Today's Considerations
Yesterday, this pointer was offered:
And all of the above bloodshed, whether the incident happened 7000 years ago or five days ago, was preceded by dualistic thinking and dualistic beliefs (deemed to be sacred and / or worth dying for and / or worth killing for) by persons who had assumed a false identity or adopted a false identity and were being driven by the subconscious agenda of their personalities.
The character of humankind's propensity for bloodletting and bloodshed - which has dominated the human experience for the last 7000 years - reached a new height (according to anthropologists) when those acts were normalized and made "special" and "holy" by virtue of the fact that bloodletting and bloodshed were assigned legitimacy as a result of having being codified and made a ritual that was dreamed up and endorsed and carried out by religious leaders.
Societies around the globe practiced the sacrificing of virgins in order to appease the angry gods (more on that later), yet none of that bloodletting and bloodshed could have happened if there had not first been laid a solid foundation of dualistic thinking and talking and behaving on which ignorant and insane belief systems could be built. What brought humanity to the point that such barbaric and nonsensical conduct became practiced on a global basis?
Duality.
Before billions and billions of persons could buy into the notion of normalizing the actual or symbolic eating of body and blood - which is still included as a key part of organized worship services right now, some 7000 years later - there was required a completion of the groundwork on which dualistic thinking and duality-based talking and believing and behaving could flourish.
There first have to be leaders who dreamed up supernatural causes for what were actually just natural events: drought vs. flooding; clear weather vs. storms; and supposedly secure accumulations vs. destruction of accumulations via fire or wind. To believe in supernatural causes for all things deemed "good" and "bad" required the belief in Supernatural Persons who live in "some other world" vs. "this world" where they are supposedly controlling everything that happens.
To believe in supernatural causes for all things deemed "good" and "bad" required the belief that the Supernatural Persons think dualistically and see persons on this planet as being either "good" vs. "bad"; required the duality-based belief that the mood of Supernatural Persons was determined by persons on the planet who either pleased or displeased the gods / goddesses / God;
required the duality-based belief that those Supernatural Persons will "reward the good" and will "punish the bad"; required the duality-based belief that the Supernatural Persons can be made angry or happy by persons on this planet (so the original notion of co-dependency was rooted in the perception among humans who bought into the teaching that they, humans, determined whether the Supernatural Persons who are supposedly running the show here on earth are happy or unhappy and are, therefore, dispensing rewards or punishments accordingly);
required the duality-based belief that Supernatural Male Persons value virgins over non-virgins and that, when angry, can be calmed down and relaxed by having sex with a female virgin (sometimes by coming to earth but most often by having sex by proxy, allowing their "representatives on earth" - the high priests - to have sex with a virgin and thereby satisfy both the priests and the god or gods);
and required the duality-based belief that the Supernatural Persons want not only adulation by humans but also want gifts from humans and want humans to make sacrifices to them and then commune with the gods by gathering together and sharing in a holy feast of body-eating and blood-drinking.
So as soon as all of the dualistic thinking and dualistic beliefs were in place, the stage was set for this to happen:
When crops were dying and the single cause was assigned to an angry male god of rain, many a self-appointed priest claimed that sex with a female virgin, who would later be sacrificed, would appease the male god. As god’s rep on earth, the priest had sex with the virgin (the original act of symbolic “at-one-ment” that linked early religion and sex).
Then, in order to make a sacrifice to god and in order to commune with god, the heart of the virgin would be cut from her chest even as it was still beating. (Remember, all religions taught that any human or animal being sacrificed had to be conscious, so sacrifices then or executions now involve the killing of one who is conscious - at least to start with - and knows exactly what is going on.)
The priest would then raise the still beating heart over his head for the crowd to see before he ate the body and drank the blood. Next, that "holy sacrament" of body and blood would be passed among the crowd so that all could eat the body and drink the blood together and please the angry god with that earliest act of communion.
If it happened to rain after that, it was called a “miracle.” If it happened not to rain after that, it was explained away by reporting that “god works in mysterious ways.” But to justify the murder, the people were taught that everyone must always remember and always honor those who sacrificed their lives for the community. That resulted in a mindset for others to come by praising those who will be "willing in the future to die for their community or their country." (Thus, the propensity of lambs marching off to be slaughtered, more than happy to be a part of the whole bloody process.)
(Today that's a fav belief among the masses who seemingly believe that the soldiers who died needlessly in all of the wars which the U.S. started in Vietnam and Central America and the Middle East and all around the globe "did not die in vain" but "died to protect the citizens of these United States by making the 'Ultimate Sacrifice' of their lives for us." Yes, that's the same nonsense being spewed forth today which was spewed forth by sociopathic priests thousands of years ago, )
Back to the virgins: So to appease the crowd when rain did not come and to justify more killing and bloodletting and bloodshed (and sex), the religious / spiritual leaders always taught the masses that “those who died for the community have not died in vain,” even if the desired result did not come. So the priest in those cases asked, "So who is going to be next to send your virginal daughter forth for me to have sex with and then kill and then allow all of us to join together and practice vampirism and cannibalism in the name of god in order to appease that angry, Supernatural Male?"
From there, it was a short leap to get to the point later on when males were also sacrificed and to lead billions and billions of persons to buy into the dreamed up ideas that a virginal Holy Son born of a virginal Holy Mother was sacrificed by his Holy, Supernatural, Personal, Male Father in order that the Father could be appeased and in order to facilitate the providing of salvation for all believers - well, sort of - a few caveats and qualifiers notwithstanding.
See? Pump 'em full of dualistic thoughts and beliefs first and then you can sell them anything, including not only snake oil but also a belief in the most absurd concepts that can possibly be dreamed up by mankind, including the adulation and exaltation and glorification of bloodshed and bloodletting and engaging weekly in acts of vampirism and cannibalism or at least in symbolic acts of vampirism and cannibalism among those who do not buy into a priest's claim that after his prayers over bread and wine are completed that an actual transubstantiation happens and the bread becomes the real human body and the real human blood of someone who has been dead for over 2000 years).
Talk about that same Advaitin's observation a few thousand years ago that "they know not what they do," supposedly stated when he was being "sacrificed," while conscious. Might he not say the same nowadays were he to be here to witness the weekly acts of vampirism and cannibalism which are still being practiced by billions "in his name"?
To be continued.
And all of the above bloodshed, whether the incident happened 7000 years ago or five days ago, was preceded by dualistic thinking and dualistic beliefs (deemed to be sacred and / or worth dying for and / or worth killing for) by persons who had assumed a false identity or adopted a false identity and were being driven by the subconscious agenda of their personalities.
The character of humankind's propensity for bloodletting and bloodshed - which has dominated the human experience for the last 7000 years - reached a new height (according to anthropologists) when those acts were normalized and made "special" and "holy" by virtue of the fact that bloodletting and bloodshed were assigned legitimacy as a result of having being codified and made a ritual that was dreamed up and endorsed and carried out by religious leaders.
Societies around the globe practiced the sacrificing of virgins in order to appease the angry gods (more on that later), yet none of that bloodletting and bloodshed could have happened if there had not first been laid a solid foundation of dualistic thinking and talking and behaving on which ignorant and insane belief systems could be built. What brought humanity to the point that such barbaric and nonsensical conduct became practiced on a global basis?
Duality.
Before billions and billions of persons could buy into the notion of normalizing the actual or symbolic eating of body and blood - which is still included as a key part of organized worship services right now, some 7000 years later - there was required a completion of the groundwork on which dualistic thinking and duality-based talking and believing and behaving could flourish.
There first have to be leaders who dreamed up supernatural causes for what were actually just natural events: drought vs. flooding; clear weather vs. storms; and supposedly secure accumulations vs. destruction of accumulations via fire or wind. To believe in supernatural causes for all things deemed "good" and "bad" required the belief in Supernatural Persons who live in "some other world" vs. "this world" where they are supposedly controlling everything that happens.
To believe in supernatural causes for all things deemed "good" and "bad" required the belief that the Supernatural Persons think dualistically and see persons on this planet as being either "good" vs. "bad"; required the duality-based belief that the mood of Supernatural Persons was determined by persons on the planet who either pleased or displeased the gods / goddesses / God;
required the duality-based belief that those Supernatural Persons will "reward the good" and will "punish the bad"; required the duality-based belief that the Supernatural Persons can be made angry or happy by persons on this planet (so the original notion of co-dependency was rooted in the perception among humans who bought into the teaching that they, humans, determined whether the Supernatural Persons who are supposedly running the show here on earth are happy or unhappy and are, therefore, dispensing rewards or punishments accordingly);
required the duality-based belief that Supernatural Male Persons value virgins over non-virgins and that, when angry, can be calmed down and relaxed by having sex with a female virgin (sometimes by coming to earth but most often by having sex by proxy, allowing their "representatives on earth" - the high priests - to have sex with a virgin and thereby satisfy both the priests and the god or gods);
and required the duality-based belief that the Supernatural Persons want not only adulation by humans but also want gifts from humans and want humans to make sacrifices to them and then commune with the gods by gathering together and sharing in a holy feast of body-eating and blood-drinking.
So as soon as all of the dualistic thinking and dualistic beliefs were in place, the stage was set for this to happen:
When crops were dying and the single cause was assigned to an angry male god of rain, many a self-appointed priest claimed that sex with a female virgin, who would later be sacrificed, would appease the male god. As god’s rep on earth, the priest had sex with the virgin (the original act of symbolic “at-one-ment” that linked early religion and sex).
Then, in order to make a sacrifice to god and in order to commune with god, the heart of the virgin would be cut from her chest even as it was still beating. (Remember, all religions taught that any human or animal being sacrificed had to be conscious, so sacrifices then or executions now involve the killing of one who is conscious - at least to start with - and knows exactly what is going on.)
The priest would then raise the still beating heart over his head for the crowd to see before he ate the body and drank the blood. Next, that "holy sacrament" of body and blood would be passed among the crowd so that all could eat the body and drink the blood together and please the angry god with that earliest act of communion.
If it happened to rain after that, it was called a “miracle.” If it happened not to rain after that, it was explained away by reporting that “god works in mysterious ways.” But to justify the murder, the people were taught that everyone must always remember and always honor those who sacrificed their lives for the community. That resulted in a mindset for others to come by praising those who will be "willing in the future to die for their community or their country." (Thus, the propensity of lambs marching off to be slaughtered, more than happy to be a part of the whole bloody process.)
(Today that's a fav belief among the masses who seemingly believe that the soldiers who died needlessly in all of the wars which the U.S. started in Vietnam and Central America and the Middle East and all around the globe "did not die in vain" but "died to protect the citizens of these United States by making the 'Ultimate Sacrifice' of their lives for us." Yes, that's the same nonsense being spewed forth today which was spewed forth by sociopathic priests thousands of years ago, )
Back to the virgins: So to appease the crowd when rain did not come and to justify more killing and bloodletting and bloodshed (and sex), the religious / spiritual leaders always taught the masses that “those who died for the community have not died in vain,” even if the desired result did not come. So the priest in those cases asked, "So who is going to be next to send your virginal daughter forth for me to have sex with and then kill and then allow all of us to join together and practice vampirism and cannibalism in the name of god in order to appease that angry, Supernatural Male?"
From there, it was a short leap to get to the point later on when males were also sacrificed and to lead billions and billions of persons to buy into the dreamed up ideas that a virginal Holy Son born of a virginal Holy Mother was sacrificed by his Holy, Supernatural, Personal, Male Father in order that the Father could be appeased and in order to facilitate the providing of salvation for all believers - well, sort of - a few caveats and qualifiers notwithstanding.
See? Pump 'em full of dualistic thoughts and beliefs first and then you can sell them anything, including not only snake oil but also a belief in the most absurd concepts that can possibly be dreamed up by mankind, including the adulation and exaltation and glorification of bloodshed and bloodletting and engaging weekly in acts of vampirism and cannibalism or at least in symbolic acts of vampirism and cannibalism among those who do not buy into a priest's claim that after his prayers over bread and wine are completed that an actual transubstantiation happens and the bread becomes the real human body and the real human blood of someone who has been dead for over 2000 years).
Talk about that same Advaitin's observation a few thousand years ago that "they know not what they do," supposedly stated when he was being "sacrificed," while conscious. Might he not say the same nowadays were he to be here to witness the weekly acts of vampirism and cannibalism which are still being practiced by billions "in his name"?
To be continued.
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
