Why, oh why, is spirituality in this Judeo Christian such a terrible and painful struggle?
As an example of what I mean you can consider the tradition that teaches us how to behave in relationships of unequal power. For example you have the God figure in this tradition, with all the power, and a human being, with no power whatsoever. Completely helpless. Completely powerless.
How do you treat powerless and helpless creatures? This is the question the tradition provides the answer for, and really, to someone like me, it is the most thoroughly disgusting collection of concepts I have ever encountered. According to this description, the all powerful creature gives orders to the helpless creature. These will be of course, orders the helpless creature will not obey. The reason for this is that the powerless creature was deliberately biogeneically engineered from birth with sinful, evil flesh and was born under the sentence of eternal damnation in hell fire as well as living constantly under the wrath of God against that evil flesh. What then follows is that the more powerful creature then demands ‘justification' from the creature deliberately created evil, as described in the book of Romans, for example. Of course, having been created sinful, the creature will require ‘salvation'. This will be done by hawking around some unconvincing book, and requiring that people ‘believe in' things most people would find very hard to believe. I only believe certain things myself because seeing is believing. Experience, you know, makes believing easy, but that can never be, because it has to believed even you can't believe, by faith, something Paul is going to have to emphasize in Romans to get anyone to believe some of his ruthless judgments. Faith could be easier, but no, it must be hard, narrow, few people must ever find it and most people won't get saved, according to this marvelous plan. The orders given by more powerful creature will not be obeyed, fighting as we must against such a powerful opponent as the human genitals and human orgasms. With this understood the most powerful creature will light a flaming hell fire to burn until the end of time in which to toss those humans who did not ‘get saved' and so ‘receive justification' for that crime of being born human. Paul celebrates the coming castration of humanity when finally, at long last free of genitals, Paul will have a purified spiritual body. If you can honestly, from the bottom of your heart, celebrate a castrated heaven and say that you really liked it better than Eden, then you can read Paul's celebration of the coming castration and the dropping of herbicide on the Garden of Eden and share Paul's enthusiasm. Once again the powerful creature has created humanity with those sinfully evil genitals, for the express purpose of demanding the removal of such genitals in order to ‘justify' and ‘save' humanity, and all of those predestined and planned out. And what a wonderful plan it is, don't you think? Don't you just want to break out into song and celebrate the wonderfully revealed ‘plan of salvation' as they call it. I speak the truth here - I would rather die.
Not exactly one of the planets most optimistic traditions, now is it. Interesting description of the most divine of power relationships is it not? The rotten injustice of the doctrine of ‘predestination' as described in Romans is pretty obvious. (Paul knows it, and has no answer other than to tell people to shut their mouths and stop talking back. This hardly qualifies as a legitimate answer in philosophy, but such things are not atypical in theology.)
Now this tradition holds no personal attraction for me, and the shocking ruthlessness of Paul in Romans is a quality that I find offensive. And really, I do think that Paul should explain how God can be both just and good, as well as being so cruel to helpless created beings as to create them with ‘sinful flesh' in the first place, and then have the gall to demand ‘justification' or anything else from someone in my powerless position. Even worse is Paul's doctrine of the biogenetic manipulation of certain human infants to be evil from birth, and furthermore with the full understanding and foreknowledge of God that these babies were specifically designed to go straight to hell, for they were ‘vessels' created expressly for the purpose of being filled with God's wrath forever, divinely predestined before birth to burn forever in hell. Now I hope that people don't start doing this kind of stuff, and as for a god doing it, well don't make me puke... Nevertheless, Paul, good little theologian that he is, continues to dogmatically insist that God is just and pure, which hardly seems likely, given that disgusting scenario he describes, something so obvious that even Paul could smell the rotten stench. Which is why Paul responds to any inquiries having to do with the natural injustice of his position by telling people to shut their mouths and quit talking back, or he terrorizes them with his scary stories.
I find nothing appealing about that book of Romans, and I am not kidding, and the only reason you would find someone like me here, even bothering to struggle with that tradition, is because I have had these experiences I describe on this site, and the sum total of all those experiences was to bring me here, into this place.
Now I am concerned with the psychologically damaging aspects of this tradition, not to mention its weird perverted view of power relationships, which, if it were true, would make me an enemy of God until the end of time, no kidding. It is just that vile to me. I would never, ever be able to stop mourning the loss of Yahweh, and I would never ever be able to reconcile myself with that other strange, weird, sadistic, brutal, overbearing tyrant of strange god.
In my struggle it has occurred to me that there are certain healthy ways to deal with the very worst of the abuses against humanity found in that Judeo-Christian tradition and in particular in that offensive book of Romans. For example, I suggest that as a spiritual exercise a person go outdoors, somewhere private, and then just have a little talk with that Christian god, and vent, and bring some things to the surface, where they belong. You go out there and tell off that god with all the unreasonable orders, unjust policies, lack of respect for simple human rights and common ordinary justice and decency, and just vent, and bring it all up to the surface.
Let's trade places, christian god. I would thoroughly enjoy entering into an abusive relationship with the christian god for even just a few hours. I would like you to know, oh christian god, just what it feels like to cower before me while I bark orders at you, and threaten you with such godly things as eternally blazing hell fires, an experience you could never have had you cruel, over bearing tyrant. Like the bald faced hypocrite that you are, nevertheless you will demand ‘mercy' and ‘justice' while showing very little simple common sense yourself. You need a wake up call, oh christian god, and the only way to get it is to come and trade places with me for a while. Maybe even though you are a god, you can still learn something new, and judging by those loathsome policies of yours, it would appear you need a few good lessons on being helpless and being human. I would like to play a few cruelly disgusting games with you, oh christian god. For example, during my brief time as almighty god lording it over you, I would like to corrupt you in some way, maybe give you some deliberately evil flesh, and then demand justification from you, book of Romans style, and offer you salvation from that thing that I just did to you, but only if you believe in something really hard to believe. You know, that kind of crap which you they say don't mind dishing up yourself, but have never had the opportunity to really experience yourself, which is obvious, or you would never have done such warp minded things to people in the first place, now isn't that true, oh christian god. And that really is just the start of it all, isn't now, oh mighty god. Of course, during my brief time as god almighty myself, lording it over you, I will have to give you that odiously disgusting experience of being castrated and thus 'saved' and I will have to bully you, lord it over you with 'complete control', and lots of other stuff that you do. And I have heard that you have a baby, a son, yourself, so of course it would be most appropriate of me to screw around with that kid of yours, during my time on the throne, and make that baby of yours evil, a vessel of wrath doomed to destruction. There's another little something you are unlikely to have ever experienced yourself, safely up there on your throne, where no one can do to your baby the evil and disgusting things you did to those biogenetically engineered babies you created to go to hell, so you would you be 'praised for your mercy' (according to that book of Romans). Well that being the case you can 'praise me for my mercy' while I screw up that whole deal for you, and engineer your baby into hell for a change, thus giving you a heaping helping of that wickedness you yourself have no trouble doing to others, being safely on that almighty throne. If I were you I would think twice before trading places with me, oh christian god, and risking the soul of that baby of yours. Sort of makes you think twice, doesn't it, but maybe you should thought of that before you did that cruel disgusting thing to all those helpless, powerless human babies. Of course, I could allow you the chance to pray to me for 'family salvation' but, however, given the ruthlessness of that doctrine of predestination, I just don't think you could ever really sample your own divinity without me taking hardline position, and really just predestining that baby of yours to eternal hell while refusing to budge an inch while you pray endlessly to me for some of that 'family salvation' cruelty you try yourself on helpless human families. Just come down off that throne and trade places with me, if you have the guts to face the music and sample some of your own medicine, oh christian god, and lose your own baby, which would serve you right, you manipulative warp minded miserable old tyrant...Yah, you stay up there where its safe, oh christian god, because if I could be god for just an hour, if you have the guts to sign yourself on for that deal, I can guarantee that you will be walking away from that one with a few fresh insights you might not have had before, or so it would seem, considering your hostility and inhumanity you ruthless unwanted undesirable and thoroughly unattractive good for nothing tyrant...
Well, you can see what I mean. This is the only way to struggle with such an odiously disgusting description of the divine christian power relationship with that christian god they made in those churches. The little that I have said here really isn't enough to express just how stongly I feel. What we have here is a history of wickedness that has been used to brutalize and terrorize humanity for ages, and as for me, I thoroughly detest it, just as I detest everything that is twisted and cruel.
As for me, I have this mantra, this motto, and it goes like this - I remember being in Eden with Yahweh, when I was a little boy. I am only going with Yahweh and I am not going anywhere with anybody else. If you are like me, and you remember Eden, you have all you need within you to overcome the excesses and the cruelty in dogma of that Judeo-Christian tradition.