VirusHead

My dear friend (and fellow exJW) Richard Shining Thunder Francis has a radio show called “High Spirits” and I’m sending out a call for people to call in with questions, since questions and calls are the center and theme of the show.

Our goal is to present a happy, positive view of spirituality, and to encourage its practical applications. To do this, each week, we will discuss metaphysics, psychology, philosophy, cults and odd beliefs, dogma, history, kabbalism (generic), gnosticism (generic), sufism (generic), and other fascinating forms of the Way of compassion. Love, or compassion will, of course, be a theme, and we shall look together into the bright mysteries of agapology (the psychology of Love). Take a break from your frenzied week. Have a warm cup of coffee or cold drink, sit back, and listen to the most important, and most captivating, subjects in the universe!

Listen to “High Spirits” Online
at 1530AM WCKY
Cincinnati
Sat 8 PM
Call in from 8-9 PM EST
Local: 749-1530
Out of area: 877-345-3779

You do not have to receive the station over radio to call. You can listen online, and you will be able to hear the show on the telephone as well. You can also help other people by making this call. Don’t worry; you will be on the air for only a few seconds to ask your question. Just have it ready to go and call 877-345-3779, after 8 pm (it’s free). You can ask about the “new age,” fundamentalism, religion, metaphysics, spirituality, philosophy, psychology, parapsychology, God, nature, cults, or anything related to any of these.

Teacher, author, psychospiritual advisor, life-design consultant, and practicing mystic, Richard’s point of view is centered on love mysticism. He is the founder of agapology, the science of love-psychology, spokesperson for the Universal Love Movement (not a religion, but a Way) which challenges society to live by the principles of compassion, acceptance, and tolerance. He is not a “guru.”

I called in about two weeks ago, and the discussion really helped me to refocus in a more positive direction.

His sites:

Love Ministries
Blog

Richard is one of the most lucid, giving, and compassionate people I’ve ever known.

He has written several books, many of which are available for download.

My favorite is Journey to the Center of the Soul: Mysticism Made Simple, but I first stumbled across his work while searching for good books on Jehovah’s Witnesses. The JW books are very helpful for understanding how and why the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses can be so psychologically and spiritually destructive. When I read these two books, everything that I had sensed and felt really clicked into place. His style is quite different from my own, and his way of framing things gave me a new kind of conceptual and emotional “niche” in a heart/mind space that had been empty. I’ve been recommending the JW books on my site for some time:

Jehovah Lives in Brooklyn – Richard S. T. Francis
An extremely helpful book for ex-JWs (and for those who love them) that succeeds in capturing the thought patterns, assumptions, mindset, destructive consequences, spiritual distortions, and psychosocial dynamics of the “organization.” A very readable narrative of such issues as personality dismantling, satanic projection, sense of uniqueness, persecution, conformity and masks, and censorship. “Thus, in cases I have witnessed personally, parents have totally rejected and turned their backs on wayward children, brothers have become the fiercest of enemies, and lovers are separated with a ferocity and mutual hatred. Every form of sentimentality is despised as a weakness when it comes to the question of loyalty to Jehovah’s organization. Every human being is disposable. …This is an underlying flaw in much of fundamentalism, including JWs: ideas and concepts are more sacred even than human life. It is due to this distortion that JWs refuse blood transfusions even to save the lives of their children–a teaching for which they have become monsterously notorious.” (p.73).

Jehovah Good-Bye: The New Theism of Love – Richard S. T. Francis
Ex-JW Francis moves from criticism to a constructive analysis of what he calls the “New Theist,” who is reconnecting to the agapic god of love and forgiveness. “The New Theist has arisen in specific response to the intellectual and spiritual starvation so often promoted by traditional religion. Far too often, religion, whose job it is to feed the masses, wrenches from their hands the tiniest morsels of substantial spiritual food, and tries to replace them with the non-nutritive ’straw’ of organizationalism and dogma, doctrine and administration. Worse, some groups are monomaniacally obsessed with only money, and religion is only a front” (p.11). ” “The God of revealed by Jesus was no primitive anthropomorphism, no historical product of evolution from the proto-Jehovac images of the old god. This God did not dribble out forgiveness in parsimonious, unwilling, reticent microparticles; this God deluged and immersed his children in purest Love, and was eager and delighted to forgive. And according to grace, he did not forgive becuase of his children’s attitudes or behaviors; he forgave because of the quality of his love” (p. xix).

Got a mention at the Progressive Faith Bloggers Carnival this week – thanks! Be sure to go visit for a wealth of posts about progressive values, different faith perspectives, and just plain interesting reading. There are some very talented writers and thinkers in this group, and I always learn a lot.

The next carnival will be held May 7th at a Small Group of Thoughtful, Committed Citizens.

Happy Easter and Mystical Bunny with Eggs Day!

Catchin’ up with a few friend-blogs for a semi-random roundup…

Richard Shining Thunder has a new radio show in Cincinnati called High Spirits. Listen in at 1530AM WCKY, Cincinnati or online Sat 8-9 PM. I’ll personally vouch for him. He’s one of the good guys. Call in from 8-9 PM EST with spiritual questions and concerns – 877-345-3779.

Grateful Bear posts on a Pentacostal scholar who argues for the idea of the Holy Spirit moving like a wind through all the world’s religions. Great post! Call me to catch up when you’ve got a chance.

Etherealfire has a wonderful blessing for the day.

Just-Rambling thinks a surrender box is good idea. For an astonishing variety of reasons, I think so too.

No no no! It can’t be!!! Virtual Pus is gone! “2002-2006 – Killed by hackers”!?!? Come back!!!

Mr. H.K. skipped church today and instead went to the Museum of Modern Art’s opening of “Without boundaries: seventeen ways of looking,” featuring work by artists who come from the Islamic world. I’d better not link to his naughty naughty Easter graphic (heh -heh).

The philosofairy at Mermaid Tavern tells us why Arizona is the smartest state.

Rosei is planning her wedding as the rain pelts down in Brazil. I have fallen behind on the Photomeme posts, but not to worry, Rosei! John and Ben got me a digital camera for my birthday and it should arrive this week. I’ll catch up.

Raven, embroiled in activities with the boys, wishes everyone a Happy Easter/Ostara.

Lovebevvy is getting ready for a big move and new beginnings. Good luck Bev!

Mystical Grrl really has her hands full, as usual! Deep breaths Sara! Sending thoughts of warmth and calmness, and wishing you the very best of all news on the pregnancy. And I agree with you about the dog-sitting.

Dolphin and Leena have great feline Easter pics.

And keep your eyes out for the latest Progressive Faith Carnival Roundup!

Yesterday I wrote a very long and detailed post on the Plame leak situation. It had quotations and it had links. It had the whole history, the timeline, and it had several compelling points. Just as I was about to publish it, a site in another window crashed my browser. Bummer. I have really got to start writing these things offline. I’m just too disheartened to reconstruct the whole blasted thing. Since you can easily look up everything to do with it, I’ll just contribute my own thoughts to the public conversation.

I believe that Plame was outed intentionally, which is a felony crime if not outright treason. Either Cheney or Bush authorized it. I actually suspect that it was Cheney (with Rove?), and that the official story is a backdated version for coverup purposes. The outing of Plame was meant to punish Plame’s husband (Wilson) for stating the truth – and it was also a message to the intelligence community that they had better give them the “intelligence” that is wanted, rather than assessing reality.

Although people within the administration knew that Bush’s claims weren’t true – and there were efforts to remove them (including by Tenet), these claims kept getting re-added to Bush’s State of the Union speech, which was delivered. It was just one of the ways in which Americans were manipulated – playing on their fears to drum up support for our illegal and unethical invasion of Iraq. This has proven to be a disaster, and all of the people who were demonized for speaking their minds at the time have been proven correct. We took over in Iraq for reasons that will become abundantly clear in future, if they aren’t clear enough to you already (hint – permanent bases on the oil pipeline, Cheney’s secret energy meetings, Enron, Halliburton, record oil profits, corruption, fraud…).

Neither American lives nor Iraqi lives (remember, we’re “rescuing” them?) matter enough to this administration for them even to answer the basic question of what cause our soldiers are fighting for. Modus operandi: when in doubt, change the subject – when in doubt, use doublespeak – when in doubt, use your media assets or run commericals as news – when in doubt, change the “reason” we’re there – when in doubt, hide everything. If they had nothing to hide, we’d be getting a lot more information instead of being under surveillance ourselves.

To claim that “declassifying” Plame and leaking her CIA status to their kiss-butt reporter friends (remember, it wasn’t a White House press release) was in the interests of national security is an outright lie.

Tell me – how does disrupting a valuable source of intelligence, undoubtedly along with others who could be tied to her, help our national security? Isn’t it obvious that it is actually a serious breach of our national security? I wonder how many people died as a direct result, and how much real intelligence has been squandered. It is a felony for good reason.

When he was asked about this leak, he stood up and said he’d get to the bottom of it, that whoever was responsible would be fired. Fire Cheney and yourself, Mr. President. Resign. If there wasn’t anything wrong with what your administration did, you would have explained yourself at the time, not years later when Libby was in court.

Oh wait, we still haven’t really gotten an explanation from the mouth of the king. His sycophant messengers have just given us some spin, that’s all.

Whatever voting machines haven’t been hijacked yet will tell you our judgment – if that matters anymore. We’ve seen what the interests of the American people mean to you – that is, nothing at all.

Take a good look around. Our land and water are being polluted. Corporate interests are all but writing our laws. Our system isn’t functioning – ask people from New Orleans, ask people who have to face new interest rates, ask people who are working part-time in more than one job, ask people trying to navigate Medicare and Medicaid, ask the children who are left behind or who graduate from our schools with a substandard education. Many people who believe they are religious have been hookwinked into following false prophets who would like to see this country turned from the land of the free into a pseudo-christian theocracy – money-grubbers of hate and corruption are even attempting to start ‘em young with home schooling and bible classes in the public schools. People openly assert claims of empire and world domination. Now you’re deliberating whether we might use nukes on Iran? So what, we’re worse than Hussein now? Wasn’t that the ultimate no-no? Oh, and didn’t you just make a deal on that very topic? What was that all about?

I’m watching to see what happens in November. We know about the election fraud, the hidden programming in the voting machines. We know that even now Diebold technicians are making the rounds. With popularity in the 30-40 percent range, it would be very strange if the Republicans retained control of both houses, wouldn’t it?

So what’s on the menu? Planning to blow up a few more towers? Maybe a Bin Laden sighting in Chicago? A nuclear meltdown in Florida? A small dirty bomb in some suburban neighborhood?

Contact your congresspeople – it’s time for them to show some spine. We still – so far – have only the soft version of fascism. There is still a chance to use our democratic system the way it was intended.

Wherever you are, do whatever you can – while you still can.

How can anyone still support this President, this Vice-President, these cronies of theirs? What more proof do you need?

Vote. Vote. Vote.

The Georgia State Senate has passed two pieces of legislation that pose a serious threat to the separation of church and state.

One would create state-funded Bible classes in Georgia public schools.
The second would allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed by county governments.

Both bills are on Governor Sonny Perdue’s desk, and he is contemplating whether to sign them.

Take action now and demand that Governor Perdue defend the Constitution and Georgia’s citizens from these attacks on the separation of church and state.

If these were really christians, they would want to post something that better represented Jesus’ teaching. The focus on the ten commandments is symptomatic of their seeming inability to understand love, forgiveness and grace. Neither do they take into account hundreds of years of Jewish and Christian scholarship and debate on issues of interpretation, translation, or socio-historical context. Their “take” on christianity is a perversion of their own religion. Their absolutist views of human beings show little evidence of any of the spiritual virtues. Think I’m overstating? Try Googling “Christian Reconstruction” or “theonomy” – they want a theocracy here, complete with the total control of women, even stoning!

From the Forerunner – I’m not linking to this site – Google a phrase:

We are not looking for a “voice a the table” nor are we seeking “equal time” with the godless promoters of pornography, abortion, safe-sodomy subsidies, socialism, etc. We want them silenced and punished according to God’s Law-Word.

They use God as a tool. Jesus would think they were jerks. This is about votes! This is about scapegoating and turning us against one another so that we don’t notice that we’re all getting robbed. I mean literally robbed – of our traditions, our ideals, our treasury, our natural resources, our futures.

From Apologetics Index:

Epitomizing the Reconstructionist idea of Biblical ”warfare” is the centrality of capital punishment under Biblical Law. Doctrinal leaders (notably Rushdoony, North, and Bahnsen) call for the death penalty for a wide range of crimes in addition to such contemporary capital crimes as rape, kidnapping, and murder. Death is also the punishment for apostasy (abandonment of the faith), heresy, blasphemy, witchcraft, astrology, adultery, ‘’sodomy or homosexuality,” incest, striking a parent, incorrigible juvenile delinquency, and, in the case of women, ”unchastity before marriage.”

I can’t believe this. Really. I’m shaking my head. So now they want to get ‘em while they’re young – and use our own tax dollars to do it! Already they have uniforms. What next, a special salute?

The separation of church and state protects religious rights, the freedom of religious expression. There should be no state sponsorship of a specific religious tradition. Religious training of minors is the right and responsibility of families and their own religious tradition.

There is no proposal here to teach a wide range of religious texts or religious themes across the world’s traditions. The cuts to more fundamental educational areas serve only to highlight the political motivation of these bills.

Bible classes for minors are an unconstitutional use of funds. At the college level, courses related to religion, such as comparative religion and mythology, spiritual autobiography, Bible as literature, and the like are appropriate as elective courses at state universities. I have been trained in theology and ethics at a state university, and taken courses in religion at the undergraduate level at another. But courses and departments of religion have a different set of approaches than the ones we can expect to see from public school teachers. They started with home schooling, now this. Questions of belief will enter the classroom, and we will see a newly indocrinated “Christian Youth” if they get their way. Wake up, sheeple.

No – you can’t use our tax dollars to indoctrinate our children. No – you can’t fool us, we know what this is all about, and we’re not all as ignorant as you seem to think. Add these totalitarian “religious” power freaks to the neo-cons of empire and the puppets of corporate interests, and you see the unholy trinity that is killing this country and all it stands for! Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, take heed!

Stop the pseudo-religious right from pushing their dubious “theology” in our public schools and our public square.