Ask the eternal questions, but answer them as an individual.
The promise of the American Dream has always been opportunity for advancement and material gain, but freedom and equality are the antithesis of Christian religious belief and dogma. A 21st C. democracy cannot thrive or survive guided by the sole value $$$ of property rights enshrined in The Ten Commandments.
The Big Ten
The Ten Commandments have been presented as unique and absolute rules for behavior in any society, whether simple (tribal) or complex. This collection of instructions is regarded by Christians as the ultimate in moral sophistication, but Christians don’t know, or choose to ignore, that Jehovah handed down 617 more laws, known as the Midrash, which dictate the details of daily life for Hebrews; from what to eat, how to dress, how to use money, proper family relations, and how to deal with strangers. This type of law-based “religion” is normal among tribal people, who define themselves by body markings, clothing, and hairstyles as well as taboos and specific rituals and roles meant to distinguish them from other people.
The Ten Commandments are a lazy person’s version (American Christians are lazy) of these tedious tribal requirements. The world in which Christianity developed as a religion was Greek and had its own culture. Hebrew tribal identity had to be left behind if a new religion was to succeed in the heart of the Roman Empire – but the details of Jehovah’s extreme barbaric behavior were kept, because it allowed (indeed commanded) ruling males to terrorize and brutalize the human beings under their control.
As for the Big Ten, if Jehovah’s repeated demands for abject obedience are removed, what remains is a statement of male property rights.
Don’t kill, except when I command you to.
Obey your father and mother (right or wrong.)
Don’t have sex with a woman owned by another man. Do have sex with the women you own.
Don’t lie about another man’s deeds; or steal his house, wife, slaves, animals, or goods.
That’s it!
The Ten Commandments are not about ethical or moral behavior. They establish a hierarchy of rights, with Jehovah as Top Male, followed by “chosen” other males. (like the Puritans) The notion that mom appears to have equal status to her husband fades when we realize that she is property, and to insult her is to insult her husband. The commandment “don’t kill” reserves mass murder for Jehovah, who also demands that his people carry out murder and genocide on command.
It would be difficult to find a human group (outside criminal gangs) that actually promotes crime, or directs people to abuse their parents. The claim that this ordinary set of tribal rules establishes ethical and moral behavior is nonsense. It does explain why fundamentalists (and Americans generally) cannot deal with complex issues that require thoughtful examination and tough decisions.
It’s not that dozens of ethical and moral systems don’t exist in cultures worldwide, but American culture is about male domination – a social hierarchy based on wealth and the ruthless economics of capitalism – and on a religious system in which wealth and property are supreme.
The Big Ten (actually, The Big Four) is a perfect fit for modern Americans: No empathy, compassion or moral or ethical behavior is required. Inequality grows and grows.
So, if you really want to live a “conscientious life” in the U.S., you’re on you’re own.
fantastic post! totally agree with you! social humans are sick, poisoned by grains… since agriculture was implemented, human sacrifices, social hierarchies, wars, famines and injustice makes a hell out of this planet!
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Uh, I’ve concluded that while society as a whole may well put up (as a smokescreen) what it names as ‘mindfulness ‘, the message of ‘the hidden curriculum’ is “thinking is not to be done.”
The obvious corollary is : “those who have the correct (predatory) instincts will perform the best of all; they will seamlessly mesh into ‘the great herd’; they will conceal their ‘true and inward nature’ (as ‘entire predators’, i.e. obligate predators) with a soft manner manifesting as things like ***superficial charm***…”
What in truth freaks out Normdom is our simple existence – that we are neither ‘entire predators’ as they are, nor what such individuals most desire (in secret, as a rule; in some instances, outwardly visibly) – namely, perfectly-obedient and obsequious SLAVES.(narcissistic extensions).
Yes, I am saying that the bulk of Normdom is essentially composed of (watered-down) versions of *narcissistic psychopaths* – and Normdom’s formost desire is to become more like their hardwired notion of ‘the God inside’ – which IS a ***diagnosable*** psychopath. (Hence the never-ending war for preeminence, the utter amorality of social combat, the pervasive magical thinking (which does not need a shred of teaching…) the utilisation of ‘fetishes’ for impression-management , the constant deception and manipulation – and NONE of this needs to be taught!)
At least, it needs no teaching if one has ‘theory-of-mind / those instincts that comprise Normalism.
I’m quite glad for this – being forced to justify what I’ve learned, and then clarifying my terms and thinking. Normies don’t bother with this – their attitude can (too often) be summed up as “I will have obedience, or I will have your life;” and trying to get something useful done in such ‘relations of domination’ is *impossible*. Thank you.
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Yes; I don’t think neurotypicals are aware of “how things work” and certainly not aware that these systems are not Laws of the Universe. 99% of humanity is poor, lives moment to moment survival and understandably is under overwhelming pressure to not question “ways of the world” that are presented as religious mandates. The relief gained is accepting that one is powerless; that “the gods” have created this scheme, and therefore the anxiety of wanting to change one’s life is converted to resignation and obedience. In the western world it’s not much different: people’s “restlessness” and suspicions that they are being lied to are bought off by cheap consumer goods and vulgar entertainment – and deception: way too much food that is barely qualified to be called food. My favorite quote about this is from Truman Capote – “Tyrants always make other people watch them eat and get dressed.” Doesn’t that describe the cult of celebrity in the U.S. with social media offering “the little people” a chance to copy “celebrity” behavior?
What is disliked about the Asperger personality is that we don’t believe, but analyze. I think that Aspergers underestimate the rabid reaction to our non-conformity, but look at it this way: an entire Spectrum of socially-contemptuous persons has been created to negate the “contamination” of society with real, observational and fact-based thinking. Totalitarian nations simply throw dissenters in jail; but what do “nice” democratic nations do? Come up with fake science that diagnoses non-conforming individuals as having “brain disorders” that label children as permanently defective in early childhood, thus creating an image of “the monster” which derails any positive effect on other people. It’s a version of personality / brain type eugenics.
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The reason I speak of Normdom’s instinctual tendencies is something I’ve been seeing for nearly twenty years now, that being that tendency to engage in ceaseless ‘social combat’ so as to climb to the top of both immediate and global dominance hierarchies.
While I’ve been seeing this for a long time (at some level), only recently have I ***begun*** to have some idea as to why they do this; and while autists do have instincts, those of Normdom – when speaking of the social realm – are so **diabolically ** convoluted and, uh, ***hermetic*** that I’m reminded of the handful of times I’ve been involved with, uh, *deliverance services* (what Catholics name exorcisms).
Compared to that nightmarish suite named theory-of-mind / Archetypy, I have about as much instinct-level understanding as a rat has of hemotoxic snake-spit – hence my seeming dismissal of the instinctual component of autists. They’re there – just compared to what Normies have (socially speaking) they seem scarce worth mentioning.
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I count instinct as very much at work in my “functioning” as an Asperger. Instinct is GOOD: it’s what equips animals to survive. Let’s say I sense dangerous people around me. Instinct alerts me far sooner than conscious analysis, and I carefully remove myself. Everyone has embedded instinctual responses, but predatory societies teach people that instinct is bad: they “erase it” and substitute “codes” of behavior that go against what is healthy. So – the opposite is “true” ASD people are acting instinctively much of the time, which freaks out social normals because they’ve been taught that instincts are dangerous and evil. It’s “evil” to be fair, honest, truthful because those values are everything that society is not.
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I was raised as an ‘atheist by default’, i.e. unchurched- and until some time about my 20th birthday, I treated all matter of religion (irrespective of the precise beliefs) as a matter of ridicule.
Something inexplicable happened then: without a shred of preaching on the matter, I somehow became *totally* convinced I was 1) doomed; 2) that there was a place called hell, complete with hoards of *nasty creatures* organised in a hierarchy that made the social world with its hordes of bullies look like a bad joke; and 3) there was no possibility of escape.
Looking back, I can put part (but only part) of the blame for this in a family composed of personality-disordered people and being surrounded by swarms of (violent) bullies.
I fell in with some coworkers who took me to their church… the second time I went, I said this prayer (duh, how can this help, right – it’s just words…) – and something happened to me that I have only ONE explanation for.
Not only IS there a most definitely God – who is as real as the flow of electrons in this strange device I’m hunting-and-pecking on – but it’s equally apparent that ‘he’ (conventional notions of gender don’t work too well when speaking of non-material beings) both understands me a ***lot*** better than any Normie *ever* did (hence going a long ways to overcome my hard-headed skepticism with evidence) but also *continuing to do so for the last thirt-five years.
I am not sure I’m ‘two-faced Thomas’s’ equal regarding proofs. I AM sure I have received enough to believe of these matters. I am even more certain that I have little hope in this world – cure or no cure, it will not matter. I am as I was meant to be.
Even if that means being ‘raw meat’ in the eyes of Normdom – even if it means being killed *for simply existing* (as was done in Hadamar and the other places under the Nazis).
I’ve had more than one nightmare involving my execution in the last few years.
I’ve had several Normies try to kill me *that I know of*. There are probably more instances than I know.
Finally, while being autistic has a host of problems (and Normdom accuses autists of being ‘the manifested evil in nature, such that their destruction will restore Normdom as a whole to its former state of magical potency ) there is one supreme *advantage* to lacking Normalistic instincts.
I cannot war for dominance in the (accursed) great chain of being – and because I lack those instincts that make Normies ‘do magick, and that only’ – I’m on the outside of their (thrice-accursed) charmed circle.
So I’m a pharmakos (scapegoat). Fine. I cannot be a *witch’ – and given my druthers,I much prefer to jungle’s neutrality to Normdom’s unceasing malevolence.
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You refer often to instinct as what drives neurotypicals, but instinct is basic to all humans. I would say that the agents of society (family, schools, religions etc) PERVERT instinctual needs to maintain and fulfill their own purposes – that of molding and indoctrinating children to become adults who will conform to a particular society’s goals. In practice this can be benign or wholly evil, and everything in between.
My contention is that Asperger people are simply so grounded in pre-social instincts, (I can’t speak about autism: I don’t know enough about it) and aversive to manipulation, that neurotypicals “go berserk” when confronting people who literally can’t conform to social indoctrination. And, I think this “split” between us and them, is that modern social humans are the product of selection for juvenile characteristics – neoteny.
As for God; in my book “he” is a social invention, a tool of social engineering, but it seems you have found a different “being” for yourself.
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In effect, therefore, most churches are effectually ‘social (dominance) clubs whose attendees in truth ‘worship ‘the God of this world’ – namely, they’re think they are worshipping themselves while in actuality, they are worshipping the devil via ‘magical thinking’ – needed to progress in the social realm – and magician’s thinking, which supplies motives and alibis for acting as if ‘perfectly possessed.
Given that most professing ‘Christians’ are in truth ‘practicing (unwitting) members of the ‘order of nine angles’ regarding their observable behavior’, your thoughts are accurate regarding them.
There are a few of us autists who believe; and our lot is that of the ***persecuted***.
This gives me a ***small*** understanding of those autists who ***hate*** themselves enough to long for a ‘cure’ – even if that ‘cure’ entails utter destruction, with no trace of the autistic individual remaining (e.g. “autism’s gadfly”).
If this life is all there is, then to be autistic is altogether a curse: one cannot discern the thoughts and sense the feelings of others.. one cannot engage successfully in *predation*; one cannot fight continually in the ceaseless warfare for preeminence in the dominance hierarchy. ..
Autists are out of that loop, also – just like the rest of the Normie world; and I’m becoming steadily more certain I want no part of that Faustian bargain named ‘cure’ – even if it means gaining a place in the Normal world.
To much like the movie ‘heartless’, if you ask me.
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As an Asperger who cannot comprehend belief in supernatural entities, I feel inclined to ask, Who or what do you believe in as a “god” or “controller” of individual fate. Did “some god” choose to make you autistic? If so, that seems very cruel, and a life without god(s) would be far less cruel.
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Perhaps in ‘churchianity’ the ‘list’ is a mere ten – or in truth, a smaller-still number -and in that milieu , the rules are those of the wider society. Those indeed are as you say – and so they’ve always been.
In truth, the natural man sees himself as his own god, and he makes up pretensions myths (in truth, lies) to justify his behaving like a *psychopath /pagan deity/ ‘secular witch-equivalent’*,
I am not welcome in society – I do not fit in – and the same situation applies to the bulk of churchdom. Both systems operate by the same set of (magickal) rules – and autists do not do magic(k)
That is so even if an autist actually believes the Bible to be true and tries to act accordingly! (and gets the left boot of fellowship repeatedly!)
Finally, if one wishes to count rules, the precise number in the penteteuch is ‘over six hundred’ – and inluded thing like ‘do NOT oppress an alien’, and do not curse the deaf or put stumbling blocks in front of the blind.
Those three stuck out because they’re applicable to autists: we don’t fit into Normdom’s (tower of babel)dominance hierarchy, which makes us but the latest additions to a long list of ***aliens***; we are (socially) deaf -and Normdom curses us; and we are blind to Normdom’s eternal Con-games – and they use our blindness as a weapon against us and we continually trip over their accursed stumbling blocks.
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Yes, the rules stink of perverted goals. I did mention the 617 + or – rules of the Midrash. Why would anyone believe the Bible to be anything but one more mythology out of many mythologies?
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