picnic in babylon

but why the appeal to christianity? cant we love and forgive and share without christ? of course- its politics- needs a product to sell and a face to sell it christianity has become the new marxism- for the left- they have discovered that they can galvanize around it and be more properly fundamentalist than the christian right- rather than a jesus for war or oil or individualism, capitalism, fascism, imperialism, they have discovered the first jesus- a jesus for communalism, love, non violence- the conservative christ was for belief- the belief in christ- for salvation in the next life- which allows business to go on as usual- the new or return- the liberal christ demands that love as a weapon against hate, bigotry, oppression- to transform this life- i'm sure this begins with the liberation theology in south america- and the catholic hierarchy in rome's battle against itj.j. altizer- "christian atheism"- "the message the christian is now called to proclaim is the gospel, the good news of the death of god. few christians have been able to embrace the death of god as a redemptive event." if god- for whom all things are possible- all power rests there with god- if god renounces this ability to control and change- humans have the potential to act to change (it would seem- but i am beginning to think it is a great illusion and a dangerous one) but god has more than potential power god is potency and he relinquishes it- into absolute acceptance- of suffering of pain- and he forgives- then i think it says- your god is not power and violence and law and compulsion but your god that you worship and hold in your heart is intentional powerlessness- acceptance love and forgiveness and patience- in fact in the gospels christ says- let he who has power renounce it and then they shall enter the kingdom of heaven i was reading vaneigem and he said god killed his son- and immediately i began thinking about the dying savior god motif in myth- its not the son- its god- this is something i have 'overlooked' forgotten- god did not kill his son- god killed himself- or rather god let us kill him- jesus is not 'god's son'- jesus is god come in the flesh in human form- 'the son of god' is a inexact way to articulate the divine in the flesh- but the trinity idea of the greeks says- fatherson- holy spirit- these three are one- god is son son is god god is spirit spirit is son- its the same- there is no difference- god incarnated and died- this is the tope of these myths- not god had a son and sacrificed that son- and he cries out on the cross- why have i forsaken myselfgod asks himself: why did i allow myself to be destroyed? why did i abandon myself to the violence of these humans? why did i give up my power to go through this experience of torture and death? this is the fun of theology- i think god dying rather than gods son dying- gets overrrun by the hebrew sacrifice of the son idea from the story of abraham- such a powerful and confusing myth from the old testamentchristianity and psychiatry- affinitiesthe message of jesus was love, forgiveness- love our enemies, don't judge, turn the other cheek, non violence, etc., certainly foreign ideals to the so called 'christian' world- jesus was a bad dude, a heretic a rebel, a lover not a fighter- dangerous to the man in charge- he was

killed- probably as a political terrorist or something- saramago calls him: the worlds most famous criminal- the message of his teachings spread across the mediteranean- very quicklywithin 20 years of his death there were communities throughout greece, rome, lebanon, syriaall trying to put into practice a communal lifestyle- again, dangerous, throw them to the lion, they are not participating in the officially sanctioned marketplace lifestyle- soon the movement was too big- there was only one choice- the goverment was in jeopardy- this was emperor constantine's lot- constantine- the real creator of 'christianity'? so he calls together the counsel of nicea and orders under threat of death the christians to give him a working doctrine that will be propagated among the masses- becoming the official state religion- none of that shit about peace and love and sharing- its a set of beliefs i want- everyone will believe the same thing- so we get 'christianity'- the nicene creed- almost every church today baptist, evangelical, luthern, whatever- it goes right back to the nicene creed- not the sayings of christnot the bible, pauls letter, etc.,- the nicene creed has 3 key beliefs almost universal to all christians- 1.- man is a sinner- by nature- a man is born fucked up and evil and depraved- so political tool #1: citizens with low self esteem- no one believes in themselves- self worth- noyou're a degenerate- continuing- point 2.- jesus died as a sacrifice for your faults- political tool #2- the guilt of the masses- blood is on your hands you worthless loser- and 3. jesus was resurrected to save you- perpetual and burdening gratitude to your maker that no act can possibly repay- always a loser- always falling short- so a christian is a believer and what he essentially believes is his own stupidity and worthlessness- but on the surface he believes in the crucifixion and the resurrection- so what happened to the teachings of jesus? poof! a magic act worthy of an emperor- jesus has vanished- one neednt love or forgive one only needs to believe in the resurrection- so on to psychiatry- the psychatrists have now become the master illusionists worthy of the early church bishops praise- pay no attention to that man behind the curtain- okay- it goes like this- in every way similar to the counsel of nicea- 1. man is sick- mentally ill, depressed, what have you- of course we are talking about the field of medicine though- arent we- wait- is psychiatry 'medicine'? if i have AIDS my immune system is compromised and i can die- ADD will not get worse and worse until i have such a short attention span that i will just drop dead- if i have obsessive compulsive disorder i fill out a multiple choice questionairre- do i fill out a multiple choice questionaire if i have leukemia? so- made up diseases- we have to 'believe' we are 'sick' with these fake disease- a continuation of sin- man is pathological- number two: salvation on the cross- the eucharist- the body of christ- the pill- salvation comes in the form of the pill- the new body of christ to save you from your sin- 3- resurrection- the new life begins- a new birth- born again- and the fake sickness and the fake treatments- being chemical toxins- will only reinforce that you are sick- because the drugs will give you real symptoms- making you feel like shit- gratitude to the good doctors freud titled a book 'the pathology of everyday life'- and he wasnt joking! why not just call it 'the illness of perception'- we are all fucked- was he trying to ingratiate himself on europe by creating an indispensable profession?- convincing us we were all sick with a mysterious and invisible disease or diseases that only he was capable of diagnosing- does it continue the judeo christian paradigm of sin- sans god- and where does the notion of the martyr come from- is that purely christian- its hard to find anything like that in judaism- christ's passion and suffering were not his- a greek after thought- the greek gods suffer and we suffer with them but not distinctly without them- suffering to connect to god is neither greek nor hebrew but born of the union of the two- again a unique and disturbing phenomenon of the coming together of the two strands of religion-

campbell and robbins both talked about this disturbing split in western consciousness which they both saw as arising directly from christianity- its a sort of celebratory/ carnivalesque/nature/mother cult overlayed with the jewish patriarchal god of the law- so we end up with catholicism- this baroque pantheon of saints appropriated from martyrs and early pre christian european myths- and the mother worship in the form of the virgin mary and the resurrected god jesus continuing the greek mysteries of dionysis, eluesis, orpheus, etc., - so we have a pantheistic and ecstatic, orgiastic and polytheist european conception of the world and divine and salvation and an abrupt and aggressive cut into that with a semitic cults coming to predominance with the ruling elites and the forced conversions and propagation of the faith of a single god- that is mythic gods and a 'real' god vying in the consciousness and two distinct forms of religiousity at play- liberation and law- transcendence and obedience- represented by two distinct roots- the european and the hebrew/middle eastern- interestingly i think here lies the beginnings of 'consciousness' as we know it- that was to be conceived by the philosophers and theologians- not the 'birth' but the conception- these two parents- the hebrew cult and the mediterranean mystery cults- planted the seed- for what maybe hegel would call the 'unhappy consciouness'- which is consciousness- because when i am conscious of my self- aware of myself as individual- distinct - then i feel also my separateness from things and others- the mysteries sought to unite man with his fellow man nature and god- but the hebrew cult demands that man and god be separated by a vast chasm- reconciled only through gods will and power- but the distinctness of god and man- is key to middle eastern religion- and god is the sole center- my point- that these two forces are irreconsilable- and pulling us in two directions- exactly what campbell says- getting to what i want to say- i have been reading about psychoanalysis as a further semetic imposition on the western paradigm (blatant antisemitism or ?) sure we can call something anti-semitic but should we ignore criticism based on these grounds? heidegger was a brilliant philosopher- and a nazi- ?- i dont know- but freud was very much jewish- and it really begins with him- he himself wrote on the pathology of christianity and the brilliance of judaism- (conversely lacan said of all the religions only christianity comes close to the real) early critics in austria- before auschwitz of courseastutely exposed freuds semitic chauvanism- what would europe be without the hebrew influence- but had he further imposed the semitic veil over western consciousnesschristianity is a greek religion that has been overlayed and twisted by semetic notions and psychoanalysis too is greek myth that has been subjected to a literal hermeneutic by a devout jew (who admitted to doing his best work while on cocaine) his first talks on his theorieswhich were not accepted by the anti semetic austrian medical community- were delivered at synogauges- not to doctors but to worshippers- and it was the gentile's mind- that needed healing- according to freud jews are actually quite well adjusted thanks to their wonderful religion- unlike the neurosis that christianity attends- paul was no less a freud when he diagnosed the gentiles as sick unrepentant sinners that god had abandonded- it was his mission to save them through christthe inhumanity of transcendence? In son of man harvey says that in order to merge with christ we must make our way through increasingly severe trials of suffering- as christ did as he was whipped and beaten and finally crucified at which point he had already passed beyond life and death- keep doubting