#tim barrus on religion

[timbarrus]

Take notes. There is no god.

There is no Jesus. There is no heaven. There are no wing rentals for Victoria’s Secret Angels. There are no angels. There are no gates. There is no sane theology. There never was a virgin Mary. Jesus did not walk on water. When Ross writes the word religion, he means Catholicism. He means some form of institutional oversight. The gravitas of vacuum. Be very careful about doors being opened to you. Ross glosses over the whole Boys Being Raped thing. Like it happened but let’s get out of here. Ross cannot see that the relationship between the institution and its behavior is an interiority eager to disguise itself yet again and again. Ross is being provocative. But to what end. The end is called authority. They are worshipping jurisdiction. Our lives are juxtaposed by an authority whose purpose is regimentation. Let us away to stories and legends and myths and illusion. That’s really blood you were drinking and it was not grape juice from Ralph’s. High theatre. Performance art. Kings and princes were created by homo sapiens. It’s not exactly hard to prove. Show me. Don’t tell me. You have no proof that there is a god to subjugate anyone. The greatest fraud in human history. It’s a great story. But it is not real. I am frequently lectured to about faith, and if I cannot find mine, there has to be something bad inside me to get me to ask such questions like what is reality. Maybe I am a witch. I am not a witch.

I am a steadfast heretic.

[timbarrus]

Religion and Education are not the same things. 

[timbarrus]

[timbarrus]

Take notes. Last Church Standing could be a book title. I live in the Blue Ridge. Our little towns all have a kinda strange housing market where $250,000 buys you one bedroom. I lived in a church once in Michigan. My bedroom was the balcony. It was a great place to write. How does architecture play romance with the light of soaring. I'm autistic and could spend an entire day just watching the sun move from window to window in more of a caress than spilling. When is worship worship. We danced in there. We made music (loud). We had a drawing class where (it was rumored) artist models had no clothes. Gasp. Every male for twenty miles signed up for that art class. Art is a den of depravity. "We thought we were getting a beautiful woman to model" I was told. "What we got was you. Can we bring our cameras." I am now a little sorry I said no. The church was haunted. Or. What was it that started playing the organ at four in the morning. That organ was worth more than the church. The building was a big bad box of fun things. We played dress up and put on shows. My favorite was the light show. With flashlights. We made huge fish fries for the entire community. Solemnity is not quite my vibe. Solemnity is a looking down because we are not worthy of seeing the angry face of god. Fiddledeedee. I don't look down. I look up. Soaring.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. Religion. I want to know where all these leftists live. Is it a town of fugitive leftists. It's a stereotype. The word leftist is not uncivil. But who are we talking about. The New York times has never connected the word leftist -- to whom. Name me one leftist. The columnists here talk about all the evil leftists under one big tent and how dare they issue manifestos around like Mary Had a Little Lamb, and Mary doesn't feel safe. I am here to tell you that Emma Goldman died in 1940. Now, that's a leftist. Here it comes. Your Jesus was a leftist. Emma was her own religion. Ditto Jesus. Jesus would take one look at us -- prepared to fight the leftists -- a dead guy and a dead grandma -- that's all you've got. Let us pray. As we all know, the churches are overtaxed. There was no such thing as Jesus. What us bad leftists have is sweet Emma. These two shady ghosts were probably communists. I would be a communist but I'm washing my hair that night. To read this piece of knotted religious jurisprudence, is a very hard pill to swallow. Take all of them. You do not know religion until you see snake handlers and the copperheads. They have the right to discriminate because that is what religion is. They are not compelled to let you in anymore than comment moderation is free speech. And the NYTs kicks me off if I even think about Jesus which I never do. I ask my Blue Ridge neighbors if they would vote for Jesus. I get that You Have Lost Your Marbles look.

[timbarrus]

Tim Barrus on organized religion.

[timbarrus]

The religious christian column at the New York Times is a clinging to a past where people (let us not forget, families) cling to the idea that an old man up in the sky with a white beard is going to save them. Nothing will save them. Nothing.

[timbarrus]

Religion is a crock. There is no convenient god. 

[timbarrus]

See no Evil (for Ross)

There is no meaning in suffering. There is only more suffering. There is no god and I do not blame the imagination. I blame Trump.

I am not alone.

There is no solidarity. There are only fragments of a community that, too, is the imaginative and desperate belief there are relevant social, cultural boundaries where Tennessee is Tennessee, and California is California, and  Michigan is only Michigan, and Michigan is not Ohio, and California is not Nevada, and Texas is not New Mexico. These are the chimera of tribal constructs.

I have never seen the perceptibility of a physical line between Florida, and Georgia. The inventiveness of the American mind extends itself to the wall Trump built to keep lesser human beings out. The idea of lesser human beings is a fantasy. The idea of Montana is a fantasy. The idea of an Arkansas is a fantasy. The idea of spring breaking is a fantasy. The idea of god is the resourcefulness of a fabrication. Grief is grief. There is no irrefutable evidence there was a Jesus, and he did not weep. The world weeps and endures its own vapid stupidity.

The idea of evil is no fantasy. When indifferent leadership is arrogant, and sets its fat jaws in the approximation of the management of command and control, we are led into a hall of mirrors. We stumble upon a reflection of ourselves. "God himself..." Why do we assign patriarchy a gender.

Because we have.

There is a need for narrative but it's really spin, one where Donald Trump spits on graves.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-religion.html#commentsContainer&permid=106424229:106424229

https://medium.com/@timotheebarrus