Banished: Churches of the Damned

Banished: The Outcast in Modernity by the Church

By Christopher M. Vanderwall-Brown

Does Jesus teach humanity that it is permissible to withhold charity because people live in sin? Are people (or the Church for that matter) permitted or charged to withhold charity onto those of a broken nature or character or to place limits on the charity and kindness we give onto others? What does the Parable of the Prodigal Son, especially with regards to the elder brother, teach us about God's Divine Love for all humanity or as a blueprint for the church's love onto all of humanity?

For example, is it permissible to withhold food because a person might waste it or because a person refuses to sit and listen to many hours of lectures about their brokenness or their failures to uphold the criminality of their soul or lives? If someone makes a mistake or continues to make mistakes, is it charged or permissible to withhold charity upon them if they are suffering and poor?

What does our Father who art in Heaven command for us? What does Jesus teach us?

Does God put terms on our salvation or Eir charity? Must we convert? Must we do certain things in order to be forgiven or to receive God's blessings, or does God provide us these things because we ask out of love and out of divine charity? Is it merely our returning to God that is enough?

The parable of the two sons, the prodigal son demands his inheritance before his father and then departs for lands unknown. He takes his wealth, blessings, and prosperity and wastes it.

Living in the gutter, utterly broken and despotic, the son realizes that he is doomed and returned to the father's house to ask to work as a servant, to work as a slave or as a hired hand (not as a son, not with a birthright, merely a day laborer). Before the son even reaches his father's house, the father sees his son and races towards him, overjoyed. He embraces his son without explanation and proceeds to order a feast prepared and for the son to be clothed and a signet ring put upon his finger. The joy of the father at the return of his prodigal child, the child lost to him. He is so happy and filling over with joy.

The prodigal son is loved, clothed, and a feast held in honor of his return. The other son, the son who did not leave, who did not demand his inheritance, did not waste it and become low upon the Earth, looks on in disgust, in anger, in folly and pride, for he sees his brother's return in enmity to the father's love. For, having returned in rags and marred honor, the prodigal son has trampled and wasted all the father has given to him, and the other son, the son who has not failed, who has done all the father asks, instead of looking on with joy at the return of his brother, looking on with joy of the father, instead looks on in disgust, in iniquity and strife, for his pride has been heaped up against his brother for he does not believe his brother should be greeted with open arms. He is better than his fallen brother, or so he thinks, and it is his pride that is his fall. When we see ourselves as better than our fallen siblings, when we see them as lower than us, and being unequal, we have fallen pray to the greatest of iniquities..

The story is a metaphor demonstrating God's love and mirroring humanity with all those who have not left the fold and are angry and resentful because they “did as their father requested and were good, obedient children” and yet their father treats the son who has abandoned everything in equal measure with themselves. When they do this, they have become as Lucifer; they have become angry and prideful at their father and sibling for the perceived injustice at not being held in higher regard to their prodigal brother who so wronged their father, by his father, and as a result, grows to hate the father because of this perceived transgression against the loyal and steadfast son.

Has the church become the other son? Has Lucifer won us over to eir cause? Have we abandoned the true will and love of the father for that of the perceived injustice of the son who did not leave or wrong his father, but who nevertheless felt angry, prideful, resentful at his brother who trampled everything he had upheld?

When we judge others, turn away those in need because they do not meet our expectations or because they have in some way not “measured up” to our perceptions of “Justice”, have we become as the Dark One and fallen down the road of pride? Has the church become an institution of the devil and not of our Lord and savior?

Is it possible that all those critics who daily bombard us with criticisms of our claimed iniquity may be on to something and that in fact much of the church is in fact divorced from the Love and Generosity of our Lord, Savior, and Creator?

Last Call Into Night

Situational crossroads like tonight make me hate life, God, the world, our institutions, and people in general.

I got denied for social security and while mom missed it, because we were at my grandfather's funeral, the notice of the foreclosure process from the bank got sent because in my disability and my mom's broken insanity (and my being totally alone in this life shattering mess) I wasn't able to get all the paperwork filed.

There's a chance that things will still work, but if they don't, if God bails on me, on us, I'm done for good.

This world has taken everything that is precious from me and everyone who could have acted justly to stop that from occurring stood in silence.

The pain and wrongness of it all. The unmitigated moral iniquity of it all.

I am mashing my teeth, wrenching my hands, and making great lamentations.

The world is a cold and desolate placed filled with armies of unfeeling bystanders who like the many white churches in America, keep driving by, those in suffering.

This person, however, cannot watch the swaths of suffering any longer, cannot sit by doing what little he is able while suffering perpetuates, while everything and everyone he loves is stolen from him. I cannot do this any longer. I will not stand by to watch the destruction of the world or the church by the armies of the godless who claim to stand for justice any longer.

When this trial is at a close, when I've done all that I can and I find myself homeless: the childhood home in which I have resided and grown since 3rd grade taken from me, with the soulless bastards of humanity cheering on my destruction while claiming to be arbiters of justice and equity; when these things have all been expended and nothing more remains and I have lost everything and am living a homeless life, with my "selfish cunt of an aunt" sneering on, taunting my mother and I in our suffering as she reiterates how it's all our fault and how we brought this on ourselves, when those godless creatures in the church command that this is yet another reason to "disintegrate" from my mom, because she belongs in an institution where "proper care can be administered", when the heartless have finally taken refuge in the hearts of all those livings, when this shall come to pass, I shall make my only expression left to offer in silence. I shall make one last and final statement to the world and it shall be the shortest, briefest, and most concise statement I can offer.

You can read between the lines and decide for yourselves what that will mean.

I'm fed up with fighting and with losing. I've done this for too long and it just is not worth it anymore.

I am besieged by legions seeking for my destruction and I am battered on all sides by the forces of unricheousness and unholy monsters who seek for my destruction, my condemnation.

I am alone in the wilderness. I am broken. I suffer. God has yet to show Emself and until I see hope, I shall morn for lack of it. May the Lord have mercy upon your souls.

Sleep

By Christopher Vanderwall-Brown

Pain. So much pain. Overwhelming. Covering. Filling. Churning. Where is my salvation? Where is this peace so you speak? Where is my safety in this maelstrom?

Cold. Alone. Bitter. Broken. Spears of ice piercing my heart, my body. Am I to lay here... lay here to die? Die alone? Is this the end?

Where are you my God in my suffering? Where is my peace? Where is this cold's end? Please! Please, my God... End my suffering!

Silence. Suffering. Emptiness. Alone. Alone until the end. This is the end of me...

Love. Overwhelming. Embracing. I stand. I walk. Light Enveloping. Who is this figure? This figure of hope, of joy, of... everything?

Goodbye world. I love you so. But, something greater awaits. Peace. Finally. Sleep Eternal....

Petition Against Advertising on Public Broadcasts

Television Advertising as many studies show leave our children open to materialistic consumption. They become fixated with their need to buy—as like a bleeding person from a gunshot wound needs a transfusion.

PBS is one of the only commercial-free networks in America left to allow parents to expose their children to entertainment that is not inherently socially destructive, laden with commercial advertising.

As a Christian, I cannot condone the actions you, Willard Mitt Romney, present before the Polis—citizens will stand united in this affront to this fundamental economic necessity. Like national defense, a public forum or theater, just as the Ancient Greeks of Athens performed, is a key element in a stable and free democratic republic.

Calling for its reduction is equivocal to calling for the elimination of our systems of public education or for the elimination of our militias. Our founders, my 7th-great-grandfater, Justice James Wilson, would have called you out for these indiscretions.

I implore you sir, cease at once this indiscretion and learn a little about the magnitude of ramification your actions will wreck on us all.

I might suggest you inform yourself on the economic principles of Coase theory and the problem of "free-riders" in economics—it might give you the perspective you need pertaining to "free-riders" and the necessary place the government has in this market. If you are so keen on a public military, and not merely a collective of private military companies who rule our state with an iron will, then I suggest you also notice the dangers of public media that does not embody the fundamental principles of nation states.

Divine Engineering: On the Importance of Rhetoric

Divine Engineering: On the Importance of Rhetoric

On the Importance of Rhetoric

On the Importance of Rhetoric

Language and the Survival of Democracy in the Republic

by Christopher Brown

There exists a pleasurable sensation of being proven correct. Not necessarily the power to gloat over one's adversaries, which is a psychological coping mechanism and a means to attack those who have hurt or wronged you, but the power of closure—reconciliation—that you have been righted, justified, in your world view. Your striving has netted a positive result—an accurate (or more accurate) representation of reality than your peers, or at least, an important contribution to that great world view we call life.

It has been in this way that I have been justified. Rhetoric is a subject that offers tools and methods by which its pupils may better harness language to their benefit—striving to master language in an effort to enact some purpose: convince a person, clearly explain a position, affect or move a person in some fashion. There are many ways in which rhetoric is useful in our daily lives, yet it is seldom taught.

Rhetoric taught me to understand the importance of thesis statements. First that they are in fact statements, what a 'statement' is, and how one should endeavor to use a thesis in understanding and writing on a topic, a question, a problem, or an issue.

Obviously, understanding and stating your topic clearly, concisely, and precisely is vital to effective use of language; yet, few students master the art.

We should endeavor within a society which prides itself on its democratic principles to encourage the widespread teaching of rhetoric—both for the preservation of the Republic, but also for its betterment. For, Democracy cannot survive without an educated body of citizens—the Polis. This body consisting of all citizens within a nation or society—depending on how said society binds itself together—relies upon its ability to communicate effectively with itself and with other members of our world. 

Language—as we humans are language modeling beings—derive our perspective of reality greatly influence by and through our language and use of language. Without a firm grasp upon the reigns of language, we might be thrown asunder, as from a wild mount. It is the duty of each citizen to master the art of language, and with it, rhetoric, that we may present a mass of learned men and women as the penultimate defense against ignorance, bigotry, and the vitriol arts that seek to control and eventually enslave us to the will of a select and fearsome few. Our survival rests upon our ability to use language to illustrate the dangers these bands of despots present to the safety and sanctity of the Polis, and to the general welfare of our species within our Polis or the world at large.

Science In the Toliet: Recession, Unemployment, Poor Education, Competition

Have Doctorates in Theoretical Physics become worthless?

After having nearly given up on my plan, because people think I'm crazy, I am now reinvigorated by the discovery that "I'm not alone". Science requires much of people, often that in our modern world the lack of education in science and the coveted desire to earn as much money in the shortest time possible, to teachers who lack the fundamental understanding of the subjects they teach, leading to "hand-waving", also known as "this is true; just shut up and accept what I'm saying as true, slaves!". I feel more of the latter category.

It appears, however, that I'm not the only person. Scientists of the higher order appear to fall into my category. I believe science is one of those horrible disciplines that has moved into the beast of corporate society. In order that we might make companies more profitable, we are asked, as scientists, to focus purely on the applied. The problem here stems from the nature of scientific discovery. You don't get to create new theories without discovery and without people to take seemingly "magical" formula in the archaic language of mathematics and utilize this to formulate highly advanced models of reality. The problem comes from these absolute noobs (your household business executive, or your run of the mill politician or general) and their inability to understand the value of experimentation.

In the early 1990's, Congress halted construction on the Superconducting Super Collider, the largest supercollider ever constructed. Wikipedia


I've written on this before, but it was canceled, because Congress was allowing NASA (a highly political organization) to be involved in the International Space Station. Since this was in all regards a "diplomatic" enterprise, Congress saw the value less in terms of science, something they undoubtedly could not fathom, but instead in terms of the political capital they could garner from the US populace.

What were the eventual costs?

The livelihoods of an entire generation of American particle physicists and theoretical physicists who were studying in preparation of the multitudes of jobs that would result from US research at the SSC.

To give you an understanding of the attributable undertakings involved, when the project was canceled in 1993, the facility's 87.1 kilometres (54.1 mi) and 80 TeV per proton. The SSC's planned collision energy of 80 TeV was almost pentuple the 14 TeV of its European counterpart, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva.

The associated $12+ billion in development was mostly on account of the massive civil engineering costs associated with building the 87.1 kilometer tunnel.

The US had no facility of this kind. At this point the US is running way behind and depending solely on Europe to develop high level research, something never before known.

We instead chose a purely diplomatic issue, something Americans could see and touch (in a way) as opposed to this vastly unusual project no one seems to understand. We spent $2 billion dollars building the supercomputer mainframe facility, hiring staff, etc. What followed by the cancellation was the toileting of 1/6 of the construction costs and providing nothing in return.

The US instead chose to budget for stealth planes and the like, costing over $60 billion.

In the end, we put out of work an entire generation of scientists (theoretical and experimental) on the cutting edge of research, who now must compete with scientists in Europe for positions at CERN.

If Americans want to look at the problems in our research and development, and understand how our science community is broken, just look at how we weight science in the community of our peers. It's value is only in what we can see and touch, and is completely outside the weight of objective form.

Congress, as recently as the Cybersecurity bills, SOPA and PIPA has demonstrated a complete lack of understanding where science is concerned.

It is in the opinion of this humble member of Occupy that the scientists, educated students and those with an inclination for science should begin to involve themselves in the political arena, for the only way Congress will seek to improve, is if we "bring in the nerds" as one Congressmen recently commented (Rep. Jason Chaffetz) during the hearings for PIPA. Congress has no idea what it is doing, and the attributable costs are immense. With the consequences science has for our development as a society, it seems only logical to have those with the understanding making the decisions , as "fundamental" understanding is necessary, and these people don't understand half of what the scientists mean when they "dumb it down" for them. This is a bad sign.

Scientists! Get your law or political science degrees (or both!) and start running for political office! We need you! Stat!