Coping with coping.

Or "what the fuck do you care", part 4

And/or "why truth matters", part 3

And/or "okay, Mike, so it's all bullshit....", part 2


So, all that's left for the knee-jerk argument against religious criticism, is that you're messing with someones coping mechanism.

Well, alcohol is a coping mechanism.
It's socially acceptable, indeed deemed constructive to criticize alcoholism.

But is religion comparable?

Well, again, time to deconstruct this whole idea with my relentless drilling logic.


To the faithful, assume for a moment that never in your life did you ever stumble across the Christian story in any form.
So, you grow up Atheist, but you didn't even know to apply that label yourself, it's not even a concern.

Now, aside from religion, assume you lead more or less the same life, and thus faced all the troubles, torments, and trials of the life you've lead.

How do you suppose you would have gotten through it?

Let's rule out suicide, and drugs and alcohol, etc, and say you got through it okay, how do you figure you would have gotten there?

Probably with a self help book, counseling, friends, family, etc.

People do it all the time.

Now put religion back in.

Religious people still need counseling, comfort from friends and family, still grieve loss, etc.

So, the only difference I see, is the clergy butting into the whole cycle.

But still, the knee jerk emotion I get in these arguments is essentially "who the hell are YOU to mess with how people coooope!?!?!!".

Well, who the hell are the church?

And along that line, who the hell is John Edward?

Okay, let's say pastors/ministers/etc are glorified counselors with some mythology sprinkles on top.

Well.....sorry, Hell makes the whole deal break down.
The mythology offers comfort from fear, and then dishes out fear.

And you get that when you poke at these arguments.
Just yesterday, a poster on RD.net "Joecatholic", was all sweet and doey eyed, I hit him with the Hell rant, asked him to refute it, he couldn't, so he snapped and got all fundie on me,
Started talking about "gates of Hell", and "keep your wicked tentacles off my children", and all the stuff you expect from the fear-mongered.

Scratch at it, you always find that fucking fear.

And it's from the whole Hell mess.

And crack open the Bible, do you see anyone being glorified counselors?
No, it's a political text.
It's desert barbarian politics.
Literally, all about one tribe slaughtering another, and kings, and glory fantasies, and gold, and wine, and loot and plunder, ad nausium.

Which goes back to a few rants back and the link to Steve's post about how religion is playing politics.

I used to ask myself "if humans need these illusions, why can't we just have a better religion?".
And I poked around at it, and in it, and it ain't coming.
For the exact reasons that it is politics.

And that leads me back to "at what price comfort?".

And it also lead me back to the chickens and the Colonel.

They don't care about you.
The high up engineers of the church don't care about you.
The human pen holders of the Bible didn't care about you.

At all.
At all.
AT ALL!!

They cared about their power, and their pocketbooks, and being special, like John Edward.

It's the same caste of people all through fucking history.

It's the politics of fear.

That's what I've figured out pulling all this apart, everything messed up in the human condition is because of fear and greed, and greed is another flavor of fear, so it's all fear.

And all the dopey awful annoying shit in this world traces down to fear.
Everything. Every instance. Every dumb commercial, everything.

Fear.

And the whole Heaven/Hell game is the purest concentration of it.

And the world that the politics of fear has offered is the whole ugly fear merry go round.

And the only way out of it, is new things to know, and new things to do.
Otherwise, it's the same old shit forever and ever.

And in Biblical times, it was the same old shit for millenia.
So they thought it really would be the same old shit forever.
No wonder they wanted the world to end.
No wonder they wanted a Hell to put the assholes in.

And you look at the cynics, who think nothing changes, and nothing ever will, and that's the worldview they've swallowed.

Fuck hope, me, me, me, greed, greed, greed, fear, fear, fear, and they're any one of the types on the merry go round.
Hopeless or fearful.
Criminal or victim.

And they don't WANT it to change.
And they don't want YOU to want it to change.

The thought of it changing scares them.

More fear.

And that's how it lingered on so long in ancient times.
Fear, control, and jaundiced Machiavellian shit.

But it has changed. Forever.

Those that whine against progress essentially admit it's happened.

Which goes back to new things to know, and new things to do.
The merry go round of fear doesn't have it to offer.
Never will.
Never did.
It's a circle, circles go nowhere.

The only thing that gives new things to know, is rational inquiry, and the science that springs from it, and the technology that springs from it, and the world changes it brings.
And that's what gives new things to do.

And those new things break us out of the circle.

And again, the world has changed, forever.
You reading this on your screen is proof.
The bullshitters can't deny it.

And the Internet has shrunken the planet down to a speck, so they don't have wiggle room anymore.

The only thing they have left to exploit is YOUR fear.

Don't let them.

Am I rambling off course?
I don't think so.
Go back to the fact that believers and non-believers seek counseling.

Seems to point out the human interaction was the solution, not magic.

It's in us, it's in you.

The Shwartz is in you, Lone-Star.

The ones who made you doubt that are fear merchants.

There's nothing to fear.

It's all bullshit.

Who am I?
Who were they?

Who were they, huh?

And who the hell do I HAVE to be to question it?

I see injustice and exploitation.
I don't dig it, I speak up.
You have to after having a Batman moment.

And see this here?
*Points to screen out to you*
*Points to self*

That's the proof of everything I just said.

Human connection.
And the Internet shrunk us together.

And I delivered this message.

And maybe I got through, and maybe I made sense, and maybe it made you feel better.

And the fear-people had no claim to it.

I proved it just now.

Bust out of it.

Shrug off the fear.

Take away their power.

It's you. You're the fucking reality.
Not them, and not their bullshit.

You're the reality.

Never fucking forget it, and never fucking fear.