No One Will Ever Love You But Me; Yahweh as the abusive parent

Did it ever strike you as strange that the Christian right wing (not to mention Islam) are always flipping out about single parents and gay adoption when they themselves condemn the entire universe to a single-parent family for all time? Yup. Current Abrahamic monotheism makes it very clear that there is no Mrs. God. I know, I know, in antiquity there was Sophia, Shekina, etc. but I'm focused on where this crazy Yahwist train is headed now.

So let's look for a second at some of the typical patterns in the relationship between an abusive parent or a spouse and their victim and how they are paralleled in the ways that monotheists want us to see their god.

No one will ever love you but me

Central to the abuser's success in controlling their victim is convincing her or him that she or he has no other options. If she or he were to run away, or divorce that she or he would be alone and helpless and most likely die. Because the victim believes this, he or she follows the logic that accepting the abuse is her or his only option.

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me [to which I can be compared unfavorably]" — Yahweh (paraphrased)

But he's really a good person when he isn't burning me with an iron

Abuse victims who are caught in the cycle of low self-esteem will sometimes defend their abusers because there is a component of caring in the relationship. The abuser wants the victim to continue to accept them, and that is a kind of caring even if a very twisted one. For someone who has been convinced by an abusive parent or spouse that they are unlikely to get love anywhere else, even that poisoned kind of caring is preferable to the utterly bleak landscape that has been painted around them.

Abrahamic apologists (Hi Pete!) will respond with variations on "Well, we can't prove that God isn't there, so we should all worship him just in case he's real.". Which, of course, assumes that the only choices are to worship Yahweh or be an atheist. I hope it's clear, dear readers, how strenuously I disagree with that view.

I'm the only one who really understands him; you don't know what you're talking about

Right.

Alexandria Library. Witch burnings. Inquisition. Crusade. Extermination of native peoples around the world. Women subjugated.

If he acts like an abusive parent and the institutions inspired by his stories commit atrocities for centuries without any effective resistance guess what?

Yahweh is an abusive god and he belongs in rehab. Asclepius might be able to help, but better not let Brìd anywhere near the guy or he'll wind up getting a Bobbet.

We're All Experiments

One of the subtitles that's been given to the United States is "The Great Experiment." I think that all efforts at organizing society are experiments, and that if we viewed them that way there would be less motivation for armed conflicts.

It seems to me that we mostly view nations as organisms competing for resources and dominance, and I think that is true to a certain extent. (that's my social darwinism peeking out) On a larger scale, though, I think humanity is carrying out multiple concurrent experiments which are intended to answer the question: "What would society be like if it were organized this way?"

If we view nations that way, then it is in everyone's best interest that all the experiments continue uninterrupted until all useful data has been collected. Then we will assess the results and start the next experiment based on what we have learned. After lots and lots of tries, we'll eventually arrive at the conclusion that if society is organized this way, then almost everyone is OK almost all of the time. Check! Done!

The only way an experiment can really fail is if it produces no new data. The Soviet Union, for example, was not a failed experiment in my opinion. We learned that when enough power is concentrated in a central government to erase most economic inequality, that it is too vulnerable to manipulation and corruption. Good to know!!

So, perhaps we can hold these this paradigm in balance against the social darwinist one and reach our ultimate goal in less time with less suffering along the way. What do you all say, shall we try?

We Made the Seattle Times Pride Coverage!

Whew-hew! Watch this video from the Seattle Times; right at the end there is a show of myself and LCD Seattle judging pride parade participants!

My Gods, I'm Seumas X!

Picked up my new glasses today. Realized I'm the reincarnation of Malcom X. We do have a few attitudes in common; just substitute the word "gay" for the N-word he used. I'm definitely more of a field gay than a house gay. My Gods.

A New Old Era

Yes, this blog is mostly about monotheism's effects on culture, but I am a person as well as a polytheist.

And I broke my glasses last Friday. They were a dozen years old, and getting a bit wonky, so that's not so much of a tragedy, really. I had an eye exam in February after my vision felt different at the end of the Great Budget Crisis of 2008 (trust me, if you don't know what I mean, you don't want to). Turns out my vision had not changed substantially since my last exam ten years ago, so I didn't bother getting new glasses.

But I had to yesterday. Right now my old glasses are taped together and I'm feeling waaaaay too ghetto for my own comfort. So, I'm just going to hide at home this weekend and wait for the call that my new ones are ready. Picking out new frames I decided to go in a new direction.... backwards! I found some frames that look just like my Dad's did. I'm also considering giving up my Caesar haircut and going for a 50s Dad-style one. What have I got to lose at this point?



Update

The hair didn't come out the way I hoped....

A Catholic Priest and a Wiccan Priest Walk Into A Restaurant

Sounds like the start of a mildly funny joke, doesn't it? It's true, though. One evening last week I had a fantastic re-acquaintance dinner with a former Catholic priest I knew over a decade ago when I was a volunteer chaplain at an AIDS hospice in Seattle. To protect his anonymity, I'll call him x-Father X.

Meeting x-Father X was a real turning point for me. It gave me a tremendous sense of validation to be invited to volunteer as a Wiccan chaplain. I guess that the fact that I was raised as a Catholic contributed to buzz I got when a man in a clerical collar asked for my opinion on a ceremony he was planning. x-Father X treated me as an equal, despite the fact that his own priestly training included all kinds of things that were absent from mine. He also helped me understand why smart, educated, reasonable people maintain self-identification with an institution like the Catholic church; it's the people, art, music, buildings, bells, and smells. In my secret, uncompromising heart I know that those are the tricks that the thought system uses to keep its hosts distracted, but I also have compassion for those hosts.

The chaplaincy work turned out to be too much for me to handle in my late 20s, and after a couple years I had to stop. I felt myself slipping further and further away from life. How I got back out of that place with help of a Siberian shaman will be the subject of another post at some point in the future.

Off I went into the Gaelic and Celtic music scene, leaving my life as a public Wiccan behind me. Fast forward over ten years. I'm still deeply involved in Gaelic, but a part of my mind and heart is turning back toward religion and spirituality. I develop this wacky idea that it's having just one god that makes people so easy to manipulate. I start digging into the roots of Islam and Christianity. I start writing this blog. My compassion for Abrahamic religionists is a distant memory.

Then, because the Gods love me and want us to succeed in restoring their worship, the phone rings. It's x-Father X, wondering if I want to represent Wicca in an interfaith dialogue on children's welfare. I decline, since I don't have children and am so completely out of touch with the local Wiccan community that I don't know who to send him to. However, we do set up a dinner appointment to get re-acquainted.

So, over a fantastic chicken Marsala, I remember my compassion, and my admiration for this man who gave up his position in the Catholic Church to keep his integrity. He loves Jesus. He believes there's only one god. He sings for the parish he belongs to. They have a PFLAG chapter that invited him to come and speak. His integrity and clarity makes me ashamed of the pettiness that still clings to my reasoning sometimes.

OK Gods, I get the message. I need to be as evolved as x-Father X. I'll get right on that. Thanks for the guidance.

Are Greeks Closet Polytheists?

I have a dear friend and folk-harp colleague, Patrice Haan, who shared a vacation story with me once at a folk harp weekend that I found very interesting.

How do you describe a goddess? Patrice, in addition to being a very talented harper, singer, and performer, is a woman of striking beauty. I am about 5' 11'' tall, and the top of my head comes up to her chin. I'll let the photo cover the 1,000 words of florid description that I could have written about her, and stick to the things that the photo can't show you. She moves with precision and a reserved grace that makes everyone around her seem a little schlumpy in comparison. No one minds, though, because within minutes of meeting Patrice, they all know that they're in the presence of a great spirit. She elevates you just by being herself.

Υποδοχή στην Ελλάδα! Welcome to Greece! Patrice was vacationing in Greece, and had just arrived in an out-of-the-way village. A man picked her out of the crowd, approached her and knelt before her in reverence, exclaiming "Athene! Athene! We knew you would come back to us! We never stopped worshipping you!" Apparently, he thought that the dark age of horrors Christian Era had passed and the Olympians were coming back to set things right. Anyone could be excused for mistaking Patrice for an avatar of the Goddess of Wisdom, but it went a bit beyond that for this guy. He seemed convinced that her denials were a kind of test of his devotion. For the duration of her visit, he continued to worship her.

Patrice and I have never discussed her own religious leanings explicitly, but I get the strong feeling that she herself wouldn't be opposed to throwing a pinch of incense on the brazier at the altar of Hera. I might be speaking out of turn there; wouldn't be the first time.

More Information

Patrice Haan Learn more about The Avatar of Athene and buy her CDs Dodekatheism "a handful of miserable resuscitators of a degenerate dead religion who wish to return to the monstrous dark delusions of the past." — Father Eustathios Kollas Religious freedom in modern Greece Give it a read. Doesn't sound too free to me.

So here's my question: given the choice, would Greeks (some? a bunch? a majority?) return to their native religion? Rebuild the Acropolis? Spark up a few doobies at Delphi and finally get some good advice? There are some folks, notably in Greece itself, who are working to re-establish the worship of their own Gods. The Greek Orthodox Church has noticed, but doesn't seem too threatened just yet. What do you think, Corps of Discovery?

My Favorite Rant Ever: Thank you, Matt from Oklahoma!

I got this from a newspaper comment stream. The poster was called Matt from Oklahoma. I don't know if he wrote it, but I'm super happy that I have it, no matter who the author.

You guys make a lot of great points about the radical homosexual agenda of wanting to be equal. It got me thinking of the biggest threat of all, gay marriage. Here are the reasons why we must never allow such an un-American act to be recognized.

First, Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

Second, Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

Third, Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

Fourth, Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

Fifth, Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

Sixth, Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.

Seventh, Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

Eight, Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.

Ninth, Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

And Finally, Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.