Trouble in Paradise

I was home this long weekend visiting my parents, and as always, my mom and I got into talking politics and religion (its your fault I'm like this mom!). For such a contentious topic, and considering the very dark places I've gone in my studies of both, I'm patently shocked that we agree on most issues, at least in the matter of the relationship between evangelical proselytizing and modern ethics.

I was even more surprised though to discover that Mom was already aware of the bizarre trends within the Christian churches in America to increase their membership - such as free beer and staged fights - an appeal to younger men, evidently, to make church more enticing. What she didn't know about was the involvement of the "manosphere," the growing group of men who have become so disillusioned with modern life that they are easy pickings for the proselytizing efforts of the post-millennial Evangelical movement.

The men of the manosphere feel useless and unworthy, and the church is capitalizing on their dissatisfaction, fostering it, and directing their rage at feminism, making them into weapons, effectively, because feminism is entirely responsible for the disbelief in the masculine superiority of the bible. Thus, they have found a common enemy.

Certainly, the blaming of feminism (and atheism of course)  is nothing new for the church, but that they are utilizing the present sense of dissatisfaction of men to boost their own strength is very new, and dangerously exploitative. This isn't something I ever wanted to say, and I don't mean it as an insult, a warning rather, but this particular group of men is extremely vulnerable to exploitation (think of the fascism of Fight Club, and its numerous references to the crisis of masculinity). Not only that, but they are overwhelmed by a repressed violence, which is being fostered by this religious group. To further compound the situation, evangelicals make up a statistically significant portion of the US government. The social and political consequences of this, if left unchecked, could be catastrophic to the equal rights movement.

Yes, I am saying this now: Post-millennial Evangelism is the modern world's fascism. Really, this shouldn't be shocking at all. Any religion that holds proselytizing as its most central tenet is inherently fascist, but presently, it is actively seeking to institute a moral theocracy in America, the intention of which is the 2nd coming of Christ, the manifestation of Revelations, and the End of Days - a "fascism of the people" - and all the world will lose if the campaign succeeds.

As I attempted to explain the gravity of the situation to my mother (no slouch herself in the matter of advocating for reasoned thought), I started frothing at the mouth a little, ranting like a crazy person, and she had to calm me down with a cup of tea. I'm sure she's grateful to know though that my interest in religious studies in college really was only academic, and that I had no plans to run off with a cult. Quite the contrary mom - it was a case of "know your enemy."

Finally, someone admits the truth

The truth about equal pay.

See, now, not the best way to start off the day, running across an article like this:

The reason for the opposition to EQUAL PAY

I'm trying to calmly and logically order my thoughts on this so I can write a proper analysis, but I'm getting worked up into a bra-burning frenzy right now, sitting at my workstation.

The argument for the gender divide

I read a super-fascinating article today, just by accident, while looking for some information about the practices and beliefs of Gnosticism. Specifically, I was wondering why choice and reason is so frowned upon by Evangelicals, and other fundamentalists and scriptural legalists, to the point of being considered heretical. And boy, did I find it! It stems from a fear of "gnosis"... knowledge. Egads! Not knowledge! That's the devil's work! You know things, and then you start thinking independently, and you know we can't have any of that sort of nonsense. Remember, there was this tree...?

Anyway...

Anglican view of the "Neo-Gnosticism" of Carl Jung

In it, I was quite surprised, is a fairly well written and convincing treatise making Carl Jung appear to be the singular source responsible for the brand of immorality known as hedonism that plagues modern Christianity, and also quite mad. Even Freud thought he was mad, apparently, and that's saying quite a lot. I had never really considered that Jung would be blamed for the destabilizing of western civilization! What a bad man, trying to reconcile the polarity of the genders. How relentlessly stupid of people to think there might be something to his theories of spiritual reconciliation.

Basically, the evangelical wing of the Anglican church is attempting to present Jung as a cult leader for advocating the very ancient notion of dualism and self-knowledge found in almost every spiritual practice in the world, since the history of man.... except for Christianity of course, which strictly condemns any sort of dualism as an indulgence of evil. 

The article in question, of course, calls for Anglicans to return to the good ol' days of strict adherence to authentically biblical masculinity and femininity, and traditional marriage roles. What a shocker (yawn). And lo, what a surprise, it coincides so nicely with the recent insurgence of Evangelicals and MRA adherents into the public forum, reminding us to stay inside those boxes, for our own good.

Anyway, while falling down the rabbit hole in pursuit of interconnections, as I am prone to do, I found links between Gnosticism and so many other fascinating things! - Free will, Zoroastrianism, Taoism, Plato, the Age of Enlightenment, Libertarianism, Locke, Free Love (this is soooo interesting!), and the puritanical belief in America as the site of the New Jerusalem mentioned in the Book of Revelations.

This mess is going to take a while for me to sort out... It kind of brings me back to the rush I had in my liberal arts collegiate period though, a weird high of academia-fueled spiritual adrenaline/nausea combination.

"Ah, the heady days of space piracy."