Cherry Pie

I might not literally have sprayed my coffee over my keyboard, but my reaction was as near as doing so. The 2016 American presidential election campaign was still in full swing, and I was listening to a reporter on the BBC World Service gather public opinions on the candidates. A woman in Colorado Springs was quizzed about her reaction to Donald Trump’s now-notorious ‘locker room’ tape in which he allegedly bragged about his sexual groping activities. An ardent Trump supporter, she breezily admitted with a laugh that she “tended to quickly forget about such things”.

Now Colorado Springs, I know, is regarded as a bastion of good Christian values, but here was someone who in a moment was entirely prepared to betray both her own gender and what she presumably regarded as her God-given sense of moral worth. This woman simply turned a blind eye to what by any yardstick were gloatingly smutty and demeaning sexual remarks made by her favoured candidate. Since the woman already had declared both her political and her religious allegiance to the reporter, I was left scratching my head. How could she possibly reconcile her political stance with her religious one? Clearly she did not form her political opinion on what was morally right, but on what was expedient. And if this was so, then by extension this presumably also applied to her religious beliefs. And then the penny dropped.

‘Cherry picking’ is a term used, usually in the context of a debate, to describe the glossing-over or outright omission of facts which you know would weaken the case that you are presenting. It is a form of deliberate self-censorship designed to bolster your beliefs or world view, and its effect is one of self-deceit. [1]Cherry picking keeps you in your comfort zone, and although the practice can apply generally, it is often found in the sphere of religious beliefs. I would even suggest that a religious belief might not actually survive were it not subjected to cherry picking, however overtly or subtly the practice is deployed.

If we need to hear that God is love, then we prefer not to be reminded that this same God intends to force us to suffer terrible and agonizing torments without hope of reprieve forever merely for [2]blaspheming against Him. The two concepts are directly contradictory, for love – and certainly the magnanimity of deific love – can surely have nothing to do with the eternal torturing of the souls which are its own creation? Such an act, or even just the stipulation of it, would make God, not a god of love, but a god who would take all the prizes for sheer unbridled sadism: a god whom anyone with even a stroke of moral decency would reject out-of-hand.

We are rescued from this impasse by cherry picking. We might gloss over this darker side of God (and it is a very dark side indeed) to instead concentrate our thoughts upon the love and redemption aspects of our beliefs, and thus reassured, move swiftly on. We might even attempt to excuse it by claiming that this simply proves that God is a ‘just’ god, which is the apologist’s stance. But if this is justice, then it is the ruthless justice of the lynch mob, of the kangaroo court – or of the Inquisition. It is justice devoid of compassion. It is as if religion, by its very nature, contains paradoxes which overwhelm us. And perhaps they do.

The paradoxes in scripture are indeed overwhelming. I have read many passages which give every indication of positively reveling in the slaughter of ‘God’s enemies’, and demand the grimmest of [3]punishments, such as the stoning to death of your own son for mere wayward disobedience. How about making a human sacrifice of your daughter? Absolutely, if you have vowed to God to do just that. Since this is Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age tribalism, such rough justice need not surprise us. What should rightly appall us is that we still regard such writings as ‘holy scripture’ right here in our own 21st-century.

Ah, but that’s the problem with scripture: it’s all in, or all out. If you want love and redemption, you also have to have stoning to death, slavery, forcing a rape victim to marry her rapist, and other horrors sanctioned by its assorted texts. Redaction of these texts already has taken place, so if you want to change something to which you might object then you’re already too late. Which is what makes cherry picking a near-indispensable activity. If you cannot discretely edit out the less palatable passages, then just brush over them, because no man of the cloth is going to mount his pulpit to deliver an uplifting sermon on how Moses ordered the massacre of the women and children who already had surrendered to his soldiery.

And this, as I finally understood, is what presumably prompted my good Christian citizen of Colorado Springs to react as she did to [4]Donald Trump’s unsavory and uncouth remarks. Her religious beliefs already had put her in cherry picking mode. It must have been an easy switch to apply that same activity to her political affiliations. Moral or not, cherry picking is an entrenched and much-used practice, and when it comes to religious beliefs, cherries, apparently, are always in season.

Hawkwood

Notes:

[1] The term apparently derives from the idea that if someone sees a basket of freshly-picked and delicious-looking cherries, they might assume that all the cherries still on the tree are just as good, whereas the fruit that is left on the tree might actually be too inferior to harvest.

[2] This is specifically stated in Mark 3:29 – “But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.” Good luck to anyone who has ever muttered “Jesus Christ!” as an expletive.

[3] It is usual for me to give chapter-and-verse citations in any post where they apply, but as the citations for the various scriptural incidents mentioned in this post already are given in full on previous posts, I’ll link to those posts here. For misdeeds by Moses, and ‘cruel and unusual’ punishments in scripture, please see my post Frontier Justice in the Promised Land. For the full story of the sacrifice of his daughter to God, please see my post Jephthar's Daughter: Darkness in Gilead. For the God of scripture’s own dubious morality, please see my post Profiling a Psychopath. For scriptural approval of the wholesale massacre of ‘God’s enemies’, please see my post The Butcher of Canaan.

[4] Making America great again? It is interesting that, in addition to his cavalier dismissal of the importance of climate change issues during his campaign (as witnessed by his ‘climate is just weather’ remark: apparently he does not even understand the vital difference between the two), Donald Trump chose for his campaign slogan the phrase: “Make America great again!” which itself is an example of presupposition. Presupposition, like cherry picking, is a debating ploy in which a statement ‘pre-supposes’ that something is true without providing further evidence to support that statement. To say ‘make America great again’ is to presuppose that America is not great now. You can agree or disagree that it might not be great anymore, but such sleight-of-hand word trickery can so easily go unnoticed and unchallenged.

What is neo-Fascism? The 'Make America great again' slogan expresses core neo-Fascist sentiments: that of a preoccupation with the perceived or actual regeneration of a nation, the running of a country as if it were a business venture, repression by bullying or intimidation in some form of any opposing voices, the encouragement of a personality cult towards the leader, and the promotion of go-it-alone xenophobic isolationism.

Attacking the person: A third debating ploy was self-evident during the campaign: that of ad hominem attacks. That is: you attack the person, rather than the issues or principles for which that person stands.

Pro-life? I will not sit on my hands on the issue supported by born-again Christian Mike Pence, soon to be the new vice president, when it comes to ‘pro-life’, or as it is less coyly and more realistically called: anti-abortion. Outlawing abortion does little to wholly prevent the practice (as we know from the example of Ireland). All it really does is drive women either over a border to a country with different legislation, or into back alleys where other women are waiting for them with one hand outstretched for cash and with a metal knitting needle clutched in the other. In practice, outlawing abortion at best makes having an abortion a medically unsupervised and traumatic experience, and at worst can endanger young women's lives. Taking this stance does not make me a rabid pro-abortion liberal; it just makes me a realist, and I for one would question whether faith-driven pro-life protesters who voice their righteous indignation have even seriously thought through such practical considerations.

A recent actual Russian billboard.

Are Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin really such strange bedfellows? I have written these notes in the time before Donald Trump is sworn in as president, and the following year inevitably will bring more clarity as to which way the wind is really blowing. 'Fascist' is a term that tends to be loosely slung around in a pejorative sense, which is why I tend to be careful about using it. But I do find that in considering whether Donald Trump's views really are 'Fascist' that it's possible to tick all the boxes. It's worth repeating here that one of the central tenets of Fascism is the perceived regeneration of a nation. The slogan 'Make America great again' fits this tenet like a glove.

A kindred spirit? The man himself, I am sure, does not see himself in this way, but calling a duck an eagle doesn't mean that it stops being a duck. Trump's views are essentially Fascist, and the ultra-right wing stance of Fascism (witness the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party, both of whom firmly endorsed Trump's candidacy) have previously in history made bedfellows of the ultra-left wing ideology of communism. Hence Trump's apparent perception of Vladimir Putin as a kindred spirit.

The chink in America's armour? My own view is that in reality Putin, the ex-KGB master of manipulation, is already playing Trump like a violin. Trump's Achilles' heel is his vast vanity, so that is what Putin plays on, and it's working. Trump's political world stage naivety and inexperience has him thinking that Putin is, after all, a pretty okay guy, but history might well record that Trump was the chink in America's armour through which Putin managed to wriggle, and America will be left anything but 'great again'.

Living in hope? As someone who can remember all the presidents (and their election campaigns) as far back as Eisenhower, I can never recall feeling so apprehensive about a coming presidency, both for my friends in America and on the global stage. All we can really do now is hope and trust that 'President Trump' will turn out to be a more civilized person than the uncouth, obnoxious, racist, misogynist, xenophobic, disability-mocking bully so shockingly visible on the campaign trail.
Hawkwood

Stop press: Make China great again! Today, 22 November 2016, carries the news that on his first day in office Donald Trump will pull America out of the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership). Since the partnership of Pacific nations allowed America to have an influence in the region at the expense of China, it doesn't take rocket science to predict that China will now rush in to fill the vacuum left by the U.S. and expand its influence in the region. My own comfortable prediction based on this one myopic decision is that the coming Trump presidency will see a considerable weakening and even a reduction in America's power as a player on the world stage.

Sources:

All photos have been adapted from uncredited sources. The vision of Hell is adapted from a painting by Hans Memling. The sacrifice of Jephthar’s daughter is adapted from a painting by Edwin Longsden Long.

The Mystic Marriage

Is all which I now see around me truly the result of my brief presence on Earth? Has all this truly been done in my name? I came among you with a single intent. Not, as you seem to think, to win redemption for all of you for the sin in Eden (how could you imagine such a thing?). There was no Fall in Eden. The Man and the Woman remained unblemished. So how could there be such a thing as universal redemption when there is no such thing as universal sin? No, the only sin is the personal sin of not being true to one’s own self. That is the greatest betrayal, for if we betray ourselves, then we also betray our true Selves.

But you do not need me to redeem you, for I tell you truly that each and every one of you has the spirit to redeem yourself, because each and every one of you is me, and I am each and every one of you. Why have you forgotten this? I will tell you why: you have forgotten this because you have placed me outside of yourselves. In your frenzy to banish bronze idols you have merely replaced them with another idol. And the idol which you have created is a monster, not of bronze, but of ideas, of doctrines and of dogmas which have served only to divide you against yourselves, and therefore from me also. That idol is myself as you have created me. You have so occupied yourselves with building a towering plinth for me to stand on that you have forgotten that if I am standing high above you then we no longer can look each other in the eye.

And this is not the only idol which you have created in my name. You have built another idol to worship: an idol of words. You have transformed something that shone with the light of my being, something bright with radiant change, into something harder than stone. For even stone, which seems unyielding, changes its form over time. You have taken it upon yourselves to decide what is or is not ‘holy’, and yet I say to you now that all which is thought or said or written with a pure heart is holy in my eyes, and whether something is or is not holy to me is not something for you to decide. And yet this is what you have done. I speak with many voices, and yet how many of my voices have lain in the dust of centuries, or which you even have consigned to the flames, because of the choices which you have claimed to make on my behalf, because of your folly in believing that such choices were yours to make?

Look at the footprints I leave behind in the soil. They are the footprints left by a mortal form who wore only simple woven sandals. And yet many of the footprints left by those who deign to place themselves nearer to me have sunk deep into my earth, weighed down by the finery of their wearers. Their footprints are heavier than my own, and I tell you that their weighty apparel, their jewelled rings and resplendent robes, distances them from me more than the pure of heart who must walk barefoot, for such earthly show is a greater barrier to drawing close to me than the simplest garments worn by those who leave footprints as light as my own. The footprints of the meek have trodden where I also have trodden, and their footprints and mine are therefore the same. Lightness is a virtue, and a crown of thorns weighs less than a crown of jewels and gold, both in this world and in the one to come.

But these robes of earthly glory are not all that in my eyes truly weighs down mortal flesh. If the blood of even one individual is shed in my name, I say to you that the death of that single individual is a matter of greater weight to me than my own mortal death, which was no death but a mere revealing of my true nature, as it is for you all. And yet the lives of millions have been offered up in my name. Where is the kingdom of heaven for those who have swung the sword, or caused conversion in my name by fear or by force, or torched the pyre beneath the stake? How can it ever be attained when all which I truly am has become so misshapen?

How could it have come to pass that so many innocent young souls so precious to me have been damaged by those who actually make claim to represent me, but who in truth only represent their own darkness? I, who have entrusted to the Woman the most difficult and the most sacred task of all, and who should only be honoured, now find Her damned by you. Do you seriously imagine that I will return in triumph when so much that has been done in my name has served only to create damage and division, and even a loss of life itself? Only a fool would think that I one day shall return. The pure of heart know that I have never left.

But why did I come to you at all, if not to redeem a sin of your own imaginings? If redemption exists in each and every moment (and it does), then my descent to earth, my entry into this world of coarse matter, must have been for another reason. And it was. Such events move on a stage greater than your imaginings. They arc across all of time and space, and from time to time these events emerge into your world, become momently visible to your histories, and you create messiahs and mythologies: stories and writings which are mere faint echoes of far larger truths.

So why did I come? Why, if not to redeem, did I descend into this flesh? I had been waiting. I had been waiting for my beloved Other Self, waiting for her arrival in the world so that I might join her and so on earth complete the sacred union of soul and spirit. I came, not for all, but only for one. You, my beloved one, who in these greater realities take the form of the clear voice of wisdom, my bride Sophia, were that One. You, who are the Ocean holding all life within your sacred womb. You, who trod the soil in the same place and at the same time as my own brief sojourn. You, who witnessed my mystic death and resurrection. You, who took me as husband at Cana in a marriage that was the earthly echo of our union which already had found place in the luminous Beyond. Mary, I came for you.

Hawkwood

Sources:

The drawings and paintings in this post have been adapted from the late 19th-early 20th-century works of Odilon Redon. From the top: Closed Eyes, Reflection, Christ, The Golden Cell, and Melancholy.

A Fragment of Love

Please read the following short passage of church doctrine, and see if you find it sympathetic:

“It does not exist in a fixed form, but only by the mutual agreement of persons. It has no members except for those who feel that they belong to it. It has no rivals because it does not nourish the spirit of competition. It has no ambition because it only wishes to serve. It does not have any national boundaries because love does not act in this way. It does not close itself off, as it tries to enrich all groups and religions. It respects all the great teachers of all times who revealed the truth of love. All who belong to it practice the truth of love with their whole being. He who belongs to it knows that.

“It does not try to teach others but only tries to be, and by being, to give. It lives in the knowledge that the whole earth is a living being and that we are part of it. It knows that the time of the last return has arrived; the way of self-surrender, in free will to return to unity. It does not make itself known by loud words, but works in the free domain of being. It salutes all those who have enlightened the path of love and gave their lives for it. It does not create any ranks in its midst and no elevation of anybody, because the one is no greater than the other. It does not promise reward, neither in this nor in another life, yet only the joy of being in that love.

“Its members recognise each other by their behaviour, their way of being, by the look in their eyes and by no other external act than to embrace each other in a brotherly and sisterly way. They know neither fear nor shame and their witness will always be truthful in good as in bad times. The church of love has no secret, has neither mystery nor initiation except for the deep knowledge of the power of love, as the world must change, if we as persons wish it so; but only if first we change ourselves. All those who feel that they belong to it do indeed belong. They belong to the church of love.”

************

Perhaps you agree with me that you would have to be a hard soul indeed not to find this declaration sympathetic. Indeed, in its intentions it sounds remarkably contemporary, and we recognize in it the holistic views of our own world. It is certainly compassionate and tolerant of the views and beliefs of others in a ‘live and let live’ way. It displays humility, taking a stance more of service to others than showing any worldly ambitions of its own. Can you belong to this church of love? Of course you can, in your heart and in your being, if you find its declaration sympathetic. But there is no church as such: there is no building which you can enter and join the congregation. And there is no doctrine to follow, other than what you have read above. But who are its members? Perhaps more to the point: where are they?

What you have read above is one of the few surviving fragments of Cathar writing, and it dates, not from our own times, but from the middle of the 12th-century – the year 1148, to be exact. That Cathar beliefs, more by default than by design, sidelined the authority of the Papal offices proved to be their undoing. The Pope, alarmed at this perceived threat to his [1]power, and concerned by the ever-growing popularity of the Cathars, instigated the Christian-against-Christian [2]Albigensian Crusade.

Over half a century some one million Cathars and their regional Catholic sympathisers were slaughtered. Since strict Cathars were non-combative, most of the so-called military campaigns against them were of the siege-and-massacre type. Those not put to the sword by the Papal crusaders were rounded up and burned alive. And when the military campaign exhausted itself, the Papal Inquisition run by the Dominican order was established to take care of the rest. Whole areas of the Cathar heartlands in the Languedoc region of the south of France were emptied of their populations, and their lands and property were handed over to the Papal offices.

This is why the Cathar church no longer exists: it was exterminated by the will of the Papacy. What survives are these few scraps of Cathar doctrine to tell us how their faith expressed itself: fragments of love for their fellows and tolerance for the beliefs of others. The rest has long blown away on the winds of history, scattered with the ashes of the victims into the still air above the Languedoc.

Hawkwood  

Notes:

[1] I have previously made the point on this blog that there is no such thing as ‘orthodox’ (implying 'correct' or 'right') in religious belief, since all beliefs have their own value. What exists in reality is a power base which allows one to call one’s beliefs ‘orthodox’, and from that power base to then brand other beliefs as ‘heretical’, ‘false’, ‘evil’ – or just plain wrong.

[2] For an account of the Papal campaign and its aftermath please see my post A Dark Crusade. In that post I undertook to write a future post about Cathar beliefs. Allowing the Cathars to express themselves in their own words seemed to be a way to do that. Thanks to Emma for providing me with the Cathar text for this post.

The replica Cathar cross pendant is in my collection.

Sex and Trust

Sex is part of the human condition. Having sex means making oneself vulnerable, and vulnerability needs trust. In such a vulnerable state, we need to be able to trust that our partner will not hurt us in ways that we would not wish for. But what about situations when trust is present, but that trust is betrayed?

Children are in a sense captives in the adult world. They have no option but to trust the adults who rule their world, and on whom they are dependent for their well-being. In the world of a child, an adult is for this reason an authority figure by default. And the wishes of an authority figure have to be accepted. The wishes… and the desires. This is why anything, absolutely anything to do with sex which involves children should come under the jurisdiction of the law, and children have a right to expect of adult society that the society will protect them in any way that is necessary, whether that be through legal means or social services, or just plain neighborly watchfulness.

Tragically, it is generally the case that the very transgressors who betray this most precious child-to-adult trust are themselves in positions of trust. Those within the family circle and priests are the most obvious examples which come to mind. To me, that sort of betrayal of trust amounts to a kind of emotional treason. And tragically as well, I can think of a number of examples in my own circle of acquaintances who have suffered - literally - through their adult lives because of such a betrayal, as I am sure others who read this will be able to. Even when - and if - the perpetrators are brought before the law, their sentence is a statutory one. For the victim, the sentence is always life.

When such laws are broken, and when such trust is betrayed - whether those lawbreakers and betrayers are parents, priests, or whatever their social standing - they should face the law with no exceptions. And if it is found that such felons have been protected by their own hierarchies, then those hierarchies as aiding and abetting accessories should themselves be answerable to the law as well, again with no exceptions. In cruel reality, however, we well know that certain hierarchies are so institutionalized that their leaders are placed beyond culpability by their very power. And it is more than mere tax breaks that sets religious beliefs on a pedestal. It is the mindset of our society which insists on treating religion as a special case when it comes to granting [1]respect, whether that respect is deserved or not.

Anything else sexually which does no actual harm to consenting others should have nothing whatever to do with someone else's imposed moral standards, whether those standards are driven by personally-held morality or by [2]religious beliefs. And that includes the ever-popular indulgence of making assumptions on behalf of this, that, or the other deity as to what we happen to consider that [3]deity would disapprove of.

Nobody should lay their own guilt trip on someone else - and yet everywhere this is done on a daily basis. We seem almost to revel in the hypocritical arrogance of telling others how we think they should behave in their private lives, perhaps because it gives us a smug sense of our own self-righteousness. But the terminus on this particular line leads to the godless moral squalor of the Westboro Baptist Church – and ultimately to the hooded corpses of young gay men hanged from construction cranes in Iran.

Love, true and sincere, is what matters, and whether that love is between gay or straight men and women should have nothing whatever to do with human laws (other than ones protective of human rights) or imposed religious beliefs anywhere. And trust – that most precious of all trusts which a child has no option but to accept from an adult – should never be betrayed.

Love is what matters.

Hawkwood

Notes:

[1] Please see my previous post Respect.

[2] Should anyone reading this feel moved to cite the Bible as their moral compass for such issues, I invite them to read my previous post Frontier Justice in the Promised Land.

[3] Here’s what the Bible specifically states about homosexuality:

Leviticus 20:13 KJV: “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” 'Their blood shall be upon them' is a textual euphemism for 'they shall be stoned to death'.

So if you agree with God’s law as specified in Leviticus that homosexuality should be punishable by death, then presumably for the same reason you also agree that slavery is acceptable, that a rape victim should be forced to marry her rapist, and all the other issues of dubious Biblical morality raised in my above link. In which case, it’s probably time that you went back to living in the Bronze Age – or move to Iran, which is a country that demonstrates what happens when the line between faith and state becomes blurred. But if you disagree that gay men and women should be put to death, then your personal morality is superior to that of the God of the Bible –  and Iranian law – as I for one sincerely hope and trust that it is.    

Sources:

The top image is a frame from my video Jimmy. The other images for this post have been adapted from Scrape TV and other sources. The gay couple (male) are from Reddit, the gay couple (female) are from a photo by Lena Granefelt for Getty Images.