Smoking THE DOPE OF GOD

Or, GET YOUR Drug-Highs HERE

As usual, paxton’s gifted us with an excellent question: “I’d be interested to know what you mean when you say ‘your spirituality works.’” (See comments to Wednesday’s post, “The Mysterious Dying God.”)

Paxton could mean a coupla things, here:

o Does Goddess spirituality work to make me -- Athana -- feel better?

o And/or, Does it work to better the world, and to make every earthling feel better – by ending war and violence, environmental trashing, overpopulation, and abuse – of children, the elderly, women, the poor, people of color, and so forth?

My answer to both is “Yes.”

Any religion or spiritual practice can rip some of the sting outa life, the uncertainty. You also get a support group outa the deal. And to top it off, research now says religions dump powerful drugs into your bloodstream:

“… endorphins,… brain chemical(s) that operate on the same opiate receptors as alcohol – with the effect of suppressing pain – can also be released after deep expressions of religious faith. Perhaps most widely associated with strenuous exercise, endorphins are thus also part of the brain’s response to spirituality – not just moments of religious ecstasy, but a steady, calming diet of faith” (from Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President, by Justin A. Frank, M.D., 2004, p. 57).*

THE TRICK IS, does your religion trash the earth while it’s giving you your drug high? Or does it teach you how to keep Mother Earth alive? Does it push war and violence down your throat while feeding you your drugs? Or how to sacrifice your life for peace instead of war? Does your religion create poverty and abuse, or erase them?

Paxton, my love, we’ve given your war-god religions 6000 years to show us they “work.” All they’ve done is spread like cancer, suffocating religions that do work. To keep their bloody claws in you, they stuff you full of fear – of hell, of burning in hell, of being powerless, of being ‘born bad,’ and on and on and on.

In ending, I offer these enlightening verses from your own “holy” book: Exodus fifteen-three: ‘The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is His name.’ Joshua eleven-twenty: ‘For it was the Lord Himself who hardened their hearts to wage war….’ Isaiah forty-two twenty-five: ‘So He [Jehovah] poured out on them His burning anger, the violence of war….’ Samuel fifteen-eighteen: ‘And He [Jehovah] sent you on a mission, saying, “Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them….”’ Jeremiah fifty-one twenty: ‘You [Jehovah] are my war club….’ Isaiah forty-two thirteen: ‘The Lord will march out like a mighty man, like a warrior ….’ Psalms one-forty-four one: ‘Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war….’

_______
*Unfortunately, Frank fails to give a source for this research.

______
Thnx to narasqa for the foto