Fuck It, Before It Fucks You #4 (Probably my favorite STP album)
Live from Seattle (ish), it's Saturday Night! Time for another random burst of words from yours truly that might make sense if you're high enough.
Anyway, tonight I feel like talking about religion. Just to lighten the mood, ya know? I'm not sure what the general attitude about it is here on Minds, but I've noticed at least a handful of people have pictures of Crusader knights on their pages. So I'm guessing they identify as Christian and it's pretty important to them. I want to assure those people that if I offend them in any way, I'll feel like I've done the world a service. You proudly identify with what was basically the Mideviel European version of The Taliban.
But that's not what I'm here to talk about, I really just wanted to talk about religion as a concept. Most people seem to have at least been raised with one. I'm a recovering Catholic myself. It's like being an alcoholic. Once you're baptized you're never not Catholic. At least according to other Catholics. Unless you get excommunicated. I don't know if I have been but I definitely should be.
But I'm not an atheist either. Most people want you to be one or the other. Not me. That's too black and white for my taste. I do feel like there's some sort of intelligent force behind the universe. Something like a God or gods. Probably gods, honestly. If there really is only one God, then it's got one hell of a split personality. And they're all having a major identity crisis. Whatever it is, people want to understand it. So they make up stories about it, which is great! I love stories! Stories are the building blocks of our cultures. They're what give our world meaning. But then there's some stories that people just take entirely too seriously. They build institutions around them and use them to brainwash and control people. Then if one institutions story doesn't agree with another ones, they end up having to kill a shitload of each other. Which may be for the best honestly. Better them then me. But it ends up coming to that because the institutions get so far removed from the story they're build around that people forget that it's the story that matters.
As a recovering Catholic, I admit that I am a fan of the Jesus story. I don't care if it's real or not. Nobody argues about whether or not Frodo Baggins was real. I'm sure most people know he wasn't. But they can still be entertained and inspired by his story. And anyone who looks at the Jesus story with a critical eye knows it's heavily plagiarized. If there was such a person we know he wasn't born on December 25th. That date was re appropriated from a rival faith by the Roman state. Yet many previous faiths regarded December 25th as a holy day. Why? Because it's the date following the winter solstice when the Sun begins to sit higher in the sky and the days begin to get longer. The story of Christ, and the gods that preceded him, is about the birth of hope in times of great despair. That's what matters. And that's what everyone misses while they're all caught up in going into debt to show people how much they love them. Or fighting one one side or the other of the "War on Christmas", or arguing about songs on the radio.
As for me, I consider myself a spiritual anarchist. Which i think is an extension of Anarchism in general. I examine things and try to follow teachings that make sense, and critique the one's that don't. And I think that's what most people do. Most Christians don't REALLY follow the Bible, and I think that probably goes for every other faith with their holy books.
Well, my holy book is my journal. My pen is an instrument of the gods. I construct my own spiritual practice day by day, and I urge you all to do the same.