I never did meet a monster who wasn't human. I never did meet an angel who had wings or a halo. I always did wonder if those old paintings weren't born from the hands of artists recreating the ironically inconceivable. The Devil was the concept of evil. The demons were the human beings who indulged in and enjoyed cruelty, and those who, for whatever reasons, did things which hurt themselves and/or other people. God was the concept of good. Angels were the human beings who had an incredible capacity for kindness and compassion. Much later in life, I would think that was exactly where we went wrong. We taught ourselves to see demons and angels as something apart from us, the human beings. We taught ourselves to believe real monsters don't exist. And then we stand by as they are released from prisons (for instance) because we have taught ourselves to see them as human beings apart from demons and monsters. When we are met with unadulterated compassion or kindness, we are confused, hesitant, even suspicious, because we have taught ourselves well illusion.
We will read The Divine Comedy, and openly discuss the details. But generally, the detailed atrocities carried out by serial killers are censored for their "graphic nature." We protect our illusion.
Horror was never in the abstract expressions of canvas or word weaving artists. Horror has always been, and always will be, quite fucking real. Perhaps that is what led us to look for an orderly supernatural in the first place.
8.17.2006
We Never Needed The Supernatural Heaven or Hell
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Justice.
2 Spoke On It:
Good Morning Justice!
Thank you for your email :-) And here is my response--slightly revised for the 2500 character limit.
I would like to say thank you for posting "We Never Needed the Supernatural Heaven or Hell."
I personally grew up with a mother who was "Christian-Crazy," as I like to call it. She believed in her religion only in the literal sense. When I was 8 or so, she told me that Dinosaur bones were planted by scientists in order to effectively refute the "factual nature" of Creationism. I believed her until my science teacher explain the half-life of carbon dating techniques in 7th grade. Boy, was I pissed! And I guess in many way s I still am very angry. Not necessarily because she was crazy when I was growing up, but because she is still the exact same person today as she was when I was 8.
I am thankful that I grew up with a mother who was such an extreme example of Christian-craziness, because today, at age 28, I am able to clearly see and understand what you wrote. In fact, due to the severe nature of my mother's outrageous craziness growing up, I learned how to see religion this way very early on in life. And I see exactly how religion/beliefs in general, only seem to serve to divide us all from understanding and accepting our one true and obvious similarity--all of us on this Earth are human beings, and yes, we do have control over how we go about living this life, how we treat ourselves, and how we treat others. I often ask for people to take responsibility for themselves and to leave Jesus out of it--poor fellow.
I still don't really get how people can live their entire lives--never seeing someone reincarnate, never seeing someone "rise from the dead", never having any sort of Earthly example of the hocus-pocus drivel religion offers its imaginative, yet gullible sheep, and yet, they still believe don't they? They call it faith--I call it absolute ignorance and/or several different mental disorders.
I view the creation of religion as human beings most celebrated weakness and biggest divider of most human beings kind and gentle nature. The ones that are paying attention on this Earth question religions preposterous answers to the unanswerable, and accept that they may not have any answer.
-janelle
You figured out how to use this thing! Very cool. It was good to see your comment here, where others can read it.
Again, thanks for the response. I appreciate your view and willingness to share it.
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