From the paradox of Mormonism. The mud from which the flower grows. You couldn’t pick a better fertilizer than an institution that feeds off of dead men’s bones while heaven passes them by. So many shelves. What is on the shelf? Apparently a lot.

It’s hard to not have a shelf on which to put things. It’s hard to have it all on me. That’s why I’m still here dicking around, because it’s so ephemeral, this being business. I just want to help. Isn’t that what we all want? Not to straighten anybody out. If anyone needs straighted out, it’s me. Maybe it’s just the way my brain is structured, or “broken” a certain way. I tried Atheism, I really did, but shelves again. Did the math again. Checked confirmation bias again. Turns out nothing’s easy.

There’s this thing we’re overlooking, which is why we are seeking. There’s an idea waiting to happen, that will change everything. And maybe the idea already happened, and maybe it came to me, and maybe I am nobody. I’m just a flower growing in the mud. I don’t understand why it came to me?

I’m talking about ideas that can be proven. Not that I have anything to prove, after all it only took me 50 years to really love myself. It turns out there’s a lot there to love. But what is it, with Messianic bullshit and self fulfillment? Why are we doing any other this, unless to fulfill our own being?

One of my favorite quotes about children. Analogous to being human. :)

Every child is a different kind of flower, and all together, they make this world a beautiful garden.
Author: Unknown

I wonder if every flower has its place. A kind of hallowed ground where it’s supposed to grow. Do the flowers miss the missing? There are some little flowers in Florida who are missed.

Date: 02/17/2018 02:35PM

Perhaps "Being" is not that complicated. Just like every other beast on the planet we have to find something to eat every day or we die--all while keeping an eye out for predators. All while ignoring the fact that we are predators too. All while ignoring the fact that we are largely controlled by plants even as we seek to control them. All while not understanding that trying to control things is actually the way things control us. Plants, like your flower in mud, with the allure of its scent, it's sweet nectar, that tricks us into propagating them as they cover us in pollen to spread, or, burrs to cling and drop off in some fertile soil down the way. Much like religion. Unwitting propagation.

"Being." The rest is just what happens along the way--"Being Adorned." The rest has no inherent meaning. Daily occurrences outside of survival in life may make us happy, may make us sad, but meaning has no meaning. What is, is.

The purpose of life is to stay alive. To feed yourself mentally as well as physically. To sharpen your senses. To look out for predators as you forage for nourishment for your intellect. To understand that you never ever know anything for sure except that you need to eat whether there is a god or not.

So now I'm off to throw some meat to a tiger to distract him temporarily while I climb a tree to get some honey in my netted head-gear and gloves.

OH, and, Men used to die for grand causes. Now they often die so that we can keep things cheap. The soldiers are still noble. The causes? They have no meaning. People need to eat.

But nobility is the cause. Everybody who dies for their cause dies for bullshit essentially. Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you. Maybe we’re a walled people because the bear ate us too many times. But the walls also keep us in. Life doesn’t work on autopilot because it defies being flown that way.

I tried pretending that being was mere existence, but maybe it just didn’t stick with me. Things seen outside the “straight” mind cannot be unseen. I’m very persistent with some of the dumbest ideas ever. Look what I did with Mormonism. Okay, that’s a joke.

Mormonism is no universal truth, but neither is it a universal lie. Somewhere in the middle is a weird netherworld that we just don’t understand yet. Inside of 99.9% pure bullshit is that last 0.1% waiting to blast the other 99% away. Heck, being “anti Mormon” (anti stupid) is nobility enough to give life meaning.

I’m way out right now, but I’m introspecting. Sharing thoughts. I’m a thought person. I have feelings too, but mostly I think about them. It’s kinda weird being me.

Am I crazy? Gosh, if only it were that easy. Truth and BS and where it all comes together and falls apart, and little old me in the middle of it. I just want people to get along. I’ve had enough fighting when there’s nothing to fight but ourselves. This silly religion of fighting men is so belittling. It makes little people. Leave Brigham’s bones in the ground.

Maybe I’m a big person put in a small person’s body. Taught to shrink, not to think independently. It turns out all my walls were self imposed. I spent my life studying walls because I had so many of them. Walls are artificial but there for a reason. Mormons and their wall building. Forever building the walls of their own prison, until death relieves their burden. You can’t really blow the walls all to shit, but on the other hand, if you understand the walls, why not?

"You couldn’t pick a better fertilizer than an institution that feeds off of dead men’s bones while heaven passes them by."

I love this!

I think some of us are still looking for a Mormon-substitute, to guide our life, to give it "meaning" outside of ourselves.

The Truth is, that Mormonism is a big fat lie. There is no "one universal answer" for all human beings. There is no standard mold that every individual flower can fit into. The Mormon cult brags that it is a one-size-fits-all, religion; instead, it fits no one at all. (With the exception of the few men at the top, who are making all the money). You do understand that One Religion is a false notion, don't you? The Mormon church does not accept women as equal to men, brainwashes children, uses people for slave labor to maintain its real estate holdings, uses missionaries to recruit new members and even to work in the LDS cattle businesses, universities, Poly Cultural Center, Visitors Centers and temples, and manages to scam members out of 10% of their income. Mormonism is for no one; it is certainly not for its own members.

In Earnest Hemingway's last novel, he wrote about his quest for truth and answers. "There is no One Great Truth--it's all true."

I do believe we are all One. All the flowers, the people, the stars in the universe are made of the same "star stuff," as Carl Sagan calls it. Maybe that is the connection you are looking for.

There are as many Gods, or concepts of "God" as there are people to conceive of God.

You are right--it is all on you. That gives you free reign over your life! Make your own choices and decisions, and if they are bad, make other choices. It's hard at first, when all your life, you have been told what to do. Practice. There are many, many "right" choices you can make, and not just one right choice, as we were taught at church. Mormonism left some of us in a child-like stage, and we have had to grow up, and parent ourselves.

I love what you said: "There’s an idea waiting to happen, that will change everything. And maybe the idea already happened, and maybe it came to me...."

I felt the same way, when I first left the cult. Now, I realize that there are tons of ideas (too many), and life is constantly changing, moment by moment. The cells in our bodies are being replaced by new cells, our plastic brain is forming new synapses, and we are constantly adapting to what is around us. This is how humans have survived. I think Mormonism is anti-survival, because it hides the Truth from victims, and separates them from the wisdom of great people (even their own parents), and teaches lies. Without the Truth--without understanding the real world--we are less able to deal with living.

Yes, it is ephemeral, but isn't that the beauty of it! I have learned to embrace ambiguity. Appreciate your own curiosity, and keep seeking, but don't be frustrated that humans don't have all the answers. A poster on another thread said, "If an organization tells you it has all the answers--run away!"

Each one of us has our own personal Truth, and you have already found part of yours. Right now, here on RFM you are a seeker, and a helper.

I think you would enjoy studying science. Science has come
closer to being a new "religion," as anything else. Science and knowledge.

I love what science has become. It will always be in the act of being established because its very nature is antiestablishment. It foments it’s own revolutions. It’s truth without subjectivity. It’s an anvil to which we subjugate our ideas, but a discipline like everything else. Make nothing your devotion.

Surely all of this means something, means everything. In a world where an act of love is revolutionary, where a nation grieves over the death of an innocent girl, this is heaven. This is where being means something. The upward trajectory isn’t the path to the thing, it is the thing. Why have none of our dark dystopian fantasies come true? I mean they have, but they didn’t stick. It’s because they can’t stick. Nothing sticking is kind of the point.

The dude abides.

I think today is the day I learned to love my suffering. What I gave, what I got. All that grief I gave TSCC for their carnie act, I take it back. They can’t have the credit. Only I can make me suffer like that. Whatever came before, it was all blessings from God, my intrinsic devotion. I am what I am, and that’s all what I am. When has a devotee not suffered?