Let's Skip Politics, for Now. At the Least.

“You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”
― C.S. Lewis

Interesting sentiment there. I can agree with it even as I am an arch agnostic. And C.S. Lewis was definitely Catholic/christian. I like the inverse of the usual view. That the soul is this separate part from the self. As an adult, I have had trouble with the whole separate soul bit. It's one of those things that makes for a certain kind of comfortable "spiritual" thought that is too appealing to those seeking spiritual comfort. And that to my mind has the ring of total bullshit.

That is sort of why I reject most of the attributes, and beliefs associated with, particularly, monotheism, and so called christianity. Above and beyond the whole, total lack of empirical evidence to actually support the existence of a god, personal or otherwise? I think too many of the parts people believe and like seem to be what one might expect of comfortable "spiritual" beliefs, if they had been purposefully created to be so comfortable. That's the bullshit factor.

But this way of saying it? Of defining the soul? I can dig it.

Related to My Previous Post About Religion.

Consider the following statement:


"People need to recognize that the real situation about where we fit in the scheme of things is very different from the way it's been portrayed," Friedman said. "In my view of what's going on, there are loads of civilizations out there all over the place, and that we are not very significant."

Roswell Article on Huffpo.

Now whether or not this is true, there's a philosophy there that to my mind runs counter to religious thinking. Religious people seem to have a deep, if not pathological (in some cases) need to feel special. Being made in God's image, being beloved by God, being among his chosen people. All that shit.

I don't get that shit. I don't say exactly what that guy I am quoting says. The way I say it usually is something more like I hope there's more, as in more so than us, intelligent life out there. I mean if humans are the best the universe has to offer, then the universe is fucked!

I Want to Dislike Her. But Mostly I Just Don't Get Her.

I've mentioned the blog that goes under the name The Anchoress, before. I am usually baffled by what the writer, Elizabeth Scalia, has to say about just about anything, because she is a deep, deep, deep Catholic, and seems to experience every sensation and data point through a deep, deep, deep Catholic filter. So I don't get her, usually.

And I was raised Catholic. And lots of my relatives and friends are still some shade, degree of Catholic. Arguably most are closer to being some kind of "Cafeteria Catholic." So it's not some anti Catholic thing going on with me not getting her. I would equally not get anyone from any religion who filtered the whole world through that kind of narrow, spiritual, faith based lens.

And she does talk alot about that stuff. That spiritual truth crap. Sorry. Maybe the Jesuits never got their claws deep enough into me, but spiritual truth isn't. It might be something people hold dear, and believe fully, but there's objective truth and all else is bullshit. I am not sorry to say that. I'm an empiricist. I reject alternate reality.

But enough about that for now. Let me say that she has been following and posting this story about a Catholic (not quite yet ex) priest, who . . . and I am playing here with the story, must have spent too much time down there in the Bible Belt, as he started acting like some Evan-gelly TV preacher. And by that I mean not only the TV ministry but the scandal involving sex and drugs and an ex prostitute. I finally googled him today, after skimming her latest update on him. She linked a lot of shit in her piece, but failed to author that key 'establishing' sentence so her post could make some sense to someone new to the story. Anyway, it wasn't this latest post that really attracted my interest as much as the one from a few days ago that tied in the Casey Anthony matter with the Wanna Be Evan-gelly priest.

Her observation:

"People want to see themselves and their thoughts reflected in an attractive, articulate, charismatic person, and when they find it, they feel a connection that is mostly an illusion, but which they want to be real; and they help the connection to become more real by making purchases, subscribing to newsletters and joining fan pages. It feels like being an insider, and most everyone wants to be an insider, somewhere, right?"

. . . .

"When that desire for outside validation and for inclusion gets served, then we find our idols, and this is true in all spheres, entertainment, sports, politics and religion."

From Here.


One of the themes she's stuck on is her conception of idolatry. And again, this is part of her dogmatic if not spiritual filters. She sees idolatry everywhere. I do have to credit her, even if she falls short (at least in the piece) of confronting the possibility that her own spirituality, her own deep Catholicism could be a form of idolatry.

Be that as it may, I am making note of this post mainly on account of that first chunk. That's a very clear world wide truism sort of observation she makes there about false insider-ism. I will only briefly mention how I see some deliberate blurring of the Evan-gelly form of that to Wing Nut politics. That's what led to the rise of the christian Right. And it's part of what will in the end kill the GOP, eventually. That fatalist, dogmatic brand of politics can not last in a free republic.

Even if we still have Skulls Palin, Cyborg, Arctic Decoy Unit on standby. And we have Michele Bachmann, a.k.a. The Stepford Wife, officially in the race. Both are steeped in and too comfortable with that cult of personality, "idolatrous" form of evangelical politics. I really hope that that shit has reached it's high water mark and is going to continuously weaken, like the Confederacy did, every day following Gettysburg. I really hope that's the case. We don't need that kind of evil as leader of the nation.

Honestly, I did not end up where I thought I would in this post. And since I am almost a stickler for the book end gimmick, let me tie this back to Ms. Scalia. I applaud her for being able to see that the Wanna Be Evan-gelly priest has set hims self up as a false idol. Now I wonder if the right wing leaning blogger can see what I do, about how all that applies to Palin and Bachmann? Time will tell, I recon.