Paradiso Urge
"The biggest reason for the horrendous cycle of violence in my region of the world is religious extremism. But as an historian, I would say extremism of any kind is dangerous; and what the 20th Century showed us is that not only paradise in some other world can lead to murderous extremism, but paradise on Earth as the one imagined by Marxists and Stalinists has equally dangerous potential. I never understood how Marxists think about what happens to you after you die, and what's the point of dying for the revolution if you're dead, and you can't witness the revolution?" - Yuval Noah Harari
Today is the Winter Solstice, Twenty Twenty Three.
I am about halfway through the paints of Page 56 of FLOLAS. My initial idea was that it would be about 60 pages long, and as I approach that metric I’m thinking I might have been off by a dozen pages or so. You’ll see what I mean soon enough. I’ve been actively drawing FLOLAS for over a decade now, and this website will be ten years old next Summer. I started seriously making this thing in my late 20’s and now I am 40 years old. I do not like these facts 😅😢🥹😭
I grew up Southern Baptist and was taught very strict notions of God and morality. We were told to be respectful of elders, be polite in public, wear nice clothes to Sunday service; and above all: pray to Jesus Christ so that you may know Him and get into Heaven. Religion is not for me though. I lost my faith at 14 and never looked back. Prayer I think has a psychological effect, much like a blanket does to a child, but I do not think for one moment that you’re actually communicating with anything other than yourself. I railed against the idea of religion when I was younger, pointing out the hypocrisy and crimes of the devout. I still think it’s an all around bad idea, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve relaxed my ire towards it. I think people need it to a certain extent. If you kill God, people will replace it with all manner of nonsense. For instance, I’m one of seemingly many godless heathens that all of a sudden thought Astrology was really cool in recent years. Turns out that’s a well documented phenomenon.
You can’t be mad at people for trying to make sense of the world.
The way I think of it now has largely been informed by meditation and psychedelics. At some point I realized that God, Jesus, Heaven and Hell - all of it - is very real - it’s just all in your head.
He stood up, and Dumbledore did the same, and they looked for a long moment into each other’s faces.
“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry, “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?”
When astrophysicists look out into space, they rarely see actual planets and black holes. What they see instead is the gravitational influence of what could potentially be a planet or black hole. They see things jittering around, light waves fluxing, objects that should be in straight lines bending. Whether there’s a heavenly body there or not, the influence is enough to justify it’s existence.
And so it is for religion.
On October 7th, members of Hamas parachuted into Israel and began murdering, raping, and taking hostages. You would think this would be looked at by the rest of the world and condemned as a blatant act of terrorism. That’s largely what happened, but there was also so much moral confusion, contrarianism, and virtue signaling from misguided leftists that the story become muddied to say the least. I’m not about to write a grand defense of Israel and Zionism - there are far smarter, better informed people that have already done that exhaustively. I’m also not going to demonize Palestine or Islam - there’s no room for that in modern society. Islam, like all religion, is not above parody and criticism, and despite what happens to those that partake in said parody and criticism, this is a problem the Muslim world must fix from within. No amount of western bombs seems to do it, and it’s not for lack of trying.
What I do want to write about is why they did that.
I think there’s a notion in America, and probably The West as a whole, that Muslim extremists are mad at us for something. We strayed too close to their holy sites, or we took the wrong side in an ancient war, or … something - and this is why 9/11 happened in America, or 10/7 in Israel or 3/11 in Madrid or 11/15 in Paris… This is largely untrue. The reasons for their violence are not reasons at all - we are the enemy, pure and simple. The West is largely secular and otherwise Christian and Jewish. The West propped up and supports Israel. We do not cover our women, we do not pray 5 times a day, and we allow and encourage the cosmopolitan free exchange of ideas, including parody and criticism of anything including their religion.
It’s so simple that it confuses otherwise intelligent people.
They attack us because they want to get into heaven. Because their war god demands it. Because we are infidels. Because of jihad. There is glory in heaven for those that die in service to God. That’s literally what Allah Akbar means - Allah is the greatest - greater than this fickle meaningless life on Earth, greater than these fallen sinful others in the fiery wake of suicide bombs. It’s glory to God to serve as his sword.
This shit is all in their heads.
This shit could not be more real.
Of course, not all Muslims believe such things. I always remind people when discussing this topic that most of the victims of Islamic extremism are other Muslims. The vast majority of the Muslim world do not commit acts of violence - however, it is arguable that this majority does not vehemently condemn the violence often enough. What’s going on with Islam right now is not unlike what happened with Christianity during the Crusades, but unlike then, the rest of the world is no longer entrenched in Bronze Age mysticism - it’s the 21st Century, and this barbarism has no place in it.
I also do not want to pick on Islam exclusively here. There are gallons and gallons of blood on the hands of the Israeli Defense Force, and America has a slightly bigger problem with White Nationalist (cough cough Christian) extremists these days. Hell, even Buddhists have an issue with Killing in the Name of… No matter what god you imagine, you can also imagine them telling you to kill someone. You want to get into Heaven don’t you?
Needless to say, this is all just so fucking stupid.
It also largely proves to me that God simply does not exist. As a comedian once said, God could clear up a lot of things with a five minute press conference. I guess it’s easier for the all powerful, omnipresent creator of the Universe to sit by idly and let the violence in his name persist. Wow, what a thing to worship.
But this brings me to the quote I started this blog with. Paradise after life is one thing, but there’s an equally dubious notion of Paradise on Earth that’s worth discussing. Dying for the revolution, as it were, is just as contemptible and foolish as an imagined afterlife. It’s noble to try to make things better, but perfect? Does anyone think these are new ideas? Have you not read Animal Farm? Have you not read Utopia? Ideas of Heaven on Earth, as a political ideal, have been dreamt up, written down, and in many cases attempted in earnest- while throwing endless amounts of death and human suffering at the problem - to no avail.
There’s nothing wrong with trying to make the world better - it is after all what we make of it - but my point is that it shouldn’t require the injuring and dying of someone else. If your paradise is covered in blood, is it a paradise at all? If the pearly gates are surrounded by the bodies of your enemies, is it really Heaven?
Maybe it’s the other one.
