My Fingers

Once I used to be proud of my hands.  I have my father's hands.  They are strong and defined and beautiful.  They are the kind of hands that know how to play the piano.  They are not sloppy.  They are not weak.  They are not unmotivated.  They are definitive, forthright, and strong.  I have learned over the last decade that the commercial music industry no longer values these kinds of hands.  Like Christianity hands of this sort take a stand.  They represent something good and meaningful.  They have a purpose, because art is a worthy pursuit.  Christianity is like artisty.  It is complex, expressive, rewarding, and misunderstood.  Christianity, unlike the definition it has been given today, seeks to bestow God's love.  Christianity seeks to provide humanity with love.  With this love comes pleasure.  Love and pleasure unknowingly to today's population come from sensory experiences.  The human senses of sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste are what should bestow pleasure upon human beings.  How can a religion that seeks to do such a thing be considered bad?  In essence God and His Son Jesus Christ seek to fill mankind with spiritual and physical love, a love that would not be present otherwise.  It would not be present, because it innately is human, and humans are a product of God.  It is a humanity.  They are things the Ancient Greeks discovered before the birth of Christ necessary for fulfilling life on earth.  We as a populace have lost touch with these humanities.  Instead we have initiated a one hundred and eighty degree turn of humanity.  Our society today seeks to debase, humiliate, and degrade the human being.  Turn on your television.  What you will see is  Christian aberration, but we have been trying to abolish Christianity in recent years in America.  Whence does this come?  What possible entity could and would decide that physical pleasure and emotional love are enemies of society?  Hitler?  Stalin?  Mussolini?  Isn't that called Fascism?  Possibly not.  Authoritarian rule does not necessarily attempt to revoke the civil liberties of humanity, or does it?  The closest system of rule I can find that revokes pleasure and love from humanity is slavery.  That is odd to me.  Slavery never in my knowledge has been defined as a system of government.  In America we rely upon the terms Republic and Democracy to define our system of government, but ironically slavery has been a large part of America's existence for many years.  We are a hypocrisy of nation, and Abraham Lincoln saw to it through the sacrifices of hundreds of thousands American soldiers we no longer would allow such behavior.  Was it behavior or rule?  The complexity of the American South could be defined with this simple question.  Today the revocation of human love and physical pleasure are as rampant as they were in the days of slavery.  Slowly in the last decade and a half human rights again have been assaulted and slowly diminished.  The things which once represented God's view of Christianity, human love and sensual pleasure, have been demonized.  Is the Evangelical Right that represents this sentiment?  Is it the puritan tenants of American religions that are suggesting that human oppression is correct?  It seems that way.  Slowly over the last decade television in particular has adopted this perspective.  Gone are Christian ideals.  Instead gross, violent, disturbing, and oppressive ideals are being hawked to the American people.  We are too ignorant to even acknowledge it.  On television last evening I happened across an interview with a man who was credited with creating what they were saying were the current hit television series of today. When they listed the shows (including "The Voice") I cringed.  This man, John de Mol, Jr. largely is responsible for this current trend in television programming.  Disturbingly the ideals of Christianity have been replaced with the plot of the novel the "Lord of the Flies."  Television, instead of instilling good in humanity, has succumbed to the lowest level of human behavior.  In the year 2015 we are reinforcing base, murderous, selfish ideals of human survival.  The question must be asked if religion today (and its assault) is strong enough to mitigate humanity's continued civility.  It is this exact concept that is prospering selling to the human race, yet anarchy through terrorism is thriving unabated worldwide.  It is obvious television once set an example for the world, and today it is setting an example for our extinction.  I prefer human love, physical pleasure, Christianity, and God.  Loving God and other people is a small challenge in return for pleasure and longevity.  Causing pain and oppression instead is the easy and ignorant way.