Thursday, December 24, 2009

Communion as a non-Christian

Today I had communion for the first time as a non-Christian. And it was on Christmas Eve. I'd been told that communion from a pagan perspective is a little strange, so I tried it out. And it's definitely weird.

It wasn't at a Catholic church, it was Baptist. So it was the little cracker with grape juice. Looking at the cracker with the realization that this is symbolic cannibalism is a little strange. I'm about to stick the body and blood of Christ into my digestive system and I don't even believe he's a god.

Normally I would have passed up the experience, but a friend of mine who is a pagan was caught in a situation where she had to do it or else she would reveal to her Christian family that she wasn't part of their religion so I tried the experience in honor of her. It's not one that I'll do again. Like her, I felt quite sick afterward and felt like I was betraying myself. I didn't go to the point of throwing up, but it was kinda close.

Communion has so much meaning applied to it for Christians. And I'm sitting in the church on Christmas Eve as a heretic and performing one of their more sacred rituals. Especially sacred to the Baptists since they only do it twice per year (albeit with grape juice and a cracker rather than good bread and red wine).

It's a feeling that I can't really write down easily. Again, I felt like I betrayed myself, but also I felt like I had betrayed the other Christians in the church, even though I didn't know any of them. I don't think that they would have really minded that much (a Catholic would be mortified), but I still felt that betrayal feeling afterward. Combine that with holiness and you have an idea of what was going on in my head.

Not planning on doing that again unless I become a Christian later in life. Even then I'm not sure if the ritual will make any more sense to me.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Oh Zeitgeist, You and Your Shenanigans

I know this is long, I know this will probably be boring. But please read it so you don't get caught by this dumb propoganda video and spot when you hear someone reference this crap like it's fact. I've done my best to make it somewhat entertaining.

Okay, I saw someone had posted this video here with the subtitle that Christianity is pagan. While it's true that there is a relationship between Paganism and Christianity, this video is NOT a good place to look. Go ahead and watch this portion.



The sunset thing is BS. The only thing that this video proves is that the guy is good with puns. Sunset comes from the same place as sunrise. Set, as in setting something down is the root word. Not the god Set which wasn't even pronounced that way in Egypt.

Horus was not born on December 25th. December did not exist yet and there's no way anyone could know when he was born in the first place as the calendars are different and births/deaths weren't recorded in the same way they are today. No one would have known about the date of Horus' birth and no one would have cared if they did.

I'll admit that I don't know much about Horus' human life. My understanding is that he didn't even have one. Though it's possible. And if he did, he would have been the miracle performing type. But we don't have anything to go on. All the legends of Horus are when he's a god. But there's some problems here with the rest of what it says about Horus.

He was not known as the son of god, lamb of god, or any of these things because he is the principle God. Beyond that, there weren't any lambs in Egypt. He was ruler of both the night and the day. The Sun was one of his eyes while the moon was the other. Ra is the god of the Sun in the way they describe in this video. But he was a giant beetle moving the sun across the sky.

This battle thing is interesting. It's true that Set and Horus were locked in battle after Osirus was killed, but it wasn't symbolized by day and night since Horus was ruler of the sky rather than the sun. Sun was Ra's territory, and also the eye of Horus.

Oddly enough, this thing claims that Horus was born of a virgin named Mary and then quickly says Isis afterward. It's possible that Isis is the root name for Mary, but I find it unlikely. And the big kicker is that Isis wasn't a virgin. Horus is also the son of Osirus.

Horus could not have been crucified. Crucifixion hadn't even been invented yet. It didn't come around until the Romans decided it was a cheap and painful way to kill people. And the only god in Egyptian mythology to have been killed in the first place that I'm aware of (could be wrong here) is Osirus, who eventually came back to life as the god of the underworld, completely different from what this video entails. This video is taking aspects of other gods and combining them into Horus.

I'm not familiar with some of the other characters mentioned in this video, but my suspicion is that the same BS is applied to them.

Here's some things that I know about it.

KRISHNA: That would be a picture of Jesus. Also Krishna was born in July. And was the eighth son of a princess. Doubt she was still a virgin.

DIONYSUS: Born of a mortal, son of Zeus. Born from Zeus' thigh because the mortal womb couldn't handle a god. And the idea of Dionysus being called the alpha and the omega and king of kings when he was the god of partying is laughable.

The film this is from is called Zeitgeist. This is a video that is filled to the brim with modified facts that only appeal to people too ignorant and lazy to look things up. I've seen people cite facts that could not have been gotten anywhere other than this video before. there's several more parts to it as well. Look up EVERYTHING you hear that is related to this video independantly. Chances are it just came out of someone's... well not their brain.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

We are God

Energy has existed as long as the universe has existed. Due to the law of conservation of energy and the law of conservation of matter, there is always the same amount of energy and matter in the universe. That being said, sometimes matter turns into energy and it is also safe to assume that energy can turn into matter.

Energy is the fuel of life. And probably has much to do with what many call souls. There is no part of the brain that we know of where the consciousness is contained, and there are records of people's consciousness leaving their bodies and seeing themselves and others while they were technically dead. Since the 'soul' has no matter, and the only forms in the universe are energy and matter, it is safe to say that our souls would be in the form of energy.

Our bodies produce energy from almost nothing. Our liver does the work of several nuclear plants. We are an incredibly complicated form that somehow finds the ability to run itself until we, for some reason, die. Perhaps the fuel is gone, perhaps the spirit is tired, perhaps the matter of the body simply cannot hold the spirit any longer.

You have always existed, and I have always existed. We were born in the stars, energy and matter pushing together to eventually for the elements through billions of years to what we are today. But life is not some joyride that we sign up for. It is simply the status of the energy and matter that happen to make up our individuality today. When we die, it will be dispersed into the universe and will likely come back again in full or partial form as another being, human or not.

We are God. God is our projection upon this energy and is only there because we want him/her to be. Worship God if it pleases you. Deny God if this pleases you as well. It will not matter because God does not care. God does not have the ability to care unless he does in your mind. And then God will only care because you are God.

Live. Life.

Monday, December 7, 2009

For Good Clean Fun with Police

From Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book

LACE (Lysergic Acid Crypto-Ethelene) can be made by mixing LSD with DMSO, a high penetrating agent, and water. Sprayed from an atomizer or squirted from a water pistol, the purple liquid will send any pig twirling into the Never-Never Land of chromosome damage. It produces an involuntary pelvic action in cops that resembles fucking. Remember when Mace runs out, turn to Lace.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Shocking Teachers and My Grandmother

From a user on another website by the name of "mystic-spiritus".

In English class today, we were discussing how a Puritan poet's religious views influenced her writing. I was reading to catch up, since I had missed the previous class because of a doctor appt.

All of a sudden, I'm being asked by the teacher "Can you tell me any other religions?" I thought she had probably already had all the generic answers, as I'm not usually called on first. So I answered "Paganism. It encompasses a group of religions and spirituality." Apparently I was wrong. According to her, Paganism is a lack of religion. She then went on to elaborate on how a few of the substitutes in the past few years had been 'white' witches and how they practiced 'good' magic, and how 'black' witches worshipped the devil.

I was so astounded I couldn't speak.

Another girl asked if Wicca would be considered a religion, and she said no. At that point I butted in and said it was, seen as its an approved symbol for veteran's headstones. When she asked if there were any witches in the class I remained silent - it was pretty obvious that she was against it. After that, she went on a story about how a town half an hour from our house had a group of 40 witches that were doing sacrifices awhile back. She said they did everything from small animals to cows and horses. And apparently they moved away (all 40!) when the town started causing an uproar. I find it kind of hard to believe, especially with her (in my opinion) incorrect views earlier. My dad works near the town everyday, and I've never heard him say a think about witches sacrificing anything there.

I think my favorite class has just become intolerable. I wish I could go back to last years teacher.. The whole curriculum is almost based around religious texts too (not of her choosing, atleast).

And to think, it was just 3 days ago that she was lecturing a student not to talk about religions you don't know about..


I think this teacher's story about the 40 witches is bullshit too. If I'd been where I am religiously now while I was in highschool, I think I would have had more fun messing with people.

I ran into a situation similar to this when I "came out of the broom closet" told my grandmother that I was a pagan. I've learned that Pantheist or Earth-Worshiper is a better way to put it because of the controversy behind the word Pagan. But She thought I was saying that I was so devoid of purpose in a way that is worse than atheist on some level or something.

We agreed to look the term up in the dictionary and here's what it it says.

Quoth the Oxford:

pagan |ˈpāgən|
noun
a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions.
• dated derogatory a non-Christian.
• an adherent of neopaganism.


So basically when you say you're a pagan, you're saying that you're not Christian. So a Muslim is a pagan. There was another definition for Pagan with a capital 'P'. So I looked it up as well.

Pagan |pəˈgän|
ruins in Myanmar (Burma), located on the Irrawaddy River southeast of Mandalay. It is the site of an ancient city that was the capital of a powerful Buddhist dynasty from the 11th to the 13th centuries.


Not quite what I wanted it to say.

But I found this.

neopaganism |ˌnēōˈpāgiˌnizəm; -gə-|
noun
a modern religious movement that seeks to incorporate beliefs or ritual practices from traditions outside the main world religions, esp. those of pre-Christian Europe and North America.


A little more satisfying. But still not the definition of what I believe. But definitely closer to what I thought pagan meant.

But anyway, my grandmother was a little more satisfied with this response. It was in this conversation with her that I found out that my grandmother isn't a Christian. She confessed that she called herself agnostic, but was probably a pantheist as well. She understood what I was talking about when I talked about the mystery of life in relation to the earth and seeing life as something of reverence. But she made a few comments that made her sound like a Deist. So I showed her the definition.

deism |ˈdēizəm|
noun
belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe. The term is used chiefly of an intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries that accepted the existence of a creator on the basis of reason but rejected belief in a supernatural deity who interacts with humankind. Compare with theism .


My Grandmother said that she kinda agreed with that on some level. But still wasn't sure. She admitted that she hadn't really thought about it that much because she hadn't been asked about it that much. And thus had never really done the research.

She did ask about morality though. And I told her that I didn't believe in good and evil as much as I believed in positive and negative actions. That to define morality, one must consider the positive and negative effects of the actions they make, and act accordingly. A lot of times you can have an action that has both positive and negative effects, and you have to weigh the options. According to this outlook, it's impossible not to sin, but sin doesn't really matter int he first place because negative action isn't necessarily bad all the time.

This does make morality more subjective than objective, but there's really no other way to see it. Even objective morality is subjective from my point of view, because you define the objective morality as your own. Morality is purely created by humans in the first place.

This was a heartwarming experience on some level. I'd connected with my brother on subjects like religion and thought even though we're on opposite ends of the spectrum. But this was the first time me and my Grandmother had really connected as adults. It felt good.