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Thursday, June 11, 2009

Contradictions

My Parents’ 60th Anniversary 

I am back in Moab after a couple weeks, off & on, in Colorado. First, I went to visit my parents in Fruita, Colorado for their 60th anniversary. They’re both 81 years old. Yeah, the 2 people who gave birth to this body I ride around in have been happily together for 60 years. I feel utter gratitude I grew up in a loving family. I never dealt with bickering parents, or with the pain of parent divorce, like most folks I know. Everybody who meets my parents loves them. I am fortunate. 

But I sometimes fall into arguments with my dad about – what else – religion & politics. My parents are Republican & swallow much of the religious right stuff. Lots of American homes are like this: strong family values on the one hand, but astonishing lack of concern for social injustice on the other. Nice on the individual level but poison on the mass level.

I've said that I wouldn't be honest if I weren't an atheist sometimes. I often can't help but be atheist after listening to the Evangelical diatribe. It takes a while to regain faith after being around the usual Evangelical spirit. If I were the devil and wanted to turn more people away from Jesus ever, I would create the institution that calls itself “Christianity.” It's a pretty ingenious set-up.
But, as I say, it's the love that seeps through, that keeps me from throwing it all out. 

Camping in Colorado

I came back to Moab from Colorado only to be whisked away to Colorado again by my friends Pete & William. We went to a “Feral Futures” gathering near Durango. It was a small Earth First type gathering at some hot springs, with Rainbow people invited, too. It was one of those rare events linking Earth-Firsters with Rainbowers. There’s sometimes tension between the 2 – Earth Firsters feeling like Rainbowers are too airy fairy & Rainbowers feeling like Earth-Firsters are too militant. I see both in myself.

Somebody, ironically, brought a "Star Wars" Monopoly game to that gathering. Yes, I played this game of capitalism with them. We all started stealing from each other, jokingly. I was losing royally, & did my share of stealing. It was grand fun. My friend William says he doesn't trust me now. "You're supposed to be anti-capitalist," he said. Here's the question: is a game just a game or a reflection of real life? It helped me to see I have the capitalist pig inside me, too. I'm certain that as long as we see everything and everybody, including demons, in ourselves, & admit them, our little demons never get a hold of us, and we remain in balance.

William & I hitched back to Moab from there. My friend Val, by strange “coincidence”, happened to be driving by us then & gave us a lift. Val is the prime scout for the Rainbow gathering & just then happened to be returning to Moab from a month of scouting in New Mexico. 

Contradictory Musings in Moab 

Back at the camp by the Colorado River, my “kiva” has had 6 inches of water in it from the rising water table. So I’ve had to camp above ground. I’m working up motivation to clean up that camp & stay just at the canyon cave.

Meanwhile, last night, I stayed at a house-sit with my friend Phil. We watched the movie, “Gardens of the Night”, about children abducted & abused. It was heart-breaking. Yesterday I was an atheist, and the movie reinforced it. The natural question came into my mind: how can an omnipotent God, if he/she is just, even begin to allow the incessant abuse against children that’s happening every day, right now, all over the world, ruining lives for generations? 

The atheists I know are atheists because they have a sense of justice. Yet people are quick to call them evil, while most self-proclaimed God-believers bury their heads in the sand & deny most all forms of truth. It’s like Jesus’ parable of the two sons. One says he will do what his father says, and then does not. The other says he won’t do what his father says, and yet changes his mind and does. 

The prophets recorded in the Bible were all in conflict with their own religion, because they all talked about social injustice. They decided to stick with their own oppressive religions & work with them. And they were all persecuted or killed for it. Did it do any good? These are the contradictions I’ve been grappling with. 

All I know is that the most astonishingly profound things came out of the prophets, yet growing side-by-side with more hypocritical religion. But I see what I see – a divine beauty at the core that can’t be denied. The good plants & the bad plants grow together. It’s either that or no plants at all.

I have a friend who just made the comment that you never hear of atheists perpetrating violence like religious people often do. I started agreeing with him, but then remembered the USSR & the Republic of China. The USSR, declaring its state philosophy as atheism, massacred more people than even Nazi Germany. Today, the Republic of China, in the name of atheism, is even now destroying Tibetan culture & religion. It ironically calls Tibetan culture – probably the most peaceful, non-imperialistic civilization on earth – religious imperialism. 

When we make anything a dogma, whether religious or a-religious, it becomes poison. Again, I keep hearing about cultures in Scandinavian Europe becoming more & more atheistic, and more just & civil, with less poverty, than most other cultures. I'd like to hear first-hand information from Scandinavian citizens & from people who have visited them.

Bowing, Resigning in Silence 

It’s all hard, for everybody. No human mind can grasp the contradictions of this world. This is when I have to clear my mind & meditate. In perfect silence is perfect Truth. Thoughts & words can never grasp truth. They can only drive you mad. But I find perfect clarity in stillness. This stillness, annihilation of ego (crucifixion of the delusion of self), is the fundamental of all religion, yet disregarded by religious institutions. Is this burying my head in the sand? On the contrary, I find it is lifting my head & seeing Everything As It Is, without letting the disease infect me. So the world is going to Hell. Why should I go with it? What good is that, for anybody, anywhere?

Then, lift your head again, and see the overwhelming beauty in this world, and hear the Glorious Music lifted high, high, high above the hideous noise. Somehow, it all works out beautifully in the end.

It's comforting that the galaxies take millions of years to make a single revolution. And in a million years we will all be gone and the universe still rolls on. We're a passing dust particle that really doesn't matter. My and your self-importance is a joke.

16 comments:

  1. Hi Suelo

    I've been in touch with you in the past - my name is Mark and I live without money in the UK. I've been reading your stuff lately and find it very inspiring, and its great just to have someone on the planet who truly understands. I could barely agree more with your thoughts.

    I have set up an organisation called the freeconomy community (www.justfortheloveofit.org) on which I write the blog. It has almost 10,000 members (all of whom have signed up to share their skills, tools, skills etc for free and on a pay-it-forward basis, so no exchange). I was wondering if you would be up for writing a guest blog sometime on it, something about your thoughts about money and your experience so far. It has quite a big readership and I would be happy for you to link to this.

    I've read the reasons why you zapped your previous writings, and I've been through the same thought process. My belief though is that it is your intention that counts - if you are talking about your ideas and actions to boost your ego, it is best to be quiet. However if you do it out of love and a desire to pass on your experience to anyone who might find it useful, then I think it is a positive thing.

    Any if you are interested leave a comment at bottom of current blog or email mark@justfortheloveofit.org

    Keep inspiring people my good man, and stay true to yourself and your path. Its great to be sharing the planet with you,

    Mark Boyle x

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  2. Of course I remember you, Mark! & our feelings are definitely mutual. Not only do I remember you but I talk about you as my comrad in the UK, as Heidemarie Schwermer is my comrad in Germany. I mention you in my website (link, above right corner of this blog) & have a link in it to your site www.justfortheloveofit.org
    So check it out, folks.

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  3. Hmm... I have your link in my website, but not on this blog. Guess I'll have to remedy that.

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  4. "If you meet the Buddha in the street kill him". We must make slippery the sides of the cliff we push the ego off. So that damn thing can't crawl back up so quickly. It is too bad most people can't see how much nicer life is without ego worship. I know so many ferverent Yaweh lovers who don't really understand that it is there own ego they actually worship not a solar deity from the middle east. Great blog. Inspirational.

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  5. Just go ahead and be an atheist already. You don't need a god to have beauty, truth, morality, sacredness, etc. In fact, it is actually harder to have those when you believe in a god.

    As for the USSR and other "atheist" atrocities, my understanding is that those things were perpetrated in the name of atheism, unlike religious crimes. Lenin just happened to be an atheist, but his motivation wasn't atheism. I can't be more specific than that, b/c I can't remember where I read it. Most websites about atheism will have a reference to that, b/c that's what most religious people bring up as "proof" that atheists are just as evil as religious people, which they are not.

    I enjoy reading your website, even though I don't agree with everything you think/do.

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  6. The point is, Marcy, we see the absence of religion didn't make the USSR or Red China any better or less evil! You can argue whether or not atheism motivated these attrocities till you are blue, just like you can argue whether or not true religion really motivated the crusades. Now will we argue that your version of atheism is better than theirs? My god is better than your god? Athiesm can be dogma as any religion can. Atheism and Religion are reactions to each other. They can't exist without each other. The word Atheism, in fact, cannot exist without Theism. If Red Chinese Atheism isn't crushing Tibetan Theism, then what is? Politics? Money? How are politics & money separate from ideology?

    If I truly want to be honest, I must say, "I don't know". Call it agnostic, if we so crave labels. Agnosicism is, paradoxially, the very principle at the heart of true religion, & is the heart of all science, & all philosophy.
    The Paradox: I can't Know until I Don't Know. I can't Live until I Die. This is called Humility, which is lacking in most leaders & followers of religions & philosophies. Once I label myself anything, whether Athiest or Christian, or whatever, I join a dogma club, a tribe, I become an opinionist, closing myself off from other viewpoints & ways of life. I cannot think independently, but my club thinks for me. In other words, I become attached, a person of Possession. Attachment creates the massacres of the Crusades, the USSR, Red China, and US Capitalism. To be dogmatic is to be militant.

    I am not really here to convert atheists to theists, but to challenge my own self-proclaimed Christian culture, to ask itself if it practices its own faith. Even Christian scriptures denounce labeling ourselves anything, including "Christian".

    What if you see "beauty, truth, morality, sacredness" as God? If you do, then you see that a self-proclaimed atheist who demonstrates "beauty, truth, morality, sacredness" actually knows this same God, but calls it by a different label! This is my point: we are hung up on vocabulary, not Truth. We are hung up on labels, not the Reality labels are meant to describe. I can call Reality God, you can call Reality something else or call it nothing at all! Reality doesn't care! Reality never stops existing and is omnipresent and omnipotent. Is it not? Delusion comes and goes. Dogma closes us off from Reality.

    I challenge you, who call yourself atheists, to ask yourself if you believe your own philosophy. Do you say Reality evolved us from an amoeboid to a human, through the fires of Natural Selection? If truly believe this, you will give up the manipulations of money & politics and throw yourself to Chance, and trust your own belief that Reality will keep creating you. Why should Natural Selection give up on you now after evolving you for zillions of years? Where are scientsists who can actually step outside their textbooks and believe Natural Selection enough to trust it? Natural Selection cares not what you call It, & keeps going whether or not you believe It. This is miracle.

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  7. As I speak of you mas my comrad in the US! It is a shame that the word comrad is still in the singular and not the plural but as Gandhi said, whether you are a minority of one or a majority of millions, your truth is your truth.

    Though my beliefs about money are as much spiritual as physical, I have found myself over the last few years speaking of it publicly mainly in the physical, out of some highly flawed logic of not wanting to alienate the audience or reader.

    I talk about our disconnection from what we consume being the common denominator to wars, factory farms, sweatshops, rainforest depletion, pollution and general destruction, and the fact that it is a global currency that allows these degrees of separation to be so pronounced and so increasing.

    But when I read your words I remember the real reasons I decided to live this way, and they weren't in the physical. However, I haven't developed my articulation of them to anywhere near the extent you have.

    Would it be OK if I took a selection of your quotes for a blog? I would also link to this website as I would really love for more and more people to read your thoughts.

    Stay in touch my good man, it gives me a lot of strength just knowing you are alive, living the way you do and talking about it in its truest terms.

    Lots and lots of love from this side of the Atlantic.

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  8. Thanks for your words, Mark. Very encouraging. Yeah, sometimes I have to stop thinking about what audience I'm speaking to & just go from my deepest heart & let the dice fall where they will. Chance is the Very Mind of God! But that's my vocabulary. Hey folks, use your own language if you don't like mine, but hear & speak & do this Message!

    Yeah, Mark, feel free to quote or whatever. It's all Free, huh?

    lots & lots of love rebounded over the sea!

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  9. Crime is on record rise.
    Be safe.
    Everybody, PRINT MONEY !
    If robbed, give it away.
    If caught, tell the police, they fail to protect us, and to solve money crimes, abolish money and automate the world to provide free food and shelter.
    http://groups.google.com/group/the-venus-project

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  10. Hi Suelo,

    Do you think that a lot of the bruhaha between atheists and "believers" perhaps results from the fact that they have different understandings of what "God" is?

    Some people, for example, might equate "working for God" simply with "working for the furtherance of positive phenomena". Some people might do the same, but choose never to mention "God" - either because they have a different understanding of the term, or because they know that the word means different things to different people.

    I'm ranting somewhat I suppose. I just wanted an excuse to say hi really! :-D

    Hoping your kiva is dry again soon!

    david

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  11. Wow, Suelo, I am truly inspired by this latest post. Particularly fascinating to me is the section regarding religion and injustice, considering that I am in a very uncertain place in my "faith" right now.

    To me, God is a term that represents everything good and beautiful that we cannot fathom or explain. And as such, we have no right nor ability to place limits, doctrines or labels on the unknown.

    The hypocrisy in any institution, religious or atheistic, is created not by the existence (or lack thereof) of a God, but by greed and "the love of money".

    Peace out, bro. Love ya.

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  12. How could anyone argue this? You help me strengthen my own ideas. Thanks so much for your thoughtful views and ideas.

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  13. Buddha didn't use any money, he ate alms food, he slept under the trees. He forbad the use of money. If you read his original saying in Tipitaka, you would see it. Organized Buddhism is just as bad as organized Christian.

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  14. "The gift of grace is given to work a mystery of resurrection in our lives, to recover the wisdom that has been planted at the heart of our human nature."--J.Phillip Newell

    It is great that you have found the strength to plunge into your mystery, and thus the human mystery. Keep going.

    Heather

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  15. I am very fascinated by everything written here. I used to claim to be athiest, but I found no hope in it, and I felt my soul crying out for something I stubbornly refused to recognize, I prayed even though I told myself no one was listening. But as you said, how could a beautiful all-powerful God allow such horrifying things to happen to his creations?? I wish I had the exact verse right now, it's late and I don't have the energy to find it, but in the Bible it says something about we suffer for our own sakes. It's just some food for thought, but what if suffering is allowed so that we will seek God? What if one's suffering inspires someone to change the ways of his life? God is just. But we messed it up, and he's just working inside of our messes, constantly wanting us to want him. If we choose to kill, to rape, to abuse, he will not give up on us, he will find a way to shine light when we choose darkness. And God loves orphans and widows, and he hears the groaning of the abused and unloved. Though he cannot take away the free will of the abusers, he will rescue the abused in eternal life,by giving them the ultimate love and joy after death. All things shall pass.

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  16. You know, this blog reminded me of the Jethro Tull album, Aqualung. It makes references to religion being something twisted into the will of man, and how God is something placed on the high shelf in a golden cage to look at, and not to touch. It truly is a sad thing to see religious leaders fall back on their own ego rather than the divine connection that they advertise. Or they, along with their congregation, feel that he is something they have to Wind Up on Sundays.

    People often use the term "God of"--He is a "God of Love," a "God of War," a "God of Man," whatever. But the use of this term undermines the very fact that He is God--not God of Something, but God of Everything. Hence the title, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.

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