Today, the first day that I’ve started posting on this WordPress version of Church of the Churchless after 21 years of blogging on the Typepad platform that is shutting down on September 30, a well-known 31 year old advocate of Republican and conservative policies, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated while speaking at a college in Utah.
His death has thrown the United States into turmoil.
We’ve had too many recent instances of politicians and political leaders on both the left and right killed in the name of some sort of twisted ideology. Or sometimes, for no discernible reason at all. Somehow, people are saying, we have to learn how to look upon people with whom we disagree as fellow human beings deserving of respect, not as horrific destroyers of all that is true and beautiful.
That’s always been my hope for this blog also, even though I readily admit that I don’t always live up to that value.
A major reason I decided to find a way to migrate the thousands of posts and comments the Church of the Churchless has accumulated since 2004, rather than let them sink into the cyberspace depths, never to be seen again after Typepad shuts down in 20 days, is that I deeply enjoy the companionship of visitors to this blog who take the time and trouble to leave comments on my posts.
Sure, with a few rare exceptions, I’ve never met you in person. And probably I never will. I’ve never heard your voice. Often I don’t even know your name, since many commenters adopt a pseudonym. Yet your views and your personalities are reflected in your comments. I feel like I know you, though naturally that knowing doesn’t come close to capturing the depth of who you are in “real” life.
(This blog is part of life, of course; I’m referring to bodily life where we can see, touch, and hear another person.)
I love how so many visitors to this blog are religious believers of one form or another, commenting on posts written by an atheist who, for 35 years, also was a religious believer. This gives the Church of the Churchless a vitality that would be missing if everyone agreed with each other. Open respectful debating and discussing may not make the world go ’round, but it sure is what the world needs right now — as it always has.
Charlie Kirk, a devout Christian, made it his calling to talk with people who disagreed with his right-wing views. I never heard him speak, but the news today was full of references to how much Kirk enjoyed having liberals come to a microphone and ask him pointed questions. I saw that the tent covering the stage where he was shot and killed by a unknown assailant who fired a single shot from two hundred yards away (the search continues as I write this) said “Prove Me Wrong.”
That’s beautiful. Likely Kirk was confident enough in the correctness of his conservative political views that he didn’t much fear being proven wrong. But the fact that he enjoyed discussions with people who thought that he was full of shit speaks loudly about his character. We need more Charlie Kirks on both the right and left, because these days it is much more common to speak at each other than with each other.
I only have a few religious friends. Most of the people I associate with are liberal atheists, like me. We may disagree about the finer points of our political and non-religious beliefs, but we agree on most things.
So this blog is a way for me to expand my horizons, be exposed to comments from people who embrace God and/or the supernatural, and improve my skills at proving them wrong, even as they try to prove me wrong. Diversity of perspectives is a good thing. It provides a fuller picture of reality, even when we choose to discount some perspectives as not being worthy of our consideration.
I’ve been re-watching the three Lord of the Rings movies, even though I’m pretty sure I saw them after they were released in 2001-03. I needed some additional fantasy after becoming a belated fan of Game of Thrones and watching every episode of the eight seasons. The first movie, The Fellowship of the Ring, introduces the fellowship charged with the task of saving Middle Earth from a ring with destructive powers.
There’s hobbits, an elf, a dwarf, men, and others. They bicker, they argue, they disagree. But what unites them is a common mission: to save Middle Earth. Likewise, and please take this as a compliment, because it is, the regular commenters on this blog are a strange cast of characters who display a wide variety of quirks, communication styles, and views about the nature of reality — our common interest.
I adore strangeness. From 2013 to 2015 I wrote 49 Strange Up Salem columns for our local alternative newspaper, Salem Weekly. By the way, I just used the Search box on my new HinesSight WordPress blog, which also is available on this blog. It quickly found “Strange Up Salem” related posts — which is good news for me, because I’ve been using the Google search box on my Typepad blogs to find stuff that I’ve written, such as an excellent vegetarian lasagna recipe that I needed for a potluck.
We talk about things on this blog that would make most people flee the conversation. I’ve tried discussing free will with people in the “real” world. Their eyes start to glaze over as they look at their watch and say, Nice talking with you, but I’ve got to go somewhere. Like, anywhere else but here. Same with whether we have a Self or are inherently Selfless.
Church of the Churchless is my outlet for sharing ideas that appear weird and uninteresting to most people. And I’m not even religious. The religious ideas shared by commenters on my posts are even weirder than my writings, in my decidedly personal opinion. Again, that’s a compliment.
Anyway, thank you for following the Church of the Churchless to this WordPress blog. It has all of the posts and comments from the Typepad blog. I think you’ll find that the WordPress commenting system has some pluses. Like threaded comments that make it much easier to have coherent comment conversations. It was stressful for me to learn at the end of August that Typepad was shutting down at the end of September.
But thanks to Glorywebs, the tech firm based in India that handled the migration of my three blogs from Typepad to WordPress in just over a week at a very reasonable cost, I’m enjoying a much more stable and feature-filled blogging platform. For several years Typepad has been very frustrating to use. It didn’t accept new customers since 2020, an indication that it was dying a lingering death with lots of problems showing up before its final demise on September 30.
Each of us will also die, eventually. While we’re living, may we enjoy stimulating discussions of important issues, on this blog and elsewhere.
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Really nice post Brian, much appreciated. The changeover sounded quite stressful – don’t think l would have had the energy.
It was stressful at times, Ron. But after I started working with Glorywebs it was a good kind of stress. The kind when you’re confident you’re on the right track, but you’re doing things you’ve never done before.
Today is 9/11, 24th anniversary of how Homeland Security via TSA changed life in America. Prior 9/11, I flew mostly with out ever being hassled by TSA. It’s well known that the Mossad trained TSA Agents on how to control Americans from that day forward, and we now have 24 years of experience witnessing the demise of America and hate on steroids!
So, who murdered Charlie Kirk, and why? Will we ever find out, or will the truth be swept under the Classified redacted files, all with all other files we are not supposed to see?
A good lead might be to link Charlie’s assignation to 9/11 continuation of controlled opposition by,………??
https://x.com/ryliberty/status/1966103855260905583?s=61
Guess who? Left haters, Right haters, Christian haters, Woke hatred, Trans haters, Homophobic haters, Atheists, or by members of the Marked Elect?
Most Americans remember exactly where they were when planes hit the Twin Towers on 9/11, 24 years ago! I was 59, and working as an Industrial Waste Water Treatment Technician in Costa Mesa, California at the time, watching the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower on my Boss’s little potable Black and white TV! Life in America has never been the same since, and has never reverted back to pre 9/11.
So, who will fix our problems? Atheists, or Marked Elect Spiritual believers ?
https://x.com/tpvsean/status/1966147712027369798?s=61
More confirmation !
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Brian, Et el,….unfortunately, Andrew Tate is spot on, of what’s wrong, especially here in the U.S. we walk around in a Society rubbing elbows with 50% of the people we meet , or debate with, want us dead! Its so very sad how we have digressed, but even taking that example here, in your Church, I have always felt like even more than 50% of the past, and present posters here, preferred me dead, after reading what ever I posted. It has never mattered what I’ve posted, the push Backers are always hiding in the shadows, behind their anonymous masks, where they feel safe to shoot and run.
You are a highly educated rational Atheist, sort of the same as was Charlie Kirk, of opposite persuasions. So, don’t you realize that both, you and I , of complete opposite view points , about just about every thing, other than being fond of Charan Singh, are on one of the 50% sides that would be happy to hear of our deaths? In fact, I have even witnessed people sad that I was still alive, and had not died, as a returning Ex member of Lane’s Radha Swami sties form. I have no doubt, that some of those anonymous haters are still stalking me here. And you surly wouldn’t want to hear of what many haters have said , regarding you, either! So no one should imagine they are immune and protected from the haters on what ever side they take!
If you can’t fix that problem here, how can any Politician fix it in the U.S.?
https://www.youtube.com/live/JilftY6HzHM?si=KwL-64Nl9MbA8o-0
Brian, since you have not addressed any of my comments and questions, here is my advice for you so start this new platform on a much more friendly Church to interact with others of similar interests with out trying to assonate any one who disagrees with them.
Do NOT allow ANY anonymous reader to post, or comment, with out using their real Name, as you and I do. That should even increase the numbers of real people posting, and not only weed out haters who snipe, than run and hide, but also AI Bots.
Just a friendly suggestion.
Tragedy, sure. That, without a shadow of doubt. Tragedy every which way.
But talk about the actual hatemongers, plural, the actual violence-peddlers, the actual bullies, the actual harbingers of these present times and this present general vileness, now opportunistically and dishonestly and utterly shamelessly trying to play victim, and cynically leveraging this tragedy to their advantage, milking it to the very last drop. Much like when, last time, a possibly-right-leaning-and-at-best-politically-indeterminate nutjob had taken potshots at Trump, and yet he as well as his sycophants never tired of claiming the exact opposite.
For shame! …Except, of course, they haven’t that faculty, they haven’t the capacity for shame. Neither at the macro level, and nor, clearly, at the micro level.
Idiocracy and cretinocracy on steroids. Age of Caliban, indeed.
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“Open respectful discussion of controversial issues is what the world needs now”
Sure. But it needs two to do that.
How do you engage in “open respectful discussion” with those that shun such, with those that have themselves been instrumental in bringing about this present unfortunate state of affairs?
Apparently this Kirk guy was given to debating widely, and good on him for doing that. I haven’t seen him debate, and won’t presume to judge what I haven’t seen. (Although I might check out some of his work going forward, maybe.) But remember Trump “debating” Kamala Harris? Remember the sheer halfwittery of it? It was no more than simply going through the motions of a practice — the practice of reasoned respectful discussion — a practice that he, and they, neither understand nor follow.
How *do* you engage in respectful open discussion with someone who does not understand the meaning of the word “respect”, and understands by the term “discussion” merely the forming of words to be thrown out in order to keep up appearances, and is a stranger to reason? How *do* you engage in respectful open discussion with the instigator of the Capitol riots, who now hypocritically turns around in classic projection to blame the vitiated political landscape not on his own antics but on those towards whom he’d directed such? And how *do* you engage in respectful open discussion with those that blindly rah rah every word of their Dear Leader, unimpeded by the smallest smidgen of reason or integrity or, indeed, shame?
How *do* you engage in respectful open discussion with those that neither understand what that term even means, and nor are at all interested in engaging in respectful reasoned rational discussion?
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(Again, none of this refers to Kirk’s debates per se. His generally incendiary views notwithstanding, like I said I’ve not actually seen the man debate, and am in principle generally supportive of anyone that goes out of their way to do that. …And again, the shooting itself is a tragedy, regardless of who did it — whether Republican, or Democrat, or apolitical nutjob. …One would wish people would have the decency to refrain, at this time, from cynically trying to milk this tragedy to further their own ends.)