CULTHOOD
i was raised in a cult.
i don’t hold it against them. they all meant well but you wouldn’t believe the stories they could tell.
i did, unfortunately.
here’s what i learned.
everything i can see and cannot see, the earth, my bicycle, dad, mountains, the stars and galaxies, the blackness of the endless expansive universe, teaming with other galaxies and planets, was all built by one god, and it was all made for us because homo sapiens are the star of the whole show since we look like god. god went silent and cursed us after the first two sapiens he made messed it all up. then he softened a bit and started speaking to a chosen group of sapiens a few thousand years ago in the middle east.
having cursed humans for messing up the plans, but loving them and wanting them back for himself, he devised a new plan, as does any lonely ex. he would put the debt of wrongdoing’s of all sapiens - those wicked, wicked monkeys - on the balance sheet of a new kind of hybrid god-sapien to set the record straight.
a couple thousand years ago, a young “virgin” girl spontaneously became pregnant after a “talk” with an “angel” and gave birth to a boy. that boy, revealed by a dove and some light by a river, it turns out, was the son of the god who made everything.
that guy was a regular fellow for 33 years and then started telling everyone they had it all wrong about god (aka daddy but also him) and preached about forgiveness and asceticism and spoke in vague parables.
people got mad that he thought he was a god-hybrid son of the god who made everything so they killed him for it. brutally, i might add. whips, nails, thorns - nasty shit.
then, get this, he came back to life and ascended (floated? dissolved?) to an invisible realm after seeing his buddies and letting them be sure he pulled it off.
somewhere in this transaction of him dying, un-dying, and going to the invisible place, a debt-relief program was generated that can erase all the wrongdoings of evil sapiens - but only the one’s who believe this story and opt in to the plan correctly, if they are eligible (not gay or jewish or muslim or hindu, etc).
the rest are sent to a bad place (also invisible, but located “under” in relation to the good place) where they are tortured forever after by a guy who used to work for god before he quit to start his own gig and took a few other disgruntled staff with him (who god also made from scratch).
that bad guy is also everywhere, like god, and they battle to claim sapiens for their own afterlife parties.
a bunch of sapiens wrote about all of this on scrolls after most of the drama was over and a bunch of other sapiens decided some of the scrolls belonged in one long reading-list. all parties involved were apparently guided directly by god to write and assemble and interpret these scrolls.
that brings us to today.
now there are quite a few sects of sapiens who have incongruous opinions about what the scrolls say so they’ve separated themselves into factions, all assuming they are the ones who got it right and we meet every sunday in pointy buildings wearing special clothes to make sure we’re all on the same page.
so, to recap:
god made everything. it’s a solid plan, it’s perfect.
sapiens ruined the plan. (oops)
new plan: sacrifice god’s god-sapien hybrid son to establish a debt relief program to forgive *some of* the eligible yet rascally sapiens.
if they don’t get it right and interpret the scrolls correctly, they burn forever.
why? because god likes riddles.
st. paul’s cathedral || london, nov 2024
i had SO many questions as a child of this cult.
why did god make a creature that could fuck it all up? so they have free will? does that make them more powerful then god? was god just bored of being so powerful that the game got old and he needed to spice it up?
how is god’s ex-employee satan still powerful and causing mayhem? does god just allow it? has he not thought about a restraining order or idk, maybe sending that guy to the bad place himself since god was the one who made it? or has he forgotten where he put the key?
if god made everything and loved sapiens so much and ALL of this was in the original plan, why would he construct a system designed to cause SO much suffering and eternal torture for literally trillions of them? either he can do nothing about it so he is not actually that powerful or he likes to watch us squirm because he’s a sadist.
how exactly does one join the debt-relief program? if i were filling out a form, i imagine it would have these checkboxes:
believed:
god from the big scroll made everything
his god-sapien hybrid son died and made the debt relief program when he un-died
he loves me, specifically
i never fucked another guy monkey
didn’t say “god damn”
didn’t believe in other gods
got moistened at the right age with the correct amount of water while thinking the correct thoughts
didn’t partake in the ritual where we pretend to eat and drink god’s god-sapien hybrid son until i was the right age
is there anything i’m missing? if i get one of those wrong, am i out?
was there no better plan the GOD OF EVERYTHING could come up with then brutally sacrificing his own son? who is technically also him? and if that was the plan, why didn’t it work for everyone? why are sapiens STILL capable of missing it? does god not know how the source code works for this whole thing and he’s just making it up as he goes?
also, is god HE because he has a penis and high testosterone? so he’s physical? or just cause his son was a dude?
what specific part of being gay voids one’s eligibility in the debt relief program? is it the moment a penis enters a male anus or passes the lips of the other male monkey ready to suck it? or is it when you want to suck another sapiens dick in your heart of hearts? if two males penetrate a female in a close timeframe and proximity, will some of the male-ness get on the other male and make him a homosexual? or is it when they kiss? are women not as abominable when they’re gay because there is less penetration? what if it was just a thing they tried in college? or is it just whenever a male cums inside the anus of another male that he loses eligibility?
were i a cursing, sexually immoral, drug doing (illegal according to the USA drugs, that is), no good dirty-rotten scoundrel, then at the LAST moment of my life realized i didn’t like drugs or un-wed pussy or cursing and believed god sent his god-hybrid son to die for me in the middle east on a stick two thousand years ago and then UN-died, would i all of a sudden gain eligibility? or would my enrollment period have lapsed?
why did god make a bad place to begin with, knowing it would be the eternal torture chamber of his beloved sapiens?
do viruses and lions and mycelium and trees ALSO have a debt relief program or do they simply not have balance sheets because they don’t seem to know their own names and when they die they just die, the end?
if your answer to any of these questions is in the ballpark of “god works in mysterious ways,” “who am i to questions god’s plans,” or “i am a human with limited understanding,” please resist commenting any of these intellectually suicidal ideas.
deconstruct
around the age of 23 i realized there were no answers to these questions - not due to my inability to make sense of the scrolls from my limited understanding, rather the incoherence of the idiocy and fantasies of a bunch of sapiens thousands of years ago all the way to present who thought they were saying anything that mattered.
it occurred to me - maybe these are simply silly questions.
there’s more than likely no god making up revisions to plans every time sapiens mess it up. we’re just here like a virus or algae wanting primarily to copy and exist like the rest of nature. along the way we became smart enough to ask why we reproduce and persist on this planet with all it’s pleasures and pains.
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hungry ghost is a collection of my thoughts that spin off from the question i’ve been seeking an answer for my whole life - why are we here at all?
that may be the silliest of all questions. i guess we’ll see.
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