The God of Hell

Over the centuries humans have inhabited this planet they have inflicted every manner of torture, suffering and punishment upon each other. We recoil in horror of stories of unimaginable pain and torment prisoners have endured in the hands of evil men.

Yet even the very worst cruelties imagined by the most twisted and sick human minds are mild and tame compared to that of the Christian God. This monstrous deity sends humans to a place of eternal damnation, with no hope of relief or escape.

This is not divine justice.

This is gratuitous, sadistic, spiteful, vengeful, pointless, evil cruelty of the highest order.

Two questions which deeply puzzle me ..

Q1: How is information stored?
Q2: How is information retrieved?

Imagine I told you a simple fact: “My name is Jon”

Somehow your brain manages to store that fragment of information.

I then ask you “What is my name?”

Some your brain manages to retrieve that information.

It makes our books and databases and other word-based systems look so childish that I suspect we havn’t even got off base one in ths area of research and development.

What are the odds of that?

Today I found myself wondering that if something has a non-zero chance of occuring (eg: I win the lotto 100 times in a row), does that event become a certainty if it is attempted an infinite number of times?

I think it does actually (but I have been wrong before)

Well that got me thinking about the argument of the creationists that goes “the odds of this world just appearing by accident are so slim that it points to the hand of a designer/creator”. (Let’s no worry about the obvious question of who created the creator for now)

Well I think we all agree that the odds of this world happening the way it has are indeed very very very small. But … we know the odds of it happening are NOT zero! How come? Because it’s here!

Now we also don’t know how long this universe has been here. 15 billion years? Maybe. But what if it is infinite? That would mean there has been an infinite number of expansions and contractions. If infinite, it means this universe as we know it is no longer here by small small chance, but is here because it is an absolute certainty.

But then … I’ve been wrong before.

When relationships end

The value now so hard-won earned

Is in the lesson that was learned

We thank our teachers, through our tears

For through their love we see our fears

If we are married can we …

• Masturbate?
• Remain totally monogamous?
• Swing?
• Be vegetarian?
• Sunbathe naked?
• Gather at Stonehenge for the winter Solstice?
• … whatever you can dream up

It is unfortunate that most (rather lazily) let the notion of marriage define their relationship, rather than use their relationship to create their marriage. In fact, there are as many different “marriages” are there are couples.

Your marriage is whatever you and your partner declare it to be.

Yet you alone decide and declare Who You Really Are.

This is the delicious paradox of our existence, that we have no need of any other to Be Who We Really Are, yet need others in order to express Who We Really Are.

The tension between the Now and the Not Yet is sensed at all times.

What every gal needs to consider

So you’ve met Mr Great and settled in together. Wonderful!

And of course you expect him to be monogamous. (and fair enough too!)

But just realise the implications of what you are creating. You are saying to him that you are now the one and only woman on the face of the entire planet that he can kiss, touch, caress, shag, …  (you  get the idea).

You are actually placing an enormous responsibility on yourself.

Imagine if he needed a certain medication that he was unable to self-administer, and you were his nurse. He is now dependent on you. He has no choice in the matter.

If you demand or expect monogamy, you have limited his choices of sexual partner to exactly one! You!

I’ll say it again … You are actually placing an enormous responsibility on yourself.

It is my observation that many woman don’t get this. Don’t get it at all.

Yelling and screaming and kicking and spitting

Years ago when  did my counselling course, I learnt there was a school of thought that life is a series of grief processes, starting at birth with the sudden loss of the safety and comfort of our mothers’ womb.

When someone does any or all of the above, they are probably just expressing grief.

Even if it means taking one on the chin, it’s probably better to respond to their grief rather than how they are expressing it.

James was wrong

The book of James in the new testament is supposed to have been written by James, the brother of Jesus. James the Just (his nickname) stayed in Jerusalem with Peter during the early days, until the Romans decided to finally flatten the place.

James (or whoever the idiot was who wrote it) said “Resist the devil and he will flee”

This is just plain wrong. Completely wrong actually.

What a tragic waste of energy and effort and emotion I expended as a teenager all those years ago “resisting the devil” as he tempted me with such awful sin as sexual fantasies and the urge to masturbate. The more I prayed and fasted and resisted, the stronger the “devil” seemed to get!

The more you think about something, the more reality you give it and the more powerful it becomes.

James would have been far more help to everyone if he had written “Look the devil square in the eye and see him for what he really is”

I am so so so so glad to be free of Christianity and it’s awful teachings.

The $35 million dollar question

I recently asked a friend of mine what she would do if she won $35 million.

She listed off eight things.

All eight of those things were for other people.

Very cool.

The Sharemarket and Religion

Listening to the radio in the car this morning, I was struck by the similarities between the sharemarket and religion.

Both are governed by the fundamental human emotions of fear and greed.

If we think the stock will rise, greed kicks in and we rush to buy. When the prophets (analysts) predict impending doom, we sell in fear (and sometimes panic).

Religion appeals to our greed in promising eternal life to those who believe and act (and donate) as desired, and also to our fear should we not toe the party line, with threats of eternal damnation in a very unpleasant place (how’s that for the ultimate scare tactic!).

I must say that I’m so very very glad to be rid of the yoke of organised religion from my thinking, and am so very very glad  to have the simple freedom to decide Who I Really Am for no other reason than because That is Who I Wish To Be, and not because I am greedy for some prize or fearful of some punishment.