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The answers to these questions are a bit more complex when talking about free persons than they are with those of a slave mentality. There are simply more options open to a free man than a slave, obviously. For one, there is no fear of reprisal. A free woman can believe as she wishes, without the fear of angering the Master. A free man may serve, out of a genuine respect or even self-interest, but he is not bound to serve upon pain of divine retribution. A free person may believe in many gods or none, depending solely on each individuals needs and desires to interact with the Divine. So considering the above complexity of beliefs, instead of trying to encompass all of them, I will stick with what I know best, the perspective of a freeman who does indeed believe in, and interacts with, the Divine.

So if a free man or woman chooses to accept the Divine, how would they view it? Well I guess even this question has as many answers as there are free individuals, so perhaps I shall narrow things down a little further, and just speak for myself. Make things a bit simpler, no?

Personally, I do not see the Divine as Absolute. My gods are neither omnipotent nor omniscient. I do not serve them as a slave, I work with them and for them to improve my life and this world. I respect them, even revere them, but I am bound to them only by blood and by choice. If I chose to ignore their wisdom, I am free to do so. Of course there is a price to be payed, but it is not punishment, anymore than a parent allowing a child to ignore them and make their own mistakes is punishment when invariably, they do. I also view my gods as an both an example of, and guides for, the potential that we ourselves can attain. They represent our future evolution, if we take that evolution in hand as a conscious process.

More than anything else though, my relationship to the the Divine is one of absolute personal responsibility. I alone am responsible for my actions, my happiness, my problems and my life. If I need to be saved, I will do it myself. My gods will lend a helping hand, perhaps, but the choices, decisions, and the work will be done by me.

After all freedom is as much about responsibility as is is about choices.

I would just like to take a moment to pay my respects to all those, past and present, of all races, creeds, and nationalities, who have died for freedom, not on foreign soil, but on their own. May you find a seat in Odin’s high hall, or a place of respect within the halls of whatever god, or gods, you may have followed.

Wassail, and blessed be.

Understand this, if one treats everyone they meet with respect, then many will do the same. Is this understandable? If you show respect to a person that you have never met, then you can be said to be earning their respect!

Too often in modern American society, I see those who would demand respect without giving any themselves. And if confronted, they give the excuse, “Why should I show respect to someone who has not earned it?” They do not understand that respect given is respect earned. If you give the utmost respect to everyone you meet, and there is one who simply refuses to give you respect in return, that person has earned your disrespect, and they should be treated accordingly! However, why should anyone bother to earn your respect if you won’t make a good faith effort to earn theirs?

To understand what I mean by this I feel I must elaborate on what I mean by the term: slave mentality. Now, to be clear, we are not discussing people who were made slaves, but those born into slavery, people whose parents and grandparents were slaves. This creates an outlook, a world-view, within the minds of the individuals in which the state of slavery is considered normal, slavery is all they have ever known or experienced.To be sure, it could well be argued that freedom is a dream of most slaves, even among those who were born into it. However, desiring freedom and knowing how to be free are two different things. Much like those who have been in prison for many years cannot even go to the bathroom without asking for permission, a born slave, upon obtaining freedom, will immediately look for someone to order them around. They literally do not know how to take the initiative for themselves, they do not know how to live as free men. From this, one then can ask, “How would a person with such a world-view likely conceive of the Divine?”

First: The Divine is powerful, else why bother with it? So who has all the power from a slaves point-of-view? The master, of course, and the most powerful of the masters, for the time period, was male. So to a slave, the Divine would be another master, a male master, a benevolent one, to be sure, but a master still. The Divine would give orders, and expect to be obeyed. Failure to comply would meet with punishment as well, after all, this is what the slave has come to expect from his masters, right?

Second: A constant source of worry for many slaves is being given conflicting orders by multiple masters, each of whom holds the power of life and death over them. To a slave then, the Divine is one, not many.

Third: A slave can only own what his master allows him to own, and can only travel, or stay by his master’s will. There fore, to a slave, the Divine would not reside in any image, or physical location, but It would exist either in the sky, or It would be omnipresent.

There are, I think, more parallels between the slave-mentality and the Judeo-Christian world-view, however these three sum it up rather nicely in my opinion, so I will leave it with these. So in summary, for a slave the ideal Divinity would be a Singular male God, who would demand worship and obedience, and would not reside in any graven image and perhaps even scorn such images. Sounds quite a bit like the god of the Old-Testament, no? Christianity, and later Islam, have really done nothing to change this conception. More addressing the motives of the god, and his specific orders to humanity than the nature of the god himself.

This is one of the reasons that I simply cannot follow any of the three of these religions, as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are all religions of slavery, and I refuse to live as a slave. The bibles says that a man cannot serve two masters, but a free man asks, “why should I serve any master?” I will not serve, not as a slave. Not any god, not any idea, not any fear, not anything, period.

By way of disclaimer, I feel I must state: I do not have a problem with Jews as a people, I have some Jewish ancestry myself, after all. Nor do I have a problem with Christians or Muslims in general(though fanatics of all creeds, religious or otherwise, tend to piss me off). I simply disagree with the premise of there beliefs and am stating, within this post, one of my reasons why.

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Now, truth be told, I do not have much of a problem with most “-isms”, mostly, they are, when stripped down to the basics of their reality, merely groups of ideas/ideals. I am not so sure that any idea is necessarily good or evil in and of itself. Dangerous? Perhaps. Flawed? Useless? Undoubtedly. But not evil or good.

On the other hand, “-ists”, the believers, are people, and people can be willfully ignorant, blatantly stupid, and violently fanatical. When an ideology is given the spotlight, usually a negative one, it is always the followers of the ideology that are being discussed.

This is why the freedom of speech is so important in our society. If ideas can be discussed, then flaws can be exposed. If an idea cannot be talked about, then opinions about those ideas will never be changed. One can scream to the heavens about how an idea is wrong, bad, or evil, but no one will listen unless they can be shown those things. No one, however, will see the flaws in their own ideas if they are not even allowed to express their side. Many still won’t see, but at least if they are allowed to the table to present and discuss their side, there is a chance that they might change their minds.

I’ve noticed that most of us with creative proclivities, be art, music, writing, craftsmanship, etc. have a tendency to get pissed off at all the bullshit that come between us and our creative passion. Work, family, bills, and sometimes even relationships can get in the way of our creative efforts, and let’s face it, that sucks. However, that being said, nothing is created in a vacuum. It is most often the things that frustrate us the most , that become the most fertile fodder for our creative drive and expression. So, bullshit is what makes the flowers of our creativity grow, and while we don’t have to eat it and smile, it is good to keep this fact in mind the next time you find yourself on the brink of insanity….