Showing posts with label Easter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Easter. Show all posts

Death and Life on Easter

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It’s Easter; I have memories of getting up early year after year as a child to go to Easter Sunrise Service. We gathered somewhere outdoors, simulating the women and disciples who went to Jesus’ tomb in the early morning on the day of his resurrection. We sang certain hymns that were only for Easter – “Christ the Lord is ris’n today, Ha-a-a-a-He -lelujah,” “He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with me and talks with me, along life’s narrow way!” I liked it – the brisk early morning, the feeling of life and hope, the joy of the music. Unlike a lot of other church experiences, it was a day of celebration. And what a profound message – death has been conquered! Just put your faith in Christ.

And now? It’s been many years and I’m no longer a Christian. I do not believe I will continue after I die. In my work as a psychologist, I work with people coming out of religion. There are many issues to deal with, and top or the list for many is this question of death and hellfire. The indoctrination is deep and insidious, a form of child abuse in my opinion. Even without hell, the idea of nonexistence (if that is the direction of change in belief), is sometimes a bitter pill to swallow. Fundamentalist Christianity downgrades a human lifetime compared to eternity and denigrates the whole world as fallen. How many times were we told to focus on where we will be in the hereafter? The result is fear, because no one is certain, and also neglect of the life that we have now.

For those of you who are anxious today and struggle with the idea of death, I can tell you that it is possible to stop fearing damnation. I certainly have and many other former believers have too. It is a phobia indoctrination that serves the religion. If you think you should believe “just in case,” think about what you would be missing. Essentially, your life. The greatest challenge for a human is to know about death, and live fully in the face of it. Other animals can more easily “be here now,” and we can learn from them. However, we have more awareness and it is our existential dilemma to make peace with death.

In a way, we do continue on. Our molecules get rearranged and become other things; nothing is lost, not one atom. All matter and energy in the universe is conserved, according to physics. I find it beautiful to walk in a forest and see a fallen tree where it is decomposing, nourishing the earth, and causing new life to spring up. And if you worry about your soul, ask yourself, “Where were “you” before you were born?” Is that so frightening?

No, we are better off paying attention to the present. This life is limited but so are a lot of things. The Christian attitude of denigrating life because it is short makes no sense. Is a wonderful meal any less wonderful because it ends? When you are listening to incredible music, are you upset because you know the piece will finish? Hopefully not, and we can extend that lesson to life itself. People who have a brush with death often learn to appreciate life in a special way. Our time on this earth is precious. Perhaps when we cherish our days, honor what is possible, love our fellow humans as best we can, and look at the world with awe and wonder, we can achieve a spirituality of a different kind. Of our own free will, we can commit acts of random kindness and dance for no reason at all. Death be damned.

For the recovering fundamentalist, reclaiming intuition and learning to trust one’s inner wisdom is an exciting process. We are not empty, weak, incapable, or bad. We are all interconnected and a part of our amazing universe. Even Einstein said thinking we are individuals is an illusion.
One day, when I was a little discouraged, I wrote to myself from the wise part of me (yes, we are all multiples), and then wondered about that voice. This is what emerged, and it applies to all of us, so I hope you find a bit of inspiration too. I asked where the encouragement was coming from:

“This is from the force that makes the new shoot grow between concrete slabs. This is from the symmetry of fractals. This is from the incomprehensible distance of space, this is from the sound waves that blend and beat and tell you to dance, this is from the little child that looks at you clearly with no fear and says hi, this is from the unadulterated force of the sea under you and all around you when you swim in the ocean, the sea that takes no prisoners when the tide comes in, the sea that spawned life, and the same sea that sends a wave spreading up the sand to your bare feet, with rhythmic purring caress, bringing you the gems that make you smile - the perfect tiny shell, the fragment of blue glass that you tuck in your pocket.

“This is from the cosmic red afterglow of the big bang. This is from all eleven dimensions, from all the things you don't understand and like that you don't understand. This is from the parallel universes that come with the eleven dimensions, penetrating the membrane. This is from the aquifer beneath all of you, the source feeding flashes of human greatness. This is from the massive network of fungus, hidden from view under seemingly separate plants. This is from the power behind the form, the elusive explanation, the delectable mystery. I only have one thing to say to you right now - and that is REMEMBER ME. You are not alone. You always have a reason to go on. and there is no choice; you will go on anyway. Ineffable and inexorable, both. The tide is coming in again today; the ocean has not been deciding.”

Happy Spring.

Marlene Winell

marlenewinell.net
mwinell@gmail.com
Recovery retreats May 1-3, June 5-7

As You Celebrate The Horror of Easter

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-=A Human Sacrifice=-

and flaunt your little dead men on a stick, check your facts, most things that Easter depends on don't cross-check. [edited 4/15/2009. added links]

- Biblical scripture is no more accurate than other writings that cover the same period of time. Not what you'd expect from the revealed word of God.

- The story of passover, Jesus, and a dying and rising god all are of a type of theme of folklore that pervaded the Near East during that period of time.

- Moses, existence hasn't been verified yet. He may never have existed, and may be a version of Sargon of Akkad. If he didn't exist, then all the things that depend on him in the Bible need to have their accuracy and reliability re-assessed.

- The exodus hasn't been verified yet, but it is clear that if it did happen, it didn't happen as it is described in the Bible.

- The author of Genesis or authors of Genesis cannot be identified, therefore neither can their credentials or if they were in a position to know. Therefore the information is of low quality.

- Adam obviously never existed, and if he did the scripture is so inaccurate so as to make the story more dubious than not. There was never a time when he and Eve would have been alone, and his first son went out and founded a town or a city. Towns and Cities started popping up after 10,000 BC.

- Jesus never clearly stated he was God. The phrase used to support the claim of Jesus as God are of the type that are used by Jews to express their belief that God lives in all of us and we influence the world through him by our actions that he approves of.

- The Jews never said he was the Messiah, he never qualified. The Messiah was supposed to be a politician and engineer. Jesus wasn't even close to being an engineer, if he was he could have showed them how to make the world a better place by speeding up the invention of quite a few things, likewise if he were God.

- The principle that all of us have done things so egregious to warrant the death penalty is itself egregious. Name one thing that you have done that you should be put to death for.

- The principle that someone else can suffer the death penalty for us to resolve the problem is similarly egregious. Should anyone be punished not to mention given the death penalty for things that you do? Is the death penalty Just?

- The principle that a Sacrifice can appease a God has been shown to be flawed because all the other Gods that required a sacrifice have been shown to be folklore. What makes Yahweh any different?

- The principle that a Human Sacrifice can appease a God has been shown to be flawed because all the other Gods that required a Human Sacrifice have been shown to be folklore. Are you okay with the Human Sacrifice to absolve you of Sin?

- The principle that a perfect God WANTS a sacrifice is highly doubtful. You can't say he's perfect if he's not in a perfect state, and if wants something then he's missing something.

- If we are flawed, God is responsible because he made us this way.

- It is possible to be compelled to unacceptable behavior by biological factors, and unacceptable behavior, is in the eye of the beholder, even if we all agree that killing children is bad. God ordered children to be ripped from their mothers wombs and William Lane Craig defended it in one of his forums if you can believe that.

- The authors of the Gospels cannot be identified, therefore neither can their credentials or if they were in a position to know. Therefore the information is of low quality.

- The Gospels themselves don't agree, making them unreliable by definition of criteria that determines if information is unreliable.

- The Gospels depend on one of the most unreliable forms of evidence, Eye Witness Testimony.

- Theology behind Easter depends on Paul. He set it up. But he wasn't in a position to know, because he wasn't there at the beginning. The story of his conversion is unreliable because there are two slightly different versions of it and if you go to bible gateway.com and look up both of them, using multiple Bible versions and analyze them, you can have even more versions depending on which translation they used. I know because I've done it to prepare for a forthcoming article.

- Paul, like Jesus referenced a non-existent Adam, therefore the source of the information in both cases was not divine, but from scripture, which is of demonstrably low quality because the authors, the authors credentials and the authors position to know are all unverifiable.

- Its simple, since there was no Adam, and Jesus didn't qualify to be the Messiah, and Jesus was not God because he referenced Adam which demonstrates that he had no supernatural knowledge, then he was just one of the people that got caught for rabble rousing around the passover and put on the cross for six hours. The Koran says he didn't die, and the fact that there is no body, and the fact that many people survived crucifixion, especially for such a short period of time supports that theory

Now please get rid of all those disgusting dead men on a stick that are displayed everywhere and hanging around your necks.

FURTHER READING
A LIST OF PREMISES AS ARTICLES REFUTING GENESIS 1-11 AND ROMANS 5 SO FAR
P1. The Interconnectedness of The Ancients - Demonstrates the robust ancient civilizations at the time and that Canaan, Israel and Judah were central to them. Discusses trade routes, seafaring, the link between whales and the Leviathans of Mythology and how long it would take to get from one civilization to another by sea.

P2. Genesis 1:1-25 Is An Amalgam of Near Eastern Creation Myths. Demonstrates the prior existence of key elements of the story of the creation of the Universe that appears in Genesis.

P3.Genesis 1:26-1:27, Creation of Humans in Near Eastern Myths And The Paleolithic Era. Demonstrates that the physical evidence contradicts the story of the making of the first humans in Genesis.

P4.GENESIS 1:28-2:4a, Be Fruitful And Multiply, Founder Effect and Genetic Diversity. This Article shows that even if the physical evidence didn't refute the special creation of the first humans, Adam and Eve, in Genesis 1:27, the problem of Genetic Diversity known as the "Founder Effect" would eventually lead to crippling genetic mutations or extinction.

P5.Genesis 2:4b-20 Man Made From Earth Is Folklore, Conflated River Elements and the Myth of Adapa. This Article shows that the concept of man made from earth spans cultures and geographical boundaries, the rivers are confused between geographical areas and has many elements from pre-existing Near Eastern Myths such as "The Myth of Adapa.

P6. Genesis 2:21-25: Woman From Rib and Mother Goddesses of Near Eastern Myths. This Article shows that in the second creation story in genesis the concept of woman made from bone, earth and antler pre-existed the writing of Genesis, spanned cultures and geographical boundaries and that Eve shares aspects of Goddesses in Ancient Near Eastern Mythology.