With the financial limitations placed upon us by my Beau�s current lack of employment we are watching a great deal more television than in the past. Consequently we are experiencing a level of, well, astonishment as to the nature of TV now-a-days. Not caring for the �reality� themed fair we lean most in the direction of sitcom and educational (PBS) television. We have limited our television consumption to the barest minimum that the most basic of cable provides so the fancier channels such as TLC and discovery are not an option.

The reason I explain is because I watched a show last night that I would have probably clicked right past if I had 100+ channels but since there are only 15 or so I found it to be the only non-news/shopping channel programming available. I believe the title was �Unexplained Mysteries� and it was peopled with some of the strangest humans. The topic was �strange religious beliefs and cults� and the scope included vampirism, voodooist and Satanism (sort of). Oh and let�s not forget the snake charmers cult. I am fascinated with the way people choose to justify and reconcile their existence. I am just as incredulous of the mainstream religious as the more extreme faiths. This is not to say I condemn them (don�t get me wrong) but they spring from the same source, with no data to support the belief system. I find the mainstream innocuous compared to the extreme but it�s all outside my conception.

Wow, such a long lead in but here�s the rub: after wading through the vampire blood drinkers (establishing their immortality) and the voodooist (no explanation needed) I was stunned at the section on the �Satanist� who killed his girlfriend. The Satanist was no surprise, the same long-haired wild-eyed reject that has represented Beelzebub for centuries; it was the counter-point personality that left my jaw resting on my knees. In the face of the murderers claim that �the devil wanted her dead� this professorial representative of normalcy responded �I believe in Satan but the idea that �the devil made me do it� is preposterous!� I am troubled by this above the other silly statements he made because of its contradictory nature. If you believe in Satan that you must believe that he is trying to make man do evil. That is, according to the bible, the devils gig. So if you believe in the devil then you should believe that he can make weak souls do bad things and they are responding directly to the urging of the Lord of Darkness. That is after all how the story goes. Of course that also means the opposite must be true. That God can speak to people and draw them into goodness. Why should one side seem more real than another? Why then would you say that one person is bad because they �gave in� to the Devil and another good because the �gave in� to God. Maybe they are both just searching for meaning, just like the Cultist, Monotheist, Polytheist, Scientist and Philosopher.

I guess that is the trouble I have with most religions. I see the value religion can provide to a civilized culture, and to individuals in their day to day lives. I can also see how it can be warped and skewed to torture and control humans. Benevolent religion is rare and more often that not the Dogma overwhelms the faith and the monster that rears its head is more evil than any imagined Satan could hope to be.

Funny isn�t it? I have been assured that I am not the only person with a monster. Evidently institutions are not free from the monsters either. In fact the mass generated monster formed by the fusion of all the participants� personal monsters is blacker than any individual Satan on your shoulder. It is in groups that man has perpetrated the most heinous acts of cruelty on man. It is the monstrous collective that has committed genocide. Much as we wish to blame one man, to hold one person accountable, the reality is no one man is capable of achieving the depths of evil documented in our history. Many must help and many more must look away and pretend that it is none of their business.

While we watch the electronic hypnotist and gorge ourselves on the �reality� that is scripted for mass consumption children are dying. We look the other way and stand on our self proclaimed higher ground while the blood of young Americans stain the foreign soil of Afghanistan (remember Afghanistan?) and Iraq. We pretend it is none of our business when a man with a bloody chainsaw enters our country because he hasn�t broken any of our laws�..yet. We look the other way when our ally gases a portion of his population and then shake our fist at him years later for the same act we saw fit to ignore at the time. We should be ashamed. Not because we are any worse than any other human but because we fancy ourselves better.

I�m leaving now and I'm taking my soap box and my monster with. Hopefully tomorrow I can turn my head away because though I can see this truth I can do nothing to change it. Maybe this is why we hide our heads in the sand, so we don�t have to admit we have no more importance than a grain of sand.

I wish you Peace

~alison~

�