Porn for the Gods. Part 1

This weekend I mostly read a book.
Cave in the Snow is the story of Tenzin Palmo a Buddhist nun who spent twelve years in a cave in India trying to reach enlightenment.
Originally born in the East end of London Tenzin chose to seek a celibate life of spiritual awareness, when all around her peers where succumbing to the swinging sixties.
There is no doubt if Tenzin Palmo had taken another path we would still know of her, but admiration would come from very different source.
It is completely plausible to imagine Tenzin as a teen seductress, wooing rock stars, and having songs written about her. It is also completely possible to see her hanging out with a young Germaine Greer and fighting for women’s rights.
Eventually, whatever path Tenzin would take it would still produce love and respect for others in a life changing way.
However, Tenzin’s journey was repeatedly disrupted by a spiritual stained glass ceiling. Whilst I am aware of the obvious near hate for women in the bible, I did not expect this sort of nonsense from such an all-encompassing religion as Buddhism.

Personally, I have always had a hard time with religion, the same as I do politics.
I have tried over the years to study the rules of each, but it seems that large portions of both systems are based on utter bullshit, racism, naivety and raving egomania.

Both seem to be stuck at the point where Eve apparently ruined it all, and as such women will always have to pay, whether that be by the police not seeing rape as a real crime, or employers continuing to demote women’s worth with a wage gap of 17%.
I get so angry at the injustices I have to walk away. Yes, I know, I am pathetic.
If my breasts were not so large perhaps I would burn my bra, if my mum had been more active as a feminist instead of playing stand by your man whilst sipping gin, (without a trace of irony) maybe I would have more fight.

I digress. Equality between men and women is not the theme of this piece. It is equality of humanity amongst the gods that I ponder.
When it comes to salvation, everything appears to be very black & White. This applies even if you are an atheist, and then your god becomes personal morals.
You are either good or bad, in or out. Nothing appears to be fading to grey.

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that only 144,000 will go to heaven. Apparently, there are currently 7 million practicing Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide, not to mention those that have already live in the promised land.
As such, there must be a sliding scale of entry. It confuses the hell out of me.

Every religion & government has its own rules. The leaders of both generally speaking break and change these rules to suit whatever there current fetishes may be.
This is true of all human organisations.
So where do you stand?

The gods do not necessarily need to be cloud dwelling almighties, but it helps the basis of this piece of you indulge me a little here. Let’s pretend that the media are the divine power, there you see, it’s not too hard.

Ok, now we will transfer the guilt of our own measly little lives and use ‘celebrities’ (all persons with current media coverage count as celebrity in this instance) as our moral guides.

Now let’s go back to the good or evil point.

In this religion, some things are obviously evil. Like Josef Fritzl.
I could add, but there is no need.
Pure evil.
Hell 1 Heaven 0

So it follows some things must be obviously good, like Jade Goody.
Jade Goody, bless her, is a product of this religion, an icon of it even. Jade has made mistakes, very public ones, some might even argue she still is, however, her honesty, born from her, lets say, naivety is very touching. Whatever you think of her, her story has highlighted an injustice in the health service and as such, her plight will stop others suffering the same, therefore Jade is deemed good.
Hell 1 Heaven 1

Now things get confusing.

Let’s take the current life of Kerry Katona & Mark Croft.

Mark Croft.
This is very simple really. He is a bastard. A man who preys on insecure and weak women to fund his whims. Deemed, for the sake of this article, Evil.

Kerry Katona.
Hmm. Stupid. Vulnerable. Needy. I feel a bit sad here. One part of me wants to hug her and blame all on Mark, however I just can’t do it.
I understand what it means to be so self-depreciating, so depressed, and confused that you let yourself be used, but she is not the most important thing here.
She is a mother. A choice she has made more than once and at one point she was crowned celebrity mother of the year for it.
Somewhere along the line, she put her need for negative reinforcement before the needs of her children.
Again, I am confused. That doesn’t actually make her evil.
It still makes her stupid and selfish, but not completely evil. Also, it leaves room for improvement. In the future things could change for the better and thus her good/evil ratio could change.

This can be said of us all. We are not all good, all the time. We do some seriously stupid shit. We are selfish, egotistical, righteous, and damned pathetic at times. And that is, as you know only the tip of the iceberg.
Actually, let’s talk icebergs, or more precise global warming. Who is more evil, those who don’t believe it exists, or those that do nothing to prevent it.
The results are the same, but ignorance is bliss. So who is worse?

Unless you wholly embrace good or evil as your purpose in life, most of us are middle of the road.
Let he who is without sin, blah blah blah.
The moral goalposts keep moving and I don’t think anyone knows where they stand any more.
It’s so hard to tell now days, when we are continuously told that everything we do is bad on one level or another, its no surprise that humanity is such a fucking great pathetic mess.

The follies of the divine are no longer romantic games played out between fate and luck, this is hard-core wanking.
We are porn for the gods, whoever the gods may be.
Can they hear me then, when I pray:
Not tonight darling. I’ve got a headache.