I wasn’t going to write anything about the situation with Israel, mostly because, while I have an opinion, nobody really cares about my opinion (except so much as it validates or contradicts their own and in doing so either comforts or triggers their personal insecurities). And also because that’s not why I’m here and what this blog is intended to be about.
I’ll weigh in on one aspect, namely the painful idiocy of
some of the so-called “spiritual people” who claim to be fellow travelers. Let me say this, if you’re going to weigh in
on this issue, and if you’re going to put your spiritual credentials on the
line, DON’T be the stereotypical spiritual moron.
Saying that a group of terrorists invading and killing
unarmed people is the same as armed conflict is factually and morally false,
intellectually lazy, and spiritually, well, “unhelpful,” to put it very mildly.
Please stop being the stereotype by conflating the conscious,
deliberate torture and killing of unarmed women and children with armed
conflict. They’re not the same – not in
God’s book or any other sane person’s book.
There’s no “self-defense” argument for committing deliberate acts of
murder, rape, and torture on unarmed people.
“They did x, y, z first” is not a moral argument. It’s incredibly stupid.
If you want to take a “spiritual pacifist” stand (a problematic
stance, but we’ll use it for the sake of argument), part of that stance
requires you to detest evil. Read that
again. You are SPIRITUALLY REQUIRED to
DETEST EVIL. Not “be neutral on the
subject of good and evil,” but to STAND for good and actively RESIST evil. Now, the “pacifist” stand would call for
doing so in a “non-violent way,” which is where the whole “problematic” aspect
comes in, and I’m not going to get into the idiocy (in my opinion) of “spiritual
pacifism,” but the directive to STAND FOR GOOD and OPPOSE EVIL comes BEFORE the
“non-violent” part. It’s in the name “SPIRITUAL
pacifist.” Otherwise you’re just “Intellectually
lazy, wimpy and morally noncommittal Neutral Man” which is a worthless,
low-vibration sub-human waste of oxygen.
You might as well identify as a fish, except even fish fight when they
have to. So what does that make you, a vegetable?
Again, to reiterate, a KEY part of spirituality is a
commitment to God, which means a commitment to GOOD, which means you are
commanded to differentiate between good and evil, support good and condemn
evil. I don’t know why people think they
can reject this central aspect of God-centeredness and go around with an air of
fake moral superiority, but all they’re doing his damaging their own karma and
making themselves (and the rest of the community who doesn’t call them out on
this) look like jackasses. It’s a big
reason why most people look down on the “new-age spiritual community,” it isn’t
God-centered, it seems to be just drug and sex-centered and an excuse to wear
dumb clothing and jewelry.
So getting back to how this ties into the latest Israel
situation, if you’re unable to morally identify the evil acts and parties in
this scenario, you’re really lost. But
let me spell out the obvious: taking up
guns, knives, bombs and other weapons against unarmed and unsuspecting civilians,
doing so in a calculated manner so as to “surprise” the victims and cause the maximum
amount of death and destruction, committing murder, rape and torture – is bad. It’s morally wrong. Period.
The episode is horrific, tragic, mournful and the acts committed appalling
and despicable. You don’t need to spend
years on a spiritual journey, take a bunch of drugs, bang drums or vomit in
front of a fake shaman to figure out which side is God and which side is against
God.
Once you’ve firmly and unequivocally established right from
wrong and oriented yourself with God, then you can debate the nuances of policy
(I will not get into this) from a spiritually solid foundation.
So let’s break down some of the “Incredibly Stupid Spiritual
Logic” going around:
“What do you expect?
They live in an open-air prison!”
Leaving aside the stupidity of the whole “open-air prison”
argument (and it is stupid, sorry not sorry), let’s look at this from the God lens. Are you suggesting God absolves the acts of
prisoners who go on a rampage? Are you
suggesting a detestable act is less detestable depending on the geographic
origin of the act, or the living conditions of the perpetrators? Where does God say such a thing? Because I can point to all sorts of spiritual
evidence that God says the EXACT OPPOSITE.
Bottom line, good is good, evil is evil and equivocation is the tool of
the devil. The forces of good have no
interest in creating moral confusion, the forces of evil certainly do.
“Israel took their land!”
Where does God say “If someone takes something of yours, go
forth and rape and murder their unarmed neighbors and burn their children alive”?
And please don’t come back to me with your bullshit interpretation of “eye for
an eye,” that’s NOT how it’s interpreted and people need to heed the warning
about twisting the word of God for evil purposes, you’re poisoning your own
karma in your defense of evil.
“Israel has done bad things!”
Where does God say “If your neighbor has done a fair amount
of evil, then you too can commit some evil and I’ll let it all slide.” Finding evil in B doesn’t absolve the evil in
A. I’m not saying expanding your search
of evil in the world isn’t a useful inquiry – it can be. But turning around and saying “I FOUND EVIL,
so these guys are okay now!” is 100% wrong.
“This was God’s will.”
Dude, sit down, you’re drunk. You don’t know God’s will, but every “spiritual”
jackass thinks they are the one prophet that knows the mysteries of God. They don’t.
You don’t. So just shut up. A faithful servant does not claim to know the
mind of his master, he does what he’s told. Be humble and kind, not arrogant
and stupid. If you’re a servant of God,
make your words a reflection of God, not another pile of poop for him and his
followers to clean up while you run around claiming prophet status.
“Religion is evil.”
Alright, we’ve all heard about the Crusades, the
Inquisition, 9-11, barbarians sacking and this and that in the name of God, as
well as your stupid opinions of gay issues, abortion and whatever. Nobody fucking cares what you think about history
or politics. History is full of human
failures. Humans fail. So the solution isn’t more humans and less
God, it’s focusing on something bigger than ourselves. The fact that we fall short in that goal
doesn’t condemn the goal. You don’t have
to be a theologian or iron out all the contradictions in major religions to
follow God, support good and condemn evil. Children can do it (when we adults
aren’t raping and murdering them), you can too.
“But but but… I wanna be able to fuck and do drugs without
feeling guilty about going to Hell.”
-Said out loud by nobody. Which is really too bad.
Because I’d have a WHOLE lot of respect for someone who said what they’re really feeling, instead of making these ridiculous moral arguments equivocating good and evil and bashing God. But think about where that guilt is coming from and why it might be driving you to avoid good and apologize for evil, real evil, not that misdemeanor crap you’re doing that keeps you up at night fearing Hell.
Let me just say this, your struggles in life are why you are here. Life is a struggle. Life is imperfect – in fact that’s where the beauty of life is, in the imperfection. That’s part of the reason AI art looks so hideous and nightmarish – “perfection” is kind of repulsive. You’re not expected to be perfect. But just because you struggle with things like “sex and drugs feel great, but I also feel guilty about serving God because I feel bad about those things in that context” doesn’t mean you aren’t a servant of God. And it doesn’t mean you need to “be okay” with obvious evil in the world or give up your search for the good in life.
You’re imperfect. I’m imperfect. Yet God still call us to service, so obviously he sees some use in our imperfect asses. And it doesn’t mean we’re unqualified to call out real evil when we see it or to ask what God wants us to do next. I’m sure most of those poor victims had some shit in their lives, but nothing compared to evil that befell them at the hands of monsters. We’re all a little fucked up, but we’re not all monsters. But monsters do exist, and it’ll take good people (imperfect as we are) doing everything we can to fight back with our light.
And that, good people, is what the spiritual battle is really about.
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