No Direction Shown, No Direction Known…
The great migrations have already begun, the migrations that follow the collapse of civilizations, the migrations that mark our reversions to instinct, the migrations that herald the coming of new eras. People once followed herds of game in hope of food; now we follow herds of heroes in hope of happiness. The best travel is the old-fashioned kind, miles of trials, count your age by the stamps in your passport. The nice thing about a perfectly symmetrical planet is that if you walk in a straight line in any direction, you’ll come back right to where you started. I like that.
the desire for absolutes is what drives much of religion, to not only have something to believe in, but for it to be simple and concise. Most religions fulfill this niche spectacularly, what with their ten commandments and their four noble truths and their eight-fold paths and their twelve-step programs, the dumbing-down implicit and inherent since day one, the need to keep it simple paramount…
The best part about Christianity is the forgiveness, of course, the ability—no, the requirement—to wipe the slate clean, and start over anew… renewed… with tabula rasa… a blank slate… a new life… reborn in the spirit… in the flesh… en la boeuf… in the buff… at the small price of confession, at the small request of compassion…
Esther Fabbricante are discussing. 
I don’t know why there is such hatred from mostly-Christian Westerners toward Middle Eastern cultures generally and Islamic religion specifically, any more than I know why there is such racism toward black people from those same Westerners. I suspect it’s because we’re so similar, and historically so close geographically, so competing for the same turf, really, physically and psychologically. They’re violent; we’re violent. They’ve had great cultures; we’ve had great cultures. They’re stubbornly opinionated; we’re stubbornly opinionated. They had slavery; we had slavery. So why all the animosity?
The future for the planet ain’t so good, to be perfectly honest. If I were a fire-and-brimstone preacher, I’d probably say it’s God’s wrath punishing us for our many sins, trespasses and transgressions, and not forgiving those who trespass against us. That metaphor is powerful, and quite effective, but only if you believe in a war God, a God of wrath, and one that inspires great fear, the Judaic god that Christianity tried to soften for a kinder gentler soft Chuy future, with varying degrees of success.
streaming consciousness... 
Reply