I learn all manner of good things from reading Nietzsche. Apparently, in the saga of Siegfried, "vicious dwarves" refers to Christian priests. I think I'll start using that since it sounds so nice.
Sometimes, the only appropriate thing I can do after having a vision of any kind is read Jung. Today's Buddhist thought comes from him, actually:
"One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others thing one is. In any case the temptation to be what one seems to be is great, because the persona is usually rewarded in cash."
-Carl Jung, "Concerning Rebirth"
Speaking of vicious dwarves, in a moment of weakness we watched the premiere of that new show The Book of Daniel. Normally I avoid Xian-derived things like the plague, but I heard some wacko Xians had protested it because Jesus appears as a character and comes across as kind of soft on sin. Now, I consider myself pretty soft on sin as well (all the way to point of not believing in it at all, at all), and I generally like watching things Xian wackos don't want me to see, so having nothing else to do, Tara and I checked it out.
I won't bother reviewing the show, but I will say that it strikes me as more of a death rattle than a resurgence of popularity. I tend to dislike the Xian stuff, mostly because I think we should start putting it on par with Greek mythology which has had an equal influence on our culture but which we take far less seriously. Seeing a few things like this show, as well as some movies in the last five or six years and a couple of tv shows, almost made me afraid for a bit that interest had spiked again, and all of us holding out hope for the end of the Christian Era in our lifetimes will have to join the ranks of Voltaire (the philosopher, not the musician) in our disappointment. However, Tara put it in a slightly different context. The Xianity making its way through the "entertainment" industry resembles Dogma's "Buddy Christ" more than any acceptable depiction (for the record, I hate that movie, too), and in general mainstream Xian groups don't give those depictions a great deal of credit.
So, here's my perspective now: the "entertainment" industry Jesus, the Buddy Christ, has a good deal of popular currency. The Buddy Christ idea flies pretty well with people who don't consider themselves especially religious, but who had a basically Xian raising, as lax as it might have been, but think that mainstream Xians get too crazy. People seem to take pretty well to the fluffy bunny, soft on drugs, soft on gays Jesus (which I take as a good sign for the species as a whole). However, mainstream Xian groups have a more conservative perspective on ole JC, and the Religious Right in particular doesn't look like it plans to change its political (or sexual) positions any time soon. They will (and do) fight against the Buddy Christ depiction. If they accepted Buddy Christ, they might win some more converts and get a Generation X latte-before-Mass crowd that would at least keep their numbers up in first-world nations. However, since they don't seem to want to do that, I bet those groups will becomes more and more irrelevant.
At this point, I doubt they'll actually disappear any time soon since the board of directors for all of the mainstream Xian factions consist of privileged white people who still have an entire world full of developing nations where they can tell everyone they're Xian now and shove Bibles down their throat along with vaccines and convert all the heathens in the name of charity.
I say this without shame: you people who still follow this busted middle eastern religion to the letter look like relics of a past age, time travelers in a cognitive sense. You guys seem just as ridiculous as any depiction of transporting a medieval peasant into the middle of Times Square today, and you act in ways I predict the serf would act in response to the same sensory and mental stimuli. You can have your ivory tower if you want it, but the political game is not for you. Your place in politics expired with the dismantling of the papal states.
(end rant).
I didn't intend that to become a rant, but c'est la vie. I would just like to see a more sane view of spirituality spread around...like Buddhism, or Taoism. Even something new which could make itself relevant to contemporary life and didn't have to work to turn contemporary life into something from the past. Maybe Yoism; it's nice, progressively utopian, and open source at that. I still subscribe to the Erisian movement myself, although I have lately been working on more Taoism. See, I'm ok with religion that doesn't make sense as long as it doesn't pretend to make sense.
Sometimes, the only appropriate thing I can do after having a vision of any kind is read Jung. Today's Buddhist thought comes from him, actually:
"One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others thing one is. In any case the temptation to be what one seems to be is great, because the persona is usually rewarded in cash."
-Carl Jung, "Concerning Rebirth"
Speaking of vicious dwarves, in a moment of weakness we watched the premiere of that new show The Book of Daniel. Normally I avoid Xian-derived things like the plague, but I heard some wacko Xians had protested it because Jesus appears as a character and comes across as kind of soft on sin. Now, I consider myself pretty soft on sin as well (all the way to point of not believing in it at all, at all), and I generally like watching things Xian wackos don't want me to see, so having nothing else to do, Tara and I checked it out.
I won't bother reviewing the show, but I will say that it strikes me as more of a death rattle than a resurgence of popularity. I tend to dislike the Xian stuff, mostly because I think we should start putting it on par with Greek mythology which has had an equal influence on our culture but which we take far less seriously. Seeing a few things like this show, as well as some movies in the last five or six years and a couple of tv shows, almost made me afraid for a bit that interest had spiked again, and all of us holding out hope for the end of the Christian Era in our lifetimes will have to join the ranks of Voltaire (the philosopher, not the musician) in our disappointment. However, Tara put it in a slightly different context. The Xianity making its way through the "entertainment" industry resembles Dogma's "Buddy Christ" more than any acceptable depiction (for the record, I hate that movie, too), and in general mainstream Xian groups don't give those depictions a great deal of credit.
So, here's my perspective now: the "entertainment" industry Jesus, the Buddy Christ, has a good deal of popular currency. The Buddy Christ idea flies pretty well with people who don't consider themselves especially religious, but who had a basically Xian raising, as lax as it might have been, but think that mainstream Xians get too crazy. People seem to take pretty well to the fluffy bunny, soft on drugs, soft on gays Jesus (which I take as a good sign for the species as a whole). However, mainstream Xian groups have a more conservative perspective on ole JC, and the Religious Right in particular doesn't look like it plans to change its political (or sexual) positions any time soon. They will (and do) fight against the Buddy Christ depiction. If they accepted Buddy Christ, they might win some more converts and get a Generation X latte-before-Mass crowd that would at least keep their numbers up in first-world nations. However, since they don't seem to want to do that, I bet those groups will becomes more and more irrelevant.
At this point, I doubt they'll actually disappear any time soon since the board of directors for all of the mainstream Xian factions consist of privileged white people who still have an entire world full of developing nations where they can tell everyone they're Xian now and shove Bibles down their throat along with vaccines and convert all the heathens in the name of charity.
I say this without shame: you people who still follow this busted middle eastern religion to the letter look like relics of a past age, time travelers in a cognitive sense. You guys seem just as ridiculous as any depiction of transporting a medieval peasant into the middle of Times Square today, and you act in ways I predict the serf would act in response to the same sensory and mental stimuli. You can have your ivory tower if you want it, but the political game is not for you. Your place in politics expired with the dismantling of the papal states.
(end rant).
I didn't intend that to become a rant, but c'est la vie. I would just like to see a more sane view of spirituality spread around...like Buddhism, or Taoism. Even something new which could make itself relevant to contemporary life and didn't have to work to turn contemporary life into something from the past. Maybe Yoism; it's nice, progressively utopian, and open source at that. I still subscribe to the Erisian movement myself, although I have lately been working on more Taoism. See, I'm ok with religion that doesn't make sense as long as it doesn't pretend to make sense.