Monday, September 9, 2013

The Holy Ghost is a Bastet


I believe the Holy Ghost was represented in ancient Egypt as Bastet, the cat goddess, which was in part a protector of food.  You could say the Holy Ghost is a protector of spiritual nourishment, but that’s not what I’m really getting at here.   Let me explain.  Often in LDS sermons, you will hear or read dialogue like the following from apostle Joseph Wirthlin:

“Brothers and sisters, do we turn away the still, small voice? Do we do things that offend the Holy Ghost? Do we allow influences into our homes that drive the Spirit from our homes? The type of entertainment that we permit into our homes will certainly have an impact on the power of the Holy Ghost. Much of the entertainment of the world is offensive to the Holy Ghost. Surely we should not watch movies or television shows that are filled with violence, vulgar language, and immorality.”
How do we offend the Holy Ghost? From this we learn that the Holy Ghost is afraid of entertainers.  I can imagine that juggling clowns scare the bejeebus out of the HG because he doesn’t have physical hands to ward off any rouge flying balls or pins. The TV and movies also scare the HG, particularly if they use certain words and phrases.  You could say the meanest cruelest thing possible with the most polite words and nicest tone of voice—the HG will sit there and nod in approval at your proper etiquette. But use a foul four-letter word in praising your “f*cking amazing friend”, and the HG is startled by your lowly-worded compliment. 

Video violence, apparently, is also bad juju for the HG. If you’re a 14 year old boy playing soldier in Call of Duty (which happens to be similar to a Mormon phrase about the priesthood), the HG gets very anxious that you would kill computer characters instead of reading your scriptures.  Reproving someone betimes with sharpness, using guilt and shame in a form of emotional abuse according to D&C 121, and the HG will cheerlead your spiritual violence. Besides where was he when Joshua of the Old Testament was slaughtering women and children in actual violence?  He was on the right hand of God.   

If your  computer screen shows someone with too little clothing on screen, the HG will blush and run.  The HG is invisible, so how many naked people has the testator seen?  I mean, if you were invisible, you’d see as many naked bodies as you could.  It should be a lot, but apparently the slightest naked elbow will send shivers up the ghost’s spine.

Isn’t the HG’s job to be a comforter?  Isn’t he supposed to help you know right from wrong?  But the moment anything wrong happens, he’s out of there so fast, you won’t get a wave goodbye let alone a lesson on what’s bad.  He’s supposed to be busy flying around helping everyone gain a testimony, but if you dare think a single bad thought, chant a prayer just wrongly, show a single bare shoulder, curse under your breath once, well the Holy Ghost is offended and will fly away faster than Casper.  The HG is a selfish slacker on the job.  The HG doesn’t play ball with sinners.  Wear immodest gym shorts and try passing him the ball, and you can count on him to throw it into the stands and leave the building with his tail between his legs.  

The Holy Ghost is a scared little dog.  No, make that a scared little pussy, to put it bluntly.  The holy ghost is a pussy.  Yes, I just wrote that.  Bastet, the cat goddess, was fierce and bold.  The Holy Ghost, the pussy god, is fearful and timid.  Unlike the nocturnal Bastet, the HG is afraid of the dark, and goes to sleep at midnight whenever you stay out late.   Bastet whipped away the rats.  The HG will rat on you to the bishop by giving him the gift of discernment and toast your ass on the guilt barbeque grill.  He’s supposed to be a gift, but some gift he is.   The HG is a Lamanite Giver.  When you’re nice to him, he’ll bless you and bestow gifts of spirit on you.  But the moment you screw up, he’s like a collection agency reposessing those gifts.  Good luck getting back the gift. Like the Lamanite’s DNA, he’s just gone.  You’ll have to beg and pray and promise everything to God so he'll give up a sliver of his ghost again.  And if you read your scriptures and sacrifice your first born to a mission in Tanzania, he might reappear for brief moments of time and cause you to feel like crying.  He likes to get people crying.  If you’re not crying, then the HG is crying.

The Holy Ghost is the ultimate borderline personality disorder manipulator.  One moment he’s in love with you, the next, he's a catty emotional bitch. It all comes down to whether you’re doing whatever he wants. Do the right thing, you’re the golden child. Do the wrong thing, you have hurt the Holy Ghost and made him cry.  You’ve offended and scared off that pussy and he’s not coming back until you can prove to him you’re going to bow and worship just right.   It’s what happens with insecure tyrants.

What’s worse, apparently, you might mistake your own emotions for the Holy Ghost.  Boyd Packer wrote:

“Be ever on guard lest you be deceived by inspiration from an unworthy source. You can be given false spiritual messages. There are counterfeit spirits just as there are counterfeit angels. (See Moro. 7:17.) Be careful lest you be deceived, for the devil may come disguised as an angel of light.
“The spiritual part of us and the emotional part of us are so closely linked that is possible to mistake an emotional impulse for something spiritual. We occasionally find people who receive what they assume to be spiritual promptings from God, when those promptings are either centered in the emotions or are from the adversary.”
Yeah, the spirit, such a sneaky bastard. You could be manipulating yourself with your own inner pussy.  Or it could be the devil playing pussy advocate with your mind (which is a nicer way of saying it than the “devil is f*cking with your mind”).  You haven’t a chance, according to the elder Packer, of guessing the difference between the half-cracked holy spirit, your own Freudian emotions or the firebrand trickster.  No matter how you slice it, you’re screwed by this pussy.  He’s not going to help you get anything right if you do anything wrong.

So that begs the question, what does the holy ghost actually do that  you're not already doing?  If you're good, then you feel better because you have the spirit with you. If you're bad, the HG leaves you to feel worse.  Does the invisible HG do anything at all? 

I know that some of you are going to say I am committing the unpardonable, son-of-perdition sin of denying the Holy Ghost. Jesus once said, “Whoever denies me before men, I will also deny him before my Father.”  It seems that without ever denying the HG, he chickens out and denies us long before we get the chance.  The biggest denial here is that the HG is actually here … to help or not.  While Bastet was a myth, at least we have paintings and carvings of her.  The holy ghost? Invisible is as invisible does.
 


11 comments:

  1. At the risk of offending the spirit, that was fucking funny!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the BKP quote. I'm adding it to my file of quotes.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Amazing. Couldn't have said it better. I agree with the first comment. Laughed my ass off.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Too harsh and too bitter David. I understand too well how Mormons try to take everything and circumvent it - make it theirs as if all the world fell under the jurisprudence of mormon culture. As if the Holy ghost followed the ever changing whims of Mormonism alone. But let's put blame where blame is due -squarely on the mormon church and it's leaders indoctrination of their interpretation of what or who the holy ghost may be. For the rest of us; let's at least give Jesus some credit...or if not that then remain open to a possible universal spirit of good in the cosmos....etc.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The Holy Ghost exist in all Christian relgions, not just the Mormon religion. Like usual, David T., takes one aspect of the Mormon religion and blows it way out of proportion. I think this is due in large part to the Mormon culture. As a convert, I don't view the Holy Spirit in the manner in which you do. I see the Holy Spirit as a guide. As an example, if the Holy Spirit was a physical substance oil, and sin, in any form was oil the two wouldn't mix, and if you forced the mix somehow the substance would be contaminated. Neither substance would be being pure. If you as an individual were to decide to place yourself in a contaminated area, or content, the Holy Spirt would not mix well, but the Holy Spirit isn't leaving you, so much as you leaving the Holy Spirit.

    To give another example, my child fell away from the church and the family for a while. During the time she fell away, she was cussing, and drinking. Everything was a battle, she fought and fought. It didn't matter what the subject was, be it religion or every day life, she fought, and cussed, she came home when she wanted to, didn't do chores when she was home, ahd didn't clean up after herself. She was way outside of what was acceptable in our home! Although we didn't throw her out, she was close to being thrown out by us. Why? Because her behavior is outside what was and is acceptable in our house.

    Again, it isn't that the spirit is afraid, or runs away. It is the person that is pulling away, is running away.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You in the 'nicest way possible' just called your daughter evil and lost, you declared there must be something wrong with her because she OMG DRINKS! and OMG CUSSES!

      such horrid acts are sure to turn the person away from the spirit? right?

      In you heart you were judgmental, even as you claim to not be. Why is everything a battle? maybe because you make it so... give the girl some respect and consider she might be right and you might be the one in error.



      Delete
  6. I never really thought how superstitious I was until I found out the truth about the Mormon church after being an active member for 40 years (THANK YOU MORMONTHINK.COM!).

    I simply can't believe how much I let this tug-o-war between God and Satan rule my life. As a Mormon, you question every little decision wondering if you're "feeling" the spirit. Is this feeling coming from God or Satan? We weigh every feeling and then "Monday Morning Quarterback" the decision to make excuses to justify why God had it turn out the way it did and how you're going to be better off in the long run because you did it a certain way.

    Why can't we just say, "THAT'S LIFE?" Why do we need to be so superstitious to think that with 7.5 billion people on this earth, and all the many other worlds/people without number, that God and Satan are taking the time to influence what sitcom I watch on TV? I swear, the Mormon way of thinking is so closed minded and boxed in.

    I am so grateful to finally realize that good and bad things happen to good people just as much as bad people...THAT'S LIFE! It's depressing to wonder why God would "punish" someone who is trying so hard to be righteous. So Mormons make excuses saying, "you're being chastened", "proven", "tested", etc. Yet the Jack-Mormon across the street that mows his lawn on Sunday seems to not have life so tough?? But don't curse God...you need to look inside yourself and beat yourself up until you realize you could have talked to your kids more loving or read your scriptures longer or gone to the temple one more time. That would've "proved" your love more to God, and that would've given you the Holy Ghost stronger and you wouldn't feel so depressed now.

    It's a vicious cycle of mind-numbing thought manipulation used to keep the general membership in line. Pay your tithing or you won't have the promptings of your conscious...oops, I mean, the Holy Ghost.

    Good riddance!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Again, you are talking about getting caught up in the culture of Mormonism. As an adult convert I separated the culture from the teachings. The only guilt I have, is what I assign myself to have. I don't care what anyone in the church says, or thinks. The freedom to choose, think, sin, not sin, it is all your choice your agency.

    If you are not doing things, or doing things simply because you are worried about the reaction of the church leaders and members, then you are losing out on the purpose of following the teachers of Heavenly Father, and you might was well do what you want and leave the church. Yay for you!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Joel, you are saying basically what I was saying. I'm the convert, from your mainstream Christian religion that continues to preach nonsense.

    ReplyDelete
  9. so heartless mmeaning you are so rude

    ReplyDelete