Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," demon-free deity devotion since 2005! I'm not saying that there are bored god pantheons out there that don't have evil deities in them (your basic Satan and his minions, only bored and forgotten), but we can be very selective about our clientele here. Evil can knock, but it can't get in.
Last night, when I should have been grading papers, I was reading blogs instead. I came across an interesting interview that Peg Aloi conducted with the Catholic priest upon whom this new exorcism movie, The Rite, is based. You can read the interview here http://themediawitches.blogspot.com/2011/01/interview-father-gary-thomas.html
What interested us here at "The Gods Are Bored" was this priest's observation that those who practice Native American religions "opens them up to a spirit realm that can be very dangerous."
Bamp! Wrong, wrong, wrong!
Worshiping another pantheon of deities, be it Celtic, Nordic, Native American, Congolese, you name it, does not open people to a "spirit realm that can be very dangerous." The danger lies in competition to the deity that Gary Thomas calls the "Supreme Being."
Something that's supreme is better than everything else, right?
That's why we at "The Gods Are Bored" reject the whole concept of YHWH as a Supreme Being. He's a Being, all right. No disputing that. But supreme? Why? Who says?
The only reason I can think of that Native Americans open themselves to a "spirit realm that can be very dangerous" is because they are praising and worshiping deities that Gary Thomas thinks are inferior to the Supreme Being. Hence, no protection from the Supreme Being.
So who says Native American spiritualists need protection from that source? We at "The Gods Are Bored" heartily support the platform that Native American deities will protect Native Americans from demons that conform to the praise and worship systems of Native Americans. Native American practitioners (or Celtic, or Nordic, etc. etc. etc.) need never fear demons from the Christian pantheon. It's kind of like being afraid of the weather patterns on Mars. You only need to worry about Mars if you live on Mars. If you don't, does a tornado there affect you?
We at "The Gods Are Bored" believe that some Christian people do find themselves possessed by demons. This is an unfortunate byproduct of the structure of that particular pantheon. I also feel that we who worship other voices in other rooms cannot help those who are possessed by Christian demons. It's not that our deities are powerless against them (see above), it's just that the problem was created by that pantheon and must be solved by that pantheon. We can sympathize and support, but we can't cast out and remain true to our deities.
This morning's Philadelphia Inquirer featured a front-page story about 37 Catholic priests -- just in this area -- who have been investigated for sexual abuse of children and adult parishioners. Some of these priests worked in parochial schools. In his interview with Ms. Aloi, Gary Thomas admits that this is a big problem in the Catholic Church, and he adds that John Paul II was sick for a long while and therefore not as effective as he could have been in combating the problem.
We here at "The Gods Are Bored" feel that the biggest danger to Roman Catholics is not demons, but the very people who are supposed to be their leaders. I wonder -- for every one person who spits up nails and speaks devil-language, how many thousands of people are out there who have been raped by priests? In other words, who are the real demons here?
We hereby propose a workable solution for you: Research your heritage and re-connect with the deities of your ancient ancestors. Go all the way back to before any Christianity seeped in, because you don't want those Christian demons loading you up with nails. Once you've found your ancestral religion, fall into the arms of the bored gods. You are not opening yourself up to a spirit realm that can be very dangerous. Quite the opposite. You're shutting the gate against a particular busy god and all the negatives that come with Him. As for the positives, your deities have those. Just ask. And then go forward doing the right thing, secure in the knowledge that no harm can come from you ... or into you.
May we be worthy of that which is given.
Showing posts with label Catholic church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Catholic church. Show all posts
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," online and in demand for your deity needs! One god is too busy. Many, many more -- equally worthy -- are nearly ignore or relegated to "myth." Book with a new carrier today! Our operators are standing by to take your call.
We here at TGAB hardly ever see the Philadelphia Inquirer anymore. I forget which op-ed piece by Rick Santorum finally pushed us over the cancel brink, but one of them did. If you don't know who Rick Santorum is, just look at this photo and judge a book by its cover for once.
The Inquirer has a columnist named Michael Smerconish. He's very popular, because usually he examines issues with a good yin-and-yang candor. Today's Smerconish column was not one of those times.
Michael Smerconish used his son's confirmation into the Roman Catholic Church as an opportunity to remind his many, many readers of the many, many good things the RC Church does, including (but not limited to) instilling a religious sensibility in its young teen members. Having put my oldest daughter through a Confirmation ordeal with the United Methodist Church (for which she still hasn't forgiven me, nor do I blame her), I would say that at the age of 13, you're old enough to know what you don't want, but not old enough to know what you do want. It's the Perfect Storm age where you bow to your parents' wishes and then wonder why you did.
Smerconish used his piece as well as an apologia for the bad press the RC Church has gotten over its pedophile priests. I've been over and over this subject here at TGAB, sometimes swinging one way and sometimes another. Today I'm in full combat gear.
I can't speak for you, reader, but I'm not satisfied with the RC Church's avowal of zero tolerance for child molesters. I have a friend who (deservedly) got jail time for watching child porn on his computer, even though there was no proof he ever harmed a child himself. When do we ever hear of pedophile priests going to jail? They get quietly shuffled here and there. Very quietly. Why would the RC Church not publicly condemn these men, compensate their victims, and send the perps to a Catholic-run penitentiary with all the cozy charm of Alcatraz? So much of Catholicism is still mired in the Middle Ages. Why not its punishment regimen for its criminals?
As long as I'm ranting yet again, I'll beat another dead horse. It's despicable that a faith founded by a barefoot carpenter who preached on hillsides is now represented by a man wearing a crown and living in a palace. A white man at that, when the majority of the church's parishioners are of color. Ha! A nation that abolished slavery just 140 years ago elected a black president, while a Church that prides itself on multicultualism continues its millennia-old tradition of white men, white men, white men!
So, while Michael Smerconish wipes a tear from his eye as his 13-year-old is initiated into the Roman Catholic Church, he might spend a moment pondering how his son will see that church 20 years from now, 30 years from now, 40 years from now. There's a chance the boy will become a Druid. There's more of a chance that he will become like my husband -- a bitter agnostic who reviles Catholicism in its every form.
We here at TGAB hardly ever see the Philadelphia Inquirer anymore. I forget which op-ed piece by Rick Santorum finally pushed us over the cancel brink, but one of them did. If you don't know who Rick Santorum is, just look at this photo and judge a book by its cover for once.
The Inquirer has a columnist named Michael Smerconish. He's very popular, because usually he examines issues with a good yin-and-yang candor. Today's Smerconish column was not one of those times.
Michael Smerconish used his son's confirmation into the Roman Catholic Church as an opportunity to remind his many, many readers of the many, many good things the RC Church does, including (but not limited to) instilling a religious sensibility in its young teen members. Having put my oldest daughter through a Confirmation ordeal with the United Methodist Church (for which she still hasn't forgiven me, nor do I blame her), I would say that at the age of 13, you're old enough to know what you don't want, but not old enough to know what you do want. It's the Perfect Storm age where you bow to your parents' wishes and then wonder why you did.
Smerconish used his piece as well as an apologia for the bad press the RC Church has gotten over its pedophile priests. I've been over and over this subject here at TGAB, sometimes swinging one way and sometimes another. Today I'm in full combat gear.
I can't speak for you, reader, but I'm not satisfied with the RC Church's avowal of zero tolerance for child molesters. I have a friend who (deservedly) got jail time for watching child porn on his computer, even though there was no proof he ever harmed a child himself. When do we ever hear of pedophile priests going to jail? They get quietly shuffled here and there. Very quietly. Why would the RC Church not publicly condemn these men, compensate their victims, and send the perps to a Catholic-run penitentiary with all the cozy charm of Alcatraz? So much of Catholicism is still mired in the Middle Ages. Why not its punishment regimen for its criminals?
As long as I'm ranting yet again, I'll beat another dead horse. It's despicable that a faith founded by a barefoot carpenter who preached on hillsides is now represented by a man wearing a crown and living in a palace. A white man at that, when the majority of the church's parishioners are of color. Ha! A nation that abolished slavery just 140 years ago elected a black president, while a Church that prides itself on multicultualism continues its millennia-old tradition of white men, white men, white men!
So, while Michael Smerconish wipes a tear from his eye as his 13-year-old is initiated into the Roman Catholic Church, he might spend a moment pondering how his son will see that church 20 years from now, 30 years from now, 40 years from now. There's a chance the boy will become a Druid. There's more of a chance that he will become like my husband -- a bitter agnostic who reviles Catholicism in its every form.
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we're time-starved and chore-laden! I'm going to keep this one short.
I'm not kept up to date on the news like I used to be before I started teaching school. So it was just yesterday that I heard about the most recent scandal in the Roman Catholic Church -- that of deaf men accusing priests of having abused them when they were schoolboys.
Just when you thought you'd heard it all about that Church, huh?
I've been thinking a lot about the evils of the Catholic Church. Only a few of them are coming to light, I'm sure. Some big ones have made history. Heck, Dante put two popes in the lowest bowels of Hell, and when he sees them on his journey, they tell him that the next pope will soon join them. (In fact at first they think Dante is said pope.) Inferno was written in the early 1300s.
However, throughout its career, the Roman Catholic Church has also done a great deal of good. A huge amount of good. Let's say we were to weigh good vs. evil in the Catholic Church. If we did that, and we found that for every evil deed, the Church produced 10,000 good deeds, does that mitigate the evil deeds? Put another way, does the preponderance of good allow leeway for some evil?
I'm interested in what you have to say on this subject.
As for me, I just look at that whole RC thing and thank the bored gods that I never had any truck with it. Bad enough to have spent time in a Pentecostal Church, but the Roman Catholic Church -- where my poor husband was born, raised, and educated -- seems to have taken the fork in the road that leads to Creepy about 3,000 miles ago.
This is just my opinion, though. I am not going to sit here and lob stones. It's not my place to judge a particular sect of a particular praise and worship team. What I'm wondering about is a deeper issue. Does a preponderance of good mitigate a smaller amount of evil? How much evil is too much? Can any praise and worship team be condemned solely on its bad deeds if it has also done good in the world?
If all this is too heavy for you to ponder, hey. I hear ya. Who do you think will win the World Series this year?
I'm not kept up to date on the news like I used to be before I started teaching school. So it was just yesterday that I heard about the most recent scandal in the Roman Catholic Church -- that of deaf men accusing priests of having abused them when they were schoolboys.
Just when you thought you'd heard it all about that Church, huh?
I've been thinking a lot about the evils of the Catholic Church. Only a few of them are coming to light, I'm sure. Some big ones have made history. Heck, Dante put two popes in the lowest bowels of Hell, and when he sees them on his journey, they tell him that the next pope will soon join them. (In fact at first they think Dante is said pope.) Inferno was written in the early 1300s.
However, throughout its career, the Roman Catholic Church has also done a great deal of good. A huge amount of good. Let's say we were to weigh good vs. evil in the Catholic Church. If we did that, and we found that for every evil deed, the Church produced 10,000 good deeds, does that mitigate the evil deeds? Put another way, does the preponderance of good allow leeway for some evil?
I'm interested in what you have to say on this subject.
As for me, I just look at that whole RC thing and thank the bored gods that I never had any truck with it. Bad enough to have spent time in a Pentecostal Church, but the Roman Catholic Church -- where my poor husband was born, raised, and educated -- seems to have taken the fork in the road that leads to Creepy about 3,000 miles ago.
This is just my opinion, though. I am not going to sit here and lob stones. It's not my place to judge a particular sect of a particular praise and worship team. What I'm wondering about is a deeper issue. Does a preponderance of good mitigate a smaller amount of evil? How much evil is too much? Can any praise and worship team be condemned solely on its bad deeds if it has also done good in the world?
If all this is too heavy for you to ponder, hey. I hear ya. Who do you think will win the World Series this year?
