Is there nothing more compelling than the moments right before a fight? The tension felt as each side pounds on their chest, draws a line in the sand, and dares the other to cross? That feeling of nervousness and excitement as the inevitable clash draws near? I love it. It serves as the best reminder of our primal, not-too-distant, past. It is a reaffirmation that, as much as we may not want to acknowledge it, we are all just another species on this floating rock; animals all the way, through and through, marking our territories and defending our herds.

Of course, we like to distinguish ourselves as superior to our animal brethren because we have developed higher brain functions such as creative and abstract thinking, problem solving and consequence recognition. But make no mistake; while mankind loves to suck its own metaphorical dick, loving the glamour of these higher brain functions, we tend to forget that under it all lays a more primitive, narcissistic brain which plants us at the center of the universe and still dictates the way we behave. The human ego. As we evolve as a species and as individuals, it seems as if we are in a constant state of struggle between these two driving forces in our cognition and I cannot think of a better way to demonstrate this tug-o-war of consciousness than to examine what we have created with our religions.

I am sure you have been following the story of Pastor Terry Jones and his, “Burn a Koran Day” to commemorate the 9th anniversary of 9/11. If you haven’t then maybe you should consider reading something that is not about teenage vampires and Kim Kardashian and join the group. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

All caught up now? Good. Everybody is offended. Muslims are offended. Christians are offended. The Qu’ran burning hillbillies are offended that everybody is offended. It’s absolutely god damned terrific!

Personally, I have found this news story to be the most interesting event in recent memory. Sure, on the surface it just looks like some right winged, Yosemite Sam lookin’ ass Bible thumper pulling a publicity stunt for his congregation of rednecks, but look closer. At the core of this story lies the reality of the entire human condition; a total contradiction between our ideals and our actions.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s examine the two religions at the center of this shit storm, Christianity and Islam. Both religions are derivatives of the Old Testament so it seems that would be a good place to start. And since we’re going to the start, let’s start at the start of the start; Adam and Eve and the parable of Original Sin. Although there are some subtle differences in the story, both religions would agree on the main plot points. God creates the Garden of Eden which contains a Tree of Life and a Tree of Knowledge. God tells Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. A serpent convinces them otherwise. They defy God’s order and eat anyway. God makes them self aware and they become shameful in their nakedness thereby inventing the first fig leaf banana hammock / bikini. They get kicked out of the Garden of Eden and are sent to Earth to forage, reproduce and do the human thing. The Tree of Life is left to be guarded by an angel with a light saber or, “flaming sword” for you sticklers. Agreed? Agreed.

Now since that is the first story in the Old Testament and the Qur’an and those books are supposedly the word of God and we are to learn from God’s teaching, we should consider it the first lesson of humanity. Agreed? Agreed.
Now I want to use a little logic here. Adam and Eve could have resided in The Garden of Eden forever had they eaten from the Tree of Life which would have given them immortality. The only caveat was that they were not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. By eating from the tree, they gained self awareness and therefore could no longer reside in paradise. By becoming self aware and shameful of their nakedness, we can deduce that the human “ego” was born. We can further deduce that eternal life cannot exist while possessing self awareness. To exist in that realm, one must transcend the “self” and exist in a different state; certainly not a human state. Agreed? Maybe.

Now if a religious person’s goal is to follow God’s teachings and reside with God in paradise and God dictates that one cannot exist in paradise with an ego, then let me ask you something. How the fuck is it possible that the most religious people are so easily offended? How is it that these so called people of God have the strongest egos? Are you following where I’m going here? Burning flags, burning Qu’rans and burning Bibles can only offend those who are narcissistic in their thinking. Their ego is what gets offended. It is their selfish, self awareness shining at its brightest. Not very divine. Not very enlightened. Not very Jesus or Mohammad like. Fucking bat shit stupid might be another way to put it.

What’s really eye opening is that it’s lesson number one. It is the foundation upon which all other lessons can be taught. And they completely fucked the pooch on it. Debating about burning Qu’rans or construction sites of Mosques without this realization is like debating string theory with the belief that 1 + 1 = yogurt.

By the way, if you really want to understand what it means to lose your sense of self and have what could best be described as a religious experience, then eat some magic mushrooms. You’ll understand what I’m talking about. In fact they just released a study concluding that terminal cancer patients who take magic mushrooms significantly lower their stress regarding their impending doom. Do you want to know why? It is because the experience of consciousness without self is, in fact, a heavenly experience.

Upon typing this, I just learned that Pastor Jones has decided to cancel his “Burn a Koran Day.” The news agencies are claiming a victory for common sense. I can’t help but be a bit disappointed. I actually wanted to see it happen. I wanted to see him cross that line. Then I wanted to see some extremist Muslims drive a truck full of dynamite into his church. I really wanted to. I’m not going to lie. You see, this so-called compromise doesn’t change anything. The narcissistic thinking will continue. Nothing will be gained from it. People will go on believing in their misguided religions, living in a perpetual state of their terrible twos. Selfish, ego-centric and looking at the world through their “mine, mine, mine” filters.

I’m no war monger but I feel, as a species, we need to get past this hang up if we are going to grow and evolve. I didn’t buy the arguments that our government was feeding us that by burning Qu’rans, that church was putting soldiers’ lives at stake in the Middle East. Like they’ve been all comfy and safe over there before this story broke and now that they’ve decided against the book burning, the bombing will stop. I give it a week before we hear of a new attack. And on and on it goes. You see, many people are looking for peace over there but it is my contention that it cannot get better until it gets worse. I wanna speed up this holy war. Because that’s what it is, right? Stateside, you would never hear a politician call it that but, believe you me, that’s what it is. I say, let them all kill each other. Take all the extremist Muslims and all the extremist Christians and line them up in the desert across from one another, strap some C4 to their chests and have the greatest game of Red Rover ever played. “Red Rover Red Rover, send Pastor Jones right over.” BOOM!!

Talk about losing a sense of self. It would be spread all over the desert.

Unfortunately, true learning can only be achieved after loss. We only grow after we fail. And anything other than letting it all fail will stagnate us as a species. Like the old comedy adage goes, “There’s nothing more painful than watching a comedian grow on stage.” So too is the case for spiritual enlightenment.