Random Neural Firings on a Friday

Now that I am retired, Friday is not what it was when I was working, and one of my charges had inferred that I had had illicit carnal knowledge of my mother for the seventeenth time in a five hour period.

Still, the culmination of a week is always a good thing if one has been raised in a society that believes in weekends as being a time of relaxation, play, sporting events and betaking one's self to the consecrated auditoriums of faith, begging, whining and sucking up to the Big One. This is not to say that 'worship' does not help many people to feel that their lives are more tolerable, it does. It also serves to reinforce many prejudices about the 'other' that some people hold as dear as life itself. If you doubt that, say 'gay marriage' or 'pro-choice' or 'Muslim' in certain religious communities, and you'll see what I mean.

Speaking of religion, especially the Levantine Monotheisms , Judaism, Christianity, and Islam...I give Christianity a pass on the monotheism thing because they have three gods (four if you are Catholic and count Mary the Mother of God into the mix) but they just say "It's a great mystery and cannot be fathomed by the human mind...they are three but ONE!" Gee, I never would have guessed. So, back to my point...most of their appeal is based on the greedy desire to live forever, set on thrones, or recline on cushions if one is a Muslim, and have a select place in the beatific afterlife. If that does not work to bring one into line, then there is HELL, the place where everybody who does not believe 'the RIGHT way' is put to be hideously tortured for all eternity in a manner that would have made De Sade run for the barf bag. Selfishness, pure and simple. One wants to keep out of the torture garden, and be in the Paradise of untold delight. Nothing like appealling to the highest in man, huh?

The best thing I have heard about all this is from the Sufi Poet Rabia. She said that if she loved God in order to receive heaven she did not deserve it, and if she loved God out of fear of the fire, she deserved it. That idea is found in some Rabbinical writings and in some mystical Christianity as well.

Imagine if you will, a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam getting up in front of the congregation and telling them that if they did good and loved God, just for heaven, they should be put in hell, and if they did good and loved God just to avoid hell, they would get an up close and personal tour of the Inferno. I would buy a ticket for that one. You can bet the collection that day would take a hit.

That is about enough for one Friday.

These are just some of the things that crept across my cortex this morning. Take them for what they might be worth. I am just a fool...a fool who is going to go watch one of our chipmunks stuff his face with some of the peanuts I set out on the back patio.

Be well, and be kind.
Tim