Punishment

Punishment is either a means of revenge or a tool for the purpose of conditioning. A loving parent dispenses punishment as a means of behavior modification. Psychology tells us that punishment only works as long as the threat of punishment is present. That is to say, if we want to instill desirable behavioral changes in our children, punishment is not the most effective method for doing so. It is said that true behavior modification comes from positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement causes a child to associate reward with their desirable actions. Once a person is punished for their behavior, the threat of punishment for this behavior no longer exists; the punishment is simply reality. But this punishment may deter future acts of a similar nature in the punished individual and others. The understanding of a looming consequence may work as an effective deterrent, but only if the risk of said punishment outweighs the desire to engage in this undesirable behavior. A big part of childhood would seem to be finding this balance – testing boundaries, experiencing consequences, and modifying one’s own behavior as means of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. When there is no evidence of a named looming consequence, a child may choose to ignore warnings in pursuit of activities that are discouraged by adults in their life. Sometimes, it may be in the child’s best interest for an adult to let them experience the natural consequences of their actions. This teaches the child to listen to these warnings adults provide. But, if a natural consequence could result in severe or permanent harm to a child, it is an adult’s responsibility to intervene. If my nearly 4-year-old daughter were running toward the edge of a cliff, it would be my responsibility to stop her. Telling her to stop and watching as she dove off the edge of this ridge, would be careless parenting. It has been said that those with the power to act have the responsibility to act. If this is true, I am responsible for whatever happens to my daughter as a result of my failure to physically stop her from heading toward the edge of this cliff. She hadn’t the experience to understand the natural consequences of her actions, but I did. This kind of inaction may only serve as punishment as revenge. It says, “I’m in pain because you aren’t listening to me, so I’m going to cause you pain by letting you cause yourself pain”.

Could a loving deity be justified in letting his children slip into an eternity of suffering? This permanent form of punishment could not be a means of behavior modification for the individual who finds this to be the natural consequences of their actions. The presence of this punishment may only work as a means of discouraging undesirable behavior in others as long as there is reason to believe the punishment exists. We all have personal experiences that inform our philosophical perspectives. Some of us feel we have reason to believe in eternal damnation. Many of us do not. It would seem unjust to let a person whose personal history gives them reason not to believe in eternal damnation suffer for their beliefs. As one who has been exposed to Christian philosophy much more than any other philosophy throughout his life, the Christian bible comes to mind when addressing this issue. Romans 9:20-24 would seem to say there are people who are created for the purpose of eternal damnation. It also would seem to say I am not qualified to question this. But this kind of blind faith would seem detrimental to the progression of our species. It says we should keep our heads down and do as we’re told. Many of us who believe in eternal damnation would exchange pleasure in this life for an eternity of bliss in the next. But this life is meant for our enjoyment. Fear and love cannot exist at the same time. If our actions are informed by fear, we are not letting love rule. It is in our nature to love. We learn to fear as a result of hurt. We are then more likely to engage in acts that cause others pain. We must find a way to overcome this cycle of fear and act according to our loving nature.

Phantoms

Fighting off the phantoms with a sword of glass
Am I strong enough to make them fall
As many times as I’ve banished these broken bads
You are still haunted by their call
It’s so hard to see any kind of future clearly
With dreams so haunted by the past
Are we laying foundation of life to come or merely
Replaying scenes of long-lost dads
Be my friend
Trading chemicals as one
Trust my hand
And soften that sharpened tongue

13

It swelled inside that guilty brain
For whom and to whom did I owe this cold?
Unrecognized carelessness
Climbing my walls like ice water in a sinking ship
And it felt perfectly right
This bitterness belonged on my lips
Child, give yourself grace
You are all I could expect
Virgin brain to so many things
You are too young to hold this regret
Trying to decide which side to sue
When this grown man can’t protect you
Anger like a jagged stick
Scratching the melancholic itch left to grow inside
But it leaves scars the drugs can’t heal
So be gentle to yourself when no one else will
So much beauty in a dying world
So spread the love inside
Child, give yourself grace
You are all I could expect
Virgin brain to so many things
You are too young to hold this regret

The Perfect Creator

The perfect creator doesn’t rely on magic to correct the condition of their creation. There is no course correction. To quote the Beatles, “There’s no where you can be that isn’t where you were meant to be.” When we think of a creator, we tend to apply human characteristics, often envisioning “him” using “his” hands to give us form. One popular interpretation of the book of Genesis in the Christian Bible paints the creation of humankind as an act of God sculpting humans from “dust of the ground “. When envisioning the creation of humankind, I like to envision water sculpting rock over millenia. It is according to natural laws of our universe that the creator creates, not because the creator is bound by these laws, rather because they are the tools of the creator. But more than that, they are the creator. The creator doesn’t make the impossible possible. The creator makes the possible possible. The creator is not magic. Magic is the term we use to describe that which we cannot understand. But we must recognize the fact that we don’t understand the natural cause of these events, does not mean there is no rational explanation. We must not rely on explanation we have found to be illogical as means to describing that which we do not yet understand. Blind faith is an enemy of progress. It has been said humans used to attribute things like weather to spirits. We now attribute changes in the weather to the changing seasons and varying air pressure. These are all parts of the natural world. The creator does not want us to deprive ourselves the pleasures of this life in the pursuit of pleasures after. The pleasures we experience in this life are gifts, parts of the world we were given, and even the creator him/her/itself. The creator has no need for desire. Desire is a part of being sentient in this reality. Desire is a product of the balance between pain and pleasure. This balance inspires us to regulate our own and others’ actions. This is what inspires moral judgement. The creator is beyond the need for judgement. There is no need to fear “his” wrath. Everything is perfectly as it is. It could be no other way. There is no going against “God’s” plan. We and everything around us are parts of “God”.

God and Chocolate

God is like chocolate. And your religion is like your favorite candy bar. Some of us like nuts in our candy bars. Some of us like caramel. Some of us like peanut butter. Some of us like nougat. I don’t know what nougat is, but I’ve been told some people like it in their candy. These ingredients don’t make the chocolate any less real. They may dilute our experience of it. But it is chocolate all the same. Occasionally, or rather, quite frequently, the nuts or the caramel suggest the other would poison the chocolate. And, because our experience of the chocolate is so profound, we tend to believe our chocolate delivery system, our religion, is the only correct one. People die and kill for our beliefs. But this division is not of God. This division is created by humans. We are all parts of the same higher power no matter the name we choose to give him, her, it, or them. We must stop this division. One thing we can all agree on – those who like PayDay bars know nothing about God!

Eyes of God

Borrowing the eyes of God to see you are fucking beautiful
Interactive art and you don’t even know it
Laughing at our own stupidity
This illusion of separation
Atoms hurriedly bumping against each other
Hungry animals with divinity inside
Busy ants, we are one
Even as we struggle, all is as it should be

Painting

Your brain is the artist
Your body, the paint brush
Every stroke you make adds to the work of art we will call “You”
Other artists will have ideas about how to best make you
But, in the end, you are creating this masterpiece
And it is a masterpiece
Make art that is personality beautiful, even if no one else will appreciate it
It is up to you whether to focus on your mistakes, spreading them all over the canvas, or to recognize the beauty in imperfection and let them be
Don’t spend too much time looking at others’ works of art
This is not a competition
And many of them don’t even know they are in the studio
Have fun
Enjoy engaging in this act of creation
Take pride in every choice of color and stroke of your brush
Experiment
Explore the canvas
This was never about following rules

Human

Chasing happy chemicals
A sentimental trinket
Release them into my blood
Searching for another hit
I am not alone only
Swimming in loving waters
How the hell’d it go so well
Wearing scars of our fathers
Inevitable new life
Rooting around for comfort
Dirty mammals in this skin
Who knew how this life would hurt
We’re on our knees in prayer
For the power to save us
Now completely unaware
This was power they gave us
Inject this gift in my lungs
Nurturing new synapses
Liquid pain inside these walls
Until this world collapses
We make it and we break it
Sending warmth to our fingers
We are painting in color
Even as shadow lingers

Sunday 11/10/19

When I was younger (I’m still young and plan on being this way until I die of old age.), my family went to church together every Sunday. I believed everything I was told and even blindly quoted the leader of our congregation once or twice. As I grew older (Again, I’m still young.), I began questioning my faith. People close to me in my walk with Christ believed everyone who didn’t believe the things we did would go to Hell. I was told God makes himself known to every person on Earth and that many in other countries simply reject Him. I had trouble with this. If God loved everyone, why were so many people being punished for their beliefs?

As I grew into adolescence, I began rejecting my father’s faith. Dad told me, despite my philosophical perspective, the morality taught in the Christian bible was true. I was made to go to church with my family even as I rejected their faith. I recall feeling so uncomfortable. I tried making light of the ceremonies in my head. I recall an instance in which the church was to take communion. The head of the church asked parents to keep their children from engaging in communion if they believed their children were not good with God. I smirked. That was me he was talking about. The speaker said, if I was not good with God and engaged in communion, I would surely die. As the tiny plastic cups came by, Dad shook his head at me. I wasn’t to engage in this ceremony. When I couldn’t feel good about making light of the dogma, I ended up feeling rather uncomfortable. I was lead to believe this discomfort was the result of my knowing I was not doing right, that I needed to accept Jesus Christ to be okay. But all of these people whole-heartedly believed something that seemed absurd to me. Further, all of these people believed I was going to an afterlife of damnation, constant pain for an eternity. This discomfort was enough to inspire me to want to believe even as I felt as though I were not being honest with myself. It seemed at the time my options were my father’s religion or nothing. I chose atheism over absurdity and condemned my father’s blind faith.

Then, and if you’re reading this, you likely already know what is coming here, I was told I had a brain tumor. I began searching for anything to give me peace of mind. My old faith was means to that for me. If I was going to die, I was going to pray there was a God. although my brush with death inspired a resurrection of my old faith, it was also means to my trying to reconcile the problems I found in christianity when I was younger. As I went, tediously through the Christian bible, I found things that did not align with my understanding of God. I still took great issue with the idea that so few would see God’s mercy. I then came to in my mind a simple test – two questions: Is God not powerful enough to save everyone from Hell or is He not willing? If God is not willing to save everyone from Hell, then he is not the compassionate God I was told of when I was growing up. If God is not able to save everyone from Hell, then He is not as powerful as the God I was told of when I was growing up. In my mind, there was plenty of evidence for the existence of God. But the God I was told of when I was growing up could not exist without the story of Jesus’ sacrifice to keep me and those like me from suffering.

I’ve recently had the opportunity to attend church with my mother-in law and wife. My mother-in-law is a firm believer in Jesus Christ and would seem to want her daughter and me to share this with her. I’ve felt anxiety both times. I’ve recognized methods used to make visitors susceptible to the message and felt sorry for my brothers and sister who so whole-heartedly believe this message of fear, this claim that the only path to avoiding an eternity of pain is belief in something for which there is little evidence. Further, they believe they are the chosen, that everyone else is going to see God’s wrath. If this isn’t means to division, I don’t know what is. There was a moment in the speaker’s talk when he asked us to pick up a sealed envelop and commit to following the instructions inside before seeing what they were. I thought of Jonestown episodes in which the leader regularly had members drink Kool-Aid as an act of faith. If you don’t know the story, the last time they did this, the Kool-Aid was laced with cyanide.

Blind faith is not means to enlightenment. It is means to servitude. We must open our eyes. We must recognize we are not to divide against each other. God is love. Any message to the contrary works to divide us, keeping us in fear. Ironically, fear and love are often in contrary and opposing states. Please recognize you are not special. We are all beautiful parts of God, each part deserving love as much as the next. It is time to stop the competition and rise up with a revolution of love. Love is the only force strong enough to pull us up and out of servitude. Religion gives us reason to stay in our place. But logic will pull us out of that place, inspiring us to love everyone and demand those we love be given everything they need to live happy lives.