Ask me anything. I'll answer.
Recent Responses
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I wouldn't necessarily call spiritual feelings a process of self-hypnosis, so much as a deeply emotional response to a situation designed to elicit such a response—a "situational drug".
When people say, "I've felt the Holy Spirit in me," they are usually referencing some very real feelings they had after a strenuous religious activity: being deep in meditative prayer, for example; or attending a lively church service with a charismatic minister; or singing an emotional, usually very repetitive song about spiritual ideas. It's this conditioning that prepares the mind—by "emptying" it and focusing on only one idea, similar to directed meditation—for a powerful feeling of being overwhelmed with peace and joy. They call this feeling transcendental because they believe that what they are feeling is so powerful that it must come from outside of the human mind, it must transcend the natural human experience.
Spiritual feelings can easily be faked. Christians often use arguments to the effect of, 'You couldn't possibly know what being a Christian is all about unless you've felt the Holy Spirit.' Well, I have, "felt the Holy Spirit:" when I was younger, I felt the Holy Spirit inside of me all the time. I would pray in my room or at my church until I was crying, waiting to feel something. The feeling usually came after the tears started flowing, and the feeling is not unlike the reaction cannabinoids and opiates have on the human mind.
Any former Evangelical Christian who smokes marijuana will tell you that there isn't that much difference between the Holy Spirit and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)--except, maybe, that THC works better and is easier to force a reaction out of, since it actually exists.
Sam Harris says in The End of Faith, Chapter Five: West of Eden, "When one looks at our drug laws—indeed, at our vice laws altogether—the only organizing principle that appears to make sense of them is that anything which might radically eclipse prayer or procreative sexuality as a source of pleasure has been outlawed. In particular, any drug (LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, DMT, MDMA, marijuana, etc.) to which spiritual or religious significance has been
ascribed by its users has been prohibited. Concerns about the health of our citizens, or about their productivity, are red herrings in this debate, as the legality of alcohol and cigarettes attests."
"Under our current laws, it is safe to say, if a drug were invented that posed no risk of physical harm or addiction to its users but produced a brief feeling of spiritual bliss and epiphany in 100 percent of those who tried it, this drug would be illegal, and people would be punished mercilessly for its use," Harris continues, "Only anxiety about the biblical crime of idolatry would appear to make sense of this retributive impulse. Because we are a people of faith, taught to concern ourselves with the sinfulness of our neighbors, we have grown tolerant of irrational uses of state power."
It is because the feelings produced by many illegal drugs match so closely the feelings produced by prayer that I have absolutely no doubt that the 'feelings' of spiritualism are created within the mind and not introduced by some outside mystical force.
Think about the areas where anti-drug laws are most strictly enforced. The two that come to mind most immediately are the United States, a nation of powerful Christian fundamentalists; and much of the Middle East, where pious Muslim men slash and burn opium poppies—one of the most important and lucrative exports for struggling nations like Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is the most religious nations that most vehemently ban recreational drug use. A nation where power is not held by those who wish to hold a monopoly on 'spiritual' feelings would not be threatened by--and would not irrationally ban—recreational drugs.
This makes it clear to me that feelings of deep spiritualism are simply the by-product of natural brain chemistry, not evidence of a higher power. -
Marriage is a sacrament of many different religions and sects, all of whom define it differently from each other. Gay people want their churches to have the right to marry them as they see fit. Gay people--most of us, anyway--aren't interested in forcing your church to recognize their marriages if you don't want to; they're only interested in the state and federal rights and benefits afforded to heterosexual couples upon the granting of a marriage certificate.
Of course, if we get the government's tentacles out of the marriage industry and stop letting the state define what the religious institution of marriage is and is not, this really wouldn't be an issue at all. -
I think spirituality and neurophysiology overlap in a small area, but only as far as the naturalistic explanations of spiritualism go.
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When I've done that to people, I've found, "Sorry I was such a dick to you," typically works. I have to use that one a lot.
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I like the song Bad Touch. Thanks.
"Love. The kind you clean up with a mop and bucket.
Like the lost catacombs of Egypt, only God knows where we stuck it." -
Patriotism is standing up for the values a nation was founded upon without being mesmerized by the circus of illusion and misdirection that it has become. I believe in liberty for ALL Americans, separation of church and state, checks and balances on the government's powers, and the philosophy of the Enlightenment. These are principles that men like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison held dear, and I would consider myself a patriot for believing in them.
Of course, it would be remiss of me to project the idea of absolute liberty onto an exclusively white, male group of slaveowners, but their writings certainly speak less hypocritically than did their actions. That said, I don't think that our founders should be held up as moral exemplars today; we have learned much through thinkers since their time--thinkers like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Susan B. Anthony, and Emma Goldman on the rights of the races, the sexes, and the classes, respectively.
As a society, we still have much to discover about what it means to acquire liberty. We have a long way to go until we achieve our goal of universal liberty, but as long as one focuses their sights--as our founders did too--on putting one foot ahead of the other toward the end goals of peace, tranquility, and equality I would consider them a patriot. -
I'm hanging up my blogging hat for the long term. Almost all of my energy is being spent on the Congressional campaign I'm working for and on writing my novel. I would have left the blog up as an archive of everything I've written there, and everything my co-authors wrote, but since I'm diving head-first into the realm of politics again... well... a full record of the changes in my personal beliefs from 2007-2010 would be a disaster waiting to happen. People just LOVE taking old quotes out of context. It was easier to close it all down than to attempt to sanitize everything I've written.
The answer might not satisfy my thousands of former readers, but it's the truth, and after toying with several different explanations, I figured you guys at least deserve the inglorious truth. -
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LOL! I literally laughed until I cried when I read this! Is that what people are saying about me now? I may be a terrible lay, but I'm certainly not inexperienced; I'm just experienced at being a bad fuck, if you want to know the truth.
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Because I rather like being alive. Might I assume the person asking this question is related to the drama referenced in the previous question?
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Well, not only is that a lie--which the police have already determined--but it is a petty and hypocritical lie: Her dog Crypto was all but starving to death when she finally had to give him to her dad to take care of. She would also lock him in a crate so small that he couldn't even fully stand for entire days, only letting him out for a few minutes at a time to go to the bathroom.
When one tortures animals by starving and neglecting them, one shouldn't cast wild accusations about other people's pets around animal control officers. I seem to remember some old maxim about glass houses and stones that would work well here? Faith Justice doesn't care about the well-being of pets, she merely cares about seeking revenge on me for throwing her to the street after she disrespected my house.
None of that matters anymore. She's a slut and a has-been who hangs out with lowlifes, many of whose own mothers (and foster mothers) freely admit are scumbags. The only decent people out of that group were Jonathan and Michael, although I think both of them have a very skewed vision of what makes a person worthy of their friendship. I'm sorry I dragged them both into this, and I've had the opportunity to apologize to Jonathan--but not yet to Michael--for involving them in my anger. In my haste to rid myself of those people after my apartment was disrespected, my property stolen, and my cat tortured, I turned my hate on an entire group where only some of them deserved it.
I know Michael had nothing to do with the nonsense about the cat. He's not so stupid as to think that false police reports can be used as method of harassment without severe legal repercussions. Only Faith Justice and Maggie Bennett are that stupid. They can thank me, by the way, for discouraging the county police from filing a charge against them both for filing false police reports. I thought those charges would be too rough for a couple of young girls with no money for fines and families not likely willing to post bail. The system wasn't designed for what they used it to do, but it also wasn't designed to incarcerate little girls for making prank calls to the cops. -
The most I can say is that I will not be doing any hard drugs before the election while I am still involved in a Congressional campaign. And should I get a staffer position with my candidate after he is elected the new VA 6th district Congressperson, I will not be doing any illegal drugs during the duration of my time working for the government.
Any specific questions about past usage of LSD--which occurred years ago when I didn't know any better--can be asked non-anonymously, yet confidentially, in private, over Facebook or email.
I currently do not use drugs, and have no stated intention of using them in the future. My past record of drug use is already public knowledge: Every drug I have ever tried, I have written about online and careful Googling will dredge those up for you. -
I regret pushing aside some of my best friends to hang out with a bunch of lowlifes for two months. Of everything I've done this past year, that is the most regretful thing, and I'm glad I was allowed to return to my true friends after I realized what I had done.
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The proudest moment in my life is hard to define. I have had many moments to be proud of, and many moments I would rather not repeat although I may learn from them. Rather than define one moment of my life as greater than all of the others and doom myself to living in the shadow of my own highest point, I would rather say I'm proud of my entire life as a whole. To me, this means only that the single, defining moment of my life has yet to occur. My proudest moments, the ones that become the chapter divisions of my hypothetical future biography, are still something I have to look forward to.
My goals are simple: Be happy, leave an impression, die fulfilled. My constant goal--my reason for living--is to experience as much joy as life has to offer and share some of that with other people. That's the, "Be happy," part. I hope to finish my novel by the end of this year and continue--no matter what I end up doing with my life in the future--writing until I'm too feeble to hold a pen. I don't necessarily want or need wealth and fame from my writing, but I want to inspire those who do read my books to be who they are instead of what others think they should be. That's, "Leave an impression." "Die fulfilled," is easy to explain. When I die, I want to be able to look back on my life and say, 'I'm pleased with what I've done.' -
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Ooh! Interesting question. I like whomever asked this.
I think Lady Gaga is doing an amazing thing for the LGBT community. (For ease, I'll be using the word gay as an umbrella term for all of us.) She's this gay generation's Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, Cher and Madonna combined, so she naturally attracts the gay crowd without having to be too preachy about the movement. We flock to her because she's good and she's what we want in an entertainer, not because of her views on sexuality and freedom. Those are an added bonus.
In my opinion, people who try to do it the other way around by attracting causes through their willingness to shout about their views in public (Sinead O'Connor, The Dixie Chicks, Joe Solmonese [Human Rights Campaign], GLAAD, PETA, Greenpeace etc.) do more harm than good to their respective causes. It's better to attract fame organically and then speak up for your cause. Remember that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a fairly famous preacher before he was a civil rights leader. If standing on a street corner with a bullhorn worked, more people would be wearing tin foil hats and yanking out their dental fillings.
People who claim to speak for the gay movement and, like Adam Lambert, do things for the sole purpose of being controversial embarrass me as a gay man. I want to be proud of my movement. When I'm watching TV with my conservative father and something relevant to the gay rights movement is aired, I want to be able to look at my father and tell him that I'm even more proud of who I am because of it. I want to watch Lady Gaga march an army of her Little Monsters to the beach in Louisiana with cleaning supplies. I want to see Elton John give a couple million dollars to a struggling hospital for cancer kids. The gay movement and its stars need to reach out to the rest of the world and show them that gay people are a positive influence on their surroundings, not just a noisy bunch of provocateurs.
What usually happens instead: Dad and I will be watching television and Adam Lambert or Andy Dick could lick another man's face in front of the camera just to get a reaction out of it. Stuff like that is irresponsible and sets us back. It makes me sad to see that this is the direction most gays want their culture to go in: Pill-popping sluts flashing their gonads at every camera they see. That doesn't help us win our right to marriage. It doesn't help comfort young gay boys and girls who have their dignity stripped from them every day in school. It doesn't help us combat prejudice against gay people. In fact, those provocative stunts significantly hurt our chances of ever getting the right to marry, protecting our younger gay brothers and sisters from shame, or protecting ourselves from hatred and discrimination.
That's my litmus test for what is good and bad for the gay community: If I can be proud of what's happening in front of my conservative father, it's good. If it makes me uncomfortable to watch with my father, it's bad. So Lady Gaga can wear whatever she wants and dance like a palsy victim, and you don't have to worry about her hurting our reputation. She's weird as shit, but she's not bad for the gays. -
I started up an account and then fucked it up by logging in with Facebook from then on.
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They can use the "Half Your Age Plus Seven" rule to determine when getting into my pants isn't a creepy Uncle Frankie goal. I'll still accept Long Island Iced Teas from anyone of any age... just don't be disappointed if I leave with someone else if you're old enough to be my dad.
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The same as my favorite drink before I was 21: Long Island Iced Tea. In fact, the pathetic guys on here who keep asking me to fuck them might want to pay attention: The only surefire way to get into my pants if you're under the age of twenty-eight is to buy me a Long Island or two.
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J.R. Braden’s Bio
Roanoke, VA
Rev. J.R. Braden is a TheologyWeb Screwball Award-nominated gay Atheist living in the American South. He is the author of numerous incomplete and unpublished books as well as two defunct blogs and a podcast that died immediately before episode 50.
