Religion is for People Who Don't Believe in God

---Sorry about the blunt beginning. I don't know how to start out any other way--- Organized religion is not spirituality. Religion is a business which brings its patrons to faith. Both serve their purpose and have their place but connecting the dots of 'the church' and 'faith' or spirituality, is a mistake. Unlike spirituality, religion does not foster personal growth, it fosters dependence. If you need a leg brace and shackles to fix your crippled leg then so be it. It's worth the time restricted for the resulting healthy leg. But you would think that once the leg is healed, the shackles could come off. This however, is not how a hierarchal power- based institution like organized religion works. Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day (and come back begging for more). Teach him how to fish and he'll feed himself for a lifetime (and no longer patronize the fisherman). The church is a successful institution because it creates a framework around faith which brings spirituality (a very desirable and marketable product) down to the unspiritual, whose faith is only maintainable within the shackles of rules, stories and dogmatic ritual. This constant need for spiritual upkeep, unnecessary for those who find their own path to faith, creates a dependence on the church which defies the basis of "faith". Yet the dependence it instills has kept the church around and in power since it was created to justify the power hungry crusades of early governments. The word faith means believing or trusting something not based on proof or reason. This however, is incredibly difficult to wholeheartedly do and maintain. So religion took the manifested concepts of faith, whatever your version of it is, its all the same really, and gave it a name- God. Now that is had a name, even a face for some, it was already more attainable and easier to comprehend. And then, the church came up with a series of stories and a biased interpretation of history to justify and explain the unexplainable for those of us who are afraid of what's beyond our comprehension and lacks reason. Those who base their belief in God on (and try to inflict it on others with) the proven evidence of his existence (Jesus lived! What about these miracles??) are thereby deprived of the growing process of finding their own spirituality- trusting in something unfounded in anything but ones own true faith. This process creates such a strong foundation for the few true believers because the journey there is unaided by external support or even rational thought. And in my opinion (as if this whole thing hasn't been a bombardment of my opinions), living amongst the uncertainty and impermanence which religion denies, and being present and accepting it, is the most powerful thing one could do for oneself. Last night, my very Christian friend who I adore asked me what I think it takes for someone to be truly happy. And I think it's releasing control. We're not in control, or at least we're in control of much less than our minds would like. So striving for that control (partially by attempting to explain and justify every time a puppy dies or a hurricane hits) will unquestionable lead to a life of fighting everything that comes and goes. And that's kind of silly, isn't it.

Fashion's Half-Life

---You can get closer and closer, but you will never actually get there--- Last night, around midnight, I had a Miley Cyrus music video binge. I youtubed all her videos trying to grasp a hint of what people find at all appealing in her. The most recent video is called "Who Owns My Heart" and the music video is a series of Miley in her underwear gyrating in different settings and wearing different clothing. That led to interviews and videos of people talking about her and videos talking about people talking about her. One female Fox reporter- with curled blond hair, a very conscious outfit, rehearsed facial expressions and an inch of makeup- interviewed a man who took the 'concerned parental' stance. Miley is a 17 year old girl (not even old enough to be in the clubs whose floors she's writhing on) who is inappropriately oversexualizing herself. The Fox reporter took the stance that Miley looks and acts like a woman, not a girl, so maybe she is not overstepping her bounds and should be able to present and advertise herself as a woman. They went back and forth in a totally useless and painfully obvious discussion about when and why girls gain permission to advertise themselves as worthless sex bags without ever asking: Miley's age aside, is "worthless sex bag" a healthy image for anyone to put forward at all, especially in the context of a song that has absolutely nothing to do with sex. Despite the moronic and totally lame lyrics, naive perspective, and annoyingly uncatchy beat, the song is about a girl questioning her passions in life: love for another versus dedication to an art. The other question that should be asked is, if the lyrics are not clever, the beat not catchy and the melody unoriginal and STILL bad, why are people listening to this song? Because girls (and teenaged girls are the only people who really listen to Miley Cyrus by the way. Which is funny because the market for the video is very obviously horny boys) want to be just like Miley. And boys like her because she's happy to teeter around in heels and underwear and do pretty much whatever the fuck else they want to have done. It's a lust based image. Which is fine, lust has never been a bad thing as long as it's used appropriately. But somewhere down the road (and come to think of it, I have no idea where) the line between lust and beauty, and a girl and a woman (and by woman, I dont mean just a female after a certain age) got smudged, and in many cases, all-together erased. Why is it that beauty for girls involves incompetence, childish naivety, and the undiscerning "down to fuck" attitude manifested as cheap n' easy. (Which is also what we look for in possessions, food and solutions to our ever-increasing problems... coincidence?) So it sounds like, in terms of beauty, we have a little obsession with youth here. Why. Would a grown man be attracted (sexually not paternally) to a child? Perhaps a faltering ego which needs the reassurance of superiority and authority? Whether or not Miley Cyrus is sexy in her new video "Who Owns My Heart?" (fight, fight fight!, pandering public!) seems petty until you look at the far-reaching and universally permeating ramifications of an unhealthy and confined self-image and the expectations of society for it to be upheld by its members, the problem gains merit. But still the only solution I see is to stop playing the game altogether. The more you try to outdo someone or reinvent the image, the more you're playing the game. The game is not about winning, it's about perpetually falling behind. As long as you're playing under someone else's set of rules- a set of rules that doesnt apply to you- you're lining yourself up to be compared to and judged alongside them. But if you create your own set of rules for your own game, you can choose how you will be perceived and against whom you will be compared. You can only win the game when you give up trying to outdo all of the people you hate.