Monday, June 29, 2009

Of Icons and Ocons

If you want to understand the power of mind parasites, just consider the fate of Michael Jackson, who was literally entombed in them by the time his corpse ceased dysfunctioning. A newspaper report says that at the time of bodily death (which occurred years after psychic death), he weighed 112 pounds, had nothing but pills in his stomach, was covered with needle wounds, had a mass of scars from all the body mutilation (i.e., cosmetic surgery), and had shed virtually all his hair.

But what is even more fascinating to the forensic psychologist in me is that now the family wants to sue someone -- anyone -- and that their sub-bottomfeeding spokeshole, Jesse Jackson, is talking about "foul play." Foul play? Foul play? Of course there was foul play! There always is. How do you think the mind parasites got there in the first place? Too bad Joseph Jackson can't sue himself and win punitive damages -- or maybe even send himself to prison for child abuse. From wiki:

"Jackson said that he was physically and emotionally abused by his father from a young age, enduring incessant rehearsals, whippings and name-calling.... In one altercation, Joseph held Michael upside down by one leg and 'pummeled him over and over again with his hand, hitting him on his back and buttocks.' Joseph would also trip or push his male children into walls.

"One night while Jackson was asleep, Joseph climbed into his room through the bedroom window. Wearing a fright mask, he entered the room screaming and shouting. Joseph said he wanted to teach his children not to leave the window open when they went to sleep. For years afterwards, Jackson said he suffered nightmares about being kidnapped from his bedroom....

"[Jackson] said that during his childhood he often cried from loneliness and would sometimes start to vomit upon seeing his father.... [Join the club -- Ed.] Jackson recalled that Joseph sat in a chair with a belt in his hand as he and his siblings rehearsed and that 'if you didn't do it the right way, he would tear you up, really get you.'"

As I've mentioned before, no matter how horrid the abuse, the mind parasites will nearly always come to the defense of their creator. Thus, Jackson "also credited his father's strict discipline as playing a large part in his success."

Who could ever begin to estimate the financial cost of mind parasites to society? For example, Joe Jackson, who co-created his son's mind parasites, now wants to be reimbursed by someone -- anyone -- for the fact that the parasites finally went a little too far and actually killed the host -- the ghoost that laid the golden records. They were just a little too strong. Either that, or Michael was just a little too temperamentally weak to survive them (no doubt a combination). "Ironic" is just too insufficient a word. The child who murders his parents and then pleads for mercy because he is an orphan is just too insufficient a joke.

One of the reasons you cannot calculate the cost of mind parasites is that you cannot calculate their value. It's analogous to the so-called cost to society of smokers. They never factor in the billions of dollars saved in social security that will never have to be paid out. Plus, you have to die of something. They calculate the medical cost of smoking as if the person wouldn't eventually have had some other costly medical problem.

Mind parasites can create a kind of economic bubble to go along with the psychological bubble. In the case of Jackson, countless people lived in, and fed off of, that bubble -- not just his worthless family members, but various plastic surgeons, pharmaceutical companies, handlers, and a devolving door of rented friends. Plus, because of his essential emptiness, he spent millions upon millions trying to fill it. How could you possibly calculate the economic activity?

Truly, if you could wave a magic wand and instantly make all of the mind parasites disappear, I'm afraid that the economy would grind to a halt. Look at me. I'm not holding myself out as any kind of model, but I lead a very simple life, and that's the way I like it. Complexity merely interferes with the essential bliss, or contentment.

And if the bliss isn't happening, I don't blame it on circumstances, let alone on an absence of complexity. Rather, the bobstacle force is nearly always within. Or we're out of grog. But I think it's fair to say that most people pursue the complications as a replacement for contentment. It's mostly an exciting distraction that lasts as long as the illusion can hold out against psychic reality.

It reminds me of how people complain about our political system, and how the most important job in the world comes down to how many idiots you can influence with 30 second TV commercials. So people talk about limiting the amount of money you can spend on a campaign, or banning political commercials.

But such "solutions" are entirely beside the point. The problem is, people are stupid and impressionable. And one of the main reasons they are stupid and impressionable is that liberals have near total domination of the educational establishment and mass media. Unless we solve the problem of TV and college, we're going to continue to get vapid but dangerous clowns such as Obama. There is something fundamentally wrong with a society that elevates the perverse nightmare of a sadistic father to an icon, and elevates the vacant dream of an absent father to an even bigger con.

43 comments:

ge said...

One is reminded of that other belt-wielding disciplinarian Dad-from-hell, Bukowski's pop Henry....at least in Michael & Charles's work there was "some payback" from the brutality?

walt said...

Has there ever been a more "vulture-like" character than Jesse Jackson?

Gagdad Bob said...

Reminds me of how Alan Watts once described seagulls: "winged hunger."

ge said...

re less complexity, VOLUNTARY POVERTY, a good collection is:
"LESS IS MORE"
http://www.amazon.com/Less-More-Anthology-Ancient-Simplicity/dp/089281554X

mushroom said...

GB says: But I think it's fair to say that most people pursue the complications as a replacement for contentment. It's mostly an exciting distraction that lasts as long as the illusion can hold out against psychic reality.


If that's not the clinical definition of addiction, it should be.

Van Harvey said...

"...Wearing a fright mask, he entered the room screaming and shouting. Joseph said he wanted to teach his children not to leave the window open when they went to sleep. "
and

"...But such "solutions" are entirely beside the point. The problem is, people are stupid and impressionable. And one of the main reasons they are stupid and impressionable is that liberals have near total domination of the educational establishment and mass media. Unless we solve the problem of TV and college, we're going to continue to get vapid but dangerous clowns such as Obama."

A couple snippets in a similar vain, from my post today I Have No Need Of Monsters - Reality Is Frightening Enough For Me

"...something worse than an evil sorcerer has been at work; a well intentioned philosopher, centuries ago, made it possible for people to publicly, and with intellectual respectability, to advance the most spurious nonsense based on the proposition that it could be true, and if that could be true, then this must be true, and therefore these X things must be done.... And part and parcel of that, his ideas made it nearly impossible for those who innocently read his thoughts, to detect errors in their own thoughts, or even feel the need to do so.

... we're doomed - unless we learn to spot and avoid his errors, but that would require doing away with our schools - but people believe our schools are good, even though they are bad... we may indeed be doomed, doomed to apply his errors, to our lives.

...And the result is that today we have no need of monsters... we have people, willing to do what they are pleased to say is right, and 'for our own good'."

Sigh.

Magnus Itland said...

"I'm not holding myself out as any kind of model, but I lead a very simple life, and that's the way I like it. "

I occasionally reflect on this as well. In most ways, I live in practice what the Socialists want in theory.

They don't seem particularly excited over folks like us though. Perhaps it is like the bondage fetish, most of the fun is tying the other person up.

NoMo said...

Magnus - By choice, not by force. It all has to do with freedom.

On MJ Freak - Saw a recent interview (at least as much as I could tolerate) where he seriously insisted that he had only had work done on his nose. When challenged, he described all the other obvious differences in his appearance as "I'm changing", as if it was due to some perfectly natural course. His insistence on that, like everything else about him, was bizarre. I think he actually believed it.

Self mutilation's all the rage, ya know. Its natural to make yourself into the image of your god, isn't it?

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

MJ is a pitiable man, I'd say - it is quite clear that his talent - his REAL talent - disappeared with puberty. Now, for the rest of us, what he was left with was still a treasure-house of good things, but for the man it was like being Arthur without Excalibur. It is quite obvious the whole thing was indeed vague overtures to reclaim his pre-pubescent days, but yet there is clearly (as Bob points out) a fear of them. Thus the look of being a clown and a fright mask, maybe.

I'd assume that this abuse took whatever issues there were and amplified them several times. As much as there is a lot of nonsense surrounding this whole thing, I think the underlying story is that Mike was a victim of his father. And that's an underlying story for Obama too.

A shame that the man did not take back his own life so he could lay it down proper-like, but we get what we're given.

will said...

>>Complexity merely interferes with the essential bliss, or contentment<<

One sick archetype I really wish would die on the vine is that of the artist whose "complexity" feeds his artistic drive while at the same time compelling him toward self-destruction. I saw Quincy Jones and the electrified corpse Larry King fawning over MJ's memory, passing off his self-destructive, egotistic eccentricity as the byproducts of his "complexity." Oh please, sell me a break.

There was a time when a truly great artist or saint channeling the Divine might have been somewhat unhinged by the sheer voltage of energy coursing through him - Beethoven, Teresa of Lisioux, eg. Michael Jackson did not stand with such company, not even close.

If anything, the true artist should be a paragon of true sanity, which as Bob implies, is a state of non-complexity. Actually, I think MJ and all his ilk were/are about as complex as a cheeseburger - they go around acting out their childish, egotistical impulses in public, and then to apologize for that, they make huge, well-publicized donations to various charities. Rinse and repeat, good cop/bad cop, over and over.

Gazriel said...

Bob said..."Look at me. I'm not holding myself out as any kind of model, but I lead a very simple life, and that's the way I like it. Complexity merely interferes with the essential bliss, or contentment."

This is so wonderfully true. When Being-ness is the focus of one's attention, the emanation of Love and Stillness from within amplifies the externalities of life into an experience of wonder. A walk in the evening time, a succulent pear, listening to Pink Floyd's "Great Gig in the Sky," being in the simple presence of a loved one, kissing, hugging, getting turned-on with a Beauty, these natural simplicities truly are expressions of my inner state of joy. I don't need much otherwise.

Speaking of mind parasites, I am getting ready to begin reading Book 3 of "One Cosmos." This is my second go-around with the Raccoon Manifesto, but there have been two years of dipping my chip in the salsa of the blog since the last time, so it is truly a different experience.

What I am noticing is not the knowledge itself being transmitted (although I am picking up plenty of golden nuggets) but the state that it puts me into. Like the Ace of Swords, it opens my mind up to a vastness, a clarity, an expansiveness, where Knowledge is a state, not something to be gained. Thought I would mention that.

Oh yeah, as for Jackson, well, he was a prime example of how death is, much like Kowledge that I mentioned above, a state of being. Poor man was a corpse long before his body gave out. I have been in that state before, and it truly is a nightmare.

What is interesting is comparing the two states, being a zombie and being Awake. If the zombies only knew how precious their existence is simply in containing an individual sense of I AM...Such an incredible waste. Lives can be so rich, so rewarding, so amazingly Beautiful when one is Reality adjusted.

For those who have the Love of God all will be given, those who do not, even what they have will be taken away.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

RE: Complexity - reminds me of Dylan. They would ask him questions as though he were some kind of fount of wisdom and complex wonders - but the man is pretty simple, overall. My impression has always been that he gets how to write a folk song, and has a basic understanding of narrative that is not clouded by complexity.

As for the rest, I think he has clear likes and dislikes, including with people. They didn't match most peoples ideals about how a man ought to be, but that's just it - 'ideal' men don't exist.

Can anyone think of someone who was genuinely complex?

Anonymous said...

Will- I fully agree. "Complexity" (read: uncontrolled mind viruses) is a completely white-wash (no pun intended) of the reality of the situation.

I do think that music becomes a unconscious attempt to heal oneself. As a musician, I'm not sure music alone can get the job done. In fact earlier fame may make such musical healing impossible.

There are many cases of musicians who bring Goodness, Truth and Beauty on stage but a much larger degree of Evil, Lies and Ugliness the moment they step off it. Miles Davis comes to mind.

I was never really under the spell of MJ even as a kid. His situation, his own life, just seemed so fubar, it's hard to even imagine what was going on.

But what did he have that so many people felt positively drawn to it, and allow them to now excuse his creepy (at best!) behavior???

I don't really get it completely...

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

I think it is the Tragic Figure thing, anon. It is clear that Michael's problems were as much a problem of his upbringing and the celebrity and financial cult of his life as his own choices. Many people believe this about themselves, and it is a comfortable illusion.

I for one can remember when this was how I viewed myself - primarily as victim of my circumstances - and of course with a ego-inflated view of their gravity and severity.

Lesson one: God loves the self that vanity hates. The self pitying man does not disdain his life, but rather, believes in himself so much that he can't believe he would fail. It must be someone else's fault.

Unseen Warfare has some important insights about this.

robinstarfish said...

The problem is, people are stupid and impressionable.

And blind and deaf. Anyone who spent more than a couple minutes examining MJ's lyrics over the years - or autopsying his videos for that matter - knew how infested and overtaken he became long ago. What's darkly funny now is how other cockroaches are using his death for their own enhancement.

Gazriel said...

One more note about MJ. Yes, he was certainly a disturbed man who probably harmed some children. But at least his art wasn't harmful to others.

I keep thinking of my generation's icon, Eminem. This is truly a terrifying situation. Here is a person who delights in the deranged, and he is as famous in America as MJ was back in the day. Well, maybe not, but pretty close.

Check out what is being peddled to the masses- please be warned that this isn't for the faint of heart. Maybe Bob could do a psycho-analytic breakdown of this song's lyrics.

This record, just released, sold over 600,000 copies in its first week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMrBcVx33Ek

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

It is well established that pop music has not progressed. This is probably part and parcel with the fragmentation and dissolution of radio, the arrival of napster and music sharing, and so forth. The middle road works well in the long run, but if you're convinced there is no long run, it's about sales, now. And as they say, 'there's riches in niches.'

But you say, how can the mainstream be niche? That's of course assuming that these categories - niche, mainstream, are anything but descriptors of phenomenon; and in any case just because we define them as opposite does not make them exclusive. The mainstream has several implicit niches, in my view, which was once captured in the phrase, "Bread and Circuses."

Rap is the response (and result of a feedback cycle) of the record companies to this reality. Low brow protects their investment - which was always in volume and not quality.

EMINEM is at least entertaining. Late MJ was just sad. That Eminem is more offensive lyrics-wise is neither here nor there; who is more offensive, the trailer-park guy who cusses or the gentlemanly well-polished pop star who wrecks his face into a caricature and seduces children?

How can you compare? Why would you want to?

bob f. said...

Someone is missing a big opportunity here. Surely there is a way to make this BUSH'S FAULT. Maybe a black op run by Chaney, since he has so much time on his hands...

Gazriel said...

River said..."EMINEM is at least entertaining. Late MJ was just sad. That Eminem is more offensive lyrics-wise is neither here nor there; who is more offensive, the trailer-park guy who cusses or the gentlemanly well-polished pop star who wrecks his face into a caricature and seduces children?"

Are you high?

I am not talking about being offensive, I am talking about the dissemination of imagery into the minds of children that drains them of spirit, plants seeds of hatred, and teaches them to wallow in their own misery like selfish little brats.

In that song I placed a link to, Em raps about murdering a person on stage while the crowd aplauds, then goes on to remark about butchering a woman in a bathtub while drinking her blood. And that is just the beginning. He is a lyrical wizard who is hypnotizing people by bragging about raping teenagers and being a serial kller.

Yes, "Thriller" and "Bad" were sooo much worse for the kids, no? Jackson was innocuous cultural icon who lost his mind well after his career was spiraling downward. While he may have been perverted with some kids in is home, at least that damage was minimalized to a few children. What I am talking about with Eminem is the mental/emotional warping of 100,000kids or more.

The Jackson case was tragic, the Eminem case is flat-out demonic.

sehoy said...

The only thing I can remember about the Jacksons, growing up, was my very white fifth grade classmate G. Glasheen having a lunch box war with another very black classmate over the superiority of musical families: The Osmond Family vs. The Jackson Five.

It involved smashing a Jackson 5 Lunchbox into an Osmond Family Lunchbox until one or the other's lunchbox fell apart. I don't remember who won the battle.

In the intervening years I have been able to ignore Michael and family, except for the occassional shudder over his "We are the World" extravaganza, his pedophilia, his sham marriages and purchased children.

I have to weep at the treatment of him by his father though. I hadn't heard of that before.

But, with all his millions, couldn't he have done something about that? Some kind of counseling? Some kind of resolution: The abuse stops with me?

There was a massive amount of enabling going on, as Dr. Bob points out.

God have mercy on his soul.

Van Harvey said...

I think maybe a point of hierarchy is being missed here, in the who's more evil MJ or EM dispute.

Ever read Dracula?

His 'daughters' snatch young children out of their cradles, tear open their throats and feast on their blood. Awful and foul beyond belief.

Dracula in the mean time, suave and romantic, dines in style and seduces Lucy little by little. Renfield, spider gobbling Renfield, is ready to do his masters dirty work, Dracula stays stylish and sorta clean.

Which is worse? The gruesome sisters tearing out the throats of children, or the suave stylish one who creates and enables them?

Which is more damaging, the bone chilling water which floods into, and sinks the ship, or the majestic iceberg which gashes open the hull of the ship, but leaves it alone after that?

How did a creature such as EM ever get close to our kids? Em couldn't have stepped into the spotlight without others making such things cool, something helped to slowly turn up the heat on the frogs water to the boiling point.

"Thriller... thrilla... woo!"

Is that unfair? Sure. True anyway? Yeah it is. Not just MJ of course, not by any means, but every stylish and cool icon who made a little more 'baddness' seem more cool and ok, helped gash our moral hull open a bit wider, so we could drown in the deadly cold waters of Em and the like.

But of course don't forget the critical filth who enabled them by shifting the purposes of Art from Beauty to 'Edgy', as noted in Beauty and Desecration (Rogur Scruton, btw, if that reader is still lurking),

"So far as the critics and the wider culture were concerned, the pursuit of beauty was at the margins of the artistic enterprise. Qualities like disruptiveness and immorality, which previously signified aesthetic failure, became marks of success; while the pursuit of beauty became a retreat from the real task of artistic creation."

... or the the poets who agitated for Being more Natural! Real! More authentic!... or the philosophers who dispensed with the individual, with freedom, with choice of free will, or the ones before them (anyone? anyone? Bueler?) who dispensed with our ability to know reality at all, or before that, discarded with knowing that the improvement of mind and morals through civilization was possible (or good), asserted that property and marriage were in fact evils, that education should be determined by children - who were after all closer to nature than corrupt civilized adults (anyone? anyone?), or the one who enabled that thinking by thinking that he could think without a body, but doubted he could think without being (anyone?).

Vampires and Zombies - they're not just for entertainment anymore.

Niggardly Phil said...

Well at least we can get Deepak's reflections on it all:

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/deepak_chopra/2009/06/the_spirituality_of_michael_jackson.html?hpid=talkbox1

Anna said...

Van, a quick question for you (or anyone else). I have a Facebook account and a friend just wrote a question about a zombie being someone who "rises from the dead" and is wondering what that would make Jesus. [Forgive the awkward wording; trying not to quote in case anyone searches for it by phrase (yes that's paranoia.)]


Hideous, horribly so. The answer is obvious to me (first of all a zombie does not rise from the dead) but I'm having a hard time verbalizing succinctly and potently. It is ticking me off to see such a blemish on reality, so I'm considering commenting, even though I think she is joking. What should I say, if I end up writing anything at all? It seems like an opportunity to explain or hint at something toward which she might be unconsciously be groping. If this is too lame or boring, feel free to disregard. Thanks.

Anna said...

FYI: It wasn't a concern of people here looking it up; the FB crew, rather.

Petey said...

A zombie is death in life. A saint is life in death.

Anna said...

Thanks, Petey.

I think part of the problem is that she is looking at only the physical evidences and parallels, which is probably the problem to begin with. Her definitions of dead and alive need to be differentiated and enhanced. The first death v. the second death (death of the body, death of the soul); ears to hear, let him hear (two kinds of ears.) Etc... And yes she knows the Bible, so she has heard of such things.

wv: balmi. Huh. Yeah. I guess so then!

Mike O'Malley said...

You've made a compelling argument Gazriel. Jackson was an innocuous music and dance icon. As a cultural icon in respect to parenting and children he seems less benign. However, Michael Jackson wasn't the first such fraud foisted by an entertainment industry on America. Recall Rock Hudson. Nor was he the first and only object of pop-deification, think the Beatles, Lady Di and of course Elvis.

Nor was Michael Jackson the artistic progenitor of EMINEM. For that we'd have to look to black rappers, Beastie Boys and other edgy entertainers back to Lenny Bruce. EMINEM's cultural and thematic roots go back to his father who abandoned him early in life.

Van Harvey said...

Elephant quoted 'a question about a zombie being someone who "rises from the dead" and is wondering what that would make Jesus.'

It's remarks like that, in which I palpably feel the attempted destruction of all I care about... kinda sets me off.

Leaving aside the obvious questions of religious sensibilities, or decency and respect for others, etc, I'd be curious to know why she'd make a comparison between a grotesque horror that people are revolted by and fear, and that which people idealize and revere? The very possible lowest, with the absolute highest?

My bet is that she either didn't even think about it, or thought it was cute, a lark... "jus' kiddn' an makin' a point', ya know?!".

Well... pardon me everyone, while I make a horribly disgusting point - might want to click on by... ask her how she'd feel about using dog feces in place of her tampon? Hopefully she'd be shocked and disgusted by that.

Ask her why she wasn't shocked by her 'point'? Ask her why it is that it takes something as devoid of higher thought and virtue as possible, why it took something that physically tangible and visceral to evoke disgust from her, yet the thought of comparing a stinking rotting corpse, oozing with wounds, hellishly staggering after people to rip apart and consume the flesh from their bodies - with that which people hold as the very highest, most holy person, the living embodiment of all the highest and purest ideals they have of what is good, beautiful and true - and not just as abstract concepts, but as their God - why didn't that faze her?

How is it that such a thoughtless, insulting crudity, qualified as a witty lark?

Is her mind so unused to higher thoughts of goodness and reverence, that she really has no capability of grasping the meaning or impact of her words?

Who's the real zombie?

Rick said...

Jesus is to zombie as Being is to non-being.
Life is their common subject except that One has it and the other lacks it.
...at a minimum of course.

goddinpotty said...

The difference is that zombies eat the bodies of the living, but Jesus wants the living to eat his body. That's totally different!

goddinpotty said...

More fun facts here! and here! not to mention here.

Dougman said...

"That which desacralizes a given reality, itself in turn becomes the new sacred reality." --Ellul

Goodbye all.

wv=warall

Mike O'Malley said...

The problem is, people are stupid and impressionable. And one of the main reasons they are stupid and impressionable is that liberals have near total domination of the educational establishment and mass media. Unless we solve the problem of TV and college, we're going to continue to get vapid but dangerous clowns such as Obama. There is something fundamentally wrong with a society that elevates the perverse nightmare of a sadistic father to an icon, and elevates the vacant dream of an absent father to an even bigger con.

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them"

It is obvious...

"Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh"

This is also obvious. Yet we live in an Orwellian World where we indoctrinate children under force of law to believe that people come in five genders, that penetrative annual intercourse is a normal healthy sexual behavior, that a male transvestite is really a "woman" and soon we will teach them that homosexual+homosexual = marriage. And under force of law, adults must pretend this is so. Do not assign all of the blame to pop-culture for pretending that Michael Jackson and Rosie O'Donnell are model parents. This Gramscian game has been going on for some time.

.
Hey! War is peace,
freedom is slavery
and
Bush lied and people died...
.
.

I've been trying to find a compelling way to explain to small government conservatives, free market supporters, libertarians and such that they are holding a losing hand without social and religious conservatives. small government conservatives, free market supporters, libertarians and such have all but lost their war on coercive big government. They are destined for failure to the extent they have lost America's Culture Wars.

Johan said...

Zombies are not for real, Jesus is.

Van Harvey said...

gulpingpotty said "More fun facts h..."

I suppose the only proper response to potty boy is to flush.

(Although I rather enjoyed Scipio's (at the bottom))

Rick said...

Johan,
Pottyshrine begs to differ with you.

Rick said...

Zombies can operate Google. What’ll they stink up next.

Rick said...

Imagine though. Imagine…our zombie’s horror…to discover some other zombie thought of the Jesus zombie’s first. He can’t even have the distinction of being in the least lofty position of someone's “couldn’t care less”. Can’t even have that. Pity.

Northern Bandit said...

QueegWatch:

Talk about showing your "true colors". For anyone who doubted that Queeg is a full-blown leftist/atheist who happens to hate Islam, he is now talking about a "balanced view" of global warming (allegedly presented in leftist tech-porn journal Wired).

Just as abortion is the most effective moral litmus test, global warming is the handiest guide to a person's grip on plain old reality.

NoMo said...

Worth reading: "Realist" policies that are "immune to reality".

Welcome back, Carter.

wv warns "firents" Yeeouch!

Susannah said...

"Zombies," (a figment of man's moral imagination, which will out no matter how men try to suppress the truth) are in thrall to death. Sounds like somebody we know well. Jesus met death and overthrew it. He is the Victor and now holds the keys to death and Hades. "Nor did his flesh see corruption..." Acts 2:31 He's not walking dead, but Life itself. "I am the resurrection and the life." He also happens to be the Lord of the universe: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the **firstborn from the dead,** that **in everything he might be preeminent.** For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now **reconciled in his body of flesh by his death,** in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him...."

Anna said...

Just caught up with the comments. What really pushed me over the edge of being upset was the first comment (on FB) after this person's inquiry. Something to the pathetic effect of her having answered her own question. As if! It was like my friend put in the nail (in the coffin?), and her friend jammed down on it with a hammer.

The question seems like a two-headed prong.

1. The sad less-than-baby step of "If zombies can walk around after death (don't want to use the words "can live"), then maybe Jesus could too?" Like 'flirting' or 'teasing' with the idea of faith that maybe it's true, and vaguely hinting at the contrast of Jesus' LIFE. This plus the 'shock value' of it. But really she knows better. [Or pure mockery, like "you guys put your faith in a zombie," since there can be no resurrection on a spiritual plane, only gross caricature as in a zombie, if you are an atheist-materialist.]

2. The 2-D Christians (whom Bob has called materialists) might be more of what she is referring to (not that I'm justifying it), in some kind of under-the-surface association. This prompted, perhaps, by animosity toward people like that.

It's juvenile. The comment session on FB ended with someone's suggestion of the Jesus zombie movie, followed by the question's originator with a celebratory thanks of camaraderie. She didn't think about the gravity of the question and how much it would - yes, viscerally - tick some people off, especially anyone who cares about the effects of the cockroach, living-dead, materialist up-side-down, philosophies, ideologies, and mentalities and an absence of Truth.

At any rate, it was disgusting. Thank you for all the feedback.


**

I stepped away before posting this and had the thought that it is in the zone of "pulp" culture. (If you can call it culture.)


And now I'm really ticked. I revisited and among a few ridiculous comments, someone wrote "a quitter." I want to punch that commenter in the nose! None of this is worthy of response but talk about opposite of the truth!


I choose my battles, but this just ticked me off. I think because she knows the Bible, so it stung.

**

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

Anna said...

This typo will bug me. The comma goes after 'materialist', not 'up-side-down'.


Should be:

...the effects of the cockroach, living-dead, materialist, up-side-down philosophies, ideologies, and mentalities and an absence of Truth.

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But it is not even the *effects* of an absence of Truth, it is also a lack of the LOVE of Truth.

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