By Carl S ~
One person I mailed my commentaries to wrote back, "I don't want to hear any more about your hatred of religion." If you're familiar with my comments, you find they're not hateful, just logically critical. But this person, like many brought up to not challenge the status quo, thinks religions should be spoken of only positively. This author may be dismissed as a "hate-filled diatribe writer" (Dietribe: an indigenous people who carefully monitor what they eat?) by those who cover their ears and say, "I can't hear you!" Please keep in mind I'm merely revealing the layers of deception religions have robed themselves in.
There's an old American tale about two trains racing down the track, one northbound and the other southbound. They collide. An investigator talks to one man who tells them he saw the trains, "from the ridge of yonder hill." The accident investigator asked him, "What were you thinking when you saw them?" He replied, "I thought: What a hell of a way to run a railroad."
If you want a hell of a way to communicate your messages to the masses: employ multiple prophets in multiple religions, and even within them, contradicting one another. Include conflicting interpretations and declarations of what you said, and meant, and what you want. Ensure that your "schedules" for each one operate on "tracks" that put them at odds with each other. Make sure you're uninvolved, like that guy who witnessed the train wreck, watching the mentally confusing convolutions of your theologians. Make sure the spokesmen you choose engage in mental convolutions to impress others, while resolving nothing. Since the "schedules" are pulled out of a hat, rather than reasonably planned out and mutually agreed to by all parties involved, wrecks are inevitable.
No fact checking allowed. Only claims are acceptable. (We're still selling tickets!") The absolute truth varies with each branch, so truth doesn't matter, only the journey matters. Nobody dares to ask, "What's the destination?" (Is it Heaven? Hell? Not to worry; He's in control.) It's no wonder head-on collisions are inevitable. You create multiple psychological train crashes, piling up for hundreds of years, with survivors left to pick up the pieces of their lives.
This is the best you can do? It's a hell of a way to run anything.
For money to support your business, you pick “miracle” workers and others who claim revelations directly from you to them. This tradition predates "reality" television shows, and has a lot in common with them. It's obvious that for people who crave attention, their personal revelations and confessions are ways to get it. All you have to do is ask them, have you had an out of body experience, turned your life around after sinning like a drunk at orgies and accepted Christ? Are you a sister-wife of a polygamous Mormon sect? Tell us your story. Do you have 15 children because God told you to increase and multiply? Did you survive a tornado's destruction when he chose to save you? Wow! You're special! Do not spare a detail; tell us, we who are waiting with drooling interest. You don't even need to go on the "Dr. Phil" or "Jerry Springer" shows. Just walk down the aisle and grab the mike your clergy person hands you. You are the kind of person God chooses to tell us of his wondrous acts in your life. Alleluia!
Reality TV and god-faith testimonial venues have another thing in common: the personalities, the celebrities in them are outside the mainstream of reality. The stars of reality TV are not like the real people you meet every day; they don't act like them, don't interact with others like normal people, and are willing to appear in front of millions to brag and bitch and act otherwise stupidly. They're not paying attention to what they say and think, and their judgement is cloudy. They're resistant to any doubts about their behaviors being inappropriate. Most observers can see this, although we might wonder what percentage of the population is unthinkingly accepting their interpretation of "reality." Exhibitionists act as if they're important by virtue of being on camera. And the more they talk, the more they have to impart about their experiences, thoughts, advice, etc. Convicted murderers and thieves who have "confessed their sins and accepted Jesus," get attention.
Put a clergyman in front of a large congregation, with an adoring audience, and you can bet he'll believe his own propaganda. If God is in control, this money-making system he uses to run things is one hell of a system.
With 24/7 entertainment available, the "reality" shows bring in enough of the populace to go on forever. The "common man God-in-my-life testimonies" flood in, along with Bigfoot and UFO encounters. Abraham Lincoln once said, "God must love the common man; he made so many of them." Perhaps too many, because there are many religiously-convinced common men damning, suppressing, and even killing those who dare criticize their religions. They're usually those whose "education" is total indoctrination in their faiths, and whose subsequent "education" consists of reading nothing but what supports their religion's bias. These also are his missionaries.
In the middle of a "Creator's" wrecks, we realize that not only is "his" religion enterprise system out of control, but so is the universe itself! We humans alone have to make whatever order we can, while dealing with the mess we've been dealt.
What a hell of a way to run a universe!
There's an old American tale about two trains racing down the track, one northbound and the other southbound. They collide. An investigator talks to one man who tells them he saw the trains, "from the ridge of yonder hill." The accident investigator asked him, "What were you thinking when you saw them?" He replied, "I thought: What a hell of a way to run a railroad."
If you want a hell of a way to communicate your messages to the masses: employ multiple prophets in multiple religions, and even within them, contradicting one another. Include conflicting interpretations and declarations of what you said, and meant, and what you want. Ensure that your "schedules" for each one operate on "tracks" that put them at odds with each other. Make sure you're uninvolved, like that guy who witnessed the train wreck, watching the mentally confusing convolutions of your theologians. Make sure the spokesmen you choose engage in mental convolutions to impress others, while resolving nothing. Since the "schedules" are pulled out of a hat, rather than reasonably planned out and mutually agreed to by all parties involved, wrecks are inevitable.
No fact checking allowed. Only claims are acceptable. (We're still selling tickets!") The absolute truth varies with each branch, so truth doesn't matter, only the journey matters. Nobody dares to ask, "What's the destination?" (Is it Heaven? Hell? Not to worry; He's in control.) It's no wonder head-on collisions are inevitable. You create multiple psychological train crashes, piling up for hundreds of years, with survivors left to pick up the pieces of their lives.
This is the best you can do? It's a hell of a way to run anything.
For money to support your business, you pick “miracle” workers and others who claim revelations directly from you to them. This tradition predates "reality" television shows, and has a lot in common with them. It's obvious that for people who crave attention, their personal revelations and confessions are ways to get it. All you have to do is ask them, have you had an out of body experience, turned your life around after sinning like a drunk at orgies and accepted Christ? Are you a sister-wife of a polygamous Mormon sect? Tell us your story. Do you have 15 children because God told you to increase and multiply? Did you survive a tornado's destruction when he chose to save you? Wow! You're special! Do not spare a detail; tell us, we who are waiting with drooling interest. You don't even need to go on the "Dr. Phil" or "Jerry Springer" shows. Just walk down the aisle and grab the mike your clergy person hands you. You are the kind of person God chooses to tell us of his wondrous acts in your life. Alleluia!
Reality TV and god-faith testimonial venues have another thing in common: the personalities, the celebrities in them are outside the mainstream of reality. The stars of reality TV are not like the real people you meet every day; they don't act like them, don't interact with others like normal people, and are willing to appear in front of millions to brag and bitch and act otherwise stupidly. They're not paying attention to what they say and think, and their judgement is cloudy. They're resistant to any doubts about their behaviors being inappropriate. Most observers can see this, although we might wonder what percentage of the population is unthinkingly accepting their interpretation of "reality." Exhibitionists act as if they're important by virtue of being on camera. And the more they talk, the more they have to impart about their experiences, thoughts, advice, etc. Convicted murderers and thieves who have "confessed their sins and accepted Jesus," get attention.
Put a clergyman in front of a large congregation, with an adoring audience, and you can bet he'll believe his own propaganda. If God is in control, this money-making system he uses to run things is one hell of a system.
With 24/7 entertainment available, the "reality" shows bring in enough of the populace to go on forever. The "common man God-in-my-life testimonies" flood in, along with Bigfoot and UFO encounters. Abraham Lincoln once said, "God must love the common man; he made so many of them." Perhaps too many, because there are many religiously-convinced common men damning, suppressing, and even killing those who dare criticize their religions. They're usually those whose "education" is total indoctrination in their faiths, and whose subsequent "education" consists of reading nothing but what supports their religion's bias. These also are his missionaries.
In the middle of a "Creator's" wrecks, we realize that not only is "his" religion enterprise system out of control, but so is the universe itself! We humans alone have to make whatever order we can, while dealing with the mess we've been dealt.
What a hell of a way to run a universe!
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