New Wineskins

"And no one pours new wine into old wineskins.

Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine

and the wineskins will be ruined.

No, they pour new wine into new wineskins."

~Mark 2:22

You can see my old blog here: http://myanimism.blogspot.com/

Why a new blog? Well, I start a new blog whenever my views change sufficiently to warrant it. Someone who only wants to read my animist stuff can do so. Anyone who wants to see this one can do it.

Am I still an animist? Yes I am, in the most general sense that I believe that the world is alive and should be treated as alive, treated with respect. None of that has changed one bit. To me this is basic level stuff, if you can't at least TRY to treat the world and your fellow creatures with respect, you shouldn't be in the world.The world doesn't need more such people. You don't so much as kill a bug without a reason. You don't break a leaf without a reason. These things don't belong to you, they belong to themselves. They belong to god. In all these ways I am and will ever remain an animist.

What's different then? There we get into tricky territory, so to make sure there is no confusion I'll tell a story.

Once upon a time there was a Mexican, and this Mexican lived in a society of peace and justice without racism. But one day he fell asleep under a magic chestnut tree and he slept for two thousand years.  

When he woke up, everything had changed. Now the word "Mexican" meant "rapist." So he went into town with his 2000 year old clothing, and people didn't know what to make of him, so they asked him what kind of person he was and he said, "a Mexican." Upon hearing that, they seized him and threw him in jail. When the judge sat in judgement over him, he asked him: "You said you were a Mexican. Is that true?" Whereupon the Mexican of course replied, "Yes, I am a Mexican, why am I in jail???" The judge said, "He said it himself, he confessed to the crime" and he sentenced him. 

Words are for communicating with. If I say "apple" and you think that means "dog," then we aren't talking about the same things. I am not what is generally called a Christian, nor will I ever be. What I am, is someone who thinks Jesus was filled with god and so I listen to him. He said himself he didn't come on his own account and was not speaking his own ideas. He is not a person of the Trinity, there is no Trinity. It's a pernicious lie. What he was, was a human being whose will was entirely consumed by god's will, and therefore it was true that god was speaking through him, but not true that the person Jesus is a different personality of the godhead. If you won't believe me, believe him:

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating.

...He asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One."

~Mark 12:28-29

One. Not three in one, not three, just one. All you Churchians who say to take everything literally, start taking THAT literally.

Of course, Christians or should I say Churchians try to get around that with a bunch of three-in-one bullshit, which is just what it is, bullshit. Jesus was a human being who was completely surrendered to god, and in this way what he said was in fact god's will, but not because he himself was god. For every three passages in which Jesus says he's not god, Churchians will point out to one that seems to say he is. By deifying him they avoid doing what he said to do; by putting him on the throne they crucify him again.

Truthfully, the pharisees of ancient days have nothing on today's so-called Christians. Everything Jesus said about the pharisees goes double for today's Christians. You see people with fine houses and nice cars and nice clothes and they are all talking about Jesus and morals and such.

What do you think this statement by Jesus means? What is he communicating?

"As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me.

Night is coming, when no one can work. 

While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 

WHILE he is in the world, it is day and they can work, right? When he is not in the world, it is night. Night in this context means ignorance, confusion. So once he is gone, it is night (there is ignorance and confusion.) Okay, if you follow me so far, what exactly was this period of night he was talking about? Just the period of time between the crucifixion and Pentecost? Or is it the entire time he has been gone up until now? If you trust what the church fathers say, it's just until Pentecost. If you trust what history and common sense say, and if you take Jesus at face value in this statement, it is every single day up to and including this one.

Why do I say this? Because the entire history of Christianity after the crucifixion was a history of people who utterly failed to understand Jesus. Imagine this: you have a message, and it is very important that this message is available to everyone going forward, including people in the distant future. Most of the people of your own time (or any other) won't understand the message, but some will. What do you do? You gather a bunch of people around you who firmly believe that every word that falls from your mouth is critically important, even if they misunderstand why it is important. They record them, they pass them from one to another and copy the words and copies are made from those copies and so the words come down to the future. Even though... hardly anyone actually understands them, but the guy who said these things did miracles so his words must be important. From the point of view of keeping the message going, it doesn't matter much if the people who accomplish this are idiots or they kill people in your name or burn them alive in your name - the message is still being transmitted to those who ARE able to understand it.

What message could be so important? What did Jesus come to give us? Expiation from our sins? That's the conventional explanation, but as I said, for 2000 years church leaders haven't got it, and they usually burned people who did get it.

If your primary interest is in expunging your own guilt, you don't get it and you probably never will. 

Your guilt is utterly unimportant in a larger sense. The Earth has drunk more blood than you could ever shed. The modern church's obsession with the expiation of sins is utterly narcissistic. The modern church is self-absorbed, self-loathing and loathing of everyone else who isn't a member of their club.

The glory and goodness of god is an immensely more important matter than anything, far more than saving your own petty hide. If you don't understand this glory you aren't "saved," no matter how many times you have been dunked in water or what words you say or what you believe.

Jesus' message was this: god-with-us. God in us. What does that mean? It means we stop thinking with our mind and start letting god think and act through us as Jesus did. Jesus himself was "god-with-us," not as a person of the fictitious Trinity, but as a person consumed by the spirit of god. However, even saying this is not enough: every idiot who thumps a bible thinks he is doing the will of god. This state of "god-with-us" is not subject to analysis, it is a divine and not an earthly reality. It is not accomplished by following a list of things you need to do to be a "good Christian." Contrary to what the early Church thought, you can't get it by laying on hands. There is no formula for this, no creed, no position statement for it. Going to church and saying Jesus died for your sins doesn't get you there.

What does then? Unfortunately you won't hear this unless you already hear it.

"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them."

It is absolutely out of your hands. Nothing you say or believe will change that. Why? Because the information that Jesus is bringing is absolutely unworldly. You can never connect the dots from here to there. You will never reason your way to it. It is not a kind of information that human brains are capable of receiving without help, and no other human being or any of their teachings can give you that.

The reality that we are faced with is that we have a church that is actually anti-Christian. A church which is the church of the pharisees. And so all of our language is corrupted when speaking about Jesus, because of 2000 years of church corruption. But the message is still there, "for those who have ears to hear." For those the Father (not men, not churches) has called.