How to Deal with a Paid Internet Troll. 03/20/2013

Illustration: Darryl Thomas

Did you know that there exists on the Internet people who are paid to invade social networking sites like Yahoo, Facebook and others, and try to influence others with premeditated trolling. I myself ran in dozens of trolls when I moderated the Desteni Forums a few years ago. Actually, trolls were instrumental in my Internet education when I began participating on bulletin boards many, many years ago. There was a soccer fan site called Matchnight that was full of them. Don’t look for it now, it’s defunct, but it was literally the Wild, Wild West of online male dickholery. At times even the moderators would troll their own threads. I formed a thick skin learning the tricks of word games and emotional manipulations trolls love to play, and by the time I became a moderator, when I spotted a troll, I mercilessly mocked, irritated and banned the hell out them. Eventually, I read on another board that one shouldn’t mess around on the Desteni board because it was tightly moderated. Damn right it was.

But I didn’t dream that there were fools who were actually paid to write crap that is meant to piss people off. Not when so many of them are willing to do it for free.

But they are out there. And they follow the members of Desteni around the Net like a wretched, ghostly  hyena spreading misinfo, disinfo, slander and outright lies in order to… I don’t know what they want to do because they should realize by now that we’re not going to “crumble under the pressure” of their pathetic, futile, libelous bullshit. (And I say “they” as if they are more than a handful of them – you probably could count them on one hand).

So it is with great pleasure and gratification that I post the following exchange between an “anonymous” troll who had pestered a bulletin board for several days (in a manner a la Rick Ross’ Cult Infotainment Forum) and Sunette Spies. I could say that it was truly a Master Class of Advanced Internet Beat-down of a faceless Anonymous Coward, but that wouldn’t be fair to most cowards. Please carefully read the anonymous user’s “question” – it’s classic Trollery. And carefully read Sunette’s answer as she strips away the bullshit to get inside the troll’s head just using the troll’s own words. It brought a tear to this jaded, crusty eye. Well played, madame. It will be a loooooooong day before this anonymous coward will want a second helping.

Enjoy!

Anon User

Sunette Spies.Lets open up a rational dialogue here. I am firmly convinced that if you answer some of the questions I have about you and your group- we can all come to a better understanding of the truth.1. If the Rick Ross forums have spread mis-information about your group, then why don’t you point me to a specific list of facts that are incorrect. Without giving me some examples of incorrect facts that I can verify myself I can only conclude that THEY must be telling the truth and you are only upset about it and calling them liars. I need empirical proof of lies or falsehoods.2. The fact that I am anonymous is to protect my identity. We have already been over this several times. Users who submit answers that you don’t like, even if they are FACTUALLY CORRECT get their answers downvoted just because you don’t like them. That is wrong. You and EMS should not do that. I do not want my answers downvoted and so I REMAIN anonymous.A further point. WHAT WOULD CHANGE if I was no long anonymous? What WOULD you do if you knew my name? Would you try to go and try to make up some lie about me so that what I have to say seems less important?I am surprised that you don’t understand this yourself. You used to be a waitress am I right? You used to be a nobody, someone whose name didn’t mean a thing to people who had not met you. Just because you were not someone people knew didn’t mean what you had to say was not (in your and other’s opinion) potentially important.I am a nobody, but that doesn’t mean that what I have to say about your group is not important, just like you. If all people are equal, don’t I deserve the same dignity and respect as you? Don’t I deserve to be heard out regardless of who I am?A final question that I have for you, is the Destonian group a non-profit religious organization or is it considered a private enterprise?

Sunette Spies 19 votes (show)

Ah, very interesting opening line “rational dialogue” – which would lead an individual to from that premise believe that the rest of your statements/questions would be “rational”, when it is in fact irrational. Such as your irrational fear to remain anonymous just because of fear of down voting – I mean, can you not even stand by your own name/words out of a silly fear/reaction to being ‘down voted’ – you should be able to stand by your name and words whether being down voted or not. Thus, showing that you determine who you are and the words you speak based on how others would react, which would basically then come to question everything about you in your life with regards to how much of who you are is determined by others/what others think/how others may react – such as something as simple as down voting and how much of you is in fact standing for anything? You should be able to stand, no matter what – which is saying, here, much about who you are.

What would change with not being Anonymous – understand, this is not about us, but about you and what it says about you with remaining anonymous and how little of what you say can be trusted with remaining anonymous, with reacting to something as simple as ‘fear of being down voted’ ‘fear of exposing your identity’. I mean, here we stand, here I stand, with my name, process, information walked Openly as who I am and what I stand for –and even despite ALL the deliberate attempts to spread / provoke the contrary to what we’re saying/showing: we Stand. And, even with the Point of Portalling – which, for me, being something Natural, with having walked it consistently for 7 Years now with a massive amount of information available from various beings, on a daily basis, walking the One Principle of showing the process of how human nature can change and with individuals walking their processes to prove this with regards to how they changed themselves and their lives and to show the potential that there exist more in this existence than just Human Consciousness, and how everything aware: it is unfortunate that Human Consciousness wants to believe that all that exist is ‘human intelligence’ and that nothing else in existence has an awareness/intelligence, because human beings are the only apparent ‘dominant force’ in existence. So, I mean – I understand why human beings may find it difficult to conceive that there’s more to existence than only Human Consciousness, that one can communicate with animals, nature, the environment that is in fact aware, but not on a level of consciousness that the human is existing within. In and through the Portal, we explain the different levels of consciousness –the conscious, subconscious, unconscious, quantum mind and quantum physical, and where human beings’ awareness is now only on the conscious/subconscious mind level. And this we explain in absolute detail for the individual to see, realise and understand how little awareness of the human in fact exist – even in relationship to our own thoughts, memories, emotions and feelings and how they in fact operate and function.

So, with this – this is all we’re doing/showing: that there’s more to existence than human consciousness, and we’re reaching to those who are willing, in this life to consider this, and to re-align our relationships/considerations to only the self-interest of our own Lives and dedicate our lives/living to considering/regarding/realising that there is an ENTIRE physical existence/humanity that is here that we haven’t been taking responsibility for, individually and collectively and simply expanding this awareness to dedicating our lives to better ourselves and this world/humanity as a whole with the potential that does exist for this to manifest.

Therefore, if you’re not able to consider, in this lifetime, that there is more to us humans/this physical existence than the intelligence we believe we are, and that with expanding our awareness in understanding ourselves, our relationship to the mind, the physical and this existence as a whole – that we came become more/make more of our lives for ourselves AND for all in this physical existence: then don’t. We’re going to walk this, whether you do or don’t. So, within this – if you don’t want to consider this, then – why “attack”? I mean, it’s not like we’re going to each individual human in this existence and knocking down their doors/minds and interfering in their forums/blogs etc. and attacking/provoking like you are now. Your reaction would imply that you actually in fact do see the potential of something like this existing/manifesting- but you’d rather in your life preserve your interests, than consider dedicating yourself/your life to something greater/more/better. Because if you didn’t ‘personally react to try and preserve interests that you feel are being challenged’ – you would have simply looked at the information and walked away.  And simply because we’re challenging held beliefs/acceptances and allowances such as “this world is the way it is because it’s always been that way” and showing that, hey – by accepting/allowing such a statement we’re keeping it all this way, by not standing up for change within ourselves and this world – everyone goes into immediate “reaction”. All we’re ‘challenging’ at the base of it all, is – there’s more to this existence than only human consciousness and what we now accept/allow life on earth to be. So, if you react to being challenged to consider something MORE, then that’s your personal process. We’re here to stand with those who are willing to move beyond their own reactions, challenge themselves to consider something more to self and what life on earth is/has become. If we remain in the ‘lesser’ version and definition of ourselves, without challenging ourselves to consider more – how are we ever going to change ourselves or anything in this existence to something better, because our acceptances/allowances/definitions is what is keeping ourselves/this world limited, therefore to expand, to change, we have to expand how we see/view/interact and consider things.

With this, getting now to the question regarding Dignity and Respect: I would argue the following with how we at Desteni look at things and how I also have looked at my relationship to humanity/this World and asked myself a question: Can I stand in self-respect, in dignity – with having a look at my life on earth that I have walked in relationship to humanity/this physical existence as especially for example this current World System/Money System and say that I have lived in respect/dignity to my fellow man, to the animal kingdom, the nature/environment, the earth? No. Why? Because – how can we say, that we have lived a “dignified life” when the very life that we do live, in relationship to what Money provides – that Money that provided the ‘life’ I had lived, for me to have the money I have – was at the sacrifice/cost/expense of other human beings lives, animals, nature, the environment, the earth. That, for me to have a ‘life’ – that opportunity of ‘life’ had to be taken away from other human beings/other life forms; which is how this Current world system is set up in terms of catering to only a minority of human beings, while the majority struggle to survive with the amount of money available to them and the “cost” of living in this world is rising more and more and more, and more human beings are being filtered out of the World System to live/survive in this world/reality. I would also suggest watching the documentary the Power Principle – showing the process of how this current World System came into being with deliberate interventions with populations/peoples who have proven that self-governing is possible, to exist in harmony and equality where everyone works together for the betterment of all of the society/environment and deliberately taken over by the World System frontrunners to have control. Then, to the point of Respect – how can we claim respect, when we cannot even respect/consider/regard LIFE-itself, that is existent in each human being, each child that is born, each life form that birth within this physical existence – with regards to how this current World System/Money System blatantly disrespect the opportunity for life/living for humanity within this physical existence? I mean, you can do your research with regards to the extent of abuse/violence and even to the consequence of extinction of species is existing simply for profit, for greed, for money, for self-interest – and then we support/participate in such a System that so deliberately disrespect the life of such beings: what does it then say about us?
So, what we suggest considering is a “Dignified Life” and “Respect” – with regards to presenting such an opportunity for humanity, where each child born is ensured/secured a future in this world/reality, where we can assist/support ourselves to actually co-exist for ourselves and for all, and stand within/as Respect with regards to looking at/investigating alternatives / solutions to our current relationship to nature, the animal kingdom, the environment and the Earth. I mean, it’s fascinating that human beings alone is being blamed for this earth’s slow but sure destruction – when it’s the current World System/Money System and our accepted and allowed relationship to it, that is governing/managing all the relationships in this Physical Existence and so: all we’re showing is that we change this Entire System, re-align the Relationships to real consideration/regard in relation to Respect and Dignity that is Physically Visible within this Existence.

With this, all of us are not yet equal – at all, equality would be where we’re able to Co-Exist, as Equals, as Human Beings and work-together for the betterment of ourselves, each other and this world as a whole. Yes, we most certainly understand this process we’re Undertaking is a Massive Task and will be a Process to walk – but, despite all the odds and individual such as yourself who just cannot at this stage conceive of such a Solution – we know the potential exist, and so we walk it. You’re equal-to and one-with what you accept and allow in our mind and your life – at the moment, everyone is accepting/allowing themselves to be equal to only consciousness, only this current world-system/money system and so in that definition, are in fact limiting ourselves to considering the potential that exist for ourselves and life on earth. So, for those that are ready to step beyond such limitation, acceptance and allowance in the Mind and this World/Money System – we’re walking ourselves beyond such limitation to/as considering more.

Now to the point of defining me as a ‘nobody’ in your question/statement – this in fact does not define me, but defines you. I did not see myself as a ‘nobody’, nor did I define myself as that. I was simply living my life, unaware of anything/anyone – but my own mind, my own survival: exactly like most of humanity are existing/living now. Completely caught up in our minds, our personal lives and especially survival/money. I have been there myself. However, this process – had made me Aware, that – there’s most certainly more existing in this existence than JUST me, made me Aware that – I am currently living in, accepting and allowing a World / Money System that is causing unimaginable harm/abuse/consequence to the rest of humanity/this physical existence, which in this also brought me to the question “where was I my whole life that I had lived to ignorantly in relation to money, the world/money system, other human beings” – I mean, it was not even registering/being considered in my consciousness/mind, so closed-minded I was. So, now – I am more aware of my responsibility to me, how my mind shape/create/manifest me/my life/living, how to change me to become the directive principle of who I am, and so my responsibility to what I accept/allow in this world/reality with regards to our current accepted and allowed relationship to this World System/Money System. So, my process has not been from a “nobody to somebody” – more from ignorance to awareness. Your reference to ‘being a nobody’ is unfortunately how you are seeing yourself, which if you continue to do so – is how you will remain in your own mind/life. You are already a ‘somebody’ in terms of ‘individuality’ and what you accept/allow to live in thought, word and deed – so, no one is a ‘nobody’ in fact.

With regards to the Rick Ross Forums – as we’ve said: We’ve been walking for 7 Years, all the information / videos and writings are available on the Forums in which the individual can walk the time / reading within and as their own Process. Thus, the responsibility to Ask and Cross-reference information is in fact the Individual that accept and allow themselves to believe the Rick Ross Forums – which have put together bits/pieces of information from material/videos/forums we have walked for 7 Years and framed it in a way to define it according to their own intentions/definitions/beliefs.
Thus, individuals that are genuine and have consideration/regard and awareness – would ask questions/cross-reference/read/check from/of the actual source of information, which is ourselves. Everything is open and available.

And lastly, we’re a Non-Profit Organisation – Non-Religious.

With this – we have now, with various individuals walking / sharing / showing Desteni / Equal Money expressed what we stand for and as. All the links to the REAL information: Desteni – Group of people exploring Equality & Oneness principles,Equal Money System,http://www.desteniiprocess.org. Because, clearly – all you’re going to deliberately continue with is attempt/try to harass/provoke and misinform; but we have now spent sufficient time in standing/showing/directing to/as the real information and context that we stand for and as.

So, we’re going to continue walking our process with those who are ready to consider more to self/life, and for those who do read this – to again, consider, and see – how this individual, anonymous, is simply constantly, continuously finding little things to draw out of ALL that we say to continue provoking/harassing and misinform. And that we have now been clarifying/showing/revealing much – all this individual doing is spamming the Forums with questions/answers of hidden intentions and we’re rather, on the Quora Forums going to interact with individuals serious about / genuine about considering more to self and life.

So, all the relevant/real information is available on our sites  – also our Facebook page/Groups that we share our processes, and welcome to in your own time – research, investigate and walk.

Human Potential Movement Part 3. The New Self-Help Gurus

Wanna make a million? Write a self-Help book.

The New Self-Help Gurus

They’ve given seminars, been on television and made millions with their self-help books flooding the market. It is the Holy Trinity of Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer. Their messages are essentially interchangeable, based as it is on a mash-up of various spiritual and philosophical sources, mixed in with a penchant for giving their followers opinionated homilies passed off as “truth.” All spiritual teachings are essentially one teaching: that if one listens to this transference of “wisdom,” then one will become more healthy, wealthy and wise. But the reality is that nothing practical will ever be given to aid all humanity by these super-salesmen.

Eckhart Tolle (Ulrich Leonard Tolle), experienced an epiphany which eventually led to Tolle writing books and holding seminars discussing enlightenment and other subjects, namely the transformation of human consciousness, which may be the highest form of human potential possible, according to these gurus.

Tolle, like everyone else involved in the consciousness-raising business, often engages in opinion-making that he presents as fact. For example, the well-known experience of Tolle’s “epiphany” – an event which changed a once-suicidal depressive into a spiritual leader and best-selling author, has colored everything the man says. So when Tolle gives an opinion delivered as “fact,” it sounds like this:

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.”

The “evolution of consciousness” is a narrative that just about explains anything. Unfortunately, nobody can prove such an evolution is happening. The trite simplicity of Tolle’s quote above, however, causes one to wonder why people choose to believe such things, as the quote  suffers badly when lightly taken apart. So when we go through our day, are we responsible for our experiences, or is “life” (?) dictating what befall us? Am I choosing to experience an event, or is “life” selecting events for me against my will? Why is “life” interested in the evolution of my consciousness, anyway?  Obviously, Tolle’s epiphany has a lot to do with the shape and content of his opinions. He believes that he experienced some form of enlightenment which has “evolved” his consciousness.” But he doesn’t actually know what happened. Besides, if you read any of Tolle’s books, you will not be able to find one single new idea anywhere. Tolle’s works, along with those by Chopra, Neale Donald Walsch, etc., are nothing more than a spiritual stew full of rehashed mash-ups of ancient ideas and philosophies, without the nuance and mystery. Seems more like a devolution of consciousness is happening here, folks.

Fact is, metaphysicians have urged others to evolve the human being metaphysically for at least 30 centuries. Shamen, gurus and spiritualists have forever been proclaiming that raising one’s nature “high enough,” one becomes as “God.” The New Self Help gurus of the 21st Century are merely regurgitating commonly known spiritual language and dressing it up modern parlance. It seems that the metaphysical experiment has reached the end of its life as a living art; a deadening hollowness exists at its core, failing to offer anything truly new in 3000 years; it has endlessly repeated itself to the point of absurdity. It offers nothing but ancient, discredited promises dripping from the voices of a disingenuous, but crack metaphysical sales team.

At the beginning of its reign, the Human Potential Movement was largely a program for profit. When someone discovered, like Dale Carnegie, Norman Vincent Peale or L. Ron Hubbard, that there existed a sizeless, titanic market of selling people their own desire to “improve” themselves, they most likely couldn’t believe their luck. The mass consumption of self-help books has turned out to be insatiable and everlasting (Dale Carnegie materials and courses are still available and profitable after 80 years). The best advice to someone wanting to be published is to write a self-help book.

Listen: self-transformation ingeniously linked to the dollar and spiritual perfection has given the self-help industry enough legs to continue its run well into the 21st Century. Although the movement’s heyday occurred during the 1960’s and 70’s, the program of focusing on intense personal achievement by the individual is still being pushed to this day by an opportunistic and self-aggrandizing sales pitch, and many of them only give broadly vague or distasteful solutions for the intractable problems in this world. For example, Osho’s solution for homosexuality was to segregate gays from the rest of the population. Esther Hicks and Abraham only solution to poverty, suffering or abuse is to not dwell on negative thoughts. Seriously. And as stupid as that sounds, people eat it up.

The irony should not be lost here. The teachers of the Human Potential Movement concentrate on getting the individual sorted out mentally and “spiritually” first before concentrating on getting what they want and make their dreams come true.  While humanity’s world continues to devolve and splinter apart, listen to the Human Potential Movement – it wants you to become a “winner,” although it fails to offer any solution to rampant human suffering, the nature of evil, or  inequality. It promotes an agenda based entirely on imagination. Remember the message of The Secret: get what you want by thinking about it. Physical action not necessary.  That message clicked because of an agenda built upon “spiritual” fabrications, human desire and most of all, the glorification of personal self-interest while everyone one else can go screw.

07/08/2012/ – 2012 and Deepak Chopra’s Guru-Speak

“A man’s goodness is truly measured by what he is, not what he does.” – Deepak Chopra.

This nonsensical piffle is probably taken very seriously by resident  Chopraholics and it seems this guy is not afraid to say something incredibly silly and lack the insight necessary to be justifiably embarrassed. But just for the heck of it, let’s deconstruct this sagacious-sounding fiddle-faddle and explain why such utterances like this should be wholly avoided like the plague.

Apparently in Deepak-Land it is possible to “truly  measure” the “goodness” of someone by “what” a person “is”  rather by what a person does. Which begs an important question – how can anyone say anything about what another is without mentioning that one’s actions?

“You know, that Jimmy is such a great guy. A real good person.”

“Oh, yeah? What exactly does he do that makes him so great?”

“Hey, you can’t truly measure the goodness of what somebody does, only by what they are.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Dude, don’t you read Deepak Chopra?”

“Reading? Don’t have the time. Takes me away from playing my video games.”

Since, according to Chopra,  a man’s goodness can be truly measured by who he is and not what he does – we should ask whether Chopra’s New Age calculus equally extend and apply to the works of man’s evil? Is not evil that which causes harm, destruction or misfortune to others? Not for Chopra, apparently for him evil is simply “a matter of perception.” In that Huffpost article, Chopra insists that evil is a problem largely based on perception and that evil can broken down “ into smaller components that can be solved,” and then gives some incredibly dubious examples on how to achieve that. ” Abused children can be helped and loved.” Yeah, well the number of abused children that die from malnutrition each day is only 22,000. But I guess they are beyond all help and love. “ A church congregation hijacked by intolerance can be filled with new members who feel otherwise.” That would be nice, but even if every other church in the world accomplished this, we’d be no closer in ending the inequalities and suffering of the world, basically because religion is part of the problem. “Guilt and shame that you feel in yourself can be healed with therapy.”  Why? We’ve got a lot to be guilty and ashamed about – and therapy is no substitution for rectifying the problem.

But beyond that, Chopra also claims that if evil doesn’t directly affect you, then it doesn’t exist for you. This seems to be a rather curious takeaway – and unfortunately I have heard this echoed by many New Agers and spiritualists over the years. They seek to remove their responsibility for the existence of evil by claiming that it isn’t a part of “their reality,” or that those who suffer from the evil acts of others give their approval for their suffering as “lessons to be learned” from this life that will advance their spiritual development.

But let’s cleave to the matter at hand – this mangled, garbled aphorism of Chopra – it needs to be refuted, exposed and disregarded, over and over, until, hope against hope, he stops talking such bullshit and influencing others to become passive slaves of metaphysical nonsense. What a person does – and thinks –  whether it is known to others or not – is a very important measurement of who one really is.  And since the world at large is a true reflection of the inner essence of humanity as a whole, I’d say that Mr. Chopra needs to reconsider his scene and wake up to reality before it is too late.

05/11/2012 – Flash: Oldest Known Mayan Calendar Found

End Times Prophecy, or did they just run out of space?

And guess what? The astronomical tables found in a remote Guatemala dig  at the largest-known Classic Mayan site, Xultún, are 500 years older than those preserved in the Maya codices, and they do not reference any End Times scenarios.

According to the CNN feed,

Contrary to popular myth, Mayan experts have known for a long time that this calendar is not a countdown to the end of the world on December 2012, the study researchers said in a press conference to reporters.

The Mayan used a series of cycles to track time in which there were 13 baktuns each representing a 400-year chunk.

Researchers of the study say rumors surrounding a projected apocalypse on Dec. 21, 2012, is a misconception. It is just the benchmark when a cycle of 13 baktuns will be complete and a new cycle begins.

“There was a lot more to the Mayan calendar than just 13 baktuns,” said archaeologist David Stuart of the University of Texas, who worked to decipher the hieroglyphics found on the walls of a house, dating back to the early part of the 9th century (813 A.D.-814 A.D.).

“The Mayan calendar is going to keep going for billions, trillions, octillions of years into the future,” added Stuart.

Can it be true? We shall still wait with bated breath on the December 21, 2012 New Age End Times Mayan Prophecy, but trust me on this. Barbara Hand Clow and her cottage industry of Mayanist Prophets will have to look for another story to exploit their gullible reading audience.

05/09/2012 -”Is Everything Thoughts?” 2012 and Abraham-Hicks

The question at the beginning of this Abraham-Hicks clip: “Is it fair to say that everything is thought?”

Before we continue with the answer given by Esther Hicks’ channeled personality “Abraham,” a bit of exposition.

The question comes from a historical spiritualist assumption most clearly expressed within Pre-Socratic and  New Thought metaphysical traditions , and the nature of consciousness is the key point. The pre-Socratic sage Anaxagoras developed a theory that a Universal Mind he called, Nous was responsible for creation. Heraclitus assigned the creative principle to Reason, which he called the Logos. Within New Thought metaphysics (which is the direct forerunner of the New Age movement), mind is Divine (as in the Mind of God) and superior than the physical. Hicks-Abraham mentions this directly in answer to the questioner by relating that if one tunes into a certain “frequency of being” through “reaching for the best feeling thought you can find,” one is able to receive an “alignment.” Hicks goes on to remark:

“Without alignment, you are giving up all that assistance – not completely because you are never cut off from it – but then you have to rely more on your physical activities in order to move things around. And at best, it is mediocre and unproductive.”

With this New Thought schematic, Esther Hicks lays the framework of the Law of Attraction where the thoughts of humans are invisibly influencing the course of human events. But according to the question, which assumes that the channeler will corroborate with its premise that everything in Creation exists as thoughts within the Mind of God, the physical is relegated to irrelevance. We have Plato, among others, to thank for this, as  this brand of cosmology has informed Western metaphysics that the physical is the imperfect copy of transcendent Forms, or Ideas.

So why is the answer given by the channeler a deception? This “tuning in to the frequency” of your being (whatever that means, but I’m assuming it relates to the “reaching of the best feeling thought possible” positive-thinking jazz) as the preferred course of action over physical activity is a great deception and a massive affront to common sense. The Great Wall of China and the Pyramids were not created by people sitting around reaching for the best thought feelings. They had to build the damn things. Just apply this crap to any real-world scenario and see if it makes sense. I suppose the half of humanity that are starving on their feet need only to “reach for the best possible feeling thought” to end their poverty.

But Hicks and her channeled personality are not  that concerned with  those outside of their targeted audience. Empty phraseology,word-games and regurgitated spiritualism makes sense only within that framework. “Leverage in alignment,” “tuning in to the frequency of who you really are” and ascribing anthropomorphic attributes to thought itself (“it existed in its presence and absence, and the combination of those two things caused it to become more “) forms a catalog of  nonsensical truth-claims that will lead many well-intentioned people into a massive trap of self-deception, within the so-called Law of Attraction where the Right to be Selfish is elevated to a spiritual principle, and the search for the “better feeling thought” becomes one’s mantra and moral compass. These beliefs, however, only represent a catalog of deceptive magical thinking. This is the problem with these types of beliefs, they do nothing but focus on encasing self within a make-believe world in separation with the rest of humanity through avoiding and denying real-world issues that affect everybody. Nobody within Ester Hicks’ retinue seems to notice the obvious problem of contradiction between living in a world that isn’t “real,” yet focusing on the best  possible feeling thoughts, abundance and preference. Why would preference or good feelings “matter” in an illusory, imperfect and irrelevant world? And if everything is thoughts, then why would the physical exist at all?

The questions become easier to answer when we are willing to flip the script. Moving things within the physical is much more practical and demonstrable than magical imagination. Test it out for yourself. Gather several books and arrange them into a single stack on one side of a table. Now search for the best possible feeling thought, tune into the frequency of who you really are  and move that stack to the other side of the table. Golly. Why didn’t the stack move? Perhaps you’re not trying hard enough. Come on, tune into that frequency. Still nothing? Well, don’t feel bad. I doubt Esther Hicks could have moved it with her mind either.

I have an “idea,” though. Let’s dispense with all forms of spiritualism, metaphysics and religions. These systems have not enhanced the human experience, ever.  They just superimpose a layer of sweet-sounding bullshit within the minds of the gullible and desperate that keeps us divided and diverted from the stuff that really matters, like the survival of the human race. The physical is here and no amount of love ‘n light-tooti-fruity nonsense will ever be able to remove this reality. Deal with it.

3/28/2012- 2012: Spirituality as Energetic Mind Enslavement

Freedom of Belief: Narratives of Mental Enslavement

The ancient Greek philosophers that lived before Socrates (d. 399 BCE) tried to devise cosmologies that offered a more naturalistic explanation of how the world worked, as they found the religious and mystical explanations lacking. They sought a unifying principle which they believed to consist of a singular substance from whence all things were made. Thales believed that water was the principle. Others believed it was fire or air.  To the modern mind, such theories, in light of what we believe we now today,  are laughable and quaint, but these speculations actually formed the beginning of the scientific process. We are intrigued at how the element of spinning stories to explain the visible world is essentially all philosophy and religion has ever done. Buddha found “enlightenment” under the bodhi tree. Adam and Eve at the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Jesus as the Son of God, died and came back to life. The earth is flat.  I think, therefore I am. Human beings are inherently good. Man is born with Free Will. There are supernatural powers that control reality and human destiny. And so on. But it is important to realize that these narratives, while they are quite handy in providing cover for our fears, when it comes to religious beliefs, they can never escape what they are: constructions of human consciousness in response to fear of the unknown.

Have you ever wondered why there are so many expressions of supernatural belief? How about that first person who convinced another that they saw a “god” or some spiritual event actually happened? What has to happen to someone for them to believe in something that they don’t understand? Let me give you an example of what I mean.

A colleague of mine was explaining to me why he was a Christian. The story he shared centered on this point; that there was a person he knew that had some sort of medical problem and he prayed about and was miraculously healed. “What else could it be,” he asked me. The unspoken answer that obviously formed in his mind was that it had to be “God.”

“Can’t you see,” I replied, “that all you did was create a story to explain something you don’t understand?”

“You must be a free-thinker.” (I’ve been called this many times in my life). He continued,” I respect your beliefs, why don’t you respect mine?”

In other words, he is asking me to believe that what he believes in is actually true. But I wasn’t claiming that he made the story up. “Your mind just created an answer. You can’t prove God healed your friend.” [1]

“You can’t prove God didn’t,” he replied.

“Then explain why God healed your friend and not the thousands who died today?” Because, wait for it… it was God’s will. See how wonderfully the different narratives dovetail into each other to form a perfect circle of logic of theology? Unless this person can find it within himself to break out of this mental fun house of crucified gods and miracles, he will be trapped within this for the rest of his life.

I bet some are asking, “But what’s the harm in believing in religion and its stories? Isn’t it a basic human right to freely express one’s religious belief?”

Take a look at the wars that are occurring now in this world. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict (which is part of the larger Arab – Israeli conflict) which has its roots in the desperate religious competition between Muslims and Jews. In Nigeria there are murders galore being committed by religious fanatics representing Christianity and Islam. The Lord’s Resistance Army led by Joseph Kony has been running religious war in the central Africa for over 20 years, killing, torturing, raping all in the name of Kony’s twisted Christian theology. In Yemen a civil war is being fought between Islamic Sunni and Shi’a sects and both sides are not above recruiting child soldiers to fight each other.

I could go on and on. These religious atrocities are occurring in modern times, never mind the voluminous catalog of vaguely ignorant fears the Unexplained conjured up in centuries past. Needless to say, humanity has not benefited from the religious narratives in any way.

Sai Baba is quoted to have said, “ The mind carries the divine principle (the light of love) and conveys it to all who contacts it.” From what I’ve seen in this world, the mind is a repository of unimaginable cruelty where the “light of love” only exists as a denial of the horrors that befall most people on this planet on a daily basis, almost of it committed by competing economic, political and religious systems.  Sai Baba may have actually believed his slogan of the light and love principle of the mind, but the fact remains  that all he could do was provide a nice-sounding story for his followers.

Isn’t religion the most subtle form of brainwashing? Isn’t spirituality the most subtle form of Mind Enslavement?

Now, what does this have to do with the notion that people have the “right” to choose and express their religious beliefs?

Note

[1] Reminds me of the story of Diagoras of Melos, the notorious Greek atheist who allegedly threw a wooden statue of Hercules into a fire and commanded it to either miraculously save itself or perform his 13th Labor and boil his pot of turnips. For this, a price was laid upon his head by the city fathers of Athens, causing Diagoras to skip town. But the story I want to tell comes from the Roman philosopher and statesman Cicero:  Diagoras was being lectured by a friend who tried to convince him of the existence of the gods by showing him the many votive pictures lovingly rendered by those who were saved from storms at sea by “dint of vows to the gods.” Diagoras replied, “Where are the pictures of those who had been shipwrecked and drowned at sea?”

2012/01/20 – Dr. Wayne Dyer’s 2012′s New Age Snake Oil for Success

Dr. Wayne Dyer, "Sit Back and Let the Unseen World Take Care of It."

 

To make your dreams come true, you must go to the unseen world–the world of Spirit, or inspiration. It is this world that will guide you to anything you’d like to have in your life. – Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

 

This fluffy-sounding yet insidious trope is one of my favorite flower-hat New Age-isms to refute, and I thank Dr. Dyer for placing it so elegantly.

Making one’s “dreams come true,” aka, ” the “pursuit of happiness,” has been hardwired into our collective brainpan for so long, we have failed to noticed how unconsciously driven we are to seek the pleasures of comfort. As I briefly recounted in my blog entry, “The Soft Domination,” our perceived need to dominate our environment with creature comforts has produced a dysfunctional, lopsided world where affluence and poverty seemingly exist in unrelated, parallel worlds. The fact that one world feeds off the other like an ever-present vampire is hardly addressed or considered by those who are “lucky” enough to be born on the good side of town, like, presumably, the good Doctor Dyer, the author of the above quote. One only has to look at the schematic of Dyer’s recipe for success with a clear eye to see how shallow and meaningless – and more important – deceptive it is. But Dyer learned a long time ago that spouting such Candyland platitudes is what sells his books. So he must be on the right track, right? But let’s take this quote apart and see what remains.

To make your dreams come true, you must go to the unseen world…

Apparently, this is the world that Dr. Dyer is intimately familiar with. It is “unseen.” And it is a “world.” Is Dyer speaking metaphorically or is he claiming that there is a level of existence that is “unseen” but apprehended? Why is it so crucial that one enters into this  “unseen” world to make one’s wishes to “come true?”Dyer explicitly claims that this world has certain properties.

–the world of Spirit, or inspiration.

Let that sink in for a moment. Forget that there are many dimensions in defining the word “spirit.” We will assume for the sake of brevity that the Good Doctor is referring to the part of self that is said to survive after death. The next word, inspiration, contains the root of spirit, so we can see that Dyer connects spirit and inspiration very closely. Inspiration is the “process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially creative.” [1] So, instead of actually working out your dream in dealing with the physical complications that will arise to thwart your dream from ever becoming a reality, Dr. Dyer prefers that you sit back and wait for a disembodied, unseen dimension to somehow birth your unmanifested desire into existence. For he actually says so in the next sentence that:

It is this world that will guide you to anything you’d like to have in your life.

Take a look at the world around you. The numbers don’t add up.

At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day

The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income.

According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death. [2]

I guess in the rose-colored world of Dr. Wayne Dyer, who has amassed considerable wealth peddling sweet-sounding nonsense to the crowd of gullible New Age consumers, his program of wishing and waiting works for him, but not for those who live in the real world of consequence. If “making one’s dreams come true” is the overarching motivation in one’s life, and it doesn’t include all others who live in this world with you, then what you want is continuance of the insanity of a world that we have now. That’s not good enough, obviously. But for those like Wayne Dyer, things can’t be good enough. And that’s the problem with CandyLand metaphysics. Too many people are going to have to die for no reason before anyone begins to question their preciously-held beliefs.

 

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[1] Oxford dictionary. Origin Middle English – “divine guidance”: via the Latin “inspirare,”to breathe or blow into.” Spirit comes down from the Latin, “spiritus,”  breath. Those with an understanding of the Desteni vocabulary will find this definition to be one that makes a lot of sense.

[2] Shah, Anup. “Poverty Facts and Stats.” Global Issues. 20 Sep. 2010. Web. 20 Jan. 2012. <http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats>.

2012/01/06 – 2012: Will Earth be Saved by Higher Consciousness?

Yesterday we briefly looked at the Father of the 2012 Mayan Code Prophecy, the late Jose Arguelles. Another New Age prophet of the Last Days is Drunvalo Melchizedek (birth name: Bernard Perona, born in 1941). Drunvalo, like Arguelles, foresees a major future event happening on Earth that isn’t all that different from the Christian eschatology found in the pages of the Book of Revelations. Yet, one major difference is that God and Jesus is not going to be coming back to lead their children home. Instead, the cataclysm to come will be resolved through the light of consciousness. In this 2007 interview at a workshop in Washington DC, Drunvalo is asked why he had grown less “optimistic” about the current world situation.

Marie: During our last interview some time ago, you did not seem as optimistic about what is happening in the world as you are today. What has changed?

Drunvalo: I know we are going to make it because I have been allowed to see into the future. However, even though I optimistically say “we make it” we are still going to pass through this little “eye of the needle” where it is going to look like it is hopeless. And they [my guides] wouldn’t let me see what this was — but something happens and what looks so hopeless turns around very quickly.

Marie: Is it like the three days of darkness that we used to talk about?

The “three days of darkness” (which was originally thought to last five days) was an anticipated event built upon the claim that the Earth was passing through a cosmic field called the “photon belt” and that “three days of darkness” would be followed by a shift in energy and consciousness. This idea was presented in the mid-1990′s by many New Age authors, notably Barbara Hand Clow and Sheldon Nidle. The “three days of darkness” referred to the result of the Earth passing through this multi-dimensional light field; all electrical devices would cease to operate for three days and the world would experience 72 hours of “night.” This idea would later pop up again in the Y2K scare at the end of the 20th century.

Drunvalo: No, this doesn’t have anything to do with that. It looks as if the outer environment we live in will completely and totally die, as well as everything in it. We are going to come to that stage. So it is going to look hopeless. My angels didn’t show me that part of it. All they would say is that you are going to witness in your life a place where it looks like it is just over. Then this “thing” is going to happen. And the world situation is going to be quickly and completely turned around.

Yes, Drumvalo says that his “angels” showed him a vision that “look as if” everything around us will “totally die,” and then miraculously, everything will be better.

Marie: In the workshop you spoke about “waves” of people who will die. Can you explain what you were talking about?

Drunvalo: The waves are spoken about in Native American prophecy. There was an American Indian from a long time ago that was allowed to go to all the various tribes and secret societies (the Grandmother societies) and to collect and write down the prophecies from these tribes to find out what they had in common.

He found one thread which ran through all the prophecies which talks about the time which is approaching. There are three waves of people on the earth who are said to die in a very short amount of time. I don’t know what that is about exactly, but when I was reading about it, it felt like it occurs in about 10 days time. Something very quick — something VERY BIG happens and kills an enormous number of people.

Outwardly it looks horrible. It could be Atomic war, the bird flu or who knows what. Outwardly, to the survivors, it looks like a catastrophe, but inwardly the people who leave this way have planned it. They want to leave, and they want to leave together. When they collect over the top of the earth, the first wave goes to a specific place in time/space dimension so they can be with their own kind. Because they are not really in tune with the Earth they can be in harmony together (elsewhere).

Drunvalo turns to Native American eschatology to legitimate and populate his own desire for achieving a solution in the world he doesn’t believe he has the power to carry out. He reads this passage and within his imagination he builds a scenario in his mind where some kind of genocide occurs. And then he says those that die wanted to leave anyway! Obviously, if most of these people were so unhappy with there lives, it had to have something to do with the relationships they formed with others. Does anyone really believe that these miserable murdered would want to go off to another place to hang around the with the other miserable murdered they tried to get away from? It’s a very neat and tidy trick. Nobody has to take responsibility for anything in this scenario. Don’t feel bad about other people’s suffering: they chose to suffer. This is a great, although sinister, New Age trope.

Then it is said that there is another bigger change coming with another wave of people leaving the planet. Again this is by choice on the inner levels — not a kind of suicide — but on the inner these people know something is about to occur and they come together to go to another place in space time.

In the third wave, a massive amount of people die. This group called “hitchhikers” in the prophecies doesn’t know where their home is so they leave, looking for that place and eventually they do find their home.

After these waves pass there are only millions (not billions) of people left in the world — a much smaller number. The people that are left over will come together in one heart according to Native American prophecy — they become as one living being.

So New Age eschatology is nothing more than an appeal to Native American mythology where everything is reversed. As if living on a Native American reservation is somehow an uplifting spiritual goal. No, Drunvalo mythologizes the Native American spiritualism into something that only exists inside his mind. My point is this: if the Native Americans are not of “one heart” now, why would anyone believe they could be in the future? As far as I can tell, Native American spirituality has not helped any Native American who’s broke, bored and looking for something to do on the reservation. It’s not as if there’s a lot of money in it.

Regardless of race or religion, all the divisions are dropped and the remaining people become as one family. Then, with this new found higher consciousness, those that are left take the earth and they fly it — as if the earth is turned into a space ship which is flown to a new place, and a beautiful new way of living emerges on earth.

Why would  ”all the divisions” be “dropped?” Because there are fewer people? Because this is only a claim made in the  vacuum of desiring a solution without having to work towards one? What would be a “beautiful new way” of living on Earth?

Marie: So the actual earth is used as a space ship… so do you mean that Mother Earth is going to clean herself in this process?

Drunvalo: Yes, everything is solved. We totally fix everything through pure Consciousness, not through technology or anything like that but through our very being. From a Melchizedek point of view, we actually change orbit.

And there you have it: better living through higher consciousness, guaranteed by Drumvalo’s “angels.” All we have to do is sit back and wait for the good times to roll.

Further into the interview, Drunvalo paints a vivid ascension scenario:

Marie: But hearing you this week, it feels like humanity (we) will be “going home”…

Drunvalo: Oh, yes, because after that, we leave the earth altogether. There comes a point where we completely leave the earth, we transcend it, we go into another level of existence and that is the beginning of a very rapid, but very long journey. And we end up completely beyond the stars and planets. We end up existing in another way and in another octave of existence.

Marie: Do we leave with our body?

Drunvalo: Initially we do. We leave with our body and then our body mutates into something that would look more like an ET. After that we become Everything. But that is only the beginning of the journey.

The New Age’s preoccupation with the primacy of consciousness over the physical can be seen here within this ascension scenario. It has its beginnings with the 19th century Indian sage Ramakrishna, who claimed that the purpose of life was to realize God through consciousness. According to these folks everything that is worthy or “real” happens through consciousness.  All else is an illusion, especially the physical which is seen as an abomination in some Eastern sects and something to be overcome and denied in Western religious and philosophical systems. Very few want you to do deal with what is here on the physical plane of existence, which is, by the way, the only part of existence we can verify that something is occurring. The 2012 eschaton  is an imaginary event that people have attempted to make “true” simply by having beliefs about it. Busybodies will weave all sorts of threads to gain legitimacy and traction, but unfortunately for them, 2012 will come and go with nothing to show for it – just like the Photon Belt and Y2K. And they will be asked to drop their beliefs and to stand up within their physical frame that they have and honor it by treating it, and others, with respect.

2011/06/29 – C.S. Lewis and the Cosmic Sadist

"Suppose the truth is God always vivisects?" C.S. Lewis

The Problem of Evil is one of the most rational and obvious objections to religious belief systems one can have. It also happens to be the best argument against the existence of God. And yet, defenders of the faith have used this deadly theological weakness as a cornerstone of faith. The weakness (of course) is the question of how a “good God” could allow suffering and evil into the world? This question is specifically dealt with, if unsatisfactory, in the Old Testament book of Job, where Job wants an answer to why God singled him out for undeserved suffering. Does God show to Job that the cause of his suffering was originally a bar bet with Satan? No, God dissembles and puts on a great show of force demonstration how great He is while claiming that questions are not allowed and one should just simply have faith – which completely evades the question of why innocence suffers. Jesus is the Christian attempt to exploit suffering as a necessary act that grants reconciliation with God and entrance into Heaven. The writer(s) who wrote under the name of “Paul” also appealed to the suffering of Christ, the obedient slave of God, unto his death, providing the West with the template of acceptance of suffering as a consequence of God’s infinite wisdom.[1]

But there is that nagging problem that the religionists can’t satisfactory shake off. When the Bible asserts that God’s creation was “very good” (Gen. 1:31), it sure as hell doesn’t seem that way. We all live under the “curse of God,” according to the Garden of Eden myth, presumably for eternity, given by an insanely enraged God who didn’t know how to forgive. Not only is the first human couple cursed “above all animals,” but God also curses the earth to give up nothing without pain and toil. Such are the ways of the ancient tribal god of the Hebrews. Yahweh has cursed His creation to suffer and then demands His creation to be “obedient.”

There is something tragically unfair about this mythic scenario. If nobody else but God created everything, what about that ol’ talking serpent that just happened to be “more crafty” than any other being God created? God does not take responsibility for that and just pulls rank and orders everyone out of Paradise and into a cursed world. But Yahweh, His ministers always have told us, is “Love” or “All-Loving” perfect and omnipotent. Doesn’t make a lot of sense. The theologians find themselves painted into an uncomfortable corner.

Enter “Theodicy” – from the Greek theos (God) and dike (righteous) – a term invented by the Christian rationalist and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716) – which attempts to justify or defend God’s relation with the problem of evil by answering the following question, commonly built upon these assumptions:

God is all good and all powerful (and, therefore, all knowing).

The universe/creation was made by God and/or exists in a contingent relationship to God.

Evil exists in the world. Why?

Witness how religions use the greatest argument against itself to its advantage. They simply claim that all suffering as an essential “learning tool.” Suffering is not a consequence, but a “necessity,” and here religion and spirituality justify the existence of abuse without having any reason to end it at all. How awesome is that? They believe ‘God’ or ‘Source’ placed it there for ‘learning lessons’ needed for ‘spiritual evolution’ and for establishing ‘faith.’ And yet, they do not see it as the point that should open their eyes to the obvious lie. If “God” and his buddies all implore us to stand against evil, why did God place it here in the first place?  It’s like a parent setting the next-door neighbor’s house on fire and then telling his family that it’s their duty to save the occupants inside or just let them burn inside the blazing structure. Would that be a sinister act by a mad man, or the actions of an all-perfect, loving adult? Apologists for the faith have resorted to all kinds of logical fallacies in twisting obvious malevolence that causes suffering in the world as “lessons learned the hard way,” or as “trials” sent by an invisible, wholly transcendent “God” to mold a being’s mind into a “faithful,” believing slave.

The modern Christian apologist for the faith C.S. Lewis was very crafty himself at presenting questionable premises to build rational structures upon. In his seminal work, The Problem of Pain, Lewis explains that suffering exists because of the free wills involved, and if God removed or excluded suffering, He would have “excluded life itself.”

Really? Without suffering life would be “excluded?” How did Lewis come to such a stretch? Lewis could only present such a ludicrous assertion within the confines of the accepted premise that God is “good” (faith). It is not logical to state that free wills who cause evil is the only condition that Life could exist within. As an apologist, Lewis was forced to work within the framework of his faith, and that’s why he had no choice but to contort himself into convoluted, pretzel-logic positions. Like this one:

‘The world is a dance in which good, descending from God, is disturbed by evil arising from the creatures, and the resulting conflict is resolved by God’s own assumption of the suffering nature which evil produces. The doctrine of the Fall asserts that the evil which thus makes the fuel or raw material of the second and more complex kind of good is not God’s contribution but man’s.”

When did C.S. Lewis become privy to “God’s own assumption?” Did God tell these things to Lewis, or did he just dream them up on his own? It’s an interesting flowchart, however, as Lewis constructs a curious diagram of the “good” cascading down from Heaven only to have it “disturbed” by evil “creatures.” It wasn’t Man that took Lewis’ wife. Hadn’t Lewis prayed to God to make her well, and didn’t she enter a remission?  And wasn’t after that promising rebound, didn’t his wife die shortly afterwards, anyway. In Lewis’ book, A Grief Observed, Lewis at one point in his bereavement rightly considers God as a “Cosmic Sadist.” This embarrassment of Lewis’ a brief loss of faith is usually glossed over by Lewis’ followers as a novel convention of someone struggling and not the way Lewis actually felt. I don’t buy that. Lewis’ grief over his wife was notoriously deep, and such questions would naturally arise. Lewis is more honest in dealing with his brief embrace of Gnostic Maltheism in this excerpt:

“No, my real fear is not materialism. If it were true, we–or what we mistake for ‘we’–could get out from under the harrow. An overdose of sleeping pills would do it. I am more afraid that we are really rats in a trap. Or, worse still, rats in a laboratory. Someone said, I believe, ‘God always geometrizes.’ Supposing the truth were ‘God always vivisects’?” [2]

Indeed. What if God is not “All-Loving,” but rather a sinister Cosmic Sadist who derives pleasure from the suffering of His creatures? Would anyone know the difference?

Returning to Lewis’ appeal to the Fall and the Adam and Eve myth quoted above as some sort of corroborating evidence of God’s benevolence is not such a good idea, because it forces Lewis into supporting his Christian speculations with more speculations, with the foundational premise and starting point based on acceptance the what is said in the bible is “true.” Lewis’ optimistic view of the goodness of God is neither defensible or all-encompassing, for an alternative explanation of the world as “a dance” of good and evil could simply be that Evil is far stronger than the good, which would suit a Cosmic Sadist just fine.

Another Christian champion who tried to gild the theodical lilly was Paul Tillich, and he claimed that the only acceptable answers to the question of suffering was… wait for it… prayer and faith. If your loved one gets abducted by a cult, pray about it and have faith. This seemingly nonsensical, magical-thinking approach has been a New Age staple ever since, with Eckhart Tolle and others peddling (for a price) the same damn nonsense to the gullible. Amazingly, Tillich speculated that petitioning the Lord with prayer influences God to intervene into the world and place the petitioner into a participatory role in making the world into a better place. Tillich takes the position that existence is grounded into the “being” of God. This is all well and good if vain speculating of religious beliefs is what you’re into.

Karl Barth, another modern theologian had an even more terse perspective as to the problem of evil, and like Yahweh in the Book of Job, he claimed that was anyone posed such a question was in danger of judgment! Rejecting theodicy, Barth no doubt had seen the inadequacy of his liberal Christian faith dealing with the problem of evil, and preferred to be up front about. Suffering and evil were the cards humanity had drawn. Deal. Besides, Barth explained that God was “wholly other” (echoing Marcion) and could not be comprehended by limited, earthbound creatures, it was useless for theologians to speculate. [3 ] However, “prayer and faith” doesn’t seem to be effective against evil, either. Barth didn’t realize he was committing the same offense with his own Christian speculations about prayer and faith.

Where does that leave us? This ‘necessity of suffering’ is how religion and spirituality justify the existence of abuse without having any reason to end it for all, since they believe ‘God’ or ‘Source’ placed it there for ‘learning lessons’ needed for ‘spiritual evolution.’ What these religionists fail to grasp is that evil does not need “God” to define itself. However, religion does need “God” to explain itself, which is why Religion have constructed as many doctrines and tenets and explanations as there are voices to explain them. They all fail, because the speculative nature of the explanation, which produces a “explanation gap” about the thing being explained. Speculating about the nature of reality is something that is never going to be absolutely true or free from error. By definition, a speculation can only be a conjecture about a subject without firm evidence. Same as Faith. We are seemingly forever cursed with having to deal with people will assert their speculation as “truth” when all they are doing is jumping through mental hoops. The problem of Evil should be enough to dissuade anyone from belief in an all-good, omnipotent and benevolent “God.” But it is to our detriment that it’s not. Suffering is instead seen as a fulfillment unto death; the ultimate fulfillment of a Christian life – a suffering that is promised to be justified after you die. But you have to die first. How does that justify faith?

***

[1] Phil. .12; 2 Cor. 22.7; 12.21

[2] A Grief Observed By C.S. Lewis, HarperOne. 2001

[3] Karl Barth: theologian of Christian witness By Joseph L. Mangina, Westminister John Knox Press. 2004

2011/04/14 – Speed Bumps Part 2

Last night’s blog found me trying to open myself up further, as a way of furthering and delving deeper into the process of my self-honesty. To continue along with that thread, I just wanted to relate a mental lockdown I experienced when writing it where I felt a wave or tiredness and confusion that fell upon me, leaving me without a way to continue, seemingly. It was a fascinating experience when the challenge to myself to open-up was issued; I immediately felt a “brain-drain” and a loss of context to what I writing. This has happened before, but not to my recollection involving my self-reflection. I had intended to write out self-forgiveness points, but I didn’t see it. I shook it off to being “tired” and writing “at a late hour.” I just turned off the lights and went to bed.

In the morning I felt very unsatisfied with myself and what I posted . I thought it was a lame post, and not very good. One of the worst, ever! I discussed this with my partner who noticed that the self-forgiveness statements were missing from it, as well. She said there were so many points to do self-forgiveness on – so why didn’t I do them? I told her of the lockdown and she said, fine. Do self-forgiveness on these points now while they’re here. I felt a pang of resistance to that, and I knew I wasn’t going to get out of it, no matter how bad my back chat wanted me out of there.

I wrote out several lines of self-forgiveness and discussed the points a little more. I realized I would have to write an “answer blog” to get over the inequality between myself and what I wrote last night. How do I feel about it? Embarrassed . Ugh, because who wants to display  one’s weaknesses for public consumption? The bravest of us, no doubt. I am comfortable with the lack of privacy on the internet to a point, and then I am no better than the anonymous cowards who take shots at us behind fake names. Basically, there is so much SF to do and I’m not getting any younger, as the expression goes. But this what I signed up for, to make this blog a beacon among many. a place where my process within self-honesty can be mapped and seen to stand for something. I’ve lived my entire life within and as a secret, most times as a secret within myself, or as projections of many personalities, one for each occasion.

But I am happy to report, I do feel like I’ve changed, especially when it comes to my racing mind, which is more restful these days. After studying in various ways, I see that it is possible to transcend the mind’s incessant chatter. When I first started process, I couldn’t see it at all. I’m doing a better job at stopping most back chat before I begin engaging full-on with them. Still a long way to go, but I can see myself getting there. And that’s pretty cool.

 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge last night’s blog as inferior (to other blogs I’ve written).

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself for become frustrated in not finding the right words I wanted to say.

 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself for feeling my readers wouldn’t like it either, and would think it was poor.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself fo blaming myself that I was too tired to write effectively.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself for “giving up ” on the blog when I ran out of things to say.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself for “giving up” on the blog when I found myself not knowing what to say.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself for having a starting point of “getting the job done” instead of being equal to my writing.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself for judging myself for not coming up with more on this point.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself for attaching self-worth to what I write.

I forgive myself for having accepted and allowing myself to become influenced over, by, that which wants to keep me where I am.

I forgive myself for having accepted and allowing myself to manipulate the point of not writing effective sf because I haven’t been doing anything wrong, which most certainly be a point of ego.

I forgive myself for having accepted and allowing myself to write-through the mind instead of expression.

I forgive myself for having accepted and allowing myself to fear self-intimacy.

I forgive myself for having accepted and allowing myself the thoughts and opinions from others.

I forgive myself for having accepted and allowing myself to fear writing self-forgiveness publically because of my ego.

I forgive myself for having accepted and allowing myself to judge myself as ‘less then worthy.”

I forgive myself for having accepted and allowing myself for not being fully present when I write.

I forgive myself for having accepted and allowing myself for attaching importance to what I write.