The cognitive dissonance between the miserable and violent Old Testament, Yahweh and the New testament version who was Well Pleased and Benign, has caused some of the flock confusion over the centuries.
Marcion of Sinope 144AD, averred there must be two gods and was driven out of town on a rail for his trouble. They must have been pretty serious about his eviction. Two thousand years later his spiritual descendants, the Ebonites, still live in desert mountain fortresses.
and not just because Yahweh is mean and carries Millenial grudges but because he moonlights as Mammon.
Its not that shocking. He’s split to the point of madness. When the Principle of Relatedness, symbolised by Yahweh’s ex-missus Hokmah/Sophia/Wisdom..
she wot got cast into the brine and done in with mill stones?
the very same. When She disappears back into the ocean, Humanity is easier to lead by the nose because people stop talking to one another from their hearts and have stopped talking to themselves, which, far from being the first sign of madness, is a rather good sign of I and Me having a productive chinwag.
The splash back for Yahweh is that he loses the capacity to talk to himself into the bargain and entertains no awareness of contradictions that give even mere mortals occasional pause for thought.
which is why Eternity is in love with the clocks of Time.
Unfortunately the Beloved has become a little schizoid. One of his dating handicaps is typical of the Narcissistic suitor who denies the relevance of potential rivals whilst being eternally chewn up with envy and vengeance. He’s split in the way crevasses are, the kind that can swallow you up…
the way kids are when their parents say one thing but do another.
One of his best is the claim to be the One and Only whilst pouring vats of divine libido into smiting the children of lesser gods, thereby acknowledging not only their existence but their worthiness of adversarial attention..
and occasional emulation..
It’s behavior that is entirely consistent with the malignant end of a Narcissistic Personality Disorder, the hallmark of which is continuous aggressive investment in the denigration and humiliation of others in a way that then justifies, for their own good, intrusive correction. So the shop front might be all love and peace and we’ll lead with that but in back is the treadmill of shame.
Guilt for what you have done is small potatoes, shame for what you take yourself to be goes to the bone.
For all our supposed advances we are a culture of Job’s comforters, the neighbours of biblical Job who got pulverised by Yahweh as part of a bet with the Devil. When Job is reduced to sitting on a dungheap all covered in boils, his mates come over. Instead of commiserating, which you’d expect of even your harshest mate after being whacked by God through no fault of your own, they urge him to search his conscience. You must have done something wrong…
which gradually becomes…
there’s something wrong with you.
You can’t feed a baby on a park bench without people tutting. If your picket fence didn’t get a lick of paint at Easter you’ll be tutted to Thanksgiving. You can’t even die of old age or natural causes anymore. You must have bought it on yourself.
Reggie died, he smoked you know.
He was ninety four
All that phlegm, choked him in the end.
He was ninety four
Clogged up his arteries.
He was ninety four.
Even the positive thinkers and white knights are run through with it. What on earth must you have done in a past life to warrant such misfortune on your head? So life is not allowed to be tragic. Your deserved shame bought it down on you and every blow of life is thus just recompense.
Every body gets what they deserve.
This compulsive shaming is Yahweh moonlighting as Mammon, his secret denied self. Like Nice Man George from the song by Madness who sells newspapers by day and steals underwear from washing lines by night, Mammon’s job is to get you to feel bad about yourself. Bad enough to warrant multi-billion dollar pharma giants to feed Him.
Ostensibly, Mammon is the God of Money and Avarice, but he has degrees of subtlety about him, where it’s more about attitude than what you actually have..
”such goods as one does not need but holds as treasure.’ M Luther.
and even more trixy with this..
”Mammon causes guilt and shame for the treasures that we do have.” C. Dollar
Who are you to shine?
and so the taint of persecutory anxiety.
which is also your fault.
But of course the ultimate form of shaming is random death. Nothing quite like a senseless killing, murders that are allowed to happen, cuts to services that mean an early grave, to make a statement of unworthiness. Life held in the balance, not because you are a threat, but to show that you are not a person anymore.
which is why the most effective way to meet Mammon wherever you may find him is with your own self worth and unshamed humanity.
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