This crap is starting to piss me off.  Every day on Facebook, and sometimes through email, I get ads for car insurance.  Currently I’m insured with Metromile, a company that charges you for the miles you are driving.  What I am finding out though is that my monthly bill is not much less than I was paying before, with GEICO.   About $65/month.  So I’m keeping my eyes peeled or something better. Plus, if I decide to take a road trip or  a vacation in the future, I don’t want to have to pay an arm and a leg for that.

My car is financed, and I have about three more years to go with it. It’s a 2016 Toyota Yaris (made in France – who knew?).  About 30-35 MPG (mostly in town).  Of course since it’s financed I have to have full coverage.  I haven’t had an accident or a ticket in over 40 years.

Today has been a typical day. An ad appeared in my Facebook feed: “Drivers With Daytime Running Lights can get this discount.”   Well, it happens that my car’s headlights never turn off.  So I clicked.

The usual questions, with the usual answers. Except: Metromile isn’t listed as an insurance company, so it’s automatically assumed that I am uninsured, and they insist that my wife must be driving, even though she doesn’t and even though she’s not even licensed.

That daytime running lights discount?  Never mentioned again.

Isn’t this outright fraud?

Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib were not elected to Congress to be advocates for “Palestinians.”  They were elected to represent their constituents, the 5th district in Minnesota and the 13th district in Michigan.  It seems they spend all their time advocating for “Palestine.”  This includes very recent
LIES concerning  Gaza.

While the conflict in the Middle East is complex, understanding the motivation of those who shoot rockets into Israel in the hope of causing death and destruction isn’t terribly complicated. The terrorists and their apologists in the boycott, divest and sanction movement in the United States, which Omar and Tlaib support, have the same goal: the destruction of the world’s sole Jewish state.

BDS stands for the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel. It has become very popular among Progressive/Liberal students at major Universities throughout the United States.

I’d like to take this time to dismantle some of the major antisemitic lies put forward by BDS.

1. BDS claims that there is an Israeli sponsored genocide of Palestinians. This is blatantly false. The Palestinian population has tripled and risen at the same rate as the Israeli population since 1967. Populations do not triple in genocide.

2. BDS claims Israel is an ethno State. This is blatantly false. Israel is about 70 percent jewish. This includes Jews of other races. Including the tens of thousands of Black Ethiopians that Israel saved from genocide by sending in Boeing 747s and flying them to Israel. 20.1 percent of Israeli citizens are Palestinians. They have all of the same exact rights and privileges as all other Israeli citizens. They have more rights than Palestinians are granted by the PA and Hamas. That’s why they moved there. In comparison 80 percent of the UK is white, and some Scandinavian countries are almost 100 percent white and nobody is calling them an ethno state. The truth is that Israel is a safe space for Jews. It is a haven that is safe from government sponsored genocide. It is the only place on the planet that this is true. In every other country on earth there is a possibility that Jews will be rounded up and killed in genocide. It has happened in some capacity almost once a century for the past 2,000 years. Jews in diaspora are in danger. This is especially apparent the last few years. The rise in antisemitism, and antisemitic hate crimes has been exponential. In most western governments, both sides of the political isle have elected officials that are blatantly antisemitic. Currently Jews are fleeing Europe in huge numbers and going to Israel to escape antisemitic violence and harassment. In contrast to Israel, surrounding Arab nations have a zero percent Jewish population. They have actually removed Jews.

3. BDS claims Israel is committing apartheid against Palestinians in Gaza. This is false. Israel is being accused of what Hamas and other Arab governments are causing. The reason Gaza has no infrastructure has nothing to do with Israel. Israel is not stopping them from developing. The reason they have no real infrastructure is because all of their funding is stolen by the PA and Hamas to finance terrorism and propaganda campaigns like BDS. In fact Israel tries to send humanitarian aid to Gaza and it is taken by Hamas. Hamas says they are refusing it because they refuse to take help from Jews, but in reality they are greedy and take it for themselves. They also blame the blockade and lie about what the blockade is. The blockade does not stop supplies and food from reaching Gaza. It is solely for stopping weapons. The truth is that Hamas lives lavishly while Gaza’s people suffer. They deflect and blame Israel for the purpose of keeping the focus off themselves. Now the Gazans are catching on and protesting Hamas. Hamas’s response is to kill them. For weeks Hamas has been shooting Palestinians in the street and we hear almost nothing about it from BDS. It’s because Hamas doesn’t want that truth out there. This is because Hamas oppresses and controls Palestinians like the Italian mob did to people in Italy.

4. BDS claims Gaza is an open air prison. This is somewhat true, but not because of Israel. This is actually caused by other Arab counties. Palestinians can move to Israel before they could ever move to a surrounding Arab country. This is because in 1959 the Arab league adopted resolution 1547. This states that all Arab nations will deny citizenship to any Palestinians to perpetuate the right of return. The reasons for this stem from antisemitism that is 1,300 years old. This has created a perpetual refugee crisis. One in which Hamas doesn’t want to ever end because when that ends, their funding and control over Gaza comes to an end. If Palestine wins, they lose. They will have no place to operate hidden from anti terrorist authorities.

5. BDS claims that Israel commits human rights violations and targets Palestinian civilians. This is blatantly false. Israel solely targets Hamas terrorists and the infrastructure they use to launch rockets in to civilian populations. Unfortunately Hamas chooses to do this from densely populated neighborhoods. Hamas purposely uses Palestinians as human shields. Fortunately Israel knows this and does their best to prevent non combatants from being hurt or killed. Before they strike they actually call every phone in the area and drop pamphlets from the air that warn people when they will strike and to leave that area. Unfortunately Hamas actually forces people to stay in those areas. On top of that Hamas sends it operatives to Palestinian protests to commit acts of violence while hiding amongst the crowd. They recruit woman and children too. They will dress them as civilians too. This is for the purpose of manipulating the world in to thinking Israel is targeting peaceful protests, but when the numbers are examined the vast majority of people that are hurt or killed by the IDF are Hamas operatives. For instance Hamas actually claimed that 60 of the 62 people killed in the large protests in Gaza earlier in the year were Hamas operatives. This was later confirmed by international intelligence agencies. News organizations actually redacted stories and apologized to Israel. The reality is that 30,000 people were rushing the border fence of Israel and Israel defended its self against armed attackers that were throwing Molotov cocktails and shooting rifles at them.

The reason these are called human rights violations is because 2/3s of the countries on the UN human rights council are openly and unapologetic-ally antisemitic. Therefore every time Jews defend themselves from violent attack on their own land, they label it a human rights violation.

6. BDS says Israel has expanded. The truth is that Israel actually only has 17 percent of the land they were originally mandated. They have given up the vast majority of the land in the name of peace. They haven’t been in Gaza or other areas in over a decade. Their current tiny expansions are in disputed territories. There were agreements that Israel would not build there, that were based on peace treaties. Those peace treaties were violated by Hamas. Therefore they are null and void.

7. BDS says Jews are colonizing white Europeans, and Zionism is racist. First off, BDS doesn’t not get to redefine Zionism and twist it to mean something that it is not. The definition of Zionism is simple. It means the return of an indigenous people to their homeland. That’s it. Calling Jews white Europeans is scientifically and historically false. The DNA of most Jews in Europe has matching DNA of bones found in the Levant from over 5,000 years ago. The DNA of modern Jews matches the DNA of the Canaanite tribes that were there before Judaism was even a religion. Israel is the indigenous homeland of most Jews. This is also proven in archaeological evidence other than bones. There is ancient Hebrew on tablets, coins, books, etc. This was non disputed history until BDS came around. The bottom line is that BDS is committing antisemitic revisionism. For 2000 years Jews have never been excepted as white because of these very reasons. Now all of a sudden they are told they are white by people that have no knowledge of Jewish history because they are white passing. That’s racist. That’s like telling a white passing African American they’re not black anymore.

8. BDS says Israel is denying the Palestinians a state. The is blatantly false. Israel has proposed a two state solution 8 times since 1937. Even before 1967, Jews were trying to compromise a solution for Jews to be able to live in Israel in peace. Yet every single time, the Palestinian leadership has betrayed the Palestinian people and refused a two state solution. Their reasoning is that they refuse to live near or with Jews. They want all the land or none of the land. This is why they chant “from the river to the sea,” and “death to the Jews.” This is because their ideology is based in Islam based Arab supremacy that is 1300 years old. This is not a strike against Muslims. This is a reference to history of the Islamic colonization of the entire Middle East. This brings me to my next point.

9. BDS claims that Zionism is white people oppressing brown people. This is a very clever way to trick Americans by applying western racial dynamics to the Middle East where the same dynamics do not exist. We’ve already covered why Jews are not white, but we haven’t covered the historical racial dynamics of the Middle East. The historical truth is that Arab supremacist armies violently conquered and colonized the Middle East in the same exact way that European white supremacist armies colonized the Americas. The Arab armies murdered and pillaged every tribe in their way the same way white peoples. Massive genocides. The Israelite tribes were among them. They’re still doing it to the Kurds. Again this is not a strike against Muslims, this is just the history of the region. There were many empires made like this that have all come and gone.

10. Israeli Jews are like Nazis. This is blatantly antisemitic and false. The fact that I even have to say this disgusts me. In fact, during World War Two, the Palestinian leadership worked directly with Hitler and tried to convince him to invade the Middle East and kill all the Jews there too. Leading members of modern Palestinian political parties have direct ties to these old parties and were formed from those old parties. Many of them still wave the swastika flag. In reality BDS is defending actual Nazis while vomiting antisemitic acts.

11. BDS says Jews and Arabs got along fine before modern Israel. This is false. I send this out when people tell me Arabs and Jews lived peacefully before Zionism – this list only goes till 1967. It’s actually longer now. It’s a list of all the times Arabs have committed systemic violence against Jews:

622 – 627: ethnic cleansing of Jews from Mecca and Medina, (Jewish boys publicly inspected for pubic hair. if they had any, they were executed)
629: 1st Alexandria Massacres, Egypt
622 – 634: extermination of the 14 Arabian Jewish tribes
822 – 861: Islamic empire passes law that Jews must wear yellow stars, (a lot like Nazi Germany), Caliph al-Mutawakkil
1106: Ali Ibn Yousef Ibn Tashifin of Merakesh decrees death penalty for any local Jew, including his Jewish Physician, and Military general.
1033: 1st Fez Pogrom, Morocco
1148: Almohadin of Morocco gives Jews the choice of converting to Islam, or expulsion
1066: Granada Massacre, Muslim occupied Spain
1165 – 1178: Jews nation wide were given the choice (under new constitution) convert to Islam or die, Yemen
1165: chief Rabbi of the Moghreb burnt alive. the Rambam flees for Egypt.
1220: 10s of thousands of Jews killed by Muslims after being blamed for Mongol invasion, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Egypt
1270: Sultan Baibars of Egypt resolved to burn all the Jews, a ditch having been dug for that purpose; but at the last moment he repented, and instead exacted a heavy tribute, during the collection of which many perished.
1276: 2nd Fez Pogrom, Morocco
1385: Khorasan Massacres, Iran
1438: 1st Mellah Ghetto Massacres, North Africa
1465: 3rd Fez Pogrom, Morocco (11 Jews left alive)
1517: 1st Safed Pogrom, Ottoman Palestine
1517: 1st Hebron Pogrom, Ottoman Palestine
Marsa ibn Ghazi Massacre, Ottoman Libya
1577: Passover Massacre, Ottoman empire
1588 – 1629: Mahalay Pogroms, Iran
1630 – 1700: Yemenite Jews were considered “impure” and thus forbidden to touch a Muslim or a Muslim’s food. They were obligated to humble themselves before a Muslim, to walk to the left side, and greet him first. They could not build houses higher than a Muslim’s or ride a camel or horse, and when riding on a mule or a donkey, they had to sit sideways. Upon entering the Muslim quarter a Jew had to take off his foot-gear and walk barefoot. If attacked with stones or fists by Islamic youth, a Jew was not allowed to defend himself. (anti-Zionists miss those days)
1660: 2nd Safed Pogrom, Ottoman Palestine
1670: Mawza expultion, Yemen
1679 – 1680: Sanaa Massacres, Yemen
1747: Mashhad Masacres, Iran
1785: Tripoli Porom, Ottoman Libya
1790 – 92: Tetouan Pogrom. Morocco (Jews of Tetouan stripped naked, and lined up for Muslim perverts)
1800: new decree passed in Yemen, that Jews are forbidden to wear new clothing, or good clothing. Jews are forbidden to ride mules or donkeys, and were occasionally rounded up for long marches naked through the Roob al Khali dessert.
1805: 1st Algeris Pogrom, Ottoman Algeria
1808 2nd 1438: 1st Mellah Ghetto Massacres, North Africa
1815: 2nd Algeris Pogrom, Ottoman Algeria
1820: Sahalu Lobiant Massacres, Ottoman Syria
1828: Baghdad Pogrom, Ottoman Iraq
1830: 3rd Algeris Pogrom, Ottoman Algeria
1830: ethnic cleansing of Jews in Tabriz, Iran
1834: 2nd Hebron Pogrom, Ottoman Palestine
1834: Safed Pogrom, Ottoman Palestne
1839: Massacre of the Mashadi Jews, Iran
1840: Damascus, ritual killings (Muslims, along with french Christians kidnapped, tortured, and killed Jewish Children for entertainment), Ottoman Syria
1840: blood libels introduced to the Muslim world from Europe.
1844: 1st Cairo Massacres, Ottoman Egypt
1847: Dayr al-Qamar Pogrom, Ottoman Lebanon
1847: ethnic cleansing of the Jews in Jerusalem, Ottoman Palestine
1848: 1st Damascus Pogrom, Syria
1850: 1st Aleppo Pogrom, Ottoman Syria
1860: 2nd Damascus Pogrom, Ottoman Syria
1862: 1st Beirut Pogrom, Ottoman Lebanon
1866: Kuzguncuk Pogrom, Ottoman Turkey
1867: Barfurush Massacre, Ottoman Turkey
1868: Eyub Pogrom, Ottoman Turkey
1869: Tunis Massacre, Ottoman Tunisia
1869: Sfax Massacre, Ottoman Tunisia
1864 – 1880: Marrakesh Massacre, Morocco
1870: 2nd Alexandria Massacres, Ottoman Egypt
1870: 1st Istanbul Pogrom, Ottoman Turkey
1871: 1st Damanhur Massacres,Ottoman Egypt
1872: Edrine Massacres, Ottoman Turkey
1872: 1st Izmir Pogrom, Ottoman Turkey
1873: 2nd Damanhur Massacres, Ottoman Egypt
1874: 2nd Izmir Pogrom, Ottoman Turkey
1874: 2nd Istanbul Pogrom, Ottoman Turkey
1874: 2nd Beirut Pogrom,Ottoman Lebanon
1875: 2nd Aleppo Pogrom, Ottoman Syria
1875: Jerba Island Massacre, Ottoman Tunisia
1877: 3rd Damanhur Massacres,Ottoman Egypt
1877: Mansura Pogrom, Ottoman Egypt
1882: Homs Massacre, Ottoman Syria
1882: 3rd Alexandria Massacres, Ottoman Egypt
1890: 2nd Cairo Massacres, Ottoman Egypt
1890, 3rd Damascus Pogrom, Ottoman Syria
1891: 4th Damanahur Massacres, Ottoman Egypt
1897: Tripolitania killings,Ottoman Libya
1903&1907: Taza & Settat, pogroms, Morocco
1890: Tunis Massacres, Ottoman Tunisia
1901 – 1902: 3rd Cairo Massacres, Ottoman Egypt
1901 – 1907: 4th Alexandria Massacres,Ottoman Egypt
1903: 1st Port Sa’id Massacres, Ottoman Egypt
1903 – 1940: Pogroms of Taza and Settat, Morocco
1907: Casablanca, pogrom, Morocco
1908: 2nd Port Said Massacres,Ottoman Egypt
1910: Shiraz blood libel
1911: Shiraz Pogrom
1912: 4th Fez , Pogrom, Morocco
1917: Baghdadi Jewish Inquisition, Ottoman empire
1918 – 1948: law passed making it illegal to raise an orphan Jewish, Yemen
1920: Irbid Massacres: British mandate Palestine
1920 – 1930: Arab riots, British mandate Palestine
1921: 1st Jaffa riots, British mandate Palestine
1922: Djerba Massacres, Tunisia
1928: Ikhwan Masacres, Egypt, and british mandate Palestine.
1928: Jewish orphans sold into slavery, and forced to convert t Islam by Muslim Brotherhood, Yemen
1929: 3rd Hebron Pogrom British mandate Palestine.
1929 3rd Safed Pogrom, British mandate Palestine.
1933: 2nd Jaffa riots, British mandate Palestine.
1934: Thrace Pogroms, Turkey
1934: 1st Farhud Massacres, Iraq
1936: 3rd Jaffa riots, British mandate Palestine
1936: 2nd Farhud Massacres, Iraq
1941: 3rd Farhud Massacres, Iraq
1942: Mufti collaboration with the Nazis. plays a part in the final solution
1942: Struma disaster, Turkey
1942: Nile delta Pogroms, Egypt
1938 – 1945: Arab collaboration with the Nazis
1945: 4th Cairo Massacres, Egypt
1945: Tripolitania Pogrom, Libya
1947: Aden Pogroms
1947: 3rd Aleppo Pogrom, Syria
1948: “emptying” of the Jewish quarter of Damascus, Syria
1948: 1st Arab Israeli war (1 out of every 100 Jew was killed)
1948: Oujda & Jerada Pogroms, Morocco
1948: 1st Libyan Inquisition of Jews
1951: 2nd Libyan Inquisition of Jews
1955: 3rd Istanbul Pogrom, Turkey
1956: 1st Egyptian Inquisition of Jews
1965: 5th Fez Pogrom, Morocco
1967: 2nd Egyptian Inquisition of Jews
1967: Tunis riots, Tunisia

In conclusion, who is BDS at their core? They are an an antisemitic propaganda wing of a terrorist organization who’s goal is the destruction of the Jewish people. They have stated that even if all Jews leave Israel they will still pursue them globally.

….. at the Pharmacy, a fellow next to me noticed my t-shirt.  Today I am wearing my black “Peace Sign” shirt.  He proceeded to volunteer what my shirt meant.  I countered by telling him what it actually means, or at least what I have been told.

According to what I have heard, the symbol was invented by  British “Queen” Scout (the UK version of our “Eagle” Scout)  Gerald Holtom for the British Nuclear Disarmament  movement, circa 1958.

The symbol utilizes the semaphore codes for the letters “N” and “D” combined together:

So, the idea that it’s the Devil’s footprint or other scary stuff is really absurd.

One of my cousins posted this on Facebook:

This constituted the last straw for me. I’ve been ignoring crap like this for about four months, and self-censoring myself for the past three. No more! I posted this in reply:

Followed by this:

As of right now, I have 393 friends. For the last, oh, three months or so, I have been largely ignoring the right-wing vomit spewed from certain of my cousins, and have isolated them from memes and articles I have posted. No more. That’s not who I am. My blog is here ( https://el.avalonrisen.com – about 45 years of my writings on various topics ) for any who wish to know EVERYTHING I believe. If you can’t handle it, well, the unfriend button awaits. I am not going to change, and frankly, neither should you. The Earth is much more interesting that way.

I’m thinking about giving this site a makeover.  I’ve recently accomplished this on three other sites that I care for but so far not this one.  If you want, go take a peak at what I have done at Avalon Risen, Eureka Grove, and Order of the Mithril Star .

Evolution is inescapable. Nobody can avoid it, though some try like hell to do so. I like to feel like I roll with the punches on this one, but, as with almost all things, your mileage may vary.

I remember my Mother taking me with her to the supermarket in my families station wagon. She would put the back seats down and fill the entire space with grocery bags. Then she would complain about it all costing $25. At that time (I was maybe 10 or 12) she didn’t work. Dad made a good living at his Unionized factory job. He used to buy a brand new car every three or so years. Every year he would rent a cabin on a lake up in Wisconsin or Minnesota, and would spend two weeks fishing up there. Also, they sent me to a parochial school. When my mom developed breast cancer, Dad’s company/union provided health insurance paid for everything. Even an aspirin, Did I mention that my mom didn’t work? Of course once Ronald Reagan became President it all went to hell in a handbasket.

I’l bet you didn’t know this:  If you posted something 10 years ago, you are not allowed to evolve from that opinion, or change your mind. If you do, you are a hypocrite.  You’re  not allowed to grow or evolve. You have to stay consistent for the rest of your life.

I learned this the hard way the other day. I was discussing the merits of Socialism vs. Capitalism, and I happened to remark that I thought it was best to have a balanced mixture of the two. The person I made this remark to happened to be reading this blog, and found an article (I had written in 2009) where I express the hope that Barach Obama would bring more Socialism into practice.  So that was my opinion in 2009.  You have to remember that we had just survived eight years of George W. Bush who had advanced(?) Capitalism during his reign. It’s 10 years later now. Am I still supposed to have the same opinion?

From November of 1972 until about May of 1988 I was a devout (but always very Liberal) “Born Again Xtian.”  I slowly evolved into becoming a Pagan, and even today I am more or less a Druid “Atheist.”   So from the 1970s to the present, I went from being a nominal Catholic (with some strong Jewish leanings), to an Evangelical Xtian, to a Polytheistic Pagan to a “Monotheistic” Druid (there is one God and SHE is the collective of us all), and more recently a quasi Atheist.  That’s about 48 years of theological/philosophical evolution.

I don’t expect that I will ever stop evolving.  That’s what humans do. Honestly, if you are a human that’s what you should be doing as well.

Note the scare quotes.

The other day I was perusing Youtube and I came across this:

 

If you don’t want to watch this (It’s about :90) let me just sum it up for you: This film is a Readers Digest version of Caesar’s Messiah, a 2005 book by Joseph Atwill, which argues that the New Testament Gospels were written as wartime propaganda by scholars connected to the Roman imperial court of the Flavian emperors: Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. According to Atwill, their primary purpose in creating the religion was to control the spread of Judaism and moderate its political virulence. The Jewish nationalist Zealots had been defeated in the First Jewish–Roman War of 70 AD, but Judaism remained an influential movement throughout the Mediterranean region. Atwill argues that the biblical character Jesus Christ is a typological representation of the Roman Emperor Titus. Jesus Christ is the invention of the Romans to control the people and to vilify the Jews. The entire Christian institution, and particularly the Roman Catholic Church, was invented by the Romans (specifically the Flavius family, who took over after Nero).

Do I believe all this? Well I find it compelling. For quite a few years now I have entertained the idea that Jesus was a made up person, a mythos and a composite of about a dozen Middle Eastern Deities. Like this:

There are a number of problems with this theory, not so much that Jesus doesn’t exhibit all these attributes but that, for example, Horus doesn’t. And Horus is just one of them with problems. But over all, I think the religion stuff in the Zeitgeist video is pretty accurate otherwise. The balance of the Zeitgeist “documentary” is conspiracy theory, but the religion stuff is nominally true.

But I’ve kinda written that off, preferring instead to embrace the Pagan theory of the “egregore,” a divine being who comes to life solely because a critical mass of people believe in him/her. So even though the evidence that Jesus ever actually lived as a historical being is scant, I have entertained the idea that he might be an egregore, and is therefore as real as you or I.

After watching the Roman Messiah video, I’m really confused. It’s just compelling enough that it may well be true. The Romans were not nice guys, and this would totally be in their wheelhouse.

But, the jury is still out. I think.

Other videos you might want to try are Bill Maher’s documentary, Religulous and  The God Who Wasn’t There.

Individuality is an illusion.  It’s a mistake. It has never, ever been true.

Like the cells in your body, each of us has a unique roll to play in the collective we call “mankind.”   And like the cells in your body, each of us has a responsibility to take care of the neighboring cells.  Normally, this goes on without notice. We get up every day, we eat breakfast, we go to work. Each of us has a roll to play in providing a life for our children, and our neighbors.  As we get older, that roll becomes less and less until we finally stop.

What happens when a cell, or group of cells decides to “go renegade?”   Sometimes they organize into armies and go to war against a part or part of the human body (or collective).  Within our bodies, this is called disease and it’s extreme cases are called “cancer.”  Pick up any newspaper and you can easily see what happens within out collective.

An individual might decide he doesn’t want to be part of the collective any more.  He goes out and buys an AR-16, shows up at Sandy Hook School, and starts shooting younger cells.  Maybe he’ll massacre hundreds before he is stopped. But, eventually he will be stopped, and the body – the collective – will heal.

You have heard this quote from Robert A. Heinlein’s
Stranger In A Strange Land:

“Thou art God’. It’s not a message of cheer and hope. It’s a defiance – and an unafraid, unabashed assumption of personal responsibility.”

This is why we falsely believe we are “individuals.”  We all, each of us, have to play our rolls as individual players. That’s our “personal responsibility.”  In doing so we are fulfilling our obligations to the collective, just as each individual cell in our bodies functions.

There’s the rub: collectively, as a group; a group that comprises all sentient beings in the Universe, or even in the Multiverse, we manifest God.  How did the old song go? “Where do I see God?  Where do I see God?  I see God in you, in the things you do, and things you say, and the way you are every day.  I see God in you. You see God in me.”

Did you not know? All of the great spiritual philosophies teach this. Jesus Christ taught it. Kabbalah teaches it.  Buddhism and Hinduism teaches it.

There is one God, and we are him (or her). Want to see God? Go look in the mirror – there you will see the tiniest fraction of God.  Look at the pictures of Barach Obama’s inauguration crowd – a bigger but still tiny fraction of God.  If it were possible to see all of the population of Earth, in one photo, you still would only see a fraction of Her.

Exodus 33:20: Why is it true?  For to see God, you have to dissociate yourself from Her, and once you do that, you are dead, (not that you can actually die – you can’t) because you are a part of God and God is a part of you. That’s the living part.

This essay, like God, has no beginning and no end.  The fact is I could write on and on about this, but at least for now, this is enough.

Written for my Son, Joshua Joel Arseneau, in the hope that he will understand. Or not.