"There is no such thing as a Christian child"

And God said:

"Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them."
-Surah 4:34 from the Qu'ran

And the atheist said:

"To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious ... But I prefer not to call myself religious because it is misleading. It is destructively misleading because, for the vast majority of people, 'religion' implies 'supernatural'."
-Albert Einstein

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I'm reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion right now, an excellent book for atheists, agnostics and nonreligious folk alike. In it Dawkins says something very poignant, something that speaks to our disillusioned minds about how we ever got to be religious in the first place:

"Just as feminists wince when they hear 'he' rather than 'he or she', or 'man' rather than 'human', I want everybody to flinch whenever we hear a phrase such as 'Catholic child' or 'Muslim child'. Speak of a 'child of Catholic parents' if you like; but if you hear anybody speak of a 'Catholic child', stop them and politely point out that children are too young to know where they stand on such issues, just as they are too young to know where they stand on economics or politics."

Such a crucial distinction this is that Dawkins reiterates the point in plainer, don't-fuck-with-me English:

"That is not a Muslim child, but a child of Muslim parents. That child is too young to know whether it is a Muslim or not. There is no such thing as a Muslim child. There is no such thing as a Christian child."

If only I had had The God Delusion, instead of a much much much different book, bed-side with me at eight years old. Turns out I'm one of the billions they got wrong, who they labeled "Christian child" over and over and over again in my impressionable youth. Stumbling across the above passage the other day, I thought to myself, "Wow. What a sad state of affairs, and how lucky I am to have really seen-seen the booby trap, to renounce that shit and get the hell out of those white robes (figurative and, most unfortunately for me, literal)." I officially became an apostate (a person who abandons his/her religious faith) when I was 16. Only seven years have passed, but in thinking back I'm amazed at how completely disjointed my religious past life feels from present day. Do you ever feel that way about certain things in your own life? Like someone else was steering the brain back then; who or what exactly you have no idea--but you search now and the one-time conductor is nowhere to be found; s/he's prolly been left for dead in a ditch somewhere, and survives only as an occasional, incidental memory of what used to be. Such is 100 percent my case, and if you'd allow me, I'd like to take the stroll to show you just exactly what used to be.

###

When I was a one-year-old little crying Asian shit, my parents separated. We were in Queens, NY, and moms decided a move back to Lansing, MI, where my Lola and Lolo lived, would be an auspicious change of scenery. So we said goodbye and that was that. We moved into my Lola and Lolo's house, and for the next four-plus years the old folks had a tremendous hand in raising me.

As old-school, traditional Filipinos who still to this day believe staunchly in things like courtship, they were paragon Roman Catholics. They raised their nine kids this way, and predictably the lot of them continue practicing their hand-me-down faith today. Just as predictably, they began imparting to their newest tenant the same ways of Jesus Christ immediately. I was a tiny infant, kicking it in my tiny basket, going to church on Sundays; I was two years old bowing my head, locking my hands together, closing my eyes before dinner, saying, "Amen"; I was three years old, clutching my Lola's rosary at her bed, repeating the prayer coming from that immutably gentle, tender, make-you-want-to-melt-it's-that-delicate voice: "Bless my mommy. Bless my daddy. Bless my Lola and my Lolo, etc. etc." What it meant to "bless" these people I had no idea, but there I was in my footie pajamas, parroting my grandma in her bed until I could do the routine all by myself.

Things continued this way till 1995, when my Lolo and Lolo decided the Michigan cold was too much for their arthritic frames; they moved to California, and moms and I said goodbye to them in heartbreaking fashion. Soon after my mom got a job at the-then Red Lion Hotel in Bellevue, WA. (Sometime between 1989 and 1995 I was baptized.) We too packed up and migrated west to a beautiful suburb just east of Seattle that was to be my home for the next 12 years: Kirkland, WA. (425, holla at me!)

We settled into our Forbes Creek apartment nicely; not even two full weeks later and moms found us a new church to attend: Holy Spirit Lutheran, at the bottom of 124th and 100th. I was in 1st grade, only five years old at the time. I remember sitting with the congregation, eyes taking in the overwhelming altar before me, when Pastor Mike called attention to make a special announcement: "I'd like to welcome the newest members to the Holy Spirit Lutheran family. Marita, Steven, if you'll please stand up... Let's give them a warm round of applause!"

And from that day forward, I was no longer a Roman Catholic child, but a Lutheran/Christian child.

Quick side note: amazing how life works. Moms had just moved to a state in which she knew one other person only (my uncle); church was a way to bridge the social gap, lest loneliness or depression infect and spread. So from this reasonable, understandable social desire came our joint faith that was to mold me and my beliefs for the next 10 years. From that circumstancial desire I would proudly identify myself as a "Christian child."  

This is when I really started to become religious in my religiosity. Sunday school every week, no exceptions. 15 or so innocent kids and me learning about God, Jesus, Moses, Noah, Adam, Eve, trying our best to get the answers right and please our teacher. I learned the "Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name" prayer, which I can still recite as well as any Nas or Jay song. Soon after it wasn't enough to go to church just one measley time a week. In 2nd grade I started going to LOGOS every Wednesday to learn more about the bible and the ways of our savior. Then I started going to adult mass. At seven years old I even attempted to read the bible cover to cover. I never actually finished, or even got close; but the attempt itself should speak volumes of my commitment to my faith. God was now an inextricable main character in my life.

One day in 3rd grade, I was sitting in Mr. Stauffer's class when a classmate told me he didn't believe in God. VRRRPPPP. PAUSE. SAY WHAT NOW?

"What do you mean you don't believe in God?"

"I just don't."

"But how? Why?"

"I dunno."

"Jesus was crucified so that we could all go to heaven! Don't you want to go to heaven?"

"I don't think heaven is real."

*Head explodes from shock.*

After school I went home and prayed like the pope for that poor bastard. Lola would've been so proud to see me with eyes closed, mumbling fervently for my 3rd grade atheist classmate to one day see the light. This should go without saying, but it was becoming clear (not to me, of course) that Holy Spirit Lutheran was working wonders--miracles, dare I say--on my indoctrination.

The years passed. I was becoming a Nazi Christian. In 7th grade I went to multiple bible camps. In 8th grade I became an acolyte for the church, which means I got to wear the white robes, light the altar candles and sit with the other pastors during service, like a sort of locally pious VIP. Then came communion: I was now at the age where I could participate in the post-sermon ritual of receiving the holy bread and apple juice (no wine for kids) meant to symbolize the body and blood of my main man J-Cry.  

But always and inexorably the dawn precedes the night. 9th grade came around and two things happened, unforseeable and totally fortuitous: first, I actually started to grow bored of church. All my accrued years spent worshipping God had finally taken their toll; I would be slouched in my congregational seat on Sunday morning, trying covertly as possible to get some shuteye while the choir belted out tunes of our Lord's awesomeness. What's more, I was at the age where moms no longer cared if I slept over at friends' houses every Friday and Saturday; I was up till 4 or 5 in the morning, recording hit songs for my first solo album with back-up singer Shane and sound engineer David--no doubt having to wake up at 9 that same morning for church seemed like Guantanamo-esque torture. Consequently, my attendance started to falter. I was attending mass once every two, three weeks now. I dropped out of the Confirmation program less than a month into registering. (Funny thing is, they won't let you "fail" church. Although I didn't complete the program, they still let me "graduate" and honored me as "confirmed" a few months later.) I guess the one thing the indoctrinators hadn't anticipated, or couldn't combat, was a teenager's budding weekend social life, which no doubt took precedence over God and eternal salvation.

This was the first domino to be sent tumbling. The second was my formal introduction to underground hip-hop in 10th grade, namely Immortal Technique. (Hi, haters.) Up till then, my musical influence stretched only as far as MTV raps had flown; and judging by the fact that their seemingly ubiquitous mantra was "smoke weed, fuck bitches," I'm gonna say they hadn't flown very far. So to listen to this independent artist named Immortal Technique, who was rapping without censor about topics I'd never really understood--communism, classism, racism, political agendas of mainstream media--was, as trite as this may sound, to be born again. His passion, his conviction, his commitment to positive change in the world incited my own; that same year, of my own accord, I sought out and read The Communist Manifesto and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. This was to be my inception into the intellectual universe, promulgated by free-thinking non-conformists who time and time again gave the finger to appeasement for appeasement's sake.

For the first time in my life, I decided very consciously that conforming to norms wasn't cool. And the ultimate norm that had, up till then, possessed my life? Christianity. Immortal Technique made me see that capitalism, colonization of the West and Christianity are inextricably linked. He deconstructed the inanity of Jesus's being born in the Middle East and being depicted as white (I'll destroy your religion, you stupid bitch// You faker than blue-eyed crackers nailed to a crucifix.). How stupid are we that we can't see through such a glaringly obvious transparent agenda?

It was during this time--and I say this proud as can be--I officially dropped the label "Christianity" that had reared me into unquestioning obedience for the last 10 years. (16 years when you add "Roman Catholicism" into the equation.)

I can finally say it now--and since it's January I'll even say it in MLK fashion: Free at last, free at last. Thank Immortal Technique, we are free at last.

###

I write all this because I think it's necessary that people understand that when I'm religion-bashing, it's not from some vacuum motive and that I have nothing better to do. (Maybe you can dispute the latter.) I'm 23 years old now; what's crazy to think is that I've only been non-religious for seven years--that's not even a third of my life. It didn't get any more "Christian child" than me. They told me to open wide, I obeyed and they forced meal after meal of indoctrination into me, till I could do nothing but shit out bible verses and arranged prayers. BUT, I did it. I escaped. I am, at least in this topical context, a "success story." I don't know the statistic on how many people born into their parents' religion actively renounce, but I'm willing to bet the number is very small.

Quite plainly, my goal is to guide other non-religious folk, or fence-sitting agnostics, to "come out," and to come out proudly. I want them to actively embrace atheism (which literally is the rejection of "theism"), and here's why: It's 20 fucking 13 already. We should be so far beyond superstition, just by measure of how far we've come technologically in the last 100 years. How can anyone still actually believe that an invisible man or spirit monitors your entire life, and then sends you above sky or below ground based on the way you lived? Beside the fact that religion causes wars and murder on a daily basis, I've yet another reason to combat it: it's just flat-out stupid. Superstition should be dead, and I'm doing what I can to see to its eventual execution.

So if you're religious, ideally (and it's a big "ideally") I want you to see that you were never a religious child, but a child of religious parents, and that is the sole reason you continue to be religious today.

If you're non-religious, or if you're a fence-sitting agnostic, my goal is that you publicly declare your atheism to the world. We are a very real minority in the world and we absolutely need you.

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Thanks for reading. Comments are not just welcomed; they are encouraged and if you've actually made it to the bottom of this page, shame on you if you don't leave at least a few words below.

"I stand for your right to be religious... but please know that you're wrong"

This post's title is a quote taken from the video below: 

And it begins.

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I can't pinpoint exactly how or when it happened, but very recently my atheism really started to take its true shape. Now it's grown and matured and--I use this word intending all the scientific implications it carries with it--EVOLVED. My atheism now stands upright, bi-pedaled, no longer lying dormant in my king-sized bed of thought, where all the magic of creation is supposed to take place. I'm really truly creating from this bed now, using the evolutionary gift of human rationality--something that religious people seem to want no part in--to think my own real thoughts. 

There are those who say it's your right to believe whatever you want to believe; that it's not my place or anyone else's to disabuse you of your notions, no matter how fallacious (euphemistic for the word "stupid") these notions may be. We're supposed to treat beliefs, especially of the religious and spiritual kind, with a certain unspoken respect; it's clear that they're the eggshells of topical conversation we're supposed to tiptoe around. Well, I'll be frank right off the bat: this is absolute nonsense, complete and utter bullshit. 

On a personal level I'm all for the truth. If I operated in life like two and two make three, I'd be grateful for the person with ovaries enough to show me otherwise. But that's not the argument I'll use here, since that's simply preference, and too many assholes walking this Earth can't wait to arm themselves with a different preference, namely "Ignorance is bliss," AKA "I'll take 'Being a dumbass on purpose' for $1,000, Alex." 

The more readily acceptable argument is as follows, and we've all heard it before, for good reason: how many wars must be waged, how many people must be killed, in the name of God? When religion moves away from the harmless realm--an inevitability with such stupid and sensitive fucking people everywhere you go--that's when we got a real problem. What makes it worse is the inanity of the beliefs from a rationalist's point of view: people are being killed over and over and over and over for a thing that is clearly 100 percent bullshit. And many of these religious assholes aren't wishy-washy or Keatsian in their conceded uncertainty of what's true and what's not; no, it's just the opposite: God exists, god damn it! Heaven exists! The devil exists! If you don't repent for your sins you go to hell! If you were never baptized you go to hell! The 10 Commandments! Jesus died to save you! Noah's ark! Two animals of every kind on a boat! Prayer! (Apologies in advance to Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Satanists, etc. for this post's predominantly subverting Christianity. It's the only religion I'm familiar with to any respectable degree. But feel free to substitute your own religion's ridiculous ideas and beliefs wherever you see fit--I assure you it all works out the same.) 

I think a great way to gauge just how advanced a society really is, is to evaluate how it treats the supernatural, meaning the fake, the made up, the superstitious, etc. So long as we're a species that bows its head, locks its hands together and whispers selfish desires to an invisible man in the sky, we're a primitive fucking people. There's no way around it. What amazes me about prayer is the religious person's inability to see the blatant, clear-shot idiocy of his/her rationale. If you pray for something and you get it, you say that God answers prayers. If you pray for something and don't get it, all the same, you've got a tailor-made retort ready at the fingertips: "God works in mysterious ways," or "It's part of His plan." Oh my fucking god. If I hear that type of shit spewed from some fanatic's mouth one more time I think my head's going to explode. 

###

Pinpointing human stupidity when it comes to its religious beliefs is so easy to the point that it's just plain unfair, like black guys playing basketball against white guys. (To be clear, I'm the black guys in this scenario.) A long long time ago, human beings didn't have the foresight or the creativity to truly imagine a God who transcends the physical realm. Limited as we were (are and continue to be), we basically made God a man, except that he's in the sky, can't be seen, and he probably has no issues when it comes to getting an erection. He's like Man version 2.0. Proof is littered in every page of the Old Testament. God speaks. Somehow he's without a body, or a brain or a mouth or any organ necessary to emit speech, but he's God and he can do it anyway. He judges. He's a fucking narc. He's more insecure than I was with my first girlfriend when I was seventeen. He's patriarchal. He's all-loving but you say his name in the wrong tone and he'll set a lake of poisonous frogs on you and your entire family. He's vindictive. In a phrase, he's JUST LIKE US. What a coincidence. We couldn't imagine an actual spirit, something that is everything and nothing at the same time because that's too complex, too abstract for the human brain. So we made our Man version 2.0, and in doing so we separated ourselves from him. 

I think if I was in charge of birthing or spreading Christianity, that right there was the first Big Mistake: making humankind separate, and therefore inferior, to man-God, who is deemed as everything, but is treated like an entity the size of five or six beluga whales and dwells somewhere above the clouds, conveniently out of reach from human eyesight. Had we not started Christianity or any religion from this angle, life might look night-and-day from its present state. I won't go super in depth, but suffice it to say this: when you're coming from a place of inferiority, separateness, worthlessness with the constant need to prove yourself, you get the heap of bullshit and all that comes with it: hatred, jealousy, intolerance, vindictiveness, to name a few.

People will say, "Okay, I don't literally think God exists in the sky. He's everywhere." But how many times do you see an athlete on TV do something spectacular, only to look up and point with his/her forefinger to the sky? Why up but never down? If God is everything and everywhere, surely he takes up occupancy in just as much one direction as the other. It's obvious: religious people will say one thing, but borne of conditioning, brainwashing, societal pressure, habit, stupidity, etc. they will act completely independent and contradictory to their stated "beliefs." Sure they'll say that God is everywhere but when the appropriate moment comes, they won't be able to help but point upward when thanking "the man UPSTAIRS."  

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If there is a God who judges, who grants and denies wishes based on some celestial metric, my question is this: what the hell was he doing before human beings came into existence? Was he just kicking it on his cloud while the dinosaurs roamed, waiting patiently for them to die out? Or did he rule just as authoritatively, sending t-rexes to hell for eating brontosaurs, condemning pterodactyls for not resting on Sunday (before Sunday was even a real day)? How did the fan mail work? Did he read into the dinosaurs' mechanical brain patterns to excavate their prayers, then respond yes or no case by case? 

These are stupid questions but only because the premise is stupid--that God cared one way or the other what dinosaurs got into on a daily basis. But we staunchly believe God cares what we do. So is the Man Upstairs for humans only? By religious definition, that can't be true; God governs the universe and everything in it, including animals and plants on planet Earth. Do you see the inherent problem with God now? He's conveniently stitched and crafted for homo sapiens. He rewards and punishes based on how we behave morally, but we're the only species to even own such a concept like morality. When an animal kills another animal, according to the 10 Commandments, that animal has just outright disobeyed God's moral code. So then what? 

The answer, of course, is so then nothing. If an animal kills another animal, there are no supernatural consequences. But here's the twist: you may have forgotten, but human beings are homo sapiens. Homo sapien is a type of primate. Primate is a type of mammal. Mammal is a type of... you guessed it: animal. I'm talking about us! It is so fucking narcissistic to think you're above the animal classification. It's not "humans and then animals"; it's "humans are animals." If we kill, we are not doomed to suffer an eternity in everlasting fire. (Right there you're physicalizing what is supposed to be the spiritual realm, which is supposed to transcend the physical. Pearly gates, my ass.) If we kill, so then nothing. If you get caught by other humans then you'll suffer the consequences of your fellow human judicial systems, but that's it. No wrath. No hell. No nothing.

###

Plain and simple: religious people, stop being so fucking stupid, PLEASE. If God really does exist, it is in no way, shape or form anything like the God you've been reared from birth to conceptualize. Stop pointing to the sky, unless you're pointing out a plane or a cloud or the stars or something that is REAL. Stop bowing your head and asking for shit. Stop touching your forehead, your chest and shoulders in quick succession. And if you're a Jew or a Muslim or whatever, please stop being those things. Make a conscious choice that YOU really own, that YOU really are the source of, just for once. 

In God's name we pray. Amen. 

One on five: the fallacy of "Kill or be killed"

I think "pick-up basketball" is the technical term for a group of people (guys mostly) who get together to play free-for-all hoops, but I've found another term that I think works just as well, and may fit the bill even better: I call it "social experiment." That's essentially what the activity is, though none of the people under study ever participate knowingly. When we take to the court we're doing so for any number of reasons: to exercise; socialize; enact Jordan's "For the Love of the Game" clause; and among many others, my personal favorite: to compare, inch-to-inch, who's got the biggest dick. Such reasons are all scattered across the concrete and hardwood surfaces, visible to everyone running from this basket to that basket. But something else lies much deeper, woven invisibly into the fabric connecting all  participating players: a metaphor informing the learned nature of the human race. It's no doubt a social experiment, and an extraordinary one at that.

I've been playing basketball for sixteen years now, but it wasn't until this last year, while playing pick-up at a gym in New Jersey, that I became cognizant of the phenomenon. It had been present the whole time, to my mind's neglect, but I finally saw the pattern that emerged each time I laced up the sneaks. I'll explain through a brief situational narrative:

Game 1: It's my turn to partake in the five-on-five pick-up bout; I'm playing with four guys I don't really know that well. The game starts and I'm immediately glad to be on a team comprised of such willing passers, who know how to screen away and move effectively without the ball. If you didn't know any better you'd think we were out there playing in front of a coach who holds the key to each of our minutes. There is no place for Carmelo Anthony on this team: our united fluidity erases any chance for black-holing or ball-deading. The ball is moving constantly, always finding the open man. When one of us scores, we all score. Defensively we are tethered to one another, moving properly depending on where the ball shifts. Our defense feeds on our offense, and vice versa. To nobody's surprise we win that game easily.

Game 2: It's more of the same. The fluidity, the unison, the unselfishness. Oh, maybe once or twice someone will hoist up an ill-advised shot, or dribble for longer than is necessary, but it's nothing we can't handle as a fortified team. And so we win this game too, though by less than the game previously.

Game 3: You're waiting for the turn and here it is. During the third game something palpable shifts in our team chemistry. The seal of unity has been exposed, and unleashed from the envelope are all the things we silently swore against earlier: black-holing, ball-deading, putting up bad shot after bad shot. Suddenly someone's trying to dribble out of a double team rather than pass to the open teammate. When we don't have the ball in our hands we become listless spectators, refusing to move to the open spaces on the floor. Defensively we've really started slacking, taking plays off, not boxing out, not helping when help is required. The invisible tether is languishing. Miraculously we scrape by the other team and live to play another game.

Game 4: "Unity what? How do you spell it?" "U-N-I--" "Sorry, the only letters I'm familiar with are M-E," say each of the five Carmelos battling with one another for rights to whack off with the basketball in hand. It's a solo mission at this point, pathetically disguised as five-on-five basketball. Whoever gets the ball in the backcourt is going to throw it up on the offensive end, no matter if s/he's double or triple-teamed. A pass will occur if and only if it's in the form of a dazzling assist, and insofar as the credit falls upon the passer and not the scorer. We've all taken permanent leave from defense; the other team is scoring at will now. The outcome is predictable: our reign is through; we've been supplanted by a team that looks awfully similar to how we looked three games prior. It's kill or be killed and the basketball gods have seen enough to smite us from their court.

###

We're all familiar with "Kill or be killed." It's the maxim that's said to govern the animal kingdom with grim immutability: "If you ain't first you're last"--or worse, a bloody carcass, that which we humans might call "dinner." If the lion doesn't strike against the tiger, well then the tiger will happily do the honors. We've humanized the literal, turning it into a metaphorical guideline by which to live: strike at or be struck at; screw or be screwed. But in many cases we're actually fine with the literal, and we pop someone's head off or bomb an entire village to ode nature's most ruthless maxim.

Well I'll say it flat-out: it is the most outrageously stupid maxim we've come up with in however many thousands of years human beings have been coming up with rules for self-governance. (The 10 Commandments are in close contention for the top spot.) Let me clarify: for the animal kingdom I think "Kill or be killed" is okay. I've got no qualms with animals adhering to this principle. But as much as homo sapien falls under the primate umbrella, which falls under the mammal umbrella, which falls under the animal umbrella, you and I both know we're a different class of animal altogether. We are the pinnacle of evolution, its redoubtable acme, what with our superior bipedalism (the ability to move by means of our two rear legs), opposable thumbs, and most importantly, our ability to conceptualize our own existence. I think there are other animals who possess the latter, but not to the level human beings have attained. We know consciously that we are alive. And we know consciously that we know consciously that we are alive. And we know consciously that we know consciously that we know consciously that we are alive. And... I think you get the picture. (And if you don't, then I'm suspecting whether or not you really or one of us...) In a single word: reason. It is our exquisite ability to reason that separates us from every other organism on the planet. And it is specifically this distinctive, one-of-a-kind ability that should expunge any need to abide by "Kill or be killed." Why? Because we are now past the survival checkpoint in our evolutionary timetable. Reason and rational thinking have delivered us there. The rest of the animal kingdom, however, is still stuck in the mire. They max out at "Live another day." Not us. We have the remarkable capability--OPPORTUNITY--to choose the quality of our lives. Mind you, this is an extraordinary power that we take for granted, without a moment's thought about the uniqueness of it all. The phrase "quality of life" presupposes that we've got (for the most part) survival taken care of. Animals subscribe to "Kill or be killed" because they have no choice. We do! And we exercise this built-in machination of choice all the time: we can eat half our burger and request the other half in a to-go box (not saying that it's easy); we can skip out on parties and bars in favor of studying or saving money; we can hold in our pee and our poop! In short, we can actively go against our own instinct, especially to benefit us in the long run. For this reason we are not eternally subjected to "Kill or be killed." Or, as would be put in Conversations with God, we are until we're not. In other words, until we decide it's time to choose something else. Something that serves us better, like "No more killing," or "Unconditional peace and love," or how about "We are all one"?

Of course, most everyone has consciously or subconsciously already tried chucking "Kill or be killed" out the window. There's just one problem: it's a feisty little shit and boomerangs back into our cell structure no matter how often we try chucking it, no matter how far we try chucking it. The sad reality is that, up until now, the maxim has not left us fully. I think this is why we battle internally with issues like homelessness: helping or neglecting those begging for money on the streets, because they arouse both our natural love (the desire to help) and our learned fear (the safe bet to neglect). I once learned a fantastic acronym for the word "fear": False Evidence Appearing Real. When we shrink into survival mode, it's always fear-based, and nine times out of ten unjustified. It's that false evidence appearing real, so we revert back to instinct: "Me-first"; "Everyone for him/herself"; "Kill or be killed." It's like we're out there on the basketball court with eyes that elect only to see the opponent. We're out there playing one on five.

###

All this loops us back to the social experiment of pick-up basketball. What catalyzes the Hyde and Jekel transformation between Game 1 and Game 4? And how do evolution and "Kill or be killed" feature into the experiment? Well, let's have a closer look, shall we?

When five people who don't know each other, or know each other just barely, play on the same team, trust is usually no more trust than it is an exacto knife, or the symbol for Boron. Which makes it all the more remarkable that they'll usually come out of the gates playing like quintuplets in a womb, sharing unselfishly, laving in the glory of the united team. My theory is this: natural law dictates that human beings are unconditionally loving and trusting, when they are ranks above survival mode. When the pick-up game starts, these five individuals are creating from a blank canvas. There is nothing yet to survive; no false evidence appearing real, so they act in accordance with natural law. But this usually doesn't last for very long. At some point one of the five players begins to diminish "us" in favor of "me"--and almost always it's F.E.A.R. fomenting this change in paradigm: someone else taking a bad shot, keeping the ball in his/her possession for too long, erring too much, etc. The descension from "us" to "me" is the descension from boundless living to mere surviving. This person feels endangered, which is, of course, an absurd and fallacious notion. Nevertheless he has achieved metamorphosis from Lebron James (or my main man J-Lin, holla!) to Carmelo Anthony. He has already predetermined to shoot the ball the next time he gets it, no matter what. He does this a couple of times, and how do you think his teammates respond? Voila. Their F.E.A.R. bursts into being. "This guy is being a ball hog," say the other four players. "If he's gonna keep shooting every time he gets the ball, I will too." It's usually a subconscious declaration, and as simple as that the crumbling domino effect has spawned, to the inevitable and ultimate demise of the team. 

It always happens like this. If one teammate is ball-deading every time he touches the ball, the other players rarely will continue their marked distributing. Instead they follow suit; the cancer spreads and paralyzes the unselfish movement that had benefitted the team as a whole earlier. "We are all one" is now "Kill or be killed," "Get mine before he gets his." 

This is the metaphor I spoke of earlier, informing humanity of its learned nature. F.E.A.R. assails our best intentions, our natural proclivity to love and to share and to live together like muhfuckin' gangstaz. It activates survival mode, causing me-first hatred, jealousy, greed, etc. It makes insects out of natural giants, mortals out of gods and goddesses, and I guarantee you this: it is the single biggest fallacy we continue to believe in on planet Earth. There is no promise in "Kill or be killed" but what we've already got on the table today: war, starvation, poverty, genocide, rape--all stemmed from F.E.A.R. If you play one on five what do you think is going to happen? 

It's hard to see in the short term but giving to others from your own stash of possessions is the best thing you can do for yourself. The haves should be giving to the have-nots enough so that everybody has. Hatred is not borne from nothing; I think it's the bitter response from the Self feeling incomplete. If everybody in this world had a home and had enough to eat and could live day-to-day decently (which is entirely possible), don't you think a vast majority of the violence and hatred would cease? If we really got that we are all one, wouldn't the bombs stop dropping in the Middle East? On a smaller scale, wouldn't your own daily problems start to dissipate? I'll quote from Conversations with God directly this time: "Live simply, so that others may simply live."

I think it's possible. Inexorably improbable, no doubt; but humanity has moved mountains before. This one here is the Everest of them all. So what would it take? First is recognition. That is always the first step to ameliorating any problem. If you can't see it, how do you expect to change it? Understand deeply when you're on survival mode, rather than live-like-a-muhfuckin'-g mode; when your mind is being about "Kill or be killed" and not "We are all one"; when you're playing one on five with four teammates listlessly watching while you screw up. Once you can recognize these distinctions you get to do something profound: make a clear and conscious choice at the fork. Do I want to keep living in my narrow shell to just get by, or do I want that planetary experience with all my human kin? Then you act accordingly. Rinse, lather, and repeat. Recognize, choose, act, and repeat. For there to be world peace, the whole world's got to get on the "We are all one" frequency.

It's just like in basketball: it only takes one person playing for him/herself to ruin the team. A virus doesn't need to be significant to spread and infect. All five players have to agree that "We are all one" is the most conducive paradigm to team success to hold court. Only one question remains: can we get everybody to agree? That glass-half-empty voice in my head tells me no. But then another voice says, "Fuck that," and gives me the realness in compelling fashion: "What is there not to agree upon? Who the fuck doesn't want world peace? Who the fuck doesn't want that planetary party where the whole world is poppin' bottles, makin' sweet love and dancin' away the night like there was no tomorrow?"

Who the fuck is right.