Spiritual Anorexia and Beyond

Spiritual Anorexia and Beyond
by arendt

...."Apotemnophilia: (from the Greek, apo=from + temnein=to cut + philia=love of)
....a paraphilia (fetish) of the stigmatic/eligibilic type in which sexuerotic arousal
....and facilitation or attainment of orgasm are dependent upon oneself being an
....amputee. An apotemnophile becomes fixated on carrying out a self-contrived
....amputation, or obtaining one in a hospital."

........http://www.amputee-online.com/amputee/wannabee.html

...."Like anorexia, apotemnophilia is a perverse form of self-denial."

........http://www.thephilosophyclinic.com/whenless.html


There's a saying in Hollywood that "you can never be too blond, too thin, too rich, or too
well-connected" - Gwyneth Paltrow being living proof of this. It seems the fundamentalists in
America believe you can never be too ignorant, too self-righteous, too dirt poor, or too victimized.

However, in the real world and sometimes even in Hollywood, you can be too thin - its called anorexia.
And sometimes, even in the faith-based community, you can be too victimized and too self-righteous
- its called bloodthirsty religious fanaticism. But in keeping with my metaphor, I will refer to this
manifestation as "spiritual anorexia", and later make passing reference to the eye-glazing term
"spiritual apotemnophilia".

The American Dream used to be that your children would get a better education than you,
would do better than you, would live in a more peaceful world than you. That is not what
fundamentalists want. They want your children to be ignorant because thinking is "the snare
of the devil". They don't want your children to live better than you because this world is evil
and luxury is temptation (which is why they have done nothing as overtime laws are repealed, the
borders opened to foreign truckers and contract programmers, and our industrial base is shipped
to China by Wal-Mart). And they most certainly do not want peace. So-called Christian ministers
Falwell and Robertson are screaming for blood, literally. Moslem blood abroad and liberal blood
at home. They pray that their Old Testament god will strike their enemies dead.

These people look at the same facts as rational people do, but they reach incorrect conclusions
because they have a very strange filter on their reality testing. Its the same kind of filter that
makes emaciated anorexics think they are too fat or muscle-bound steroid junkies think
they are too puny. These kinds of bad reality testing are called "body dysmorphias".

Fundamentalists in America have a dysmorphia of the body politic. They believe that to obtain salvation,
their life in this world must be as minimal as possible: minimal joy, minimal learning, minimal money,
minimal resources; because their entire focus must be on the next world. They look at the world brought
into being by Enlightenment science and political theory and all they see is the devil. In their spiritual
anorexia, they perceive the things science has brought us, like freedom from poverty, disease, superstition,
mysogyny, and arbitrary and extortionate aristocratic rule, as excess weight that must be starved off
lest it reduce their chances of being seen by their god as sufficiently self-denying.

Or worse, in their spiritual apotemnophilia, they actively seek out professional politicians to lop off the
limbs of their democratic body, to lobotomize the democracy out of their national consciousness so that
they can be worthy of being saved by a wrathful god who only wants obedient simpletons. We all know that
religion and sex are fighting for the same territory: ecstacy, immortality, lifelong bonding and happiness.
But, the fundamentalists have become the very sexual perverts that they witch-hunt. They are willing
to mutilate our government and our society to be attractive to their sick version of god. And this is where
they cross the line, because an anorexic's sickness only hurts themselves and their loved ones; but a
spiritual anorexic's sickness can wreck civilizations.

Over the last four years, we have been treated to ever more unhinged formulations of why
reason is irrelevant. Such as, "It is good to start the final Armageddon in the Middle East so that god
will be compelled by our necromancy to begin the End of Days." Or, "When we devour all the
natural resources of the planet, the judgment day will come." This deranged thinking is broadcast
by a network of well-funded reactionaries who want to turn America into a theocracy that would make
Oliver Cromwell's protectorate look like a minute of silent prayer.

And, at least Cromwell cared about political corruption and some semblance of English Common Law.
The fundamentalists have announced Old Testament capital punishment for teenage backtalk to their
parents, for adulterous women (not men), for anyone they declare heretic. The Reconstructionists literally
want to return society to the physical conditions of the middle ages so that people will be "closer to God".
In reality that means not distracted by health, good teeth, long-life, or the comforts of central heating.

It is time for the majority of non-fundamentalist Americans to defend our rights and our civilization
or have them taken from us by a crazed mob of rapture-addled martyr wannabees fomented by the
most cynical corporate front-men in history. I do not say these people are "evil", because that is
such a quaint term. But I am convinced by the evidence that they are wrong, delusional to
the point of perversion, and a clear and present danger to our form of government and our very
physical survival on a planet of six billion hungry and desperate souls.

You don't have to be an academic historian to know that religious fanaticism and the aggressive
certainty of their denouncements is as old as Moses and as socially destructive as a plague.
The superficial symptoms of religious fanaticism are as well known as that of the common cold:

...."If sour looks, upturned eyes, nasal twang, speech garnished with Old
....Testament texts were means to favour, there were others who could
....assume them besides those naturally afflicted by such habits. But behind
....all this apparatus of cant and malignity stood an army of disciplined
....sectaries, who constantly extorted increases both of their numbers
....and their pay..."

Winston Churchill, "A History of the English Speaking Peoples",
Book 6, Chapter 20, "The Lord Protector".

This quote on the infamous religious dictatorship of Cromwell is by an illustrious Prime Minister
and war hero of Great Britain. The British experienced over one hundred years of Civil War and
turmoil because of religious fanaticism. And what they experienced was mild compared to the
depredations on the Continent. That experience is in the DNA of America - in the Bill of
Rights, in the Constitution. It is immunity won by surviving the disease of fanaticism. Make no
mistake, this age-old scourge is upon us again.

...."...it is always easy, as well as agreeable, for the inferior ranks of mankind to
....claim a merit from the contempt of that pomp and pleasure which fortune has
....placed beyond their reach...

...."In their censures of luxury the fathers (of the Catholic Church) are extremely minute
....and circumstantial; and among the various articles which excite their pious indignation,
....we may enumerate...garments of any colour except white, instruments of music, downy
....pillows (as Jacob reposed his head on a stone), white bread, foreign wines, public salutations,
....the use of warm baths, and the practice of shaving the beard, which, according to the expression
....of Tertullian, is a lie against our own faces, and an impious attempt to improve the works of the
....Creator..."

........Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", Chap 15.

My goodness, yet another famous Briton. Could it be that our British forebearers had some cause
to distrust religion? Could that be part of the "original intent" of our founders? Could that be part of
our "traditional values"? It would take some awareness of history and some ability to draw conclusions
to answer these questions. But, as we have already seen, those faculties are the devil's work. So, the
hermetically-sealed worldview of the fundamentalists will not countenance it.

They will try for the umpteenth time in history to legislate morality, to re-enslave women, to absolutely
ban gambling, liquor, and vice. And, like every time in the past, they will merely raise up and enrich a
criminal class to supply these necessities. Well, actually, that criminal class already exists, and has profited handsomely already from the futile War on Drugs.

Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different
result. I rest my case.

Book Marking

Nite now.

now associated with insanity were common behaviors for the Catholic saint up to the beginning of the last century. Check out http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/139.ctl for the discussion of "Holy Anorexia."

This ascetic passion is as old as religion is. The Buddha tried it for years and concluded it simply didn't work. I'm afraid that never stops the fanatic, deprived of martyrdom and looking for a substitute.

The problem, as you pointed out in your article, is that they never can seem to stop with themselves, but seek to push the whole world into sharing their misery. And yes, this is why the founding fathers mistrusted the establishment of any official religion. They knew what happened to a country when its fanatics take over.

I was just making it up. Now it turns out I'm a plagarist :-).
Props to Dr. Rudolf Bell.

arendt

:kick:

well thought out and argued