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Monday, October 23, 2023

The Religion Experiment

     



     Enough is enough; how many human beings will the world allow Israel to kill before we call it for what it is: genocide.

     And for my Jewish readers, you are not the chosen people; I know that to be a fact because there's no such a thing as a God of any kind. All religion is a made up story to help people deal with the fear of death. ( read Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death) 

     The rest of us, non-religious people, live our lives ignoring the insanity of all religions until you step over the line. Who gave the Israeli army permission to just bombard a city filled with civilians? How is this different than the insane people who flew planes into the World Trade Center?

     You don't get to make up your own God, establish a set of rules and traditions to yourselves and then expect everyone to fall in line praising you for your misguided devotion. Same goes to all religions. We are sharing this planet, as human beings, we are prone to the same diseases, to the pain of watching our love ones leave this earth, hopefully after many years of living. 

     Yet, all of you, God people, decide on a whim that you have been offended and that killing each other is the answer. And God forbid anyone else with common sense speak against it, that is when you evoke the words you have crafted to allow you to continue to kill each other. Somehow, we have allowed you to get away with this behavior for centuries.

     Antisemitic is the most used term ascribed to anyone who disagrees with. your actions in relation to the Palestinian people, who you have put in a sort of concentration camp for many many years. Every once in awhile, you kill thousands of them and expect the world to look the other way. I think that finally we are beginning to see this for what it is: an encampment at best, that under the bright lights of your bombs reveal itself for what it is: a concentration camp. A place you have built it to keep all the Palestinians, to obey all your rules or be sentence to death.

     The Jewish people were victims of an inexcusable crime by the Germans and Japanese governments; spend a week in any city in Germany and you will see how serious the German government is in preventing that level of madness to ever be repeated. 

     In the meantime, the Japanese government chose collective amnesia as a way to avoid the shame they deserve to feel for their participation in the heinous, systematic killing of so many jews.

     And now, the descendants of the millions innocent exterminated became the perpetrators of violence against Palestinians. Are Jews claiming Palestinians to be all the same, violent people that need to be exterminated? 

     This sort of conflict is nothing new; on January 30th, 1972 British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians during a protest march in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland.That is still a stain of shame in the history of that country. 

     The Israeli army killed over 2,000 people in few weeks and almost 200 children. You can call yourselves "the chosen ones" if that makes you feel better and helps you to navigate the perils of life; but we have our beliefs. 

     My beliefs are very simple: 

there is no God. I'm alone in this world. Life is hard and way too short, and sprinkled with ephemeral happiness now and then. 

Don't drink. Don't smoke. 

Don't do any drugs.( Yes. Sugar is a drug. A venom. Toxic to the body.) 

Chose one person to share life with and don't cheat on that person. 

Wake up. Exercise. Meditate. Practice Omad. 

Pray if it brings you solace. ( I do. Sometimes. It brings me closer to my mother and my grandmother and it calms my soul.)

     Follow those guidelines to maintain your body health while you find artistic endeavors to strengthen your soul. And life will gift you with the pain you need to grow.

     What you don't do with all that pain is call yourselves "chosen ones" and oppress another community for years and years. Native Americans believed all land was sacred; the American military exterminated them all and took the land. 

     Jews are doing the same, you have taken the land you call sacred and preventing another community from enjoying it. You call yourselves "chosen" and now you have engaged in Nazism. All in the name of a fictitious God. 

     The bellic arsenal you use against your vocal critics is to evoque antisemitism. So let me be even more clear, all religions are fiction and since I'm a storyteller, beautiful to read. But when you begin killing people in the name of your particular fairytale; that's when the world needs to get together and stop you.

     My guess is that the entire world is waiting until you, "the chosen people" kill millions of Palestinians; the exact number the Nazi regime killed. Then we will put an end to this nonsense.

     My partner and I drive often through a community in Los Angeles where many Hasidic Jews live; we watch families cross the street in front of us while are at a stop sign, and it is beautiful and a bit poignant; as if we were missing something. The children, boys and girls, nicely dressed, the mother and father walking in front. It always makes me think of how nice it must be to believe in something; a being that is out there looking out for us. 

     The families always looked so content; calm; one can see that their religion, their faith has given them peace. A tranquility I certainly don't have. I don't comprehend that kind of faith but it is beautiful to see. It is disrespectful to those families when the Israeli government goes around killing Palestinians in the name of their religion. And so is for all the other religions that engage in violence against another.

     
     
      



     This is just an excerpt of a CNN report on the genocide committed this week by a group of people who should know better. 


     These are two sites destroyed  in the name of God.



 ( what is left of a hospital in Gaza. A functional hospital with civilians inside )



 ( what is left of the World Trade Center. A functional building with civilians inside )


This is actor Mark Ruffalo, back in 2019, apologizing for calling what the Israeli government is doing for what it is: genocide. I don't dislike religion- just don't believe in it, but I respect people rights to exercise it; but politicians I despise. And hypocrisy. 

Unless he is also going to apologize for calling President George Bush a war criminal. There's no difference between what US did in Iraq and Israel is doing in Gaza. Calling genocide for what it is, it's not hyperbole, it is a necessity to prevent the murder of civilians and children. 

If the price you pay for protesting the killing of children is that you never make another movie; then you never make another movie.  But you don't get to be vocal only with the crowd that agrees with you. 

You should advocate for peace, freedom of religion expression and for the sanctity of human life. Your voice should raise in protest to any group that decides to kill another in the name of their particular fairytale.