Why we love the LORD who hates (video)

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly; Lorde; Clevver.com, Clevver News; Shalom Auslander

What do Justin Bieber, Lana Del Rey, Britney Spears, and Amanda Bynes have in common? Aside from losing their childhood innocence to fame, money, illegal drugs, and the Illuminati? They have all been bashed by pop superstar Lorde! 

G-d d-mn, I hate filthy sinners!

You think Lorde is bad? What about "the Lord"? The Lord is a name for the many Gods of the Judeo-Christian Bible -- Yahweh, El, Elohim, Adonai, and many other titles and personal names, many of them plural, even as we all pretend it's a monotheistic "there's only one God" faith that somehow emerged from a rich polytheistic history.

Hope you're not tracking my sins, God.

The Bible was not rewritten to make it monotheistic, just translated in ways to cover up its polytheism. But no one covers up how angry their "angry God" is. So more honest readers, or those familiar with more than one biblical language -- Greek, Coptic (Egyptian), Aramaic, Hebrew, Latin, and so on -- say, "There's only one true God" as if all the other ones in the Bible are fake. And "God is love...but don't read the Old Testament because that was the old deal; here's the new deal."

Who's even keeping score? - Come on, dad.

Why does this angry, jealous, proud God, this GROUP of Gods, constantly referring to themselves in chapter after chapter of their bestseller in the plural, HATE so much?

"God is love"? Many Christian fundamentalists and Jews say different: Who can argue with Shalom Auslander's many points? Has any Christian read the Book of Judges (Sefer Shoftim, ספר שופטים, is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible), the Old Testament where the Christian Gods (the Lord) revel in war, command killings, and order other atrocities?

Foreskin's Lament by Shalom Auslander on reading the Bible as history and realizing what it means to be a punishing God's "chosen people."

The Bible is dangerous reading.

Is it any wonder that Christians may be the world's most formidable terrorists, crusaders, invaders, rapists, conquistadors, (hypocrites?), enslavers, sexists, patriarchs... The God(s) of the Bible revel in cruelty, revenge, destruction, punishment, smiting, scaring, threatening. And yet we love it/him/them. It must be Stockholm Syndrome at work deep in our earthling psyches.

Christian forgeries?

"The Old Testament doesn't count!" Come on, we're modern people. God only became love in the New Testament? Angry dad, happy son, no mother, mysterious dove -- this is the "Holy Family"? What about giving Asherah, prana (the real "holy spirit," the subtle-breath full of chi), Mary, and direct mystical experience their due? The Catholics (and Buddhists) give Mary (as Guan Yin) plenty of attention, and we don't know who Asherah is.

God wants us to stone, kill, rampage

• [God's wife] Asherah, Tree of Life, Snakes Tree of Life (date palm), Asherah [wife], and the God of the Bible. The snake eats the plant of eternal life, from the Huluppu Tree, in the Gilgamesh Epic...
• God's wife "Asherah" edited out of the Bible Was God's wife edited out of the Bible? Atheist claims the Almighty had partner known as Asherah (Daily Mail, March 19, 2011).
• God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible - Almost

Hybrid vs. Hybrid: Iggy attacks Lorde (video)

Crystal Quintero, Ashley Wells, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Mitchell Peters

(Barely Political) Key of Awesome parody of songstress Lorde's megasuperhit "Royals"

Space devi hybrid Lorde responds to Iggy "the World's Greatest Rapper Except for all the Others" Azalea’s criticism of her Nirvana Rock Hall tribute (Austin Hargrave/Miller Mobley)

 

Lorde has responded to critical comments made by Iggy [Amethyst] Azalea to Billboard about her performance with the surviving members of Nirvana at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in April.

• 

  I'd rather be a nun than a model!

  Iggy on Lorde: "She is not Kurt Cobain's peer"!
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• PHOTO: Selena Gomez's "brave" bikini selfie
• Spanish model Olalla Oliveros trades her career to become a NUN (latinpost.com)
• VIDEO: 12 Days of Miley Cyrus

"Nothing against her, but I think when you're doing a tribute to someone that's dead, generally it should be the person's peer," Azalea told Billboard in her recent cover story. "Lorde is not Kurt Cobain's peer. No matter if she killed the performance or not, I just don't think it's appropriate." More

Who in the world is Iggy to talk?

New Zealand's child rock star Lorde takes an Asian lover and makes a big splash without meaning to (ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com).

 

I'm not Marilyn Manson in drag, I'm Iggy!

Everyone knows Lorde, the great but quirky semi-divine, semi-human overnight popstar. She became famous at 16 for her hit "Royals." But who is Iggy (born Amethyst Azalea)? Apparently being unattractive is now no obstacle for female rockers, just as it has never slowed down males (too many examples to mention, but how about that guy who married Julia Roberts). Look at various iterations of Lady Gaga, or the latest version of Madonna, and lots of new artists are proving that tons of makeup and flashy stripper moves and clothes are enough. Look:

(Bart Baker) Bart's parody of Iggy featuring Charli XCX (not Gwen Stefani)'s "Fancy" Summer of Iggy: "Fancy" rapper defends her cred, talks Lorde

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• "Bigfoot" gets into violent MMA fighting
• Ariana Grande featuring Iggy Azalea "Problem"
• PICK UP ARTISTS: Mystery's 5 Levels of Game

Telling the Devil to go to Hell? (comedy)

I. Rony, Wisdom Quarterly; "Swear To God" with Rev. Winton Dupree (aka Bob Odenkirk)

"The more you are motivated by LOVE, the more fearless and FREE your action will be" - DL

Ferocious avian (garuda) temple guardians warding off serpents (nagas), Thailand

 

Reverend Winton Dupree (Mr. Show)

I have a question, and I know you all have it, too. "What is up Lucifer's butt?" All he wants to do is mess us up, the crapple pie eater!

Now, I'll tell you what. I am the only preacher with the f'n cahones -- you know this, you all know this -- to say:
 
"Goddam you, Mara! I dam thee straight to purgatory! You goddam so-and-so and son of a B!" Can I get an f'n A?
 

Tricky Mara Devaputra

"F'n A!" Thank you, friends.
 

Now the Lord said, "I am the Light of the World."

 

Now he could as easily have said, "I am King Sh-t of F--- Mountain! Why would you mess with me?!"

WARNING: Rated X! Extreme Christian profanity and ungodly obscenities steeped in liberal comic mockery of fundamentalist fervor and hypocrisy! (Mr. Show with Bob & David/HBO)

• The Buddha's encounters with the real Mara (sutras)
• Encounters with the metaphorical Mara (Abhidharma)

No thanks, Mara!

Dhr. Seven, Dhr. Amber Larson, Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

The Killer's disciple holding up the characteristic devil's horns (mudra) of the Dark Lord

  

But would the esteemed reverend's approach be any way to rebuke Mara Devaputra (the Killer as an angelic being of light, aka deva-putta, "son of god")? Anger in the face of anger is failure. Hatred is weakness; fear is disease.

Remember Siddhartha under the Bodhi tree. He faced Mara again and again, sometimes in a fearsome guise, sometimes in seductive mode. Mara is scheming. Mara does not play fair.

Mara (Death personified), L.A. Day of the Dead

Resistance is futile, if by "resistance" one means direct opposition. Mara (Temptation itself) is stronger than a human. But there are many things one can do: stand aside, not take the bait, distract oneself, abandon clinging by insight, or win by virtue rather than fighting.
 
Mara has no real interest in forcing only in provoking. Instead of coercing by brute strength, he inspires us to be the source of our own ruin.
 
For example, in Sutra 50 of The Middle-Length Discourses, Maha Moggallana -- one of the Buddha's chief male disciples, foremost in mystical powers -- eludes Mara. He then warns the inimical spirit what awaits as the karmic result of such harmful behavior toward enlightened disciples of the Buddha.
 
Maha Moggallana can warn Mara (Namuchi) from direct experience. For he himself, long ago, was a mara known as Mara Dusi, and he himself met with the horrific-hellish results Mara Namuchi would eventually face if he did not desist.

 

But Mara, it seems, does not listen. He does not believe there will be any karmic results for himself. He is, after all, no mere flesh and bones being. He wields dark powers, namely, the power to influence the thoughts of others, to shapeshift, to lead others astray by inspiring in them latent defilements (fear, anger, lust, delusion, discouragement, laziness, etc.)
 
Mara does not insert these into a person's mind/heart; he instigates and awakens what is there dormant and unabandoned. These things -- whether conceived of as momentary states or innate traits -- cannot be successfully opposed for very long by mere willpower or force of any kind. They can, however, be suppressed, outmaneuvered, eluded, abandoned, and completely let go by meditation (cultivation of skillful states and traits).

 

Siddhartha did not fight under the tree. But he stood his ground, it's true, refusing to rise and leave the meditation mat even at the threat of an imminent attack by an army of ogres (yakkhas) led by Mara on a giant war elephant. Finding this approach futile, Mara then sent in his three seductive "daughters" (Craving, Boredom, and Cupidity).

What to do?

The rewards of peace and ahimsa

In fighting, don't fight. In struggling, don't struggle. And in striving, the same: neither striving nor giving up. In this way one does not fall back and one does not ruin oneself by one's own efforts and over-exertion. Carry on without relenting. Elegant balance. Calm persistence. And in no long time, one realizes the fruits of compassion and wisdom.