Chris Hedges, on religion. A presbyterian Minister. Ordained.

Those who turn to religion seek an expression of the transcendent and the sacred. Few believers care much for dogma. Many religious institutions, such as the Catholic Church, incorporate ideologically diverse movements, from Opus Dei to liberation theology. All Catholics, however, are unified in the liturgy and ritual of the sacraments. The pope can rail against birth control and publish turgid encyclicals, but for most Catholics his theological admonishments go unheeded. The passages of most sacred texts in all religions are of little real importance. Believers pick and choose what fits. They discard the rest. The liberal Presbyterian Church, in which I grew up, ignored the violent, apocalyptic literature in 174 WHEN ATHEISM BECOMES RELIGION Daniel and Revelation, as well as the homophobic and misogynist rants by Paul. They were expunged — along with the calls by God to the Israelites to carry out acts of righteous genocide — from the biblical readings at the lectern. These passages might as well have been cut out of our Bibles. Christian fundamentalists, who seek a justification for their bigotry and hatred, trumpet these passages and rarely speak of the Sermon on the Mount, Christ's calls for vows of poverty and His pacifism. Such selective interpretation is no different for Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and other believers. It is culture, history, circumstance, tradition, economics and the deep self-interest of the tribe or the nation that more powerfully inform belief systems than the contradictory and often impenetrable pages of the Bible, the Koran or any other sacred text. Attempts by these atheists to reduce sacred texts to instruction manuals is not part of the reality of belief. Faith arises out of practice. We find our faith in how we live. The labels we attach to ourselves — Christian, Buddhist, Jew, Muslim or atheist — are a way to tell stories about ourselves, to create coherent narratives. The danger we face does not come from religion. It comes from a growing 

Dump and his clone Army have all but completed a near-perfect all out War to destroy the truth, justice, goodness, by inverting it. The totalitarian War.

With few exceptions I don't like people. But the soul in everyone, as near death as it may be, I love in everyone. Seeing this is a game-changer for me.

The prophet is always the predestined advance agent of the Kingdom of God. His religion flings him as a fighter and protester against the Kingdom of Evil. His sense of justice, compassion, and solidarity sends him into tasks which would be too perilous for others. It connects him with oppressed social classes as their leader. He bears their

The prophet is always the predestined advance agent of the Kingdom of God. His religion flings him as a fighter and protester against the Kingdom of Evil. His sense of justice, compassion, and solidarity sends him into tasks which would be too perilous for others. It connects him with oppressed social classes as their leader. He bears their..... risk and contempt. As he tries to rally the moral and religious forces of society, he encounters derelict and frozen religion, and the selfish and conservative interest of the classes which exploit religion. He tries to arouse institutional religion from the inside, or he pounds it from the outside. This puts him in the position of a heretic, a free thinker, an enemy of religion, an atheist. Probably no prophet escaped without bearing some such name. His opposition to social injustice arouses the same kind of antagonism from those who profit by it. How far these interests will go in their methods of suppressing the prophets depends on their power and their needs. I have been impressed with the fact that though Christianity began in a renascence, of [prophetism, scarcely any personality who bears the marks / of the prophet can be found in Church History between

My teaching is that your Soul is Creator and to work every breath for Creator. That's it. Every breath.

Our destitute working class now understands that the cloying feelyour-pain language of the liberal class is a lie. The liberal class is not attempting to prevent wages from sinking, unemployment from mounting, foreclosures from ripping apart communities, or jobs from being exported. The gap betwe... N

3yrs ago standing Rock. Arrested w 47 others expecting 5yrs in prison.

Protest in the i96os found its ideological roots in the disengage¬ ment championed earlier by Beats such by Jack Kerouac, Allen Gins¬ berg, and William Burroughs. It was a movement that, while it incorporated a healthy dose of disrespect for authority, focused again on self-indulgent schemes for inner peace and fulfillment. The use of hallucinogenic drugs, advocated by Timothy Leary in books such as the Politics of Ecstasy, and the rise of occultism that popularized Transcen¬ dental Meditation, theosophy, the Hare Krishna branch of Hinduism, and renew

"As long as the liberal class did not seriously challenge capitalism, it was permitted a place in the churches, the universities, the unions, the press, the arts, and the Democratic Party. Minimal reform, as well as an open disdain for Puri¬ tanism, was acceptable. A challenge to the sanctity of the capitalist...

All human history is reminding me that saving the human species would be unspeakably cruel.

“When it became clear to me that Jesus was not biologically white and that white scholars actually lied by not telling people who he really was, I stopped trusting anything they said,” he writes in his posthumous memoir, “Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody: The Making of a Black Theologian,” published in October.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.truthdig.com/articles/the-heresy-of-white-christianity/%3famp

"The ferocity of his anger at the injustice endured by the oppressed was matched only by the ferocity of his love." 

The nicest people, truly, Trump supporters, will destroy even their dearest to make the world pleasing for themselves personally.

Despair and suicide grip survivors. It is estimated that as many Vietnam veterans committed suicide after the war as were killed during it. The

Despair and suicide grip survivors. It is estimated that as many Vietnam veterans committed suicide after the war as were killed during it. The...... inhuman qualities drilled into soldiers and Marines in wartime defeat them in peacetime. This is what Homer taught us in The Iliad, the great book on war, and The Odyssey, the great book on the long journey to recovery by professional killers. Many never readjust. They cannot connect again with wives, children, parents, or friends, retreat¬ ing into personal hells of self-destructive anguish and rage. “They program you to have no em

“If we bring peace and stability to Afghanistan, we may profit morally, we might make gains for humanity, but moral profits and human gains do not con¬ tribute to the bottom line. Peace and profit are ultimately contradic¬ tory forces at work I....

To those that have thought James insane for all his photographs. Turns out his polarizing filter with blurring everything Beyond 4dx, and his camera is 83 x. Yes it has driven him a bit crazy. Duration about 5 months now. Big breakthrough.

Bookmark this link for the album that is updated several times a week. https://photos.app.goo.gl/3javxzdVfR5utKSg8

If you don't read Chris Hedges, you don't know what's going on. He saw all of this decades in advance.

“One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past forty years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexu¬ als, will be wiped out,” the philosopher Richard Rorty warned in his book Achieving Our Country:

Unlike Germany victory by the fascists this time means the end of all life on Earth. That could make a difference. Electing Bernie would be the beginning of the Last Hope for the human species.

"The main character in Notes from Underground carries the bankrupt ideas of liberalism to their logical extreme. He eschews passion and moral purpose. He is rational. He accommodates a corrupt and dying power structure in the name of liberal ideals. The hypocrisy of the Underground Man dooms imperial Russia as it now dooms the American empire. It is the fatal disconnect between belief and action.... " Chris Hedges quoting Dostoevsky

"The main character in Notes from Underground carries the bankrupt ideas of liberalism to their logical extreme. He eschews passion and moral purpose. He is rational. He accommodates a corrupt and dying power structure in the name of liberal ideals. The hypocrisy of the Underground Man dooms imperial Russia as it now dooms the American empire. It is the fatal disconnect between belief and action.... " Chris Hedges quoting Dostoevsky

Update on Mom and the boys.

Please contact me for the link: start underscore loving at yahoo.com

"The question is now, how quickly Christian thought will realize that individualism is coming to be an inadequate and antiquated form of social organization which must give place to a higher form of communistic organization, and how thoroughly it will comprehend that this new communism will afford a far nobler social basis for the spiritual temple of Christianity.... "

Surprised, her torturer asked, So you are no longer afraid of your torture and murder? No, she replied. Then you are completely free. V for Vendetta.

I just donated to Bernie, despite that he will lose, be murdered first, and/or that Dump/GOP Fascists won't leave. But he's the last lesson for a thousand years in goodness.

The only president that the fascists, the fundamentalist, dictators, oligarchs, Crime Mob should and would fear is Bernie.

Gigantic for me in recent weeks. * Whose life is it James? * Let go what you can't control James. Let It Go, even your very life or others. * The Pearl worth any price is the soul, even of the Hostile in front of you. See that soul being tortured by their head

Gigantic for me in recent weeks. 

* Whose life is it James? Not mine, is my instant internal reply! It is reflexive for me. My life belongs to those that need my help. It is tremendously liberating to bring that question to mind.

* Let go what you can't control James. Let It Go, even your very life or others. Yes, this may be crazy. But when I bring the choice to mind again, reflexively, I want whatever seconds or minutes of life that in my imagination I might have left, free of fear, and full of loving. And I want to model that for others.

* The Pearl worth any price is the soul, even of the Hostile in front of you. It is the piece of pure goodness, love and creation, within us.  Nothing is so magnificent and wonderful. See that soul being tortured by their head and flesh. This is quite amazing. Using my imagination when I summon the task to my mind again, reflexively, in my mind's eye in particularly the most cruel creature, I can see an image of a small brutalized Soul inside that person being torture depressed brutalized by their head and flesh. This is so empowering of me.

Reflecting on my personal work this last month or so I've been working hard on being able to prevent my head and flesh from hijacking me in alarming situations. Some devices have been developed by me and practiced before the attacks. And it has helped. Hugs

Does your life tempt others to be more radically good, for the joy of it?

The most powerful book that James has ever read. Nearly every sentence is dynamite blasting the bars that have imprisoned the soul and it's Joy.

https://archive.org/details/christianitysoci00rausiala/page/n6/mode/2up

The world is dying for lack of more of MLK Jr in the world. This book was his ignition, his food, his fuel.

https://archive.org/details/christianitysoci00rausiala/page/n6/mode/2up

In the eyes of your soul it isn't whether you win or lose, it is how you play the game.

Ever wonder what you would have done faced with the rise of Hitler? Now, you know. You still have some freedom to change.