About eighty percent of the internet is made up of people arguing over religion. Thanks to this, when the net finally becomes self aware it will no doubt have the personality of a seventeen year old trying desperately to show how clever it is by posting a Flying Spaghetti Monster in every public forum it can find. Now, while this may only be mildly less insufferable than your average UFC fan hooting and hollering about the only sport officially more homoerotic and less interesting than pro-wrestling, it’s still pretty ominous. Religion is under attack from all sides. It comes from political bodies trying to throw it in special boxes, militant internet atheists making clever “JESUZ IS A ZOMBIE LOLZ!” comments, a general cultural malaise toward anything that could be construed as ‘giving a shit’, or the biggest threat to religion there is: religion. Now a lot of my more badass readers are probably smirking and mentally flipping off the god they don’t believe in because they know this is true and somehow construe it as a ‘win’ for them, but in all honesty it’s probably the leading cause of our cultural landscape being a barren desert road spotted occasionally by roadkill and dried out turds. I was going to insert a pretty fucking witty remark here about “ X are the turds.” but I couldn’t decide which demographic I wanted hate mail from this time, so just knock yourselves out with this joke instead as it should ensure I get it from everyone: “This article makes about as much sense as a spirograph drawing done by a retarded, black, Jewish Michael J. Fox while he was jumping from the World Trade Centers during Hurricane Katrina and molesting an obese white baby with a crucifix and aborting its' sister who had cancer and wasn't viable anyway." Yes, I used that once before. Sue me, it’s 2:30 am. Now let’s get back on track as I think that bit managed to use up my quota of unnecessary vulgarity and obscenity for a few paragraphs. ‘Trendy’ became the new ‘hip’ not too long ago, and more recently ‘edgy’ became the new ‘trendy’. How do you successfully become edgy? Why, by being aggressively ignorant about things in as controversial a way as possible, of course! Thankfully, religion is a big soft target that soft-bellied dopes can target without fearing any fierce retribution. It’s brilliant, really…because if you attack just about any religion and someone attacks you back, you can immediately stand them up as a hypocrite for not ‘turning the other cheek’(or the equivalent thereto). Those who are ‘properly’ following their given path will generally just not care or will keep their mouth shut, and so you weed out those who could provide you any intelligent argument and pretty much guarantee a silly little checkmate in your battleground of choice. It’s brilliant in the way those “Snuggee” blankets are brilliant: on paper they make sense but if you actually use one, you should probably snip off your genitals. It’s an easy way to make yourself appear very cutting edge, very intellectual, and very important, after all. “Oh you believe in God? How quaint. I used to have imaginary friends too!” Oh yes, how fucking funny is that?!?! See how they took the massive, ancient idea of God and reduced it to the status of silly childhood phase? It’s easy! Did you also know that once in a while someone does something stupid AND believes in some various religion? Did you know that in such a case, the religion and everyone who has ever taken part in it or any religion is just as responsible for the stupid act? It’s true! But enough joking, because it’s honestly not very funny anymore. There’s nothing really wrong with debating anything, religion included…but the slow and steady disappearance of religion from our mindscape? That’s not so fun. Sure, religion has made a habit of destroying, absorbing, reinventing, and morphing itself pretty regularly over the years to the point where it is its own worst enemy, but these days it has some outside help. The same can be said for science, by the way, but that’s another rant. Organized, structured religion has done everything but put the knife in the guts of actual religious, spiritual faith and belief. Every major religion has managed to fracture itself into so many absolutely little groups with ludicrously minute differences between them that most involved have lost any and all sight of the original point. These major faith systems managed to more or less annihilate mainstream belief in anything ‘magical’ long ago, yet are now very slow to react to the fact that people are losing faith, spirituality, and any other signs of even giving a shit about one another. Governments worm and wriggle their political fingers into religion and vice-versa until the two are inseparable, soccer moms make ‘practice’ their children’s new religion, people vigilantly attend church, than spit on the homeless, church leaders live in palaces while people the world over starve. But maybe I’m dinging the mainstream guys and ignoring a groundswell of not-so-mainstream. Maybe so. Maybe most ‘small’ religions, followers of the eleventy trillion pagan paths out there, and so on have for the most part become so damn worried about how cool and mysterious and elite and prestigious their given belief is that whatever time isn’t spent obsessing over that stuff is spent on a figurative cross bemoaning why they are persecuted so! And for fuck’s sake stop writing the hastily worded emails and responses, I know full well there are plenty of people who aren’t guilty of any of this and have deep spiritual lives and blah-diddly-blah. Next time I’ll just make my bulletin that people read to see me go bonkers a picture of a kitten and glittery text saying “BE COOL THIS WEEKEND AND DRIVE SAFELY!”. Until then, keep in mind that there are a few people doing things that way…a few people drowning in the goddamn toilet bowl the world at large is rapidly becoming. But you know, this isn’t meant to be a bulleted list of what each religious group is doing wrong and why and what awful miserable smears you are for being that way. I’ll post that one another day. This is more an outlook of a bleak not-so-distant future where every religion is supermarket bought, sanitized, and totally PC. It’s a place where magic is dead and spirit has no place. Where there is no wonder or awe, only doubt and definitions. It’s a place where religion is mandated but spirituality is outlawed. It’s a place where you’re free to believe in any of the socially acceptable things to believe, but your faith will rest only in the cold realm of science. You will eventually know how everything works, but you will never know why. All of this I see…a mundane, banal, boring little rock full of cosmic germs that will probably manage to erase ourselves from existence long before we ever really learn anything at all. So stick a knife in your fucking religion and find some spirituality. Put away the textbooks for a while and go for a walk until you see some magic. Don’t just ask how things are, ask –why-. Flip reason, logic, and science the bird for just a little while and bring some wonder back into the world. Go out and buy the Bible, the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching, the fucking Necronomicon, and all the other members of the Holy Book Justice League. Then when you're done reading them and figure out they're all just saying the same damn basic thing, go lead your own path instead of following someone elses. Or fuck it, we can just wait until swine flu wipes us all out. At this point it will be a relief.
Your "So stick a knife in it..." paragraph is worthwhile. The rest of the post sounds like a drunk on a barstool telling anyone who will listen about how shitty life is. Speaking just for myself, I find life challenging, but not shitty. I'm thinking you need to take up surfing, or mountain climbing, or maybe just get laid. Failing that, get in a Twelve Step Program. If you don't know what that's all about, I'll be happy to share. Religion and spirituality are intensely personal, by definition. If you haven't found either one yet, just wait until you get chest pains in the middle of the night. The whole afterlife bit will start looking a lot more promising, I guarantee it.
I can't surf, don't particularly want to climb any mountains, and have the getting laid thing well in hand(GET IT?!?!?!?!). Not quite sure where a twelve step program fits in; and I wish I was half as legible as this post when I'm drunk on a barstool telling people stuff. I mostly just complain about music and the Eagles in that situation. I was going to write out something about pulling your head out of the clouds and down into the smog; but fuck it. Enjoy having everything figured out - I'd get bored.
"While one who sings with his tongue on fire, Gargles in the ratrace choir, Bent out of shape by society's pliers, Cares not to come up any higher But would rather drag you down in the hole that he's in. "But I mean no harm Ma, nor put fault With anyone who lives in a vault. It's all right Ma, it's life and life only." -- Bob Dylan , "It's All Right Ma I'm Only Bleedin"
Neat; this is certainly clear and regarding the discussion. If we must uses Bob quotes, let me use one that makes sense: "All I can do is be me, whoever that is."
Yeah, way to tell me that I was what I pretty much said I was a thousand times already. You sure...you sure showed me.
Yeah dude totally like it's a cartoon man with the colors and the stuff man like we should all lighten up and relax brah.
