Hey, just asking questions…

America was made possible by pluralism. It’s kind of our defining thing. Terms like “freedom” and “democracy” have different connotations to different people. But pluralism is specific and plain in its meaning: many isms. More than one.

Ancient history is always hard to come by and interpret with any certainty. But I think when you keep in mind that in the ancient world (think Greece, Egypt, etc) metaphors and facts, art and science, described the world together, in a unified manner, the “myths” that we disregard as the stupid imaginings of an early unrefined people, start instead to look like scientific observation that the soul can intuitively understand.

Take a look at the ancient Greek creation myth.

https://www.cs.williams.edu/~lindsey/myths/myths_16.html

From this myth, we can see some universal truths (the kind art reveals, but which also describes the nature of things on a micro or macro scale): From void comes night and darkness (Nyx), from Nyx comes love (Eros), from love comes the coupling of heaven and earth (Uranus and Gaia), from that coupling comes children, from children comes the new. From the new comes fear (Kronos fears his children), from fear comes oppression (Kronos swallows his children), from oppression comes heroism (Rhea saves Zeus). From heroism comes ambition (Zeus forms a plan to overthrow), from ambition comes revolution (they go to war), from revolution emerges victors (the Olympians), from the victory comes celebrity (Uranus creates the stars–fixed focal points by which we navigate and make choices. Is this not celebrity? Hollywood “stars.”)

From celebrity comes empire (Forethought, “Prometheus”, and Afterthought, “Epimethius”, create people in the image of the gods, replicating their ways), from empire comes neglect (humans are excluded from the gifts of God), neglect requires recompense (Prometheus gives people the gift of fire, which was meant only for the Gods), and recompense begets jealousy (Zeus is furious at what Prometheus has done).

Jealousy begets tyranny (Zeus tortures Prometheus and sets out to punish humankind).

Tyranny keeps knowledge secret (Pandora’s locked box). A locked box begets curiosity. Curiosity begets rebellion (Pandora opens the box). Rebellion releases terror. Terror begets cowardice (Pandora closes the box). Cowardice begets bravery (she opens the box again). Bravery begets hope –the final secret in the box.

If you take it back to the beginning, the final stages of creation mirror the opening: from chaos comes the dark, where love is born.

This accurately describes the nature of things. Biologically, emotionally, cosmically, personally, artistically, scientifically. (Though I might revise the word choices later. Im still thinking it out.)

But monotheism oppresses through separating these aspects of truth, and negating the feminine half: the art, the emotional, the personal.

Because the Christians destroyed records of knowledge, it is difficult to ascertain what exactly it looked like when the Christians took over. Inferences have to be made from their texts.

Oh, yeah, that was the point: I think the Bible may be more literal than we know, when we take into account that metaphors were as literal as using the word “atom” to describe an atom.

Snakes=Knowledge–most specifically, medical knowledge. But in a broader sense, knowledge of how nature works, how to manipulate elements which gives you the power to weild it like a God, and make decisions like a God (to be able to turn a snake into a weapon or medicine is Godlike. But also, snakes are scary. Snakes represent medicine and they also represent snakes and to know snakes is to be knowledgeable)

And Godlike ability is a terrifying and horrible burden. But it’s also where hope lies.

The creation myth of Genesis seems a direct challenge to this idea. Knowledge is burden followed by doom (death), not burden followed by hope. Those who will live forever are the ones who give everything up to God, and do not weild the elements themselves.

In particular, women are NOT to be trusted with knowledge. According to Genesis, men know too much because women made them know too much. And so women must submit as slaves to their husbands, who are themselves slaves. There is not hope in this life. There is hope if they endure their burdens in perfect submission to the Church (which of course, since the beginning, was administered through some organization or another.)

It’s fascism. And a death cult. That it pervades everything does not change the severity of what it is.

We can also look to the story of Jezebel for some clues about monotheism as jealousy of women that led to an uprising of tyranny: she is a pagan queen torn to pieces in her finery. But to all of Judeo-Christian culture, Jezebel means whore. Ostentatious clothing means whore. Women who understand their beauty are whores. Not queens. Because in the story of Jezebel, women and pluralism and art and sex (all the same thing, really) are defeated in the name of God.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maccabean_Revolt

The war on art is a war on women.

In polytheistic culture, it was tradition to worship the Gods of the place you were in, as well as your own faves. Room was made for all, which seems good, but it was their undoing.

Because it makes space for Monotheists, who believe there is only one God, and that those who don’t believe that are enemies to God.

One and many are at odds, necessarily.

Such singularity is necessarily tyrannical. It opposes the many by definition.

This is why the Constitution declared that church and state must be separate, and there must be freedom of religion–that the singularity may not overtake the plurality.

I have known many basically good Christians who simply believe in love and charity without agenda. But they’ll forgive me if I say that they are not quite understanding why their religion exists. Both polytheism and Christianity acknowledge the goodness of love and sacrifice. That is basic. But the polytheists are concerned with the nature of a thing which is. The monotheists are only interested in the nature of a thing, as it pertains to how they may make you submit.

Monotheism IS anti-intellectualism. It is an organized effort to limit knowledge through suppressing art and to a lesser degree science–but the science becomes meaningless without the art (“This is a man’s world, but it wouldn’t mean nothing without a woman or a girl,” would be a modern take on this, and how patriarchy harms men-though, it’s most usually regarded as a misogynistic and condescending song. I regard it as a song about the failed promise of Christianity to men, and the heartbreak that brings. Whether or not that is the intention, that is what it reveals to me). The facts can be exchanged for other facts, and there is no art by which to measure its truth. The science becomes meaningless, unimportant, irrelevant, and then gone.

It tells you your burdens are your fault, and that seeking knowledge that could expand your hope will lead to death.

The polytheists displayed the tyrannical character of being a God–but also described the ability of man to challenge that tyranny, however unlikely their quest. Zeus terrorizes Pandora. But she does not seek his permission to unleash hope.

America is powered by hope. All things are. It’s an authoritarian’s prerogative to keep you from knowledge–knowledge of life’s horrors, from which spring love, spring hope. Stupid and hopeless is what the monotheists strive for.

Are we prepared to watch everything destroyed, the women subjugated, the “others” exterminated, just so the monotheisms can go to war to determine once and for all who is the most stupid and hopeless?

The world is full of horrors and there are more to come. But do not abide the Christian mandate to feel sorry you looked and promise never to look again. Keep looking. Buried in the darkness is hope. And the only way to find it is to keep the box open.

Heavy lies the crown. We are burdened with the ability to think, to look, observe. What we see is often sickening. But to think, to look, to observe is to learn how to solve the problems before you. And that is hope.

There is no hope without first making your way in the dark. Look into the darkness. It’s where love is born.