History

I can't conceive of a patriarchal monarchic god, up there in the sky. That interpretation of Lord, King of Kings, our Warrior King, is one of a medieval time, when the greatest thing they could collectively conceive of was a king of kings, a king of warriors, a commander from above that serves as a fatherly figure shaking his finger at you, instilling a fear, a respect for the higher power.

The way that I have come to interpret it is as a 5th dimension, one beyond what I can perceive. It's less personifiable, maybe because I'm able to grasp abstract concepts better than those who came before the humancentric enlightenment, the age of science, which forced us to acknowledge our perceptive handicaps.

We can't, with a naked eye, see the cells in the plant, or the formation of an embryo, or an intergalactic explosion! But we're forced to accept these as reality. Our ability to fly discounted the idea that God was up there physically, and the personification of God as a man faltered.

Yet its convenient so we hold on to it even today. Jesus, the white man descending from the sky in a white robe... We know very well that it's inaccurate and that its a false visual representation, tainted by historic injustices and prejudices... But that's okay, because its the message we care about, not the race of Jesus, right?

But Jesus, first of all, was all about accepting the neighbor (I think this also means them black and brown folks from across the pond or railroad track.) He was all for peace in the middle east. I won't even get into all the mistrnaslations and misinterpretation of cultural idioms from Armaic-->Hebrew-->Greek-->Latin-->German-->English. But they DO amount to something very important:

Mythology isn't important. It doesn't matter whether or not Jesus was the son of God or if we were all children of God, or that we're all divine or if Jesus was the only one who was divine. It does matter, though, that mythology is destructive. Hell is not a PLACE, rather, a feeling. "Hades" the place outside the city where they burn the trash, the psychological torment that you may go through after committing an unripe act... not a WRONG act, just an unripe act.

Mythology breeds intolerance, forgetting the big picture, the idea that all religions have in common:

Love.

Not romantic love, necessarily, but philial love, agapeistic love. God is a feeling, or perhaps its a scientific truth that we haven't discovered yet. Perhaps there are really vibrations that make up all of existence, or maybe all existence is made up of tiny strings and those strings are little gods, working together in a greater understanding of God. Or perhaps god is just the way a tree or flower grows, the mathematical pattern allowing for life to continue. Maybe god is sustainability, harmony.

I've had the most intense (non-drug related) spiritual experiences playing music. Of course, it can be argued that music is a drug, but definitely less directly so! It's this wonderful feeling of surrender, because you are comforted by the fact that everything fits together.

When I move to san francisco i am going to go church hopping and see if i can find any church music groups to join. I'm sure they have a lot of alternative spirituality stuff going on in san francisco... home to the satanic church of anton lavey.