The idea that, as long as you
circumcise, follow some basic rituals, call yourself a good Muslim, a
good Jew or Christian, bathe correctly, dress correctly and is
cautious with certain foodstuffs, you should be okay, is a stupid
one.
This idea is theologically invalid
and it defaces the true nature of religion. These are behaviors,
taboos, conventions, social rules. This is culture – not religion.
Surely it is religious culture, but it is not religiosity,
spirituality. It is not Religion. The way I see it, culture rests
upon religion; not only as some cyst or some malign overgrowth, no,
but rather as a moss of the ages sleeping on the bedrock beneath; a
high and green grass coming out of it, or a meadow of both beautiful
and ugly flowers sprawling from the soil primordial... Often somewhat
symbiotic this relationship has been, but far from always (especially
Muslim societies as a general and some bygone eras of Christendom –
as well as contemporary American perversions of Christianity –
comes to thought). In direct words, God does not care about the
details. As an example, it is feasible to say that the Books of
Levicitus is penned by human hands, and also steered to a large
degree by subconscious human motivations. How, when and where you eat
supper or go about your personal hygiene is not necessarily a
theological concern but rather a socio-cultural one, I would think...
– yes, that is it. This is my frank and well-grounded belief. If I
was in love with someone I would encourage that person to seek for
the God within. But I am not in love with the world, so instead I
scream: stop the petty bullshit! You are making politics and
tribalism out of it... God never commands these trivial, worldly,
petty materialistic pursuits... – you do! Your family does. Your
culture and your community does. And sometimes even the state will
meddle with it (historically mostly, but it continues with ravenous
persistence to this very day – especially, again, in Muslim
societies). Just be honest with this, and afterwards, the great work
can finally get going for real. I would say personally that I do not
think God is or is not a fan of circumcision and is or is not grossed
out by menstruation. Do not paint the Holiness with your petty human
bullshit. These are human cultural projections, which are,
technically speaking, completely irreligious in core and in essence.
God is not human and therefore not of human nature. Thus, any attempt
or impulse of psychologizing God is truly a mistake and theologically
it is an extremly costly one. This false religion is, so to speak,
"anthropo-psychologizing" God; or, in any case, it attempts
it. True religion however, in contrast, obscures God, mystifies Him,
cloaks Him righteously, and respects this incomprehensible nature of
the Divine, and embellishes that with beautiful metaphor, shrouds him
in poem and art, and weeps for his grandiose return and wisdom in
revelation.
God is there, absolutely He is,
with His eye omnipresent, ever seeking, ever staring into, and
through, the hearts of men! And in there God sets up His court; our
actions, our words, our strife and our character becoming subject of
trial and Divine acumen. But understand that it happens not in some
human way... For metaphor and poetry is the language of God on earth.
God does not answer, and He is not to be directly spoken to. God has
no personality, no self-awareness, no agency in the material world!
Only we do. God is something else altogether. God is ever-quiet,
merely being there. Silent, yes, but indeed there, and for the honest
pilgrim of the soul to discover - to harness power from; to float
into; to get possessed by and without rope nor torch fall into!
Yes! In false religion, everything
is about what God does, what God wants, what God thinks, what God
condemns and what God commands... I think the element of
subordination and servitude becomes perverted in many worldly
cultures. Many folk allow themselves seduction into that bondage,
which has become a corrupted bondage; it allows its brethren a kind
of passive delight, a banquet of irresponsibility on the floor
supine, with fat bellies and weak hearts, gasping like beasts for
deep nasal breaths as they stuff their mouths with a bland sludge of
capitulation and existential inertia. I consider myself deeply
religious but I reject the premise that we are slaves under Christ or
under any other deity or prophet. Adoration does not mean
cowering, cringing subservience, and humility is not a term to
describe a passive, crippling form of self-loathing. Worship is not
synonymous with resignation, and to fear God is to love God and to
promise to make the ultimately best of life one can possibly
achieve. Some people love the aspects of psycho-spiritual dependence
that religion can, regrettably, provide - some people tend to their
dogma like dogs in leashes to masters. And while I am very big on the
humility and respect, and the notion of sacrality in this mundane
existence, the awe of Mary's grace and the adoration of Holier
matters, I can not live my life thinking of myself a slave. I
understand the notion, but I must reject it. I want to be a soldier,
not a slave, of God. I want to build a magnificent physique holding
in, thwarting a great deluge of heart and soul roaring, tumbling,
clashing therein... crushing waves of creativity held back only by
bulwarks – of will and of grace and
of muscle! The true, personal religion begins with human agency –
an act of faith which leads to an act of will, or vice versa.
You can not be religious without going through yourself upward. The
true religion benights the wisdoms it hold, because they are
ever-benighted, not because of some self-aware and falsely
pretentious obscurantism, no, but because we are simply not sensibly
nor spiritually equipped to directly deal with it.
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