tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68795526925216498122024-02-19T10:43:57.253-05:00Commandments of MenEditorial and commentary on Christian culture, religious and political fundamentalism, and more.Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.comBlogger265125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-61999451995694217062017-08-31T08:05:00.001-04:002017-08-31T13:39:47.662-04:00The Joke Was On Me (Part 17)<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I can say, definitively, that this will be the last installment in this series. I'm writing it for me. Entirely for me. I'm working through some things in my life, and I need this to spill out. It covers some beautiful times, including the last day in my life that I've been truly happy without qualification, April 23, 2008. It also covers the last aspects of "happy" in this story, as effed up and dysfunctional as most of this story has been. Nothing, and I mean nothing, good happens after the point where this piece ends, no matter how much I reached for the good or fought against the bad, and I'm just done with the bad and don't care a helluva lot about the good anymore. I'm very tired.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">By Thursday we were both running on fumes. The adrenaline rush of the previous few days had bested us. It was a day of laundry and lounging before I had to leave on Friday morning for a three day tour run. We spent a lot of time sitting and talking (about happier things and life in general - not about CA). We made dinner that night - I made meat balls and pan-roasted garlic green beans and she made a pasta dish - then we drove to the mountainside once again to watch the sunset. Upon returning home, we retired fairly early following considerable amounts of the usual cuddling and kisses before I settled beside her bed to stroke her face and hair until she fell asleep.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was up early on Friday. I had to get all my stuff together and leave to head to the office and catch the bus by about 10AM. A three day run was fairly unusual, but the extra time at home, with no recording sessions anywhere, had been wonderful. Next week would be busier, with five shows, but at least I'd be able to drive her to one and take her on the bus to a couple of others, and I'd made sure to book absolutely no recording sessions during her visit. Time spent with her was far more valuable than what any recording session could pay. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As I prepared to leave, she sat on the perch of the door of my SUV almost willing me to stay a few minutes longer. She owned me with those eyes. She was amazingly beautiful. Needless to say, I left a few minutes later than I'd planned.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Our Friday show was at Reynolds Auditorium in Winston-Salem, NC (which is why I could leave home on Friday morning rather than sometime Wednesday or Thursday - a fortunate turn of events). Saturday was at the Mabee Center arena in Tulsa, OK, so the Friday promoter gave us an earlier spot in the line-up (which was fine with us - headlining shows in ANY genre sucks, especially in Christian music), we struck the stage of our gear quickly during a short intermission, and were headed toward Tulsa by about 9PM. Sunday night we played a church in the Nashville area, so we were back at the office by about 8AM Monday morning, which put me home around 10AM. As I said, a short three day run, but lots of miles covered. I was also able to spend a little more time with my brother and his brood on Sunday as the show was close enough to his home for them to come. But...I missed her the whole time.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We were on the phone a lot that weekend. A LOT. She sent me a multitude of texts and selfies, and I loved every single one. Showed off more than a few to my musician buddies in Winston and Tulsa, too. The general consensus was that she was achingly gorgeous...and she was.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I came home on Monday morning to hugs and kisses. It was the perfect way to do it. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Monday was the day I would take her shopping. My girl was gonna own a dress, so I took her into town early that afternoon. She tried on quite a few, and I waited patiently, enjoying the process. I'd hoped she'd find both something "dressy" and something casual, but she wasn't satisfied with the dressier things she tried on - despite me seeing her as looking stunning. She did, however, find two sun dresses that she really loved, and which looked amazing on her. We ended up with those two dresses and some shoes she really liked to go with them. She was bubbly and happy, and this made me happy. From there, we went to eat at a Japanese place, and then home.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Once arriving home, the weekend had caught up to me, I suppose, and as she was busy showing off her new dresses to my family, I stretched out on the sofa, the comfort of the moment overcame me, and I drifted off into a nap of about two hours. According to my family, she eventually sat against the sofa just below me and wouldn't leave until I awakened. We once again found the mountainside to watch the sunset, then spent a quiet evening at home in the company of family and some close friends before the usual bedtime cuddles, kisses, and stroking of her face and hair.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On Tuesday night, I had to play a show in Gatlinburg, TN. Rather than catch the tour bus, I drove the four hour trip so I could take her with me. It was a beautiful drive over the Blue Ridge, through the I-40 gorge, and eventually into the Smoky Mountains. Everything was blooming. Flowers everywhere, and the leaves in the mountains still in their early, key-lime green phase. She was overcome by it. According to her, NorCal is green for about a month before everything turns brown. The lush landscape she was now seeing had her transfixed and in awe. She had to call one of her sisters to describe it. She was just SO happy in that moment. The soundtrack for our trip was the new solo album of my all-time favorite musician, Steve Lukather, called "Ever Changing Times". She loved it. So did I. I haven't listen to that record since that day, and it'd probably be healthier for me to find it and throw it out, truth be told. I've purged a great deal. I should probably add that one to the list.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We left Gatlinburg around 11PMish. I encouraged her to rest on the trip home, holding and gently rubbing her hand the whole way. She'd get occasional cat-naps before I'd feel her staring at me, to which I'd swing my eyes to meet hers and she'd smile this beautiful smile that made me weak and strong at the same time, followed by me again encouraging her to get some sleep if she could. We got home around 3AM, and I tucked her in my bed, stroked her hair and face for a bit, then found my way to the sofa and contentedly died to the world.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I awoke at about 8AM to discover something that became a theme for the remainder of her stay, and something that now hurts to type even all these years removed...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">She had brought her pillow, laid it on the floor next to the sofa where I was sleeping, and had fallen asleep with her arm reaching up to clasp my arm with her hand. I just laid there and soaked her in for probably two entire hours until she awakened. Once awake, and meeting my eyes with a loving smile, I asked her why she didn't stay in the bed where she could be comfortable. She answered, "I couldn't be comfortable without touching you. I couldn't sleep without touching you." This made me cry. Human touch, especially emotionally intimate human touch, is the most powerful force in the universe to my reckoning. Always has been. It's a means of connection and communication beyond the power of a million words. Had our relationship been sexual at that point, I can only imagine the power, the raw level of intimate discourse.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The earlier parts of that day were spent with me preparing to leave for the tour bus the next morning, but by early afternoon, she was my complete field of vision. We spent hours that day slow dancing to old standards by Sinatra and Martin, snuggling, cuddling, sometimes being goofy, all guards down, sitting across from each other in the floor, her with contented sighs, me telling her I was gonna kiss her every time I heard a sigh - followed by a quick sigh. I'd hold her arm up, explore the length of it with touch until I'd reached her fingertips, seeing the goose-pimples run their course on it, seeing the love in her eyes. A thousand years worth of conversations and we weren't voicing anything. No human has ever been so beautiful to me, so loved by me, as she was that night. I was consumed. She was, too. Each touch was charged with enormous power and gentle affirmation. Bliss.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That was April 23rd, 2008.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That's all I'm gonna write.</span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-42974797732630658322017-02-13T00:36:00.002-05:002017-02-13T00:37:34.082-05:00The Blind Creating More Blind People So They'll Have Someone To Lead <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #073763;">The Botkin Sisters are </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noBk1ygLyss"><span style="color: #660000;">at it again</span></a><span style="color: #073763;">.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #073763;">This would be like me, a person who knows nothing about performing an organ transplant, attempting to teach other people who know nothing about performing organ transplants how to perform an organ transplant. It's complete madness in every conceivable way.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #073763;">I don't know their exact ages (guessing late 20s early 30s now?), but to my knowledge these girls have never so much as sniffed a relationship. They have NO frame of reference, whatsoever, on the subject matter they're teaching. None. To sell this book is the same as stealing. Even worse, as the damage done will be deeper and more lasting than being a few dollars lighter in the pocketbook.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #073763;">This type of intellectual incest is what makes the elements of Christian homeschooling all morph together into a cult movement. Formulas and more formulas, few of which come from any realistic or grounded frame of reference, "sin" sensationalized, an illness created from nothing so a cure can be sold. It paralyzes lives, as no one affected develops the ability to think critically (or even pragmatically), and everything has to flow through filters of ignorance which lead back to the formula, which usually calls for more self-flagellation and extreme role-playing, and often leads to the </span><a href="http://undermuchgrace.blogspot.com/2007/11/dispensing-of-existence-lifton-101.html"><span style="color: #660000;">dispensing of existence</span></a><span style="color: #073763;">. You can't argue this with me. Ever. I witnessed it and was bludgeoned by it.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #073763;">Were it not for the weakening of the movement due to the falls of Gothard and Phillips as the assholes they are and always were, this could rival, even surpass, the damage done by Josh Harris' tour de force in writing about things you don't know about, "I Kissed Dating Goodbye".</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If two people love each other and want to be together, they should just be together and love each other, working on their relationship, and growing together in that relationship, in whatever shape or form that takes for them. Religious bullshit will KILL a relationship.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #073763;">Now <b><u>that</u></b> I could write a book on. </span> </span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-34806932368720544452016-10-12T01:38:00.002-04:002017-03-08T15:52:17.756-05:00I've Got A New Blog<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hey peoples...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #073763;">I've got a new political blog, </span><a href="http://explaininpalin.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: #660000;">Palinitis</span></a><span style="color: #073763;">, where I'll be putting my more political stuff. I feel like the Patriarchy and Fundamentalist subject matter here is too important to cloud it up with political and cultural rambling, so I've moved some of the more politically-driven stuff over there and will eventually be removing it from this page.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Check out the new page, and dive in if you please. I'll probably be writing there more than here, so come on over and have some Tang.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Peace and love.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ETA: I changed my new blog's title to something I liked a little better - and very fitting.</span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-2902916529502441032016-02-14T17:38:00.000-05:002016-02-14T17:38:54.740-05:00Dormancy<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Obviously, I've written very little here over the past 3 years or so. I'm gonna write a little today about why.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For starters, my guideline in writing has always been to write from passion, from irrepressible inspiration and compulsion, to write with raw emotion, in real-time, hitting publish as I've exhausted my inner fuel. I'm convinced that this is the only way for writing to connect on more than a surface level with those who read it. I believe it's formed the critical mass of whatever connection exists for those who've read here, even more than the subject matter. I haven't had that passion and compulsion except in brief spells and spurts, so I haven't written but for those brief moments, despite loving to write. Without that passion, it would lack.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This blog was my process, my healing. While my experience will leave some wounds and scars for life, I'm generally past it now and have been for some time, living a full life of both work and play. Yes, it still hurts if I dwell on it, and there are still extremely deep resentments, but while it's a part of who I am it isn't a tangible part of my day-to-day living. My personal metamorphosis has been quite radical on all fronts, and at the same time I'm still the same person, with the same core human values, just with different benchmarks for those values. Writing here has helped me through this process and helped me find clarity in the fog. No more religious haze. No more paradigm over people, intentions notwithstanding.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've come to accept that I had no real power over my experience, only the option to become a lesser man, a lesser human, to be worthy. I was given the "choice" between losing her or losing myself and the value of my own life. Her family and circle were (and probably still are) truly shitty, ignorant people who didn't care what damage they did to the core essence of the humanity of the people involved. They saw no good in anything other than conformity to their religious cult. Sadly, their cultic ideals were all based on fear, or ignorance, or desire to control, or their own failings, weaknesses, and epic insecurities, or lack of ability to think critically and rationally, or their devaluation of people, or...most likely on a combination of all of those things. Truly shitty people. Though I'd battle them again, it's clear to see that I had no chance given the battlefield and proximity issues I faced. Far too many for a single combatant to overcome. I made many mistakes the first time, mainly from not understanding the battlefield, and maybe some from my own weaknesses of the time, but I still didn't deserve the outcome. My process and healing has brought acceptance that the outcome was inevitable, so I move forward.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Where she's concerned, my opinion of her isn't much higher, now, than of the people around her. That may surprise some who read this. While I loved her deeply and know, beyond doubt, she loved me, and while I know she was manipulated brutally, brainwashed, leveraged, black-sheeped, peace-gamed, reindoctrinated, lathered, rinsed, and repeated over and over to get the results they wanted, there were things that she did, or said, during and after, that cut deep - even deeper now than when everything went down - that are outright unforgivable and make me resent her on some level. She became a shitty person, too, and whether that shift was of her own accord or not doesn't make a lot of difference in practical application. There's a distinct strain of sanctimonious, religious addiction jackass that runs in her family's DNA, and while that's no guarantee she inherited it, I can't pretend she's immune to it. I was blind to this possibility while we were together, but it was something my family and friends took note of extremely early on. I brushed it off back then because I loved her and didn't want to consider that possible, didn't want to see that in her. In hindsight, it was something I should've taken into consideration. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Where the mind-numbingly crazy beliefs and people/movements behind those beliefs are concerned, I just don't think there's much more I could say that I haven't already said. There are only so many synonyms for "crazy" and only so many adjectives with which to dress up those synonyms. If you've said it, you've said it. Repeating it, no matter how loudly, is to waste communication to a mind given over to cultic control, religious addiction, or devoid of critical thinking skills. My ex and her family are proof of that. I started feeling as if I didn't have a tremendous amount more to say back in 2012, and you've probably noticed that my writing began shifting toward more sociopolitical issues around that time, scarce as that writing became.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those who flock to the people and movements behind the beliefs are equal parts scared, culturally ignorant, addicted to religion, and downright stupid. Just as the Christian homeschooling movement has its "4 Pillars", these are the four pillars of those susceptible to the craziness of QF, Christian homeschooling, and the like. They prey on your fears, telling you how the public school system destroys children and that the federal government is out to destroy every thing and every value you hold dear. They count on your cultural ignorance, because if you weren't culturally ignorant you could easily see how FOS they are in what they tell you about the government, public education, modern psychology, and those mean ole heathen libruls. They count on your religious addiction to keep you in line when they begin to present you with "Christian" formulas and "biblical" principles by which to control you, and with homeschooling curricula designed to ensure doctrinal purity and mindless, ill-informed drones in future generations. The last of the pillars is a given.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We've seen the brightest beacons of the movement exposed as the sociopathic, narcissistic frauds and creepy old (and young) men they are over the last couple of years. Doug Phillips was exposed as a pervert, and an unrepentant one at that, and his para-church cult Peripheral-Vision Forum closed up shop - but not before bilking multitudes of scared, culturally-ignorant, and downright stupid religious addicts and harming many lives with its religious toxins. Bill Gothard was exposed as the creepy old narcissist he is, under a thick cloud of sexual harassment claims and suspicions, and forced out of his position atop the IBLP cult. It continues to bilk scared, culturally-ignorant, and downright stupid religious addicts, though only as a shell of what it once was. Sovereign Grace imploded under layers of corruption and sexual scandals. The Duggar's facade as one big happy, godly, spit-shined family was shattered, revealing a seriously dysfunctional, effed-up family, as most QF families are in actuality. Those left standing in the wake of these events were left with little balance and lesser voices, thankfully, as they had to distance themselves from the scandals and those close professional relationships they'd had with the fallen. They've ended up saying some really stupid stuff, like Farris' ideas on gays and atheis</span><span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ts. Deceive and divert.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It isn't like I and many others (with far more powerful voices and platforms) didn't try to warn you. If you can't see, </span><b style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>at this point</i></b><span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, how ignorant, stupid, shallow, and useless these ideas and movements are, how much they devalue the humans involved, then you're either being willfully stupid or you're incapable of rational or critical thought for some reason or another.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you're hellbent on being stupid, hellbent on devaluing humanity for the sake of your religion, then I can't stop you from being stupid and it wouldn't matter if I wrote a new post every day of the week. It wouldn't change your mind. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #073763;"> These are all among the many reasons this place has been dormant.</span> </span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-31480004219058774202015-05-31T10:29:00.000-04:002016-03-14T20:02:45.584-04:00Weaponized Grace<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Just a few thoughts to follow-up on the post I wrote the about the Duggar situation the other day.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Amidst the cries of "Persecution of godly Christians!" and liberal conspiracy that I've witnessed from the Christian community, there's been a steady stream of appeals to "show grace" to Josh Duggar. "Where's the grace? You're supposed to be showing grace!", and such.<br /><br />Oy vey. Red flag.<br /><br />This has a couple of purposes. One, to make you (and in some instances the victims of a given perpetrator) the bad guy and alleviate some of the pressure on the perpetrator they just so happen to like. In other words, it's kind of a Hail Mary play that attempts to flip the script and make the perp into some sort of victim of your sinful, wretched bitterness. It's become weaponized. "Shame on YOU rather than the perpetrator!" Religious addicts and weak-minded people can be overcome by it. Critical thinkers can't. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then, the desired shame this creates can give the perpetrator (and his or her sycophants) a smokescreen, and maybe some wiggle room, to generate a new narrative and rally around it. If you're playing defense <b><i>defensively</i></b>, they can move the ball (the new narrative) right down the field on you. This is why I always say "Never play defense."<br /><br />It's a kissing cousin to the Matthew 18 crap that controlling, high-demand churches start crying when you run into an issue with them. They've no desire, whatsoever, to use Matthew 18 as a means to make peace, restitution, or find beneficial (to you, as in "win/win") reconciliation. They intend to use it as a weapon, and <b><i>only</i></b> a weapon, against you.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Lost in all of this spiritually vapid gobbledygook are the victims. Completely lost, shown no real grace (of any kind), and without justice.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In my experience with my ex and her family, throughout our relationship I was judged ruthlessly, relentlessly, and mercilessly. Every word. Every action. Every reaction. Every belief. Every life decision. All were turned inside-out, upside-down, and raked over the coals every which way but sideways by the most sanctimonious bunch of religious assholes I've ever personally known - and this doesn't even get in to the attempts to hinder and hurt me professionally. There was little to no grace extended. Only legalistic religious judgment based on the most superficial and meaningless of ideals and ideas. When the relationship began to crumble into its final stages, I began throwing their own legalism and judgmentalism back at them by the boatload. It was met with cries of "Where's the grace!" So, I know, firsthand, all about weaponized grace. I was, and still am, significantly less than impressed.<br /><br />In any setting - legal, cultural, religious - <b><i>justice</i></b> must first be established when people have been harmed or wronged. It's the ONLY way a victim can be the priority. The ONLY way. Once you figure out how justice shapes up, then, and only then, can you start talking about grace or mercy for the victimizer. All of these people clamoring for "grace" to be immediately shown to Josh Duggar would feel entirely different were one of their daughters a victim of his crime. No matter what came out of their mouth, their heart would <b><i>demand</i></b> justice. Holding other people to standards by which you won't truly measure yourself is always ugly, and always lacking in genuine integrity.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">People can hide behind the idea that his victims "forgave" him, but those of us who know the culture know they had a choice between "forgiveness" and being a familial AND religious outcast. They would be told, over and over again, how much of a sinner they are/were until they caved in and "forgave". In other words, "grace" would be weaponized against them. Frankly, the idea that an elementary aged girl, or a toddler, is emotionally developed enough to understand the concept of forgiving someone who molested them is downright laughable, and when you add in just how far behind, emotionally, people in that culture are, it's incomprehensible.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm all for showing grace to Josh Duggar, in whatever context and with whatever connotations you want to read into it, but <b><i>only</i></b> after showing some grace to his victims by seeking justice, healing, and restitution on their behalf. <b><u>Their well-being comes first</u></b>. When I see the whole of the Christian community pursuing <b><i>that</i></b>, then they can get back to me about Josh. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Those girls matter.</span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-45069910862051056052015-05-29T14:02:00.000-04:002015-05-29T14:02:40.160-04:00They Still Look At The Cover To Read The Book<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm not the slightest bit surprised by the Duggar situation. Why should I be? I'd love for someone to give me a valid, rational reason why I should be surprised.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First of all, I can't imagine a scenario where a genuinely healthy family, with sound, mature leadership, would invite a reality TV camera crew into every aspect of their lives. These scenarios don't have a good track record, from individuals with shady motivations to others with sinister pasts. Over the last few years they've all imploded spectacularly, one after the other, causing advertisers to flee and their networks to drop them. In other words, to even consider being the subject of a reality show, you're likely already screwed up in some way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #073763;">Then, when you consider that the bastions of wisdom behind the foundational ideas the Duggars promote to the public and indoctrinate their children with (Bill Gothard and Doug Phillips) have both imploded amid serious sexual scandals, the math gets much simpler. Seeing as how both of these men have displayed classic characteristics of extreme narcissism, and given their sexual grooming downfalls, one has to wonder how much of a role that played in the development of their ideas on gender, purity, and all things sexual. Were these ideas developed specifically to one day be used to groom young women sexually? It's not out of the realm of possibility. Either way, these ideas on gender and purity, which originated with sexually and emotionally troubled men, have been relentlessly poured into the Duggar kids for their entire lives. It's sad to note that these same ideas (or very similar, almost sibling ideas) are poured into the vast majority of Christian homeschooled kids.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #073763;">As I wrote </span><a href="http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-death-of-heart-and-soul.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">here</span></a><span style="color: #073763;"> a couple years back...</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #073763; font-size: 16.4220008850098px; line-height: 24.6330013275147px;">How are people supposed to be emotionally healthy, and sexually healthy, in an environment where sex goes from </span><b style="color: #073763; font-size: 16.4220008850098px; line-height: 24.6330013275147px;"><i>the very worst thing a person could EVER do</i></b><span style="color: #073763; font-size: 16.4220008850098px; line-height: 24.6330013275147px;"> to </span><b style="color: #073763; font-size: 16.4220008850098px; line-height: 24.6330013275147px;"><i>the most wonderful thing a person can do</i></b><span style="color: #073763; font-size: 16.4220008850098px; line-height: 24.6330013275147px;">, and the only thing that changes the dynamic are a few vows, a ring, and a few words from a preacher? That's a recipe for one effed up sex life (pun intended). When the value of a person is determined by whether or not they're "sexually pure" (or even "emotionally pure"), </span><i style="color: #073763; font-size: 16.4220008850098px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24.6330013275147px;">there really are no values </i><span style="color: #073763; font-size: 16.4220008850098px; line-height: 24.6330013275147px;">- because people have become of no value, with the single exception of their ability to create </span><i style="color: #073763; font-size: 16.4220008850098px; line-height: 24.6330013275147px;">new</i><span style="color: #073763; font-size: 16.4220008850098px; line-height: 24.6330013275147px;"> people to be indoctrinated.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a lot of you who know this culture first-hand have said this week, this kind of nonsense likely helped create this problem in the Duggar clan. It would be naive to think this same scenario hasn't played out in countless Christian homeschooling families and been covered up under the shallow religious guise of "forgiveness".</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So although I didn't know exactly <b><i>what</i></b> the bombshell would ultimately be, given the state they'd need to be in to be a reality TV subject (to even <b><i>consider</i></b> it), and given their extremist religious culture, I knew it was a matter of when and not if. No, I wasn't surprised, and I've never even watched their show.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm even more troubled to say I wasn't AT ALL surprised by the reaction to the scandal by the people in my world who I would describe as mainstream evangelicals.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the last few years, I've painfully surrendered to the reality that I live in a country predominantly populated by naive, low-information people. The less information they can receive, the better. People, in general, will travel outrageous mental distances to avoid cognitive dissonance. They'd rather be informed by their bias and cultural preferences. This is why they only seek out information sources, whether cultural, political, or religious, that confirm what they already believe to be true or desire to be true. Life, all of it, has become a team sport. Cheer for the guy wearing your jersey and jeer the guy in the other jersey, with no real examination of the "why". </span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the past, I've described the image sold by the Christian homeschooling movement as "godly, spit-shined families with smiling faces on perpetual picnics in flowery meadows", and make no mistake, that IS the image they've tried to sell. When the average John or Joan Q. Evangelical from the church down the street, who has no idea about the Christian homeschool movement, no idea about the batshit craziness that lines its halls from cultic authority ideas, to purity, to Quiverfull/Dominionism, to courtship, et cetera, sees that photo, or sees a Duggar family on the screen, they think "These people are on my team! Go them!!!" Tribalism - and they really have no idea what it is they're seeing. None. They don't know that those children have no other option than to smile. That's unnecessary information. All they need to see is the jersey color. All they <b><i>want</i></b> to see is the jersey color. Christianity is <b><u>so</u></b> desperate for a cultural champion. The one their religion is based on obviously isn't enough.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Prior to last week, I've had only a handful of encounters with Christian people where the Duggars have come up. I quickly say something like, "Those people are <b><i>nothing</i></b> like you. You can't even imagine the crazy." In a couple of cases I could tell that trying to go deeper would just be spinning my wheels, but in the rest I've been able to enlighten some folks, especially if they know me and what I went through with the crazies.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When this scandal broke last week, I didn't say anything about it on my social media for a couple of days, mainly because I wanted to offer an informed opinion if I dared offer an opinion. I watched my newsfeed literally blow up with the stupid and the inhumane. I say inhumane because to devalue the victims in this case (or any other), to minimize their experience and trauma, is the same as offering their well-being as a sacrifice on the altar of your cultural god, and I saw a ton of that. Nobody seemed to give a shit about the girls (who were most likely very, very young at the time it occurred) or how what happened might really mess them up emotionally and sexually (and perhaps has), or what baggage it'll cause them to take into their marriages, and worst case, force their future children to bear the weight. Nobody cared that no one involved would ever get proper, professional counseling. That would require them to stop blindly cheering for the jersey long enough to get off their intellectually lazy asses and actually learn something - such as, any future mental or emotional baggage these girls might have manifest from this would be treated as a sin problem, on THEIR part, because they don't believe in mental illness or things like PTSD.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What I saw, from people who have <b><i>no freakin' clue</i></b> how crazy the beliefs of the Duggars are, were defenses of their cultural champions - Josh, Jim Bob, and Michelle - as if they were the victims, when they're anything, <b>ANYTHING</b> but. I saw cries of "PERSECUTION!!!", of liberal political agendas (seriously - that's what finally made me pop). Nary a word expressing concern for the victims from these folk. Not. A. Word.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">STFU.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christianity in this country - both fundamentalist and mainstream - is SO shallow. SO desperately shallow. And stupid.<br /><br />And they wonder why I don't identify with them anymore. </span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-10141678162197926372014-06-12T02:11:00.000-04:002014-06-12T02:12:26.713-04:00The Disease<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">In case you're wondering why I've yet to write anything in response to the sordid affairs of Doug Phillips and Bill Gothard, and their seeming falls from grace (irresistible as it is for Phillips and powerfully compelling as it is for Gothard), it's that I didn't think there was much I could say that I haven't already said.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">These two men are nothing but symptoms. New symptoms will take their place in due time.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;"><b><u>The culture that spawned them is diseased.</u></b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">That </span><a href="http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.com/2012/02/culture-which-feeds-religious-addiction.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">culture</span></a><span style="color: #073763;">, which houses and thrives on religious homeschoolers, is still intact. As long as conservative religious xenophobes and addicts make "educational" choices for their children, the culture will provide a perpetual platform for the next wave of Gothards and Phillips, the next ATI and Vision Forum, the next formula for "being more godly". And make no mistake, the </span><b style="color: #073763;"><i>majority</i></b><span style="color: #073763;"> of parents in the Christian homeschooling movement </span><b style="color: #073763;"><i>are</i></b><span style="color: #073763;"> conservative religious xenophobes and addicts, who live in fear of "the world", mean ole libruls, that devil Obama, and most of all, of losing their "freedoms". When you hear that last one, well, you pretty much know what you're dealing with - people who purposefully confuse religion with education, and in reality their homeschooling choice is all about them (not their children) and their desire to breed and equip SuperChristians who share all of their personal thoughts, opinions, prejudices, and political leanings. It's their </span><b style="color: #073763;"><i>duty</i></b><span style="color: #073763;">, don't ya know?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">They're </span><a href="http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.com/2012/02/scared-conned-mined.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">easy marks</span></a><span style="color: #073763;"> for those who peddle fear. Too easy. I'd dare say the next wave of godliness sharks are already sharpening the edges of the godliness formulas they'll peddle, and while their formulas won't look exactly like Patriarchy, Quiverfull, Courtship, the Purity Culture, et cetera, chances are they won't be all that different, either. They </span><b style="color: #073763;"><i>can't</i></b><span style="color: #073763;"> be, because the culture needs controlling and those things served to do so in various capacities. If they can't control the culture, the culture will dissolve, and they have too much invested in their cultural and political fears to just give it away so easily. They should let it dissolve. They'll likely just accept the same symptoms with new names instead.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Their culture is diseased.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">They needn't worry too much, though. As long as HSLDA is still around, there'll be someone there to stoke their fears aplenty. Farris will find his footing with his audience, despite his </span><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2014/06/farris-patriarchy-makes-kids-gays-and-atheists.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">tap-dancing to get away from patriarchy</span></a><span style="color: #073763;">. Even in that, he found a way to present a common enemy to his base, or a pair of them, in those mean ole gays and atheists. A bit of a diversion on his part. Yet, his audience will still fund his endeavors faithfully. We're talking about a guy who says he doesn't practice Quiverfull or aspire to Dominionism, yet has umpteen homeschooled kids, and who now denounces Patriarchy, yet happily champions Courtship and the Purity Culture - which makes him the embodiment of a Patriarch. It strikes me as either intentional dishonesty due to a bidness-based panic or someone so deep in the bullshit (and for so long) they can no longer distinguish the odor. Neither of those is good. Somehow the math all still works for his supporters, though. I guess the never-ending stream of freedoms threatened and persecutions just beyond the horizon have a tried and true way of putting everyone on the same team.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Especially when your culture is diseased.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I don't celebrate the fall of Phillips and Gothard on a personal level, although overjoyed that these are two men presently without a platform for the poison they promoted. I hope they both find mental, physical, and spiritual (whatever that may mean to them) health, make as much restitution for their wrongs as possible, and lead productive lives anywhere but in a position of leadership or influence. I celebrate the fall of Phillips and Gothard for those who find some measure of closure or healing from the their fall, and for them only. They deserve whatever measures of closure and healing that come their way - and then some.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Those two men are just symptoms.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">The culture is the disease.</span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-785409777824119852013-12-19T00:56:00.000-05:002013-12-19T00:56:23.681-05:00A Christmas Card<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Through a generous offer from C & L Entertainment, an Indie label based out of Charlotte, I began work on a Christmas album last year. Unable to finish the full record this year for various reasons, C & L and I have decided to put out a 4 song EP (the tracks that were/are finished) this year and (hopefully) the entire, finished project next Christmas.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">My ENTIRE share of the proceeds will be going to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. I've made it a point to never turn this blog into a cottage industry, and just want to make it clear that's not what I'm doing here. I won't be making a dime off of this, and my hope is that a few dollars can be generated for a good cause. With no particular P/QF survivor entity in place right now, St. Jude is certainly a worthy destination.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">These are fairly traditional arrangements of some Christmas standards. You can preview and purchase from</span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #660000;"> <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/a-christmas-card-ep/id785391719" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">ITunes here</span></a></span></span><span style="color: #073763;">. Hope you enjoy them.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Merry Christmas to you all.</span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-68774737236857466352013-10-10T02:37:00.000-04:002013-10-10T02:37:53.796-04:00Some Rambles<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I'm coming out of hibernation to offer a few blurbs. Buckle up.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">First, the PPACA (aka Obamacare)...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I'm not an expert on it. With that in mind, it would make no sense for me to present a passionate argument for or against it. There's a lot about it I simply don't know, and I'm a firm believer in operating within my personal limitations of knowledge. Unfortunately, not everyone who comments on social media shares my sentiment on personal limitations, because Obamacare (and the whole government shutdown fiasco) has brought out a special breed of stupid on social media, where people generally don't allow a lack of knowledge to get in the way of a voiced opinion. If nothing else, Obamacare has brought toothless rednecks and evangelicals into levels of harmony never before imagined, because both groups are saying the same things, spreading the same false information, being duped by the same chain emails and ridiculous Facebook memes.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">While I can't tell you everything Obamacare is, I can tell you a few things<b><i> it is not:</i></b> it's not government healthcare (unless you're among the very poor or a senior - the rest of us will get healthcare through an employer or a private policy through a state exchange, or pay a fine), it's not socialism (if it were, we'd all be signing up for Medicare), it's not communism (seriously?). A few things I know it to be: it's a free-market plan (with minimal regulations, which infuriates a lot of "liberals"), it's nearly identical to the plan Mitt Romney implemented in the state of Massachusetts as Governor, and an identical twin at most and kissing cousin at least to all of the various healthcare plans pondered and formulated by both parties over the last two decades in response to the Clinton plan proposed in the early 90s. The thing is, in the era of that super-smart Tea Party, with Mr. Black McDarkman in the White House, well, it puts blinders on people and brings out the stupid, not to mention all of the repressed ugliness that stews just beneath the surface for a lot of people - especially rural, uneducated people.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">The way it's played on social media is both fascinating and troubling. People who know nothing, whatsoever, about the details of it, yet are willing to argue it to the death. To argue something you have no knowledge of not only shows ignorance, but also a lack of depth - the "cheering for the jersey" level of sports fan politics I've written about in the past. It's kinda like the people who call Obama a Muslim or refer to the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression - I can generally write you off as stupid, willfully ignorant, or biased beyond ability to reason. It's fine to have an opinion, but an uninformed opinion is ignorance, and to broadcast an uninformed opinion is to spread ignorance like an STD. Do us all a favor and practice either safe opinions or opinion abstinence.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I haven't even gotten to the paranoia yet. I'm like a magnet for conspiracy theorists (not that I push any buttons or anything) and my newsfeed reads like World Net Daily and the National Inquirer had a baby on my Facebook. The following is a status update from last week. It's a real status someone posted, which was shared numerous times and "liked" many more...</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #898f9c; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">So, apparently the National Park Police are stationed and patrolling the entire length of the C&O Canal (184 Miles) to keep bicyclists and pedestrians from using the trails. I wonder how many there are along that path under normal circumstances? </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #898f9c; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The National Park Service closed the parking lots near the PRIVATELY OWNED Mt. Vernon Estate today. I wonder how many officers, maintenance workers, or </span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #898f9c; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">other personnel are required to keep parking spaces open as opposed to the number of man hours required to prepare and install the barricades and signs?<br /><br />Our government has gone MAD!<br /><br />The National Park Service also closed the camp grounds here in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park...they were FULL of PAYING GUESTS. According to the local news the park is now LOSING $40,000 PER DAY between camping fees, concessions, and donations typically collected during this time of year.<br /><br />In other news...Air Force One is still gallivanting all over the country. Obama is still making public speeches requiring local and federal police and costly security measures.<br /><br />READY CAREFULLY - THIS IS DELIBERATE! The goal of this administration seems to be intentionally driving the people to rise up. Van Jones, a former member of this administration and close confidant of this president, said it with his own mouth...the strategy is top down, bottom up revolution...and the administration must take advantage of every crisis in order to enact this plan. When the people rise up against the administration they are given an "excuse" to crush the uprising. It seems to me they are deliberately attempting to anger the people...and they're succeeding.<br /><br />We MUST be careful to gauge our response. As easy as it would be to become belligerent and confrontational it would be playing directly into their hands.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I mean, really, how do you deal with that kind of stupid and paranoia? These people literally believe that Obama is evil (maybe even the anti-Christ) and <b><i>wants to kill them</i></b>, needing only an excuse. They literally believe they're watching Revelation begin to play out at the hands of the Muslim, socialist, communist, ni...err, Obama. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Obamacare may prove to be a great thing for our society. It may be a trainwreck. We won't really know until it's been around for a couple of years. We rank 47th in the world in healthcare (according to the World Health Organization), so a revamping of our healthcare system is/was desperately needed. Whether this is the right one remains to be seen, but at least it's something. Let's just not get all stupid about it either way.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Next, The Tea Party...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">These dumbasses are gonna be the end of us all. A movement with ignorance as its very lifeblood. People who know little about anything, yet are mad at <b><i>everything</i></b>, especially Mr. McBlackguy in the White House. They're 99% of who I'm speaking of in the above paragraphs - clueless as to the issues, but dedicated to doing something about the issues that they know nothing about. We're talking about people who made Sarah Palin their champion a couple of years ago. Yes, the woman so intellectually challenged that when SNL spoofed her 08 interview with Katie Couric <b><u>they didn't even have to write anything</u></b>. <b><u>They used her own words verbatim</u></b>. Seriously. Smart people, these Teabillies.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Here are a couple of examples...</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/zeN0JRFGPD0" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/POweJigpUN8" width="420"></iframe>
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">With the level of information available in our society today, there's no excuse for people to have no idea what they're talking about, to be mad but have no clue what they're mad about, and still demand their opinion receive respect. I don't respect it. If you don't know what you're talking about, maybe the best course is to shut the hell up and learn something - maybe even from that evil, liberal media! <gasp> Gather information from as many sources as you can, use your head if you have one, and do the math. You'll be doing yourself a service, too, to not look at things through a paranoid, apocalyptic, religious end-times filter.</gasp></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Don't make a religion out of delusional Americanism.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Politicians and preachers are much the same. When they speak to your emotions it's time to guard your wallet.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Next, homeschooling...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">My position hasn't changed. No amount of "but it worked ok for us!" will change it - so please stop trying. Homeschooling is a valid and positive educational option when done in the right way and for educational, not religious, reasons. If you homeschool for religious reasons you're poisoning your children, likely to leave them emotionally challenged, sometimes academically deficient, paranoid, superficial religious addicts who think they can put a Jesus mask on anything and make it ok. The real world will devour many of them, not because of the real world being "evil", but because of your children being unequipped to deal with it. When things don't go according to the formula, just like you, they'll have no answers, because you will have "educated" into them a lack of answers. Those who survive will probably do so with many scars, the majority of which will come from the realization that they'll have to flee the paradigm to have any chance to be happy and healthy, and from the inhumane manner in which you'll treat them when they do. You can't begin to fathom the strength of those who escape your paradigm.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">You probably made the choice to homeschool from fear - which means you lost before the game even started. You've been duped by people who've spoken directly to your fears and made a lot of money off of people just like you. You should stop. Your children will thank you. Society will thank you.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Next, Liberty University...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">I </span><a href="http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.com/2012/08/wildly-random-rambles-and-blurbs.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">rambled a bit about Liberty last year</span></a><span style="color: #073763;">. Nothing has moved the needle on my opinion since, but an exchange with some Liberty students did actually make my position more concrete if anything. I made the same charge as in the linked ramble, and was met with excuses such as "Liberty brings in people from ALL faiths and backgrounds" et cetera. So, I urged the students to do the math, as I'm urging you. If you look at the guest speakers Liberty brings in, yes, their faith and backgrounds are extremely diverse...but...they all have ONE distinct common denominator. Can you guess what it is? I'll give you a hint: conservative politics. Yet, the school maintains its slogan of "Training Champions For Christ", so, when you look at what Liberty </span><b style="color: #073763;"><i>says</i></b><span style="color: #073763;">, and then at what Liberty </span><b style="color: #073763;"><i>does</i></b><span style="color: #073763;">, well, it ain't too hard to get to the bottom of it. The math just doesn't work, and no amount of wanting it to work will make it work. The essence of the school is hypocrisy. They wear a Jesus mask to promote a political platform. I'm sure Jesus appreciates it.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Finally, for those who ask how I'm doing...I'm doing great. Life is full. My inspiration has been in areas other than writing, and I'm fine with that as long as there's inspiration somewhere. Life is passion. Passion is life.</span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-25411714978843403432013-07-09T15:59:00.000-04:002013-07-09T15:59:38.572-04:00Syndromed<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Most of you have probably heard of Battered Person Syndrome, commonly called "Battered Wife Syndrome." Here are some of the symptoms of the cyclical abuse...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">[from </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battered_wife_syndrome" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">wiki</span></a><span style="color: #073763;">]</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<li style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px; margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The abused thinks that the violence was his or her fault.</span></li>
<li style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px; margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The abused has an inability to place the responsibility for the violence elsewhere.</span></li>
<li style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px; margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The abused fears for his/her life and/or the lives of his/her children (if present).</span></li>
<li style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px; margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The abused has an irrational belief that the abuser is omnipresent and omniscient.</span></li>
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">It goes on to say...</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The syndrome develops in response to a three-stage cycle found in domestic violence situations. First, tension builds in the relationship. Second, the abusive partner releases tension via violence while blaming the victim for having caused the violence. Third, the violent partner makes gestures of contrition. However, the partner does not find solutions to avoid another phase of tension building and release so the cycle repeats. The repetition of the violence despite the abuser's attempts to "make nice" results in the abused partner feeling at fault for not preventing a repeat cycle of violence. However, since the victim is not at fault and the violence is internally driven by the abuser's need to control, this self-blame results in feelings of helplessness rather than empowerment.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Does anyone see the connection I'm pointing at here? How much of the following fits right into the above?...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;"><i>"I'm just a sinful worm! I don't begin to deserve even a drop of mercy! I deserve God's wrath and punishment! It's only through God's grace and the death and blood of Jesus! I'm totally unworthy of his love, mercy, and grace! I deserved death because I'd failed God, but instead, God gave me life by the bloodshed of his son! He's perfect, and I'm so much less! Just a worm! I deserved hell, and only through his grace and forgiveness will I see heaven! So my life has to be ALL about him and not about me!"</i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">If the relationship described in that last paragraph were between two people we'd be <b><u>screaming</u></b> for the person to get out and get help, <b><u>screaming</u></b> that the other person was dangerous, that nothing good or healthy could ever possibly come from it. And people wonder why, although still an intensely spiritual person, I no longer identify with traditional Christianity? The basic tenets of orthodox Christianity demand the mindset in that paragraph - you've failed God, you're utterly depraved (in some strains - merely a "wretched sinner" and worm in others) while God is perfect, you deserve judgment and death, only through innocent blood will you get life, and God is merciful.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Look at just how low we've set the bar for God. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Or maybe I just don't know him the way you do. Right?</span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-37919322447207919952013-06-27T03:19:00.001-04:002013-06-27T13:33:01.757-04:00Marriage Diminished<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">I came across </span><a href="http://www.butlerpartyof2.com/2012/07/being-godly-wife.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">this article</span></a><span style="color: #073763;"> today. </span><a href="http://www.stuffchristianculturelikes.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">SCCL</span></a><span style="color: #073763;"> had linked to it on its Facebook page. It's kinda hard to describe the reaction it created within me. Many emotions, nary a one "edifying".</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">I'm not interested in snarking on this women or her husband (even if the page and article practically begs for it). I'm not gonna break each section and point on her list down to debunk it. I'm also not claiming that every single thing she presents is bad. What I want to do is address the toxicity of the </span><a href="http://www.lexpages.com/SGN/paschal/religious_addiction.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">religious addiction</span></a><span style="color: #073763;"> in the message presented there in broad and general terms - cause some of it is triggering for me on multiple levels (and probably triggering for many of you). I see her attitude about marriage as everything that's wrong with "Christian" marriage these days and probably the root of disease that causes marriages in the Christian community to crumble at a higher rate than the secular community - and this doesn't even take into account all of the loveless, mechanical, and moribund <b><i>lasting</i></b> marriages within the Christian community. I would also have to raise my hand and plead guilty to allowing my own religious addictions to cloud my view of marriage in the past, even if not to such a degree.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">Much of this traces squarely to the trendy, fairly recent idea with the Christian community that "love is a choice". Total BS. Total, total BS. It's. Just. Wrong.</span><i><span style="color: #073763;"> (I wrote a little about that idea </span><a href="http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.com/2010/09/love-diminished.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">here</span></a><span style="color: #073763;"> back in 2010, and while many of my perspectives on faith/religion have changed since then, some fairly drastically, much of what I wrote there holds up with where I am today) </span></i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Two things for those of you duped into believing "love is a choice"...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">1) Think back to a time that you were hurt by love, then choose to not love the person that hurt you...and see if the pain goes away. *hint* It doesn't.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">2) If love is a choice, then that means love is works-based. If you're a "grace" person within the Christian community, and you believe and live according to "love is a choice", how do you reconcile free grace with works-based love?</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Let's be clear - you can choose to <b><i>act</i></b> in a loving manner toward someone, but you can't choose to love or not love them. You can act in loving ways toward your spouse, toward a neighbor, toward co-workers, toward ANYONE. That doesn't mean you <b><i>love</i></b> them. True love is organic in every way. It plants itself, waters itself, grows itself. The most you can do to control it is to pull a few weeds or move it away from its sunshine (the object of your affection), but IT chooses its own life-cycle. It follows no formula, has no mold. It just IS, whether you like it or not, whether you want it to be or not.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">The work isn't in the "love" part of the equation. The work is in the relationship - forming and maintaining solid, healthy communication, boundaries, developing trust and deeper levels of respect, et cetera. Even that part doesn't work by following a formula, and a formula may even deliver a death-blow. Relationship is a choice, but love isn't, and if a formula ends your relationship rest assured that the pain is just beginning.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">When I see this kind of formulaic, role-playing, works-based approach to love and marriage, I'm reminded of something my ex asked my mother on two occasions - once via phone and once in person: "Lew does so much for me. He does everything for me. What can I do for him? What's my ministry to him?" My mom thought it odd on both occasions, and told her, "Just love him." She never really understood what that meant, because her emotions (and particularly acting upon them) were forbidden territory where only the worldly trod. She was to "love the man she married, not marry the man she loved" - something many of you who read here were indoctrinated to believe. It's sad that young people are poisoned with that kind of crap, and that many end up stuck in loveless marriages playing the role of "godly helpmeet" and "biblical wife" while choosing to love the one they married. It. Just. Isn't. Healthy...or right.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">All of this kind of nonsense is why I strongly encourage young Christian couples to <b><u>NOT</u></b> make any kind of pre-marital counseling a religious deal. Don't go to someone who's gonna break out the bible and start telling the husband to be the head/wife to submit and become a Proverbs 31 women. <b><i>Stay away from pastors</i></b>. Go either to professionals or to people on both sides of the success/non-success marriage Mason-Dixon line (who won't make it all about religion). I can't speak to exactly how God made you, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't with a cookie cutter, and religifying your marriage with someone's biblical formulas or mandates is to conform yourself to a shape you likely don't really fit into. That's called "doctrine over person" - a sure sign of religious addiction and a red flag for an unhealthy religious/spiritual situation.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Godly. Biblical. Edifying. Proverbs 31 women. Submit. Blah blah blah. This kind of stuff has seriously turned me off to the Christian idea and ideal of marriage. I matter. What I feel matters. The box you may want to put me in doesn't matter. Not to me, anyway.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">My heart goes out to those of you stuck in loveless marriages, having been convinced that if you'll just do the right things, then God will make love happen. Doesn't work that way...and never will - no matter how many Fireproof "love dares" you subject yourself to. At some point it becomes self-brainwashing. To those of you single or on the verge of marriage, if you'll only marry to "edify" or to "minister" to the other person, PLEASE STOP. You can marry for whatever reason you want, but if that reason isn't something like "I love this person and want to spend the rest of my life with them", well, let's just say that I don't anticipate you finding much success in either or both of the happiness and long-lasting areas.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">This kind of marriage makes failure <b><i>SO</i></b> easy. Too easy.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I hope for better for you. You matter. What you feel matters.</span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-43386002306499381722013-05-20T00:32:00.000-04:002013-05-20T00:32:42.340-04:00Petition for Change<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">Many of you who read here have concerns and have expressed your concerns about HSLDA. You may be interested in reading and signing </span><a href="http://www.change.org/petitions/hslda-address-the-problem-of-child-abuse-and-neglect-in-homeschooling-families-2?utm_source=supporter_message&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=petition_message_notice" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">this petition</span></a><span style="color: #073763;">. If you can and are willing, please share the petition on Facebook and whatever other social media sites you use.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I've long been of the opinion that HSLDA masquerades as an advocacy group for homeschooling families and rights when it's actually an advocacy group for dominionist ideals and milieu, and that whatever real "help" homeschooling families actually get from them is more accidental than intentional, more ancillary than primary. I've yet to encounter information that has moved the needle of my opinion on that.</span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-19693566281386524102013-04-11T14:09:00.000-04:002013-04-11T14:09:13.461-04:00Homeschoolers Anonymous - New Site By Homeschool Survivors<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">"Survivors" seems the most appropriate word.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">If you're someone who thinks what I wrote </span><a href="http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.com/2012/02/scared-conned-mined.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">here</span></a><span style="color: #073763;"> was rife with hyperbole, I encourage you to visit </span><a href="http://homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">Homeschoolers Anonymous</span></a><span style="color: #073763;"> to hear first hand from young people who came in up the Christian homeschool movement...and now have to deal, as young adults, with the repercussions and emotional (and other) damage done by this cloistered (in nearly every way), paranoid, fearful cult movement. Bravo to these people for speaking out. A lot of people don't understand what they risk in doing so, but I do, and I have bushels full of love and respect for them.</span></span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-54479404314255372732013-04-08T00:36:00.000-04:002013-04-08T00:43:46.874-04:00Let Us Create God In Our Image, In Our Likeness<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I don't think it's coincidental that America is pretty much the only free, advanced, civilized western society that still enforces capital punishment (in many states and MOST bible-belt states) and is also home to most of the fundamentalist Christians in the world. American fundamentalist Christianity has created God in their own image. As a friend says, "The practice of our belief and faith is the reflection of our God", and fundamentalists see God as vengeful, hateful, judgmental, and intolerant. The image on our side of the mirror is seen in our religious endeavors, personal interactions, and positions on social and political issues.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">The "gospel" of the fundamentalist God is more or less "Love me!...or I'll kill you forever, except you won't die...you'll just live in the torment of the second death." I have a hard time seeing a difference between the fundamentalist God and the serial killer in The Silence of the Lambs - "It puts on the lotion!!!" Seriously. I mean, the fundamentalist God is only satisfied by blood. Innocent blood at that. To the point that he had his own innocent son killed to save the rest of us...<i><b>essentially from him</b></i>. It isn't like we were invited to the planning table for this game of life and afterlife. It's all the fundamentalist God's creation. Mind you, in saying this, I'm not advocating for or against the Christian faith, but rather hoping to provoke some thought about it. I AM, however, most certainly and passionately advocating against the American Jesus and the American fundamentalist God.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I'm still rather frequently hit with looks of shock, horror, and dismay, and the "You pick and choose from the bible?!" line whenever I discuss matters of religion, faith, and the bible. As has been my answer for a while now, YES, I do. The question that most often follows is "How do you decide what's true and what isn't?!" My answer is pretty simple. If God is truly good, truly lovable, then I can pretty much discount the parts of the bible that portray God as an asshole or as an entity less decent than me. Why would anyone worship ANY "Supreme Being" that isn't or wasn't a million times <b><i>better</i></b> than they are? The OT God does things I could never do in good conscience, makes demands I could never make in good conscience, has faaaar less patience than me, is faaaar less forgiving than I am, is considerably more petty and openly self-centered than I am...and I'm no saint (although not deserving of eternal torment even on my <b><i>worst</i></b> day). I mean, dude treated Moses like CRAP. Think about it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">People gotta stop worshiping "the bible". It's a violent book (at least the first two-thirds of it) which conveys a largely violent, compulsive, and petty God. I haven't read the Quran, but I'd have a hard time believing it could be as violent, overall, as our own Old Testament, and I'm a firm believer that if our own New Testament included as much as one single line encouraging believers to kill unbelievers, fundamentalism in America would be less about political militancy and ignorance and more about physical violence. Fundamentalist Christians are THAT committed to the culture, so much so that they don't even really need a Jesus to maintain the culture, because (as I've said before), the culture <b><i>is</i></b> their Jesus, their salvation. God can seemingly only speak to them through a collection of books, because that collection becomes the barometer for everything that speaks to them, and the box into which they try to put everyone else. Something's only ok because "the bible" says it's ok. Something's only wrong because "the bible" says it's wrong. The rest of us in America are often held hostage to this form of religious addiction, imbibling, and moral paralysis.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">No decent God would require you to be stupid. So stop being stupid. Please.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">If I were God, and I were a truly good, truly loving God, I expect I'd be looking down at all the world's religions going "What the...?!"</span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-33621713731762900772013-01-27T18:49:00.001-05:002013-01-27T18:49:11.838-05:00The Death of the Heart and Soul<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">With that title, what else could I be writing about but the Purity Movement?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">My thoughts about the Purity Movement, covered </span><a href="http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.com/2011/12/purity-movement-life-in-jar.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">here</span></a><span style="color: #073763;"> a little over a year ago, haven't changed. Never will change, actually. I still consider the Purity Movement (and all else within the Christian homeschooling movement) to be life in a jar...</span></span><br />
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<i style="background-color: #fce5cd; color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">"when you plant a seed in a jar, you sentence the plant that will result to a best case scenario of growing into the shape of the jar - but NEVER exceeding it. No matter how much the sprigs and shoots want to spread out and reach toward the sun that shines on them and gives them life, the jar forms a barrier that prevents it.</i><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">And such are the children of Purity. Until the glass walls shatter, they're doomed to a life of emotional ignorance and dysfunction, maybe even sexual dysfunction, and religious addiction and its associated baggage.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">Elizabeth Esther wrote </span><a href="http://www.elizabethesther.com/2013/01/i-kissed-my-humanity-goodbye-how-the-evangelical-purity-culture-dehumanizes-women.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">this great piece</span></a><span style="color: #073763;"> a few days ago, and it really resonated with me. I saw all of these things in my own deal - only from the other side of the glass, and without knowing where the ignorance and dysfunction originated. Since people still occasionally ask about the Purity stuff, and motivated by EE's great handling of the issue, I thought I'd add just a few more thoughts about all of it. As always, I'll be blunt (probably too blunt for some - so be it - you'll survive).</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Any parent who forces their children into this culture is a horrible, horrible parent. Even worse, a horrible human being capable of doing horrible damage to other human beings, and who <b><i>will do</i></b> horrible damage to other human beings - especially their own children. If you've forced your children into this culture, you suck. You suck on many levels. You suck because of what you're allowing completely useless, senseless, and anti-Christ religious nonsense and zealotry make of you, and what you're trying to make of others because of your zealotry. You suck. I don't give a rat's ass about your intentions.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Any environment where love is a bad thing and to be feared is an insanely unhealthy environment. Any environment where feelings are to be feared is an insanely unhealthy environment. Any environment that only gives place to "approved" emotions is an insanely unhealthy environment. Any environment that teaches that emotions can be turned on or off is not just insanely unhealthy but also rabidly ignorant. Any environment that teaches that God will either "put in" or "take out" of your heart the proper emotions is a religiously diseased and emotionally ignorant environment. Any environment that teaches you that if you follow the proper formula, do x, y, and z, that the proper emotions will then develop is a domain ruled by emotionally unhealthy and ignorant religious addicts. Any environment that teaches you that if you marry the man your father (or authority figures) approves of, or "God's man" (or woman) for you, that love will then develop, well, it's unhealthy, ignorant, stupid, destructive, toxic, and about a thousand other adjectives that could describe its rancid mental and emotional necrosis.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">How are people supposed to be emotionally healthy, and sexually healthy, in an environment where sex goes from <b><i>the very worst thing a person could EVER do</i></b> to <b><i>the most wonderful thing a person can do</i></b>, and the only thing that changes the dynamic are a few vows, a ring, and a few words from a preacher? That's a recipe for one effed up sex life (pun intended). When the value of a person is determined by whether or not they're "sexually pure" (or even "emotionally pure"), <i style="font-weight: bold;">there really are no values </i>- because people have become of no value, with the single exception of their ability to create <i>new</i> people to be indoctrinated. Then again, in a culture where marriage is founded on godly procreation and godly indoctrination rather than on being with the person your heart and soul loves, values shouldn't really be expected to have any substance.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">If you consider love to be "an emotional thing", you're in trouble as a human being. Big trouble.<br /><br />If any of this describes your environment, <b><u>get out now</u></b>. Shatter the glass and never look back. Go somewhere that you, as a person, as an individual, are valued more than a cultic religious or sociopolitical paradigm.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Your feelings matter. YOU matter. </span><br />
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-7117946023941152902013-01-22T18:22:00.002-05:002013-01-22T18:24:19.731-05:00Help Another Survivor<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">Take just a few seconds to click </span><a href="http://www.wyzant.com/scholarships/v3/essay68841-Lebanon-ME.aspx" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">HERE</span></a><span style="color: #073763;"> and help another incredible person pursue higher education. She deserves the best. Costs you nothing, and requires nothing of you except to click on the "vote" tab.</span></span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-85661283084873479602013-01-15T12:06:00.000-05:002013-01-15T14:17:26.077-05:00To My Politically-Charged Readers<i><span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">[Over the last few weeks and months, really going as far back as last spring with the marriage amendment issues, I've received some very passionate emails regarding political issues, as well as witnessed and engaged in some heated social media discussions (not to mention the real world stuff), from people who claim Christianity - and frankly would be fighting mad if you questioned their Christianity. The following isn't aimed at any single person, even if I've encountered many who fit every scenario within. It's a generic, yet serious, response to the entire animal of conservative cultural Christianity.]</span></i><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I really don't know quite how to talk to you these days. What's odd about it is that I fit so neatly into your world not all that long ago. Once I determined to no longer be a sheeple (while remaining a spiritual person), that fit wasn't nearly so neat, as I could no longer base my course on emotion, pet issues (while excluding all else), "the bible says", or worst of all, where the herd who wore the same jersey was headed. It certainly isn't because I have all the answers and you don't, because I have few answers and tons of questions. I've been fortunate to arrive at a place where the questions no longer frighten me, but rather interest me, and I feel in no way threatened by them - knowing that any belief system threatened by questions isn't worth its weight in fear.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">While much of what I'm writing today is about sociopolitical issues, I wanna look at it, ultimately, through a spiritual and practical lens, because it's the spiritual + political math that I can't make work when I consider your professed attitudes about one and your professed attitudes about the other.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I watched you often froth at the mouth against gay people last spring, railing about the "sanctity of marriage" and "God's design", when more often than not your own personal experience with marriage would demonstrate that you don't give ish about its sanctity nor God's intentions. You were being "faithful" to your political paradigm, and God be damned if necessary. When called on this, you usually fell into the ignorant "love the sinner, hate the sin" spiel, which I'm sure made you feel better about your spirituality and all, but aside from being freaking impossible in application, isn't even something "the bible says". Pretty sure the bible talks about your own sin, and not your American right to officiate the sins of others, but you've seldom allowed a lack of knowledge about what's actually in the bible prevent you from telling me what's in the bible.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">When you go into the voting booth, the entirety of the bible becomes nothing more than the three Super Sins: abortion, gays, and Islam. You no longer seem to care whether we feed the hungry, take care of the sick, et cetera. "That isn't a government issue" you say, while apparently abortion, gays, and fighting against Islam are entirely government issues. I'd call that a politically convenient argument. I'd also call it bullshit in a form of purity rarely seen.<br /><br />I've seen you write off half of your countrymen as moochers, freeloaders, leeches, and people who vote for Santa Claus because they want free stuff and are too sorry/lazy to work for it, et cetera. Many of those people are the elderly, the sick, the disabled, the hungry, and people who work harder than you've ever worked in your life.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Every time a natural disaster happens, you call it "God's judgment" on America - largely because of abortion, gays, and Islam. First of all, if that were true, your God really sucks at being God, and second, in most cases, I think you <b><i>want and need</i></b> it to be true just to show those evil liberals how right you are and how wrong they are.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I've seen you talk about your patriotism...while desiring the failure of our current President (who I didn't vote for, btw). I've seen you call him a Muslim, when there's ZERO evidence to support it, and when challenged on this lack of evidence, I've watched you dig your heels in deeper, unwilling to see the man as anything but a Muslim regardless of fact. Truth is, you're so thoroughly <b><i>committed to your hatred</i></b> of the man that you willingly adopt even the most delusional "truth" about him pulled from the innermost sanctuary of some lunatic's ass. According to your own bibles, your attitude about your President is founded almost entirely on something called "false witness". For instance, you're convinced that he's coming for your guns, and believe all kinds of blatantly delusional things about it, saying brain-dead stuff like the old "pry it out of my cold, dead hands" mantra, when he's never so much as hinted at any intention of disarming you in <b><i>any</i></b> way. You're so committed to it that you grieve the brutal murder of 20 children by rushing out in record numbers to buy the exact same weapon used to kill them. Your solution to America's problems would quite often seem to put you behind the sights of your gun with a finger on the trigger.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">My response to you is as follows...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">You don't get to talk about Jesus to me.</span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-3080477030452048012012-12-30T18:21:00.000-05:002012-12-30T21:11:02.322-05:00Random Rambles As 2012 Closes<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">2012 has been a bizarre year. For me personally, a very up and down twelve months with a lot of blind corners and curveballs, with a sprinkling of pleasant surprises mixed in. Here's a few all-over-the-place rambles as we near the end of an all-over-the-place year...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">If I asked you to describe your TV to me, I'd put the chances at slim and none you'd quote from the owner's manuel. You'd tell me its dimensions, what you like or dislike about its color, picture quality, et cetera. With that in mind, if I asked you to describe your God to me, could you do it without almost immediately quoting the bible - which is actually another man's interpretation of God from at least 2000 years ago? If this is true of you, you have more of a "relationship" with your TV than you do with God. Your "relationship", where religion is concerned, is with the bible, from which you quote the experiences and impressions of others with God, and not your own...likely because you have little that's convincing to draw from.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">If you preach the "gospel" of identifying sin, and have a "no compromise" attitude about it, you're really nothing like Jesus at all, and in fact more like the people he preached at (note that I said "at" rather than "to"). Religiousness isn't righteousness.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">When people call President Obama a Muslim, what they really mean is a "N*****".</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">If you homeschool for religious reasons (ANY religious reason), you're part of the problem with the whole deal. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">If you "do courtship"...stop being stupid. Please. Stop. You're being stupid.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">We get much of our entertainment from watching non-intellectual people doing extremely non-intellectual things on reality shows, and then we get offended when people rightfully identify the American public at large as perhaps the most ignorant and under/ill-informed populace of any western society.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Never get your news from a source which promotes itself as "balanced". Life isn't balanced, which means the events in life (which comprise the news) aren't balanced. Any outlet offering you balanced news isn't offering you <b><i>any</i></b> news. News is no more balanced than truth is always found in the middle.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">If gun violence is a "people problem" rather than a gun problem, why is meth illegal?</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">If you think whatever you buy at the gun and ammo store or gun show allows you to defend yourself against the federal government - you're just an ignorant dumbass. I'm not in favor of guns being taken away from law-abiding citizens, but I'm not so ignorant that I believe taking on the federal government with my rifles and such will end with me anything other than dead.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">What does it say about our society that we grieve the brutal murder of 20 children by flocking to gun and ammo stores, in record numbers, to buy the exact same weapon used to murder them? It tells me that we see the federal government as a bigger threat to our culture (even without legitimate evidence) than we do the murder of 20 children (which we know actually happened). Nice job, extremism!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">More often than not, the same people who believe the bible is the inerrant, infallible, perfect and inspired Word of God are the people making the most noise when Constitutional amendments are so much as brought up for discussion - as if the US Constitution is also inerrant, infallible, perfect, and inspired by God. How easily some will worship words on a piece of paper.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I catch a lot of flak from my Facebook status updates. Yes, many are controversial and inflammatory - as they're intended to be. Many people don't realize that I'm channeling my inner Andy Kaufman, knowing that you usually don't get an honest response on controversial issues until you get an emotional one. Someone asked on FB the other day, "How do you discuss cultural issues?" My response was, "By attacking sacred cows." Think about it. The foundations of our culture are its sacred cows. Go after those and people get emotional - and usually get honest in the process. Otherwise, everything is empty platitude.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Hope you guys have a healthy, happy, and prosperous 2013.</span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-80497441658085381842012-12-11T00:19:00.000-05:002012-12-11T00:19:01.724-05:00Old and Empty Holes<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Maybe the most frequent question I'm asked by spiritual abuse survivors is "How do I move forward?" I don't have a definitive, foolproof answer. I only have my own thoughts, observations, and experiences to offer, so here goes...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">When we lose something - the security of a religious belief system, love, family, friends, a home, a way of life - it leaves a substantial (sometimes gigantic) hole. The natural inclination is to respond to this loss and resulting hole by trying to fill it with something else as quickly as possible. This is one instance where I'd <b><i>urge</i></b> you to resist your natural inclination or compulsion. You can end up doing a lot of damage to yourself and others.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I know a young woman who was widowed several years ago. In the years since, she's been interested in or pursued only men who fit the exact same physical and perceived mental/personal profile of her deceased husband. None of her new ventures have lasted, and in their brief duration probably lasted only until the man involved figured out exactly what was going on - she wasn't looking for a new relationship, but instead was looking for a new version of her dead husband. There was, and is, a big hole in her life, and in her haste to fill that hole she's made poor choice after poor choice and looked for her solution in all the wrong manners and all the wrong places. Feigning health doesn't heal old wounds, and hers are deep. She needs healing. Not a filler.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">Religious addiction causes the same kind of problem. I've spoken in the past of my ex's family, having left one authoritarian cult, and filling the hole that was left with another authoritarian cult. They had to put </span><b style="color: #073763;"><i>something</i></b><span style="color: #073763;"> there. Just had to. Their addictions overwhelmed them. In </span><a href="http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.com/2012/01/halfway-houses.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">Halfway Houses</span></a><span style="color: #073763;"> I wrote about people who leave groups like VF or Gothard trying to fill the holes of religious addiction's loss with equally as toxic groups and teachers like Piper, Driscoll, Sovereign Grace, et cetera, while </span><b style="color: #073763;"><i>thinking</i></b><span style="color: #073763;"> they've found a good thing. Again, feigning health doesn't heal old wounds, and fillers will never nuture healing.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">In all of the examples above, all that was accomplished was a patchwork (at best) filling of one hole by digging a brand new hole right beside the first, or trying to cure an old wound with a new, and hopefully less painful, one. Continuing in that behavioral pattern only results in a series of holes (and new wounds) - not a great position for a wounded, vulnerable, perhaps very needy, person to find him or herself in.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">The biggest part of my own healing process has been a determination and stubborn refusal of attempts to fill old holes in my life. I haven't tried to, and don't want to, replace my ex. As far as my own religious addictions, I've no desire to replace the old, rejected belief system with a new one. As far as being an independent and critical thinker, I don't achieve that by becoming the student of a new teacher, even if a rebel teacher.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Rather than filling old holes, I'd prefer to climb new mountains. Life offers plenty of them. As far as the old holes, I'm content to let time, and the wind, rain, and erosion of life, fill them in. It will in due course. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">The survivors that I'm seeing really flourish are those who are climbing new mountains. This doesn't mean you forget the pain, or forget the loss, or even forget the wrongs. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">You just climb. And live. And heal.</span><br />
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Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-21229487622158057582012-11-30T02:28:00.000-05:002012-11-30T03:32:25.369-05:00Hearing From God<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">This isn't so much a new piece as it is an opportunity to bring </span><a href="http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.com/2011/12/peace-game.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">The Peace Game</span></a><span style="color: #073763;"> and </span><a href="http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.com/2012/01/gods-will-isnt-rocket-surgery.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">God's Will Isn't Rocket Surgery</span></a><span style="color: #073763;"> back around to some newer readers while offering a few thoughts to serve as companions to the things discussed in those pieces.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I still very regularly deal with people journeying out of P/QF and the Christian Homeschooling movement (and other recovering religious addicts in general) who can't make a decision without "hearing from God". That very thing ("hearing from God") was the impetus for my ex to be whisked away to another state, housed by hyper-fundamentalist people like-minded to her parents, and have the Peace Game played on her. Her elder sister had the exact same sabbatical, to the exact same place, to do the exact same thing (hear from God), just a few months prior - with the exact same result: conformity to the group goals. Neither of them have so much as a clue what God "sounds" like.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">First of all, if you need to "hear from God" about something or some decision, you're already about 90% of the way toward arriving at a <i><b>terrible</b></i> decision. If guilt, in any form, is playing any part in your need to "hear from God", you're most likely being manipulated. Second, if you need to "hear from God", you probably wouldn't even know what God sounded like if you <i><b>did</b></i> hear from him. Your ideas about God are probably the product of the people in "authority" over you - a God shaped in their image, ruled by their agendas, fears, whims, and desires. Essentially, a version of God that's a world-class asshole who will punish you with plagues, shame, a Norwegian strain of halitosis, a horrible life, and eternal damnation if you do the "wrong" thing.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Coming from the background that most of you do, my advice to you would be if something makes you feel guilty, well, it's probably the <b><i>right</i></b> thing to do. Do it and don't look back. Few good and meaningful things in life come without some resistance - and that's <b><i>especially</i></b> true for you guys. Most of you have had to go to hell and back just to find a tiny sliver of genuine, lasting freedom and personal liberty, having been stuck behind the Iron Curtain of patriarchal fiefdoms, religious addictions, and religious lunacy.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">If you know right from wrong, you've already "heard from God". If you profess Christianity, yet don't really know right from wrong and still struggle with finding "God's will", you're not in any spiritual/emotional/psychological shape, whatsoever, to "hear from God" in the manner you think you should to begin with. So stop. Please. What's God gonna say to you? "Hey. How's it goin'? Want some gum?" or something more like "Thou shalt..." or "Thou shalt not..."? Or will God sound like Screech from Saved By The Bell?</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">You can keep trying to "hear from God" and continue making terrible, guilt-ridden, acceptance/approval-seeking, religious addiction-driven decisions - confusing God with anything that speaks loudly or happens to offer a release of pressure in your pursuit of a false and destructive "peace", or, if you're genuinely a person of faith, you can trust your heart because of God within.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Just stop trying so hard to prove <b><i>to God</i></b> how religious you are. The people who truly love you don't need you to run a spiritual obstacle course to prove anything to them. If they do, they're toxic. If God were toxic, why would you even care what he had to say? Why would you want to please and worship <b><i>that</i></b> God?</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Breathe. Heal. Live. </span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-80086957093213727852012-11-20T23:11:00.000-05:002012-11-20T23:13:00.286-05:00The Immodesty of Modesty<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Modesty is a super-huge deal in fundamentalist sectors. It's a shame that fundamentalist efforts toward modesty are quite often self-defeating - superficially "solving" one problem while creating another.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Let's take a minute to consider the whole frumpy, long hair and denim jumpers thing. It's a path chosen by those who consider sexuality to be the greatest factor in or element of modesty. I've always immediately pegged anyone wearing the long hair/denim jumper combo as some form of Pentecostal, some form of Holiness, et cetera. I didn't know it was the norm in the Christian homeschooling world, too, until a couple of years back, because, frankly, I knew next to nothing about the Christian homeschooling world until a couple of years back.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Here's the problem...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">While fundamentalist Christians may consider the long hair/denim jumper (or super long skirt) deal modest, I have another name for it: <b><u>a uniform</u></b>. A fundamentalist Christianity uniform. It makes it easy for people to peg you, immediately, as a fundamentalist Christian - <b><i>for all the wrong reasons</i></b>. I'm pretty sure Jesus never said "...and they will know you by your Christian uniform." The self-defeat really kicks in, though, in that modesty, at its core, means to NOT draw attention to yourself, especially in superficial manner...and it's kinda hard not to stand out like a sore thumb in the frump of a denim jumper. It isn't exactly the clothing choice of atheists, or agnostics, or even mainstream evangelicals (you know, those people who fundamentalists don't believe are "real" Christians). The <b><u>ONLY</u></b> people wearing it are fundamentalists, which makes it a sure-fire attention-getter, which means a big ole oopsy daisy on the whole idea of modesty.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I agree with people who say "modesty is a matter of the heart". But...if you start putting on a modesty uniform, then, well, not so much. If someone really wants to "lust after" you, they're gonna. That's on them. Not on you. Lust, just like modesty, is a "matter of the heart" that no uniform will conquer.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Just live.</span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-21869261987581867402012-11-11T23:57:00.000-05:002012-11-11T23:57:19.949-05:00A Little Bit of Assistance<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">If you guys wouldn't mind, take a moment to visit </span><a href="http://www.wyzant.com/scholarships/v3/essay64934-Charlotte-NC.aspx" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">THIS PAGE</span></a><span style="color: #073763;"> and help a Patriarchy/Quiverfull survivor gain a scholarship by casting a simple vote for her. Absolutely NO information is required from you, and it literally will take just a few seconds of your time. I've met this young woman and can't adequately describe just how amazing she is or how deserving of this scholarship she is. A little bit of help could mean a lot. To those of you who take a few seconds to do this - a heartfelt thanks.</span></span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-69984853043901772232012-10-27T01:19:00.001-04:002015-05-29T07:21:46.749-04:00For New Readers<span style="color: #073763;">A couple of older links and "Joke" series links seem to have made their way around social media over the last few days, resulting in a significant uptick in readers. And with that, quite a few emails from new readers. Just a couple of quick notes to you guys...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">First of all, <b><i>welcome</i></b>, especially those of you who survived the movements I write about, carry a heavy load, and have felt alone. The number of you just like that who've emailed over the last couple of days had me taken back a bit. Know that you guys AREN'T alone, and there's a whole community of young people just like you. This blog has been one of several gathering places of sorts for people just like you, and here, we only ask you to rest. Breathe a while. Know that you're accepted and cared for - without qualification. You'll also find similar places of rest within my sidebar. I encourage you to check those sites out. A pretty wide spectrum of belief and opinion there to choose from - which is exactly what I feel you deserve. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">I'm not super-religious (at least as compared to a few years ago), and recoil from Christianese and much of Christian tradition (having seen what it actually does to many), so you won't find much here that delves into theology or comes from a traditional Christian perspective, especially over the last 18 months or so of posts. One of my personal standards in my writing is "people must <b><i>always</i></b> be of more value than paradigm", so you'll see no religious, sociopolitical, cultural, or movement-driven favoritism from me.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">Some of the material here, and at those other places, may push you to the edge of your comfort levels. I ask you to understand that I write what I write in real-time - raw, emotionally, and with the goal of provoking thought. I also ask you to understand that I'm very much a work in progress, my own faith and perspectives having evolved enormously over the last couple of years, evidence of which you may have already noticed in my writing. I'm still in my own healing and growing process (likely a life-long endeavor), and I've come to embrace the ups and downs of it and let it spill into what I write here. You may not always like what you see of me. I don't always, frankly, but I hope to make something good out of the bad I experienced. While I don't publish as much material as in the past (for a number of reasons), I still write when inspired, and only when inspired.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">For those curious about the "The Joke Was On Me" series, as of now, I have no immediate plans to write more of it. I began writing it with the goal to educate people about how these belief systems render people expendable, what these beliefs do to the heart and soul, and I've bared much of those parts of me in the installments I've written. As I became aware that many (not specifically you new guys) were reading it strictly for entertainment purposes, I felt less compelled to continue writing it. While I may understand it to a degree, it's something I'm not really comfortable with, at least not yet, that anyone would find entertainment in vulnerability. I liken it to my own distaste for most reality TV shows. When I watch them, I feel like a voyeur being entertained by the weaknesses and vulnerabilities (even when they ask for it) of other people, and I have to change the channel. Couple that with the difficulty of having to mentally, and to a degree emotionally, relive the events I'm writing about, and I hope you'll understand why it's on the back-burner.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">I want to reiterate how <b><i>welcome</i></b> here you guys are, and my hope is that you'll find MUCH here that's beneficial to you.</span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-91690431892928400852012-10-21T06:40:00.000-04:002012-10-21T06:51:42.825-04:00The Very Picture of Christ and the Church<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">So say the P/QF, Christian homeschooling cult people, and the very religious/religious addicts in general about marriage. It was actually said to me, exactly as the title phrases it above, by just about every religious jackass in my ex's world. It's another of those stupid, Christianese lines that now make me want to jump neck deep into a bed of raging fire ants (or do something equally as inhumane to myself) in principled protest. I can only stand so much <b><i>extra</i></b> stupidity when I have enough of my own to deal with.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Let's just take a few minutes and look at just how stupid the idea is...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">For starters, in the Christian homeschooling movement world, what's the primary change that happens after marriage? The "forbidden fruits" of sex, of course. So I have to ask right up front - when we get to heaven, are we gonna have sex with Jesus? Maybe it's just me, but I doubt it. So the "very picture" is <b><i>already</i></b> starting to look like a cheap chalk drawing or a 4th hand velvet Elvis, what with so much of marriage in the Christian homeschooling movement world based on the physical (sex for procreation, then more sex for more procreation - and love being almost exclusively a verb, with those mean ole emotions being so bad and all), and marriage with Jesus being spiritual and love-based (the FULL use of the word/ 75 parts noun or emotion/25 parts verb). Big difference.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Then, let's turn to the bible for a better view of this "picture". Especially since Jesus and the bible are more or less the same, right? Jesus being the "Living Word" and the bible being the "Written Word", right? I mean, ALL of it is God's Word, perfect, Holy, inspired, right? Ok then. Here are some biblical examples of "the very picture"...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Deuteronomy 21:11-13</span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span class="text Deut-21-11" id="en-NIV-5459" style="background-color: white;">if you notice among the captives a beautiful<sup class="crossreference" style="font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-5459A" title="See cross-reference A">A</a>)"></sup> woman and are attracted to her,<sup class="crossreference" style="font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-5459B" title="See cross-reference B">B</a>)"></sup> you may take her as your wife.</span><span class="text Deut-21-12" id="en-NIV-5460" style="background-color: white;"><sup class="versenum" style="font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>Bring her into your home and have her shave her head,<sup class="crossreference" style="font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-5460C" title="See cross-reference C">C</a>)"></sup> trim her nails</span><span class="text Deut-21-13" id="en-NIV-5461" style="background-color: white;"><sup class="versenum" style="font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>and put aside the <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=NIV&search=deuteronomy+21:11-13#" id="_GPLITA_0" in_rurl="http://i.trkjmp.com/click?v=VVM6MjcwOTE6MTUwMTpjbG90aGVzOjM4MGZhYzNmNTNhZDU2MGEyMmRhODUzOGE3NDlhM2NiOnotMTA2My0yMzE0MTp3d3cuYmlibGVnYXRld2F5LmNvbToxODYxNToyZWE2ZWE4M2M3ZDkzZWUwOTFmMmEwOWUwYjllMWQ5Nw" title="Click to Continue > by DownloadNSave">clothes</a> she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month,<sup class="crossreference" style="font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-5461D" title="See cross-reference D">D</a>)"></sup> then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife.</span></i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">So, take a prisoner of war, basically de-louse her, give her ample time to grieve her mother and father (that you quite possibly killed) - which apparently should take no more than a month, then have sex with her, and Presto! She's yours. Hmmm. Picture's getting a little fuzzy. But, on the plus side, this strategy does remove ALL emotional aspects, except <b><i>her deep, stabbing grief</i></b> for her parents that you probably killed or that she'll never see again, and it does give you someone to have sex with without society frowning on it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1st Samuel 18:27</span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span style="background-color: white;">David took his men with him and went out and killed two hundred Philistines and brought back their foreskins. They counted out the full number to the king so that David might become the king’s son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michal</span><sup class="crossreference" style="background-color: white; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-7704A" title="See cross-reference A">A</a>)"></sup><span style="background-color: white;"> in </span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=NIV&search=1+samuel+18:27#" id="_GPLITA_0" in_hdr="null" in_rurl="http://i.trkjmp.com/click?v=VVM6MjQ2NDA6MTAzNDptYXJyaWFnZTo5MmYzMmMzMzgwMzRhNTM1Y2I2MjZlMzJkNDUxMDIzYjp6LTEwNjMtMjMxNDE6d3d3LmJpYmxlZ2F0ZXdheS5jb206MTY0NDA6MDIyNzJjOTVlMzk2NDZmMTViZDQyZDc2NjAzZDU4Y2Y" style="background-color: white;" title="Click to Continue > by DownloadNSave">marriage</a><span style="background-color: white;">.</span></i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Wow. Women as property to be purchased with elements of enemy genitalia. Maybe if I'd delivered MFFFIL the foreskins of 200 godless liberal public schoolers things would've gone a lot smoother for me. I mean, if we'd have gone about things biblically and all. To think, the guy who went after these foreskins like a tornado of knives and claws was a "man after God's own heart" - according to the Word of God.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #073763;">And from the same "man after God's own heart"...</span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=NIV&search=2+samuel+11" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">2nd Samuel 11</span></a><span style="color: #073763;"> (too much to copy and paste/David and Bathsheba). </span></span><span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">See a woman you want, then when you find out she's married start an affair anyway, see to it her husband gets killed, then she's yours! Simple as that - except for all the people who ended up dead as a result. This is basically the theme of every other episode of 48 Hours and Dateline NBC - so people are still doing this today! Hallelujah! Right? Thank God we're getting back to the bible here in the USA!!!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">And I don't wanna leave out David's boy Solomon, the wisest man to walk the earth prior to Christ, who liked this "picture" so much he posed for it 1,000 times. If he had ANY sex life, at all, with a significant number of these women, he probably needed to be hooked up to a Red Bull IV.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Judges 21:20-23</span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span class="text Judg-21-20" id="en-NIV-7123" style="font-size: 16px;">So they instructed the Benjamites, saying, “Go and hide in the vineyards</span><span class="text Judg-21-21" id="en-NIV-7124" style="font-size: 16px;"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>and watch. When the young women of Shiloh come out to <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=NIV&search=judges+21:19-25#" id="_GPLITA_0" in_rurl="http://i.trkjmp.com/click?v=VVM6MTUxOTA6OTpqb2luOmZhYjhiMmJiZmE2NzY5Y2NlYTIwNjFjMzVkMzEwZTNkOnotMTA2My0yMzE0MTp3d3cuYmlibGVnYXRld2F5LmNvbTowOjA" title="Click to Continue > by DownloadNSave">join</a> in the dancing,<sup class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-7124D" title="See cross-reference D">D</a>)"></sup> rush from the vineyards and each of you seize one of them to be your wife. Then return to the land of Benjamin.</span><span class="text Judg-21-22" id="en-NIV-7125" style="font-size: 16px;"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>When their fathers or brothers complain to us, we will say to them, ‘Do us the favor of helping them, because we did not get wives for them during the war. You will not be guilty of breaking your oath because you did not give<sup class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-7125E" title="See cross-reference E">E</a>)"></sup> your daughters to them.’”</span><sup class="versenum" style="background-color: white; font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;"> </sup><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;">So that is what the Benjamites did. While the young women were dancing,</span><sup class="crossreference" style="background-color: white; font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-7126F" title="See cross-reference F">F</a>)"></sup><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;">each man caught one and carried her off to be his wife. Then they returned to their inheritance</span><sup class="crossreference" style="background-color: white; font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-7126G" title="See cross-reference G">G</a>)"></sup><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;">and rebuilt the towns and settled in them.</span></i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Kidnapping and human trafficking! Yes! Duh. So simple, yet so few religious people think to do it. Then, I guess you can just get rid of the lice and stuff like in Deuteronomy 21 and you'll be all set and she'll be the luckiest gal on the planet.</span><br />
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<i><span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">But Lewis! You're taking it all out of context!</span></i><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Not all that much, really. A little, sure, but not much. Nonetheless, if the "very picture of Christ and the church" is on display in the Old Testament, I think I'll just remain a confirmed bachelor - not that I'd need a lot of cajoling at this point, anyway. That picture would be like "American Gothic"...if the models were toothless meth-heads and were going at each other with their pitchforks.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">It's different in the NT you say? Let's take a look at what Paul says, since most Christians are more devoted to his teaching than Christ's...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1st Corinthians 7:32-35</span> <span class="text 1Cor-7-32" id="en-NIV-28520" style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"><sup class="versenum" style="font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;"> </sup><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs<span style="font-size: 0.65em;"><sup class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-28520A" title="See cross-reference A">A</a>)"></sup></span>—how he can please the Lord.</i></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span class="text 1Cor-7-33" id="en-NIV-28521" style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife—</span><span class="text 1Cor-7-34" id="en-NIV-28522" style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit.<sup class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-28522B" title="See cross-reference B">B</a>)"></sup> But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband.</span><span class="text 1Cor-7-35" id="en-NIV-28523" style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;"> </sup>I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided<span style="font-size: 0.65em;"><sup class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-28523C" title="See cross-reference C">C</a>)"></sup></span> devotion to the Lord.</span></i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">Yowza. For a culture that sees "godly" as something akin to the Congressional Medal of Honor for religion, this puts "godly" under a bright light that renders it "fugly". According to our boy Paul, marriage makes you "worldly" rather than "godly". He's saying don't get married. Geez, Paul, dude, ever heard of "taking dominion"? We MUST outbreed the cultural opposition and all that, so dude, seriously, throw us a bone here.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">So, I think I'm gonna just have to go ahead and call bullshit on this "the very picture of Christ and the church" notion of marriage. Truth be told, if you want to go about it biblically, I don't really think you need to go any further than "Love your neighbor as you love yourself" as for something applicable to a marriage, or your "yes be a yes" as far as commitment, because a genuine marriage requires both unconditional love (noun - especially) and commitment (the "verb" part of love comes into play here), and the rest are just by-products of those - sorta like the two greatest commandments.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">It's sad when the "institution of marriage" becomes a larger achievement than the emotional attachment, fulfillment, and betterment of the people involved, when emotions become something that can only <b><i>get in the way</i></b> of the larger goal, and are only allowed when the larger goal is accomplished - <u style="font-weight: bold;">if</u> you're lucky enough to "noun" them and not have to exclusively "verb" them (which is a sucky way to have to live). It's sad when a whole segment of Christianity worships a culture and all that comes with it (the cultural war and its requirements: quiverfull conscriptioning, its bootcamp: Christian homeschooling, its institutions: "godly" marriage and female submission). Not only do the people involved end up screwing the pooch, but so does Jesus. He just gets left with a tab for a party he never attended.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">And to think, all I ever wanted to do where my ex was concerned was love her. Imagine that picture. Fancy enough for my living room wall.</span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879552692521649812.post-45673255595812164392012-10-18T08:53:00.000-04:002012-10-18T08:55:57.639-04:00Control<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I don't consider myself a religious person (at least I hope I'm not, because being a religious person isn't the quick route to my Christmas card list). Certainly not a "Christian" by the modern, fundamentalist definition(s). I do consider myself a person of faith in God and Jesus Christ, but more than anything, if I had to attach a particular word to who or what I am, the word would be "spiritual". Kinda hard to fit that one into any corner.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">You have NO idea how many people find that threatening. You have NO idea how many people felt threatened in real-time when they read that first paragraph. Or, if you're like me, and have moved dramatically away from traditional evangelical or fundamentalist Christianity, you probably do have a pretty good idea.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">The biggest threat I/we pose? We don't put God in a box shaped like the biblical canon.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I've said many times that if the bible is more than a supplement to your faith, it's the <b><i>object</i></b> of your faith. And <b><i>it is</i></b> for most evangelicals. Take away, or alter in any fashion, their concept of the bible, and they have no god whatsoever. So, yes, they're worshiping the bible. If you believe the bible is the one and only arbiter of all truth, you're worshiping the bible. If you believe the bible is "God's Word", all perfectly inspired and God-breathed, perfectly kept through the centuries, then you're worshiping the bible. I should know. I used to believe some of these same things...and then I decided I was no longer willing to let other men determine the standard of my own belief.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">In one of the books within the book itself, Jesus says that God's Spirit is what will lead us into all truth. He never made any promises about a bible. So, right there is the proof that most people who are "bible-believing Christians" aren't really, because they obviously <b><i>don't</i></b> believe their bibles.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I'm constantly accused of "picking and choosing" which parts of the bible I believe. <b><u>You bet I do</u></b>. Everybody does. <b><u>Everybody</u></b>. Don't believe me? Go back to the previous paragraph and get back to me. One of my personal unfavorites concerning where I am now with the bible - "If you gonna throw out part of it you need to just throw out all of it!" How stupid. This is why I constantly remind people that the bible isn't a single organism, but a collection of 66 different books composed by at least 40 different people from all walks of life. If I turn and look behind where I'm sitting now, I'll see my bookshelf. It has probably 30 or so books on it, ranging from health and home remedy books to a dictionary to religious themes to coach Dean Smith's autobiography. If one of the home remedies turns out to be crapola, should I just chuck the whole bookshelf into a bonfire? Wouldn't that be kinda stupid? How controlled - by the ideas and thinking of others - would I have to be to do that and think I'm doing a <b><i>good</i></b> thing?</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I like the idea of God's Spirit. I like it a lot. God within us. Some might call it the conscience or the inner voice. Whatever works for you. BUT - here's why evangelicals and fundamentalists don't like it...</span><br />
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<b><u><span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">They can't control it.</span></u></b><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">The bible? If they can point you to that box, they can keep you in that box. As long as you're devoted to it, you have to be devoted to the words in it, or, their interpretations of those words. They'll conform you to its shape, size, even its dialect. You'd be surprised at how many Christians think God's an Englishman. Seriously. Or how many pentecostals prophecy or interpret tongues in middle-ages King's English, replete with thees and thous. Seriously. Because they worship a collection of books, being controlled by the religious culture they're a part of.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">That God cat, on the other hand, if he were to communicate directly to you, bypassing the middleman of religious authority, well now, we just can't have that kind of thing. He might tell you something different than they want you to believe. Loss of control means increased threat for shaky religious people, especially when, by and large, modern Christianity is attempting to make disciples of Paul rather than of Christ. Everything, every single thing, about the way modern evangelical churches are ran is shaped by Paul. Not by Jesus. From authority structures, "pastors", deacons, elders, "discipline", and so on. Jesus never talked about any of those things, and in fact, said to call no man your "teacher" in a spiritual sense, because you have only ONE teacher: God.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">(<i>When I say "everything", I should temper that with the acknowledgement that they go back to the OT for the idea of tithing. They gotta get paid and all. 10% sounds about right for that. A lot less stress than giving ALL, which is something Jesus taught was to be done when needed. Can't have those big houses, fancy cars, and private jets if you go doing something crazy like giving most of your money away to people who need it.</i>)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">The "God within" concept has taken me so far away from tradition I'd need Rand-McNally to find my way back. This threatens people. Needlessly. I no longer use the term "personal relationship" with God. It doesn't genuinely fit. I consider myself in a "process" or "experience" with God. I don't understand God well enough to be "in a relationship" with him (and neither do you, btw). I don't have genuine relationship with people I don't understand, so why would my experience with God be any different? Doesn't mean I don't love God or that I lack devotion to the process and experience. I'm just being realistic. When I have to rationalize (or accept rationalizations of) God to religious people, or make excuses for God to secular people, that would be one hell of a dysfunctional relationship.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I'm pursuing truth, and truth alone. If you're of the "God's gonna get ya!" mind about that, first of all you're a religious addict, and second, pushing the sociopathic, "Love me or I'll kill ya!" version of God doesn't exactly sway me or make me all warm and fuzzy. I'm pretty sure that if God can create the universe as we know it, he isn't threatened by a few questions, even those with sharp points. Frankly, when I physically meet God, Lucy got some splainin' to do. You don't get answers without asking questions. Quickest route to lacking knowledge? Stop asking questions. This is why unhealthy groups create an environment of fear where you're afraid to question, and usually the leader <b><i>is</i></b> the only acceptable answer. Actions should be informed. Belief should be informed. An <b><i>in</i></b>formed person doesn't generally <b><i>con</i></b>form. As P/QF survivors can tell you, being informed, or even making so much as an effort to be informed, often equates to being rebellious.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">If you're afraid to ask questions of or about God, then you're being controlled, either by someone or something, probably your religious paradigm, and it's mucho unhealthy. If you're in a church that doesn't allow questions, whether on matters of faith or of the leadership, you're in a cult and you need to leave. Immediately. If you're in a church that teaches you to fear God (not in the sense of respect, but in the sense of reprisals for unapproved behaviors or questions), you're in an unhealthy, cultic group, and you need to leave. Immediately.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I'm not interested in letting you, or anyone else, control my mind by constantly pointing me to a collection of books. I can, and will, do my own thinking, <b><i>especially</i></b> where God is concerned. That one's kind of a biggie. If you wanna let someone else do your thinking for you, that's your call. I recommend you don't. If you want to worship a collection of books, that's your call. I recommend you don't.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">If you feel threatened by this article, that's called a "tell". It says a lot more about you than it does about me.</span>Lewishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05596138376570543467noreply@blogger.com14