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God Is Either Everything Or HE is Nothing “Or something like that” [1]

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Date: 2023-02-14  

Praise the Lawd

Fellow DKOS commenter, member, and all-around good guy Daniel Kohanski wrote a book: A GOD of OUR INVENTION . What an amazing work. I won’t even pretend to have a full grasp of the scholarship, history, or depth of insight and understanding presented in this wonderful book. What I do have is a real struggle with this notion of God and the way it is being used to prop up this MAGA wave of RWing Christian Nationalism that is used as a political cudgel to oppress the so called Woke, Liberal, Socialist. Sometimes I really think the way those words are spit out by the MAGA hard core they are just a deeply racist way of using epithets that can no longer be said without social repercussions.

Before I get too far into this diary let me explain a few things. “Or Something Like That” is my all-time favorite Bobby O’Neill quote. Bobby lived with us in our first group home in Littleton. I’ve never known a person with more wisdom or insight – except maybe Dennis who also lived at the Group Home.

As to my own religious leanings, well that’s an Occam’s Razor. I was raised Catholic, graduated from Our Lady of the Lake Catholic college in South Bend with a degree in Business. I worked as an accountant for an Indian Tribe in S.W. Colorado and spent 20 years or so doing sweat lodge. Recently one of my friends who teaches Dharma here in Durango informed me that I was “a secular Buddhist”, (whatever that is). Trust me. It all fits. It’s one of the reasons I am genuinely threatened by this God of Our Invention . Honestly, these fundamentalist wing nuts are scary, and their crazy was on full display at the State of the Union when elected representatives wore lapel pins that replaced the American flag with machine guns.

Daniel’s book was a combination of Biblical History with wisdom insights. I think most of us already know that the books written by the sons and daughters of Abraham (Jewish, Christian, Muslim) are both historical narratives and metaphorical parables. Christian Nationalist are not having anything to do with metaphor. Their brains are not wired for nuance. (Thank you LEARN). What they have done now and have been doing since the rise of Evangelical Politics during the Reagan years (and before) is picking parts and pieces to justify their bigotry and convince their followers of their inherent superiority. Whiteness is a commodity and when a Democratic process advances a concept like “shared property” it translates as “those” people are trying to take away your stuff. This in and of itself would probably be somewhat bearable if it were just a few racist homophobic nut jobs, but it is now a political party called MAGA. So long as they accept Jesus and an Apocalyptic near future when “true believers” are raised on high, they can lie cheat and steal anything – even elections because they have a free ticket to the glories of a heavenly afterlife. Give me an amen or a-moan.

Daniel K tracks the brutal history of the Church, it’s many Crusades against the so-called heretics, it’s manipulation of historical fact to support wars, oppression and especially exploitation of women. The book covers the relationship of the Catholic Church to Nazism under Hitler, how all authoritarian regimes stifle dissent, how scientific truths like evolution and climate change are used as wedge issues to further divide and distort anything but the most self-serving ideologies and dogmatic religious practices. I found it somewhat amusing in a sick way that one of the masters of cruelty that led to the Holy Inquisition was named Pope Innocent. Oh, give me a break! One of the most troubling aspects of these Christian nut jobs and one that I was not aware of is that they not only believe the End O’ Times is nigh, but feel it is their holy mission to hasten the “fall” so as to bring rapture to God’s true chosen ones who happen to be white, nationalist, and superior.

There is so much more in this book that deserves attention, and the thing is you don’t have to be a hermeneutic scholar to understand the current and present threat that this popular version of Christianity brings to our politics and the future of our beautiful blue paradise. It saddens me in some ways. I know a lot of Christians who understand and live The Beatitudes. That so many have turned the teachings of Jesus upside down does bring into question the need for a God, even A God of Our Invention . Although I cannot see a time when the Christian Religion is abandoned, I have often found myself perplexed by the complicity through silence of Christians that practice the love and tolerance hidden in the pages of both the New Testament and the Gnostic Gospels as well.

I don’t know what it will take to bring enough attention and intention together to shift the direction towards embracing a planet that can survive the onslaught of last stage Capitalist exploitation. But for those of us who have spent a lifetime trying, this book goes a long way towards understanding the role Christian Nationalist play in in depriving our grandkids a right to a healthy planet in a sane world. Or as Dan K aptly puts it:

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