Carpe Diem Acts of Devotion: Trail of Saints, Krakow, Poland

Church of Our Lady of the Snows

I stop at the graves

along the trail of the saints

take tea with each one

~Cie~

Carpe Diem Acts of Devotion: Pilgrimage of the Relics, Maastricht (The Netherlands)

Saint Servatius

my fascination

with relics may be gruesome

or is it divine?

~Cie~

Carpe Diem Acts of Devotion: St. Francis

Image by LaterJay Photography from Pixabay

Saint Francis statue

still in my parents' garden

old and weathered now

~Cie~

Carpe Diem Acts of Devotion: Lourdes

Copyright Dennis Jarvis

would I be washed clean

of the stain of my mistakes

if I bathed in Lourdes?

~Cie~

Carpe Diem Acts of Devotion: Camina de Fatima

Image Source

little disciple

faith strong in a childlike heart

may it bring you joy

~Cie~

Notes:

I may be a misanthropic agnostic at this point in my life, but it wasn't always that way. As a child growing up in New Mexico, I was a devout Catholic. 

Two things pushed me away from the church: dogma and holier-than-thou blind-faith believers who dared neither question nor explore and condemned anyone who did.

Heeding Haiku with Chèvrefeuille: Summer Solstice

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At the beginning of the day on the summer solstice, I leave my body sleeping and walk in dreams to a place I will never see in life. I watch the sunrise through rocks mysteriously stacked long ago and wonder if it was possible that I was there in some form.

Do I have a connection to a time and place I could not possibly have known in my current reality, or do I merely wish that I was more important than I am? Did I once have wisdom and abilities forgotten by the passage of centuries and lifetimes, or am I merely a pathetic creature who wishes there was a possibility that I might not be as utterly hopeless and wretched as I appear?

There was a time when I believed in one God and a single savior. Then came the time that I believed in many deities and no specific savior. At this point, I neither believe nor disbelieve in any specific thing, except that I think the god postulated by most organized religious institutions is a construct created to give adherents carte blanche to behave cruelly.

is there someone there

a powerful entity

or are we alone?

~Cie~

Note:

It is not my intent to belittle anyone's faith. The thoughts I express are mine and mine alone. I neither believe nor disbelieve in any particular deity or set of deities, including the Christian god. My final paragraph is a criticism of the sorts of people who use their religion to behave as intolerant bigots and to cause harm to those who do not adhere to their dogma and edicts.

The Cheese Grates It: Questioning the Faith One Was Raised With

Before reading this, please keep in mind that I have no intent to insult anyone's faith in a supreme being. I am an agnostic who believes in the possibility of a supreme being or beings. My thoughts on the nature of said supreme being or beings are theory. For me, the belief in a supreme being or the possibility thereof is removed from adherence to religious dogma.
Religion is a system created by people, ostensibly to honor the supreme being or beings which are the object of worship. Like any other tool, it can be used in either a constructive or destructive manner.
That being said, I have found that religion is used destructively a disproportionate amount of the time, and thus my thoughts towards it tend to be cynical. However, I acknowledge that there are truly good people who utilize religion in a positive way, and I fully support these people and feel that they are positive representatives working on behalf of the deity or deities of their belief system.
I often cite the good people with the Christian organization Faithful America. Please take a moment to see what they are about and to support them.
www.faithfulamerica.com

And now, on to the subject of the post.

A young woman on a Facebook forum was expressing feelings of sadness and doubt regarding her faith in what I refer to at this point in my life as the Church God. Here is what she had to say:

Is okay to be angry with God? It hurts me to see people suffering especially babies and child. When you hear terrible news about the bombings in Syria or the fact that a evil man becomes president and now everyone is frighten for the future. Makes me doubt a divine being even exist. What do I do? Do I keep being angry? Or just accept the fact that I'm losing my faith and accept that the world for the way it is?

The following are the thoughts I had for her.

My personal belief is that there is a higher power or powers but it/they are not what the church taught us. Most religions have their basis in politics rather than spirituality and exist to control people. I think whatever powers there be are not particularly involved with the affairs of humanity. They are more architects of the Universe, one might say. Anyway, that is my thought on it. I was raised Catholic and for many years struggled with the idea on one hand that God was all powerful and all loving and yet allowed horrible atrocities to take place. I understand your feelings about this.

My further thoughts:
I "lost my religion" at eighteen, although I had been questioning for quite some time before that. I probably would not have lost my religion had it not been for the judgmental people I met who accused me of being a "devil worshiper" for being curious about the nature of the Universe, for not being comfortable with the idea that people get condemned to eternal torture for not believing in the existence of the Church God, and for liking that evil, evil rock and roll blasphemy. I was disgusted by the "Satanic Panic" believers who accused innocent people of terrible acts.
Rigid and judgmental attitudes pushed me away from the church. I might not literally burst into flames if I have to step into a church at this point, but I'm not comfortable doing so either.
At this point, I adhere to what Marcus Aurelius so wisely said, and I imagine I will continue to do so for the remainder of this lifetime.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

Broken Heroes

Nicolo Lothario

The prompt from Prompts Galore asks us to "write about coming to the realization that your heroes are only human."

Several times the realization has been one of these: guy seems like the perfect catch. He's married with kids, seems like a great husband and father, oh, if only I could find someone like...

Great googly moogly! So sorry, Spouse of Cheating Dog. Turns out that instead of being such a good guy after all, he's a rampant womanizer. Not going to name names, but I've been sorely disappointed by having perceived no few of these cads as heroes in the field of romance and can only count my blessings that I wasn't the poor fool who ended up with them. Not being pretty does have its perks. Guys like this ignore the existence of women who look like me.

Circa 1973



My father actually was one of the good ones. He and I didn't always get along. He had certain very conservative ideals that didn't jibe with my very liberal ones. He could be overbearing. However, he had a genuinely good heart, and I could always count on him being there when I needed him.

Until a hemorrhagic stroke severely compromised him, and thereafter he developed vascular dementia and congestive heart failure and spent six years with both his physical and cognitive health declining until he finally, mercifully, passed from this world in a peaceful room at the hospice center.

Everything dies, but the long, drawn-out way my father died pretty well shook my belief in an ordered Universe. Good people are allowed a merciful death, right? They don't have to suffer for years and years, becoming more and more fearful as the twilight takes over their mind, right?

Well, that was the most naïve thought ever. We should probably scan my head and see if I even have a brain, or if I long ago replaced it with a rotting lump of Limburger cheese.

Malcolm Young was my hero from the time I was twelve years old. He doesn't really look or sound like one might think a hero would. He's tiny, somewhere around five foot three and weighing something around 110 pounds when he's been eating hearty. He's a shy, nondescript man with a quiet voice. So, what would cause me to think of someone like that as a hero?

Malcolm took no shit from anybody, and he didn't like crappy behavior. He disliked bullies. He was sympathetic to people who were victimized by the mean-spirited sort who gets off on putting others down. In other words, I knew from the start that he cared about people like me, who tend to be the target of the mean-spirited lot. People who are shy, who aren't conventionally attractive, who are even, dare I say it, mentally ill. That's what makes him a role model, and, yes, a hero.

His family seems to have some genetic tendency to cancer and vascular disease. So, you'd figure it might be one of those things that would take him out. Oh, but no. He couldn't have gotten lucky and died from the heart problems that he had in the early 2000s, or the stroke that he had in 2014. That would have been too easy.

Nope, instead he has to be dying from a horrid form of dementia that has literally shrunken his brain and left him so he can't remember the things he did during his life, or the people he did them with. This disease took him from being a low-key but decidedly brave hero and a very independent personality to being a very sick, very confused victim whose once-alert eyes are bewildered and terrified, and who requires constant supervision.

You know where my faith has really been shaken in this whole mess?

The idea of a benevolent, ordered Universe seems rather improbable to me.

I'm not an atheist, but I haven't believed in the Church God for years. Deism seems far more plausible to me than theism, given the nature of things. I can buy the idea of a grand creator, but I don't really think it gives two fucks about us. Oh, it may be benevolently disposed to its creations, but it's also pretty detached, much like a person who raises fish whose purpose is to repopulate lakes and streams. This person cares about the fish as a population. They don't focus on the fish as individuals.

I think we're kind of on our own, as far as things go. Yes, I believe in a soul that survives the death of the body. To me, reincarnation seems the most likely course of events. Energy never dies, it simply changes form, and the spirit is pure energy. Eventually, it will find another body to inhabit. That's how I see it, anyway.

Sometimes my thoughts on the matter are similar to Sam Winchester's.

And sometimes they're more like Paul the Tavern Owner's.

"Look, there’s sure as hell demons. And maybe there is a God. I don’t know. Fine. But I’m not a hypocrite. I never prayed before and I ain’t starting now. If I go to hell, I’m going honest. How ‘bout you? "

Unlike Paul, I used to pray. I was once a devout Catholic. My father was a devout Catholic. He prayed. I'm not sure it did any good, but I'm not so arrogant that I'd 100% say it didn't.

The only thing I know for sure is this:

A benevolent, involved deity wouldn't allow its creations to suffer the way that so many of us do. If the deity is involved in our lives, I, like Stephen Fry, have but one thing to say to it:

How dare you!

How dare you let little children be molested and murdered. How dare you let there be wars. How dare you let my son's friend, who is only 18, get bone cancer. How dare you let my father struggle on for six years, losing his ability to control his body and his mind. How dare you give my aunt dementia. How dare you let Malcolm Young's mind be destroyed and force him to keep living in a terrified, bewildered state. How dare you allow all these things, and the countless other horrors? Seriously--how dare you!

I don't believe in the Church God. But in the event that he exists and hears what we say, that is what I have to say to him.

My final thought on the matter of heroes:

The church god actually used to be one of my heroes. I lost faith in him years ago.

~Cie~

NaPoWriMo 2015: Day 14: Suffering: A Conversation Between Me and the Cosmos

Suffering:

A Conversation Between Me and the Cosmos

"Why do you allow us to suffer?" I cried

To any deity or angel or demon

To any ascended master

To any spirit high or low

To any elemental being

To any ghost

Or speck of dust

Or invading microbe

Or molecule, atom, electron, proton or neutron

Which might chance to hear me

"Why do you create things of beauty only to allow them to be destroyed?" I demanded

"I want to know who is responsible for this!" I declared

I wondered aloud how something so magnificent as this cosmos could come to be

Without even an iota of divine intervention

I decided that it could not

But the creator thereof must long ago have pissed off

To any rate, this is the only thing I can imagine to be true

For as I gazed up into the night sky

At the myriad of stars

I was as alone as ever

Having, as always, no answer to the question

Of why we are born

To suffer

~Opal~

Notes:

Like Ellie yesterday, I deviated from the prompt. The prompt was to create a poem which includes a conversation. Technically, mine does, although it is a one-sided conversation!

Dr. Ray Hagins: Racism in the Guise of Religion

Rotting Christ: Visions of the Dead Lovers

The old glory is failed
The old emperor in a lonely empire
Eternity so shiny
But followed by noone

Among the crowd
Princes & kings
Those who defeated
All lovers... of monarchy

The sky is mourning
Near to the sun... human blood
It's too late for nation

After this misery
A bigger one is coming
The promised centuries... recycling

The dog have died
Around the tyrant

Mythic sovereigns
In sea and land
Shout loud
But voices come back

The eagle has throwned
The beast has enough
The days of the omen
Visions of the dead lovers

Read more: Rotting Christ - Visions Of The Dead Lovers Lyrics | MetroLyrics 

Here is why I have no problem with this video, although I still identify as Catholic, albeit a very unorthodox one.

The video was not disparaging the suffering that Jesus endured. In fact, it showed a fairly accurate depiction of the horrors of crucifixion. Anyone being killed in this manner would have suffered greatly. 

Whether or not they believe in Jesus as the Messiah, they respect the fact that Jesus the man suffered. This video in no way mocks that suffering. In fact, it asks us to examine whether any of the followers of Jesus truly realize what he endured, or if he is for them simply a symbol of their belief system. To make him simply a symbol is to deny the real horrors he was subjected to.

The band professes anti-religious beliefs, stating that Christianity is one of the worst things to happen in human history. In many ways, they are correct. For the most part, Christianity has had nothing to do with Jesus other than to use him as sort of a holy enforcer. In other words, if you don't do what we say  Jesus says, you are going to endure eternal torment in the fiery pit.
Jesus the activist, Jesus the kind, forgiving person, Jesus the evolved soul would have deplored the tactics of the so called "Christian" church. Jesus loved the outcasts. The "flock" of most churches sanctimoniously pushes the outcasts away. They do not want the homeless, the mentally ill, the unpretty making their house of worship look bad.
Jesus would deplore the existence of mega-churches.

In any case, I have a much bigger problem with the theocratic extreme right in the United States today than I do with the viewpoint of the members of Rotting Christ that religion is a social negative. It is a social negative because of the fact that it has been primarily used as a political tool to control people, no matter what the claim may be.
I actually do believe in a "great beyond," although I have no way of knowing what it is really like. I like the imagery used in depicting Heaven. I like the positive messages that Jesus left for us. I do not like those who use his name as an excuse to act like bigoted assholes.

~Viki~

Brief Movie Review: The Man from Earth

This 2007 American film by Jerome Bixby is a dialogue-based dramatization of a story by Gordon R. Dickson about a man claiming to be a 14,000 year old caveman. While his friends/former colleagues initially believe that John is pulling their legs and go along for the ride just for fun, they eventually begin to believe that what he says might be true. This causes anger in several of his guests as they are forced to question the validity of the things they have always believed to be absolute truths.

Questions are raised about the validity of both science and religion. Things that are thought to be absolute truths one day may be refuted the next, replaced by new beliefs. People want something that they can believe in and when it seems that one's comforting belief may be taken away, a person can have irrational, even violent reactions.

I have had discussions about belief with my son, who is, in my opinion, one of the wisest people I have known, although he is only 23 years old. He said that while he has certain spiritual ideas which he on some occasions holds to be true and on other occasions hopes are true, in general he feels that the only way to be a true scientist and a true seeker is to conduct oneself as an agnostic. Thus, one does not reject possibilities, nor embrace anything as absolute. One is always open to discovery and change.

As to the nature of questions such as life, death, and salvation of the soul should there be a soul, we are not in a position to know the absolute truth in these matters. This being the case, it is best to keep an open mind and an open heart. We must, as Dr. Martin Luther King Junior said, learn to disagree without becoming violently disagreeable.

~Cie~

Cross-posted to:

One Love

Sly Fawkes

An illustration of why spirituality is not One Size Fits All

Actually, it's just a short animation about a couple of guys and a jigsaw puzzle. But I see it as a good metaphor for why it isn't good to shove your particuar brand of religion on other people.

About Us

 

As the blog address suggests, we are seekers. To simplify, we are taking an agnostic approach to spiritual topics. We have a variety of spiritual beliefs and, while we are not working in a laboratory, we are attempting to be analytical in our approach.

We may dislike religious institutions, but we are not hateful towards those who believe in deities. Some of us do. All of us believe there is a power greater than ourselves.

We believe that skepticism is healthy, but cynicism tends to be poisonous.

We are not going to belittle religious beliefs wholesale by sneeringly comparing deities to the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, or the Tooth Fairy. We may crack wise about religious institutions, but we believe them to be more political than spiritual in any case.

There are many paths, but there is one truth. That truth must be Love, or we are all doomed.

Love our cosmos, our planet, and all dwellers thereon. Love and respect one another.

Beyond that, it's all just so much theory, which is fun to discuss.

 

Love, Light, and Peace