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Essay: Atheists in Foxholes
Jun. 13th, 2021 09:19 pmAtheists in Foxholes
Series: Essay
Summary: Religion and its affects on our multiplicity.
Word Count: 3000
Notes: Winner of this month’s Patreon poll, and chock full of content warnings, including just about any you can imagine associated with religion: religiously-inspired abuse, body horror, deific parasitism, mental illness, Hell, death, asphyxia, rape, and suicide. I’m not happy with this one, but I’ve been trying to tell this story for two years now, with no success, and all-done beats all-perfect. EDIT: formatting cleaned up.
In 2019, I started seeing a shrouded skeleton lady in my headspace, who insisted she was not a headmate but an independently existing cosmic death entity, wearing a culturally appropriate guise for my psychological convenience. The only explanation I had was that my brain was breaking in a new way, so I bunkered down in hopes of waiting out the storm and ignoring this interloper until she went away.
It didn’t work. Instead, I had to start dealing with religion and its effects on our inner workings.
( Alternate title for this essay: The Gods Must Be Assholes. )
Series: Essay
Summary: Religion and its affects on our multiplicity.
Word Count: 3000
Notes: Winner of this month’s Patreon poll, and chock full of content warnings, including just about any you can imagine associated with religion: religiously-inspired abuse, body horror, deific parasitism, mental illness, Hell, death, asphyxia, rape, and suicide. I’m not happy with this one, but I’ve been trying to tell this story for two years now, with no success, and all-done beats all-perfect. EDIT: formatting cleaned up.
“We’re gods,” he reminded her. “I don’t have to be fair.” --Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater, pg. 199.
“The worst possible relationships between humans and some mystically potent being or beings […] that I can imagine, would be […] parasitism. […] Those who think of themselves as ‘enlightened’ may in fact have been infected and, in some hideously intimate way, used.” --Barbara Ehrenreich, Living with a Wild God, pg. 231-232.
“It is not external entities who are watching us and haunting us; we haunt ourselves.” --Chögyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, pg. 46.
“The worst possible relationships between humans and some mystically potent being or beings […] that I can imagine, would be […] parasitism. […] Those who think of themselves as ‘enlightened’ may in fact have been infected and, in some hideously intimate way, used.” --Barbara Ehrenreich, Living with a Wild God, pg. 231-232.
“It is not external entities who are watching us and haunting us; we haunt ourselves.” --Chögyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, pg. 46.
In 2019, I started seeing a shrouded skeleton lady in my headspace, who insisted she was not a headmate but an independently existing cosmic death entity, wearing a culturally appropriate guise for my psychological convenience. The only explanation I had was that my brain was breaking in a new way, so I bunkered down in hopes of waiting out the storm and ignoring this interloper until she went away.
It didn’t work. Instead, I had to start dealing with religion and its effects on our inner workings.
( Alternate title for this essay: The Gods Must Be Assholes. )
