are not forgiven.   Did they explain to you that you are a part of the One World Religion, that your main purpose is to spread the Good News about the authoritative and unquestionable WORD of the LORD and convert all non-believers into their version of what a Christian should be; or that the Holy Bible was commissioned by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th Century AD (after the crucifixion and resurrection of the Christo) as Rome's adaptation of Christianity (their enemies of the state which had caused a decline in tribute and temple attendance) into their culture; which was something they already did with the cultural histories after they conquered a nation, and even ordered the destruction after demonizing the original order of Christianity (who had come out of hiding and surrendered their texts in good faith) and ordering all roots of the Gnostic Christian Fellowship of Brotherhood destroyed? Did you know that your religion is rooted in the blood of saints, that what you are taught from is considered to be the greatest weapon of mass control ever conceived; the greatest trick the Evil One ever pulled was convincing the world the he was their personal LORD and Savior, the AntiChrist of the Roman Church of Hypocrisy, they aren't even hiding it anymore, it has become normalized and accepted in modern culture. Do you not still not See that you are living to See the Tribulation, or the Tribunals; SEE, the Day of Judgement approaches, NONE shall be blind NO MORE, ALL shall see and behold the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. The Sages come from all Tribes, there are no preferred tribes over the other tribes, and then comes the Battle of Armageddon; when ALL NATIONS turn against this Cursed Israeli lie, SEE, on their flag flies the symbol of the witches hex! This is not the promised Hebrew Nation, nor shall that ever be given again; the time of private property rights is over in the old ways, the new paradigm demands a different respect to property as well as humans. Do you not SEE the Revelation unfolding, unraveling before your eyes, the truth cannot be hidden; you will soon understand, crimes against humanity must end now! Did you miss the Rapture?    Don't worry, that wasn't all of the souls to be harvested, that was just the first round of the living good souls; they must be reaped first, by the hands of those who desired their sacrifice to stave off the unveiling, as if they could put off what is destined. I know several people that personally realized that many good people were suddenly dying in freak accidents, suicides, and murders; it's kind of difficult to take that many people out of the matrix without someone noticing or catching on, sorry the reality isn't as dramatic as the imagery of the Preacher-Man, but the concept is low key and incognito. Believing isn't the same as knowing, I cannot stress this enough, what you have been taught of heaven and hell don't physically exist; they are places you reside within your mind, you create your own heaven or hell on Earth, I also cannot stress this enough. You are an expression of the Living God, created to be a creator; it is up to you what you create, good intentions don’t always equal good actions or outcomes, be aware of true intentions.  Speak to one another in truth and honesty, for what lies are told will be revealed; the veil is being lifted, none in humanity will be spared the transcendence into the new human being consciousness; the 46 & 2 update is near completion, the light workers have been working overtime, if only they got to rest when they sleep they should be well rested, God bless their weary souls. We are moving further into the light cloud, more people should start feeling the uneasy deja vu creeping in, beginning to have serendipitous synchronizations; you will begin to wake up to the truths that have been before your eyes all along, you will remember what you forgot. You may have noticed a strange feeling lately, like a vibration, a harmonious joyous feeling or perhaps uneasy feeling if you are a stranger to joy and it causes you fear and panic; do not be afraid, the harmonious frequencies are being raised, it is preparation for the ascension, the Rapture will continue throughout ahead of the evil and dark souls being culled from the harvest.  Look to the Indigo Children to guide you, they are very old and wise souls in rather young bodies, even as they age they seem ageless; they are well preserved, you are what you eat. They like to indulge in the simple pleasure foods, they enjoy life regardless of circumstances, they are the guides of the new souls which will be introduced into the new world, to create paradise on Earth, as it was 20,000 years ago only with new technologies and understandings; at least for the next 20,000 years, until the solar system passes outside of the cloud system again, civilizations will strive, thrive, and advance in a peaceful coexistence. Once back into the darkness and lower vibrations, there is no telling what will happen, probably the amnesia effect again; unless we find a cure this time, the dark and evil souls cannot survive in this paradigm, they will be taken out and cleansed of their ego to be returned as new souls. This message I leave with you, these other things must pass, the suffering is nearing an end, it wasn’t exactly what you were lead to believe would happen, but it is the reality of what is happening. 

[sir-writesalot783]

A Modern Crusade?

I found some of the examples that Gabriele used disturbing. What I mean by this is that I cannot believe that they have happened in modern times, especially in America. I guess there is no denying that church is mixed with state in America; “in God we trust” is on our money, for goodness’ sake. But at the end of the day, I guess I had convinced myself that that was really the extent of it. A couple references to God in courthouses and money and pledges. But some of the examples that Gabriele brings up denies this illusion. The one in particular that shattered my illusion of the extent of the relationship between church and state was the story of American Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin.

Gabriele relates to the reader that this lieutenant general went on tour in his uniform and talked about the war in Iraq. Where did he visit? He went to churches to talk about this political issue. He completely invalidates Islam in his speeches - he says that they worship a “false god” and “idols”. I mean, the irony is almost funny. One can simply look at some Christian churches and look at the grotesquely decadent images of Jesus and Mary. One could easily call those idols. Moreover, he says that the war is a war against “satan”. It sounds so frighteningly familiar to what we have read and heard before. Doesn’t it seem to prove itself over and over again that history repeats over and over again?

It sounded like Lieutenant General Boykin was talking about a “holy war”. This seems to be the terminology that President Obama was so careful to avoid. Boykin went on this tour in 2003, so obviously half a decade before President Obama was elected to office. Regardless, we have people like Frank Miller spouting these same views in 2011 through that graphic novel, “Holy Terror”. That is slightly different I suppose from the original topic I proposed because Miller is not part of the government, but still it is something that makes me very uncomfortable. I just can’t believe that that’s still a thing.

I think when people act though the way that Lieutenant General Boykin did it can have a powerful effect on people. Viewing images of war with biblical texts on them can create a connection between the war and religion, when really none should be there.

One of the hallmarks of America is the separation of church and state, or at least I also felt it was. This honestly makes me feel a little (or maybe a lot) despairing at the current religious tensions that people create, claiming that America is a Christian country.