"Feed the man meat" is sexist, of course — like most religious organisations are. "Feed the man meat" was the rallying cry from the Australian Meat Corporation or such association of butchers and farmers. So they changed the pitch to something less sexist. But religions are still sexist and allowed to be like men only clubs. Or ruled by men, like barbecues with the females doing the salads only.

 

Imagine a woman becoming pope and discovering all the secret devious shenanigans of the previous Doodahs... Instead of Alleluyah she might suddenly say fuck! with her eyes popping out.

 

But, she would have to carry on the merchandising of "spirituality," though we are told in uncertain terms that:

 

 

“We live in a day where there’s ‘spirituality,’ but not Christianity,” Mohler told The Christian Post. “That’s not a category found in Scripture. There’s no Christianity that isn’t doctrinal Christianity. Christianity is based on events that took place in space and time in history. It’s a faith of definite, essential beliefs. The Apostles' Creed is a way of summarizing the Christian faith so that Christians can be grounded in the truth and be able to detect false doctrine and false Christianity.”

The oldest known creed in Christendom, the Apostles' Creed is a faithful summary of what Christians believe and holds an unparalleled level of doctrinal authority, beginning with the statement, “I believe in God.” Those simple words, Mohler said, contain the basis of the entire Christian faith.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/al-mohler-true-christians-believe-every-word-apostles-creed.html


I, Gus Leonisky, actually believe in the dinosaurs and in evolution. Spirituality leaves me cold. Don’t get me wrong I can imagine weirder stuff than devious gods and upright demons, but mine are sprouting in the non moralistic fabric of the universe. 

If one uses spirituality or Christianity to enforce a moral code on the present, then we fight in the mud of nonsense rather than survive in the glory of uncertainty. The “moral” code of human behaviour has to be humanistic and not bought with a collection plate. Yet one cannot deny that we still need the sense of community that churches provide when a full chapel of mourners recite the Pater Noster… 

We can do better with conviction in greater halls of uncertainty dedicated to scientific rigour where scientists can exchange their latest relative conviction, in front of a plate of lamingtons. 

And this would be nothing pseudo-religious like that awful Scientology where they highjack your brains to pluck your pockets. Obediance and subserviance, repentance and sins, are not in the vocab of scientists. Adventure and understanding barely define the important work. Here we could have the global warming mega-gallery with a small chapel for the denialist heretics, hygienical Rooms for the medical researchers and a tiny broom cupboard for the bordeline charlatans. The main oration would be something like :

universum propinquum nostrum… 

This is a dedication to be cantically set to the Punksy Heavy Metal music with traditional violins continuo, to shake these electrons to the core in a resonating vault full of lasers and holograms explaining the life force of the paramecia. It would still be an illusion but it would release the cobwebs and make gell the scientific community together.


Our disciples and prophets would be Einstein, Bohr, Curie, Kohn, Planck, Laplace, Lagrange, Poincarré, and possibly Freud and Socrates on the sidelines as replacement, should one of the quantumenicals loses footing on the grass of dark matter. I have been working on this project for a long time now.


I know it’s far easier to say “I believe in god” instead of “I understand sciences”. This is mostly due that from the time we are born, every effort is made by the education system to limit our enquiring mind by simplifying the complexity of things with “god did it” — or bamboozle us later on with "Hairy Pooter Mijik”. 

As long as we can produce money for others, we’re good. Learning to toil is the name of the game. Here I must say that when some of my friends say “inshallah” (god willing) to me, I reply politely “F&^K O%F!” in German (werde gefickt — or Scheiße!). 

We are fed lovely distractions that mask our imagination, like the horse eye-patches. Why do we still trade with Brunei, for example... Why? Oh, I know: money. The Saltimbanco (Fake Clown Sultan — I made this one up) of Brunei has declared war on LGBTis to the death. This is unacceptable, but we accept this atrocious decree for cash... Mind you it took a few years for this fair country to "evolve" into acceptance, while the Brunei Sultanatarto has "devolve” into the pits of darkness on the subject. 


Then, we "believe in global warming" and "we believe" in the sanctity of the Great Barrier Reef, but since it's fucked anyway, we're going to allow the biggest coal mine in the world to destroy the water tables, the wildlife, pollute the landscape as well and send zillions tons of CO2 in the atmosphere for.... cash. Hurray! … Actually not even that much cash as we've got to spend some cash before the project can go ahead on behalf of an intellectually bankrupt Indian. He has warm hands I have been told. And of course, our own Mr Murdoch, loves the project to death. It will kill us that's for sure, but before hand we would have made … a bit of cash.

In regard to Mr Murdoch, Brian Coyne wrote an essay in Pearl and Irritation, that seemed to be a bit too religious for me, the conclusion of which was a bit more secular:

I don’t pretend to know the answers to how any nation can respond to this [Rupert Murdoch’s ways]. We’re dealing with forces in the human psyche that are more powerful than virtually any other force known to humankind. We see it manifested in the increasing instability emerging all over our planet today: from Britain with Brexit and the refugee problems in Europe, to Trump’s efforts to build a wall in the United States. We see it in the political and economic instability in countries like Venezuela, Brazil, the Philippines, Italy, Hungary and even France.

We need to confront the narcissistic leaders who are exploiting this. But we also need to tame the insecurities and anxieties of this vast population who seek simple answers, hate ideas, thinking and intellectuals, and who think and act in very shallow ways. The task, and challenge, is not going to be easy.

https://johnmenadue.com/brian-coyne-the-genius-of-rupert-murdoch-and-why-we-all-need-to-pay-attention/

Gus:
Yes/no, there are no simple answers. But it should not be too hard to dislodge the media baron from his rotting perch. It’s just that our conscience won’t allow us to fight on his turf. As a gambler on the greatest denominator of the vast populations that seek simple answers, he knows our dilemma. It would be hypocritical for us to use the same manipulative weapons. So, while he manipulates the psyche of most people cleverly for a dime each, we, righteously, barely stand on a soap box with arguments that can be pure only by being an atheistic and humanistic. Use a religious truth — which is at best an old fake news that believers still try to defend arduously with apostles' creeds — to combat Murdoch and he will laught at you. Murdoch is intellectual enough to know that the intellectuals have deserted you and your beliefs — and have probably joined the rank of investment bankers. Cash... is the key.
His tactics have been discussed on this site, too often. 

He uses (or dictates) the simple power of the simple image that conveys a simple message to the visual cortex of people. Boom. In two seconds, people know what it's about. One intellectual can write 22,000 words on a subject with deep insight and thorough analysis of values, and one will not get through the front door. The Murdoch inspired image often contains few words, usually two or three and a pun: ILL-ARY plus a picture that shows that Hillary is “sick”. She does not have to be sick. it only has to be a truthfull image of her without make-up and a bad lighting of her wrinkles. You have been shown DOUBT: one second; and please REJECT: two seconds. You cannot vote for someone who COULD BE sick. Our mind works even faster with an image of a soothing sunset.

Murdoch's lieutenants who do the refined work are expert, having been chosen thus. They know the drill: simple, but no denigration of the potential buyer of the product (information — fake or otherwise). One of the many Hillary mistakes, was calling some people “deplorables”. Imagine the damage! suddenly you loose all the people who were uncomfortably sitting on the fence.

No, for Murdoch, the buyer is precious like diamonds and each person has to feel he/she is being valued, as well as what they believe in — America, Guns, Greed, God, Cash and Freedom — are also valued (or shown to be valued). 

Murdoch's simple motto for the Daily Telegraph in Australia is “We’re for You” which is an intimate limiting factor of division between those "who aren’t for you" — and him (the DT). Clever. All the other papers, like the SMH, the New York Times and the Washington Post use abstract concepts like "independent always" or whatever. It's too intellectual and often UNTRUE. One can only fight this powerful Murdoch simplicity with cynicism, insults about the incorrect news (the opinions, not the man), a simple “RUPERT, YOU'RE WRONG" and/or with quick scientific truism (if you can find one). You cannot use religious beliefs — because, believe it or not — he has cornered the “Evangelical” market as well. They are the ones who voted for Trump, often by default because they did not like the guy at first — and then came to love him as a "martyr" of Democrats' anger, as Murdoch had coaxed the believers to “believe” in Trump. 

The Mueller inquiry was always going to reinforce this aspect of martyrdom, unless Mueller had truly killer arguments that the Russians had really interfered in the 2016 Presidential elections. This would have had terrible massive consequences, mostly: how come the most formidable country on the planet is so dumb as to be manipulated by dumb Ruskies? Before his iffy conclusion above, Brian Coyne wrote:

As far as the politics go, the analysis closest to hand would be that the get-rich interests of the right-wing parties are not only unchallenged by the conservative and further-right media, but avidly supported by them. The Morrison Government, for example, delays an election announcement, sets aside $174million to advertise itself, meanwhile lavishing taxpayer dollars on the very media that will mindlessly support their policies while ruthlessly pillorying any and all policies of the “leftist” opposition. Bingo!

The mystery may be greater as to why in cynical, secular Australia we currently have as our Prime Minister – however briefly – a man likely one of the most theologically conservative leaders in the developed West. Yes, President (“Grab them by the pussy”) Trump plays the evangelical card, but only because it wins him votes from those who think it irreligious (!) to protect those at risk from poverty, wars, gun freedoms, domestic terror, a lack of health care – or climate change. Scott Morrison, though, is the evangelical “real deal”, at least by his own account. That means he believes that Jesus died on the cross for his, yours and my sins and that in sacrificing himself Jesus “restored us to friendship with God” – though only if we accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. He likely also believes that those who do not find this theology plausible, who are neither “saved” nor “born again” in his version of Jesus, will likely burn in hell for all eternity. It is tempting to laugh; tears may be more appropriate.

Hum... Still at sea on this one. Apparently, the great man Murdoch, now a bit unsteady on his sea legs, lost his grip in the loo of the boat of his son and got bruised on the face which had to be pampered with a bit of Jerry’s magic. The news did not dint his enthusiasm for peddling news though. The article in the New York Times about him would have annoyed him a bit but he would have laughed eventually, because he is at the top of the food chain… and this NYT article ends up making sure everyone knows it. He should be happy. Meanwhile other religious nuts try to steer the boat of beliefs away from the nutty believers. It’s painful to watch the religious convolution and a Stephanie Dowrick tries harder:

 

Do these profoundly different views of Jesus – and of God – matter in a largely secular country like Australia? I think they do. The alliances between the most conservative wings of Anglo-Catholicism, Roman Catholicism and the entire body of evangelicals, including Pentecostalists like Morrison, are forged and deepened through their overt political crusades. The hyper-aggression that has marked Australian politics since conservative Catholic Tony Abbott’s time in power reflects this.

Conservative theology not only defends itself against progress on social issues; it virulently attacks all signs of such progress. There’s something darker here, too. Being “saved” is a highly individual experience. It’s between you and God with Jesus as your intermediary. 

https://johnmenadue.com/stephanie-dowrick-more-death-than-life-in-the-christian-and-secular-right/


As you should know by know, Gus Leonisky is a rabid atheist. And reading these politico-religioso extracts, I would become more atheist if was not already at the end of the spectrum. Apart from not believing in god, I find religious beliefs totally ridiculous. Why would we need to be saved and why should we hypocritically fight over a place called Jerusalem? 

And no. We don’t live in a day where there’s ‘spirituality,’ nor ‘Christianity' Mister Mohler… This is a major deception. The main driver of social behaviour these days is cash. And cash does not need to be believed in to want some to survive or thrive. So Stephanie Dowrick makes a little sense here, yet I have the feeling that no-one has listened to her before, doesn't now and will not thereafter. She writes:

Conservative theology not only defends itself against progress on social issues; it virulently attacks all signs of such progress. There’s something darker here, too. Being “saved” is a highly individual experience. It’s between you and God with Jesus as your intermediary. There is little care for outsiders and no social message beyond strident efforts towards conversion. Like all forms of fundamentalism, it offers an almost unimaginable degree of certainty, demanding in return a matching depth of conviction. You are saved, not least from further enquiry. Dogma makes its own sense and any degree of open-mindedness is not only unnecessary but dangerous. 

This is fine should you not need to pass the collection plate around for cash nor try to interfere with the business of politics. Ideally, politics should be following the golden rule. Here is Stephanie Dowrick again:

The “Golden Rule” of loving-kindness towards others – treating them as you wish to be treated – is at the heart of every faith. This plausible reflection of Jesus’ own life and conduct makes even more sense in a global, multi-faith world when you see “that of God” within all beings, without exception. And when it leads to inclusive social justice, rather than social or religious exclusivity.


At this stage, one does not need god to achieve social justice, love, compassion, nor a better understanding of the mechanics of this small planet and of the universe in which we’re number 1,768,423 x 10( to the power of 7974). solar system in a sea of solar systems. Brian Coyne also tells us in his article on the Murdoch tactics and faith:

Back in 1979 another Cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger, who subsequently became Pope Benedict XVI, made an observation about the ordinary pew-sitters in the Church. In a homily he stated: 
“The Christian believer is a simple person: bishops should protect the faith of these little people against the power of intellectuals.” 
While only a small number of people in the educated, affluent, first world heard or read those words, it seems about 90% of the baptised picked up that it was how the hierarchs were going to treat them: as “little and simple people who needed to be protected from intellectuals”. In other words, Catholicism was for simpletons. The majority gave up listening and participating across the Western world.
https://johnmenadue.com/brian-coyne-the-genius-of-rupert-murdoch-and-why-we-all-need-to-pay-attention/


And this is at the crux of the matter. for many believers being an “intellectual” is being caught in the devil’s web. This is grand bullshit designed to prevent people better understanding of reality. This is possibly at the heart of why many people have deserted the churches. People have been thinking thus devalueing faith versus reality.

The difference with Islam retaining its followers is that Islam will punish you in THIS world, rather than in the "next life", thus it has far more extremistic IMMEDIATE persuasive value. Quit Islam and you’ll be imprisoned, then probably stoned to death should you still be an apostate. Quit Catholicism and you’re called a "black sheep", esoterically with the faithful praying for your soul… But no-one will mention your name, no-one will know that you have quit (you will be part of an anonymous flock of black sheep). See the difference?… It’s not that Islam is a better or a worse belief in god — it’s as ridiculous as the others — it only relies on the application of physical pain. As Alfred de Musset, himself a believer in god, proposed: “Man is a pupil, pain is his teacher.”

Most of our scientific research is on the minimisation of pain and the magnification of contentment. Aspirin works. Religions are deceptively holding you in fear, a mental pain, with a promise of contentment when you’re feeding the worms, as long as beforehand you pay for the priviledge of being flogged, spiritually or physically — helping the religious Ponzi scheme prosper. And please don’t mention the “happy-clappy church” class, they're all about cash and relationships to make cash, like the freemasons, except they are bogans in the open fields. When they sing, it’s like a rock concert where "Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes”...

Meanwhile the armies of the empire are preparing for the “big one”… It's really a jungle out there...