God

The spirits of our ancestors

by Mich

The spirit world will prevail.

Religion, to borrow the hippie cry about war — what is it good for?

Independent of religion, there may exist a spirit world, and an afterlife. Spiritualism is far and beyond the pop culture of Christianity, Islam, and several other religions.

The Romans, in their life Before Christ, believed in ‘the gods,’ that is, more than one — polytheism — and in spirits. They believed the spirits of their ancestors watched over them.

This was a working and relatively civilized mindset. They did not impose their religious beliefs on the people they conquered in battle.

Then along came this guy claiming to be the ‘Son of God’ and upset the apple cart.

Who was this man, Jesus Christ? Was he a madman, a drifter and a grifter who pulled off the greatest hoax in human history? Or was he, in fact, the son of God? If he really was the son of a good and merciful God that deserves to be praised and obeyed, then somewhere along the way, something went hellishly wrong.

The religion that Christ spawned battles other religions — Islam being the most dominant — for recognition and prominence. Christians and Muslims fight each other with self-righteous fervor and a violence that degrade a sacred belief that could be the ultimate truth. They turn religion into a brawl more befitting the lowlife that populate political parties.

The spirit world will prevail.

Religion has become an ugly business, while the spirits — and yes, one hopes, the spirits of our ancestors — dwell in a sane and genteel space somewhere far beyond religion.

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Belief is in the mind of the beholder

by Mich

Seeking a spiritual ‘reality’

You’re not a religious man but you do like going into cathedrals. St. Patrick’s in New York. Notre-Dame in Paris (before the fire).

You and your wife visited Notre-Dame on a trip to Paris years ago. She, being Catholic, felt closer to God, You, being nothing, felt closer to Something.

When you and your wife went into St. Patrick’s she prayed for her dying father. You gave thanks to a World War II paratrooper who jumped out of planes and helped save the world. And for giving you your wife.

When you lose a soulmate of thirty years you feel like half your life has been shot away. You are maimed. You need help. You don’t find it in the material world so you take the train into the City and go into St. Pat’s to feel closer to your wife.

You don’t know where she is, maybe nowhere, but if there is a spiritual ‘reality,’ then inside that cathedral is a good place to find it.

So, religion has its place. But you don’t need it to believe in a life after this one.

The afterlife, if it exists, is a metaphysical, supernatural ‘fact,’ not a product of religious teachings which may be mostly, certainly partly, mythical and fictional.

In other words, it’s possible to cut through the bull and go straight to the ‘mind’ of the matter, an awareness beyond objective experience.

Words like God and heaven and soul become irrelevant. What is the soul anyway? — but the mind — ah-hah! — now there’s something. The mind, or more precisely, the brain, is a masterpiece, a miracle of creation, and not necessarily God’s creation. What is God? — an illusion, delusion, a fervent hope, an unanswered prayer?

Religion is like politics — too many different ideologies preaching, yelling, fighting among themselves to be heard and obeyed, or else — or else what? — eternal damnation? To hell with that. Religion confuses, it screws with your head, it rattles on about God and Jesus Christ and soul and heaven and adoration and Glory be to God blah blah blah.

Too much noise, man. You don’t need it to belief that there is — that there may be — a dimension, sensation, phenomenon, an as-yet undiscovered wavelength, an otherworldly life after this lousy one.

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Genesis of the Jackdaw

by Mich

The Jackdaw of Unreason Moves in Mysterious Ways

1 ¹Elmore Mich saw the light and it was black. ²And he said, Let there be light. ³And God said, Fuckoff.

2 ¹Undeterred, Elmore sought enlightenment in the depths of a fifth of Scotch. ²And he drank the fifth at the Firth of Forth. ³And on the fifth day he created the Jackdaw of Unreason.

3 ¹The Jackdaw of Unreason was imbued with the spirit of God. ²Because God and Heaven cannot be reached through reason. ³Only unreason.

4 ¹And Elmore saw that it was good. ²And he blessed the Jackdaw, saying, Be fruitful and multiply. ³And the Jackdaw lay 2.38 million eggs throughout the world and called them Christians.

5 ¹Elmore castigated the Jackdaw for over-laying, and called him unclean and detestable. ²Upon hearing that, the Jackdaw flew to the very edge of Heaven. ³And from that great height and with pinpoint accuracy crapped on Elmore’s head.

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