God Has Low Self Esteem?

Isn't it strange that God should require total obedience? That God should require constant praise, have us tell Him all the time how wonderful He is? That God has a temper and if He doesn't get his way He destroys? What does that sound like? A despot! We go to war here on earth to get rid of such people!

Do you really think God needs you tell Him how wonderful he is? Do you think maybe he already knows this?

Of course this is assuming God exists and is like us and thinks like us. God to most people is made in our image. It is we humans who need constant praise, who want things our way. It is we humans who seem unable to love unconditionally. People of religious persuasion talk of God as loving us, yet He clearly does not. Why? The love He has is conditional and love is not love if it is conditional. I think we find that hard to grasp.
Any God who says if you do not do as I say, I will destroy you or punish you for eternity, is not a good God. I don't believe such a God exists. We have made Him up, we have made Him to be like us, with our worst traits.

We are 'punished' by our sins not for them. Even those who foolishly believe they are 'saved' because they believe a certain story are punished by their sins. They do not escape the law. We all reap what we sow.
I once watched a documentary about belief. One of the interviewees was a woman working among the poor and sick in a 3rd world country. When asked why she did this work, her reply was because 'she loved Jesus'. It wasn't 'because i care for these people and can't bear to see them suffer'. It was because she hoped to score highly in the Heaven stakes and get on Jesus' good side! For me, there lies the problem with believing in a jealous, vengeful God. How can we ever trust our own or others motives if we believe that if we don't do what we think our God wants, we will be destroyed?

No matter what we believe, we suffer the consequneces of our 'sins'. No one takes that from us, no belief takes that from us. It is we who make the errors and we who suffer as a result. It is we who think what we think, believe what we believe and act as we act. Thus it is we who experience the results of that. In other words, we are Personally Responsible. We cannot shift this to another.
None of us is perfect, we all make mistakes in thinking and belief. We all live accordingly. Some people, especially so called 'New Age' people, believe we are to blame for our diseases, poverty etc and by magical thinking we can overcome all. In fact, if we are good enough, all will be well. Not exactly original and not really any different from Religious Fundamentalists!

People seem to find it hard to accept uncertainty. We cling to the belief that bad things only happen to bad people. Thus we spend our lifes trying to be good, not realising that we are inately good anyway and most of the bad stuff comes from our belief system! We can become very self centred in our desperate quest to control our lives.

We need to trust that we can cope with whatever comes our way. That whatever comes our way, just does, that it isn't meant to be.

Shit happens.

Do you really think it's God's will that a child is raped and murderd? That it was meant to be? If so, then the murderer was merely doing God's will. I think people do not think these beliefs thru. We all hear stories of people who for some reason missed a flight only for that flight to crash killing everyone on board. So we say that God saved that person, they were meant to be saved. We don't say God wanted those 300 people who did get on the flight burned to death do we? That they were meant to die horribly?

There is a power greater than ouselves, that seems fairly obvious. That power can be used to help us live with uncertainty. No point praying for this that or the other. Don't pray for the bad stuff not to happen. if you must pray, pray for strength and courage to live life as it comes. Find quiet times to sit and be still, you'd be amazed how this builds your strength.
Regardless of your personal belief in a Higher Power, or lack of, this quiet time will still be of value.

Fear is the root of all evil. No one is free from it. How we cope with it, how we lessen it, shows in our lives. It is importnat to know that no matter what you think, no matter what you have done, there is no need to fear God . If God exists, She is totally benign.

Total faith, lack of doubt, is a sure path to trouble. For you and for others. The results of Total Faith and No Doubt are visible on our TV screens everyday. The results of child abuse are there too. Yes, teaching children religous ways, the no doubt variety, the vengeful God nonsense, is child abuse.

Love Thy Neighbour?

Seems to me people get so hung up on love. The Xtian religion(and others)suggests we should love our neighbour as oursleves. Most exclaim that we can't do that! I think because we get confused between love and attachment. We think we are supposed to feel about everyone the way we feel about our family or lovers or even our pets. Some say 'how can we love people we don't like?' Well we don't have to like anyone but we can still love them. How? It is quite simple and we can love everyone thru our actions. Love is an action after all.

Making sure we don't drop litter. HUH? Helping to keep our environment clean is an act of love. Not leaving our supermarket trolleys by our cars but putting them back where they belong. Another act of love. Not parking in the disabled bays when we are not disabled. Another act of love. Smiling at people, being polite, friendly, helpful. All acts of love. Treating people with positive regard. It's love. Treating others, regardless of whether or not we like them, as we would want to be treated ourselves. Love.

Love is not so difficult after all. We can all do it. We all benefit. What we give, we receive. Everything we do, rebounds on upon us. Our attitudes, our actions, all affect us. We cannot escape the consequences of our thoughts and actions. We act and think in a poisitve way and we reap the benefits. Act and think in a negative way, and we reap the result. It is good to realise that the we are not the way the world is but that the world is the way we are. In other words, we each live in our own world-one which we created ourselves. If we don't like our world, we change it-by changing ourselves. Not so nutty as it sounds at first hearing! We all experience the world differently, according to our beliefs, the way we think. If we are unahppy, we need to change our beliefs and thought patterns. Our thoughts, beliefs, are really importnat. They dictate the life we lead. By thoughts, I do mean the habitual thoughts, the deeply held beleifs we have, not the fleeting thoughts we all have-like 'oh drop dead' when we are angry. That is just a fleeting thought. It goes and does no harm. However, if that 'drop dead' becomes seated and we truly wish another harm and it becomes a part of us, then we are in trouble.

I know of two people who died from cancer, not too long ago. One of them believed her cancer was bad luck, just one of those things that happens to human beings. The other believed his cancer was a punishment, aimed at him specifically. Which one had an easier illness and death? The first one, who believed it was just one of those things. What we think and believe really DOES make a difference.

If we believe in a God, the sort of God we believe in makes a difference too. Is your God loving and kind and patient? Or is your God demanding and jealous and angry and vengeful? It seems many have the latter type of God, and we see how that affects them and us! Fundamentalists are not loving and kind and patient and tolerant because the God they believe in is not. Or rather the God they believe in is the result of how they are inside-fearful and judgemental. We create God in our own image! When you listen and they insist they are right, that they have total faith in their God, you must realise that in reality they have total faith in their own judgement. Not God. But in themselves. Their ego. Their sense of righteousness. THAT is where their faith is. Total faith, with no room for doubt, is a clear message that the the faith is not in God but in themselves. They are in total agreement with their own ideas! It isn't a book that tells them 'this is THE TRUTH', but their own selves!

No one alive today knows what the TRUTH is. All we have is our ideas, the beliefs we have created, the meanings we have created, from our experience. Those meanings and ideas may or may not be positive. We all have different experiences, and we all create diffrent meanings and thus we all see the world and eachother differently. Hence all the grief we experience. Not just because of the meanings we create but because we try and force our ideas and our meanings upon others. This is what WAR is about. Power is the abilty to force your idea, your meaning creation, upon others. In other words, to get others to see things the way you do, the get others to be the way you want them to be. Of course, it never works because some people will always think for themselves. And people always want to force their ideas onto others. Thus peace does not last for long.

Domestic Violence Month

October is Domestic Violence Month in the USA. You can find out more at www.silentwitness.net

Strangely, when people speak of domestic violence, i don't , as a rule, think of myself as having experienced it. It seems to be about men beating women and not about men and women beating children. In my home, my mother was never beaten. I clearly recall my dad almost hitting my mum once-not delibrately, but he was smashing my head into a wall and mum thought this was going to become known outside the house(holding up an image was soooo important to them) so she intervened and that is how she nearly got hit-in his rage, he didn't realise she was in the way until almost too late. Well, she flew at him so vicioulsy I was shocked. Shocked because in that moment I realised that all this time, she could have protected me and stopped him. Instead, she normally cleaned me up, put cold compresses on me and told me if I was good he wouldn't do it. I spent my whole life being good in the hope that people would treat me well. I know better now.

My mum was just as bad but she wasn't as scary nor so physically strong.

Despite the physical abuse, and sexual abuse outside the home,( I was a classic victim), it is the emotional abuse that was the worst and still is. Never being told I was loved. Being told I was bad, stupid, lazy, evil, the cause of all ills. Told I was crazy, that what had just happened, hadn't. That i didn't see things right. THAT is what did the damage. I suffered at the hands of a child pornographer because I didn't dare tell because I would get into trouble! (11 years ago the Police traced me thru Interpol, and i had to spend 3 days giving evidence-(i.e. details of what was done to me even tho they had film of my abuse, at least I assume they did or else how did they know I was one of the man's victims?)-only to be told I could not give evidence in court because I was not a reliable witness. Why? I had had psychiatric treatment! Yes that is right. If you abuse someone, and they need psychiatric help because of it, you get off scott free because they are too crazy to be believed!!! I have no idea what happend to this guy. The whole thing was appalling. I have only given one person the details of my abuse, my therapist. This policeman got some of it and left me feeling abused and dirty again. Not even my partner of 24 years knows the deatils and never will. )
The very first time I was sexually assaulted, i did tell. Not str8 away, i was scared to. But the girl next door was assaulted and the police got involved etc. I then told my mum about this man and what he did in case it was the same man who asaulted the girl. She slapped me and told me I was disgusting and blamed me for what happened to the girl. Nothing else happened. She didn't speak up. I learned to keep my mouth shut then. It was very lonely being a child and hasn't changed much. I still feel a barrier between me and everyone else. Just because the violence ends doesn't mean the nightmare does.

Domestic Violence is serious. It has serious consequences. We see those consequences in society-the violence, the substance abuse, the poor. Educate yourself and support the efforts of groups working to end this vile and insidious evil. A recent documentary here, supported by the police, showed the lives of 7 men that had caused much harm thru their violent offending in a UK city. EACH one of them had been victims of violence and sexual abuse as children. The Police on the program expressed dismay that the general public refused to see the connection between child abuse and violent offending and substance abuse and were only interested in locking these men up. Perhaps, if you are reading this, you might form a different view to the general public.

Solo

This is the new baby Miniature Longhaired Dachshund, not yet 24 hours old. He was HUGE and I had to pull him out of his mum by his back feet.
She only had him! I had sat with her from Sunday night when she started to scratch and nest and pant and refuse food. He was born 2pm Tuesday!
Mum then promptly went to sleep. I examined her and realised she was not carrying any more, just this fat lump. Poor Mum. She was ever so good and didn't make a sound when i was pulling her boy out. He is , of course, named Solo.

I wish i were a girl.....

I am so pleased with this, I wish I were a girl just so i could wear it. 2 x 2/28's Mongolian Cashmere. Nothing else to say really. It feels superb.