Rejecting Christianity (Be Happy; Be Pagan)

All one has to do to see the error of being Christian is look at this illustration from Martin Luther's Bible:

Regardless of what a sweet man named Jesus had to say as he gathered ancient Jewish people on hillsides around today's Israel, an organized church grew out of his teachings and those of Paul who rejected Jesus when he was alive.This church wed itself to Roman emperors eventually and became the establishment of Western Europe for centuries, even after it divided between Roman Catholic and protestant.

The world view of this Christian church and hence Christianity in general was that there is a god in whose image humans exist, never mind which humans, and that the universe is an Earth-centered work of art god has produced, wheeling about like so many spinning tops all interconnected and following precise mathematical laws. Everything Christianity insisted for centuries to be certain truth, all the perfect spheres within spheres, is now universally rejected.

All that is left to defend Christianity at all is the part of it that is humanistic. Love thy neighbor as thyself. OK. That is ethical. Kant had an Ethics that goes way beyond that maxim. So let's praise the love Christianity claims to have, despite the Crusades and countless other religious wars and the centuries of persecution and burning people at the stake for lack of orthodoxy, and let's move on.

As we toss out the absurdity of most of the worldview of Christianity, we must also throw out the mindless taboos and forbidden fruit that have gone with it since before Augustine. As the Earth revolves around the Sun, so does human existence revolve around sex and bodily pleasure. There is a twisted inversion of natural desire in the sacraments of Christianity. Rather than loving the body, we eat the dead flesh of god. We drink his blood weekly, if not daily. We do that so he will forgive our sins of the flesh. How absurd is that?

If we want communal sacraments, we ought to have a weekly orgy with people whose company we really enjoy. Let us share love and intimacy with people with whom we would like to have genuine communication, rather than practicing some mumbo-jumbo with an invisible, vengeful, jealous, spiteful demon god.

Jack

Hiatus

Looking over this blog, I see that I have written nothing here in a month. There are several reasons. The election over, I don't want to continue to dwell on political arguments. With the holidays came brief trips to Dillard and visits from others. We had the perfect white Christmas at the Dillard House with excellent food and half a foot of snow. A fireplace and our suite kept us warm. 

There are plenty of photos:

 2010-12-25 Xmas10

Dec 24, 2010

photos: 45

 

Snowstorm 1-10-11

Jan 9, 2011

photos: 15

With January came Starr's three day visit and a New Year's Eve party at Maggie and Joce's home. It was all low key and pleasant. More good food. All through the holidays there was a sense of something I read somewhere that the end of the holidays would bring reality. Alfred Corn, I think it was, who posted some such on his FB page. Starr would get her divorce with all the difficulty that might bring. And Darryl would hear that there is no more work for him now that the editor on maternity leave has decided to return. Hard reality to face as 2011 gets into gear.

The snowstorm and the ice of the past three days have been good for reflection and stepping out of routine. I still don't know what lies ahead for us exactly, but as I read Patti Smith's evoking of her hardship with Mapplethorpe, their days at the Chelsea Hotel, and how their love and creativity blossomed despite poverty and his dying, I think that my life has gotten too soft, too bourgeois, too stalled. And so I repeat my mantra, Get out of Atlanta soon. Finish the novel-- it doesn't matter if it's any good or not-- just finish it. Write poetry. Change my life before I'm too old to change it. 

So the hiatus for this blog may continue yet awhile as I work on the novel. That, for now, is where my heart is--

http://savannahflashback.blogspot.com/

Jack