In repeatedly ending up at odds with contexts that seem conflicted by my alignment, I have come to see a mix of emotional investments, inherited assumptions, misleading normative consensus, and at times malice. This is written with gratitude to those who kept the religious structures running. Those who made sure there were spaces of sacred safety. Those that indirectly reduced harm and violations of lives. If you’re one such, you may be challenged by what you will read, and I ask that you consider it an opportunity for growth instead of accusation. It holds a key to healing religious practices. This is neither a campaign, service-policy nor pressure to conform.
Believing is great, when the talk is walked. It makes any kind of ethics-practice fade in comparison:
- Combining prayer-centered fasting with other forms of harm-reduction, while respecting meals.
- Living with less and practicing modesty.
- Collective contexts can invite resolution through prayer, admissions and charity.
Each makes solving complications easier, can reduce consumptive burden upon those used as livestock, reduce excesses and lower the waste of lives.
Believing can be viewed as a highly skilled economic capacity, that paves a pathway for needs and everyday demands. Religious practice, could be said to be structured wisdom, simplifying life amid the complexities of the world.
The Value of Believing
Of course, it’s not that simple. At times, it can be necessary to find oneself at the outskirts of a practice, in order to adhere to its legislation at depth. As an example, it is common to make images of the great spiritual leaders, prophets or teachers, and attributing all sorts of things to them, misusing their name to push through things. Avoiding involvement in that costly endeavor is vital, avoiding worshipping the structure, facilitators, consensus or the like.
It can be entrapping. There’s a risk of developing a kind of addiction to misusing the religiosity, elevated ethos or structural compliance, gaining convenience, creating value or personal elevation. It may seem a low-cost fulfillment pathway, but leads to some .. complications.
There’s a few tendencies, that drain the value of believing. That turns it into a kind of falsehood, degrading the wholesomeness to a point of turning it into a vile taint. It’s some scary things, and it leads to division, attempts at shifting blame unto those that are aware, distracting attention away from what causes it.
Believing is important, as it creates a guideline; people oft expect their efforts and work to somehow magically turn valuable. Lives consume, cause costs, incur losses and in the process create .. something; which becomes part of a process that somewhere down-the-line is supposed to yield a kind of real contributive value. But what happens when the costs outweigh the gain? If nothing else, it’d create a loss of the support that sustains the process, the world.
There is a business-principle that state how 20% of the value-derivation, yields 80% of the actual value. Minimalism is a classic practice, and it is sad when ascetic practices get misused and subsequently trust therein fades ..
- to impose pressures to reproduce, deny partnering or livelihood
- confine it within social categorization disregarding actual alignment
- drive consensus-based domination and getting lost in ideations
- treating the wronged and oppressed as rebellious, confused or defective when they seek God and turn away
There are some tributaries, like small streams that feed into these occurrences taking form. The 20% that makes religious practice worse: more risky, more likely to pressure lives into disregarding dysfunction, rationalizing extreme abuse, and minimizing wrongs. And it is sad, for religious practices transmit wisdom of the previous ages, passing it down, making life amid a complicated world easier.
One of the outcomes, is that both passive complicity in wrongs develop, the value of any efforts turn negative and it increases the perceived need to turn a blind eye to wrongs. That demands numbing, denial, blinding - alleviation - oft leading to self-drugging such as by alcohol. Subsequently lives get robbed of the opportunity of acting with clarity, sinking into habits and tendencies, that places them at arms length to religious contexts. Some of these undoubtedly believers themselves.
The demand for resolution, for truth and justice, searches out pathways. Reading this may be assisting worldwide hatred, frustration, and escalating conflict to find a more wholesome pathway, instead of destructive eruption. Pressures denied for too long do tend to break surface.
Inherent Connection. Natural Marriage.
Every individual holds a few inherent connections. One of these is the connection any one individual shares with another, across the planet, directly or indirectly. A word spoken that resonates through chain-reactions, a similarity in way of life, or the potential for a desirable reaction. Links and intertwinement, that yields a kind of solvency, an economic alignment of the attachment.
Some of these are romantic in nature; compatible differences, sharing things in common and reacting in ways, that decrease a lot of harm and malice, sometimes in unseen ways. Relational ties, that pack alignment and create a lot of love and caring. Whether there is “one” or not, there is an approximate range, within which there is a gradient-wise alignment.
One might state the the connection, when engaged in, can yield a kind of connection to God. More than being an opportunity, being present in thought, feeling, emotion or the like, for one within that range, is being present for many within that range. Even being present at times, in moments or in streaks, can be fulfilling, yielding empathy, caring, compassion which permeates throughout the world, being present for all.
Sadly this can be inconvenient to ideas of what is the case, attempts at breeding humans or culture. Despite how going outside that range, in a sense is cheating, leads to depletion of ones natural connection and rationalizes neglect of any partnering. Especially in impoverished contexts, disregarding the individual and world, in attempting to extract fulfillment is an increased risk. Impoverishment oft developing as others amass wealth.
At times, patience and making personal changes can be vital, prior to any engagements; context, complication and the like can over-complicate intimate relations. In such cases, listening within, searching out the traces in memories and making the changes required can be better, as mal-processing can result. Unwise engagements, developing unwise attachments, increases the risk of developing addictions, leading to failure of presence down-the-line.
Denying lives what they need do to live up to their individual partnerships, increases the risk that lives develop an excess of intimate attachments. The loss to the soul, can deplete individual capacity to show up for this natural marriage down-the-line, burning next winters wood. Disregarding that, attempting to achieve any religious wealth, ascension or the like, similarly is innately fake; building on a bad foundation.
While there is wisdom in chastity, avoiding excess attachments and keeping things solvent, there is a tendency to impose either reproduction or never to partner. It is a sad misuse of religious structure, turning these into breeding-machines, misusing sex and intimacy to breed more lives, despite the sheer excess of lives already being killed off daily, wasted and squandered. Oft that is rationalized by viewing “protection” negatively.
In the past, birth-control solutions didn’t exist. It is understandable, that in seeking intimacy and to show for those they were naturally connected to, that lives reproduced, whether or not there was a cost. While that is no longer the modern time, and every life costs heavily, consuming a lot to raise. Who goes around depicting the great spiritual leaders, prophets and teachers, using the ethos of God to claim that condoms are wrong?
Not all are as spiritually wealthy as to engage wisely in partnering-life, and they get denied safety from diseases, and inoptimal child-rearing situations. What led to their names being misused to enforce breeding? People fear their loved ones entering religions, as especially women get bred quickly, whether or not they would.
However it is a difficult conversation, and once a child is there it gotta be cared for, context and all. The schooling, raising, security, food etc. - all consumes heavily, oft utilizing oppression to lower costs and shape convenient environmental conditions, rationalizing addictions. The weaker children, oft orphans, get killed off as desires to lower costs increase.
Complicity develops fast, and the issue reinforces itself. It is a deeply embedded issue, yet denying lives connecting with their natural marriage, similarly rationalizes neglect, indifference and denies compassion, leading to the very “low-cost” fulfillment-pathways of child-rearing developing. Would you belie that? “Make childfree, chaste wise love within natural marriagery, not war.”
Who are Believers?
Consider what that term means. Is it adherence to a particular doctrine? A norm? A consensus? It could be viewed as a kind of wholesome wholesomeness, of a non-fake kind. Enlightenment at some grade, if you will. In a sense, all got a divine spark within, avoids deferring entirely by worshipping consensus-structures, axiomatic certainty like peer-reviewing or depictions of leaders and what others want them to say.
Inversely, none are entirely free from disbelief; it’s a complicated world. And while there’s a cost, it is really about the way in which one connects with another - does it foster alignment or taint? There’s a value to connecting wisely, and unwise moments leads to costs down-the-line. What I write here, for instance, does not strike me as hostile to the deeper moral core of major religious traditions. Even so, some may be troubled by the inconvenience it presents.
Consider the sheer number, the rationalized excess, of rules, laws, statements and impositions that are attributed to spiritual leaders. Each time gaining power, invoked at times, using the name or ethos of another person, interpreting their words and taking statements out of context, instead of speaking oneself.
At times, it goes as far as having the arrogance to disrespect others perception. The audacity of ignoring God as such manifest through them, trying to control things to fit some normative, making the Almighty match as consensus. Takes words that may or may not have been spoken, messing with the memories and view of the world, at times turning lives on others.
That would be oppressive indulgence of a kind, and got nothing to do with belief, co-living, God or the like. Control. Domination. Much like the misuse of medical ethos to label lives with lies close to the truth, or drug issues away oppressively, a vile practice. It is disrespectful to the work of religious pioneers, similar to how some of the practices of “modern science” in spite of its achievements, would leave the great scientists of the past in tears.
Consider the production-line issue, how their work are drained of value, misused to exploit lives so senselessly; having forgotten the wisdom of how application matters. Consider how the academic consensus, denies any contradiction of certain things vehemently, shutting down creativity when it’s inconvenient. And the way “proof” is misused, despite being built on certain axiomatic assumptions, no more certain that a claim that God is real, and adhering to ideas of objectivity are false worship.
At essence, belief is the inverse of senselessly indulging in addictive wrongdoing, achieving whatever outcomes in a way ever demanding more of the same. Sadly, there are a lot of believers that get oppressed by other believers. Negative attributions, inspired mistakes, lures into complicity “or..”, convincing of religious practice as being so wrong etc. - their fates constantly devoured into.
Just look at those differing to a norm, inconvenient or adding slight complications. Denied the wisdom on how to endeavor in partnering-life, some sexual or gender-orientations get blamed after having been denied extensively. Actual exploitation, coercion, and bodily violation are vile. Without question. Treating that as synonymous with sexual or gendered difference seems a questionable connection to draw.
Especially in environments with less security, impoverished for others to build wealth (material, spiritual etc.), the rationalization-pressure on exploiting one being to get pleasure or fulfillment, like a stream runs into a river; a sum of pressures, mal-shaping things that mislead a life into malicious actions. Shifting the blame unto those that “are different”, merely because facing the guilt of generating consumption-pressure, is no act of believing.
And sure, killing children is a grim thing to do. So stop adding to the consumptive-pressure craving prices to be lowered so senselessly, whether by causing impoverishment by denying livelihood, by adding more consumptive burden atop of everything, or pressuring lives to rationalize neglect or indifference on their natural marriage. That causes children to be killed, and ends up denying them decent religious practice.
Isn’t siding with the oppressed believers, against the believers that would oppress them, the only way to actually believe, lest turning away from God to worshipping the convenience of consensus? Consider, if the early believers in a given religious context, carried the name of the religion and listened to the consensus. Isn’t it disrespectful to them, to deny that? As with parents, it is disrespectful to not hold them accountable to being better, looking down on them and refusing them responsibility.
Constantly do lives source power, giving it a pathway; it’s economy. Failing to look at bills, bank accounts and the like is horribly squanderous. Getting lost in religious highs, complications and forgetting the basics, isn’t that more sinful, draining the trust in religious practice? It matters, down the line, because something does continue to the afterlife. What, form and shape may be somewhat unknown. Isn’t it worth the while to take responsibility for my being, over trying to defer responsibility to some consensus?
Heaven
The following, instead of doctrine, highlights why consensus cannot be treated as more sacred than God.
In endeavoring in religious contexts, the aforementioned can feel frightening to face. There’s a lot of power, it is used oppressively. There are a lot of wrongs done and desires to hide these. It hints at the need for independence, as the power over perception gets misused to reinforce consensus in place of God’s will.
However, to actually believe, there’s something more frightening to face. A heaven, a structured space desirably channeling demand, creating kinds of value, demanded sustainable - lasting. Not a permanent holiday-destination.
Every being, every entity, every life - human or otherwise - are principally innocent in the absolute. Guilt is an illusion, as is blame; these are constructs, that make things run around. A soul that developed a pattern of eroding an environment, or grew too dysfunctional, will nonetheless be a cost to sustain in an environment.
Why do some do what they do? Even if repeatedly? There are a myriad of factors part of shaping those events. And I completely get not having the surplus to maintain that awareness, especially when it gets misused, gotta sustain the capacity to, or it gets very hard to remember that any are innocent. Nonetheless, a soul, like a life, can sink into kinds of dysfunction, stuckness and vileness that is complicated to get free from; it becomes a virtually eternal stuckness.
Imagine the sheer number of lives sinking into degrees of damnation. There’s a cost to bringing any soul out of that, let alone medical costs to go about all the damages. A part of the lasting nature of a heaven, is the wholesome application of its resources; it is desired sustained in yielding surplus. That means the surplus must involve setting damned souls free, each creating a worse and viler drain with every passing second.
The cost however demands that the souls de-damnation yield surplus, to recover the next. Say the heavenly environments are eroded by its inhabitants, if souls live like they do on earth, the environments fail to last. Then there’s no surplus. Then there’s only a return to damnation, and motivation to violate others to oneself gain elevation, safety.
Some of these structures however, are bound to end up creating more costs, than the value presented by which ease and safety is gained. Some may yield value in that, by the karma and predation on what indulges, demotivating malice. Some of these may sustain continuation, in a way that unfathomably balances out the loss, but how can the economic alignment be certain?
Consider the story of Satan. So often such deferred blame unto, for the wrongs of collectives. Supposedly such was the one sustaining the heavens, creating the de-damnation each structure relied upon to not be fake indulgence. What if some sizes or manifestations claimed to be “satan” are actually mere inconvenience, to collectives, consensus and the like, in the indulgence in oppressing, denying, wronging countless and explaining it away as “satans” fault? To differ, when shaytanic occurrences arise; vile, grim and oft hyper-effective yet non-wholesome, as a product of all the consuming, wrongs and malice, like tributaries feed into rivers.
To me, that makes the military, wealth and powers of this world seem like rock-slings versus nuclear arms. Yet there’s bound to be oppression, malice and veiled evils. Yet failing to live by that, and turning to God instead of deferring to this power, is disbelief, blasphemic in action.
Alas, there are true believers to be found across religions, non-religions, even in opposition to religions. Some will react to the malice found in the consensus-driven legislation, the hyprocrisy and denial. Some will be viewed as wrongdoers, undesirable and insane including by those claiming to believe.
In my personal religious endeavoring, I constantly felt attempted turned away from the truth, away from God and to defer to malicious norms, to neglect my natural marriagery, to indulge in oppression and the like. However, without it, I had likely failed as well. I figure that religious structures are part of life, something to go about somehow. Taught me a bit about being hygienic when it matters.
May difference not be turned into possession, pressure, or malice. Growth requires diversity, like a plant needs various elements; starlight, various soil-elements, CO2, water and supposedly benefits by kind expressions. I hope that you too will find your way, and keep to the task at hand.