Religion is Bullshit

I've been trying to go to sleep but haven't really succeeded tonight. Instead my thoughts have strayed to my brother and trying to reconcile a civil relationship. I thought about the topic of religion, the reason why we fought in the first place. I was the instigator, as usual. I see ignorance and cannot leave it alone, thus becoming ignorant myself. The importance of what occurred to me is to let him know that his faith does not offend me, if it did what would that say about me? Should anything in the vast universe offend me? If it exists then it is as it should be, universal evolution doesn't depend on my petty egotistical desire to prove someone wrong. But if I'm to embrace the universe, how am I to explain unpleasant phenomenon? The most easily reviled matter that comes to mind is feces, we call tings we don't like shit. Its the final stage of matter after digestion, it can longer be absorbed by the body so as to provide any nourishment. What was once a desirable meal has had its essence digested and leaving a husk of shit behind. When babies need change or pets have accidents indoors the stench is unmistakable. So ponder on that for a moment, is there some use in its existence? Sure, nature is self sustaining, so it fertilizes soil, its great for potty humor and it gives us some wonderful descriptive terms to define things we hate, or just things in general. I can think of an allegory just like it.

Spiritual essence is digested by humanity in its mystical form through myths and dreams, leaving only the material remains adopted by religions in the form of dogmas (notice that they fixate on what people do with their bodies). Religious fundamentalism is humanity's metaphorical fecal matter, sure it stinks, but it exists for a reason. We see it in the world and strive to get rid of it's poison, we clean up its mess, we poke fun at it. Watch an extremist at a party tell people that they need to repent and find Jesus and you'll see them flee, just the same as if he took a dump on the carpet. Its quite funny actually, though sad in reality. Either way, it shouldn't personally offend anyone with genuine spiritual aspirations, its just bullshit. Looking at it this way, I don't know why I poked at this issue so much with my brother, I only made a messy situation smell even worse.

Demon Dream - Round 2

Today I took an afternoon nap while Irv and Lisa were out and Alden was at Kevin's. The dream begins in the house next door, same time and overcast weather as the actual day. The kitchen next door was empty, including the fridge we use for storage, in its place was the old round wooden table and two small chairs that used to belong to that kitchen. Lisa was sitting across from me facing the backdoor entrance into the kitchen, facing East. As we were talking I realized that this was a dream. I remembered that I had, in fact, taken a nap while she was out. I then lovingly reached out to her and tried to explain that I love her, but this is just a dream. I felt a surge upwards as my dream-body began to float away from her, even as I reached to touch her face.

Instead of awaking, the dream fades into another sequence in the same setting, though this time the table was set closer to the center of the room. Sitting at the North end of the table was Lisa again, though this time she was looking slightly downwards at the table, as though absent minded while muttering things to herself. I sat close to her at her right side, touched her arm leaning on the table and asked her what she was saying. She looked at me with malicious eyes that weren't her's at all and continued to mutter gibberish a little louder this. In my inexplicable dream-world understanding I knew it to be a demonic language, out of which I made out the words goetia and ritual or evocation. I was immediately reminded of a ritual I've been planning to do this month, though mundane life has made me forgetful. Today is March 16, 2010, for a while I had planned something for March 15th, even so, I had worked yesterday and upon coming home I was completely sidetracked by the day's activities. The period from march 11th to March 20th marks the calendar days attributed to Andromalius, a goetic spirit I've already employed in a relatively minor matter without any formal ritual. My suspicions that the earlier demonic dreams are connected with this spirit are all the stronger now, as they were in that dream-instant. I pulled away from touching not-Lisa and it vanished before my eyes, I was standing alone in the kitchen looking around, fully lucid. A defiant instinct in me drove to to call it “SHOW YOURSELF, DEMON!” Realizing that I was rashly calling it without any precaution, I closed my dream-eyes and forged a mental circle about me for protection. No circle was needed, it was gone and the scene needed to play out in my unconscious was over. I woke up groggy, just enough to realize real-from dream and went back to napping, vainly hoping to learn more.

Edit: Its important to note that at some point during this dream, I felt power all over my body, that feeling of enlightened rapture covering my sleeping body. Its like prolonged goosebumps, though that description alone doesn't do it justice. It flows from me like golden light radiating from the Sun. I don't remember the exact moment within the dream, I think I first sensed it when waking up from the first layer, but I'm not certain.

Old School Dream

Its hard to remember now how the dream actually started, it just faded into memory now. I remember arriving at my old high school in Long Island with a stack of three books I selected from mine and Lisa's library. I set them down in one corner of the art room and started planning another large painting commission. At that moment the pain of revisiting that place hit me all at once as I realized that Susan Hersh was no longer alive, a distant memory in my past. I thought of all the hassle of physically purchasing and assembling the same materials all over again on my own. The archival way of doing this only occurred to me just moments ago while awake. I was alone in the semi-dark room, with lights off and only the north light from the overcast day filtering into my surroundings enhancing the dream-like setting. Students started casually filing into the room, talking quietly amongst themselves pay no mind to me and my project. I remember a friend, Kerry as she looked in the past amongst them, I would identify Sean later. I was aware that I was older, as I am now, and slowly I began to see that the entire project was an unrealistic undertaking. I lived in NJ and had no place to stay, I was not about to even try my mother's house even if she took me in. I had 3 stacks of books because they were a way of bringing my home and my loved ones with me. The thought of Lisa made me want to drop everything and go home.

I looked at some of the student drawings and recognized poorly drawn versions of my own drawings from everyday life. Amongst them were a few drawings of Harmony, the black and white cat. I proceeded to interrupted their chatter about art and half-jokingly accuse them of stealing all my ideas, the room went silent and I walked away into the teacher's office next to the room. It occurred to me that I kept waiting to meet this other teacher that had replaced Sue there, but the teacher never arrived. It was like some unreal entity that everyone except myself knew, but never actually manifested itself in the dream. So there I was stuck in a teacher's role though it had nothing to do with what I was there for. At my best I observed student's behavior like a distant anthropologist, at my worse I felt the entire place was beneath me. When leaving I caught a conversation between Sean and a friend of his. It sounded like a critique of a art film his friend was working on about bi-sexual relationships, and I mused to myself on how progressive that was for a high school setting. That was the last passing observation as we all walked out of a school building that was by then structurally morphing into the school of my childhood in Brazil. The dream faded once again.