Establishing Conflicting Complexes: How Religious Trauma Grows (part one)

I mentioned in my Trauma Nation post about the establishment of inferiority complexes in members of the church. I didn't call it that, but that's what it is. Let's talk about that a moment. Or three.

The basic premise of "the church" is that people are shit. Now, this is actually a crazy idea when you break it down, so let's do that...

"god" is supposed to be a perfect being, right? "He's" all powerful, all knowing, all everywhere (yeah, sure, I could just say omnipresent and do the whole "omni-" thing, but it's funnier this way). And this god made everything, which is supposed to be a perfect creation. Stay with me, because this is where the mental gymnastics come in.

god is perfect and can't make things that are imperfect and, yet, man, his greatest creation, the being he (I'm just using "he" for ease of pronoun usage, at this point, and because that's what "christians" call it) breathed a soul into which, supposedly, he didn't even do for the Angels, is so flawed that he had to make a pit of fire to toss these immortal souls into because of how messed up they are. Mosquitoes (which, according to a recent study, have killed more humans than anything else in creation) don't go to Hell, yet man does. And I'm just going to add in here, how can you credit any being who would willingly create the mosquito with perfection?

Now, "christians" will tell you that god did indeed create man perfect; it's only that man chose to become imperfect through sin. And I'm going to go back to the "all knowing" part and say "what the fuck?" And apply some logic, because logic is good, right?

If you were an omniscient being creating something you wanted to be perfect and have a relationship with, would you make it with some kind of fatal flaw? On purpose? I mean, that's the kind of thing writers do to create tension for their audiences so, unless "god" has some audience of other "gods" and this is all some kind of weird galactic stage play, creating man with a "fatal flaw" is just spiteful. Cruel. It's messed up, man.

The other option is that it was an accident, making "god" not so perfect after all.

At any rate, "christians" would have us believe that man's imperfection is by design, so they choose the "that's fucked up" option. Then they beat it into believers because you only need "god" if you are, indeed, fucked up.

But, wait, I'm not through.

See, the reason that god made man all fucked up and imperfect is so that man would require the assistance of god to become perfected and be... just like him. Which is where the next part of the mental gymnastics comes in.

See, the idea is that god was hanging out up in heaven and got lonely. Which kind of does away with the galactic stage play thing because you'd think if there were other god-beings to hang out with then you wouldn't need people. Oh! Oh! But wait! There's more. Because god had a kingdom full of angels, already! And this is the screwy part: the angels were no good for hanging out with because they were too much like god. So, evidently, god needs something less than perfect to hang out with to give him some mental stimulation. Although, all things considered, how much mental stimulation can you get from an ant? Have you ever tried hanging out with ants, having philosophical conversations with and whatnot, and, maybe, firing up the grill and stuff? Oh, wait, we know what happens when you invite ants to picnics.

Now we have all sorts of problems because, according to "christians," god can't hang with less than perfection. So god needs some imperfect humans, but god can't deal with imperfect humans. It's like someone with lactose intolerance staring at a triple cheese pizza.

And, so, god creates man and puts him in a situation where he can't help but fail, causing man to be no better than shit. Shit that god needs to toss in a fire because god can't deal with the imperfection. Did I say that was fucked up? Because that is fucked up.

Let me tell you, what I want to do most as a creative individual is make art that I have no better purpose for than burning. Yeah, that's how I want to spend my time; how about you?

But this is the proposition proposed by "christians":
1. god created man, a perfect being, to "fellowship" with "him."
2. god put man into a situation where man would "sin" and become an imperfect being and, thus, interesting.
3. But god can't "fellowship" with imperfect beings and, also, imperfect beings will damned to Hell for all eternity suffering for their imperfection (which god caused in the first place).
4. However, god made a way for man to become perfect again which will allow him to "fellowship" with god once more, not that god has any interest in that, having plenty of perfected beings around himself already that he has no interest in, but, hey, it does save you from perpetual burning.

And, yes, the "church" can help you with the secret to that (for, you know, $20 in the offering plate on Sundays). Which is why they spend so much time on convincing people about how messed up they are. And kids who grow up in that environment? Well, they become convinced pretty early on that, on their own, they're not worth a whole a lot. Even people who don't grow up in it become convinced of it:
You're no good without "god."
In fact, you are an inferior person.

What I Choose To Believe

I choose to believe that there is no "god" rather than believe in the
abusive
neglectful
god of the "christians."
That you would defend such a "god" to me says more about your
Stockholm Syndrome
than it does it about me.

The New Civil War

240 years ago, we fought a war that we say was a war for freedom. For independence. But it was only a war for white freedom and white independence. From other white men. At least, that's what it became because the Founding Fathers couldn't work their way through the issue of slavery.

So we had to have another war 150 years ago to finish the first war and state that freedom is for everyone. Freedom is for everyone, no matter their skin color.

Evidently, not everyone got that memo, so, now, here we are again in the midst of another Civil War, the New Civil War. Sure, this time it's not being fought on the battlefield with guns and bullets (yet) because this war is more like a spiritual war. Last time, the Civil War was fought with actual bodies, but, this time, it's being fought for the Soul of America and what kind of soul it will be, and it's mostly being fought in the information realm.

Will we be an America filled with hate and fear, or will we be an America filled with respect and tolerance?
The irony? Those who claim to belong to the religion of love -- and not just love, unconditional love -- are the ones preaching hate and fear the loudest. I suppose they think "god" is racist, too, just like them. I don't think you can come to any other conclusion if you look inside their churches.

Of course, the "Christians" tend to forget that it is the Jews who are "God's" chosen people. I don't seen anywhere in the Bible where it says "God" changed his mind about that, so, maybe, white people shouldn't be so stuck on themselves about how cool and important they are.
But I digress... [Actually, I do digress, because that's for an upcoming post. Sort of.]

But it sort of brings me to my point, and the point is this:
All of this is still about slavery and race. Still.
I mean, Fuck. What the fuck, people? It's been 150 fucking years since the Civil War. It's time to get over it and quit idolizing your fucking moments to racism and slavery. Tear that shit down.
Look, if Germany can do it, so can you.

And my other point, which is that you can't actually talk to those people, and it's time for liberals, those on the left -- whatever you want to call the people who aren't part of the 25-33% of the country who make up these hardcore Conservative GOP asshole Trump-followers -- to stop trying to reach over to the 25-33% of the country who make up these hardcore Conservative GOP asshole Trump-followers and convince them of the wrongness of their ways. They're NOT going to be convinced. Ever. You're wasting your time and, frankly, everyone else's time, too.

Look, these "people" know that Trump is a lying pile of shit -- which is an insult to lying piles of shit, but they don't make words that go low enough to accurately describe what Trump is (and my mind just isn't degenerate enough to make that kind of stuff up) -- and they have repeatedly shown that they don't care. They don't know or care anything about what "America" means or stands for (the fact that there were people who got upset about NPR's presentation of The Declaration of Independence on fucking Independence Day is proof enough of that). They have repeatedly shown that all they care about and, thus, all they know is some deranged fantasy where white people rule the world and they get to lay waste to it as they please without suffering any of the consequences. They are not going to be talked out of that delusion.

The truth is that this is a war. An actual war, and we on the Left need to start treating it as such. This is really not a time for debating. We're long past that. The world is teetering on the brink, a lot of brinks, actually... Maybe it's better to say that world is currently finely balanced on the head of a pin. Anyway, we're all teetering on the edge of destruction, environmental destruction even if there weren't other things, and we have to stop letting asshole idiots make the decisions. Decisions which have as their sole goal of making them more rich and damn the consequences because they won't be around to suffer them.

I'm not saying we need to arm ourselves and take to the streets or anything like that (though it would be disingenuous not to point out that a significant portion of those on the Right have been stockpiling weapons for decades), but it is time to quit pussyfooting around and trying to engage in conversations. Get the fuck out and do things like voting. It's not hard! [There is no reason that Ossoff should have lost in Georgia or that Measure C should have failed here in Sonoma county other than that Liberals didn't get out and vote. And that's just messed up. At that point, you're basically just -- and I'm going to be crude here, even for me -- bending over and taking it.]

Here's the deal:
If you're Liberal or anti-Trump or whatever you want to call yourself and you're whining about how things are going, but you're not doing anything about it, then shut the fuck up! Seriously, if you're not going to take action and do simple things like voting, then you don't have the right to complain. It's time to take this shit seriously. It's not a game.
For all intents and purposes, this really is a war. The New Civil War.