Entry XX--Leaster Sunday
THIS ENTRY WILL NOW BE COMBINED WITH WHAT WOULD JESUS DO W/ CHRISTIANITY, IT WILL BE THE OPENING SECTION, THAT WWJDWC TO FOLLOW
Looking out my partially smudged window (Spring arrived on time, but the corresponding Cleaning never showed). Tilt my neck to look down on Bush St., down at all the hypocrites heading off to the church across the street, going in just because it's easter sunday. They tread up or down the hill (depending on which direction they're coming from), meeting up with friends and families as they exchange pleasantries and hugs and sometimes gifts and the kids there all dressed up fidgeting looking forward to egg hunts or wishing there was another one if they already had their hunt. The adults are all dressed up in their finest spring finery for the their bi-annual visit to the house of their lord to hear once again the stirring tale of christ's resurrection after spending three days in hell (it's actually more like 39 hours, if one counts it out, Friday at 3 pm till Sunday at dawn. But hey, that wouldn't be the last time christ welshed on a deal).
What really gets me is that it's such a gorgeous day--sixty-five degrees already before noon, yet all these people are heading inside, an utter contradiction of the true pagan origins of easter.
Not that I'm any better, hiding away in the shadows of my musty apartment. Least I have the guiltless excuse of missing this wondrous day due to literary deadline.
The very thought of which has me turning away from the sunlight and the social scenes in front of god's house, because with this deadline ever looming, can't even indulge myself the smallest pleasure of castigating christians.
But being reminded it's the most significant day of the year for the christian religion (xmas is more popular, but less important than easter) inspires me to work more diligently on the "Soul'd Out" essay, which had been stagnating this weekend. And stagnation can be ill afforded with July creeping ever closer, as Spring shall surely roll into Summer without care for human concerns of dates and deadlines.
For many readers, this could be well the most surprising--or disappointing--essay, due to the metaphysical aspects. Up to that point, many (most?) readers will be convinced the author is the stodgiest of materialists, the most obstinate of atheists; one whose stick-in-the-mud is stuck firmly up his own ass.
There's going to be readers convinced that someone with my position couldn't possibly be tolerant of theories that allow for Absolute Awareness and the Uncaused First Cause and the logical conclusion that there can be no physical without the metaphysical preceding it.
But that's why Bye Bull is a cut above--or at least a cut apart--from the other anti-christianity/religion books of recent years.
Almost seems inappropriate to be discussing legit metaphysics on easter. Rather, today is a day I should be frothing at the mouth, spewing venom on my monitor screen while railing against the weakness of the martyred christ and how his so-called 'resurrection'--the very center of the easter celebration--is either completely fabricated from the cult of Mithras--or was surely an orchestration by the disciples 12 of stolen bodies and cruci-fiction, with the agenda to create a new religion for those who wanted to keep their christ cult leader alive through the centuries and oppose the pagan order (which is really an oxymoron). I
It was a lot easier to fake things back in the olden days and have people believe it. Yes, even crucifixions.
Maybe have to reconsider that last graph--conspiracies prove that it's still pretty easy for the establishment to fake things and have the masses swallow it hook line and sphincter.
One more glance out the window, at the whole st. whoever scene reminds me that it's still pretty easy to fake things in the here and now.
But working myself into a lather just cause it's fucking easter would be giving christianity all the power; I don't exist merely to oppose christianity, but rather, to move far beyond the reach of its constrictions, to a place it doesn't even possess the capability of imagining to restrict.
21 grams. That is what a soul is alleged to weigh.
Where did this bizarre, inherently contradictory notion come from?
In 1907 a Massachusetts physician named Duncan MacDougall of Haverhill, Massachusetts, devised a series of experiments that he expected would measure the soul. (Here we see that he did not approach the trial as a sincerely objective researcher who wouldn't know what to expect, Dr. MacDougall expected to receive a measurement for the soul. The existence of the soul is not in question, it's just a matter of how much it weighed).
Using six terminally ill patients on a specially constructed scale bed, MacDougall measured their weight before, during, and after death. His results were mixed, but he concluded that there was indeed a very slight loss of weight, on average twenty-one grams.
When he repeated this test on (presumably soulless) dogs, he found no such weight reduction. After eliminating the possible sources of error for this startling finding (such as the loss of air from the lungs), MacDougall concluded that he had indeed quantified the weight of the soul.
Funny thing about those dogs; MacDougall had complained about not being able to find dogs that were dying of natural causes, as his human patients were. This has led more than one researcher to speculate that MacDougall poisoned the dogs.
In March 1907, accounts of MacDougall's experiments were published in the New York Times and the medical journal American Medicine, to give his "findings" legitimacy. Even then, the mass media was always interested in the opportunity to promote spiritual irrationality, and implicitly, the dominant religion in the U.S., good ol' christianity.
Despite all this turn of the century quackery, MacDougall's theories are not taken seriously today by medical researchers. For one thing, his sample size of six patients was far too limited, and his ability to measure variances in weight were imprecise.
Besides all that, the very notion that a soul would have a "weight" is beyond laughable. The fact that anyone would take the idea seriously demonstrates just how
miseducated and sleepwalking the vast majority of the people in this world have been and continue to be.
What it really represents, is christianity seeking to have it both ways; it wants to maintain its otherworldly promise of life-after-death, while simultaneously relying on empirical evidence (a measurable weight) in order to justify that promise.
christianity is better off just sticking to the spirit world, things no one can prove, rather than risk their little game by turning to facts and figures and scientific methods that can be questioned and ultimately repudiated.
The very appeal of a soul is that it is not part of this flawed, ultimately doomed to decay material world, so why would anyone expect it to have a material weight?
And even if it did have a weight, it would be a 'soul' weight, meaning it would have a 'mass' unique to the dimension from whence the soul originated, and utterly impossible to measure in our three-dimensional reality in which human life is finite.(as if to suggest soul originates from something that could even be classified as a 'dimension' is even vaguely accurate).
On the contrary, the soul is said to be eternal and preexisting to the human body it inhabits...or is somehow affixed to (another sticky issue, for even those sincere and intellectually honest when dealing with the interface between physical reality--and the so-called spirit-world, specifically, precisely (or approximately) how is a immortal soul connected to a mortal husk).
The irony regarding the existence of a soul, it may be Christianity that is actually keeping humanity apart from understanding the true nature of it, because the Church requires its own interpretation of soul in order to control (that those two words rhyme is about as appropriate as any two words rhyming in the English language).
An admitedly complex question to be sure. Much more complex than the question, is there a god?
Actually, the theory on the nature of a soul seriously addresses the question on whether there is a god or not, specifically the god as portrayed by christianity and the other dominant monotheistic religions.
However that highly pertinent issue will be addressed in full in the next essay in this book.
Here the primary concern is the nature of a soul; is there a spiritual component to human existence?
Why does the concept exist in all cultures throughout antiquity; is it as simple as being motivated to 'cheat death' and 'live forever' via existence in Heaven (or even Hell), or was their some ancient wisdom (since lost) that actually confirms and explains the nature of a soul?
Or is it the modern science of quantum mechanics that will ultimately reveal the reality of a soul?
Perhaps, but for the time being, I'm partial to the most plausible Hermetic speculation, which reveals yet another shortcoming when it comes to christian metaphysics. In regard specifically to the soul, christianity holds that the human soul is part of the physical form, and only separates from the body upon death.
Rather, legitimate metaphysics (untainted by religion dogma and agenda) suggests that the soul is outside of the body, because the physical is ultimately contained within the metaphysical, as the metaphysical is the source of all physical creation.
Again, the physical could not exist without the metaphysical to bring it into reality.
To begin to address this question, the concept of Idefinite Monism must be explored:
CONCEPT OF INDEFINITE MONISM
Proceeding from the one necessarily true and unquestionable fact – that we are present to our experiences – an understanding of reality is developed that is neither a materialist nor an idealist conceptualization, but rather surjective, a concept found in mathematical set theory that means a function that works upon every member of a set, where Awareness is the function and Omnific Awareness is the set.
Indefinite Monism is a philosophical conception of reality that asserts that only Awareness is real and that the wholeness of Reality can be conceptually thought of in terms of immanent and transcendent aspects. The immanent aspect is denominated simply as Awareness, while the transcendent aspect is referred to as Omnific Awareness.
Awareness in this system is not equivalent to consciousness. Rather, Awareness is the venue for consciousness, and the transcendent aspect of Reality, Omnific Awareness, is what consciousness is of.
Indefinite Monism as related to Gnosticism
To address this issue, we must explore Gnosticism
Nag Hammadi text, explored further in next essay
In December (ironically enough) in 1945, ancient Gnostic texts were found buried in a jar in Nag Hammadi, Egypt. The most crucial of these treatises is the Gospel of Thomas, an apocryphon exploring the Gnostic aspects of Christ's teachings, kept secret because of conflicts between that 'hidden knowledge' and official Church doctrine. (Another shining example of how the religion of Christianity is incompatible with the essence of Christ himself, whether Christ existed or is merely a metaphor.
The Gospel of Thomas is more overtly mystical than anything in the Bible, and Christ maintains that any mortal can "become a Christ" (to experience rebirth and become 'annointed') and that salvation is achieved via knowledge and psychological insight, not, as traditional Christianity asserts, via ethical or devotional measures (both of which are designed to control humanity and limit knowledge).
Instead of a uniquely "divine Lord" to be worshipped, Christ appears as a universal imparter of esoteric wisdom.
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Gospel of Thomas is that Christ makes no direct reference to his allegedly impending resurrection, thus the central event of Christianity (the Resurrection) is by the very figure upon which the entire religion is based!
WOULD CHRIST BE A CHRISTIAN? ESSAY TITLE
CHRIST'S POSITION ON REINCARNATION, HIS TRUE VIEWS WOULD OPPOSE CHRISTIANITY'S INTERPRETATION OF THE SOUL
Christ wasn't referring to resurrection, but rather reincarnation.
Quantum physics/quantum consciousness
Gnosticism holds that
perceptions create a prison; here the Christ myth has some useful legitimacy; Christ is a genuine liberator, out to reveal the truth of being trapped in flesh to the masses
Gnostic Gospel of Thomas demonstrates that salvation is found via knowledge and enlightenment, not via ethical or devotional measures (both of which are designed to control humanity and limit knowledge).
Theory of Omnific Awareness wanting to wear as many 'masks' as possible; that of the saint and the sinner, the killer and the charity worker. That is why judgment never comes into it, God isn't judging, rather, God is experiencing...all things, all states of being, all lifeforms.
IT FACT, IT COULD BE ARGUED THAT CHRISTIANITY HAS BECOME A PAGAN MATERIALISTIC RELIGION, CONTRADICTING THE TRUE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST
PERHAPS END THE ENTIRE BOOK WITH:
Would Christ be a Christian?
Looking out my partially smudged window (Spring arrived on time, but the corresponding Cleaning never showed). Tilt my neck to look down on Bush St., down at all the hypocrites heading off to the church across the street, going in just because it's easter sunday. They tread up or down the hill (depending on which direction they're coming from), meeting up with friends and families as they exchange pleasantries and hugs and sometimes gifts and the kids there all dressed up fidgeting looking forward to egg hunts or wishing there was another one if they already had their hunt. The adults are all dressed up in their finest spring finery for the their bi-annual visit to the house of their lord to hear once again the stirring tale of christ's resurrection after spending three days in hell (it's actually more like 39 hours, if one counts it out, Friday at 3 pm till Sunday at dawn. But hey, that wouldn't be the last time christ welshed on a deal).
What really gets me is that it's such a gorgeous day--sixty-five degrees already before noon, yet all these people are heading inside, an utter contradiction of the true pagan origins of easter.
Not that I'm any better, hiding away in the shadows of my musty apartment. Least I have the guiltless excuse of missing this wondrous day due to literary deadline.
The very thought of which has me turning away from the sunlight and the social scenes in front of god's house, because with this deadline ever looming, can't even indulge myself the smallest pleasure of castigating christians.
But being reminded it's the most significant day of the year for the christian religion (xmas is more popular, but less important than easter) inspires me to work more diligently on the "Soul'd Out" essay, which had been stagnating this weekend. And stagnation can be ill afforded with July creeping ever closer, as Spring shall surely roll into Summer without care for human concerns of dates and deadlines.
For many readers, this could be well the most surprising--or disappointing--essay, due to the metaphysical aspects. Up to that point, many (most?) readers will be convinced the author is the stodgiest of materialists, the most obstinate of atheists; one whose stick-in-the-mud is stuck firmly up his own ass.
There's going to be readers convinced that someone with my position couldn't possibly be tolerant of theories that allow for Absolute Awareness and the Uncaused First Cause and the logical conclusion that there can be no physical without the metaphysical preceding it.
But that's why Bye Bull is a cut above--or at least a cut apart--from the other anti-christianity/religion books of recent years.
Almost seems inappropriate to be discussing legit metaphysics on easter. Rather, today is a day I should be frothing at the mouth, spewing venom on my monitor screen while railing against the weakness of the martyred christ and how his so-called 'resurrection'--the very center of the easter celebration--is either completely fabricated from the cult of Mithras--or was surely an orchestration by the disciples 12 of stolen bodies and cruci-fiction, with the agenda to create a new religion for those who wanted to keep their christ cult leader alive through the centuries and oppose the pagan order (which is really an oxymoron). I
It was a lot easier to fake things back in the olden days and have people believe it. Yes, even crucifixions.
Maybe have to reconsider that last graph--conspiracies prove that it's still pretty easy for the establishment to fake things and have the masses swallow it hook line and sphincter.
One more glance out the window, at the whole st. whoever scene reminds me that it's still pretty easy to fake things in the here and now.
But working myself into a lather just cause it's fucking easter would be giving christianity all the power; I don't exist merely to oppose christianity, but rather, to move far beyond the reach of its constrictions, to a place it doesn't even possess the capability of imagining to restrict.
21 grams. That is what a soul is alleged to weigh.
Where did this bizarre, inherently contradictory notion come from?
In 1907 a Massachusetts physician named Duncan MacDougall of Haverhill, Massachusetts, devised a series of experiments that he expected would measure the soul. (Here we see that he did not approach the trial as a sincerely objective researcher who wouldn't know what to expect, Dr. MacDougall expected to receive a measurement for the soul. The existence of the soul is not in question, it's just a matter of how much it weighed).
Using six terminally ill patients on a specially constructed scale bed, MacDougall measured their weight before, during, and after death. His results were mixed, but he concluded that there was indeed a very slight loss of weight, on average twenty-one grams.
When he repeated this test on (presumably soulless) dogs, he found no such weight reduction. After eliminating the possible sources of error for this startling finding (such as the loss of air from the lungs), MacDougall concluded that he had indeed quantified the weight of the soul.
Funny thing about those dogs; MacDougall had complained about not being able to find dogs that were dying of natural causes, as his human patients were. This has led more than one researcher to speculate that MacDougall poisoned the dogs.
In March 1907, accounts of MacDougall's experiments were published in the New York Times and the medical journal American Medicine, to give his "findings" legitimacy. Even then, the mass media was always interested in the opportunity to promote spiritual irrationality, and implicitly, the dominant religion in the U.S., good ol' christianity.
Despite all this turn of the century quackery, MacDougall's theories are not taken seriously today by medical researchers. For one thing, his sample size of six patients was far too limited, and his ability to measure variances in weight were imprecise.
Besides all that, the very notion that a soul would have a "weight" is beyond laughable. The fact that anyone would take the idea seriously demonstrates just how
miseducated and sleepwalking the vast majority of the people in this world have been and continue to be.
What it really represents, is christianity seeking to have it both ways; it wants to maintain its otherworldly promise of life-after-death, while simultaneously relying on empirical evidence (a measurable weight) in order to justify that promise.
christianity is better off just sticking to the spirit world, things no one can prove, rather than risk their little game by turning to facts and figures and scientific methods that can be questioned and ultimately repudiated.
The very appeal of a soul is that it is not part of this flawed, ultimately doomed to decay material world, so why would anyone expect it to have a material weight?
And even if it did have a weight, it would be a 'soul' weight, meaning it would have a 'mass' unique to the dimension from whence the soul originated, and utterly impossible to measure in our three-dimensional reality in which human life is finite.(as if to suggest soul originates from something that could even be classified as a 'dimension' is even vaguely accurate).
On the contrary, the soul is said to be eternal and preexisting to the human body it inhabits...or is somehow affixed to (another sticky issue, for even those sincere and intellectually honest when dealing with the interface between physical reality--and the so-called spirit-world, specifically, precisely (or approximately) how is a immortal soul connected to a mortal husk).
The irony regarding the existence of a soul, it may be Christianity that is actually keeping humanity apart from understanding the true nature of it, because the Church requires its own interpretation of soul in order to control (that those two words rhyme is about as appropriate as any two words rhyming in the English language).
An admitedly complex question to be sure. Much more complex than the question, is there a god?
Actually, the theory on the nature of a soul seriously addresses the question on whether there is a god or not, specifically the god as portrayed by christianity and the other dominant monotheistic religions.
However that highly pertinent issue will be addressed in full in the next essay in this book.
Here the primary concern is the nature of a soul; is there a spiritual component to human existence?
Why does the concept exist in all cultures throughout antiquity; is it as simple as being motivated to 'cheat death' and 'live forever' via existence in Heaven (or even Hell), or was their some ancient wisdom (since lost) that actually confirms and explains the nature of a soul?
Or is it the modern science of quantum mechanics that will ultimately reveal the reality of a soul?
Perhaps, but for the time being, I'm partial to the most plausible Hermetic speculation, which reveals yet another shortcoming when it comes to christian metaphysics. In regard specifically to the soul, christianity holds that the human soul is part of the physical form, and only separates from the body upon death.
Rather, legitimate metaphysics (untainted by religion dogma and agenda) suggests that the soul is outside of the body, because the physical is ultimately contained within the metaphysical, as the metaphysical is the source of all physical creation.
Again, the physical could not exist without the metaphysical to bring it into reality.
To begin to address this question, the concept of Idefinite Monism must be explored:
CONCEPT OF INDEFINITE MONISM
Proceeding from the one necessarily true and unquestionable fact – that we are present to our experiences – an understanding of reality is developed that is neither a materialist nor an idealist conceptualization, but rather surjective, a concept found in mathematical set theory that means a function that works upon every member of a set, where Awareness is the function and Omnific Awareness is the set.
Indefinite Monism is a philosophical conception of reality that asserts that only Awareness is real and that the wholeness of Reality can be conceptually thought of in terms of immanent and transcendent aspects. The immanent aspect is denominated simply as Awareness, while the transcendent aspect is referred to as Omnific Awareness.
Awareness in this system is not equivalent to consciousness. Rather, Awareness is the venue for consciousness, and the transcendent aspect of Reality, Omnific Awareness, is what consciousness is of.
Indefinite Monism as related to Gnosticism
To address this issue, we must explore Gnosticism
Nag Hammadi text, explored further in next essay
In December (ironically enough) in 1945, ancient Gnostic texts were found buried in a jar in Nag Hammadi, Egypt. The most crucial of these treatises is the Gospel of Thomas, an apocryphon exploring the Gnostic aspects of Christ's teachings, kept secret because of conflicts between that 'hidden knowledge' and official Church doctrine. (Another shining example of how the religion of Christianity is incompatible with the essence of Christ himself, whether Christ existed or is merely a metaphor.
The Gospel of Thomas is more overtly mystical than anything in the Bible, and Christ maintains that any mortal can "become a Christ" (to experience rebirth and become 'annointed') and that salvation is achieved via knowledge and psychological insight, not, as traditional Christianity asserts, via ethical or devotional measures (both of which are designed to control humanity and limit knowledge).
Instead of a uniquely "divine Lord" to be worshipped, Christ appears as a universal imparter of esoteric wisdom.
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Gospel of Thomas is that Christ makes no direct reference to his allegedly impending resurrection, thus the central event of Christianity (the Resurrection) is by the very figure upon which the entire religion is based!
WOULD CHRIST BE A CHRISTIAN? ESSAY TITLE
CHRIST'S POSITION ON REINCARNATION, HIS TRUE VIEWS WOULD OPPOSE CHRISTIANITY'S INTERPRETATION OF THE SOUL
Christ wasn't referring to resurrection, but rather reincarnation.
Quantum physics/quantum consciousness
Gnosticism holds that
perceptions create a prison; here the Christ myth has some useful legitimacy; Christ is a genuine liberator, out to reveal the truth of being trapped in flesh to the masses
Gnostic Gospel of Thomas demonstrates that salvation is found via knowledge and enlightenment, not via ethical or devotional measures (both of which are designed to control humanity and limit knowledge).
Theory of Omnific Awareness wanting to wear as many 'masks' as possible; that of the saint and the sinner, the killer and the charity worker. That is why judgment never comes into it, God isn't judging, rather, God is experiencing...all things, all states of being, all lifeforms.
IT FACT, IT COULD BE ARGUED THAT CHRISTIANITY HAS BECOME A PAGAN MATERIALISTIC RELIGION, CONTRADICTING THE TRUE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST
PERHAPS END THE ENTIRE BOOK WITH:
Would Christ be a Christian?
posted by Darwin Grimm at 2:11 PM
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