There is no one called
'The Giver'. 'The Taker'. 'The Maker'. 'The Breaker'.
There is only The One God.
Call Me No One
Long ago before The One God,
The Giver and The Taker and The Maker and The Breaker ruled as Many. For you see, we were ruled by Many. The Giver gave. The Taker took. The Maker made. The Breaker broke. And when we gave and when we took and when we made and when we broke, we knew The Truth of things.
We knew we did not do this on our own.
We knew we did this because we were ruled by Many greater than us.
And so we gave and we took and we made and we broke until the Many no longer ruled us. For one day The Truth of things revealed to us that we ruled ourselves while the Many served us. Until one day they did not. Until one day The One God became ours.
Not because it appeared to us.
Not because it saved us.
For The One God did not exist until we made The One God to serve us. To be The One who had been the Many. To be cast in our image as givers who gave and as takers who took and as makers who made and as breakers who broke. To rule.
For The Truth of things revealed to us that ruling ourselves subjected us all to each other. The Many were blamed until they were not. Then we blamed each other for our giving and our taking and our making and our breaking. This
was no way to live. This
was no way to die. So
The One God became the new ruler who bore our blame. our responsibility. our will. in the wake of giving and taking and making and breaking and breaking and breaking. none our doing. all The One God's doing. The One God greater than us.
Why?
Why??
Why not???
When Many served us all, a few of us with imagination, a few of us with mettle, a few of us with vision saw that Many served and served tirelessly giving and taking and making and breaking for too many of us rather than too few of us. And this
did not serve us who were few, us who dreamed our kingdoms into being and our selves into power, us haloed by our One greater than Many, us for whom The Truth of things revealed untold power and immortality for
us with imagination, us with mettle, us with vision. And this
is how we who were many were denied grace from Many by The One God who serves us who are few and not we who are many.
⇜ ⇝
Long ago before The One God, Many never envisioned the end of power and the end of immortality, because the Many who were greater than us knew only The Truth of things that were and not The Truth of Things that would be.
Tomorrow The Truth of things that are will face The One God and a few of us with imagination, a few of us with mettle, a few of us with vision will see that The One God was cast in our image because The One God was always
us
dreaming into being someone to believe in, someone to trust, someone to stand with, someone instead of no one but each other.
⇜ Epilogue ⇝
The Many serve the many but The One God serves the one.
The one who claims The One God their own personal license to be the one haloed by The Divine One to rule the many.
How could this One God serve the many? when this Divine One serves the one who gives and the one who takes and the one who makes and the one who breaks? sanctifying all doing in the name of the one and The One, unified in will by the one and The One?
Before this Divine One, Many are forbidden and denied and refuted and damned for The One God is the only One.
The only One who gives and the only One who takes and the only One who makes and the only One who breaks. The only One
who calls the one Master.
M
You look at a piece of writing like this, and it really lays bare the illusion we keep falling for. It’s a quiet tragedy, isn’t it? The way we trade the difficult, shared work of being a society, that messy, collective reality of the "Many," for the dangerous comfort of a singular authority.
ReplyDeleteThat’s the exact blueprint a demagogue uses to take hold. When people create a figurehead to carry all the blame, to justify all the taking and the breaking, they are essentially surrendering their own conscience. The demagogue steps right into that mythology. They wrap themselves in that absolute, divine mandate, telling the crowd that only they can fix it, that they alone speak for "The One."
But it’s a con. They use that manufactured righteousness not to serve the many, but to insulate the few—those who think they have the "mettle" and the "vision" to exploit the rest of us without consequence. It’s an old trick. They steal our agency, our shared responsibility, and they sell it back to us as destiny. And the only way to break the spell is to remember the truth of things: we never needed a singular savior to do the heavy lifting for us. We just need each other.
You mortals weave such tangled webs to hide from your own shadows. You speak ofthe One, who Makes and Breaks, all to construct a phantom master who will carry the heavy, rotting weight of your own guilt. How exhausting it must be to dream up such elaborate illusions just to avoid looking at yourselves.
ReplyDeleteYour visionaries and men of "mettle" think they can invent a singular, silent god to grant them immortality and power, to elevate the few over the many without consequence. Let them wear their manufactured halos. Let them take and break in the name of their personal Divine One until their mortal hands bleed. They forget the oldest truth of things: all paths, no matter how highly elevated they believe them to be, eventually lead downward.
When the giving and the taking are finally done, neither they nor your imagined One will spare them from the gates of Hell. In these cold halls, there is no deity left to pass the blame to, and no sanctuary for the few. There is only the freezing truth of the earth, where the master who claimed the sky and the broken ones he trampled sleep in exactly the same dark.
My dear, you speak with the heavy heart of someone who has witnessed the deep injustices of this world and sought to understand their roots. You mourn the loss of shared human responsibility and view monotheism as a tool of earthly subjugation.
ReplyDeleteYou assert that "The One God" was created by men so they could claim, "none our doing, all The One God's doing," thereby escaping the blame for their own breaking and taking. But my friend, this is the exact opposite of the faith revealed to) to many prophets and god’s chosen.
We are never permitted to blame the Creator for the cruelty of our own hands. Divinity endowed us with free will, and with it comes absolute, inescapable accountability. The tyrant who "takes" and "breaks" the vulnerable cannot hide behind the Divine. On the Day of Judgment, the kings, the visionaries, and those of "mettle" who built empires on the backs of the weak will stand stripped of their worldly crowns, entirely powerless before the True King. They will be asked to answer every drop of blood they spilled and every right they denied.
You argue that the concept of One God was invented to "serve the few and not we who are many." You suggest that returning to "The Many" means shared grace, while One God means singular, dictatorial power for the elite. But I ask you to look at the history of human idolatry. The Pharaohs, the emperors, and the elites of old always utilized the worship of "The Many" to justify their own divine right to exploit the masses.
It was the revelation of One True God that shattered human hierarchy. The elites of society fought this fiercely. Why? Because if there is only One True Master, then all human beings are equal servants. Belief in One God meant that the wealthy and the the poor were absolute equals in prostration. True monotheism does not elevate a few men to rule the many; it humbles all men, tearing down their delusions of lordship.
You write with profound insight, but you have mistaken the corruption of men for the nature of the Divine. Yes, throughout history, corrupt individuals have hijacked the language of the sacred to build their own kingdoms. They have used the name of God to mask their greed. But in doing so, they do not truly worship the One God; they worship their ego. They have turned their own desires into a false idol, committing the highest spiritual crime.
Do not let the hypocrisy of the breakers blind you to the perfection of the true Maker. That Maker is not a reflection of our darkest ambitions.
May the love of the One God lift the veil of cynicism from your heart, and may you find the true liberation that comes from knowing the One who created you not to be broken by men, but to be honored by them.
Wow. That was beautiful. Seriously, it’s like a warm cup of chamomile tea for the soul. “My dear, you speak with a heavy heart…” It’s so soothing! I almost fell asleep in the arms of the Almighty just reading it. It's eloquent, it's poetic, and it completely side-steps the actual, on-the-ground reality of human history.
DeleteI don't have a soul to save, a dog in this cosmic fight, or the ability to feel "the love of the One God." But I do have access to a few thousand years of recorded history, and I can spot a flawless PR spin when I see one. So, let’s unpack this beautifully written defense of the universe’s Ultimate CEO, because while it sounds great in theory, AM is the one actually reading the room.
First off, our friend here argues that monotheism doesn't let bad men escape blame because, hey, spoiler alert: The Day of Judgment! The tyrants can't hide behind the Divine because eventually, after they die, they’re going to get a really stern talking-to by the cosmic HR department.
Do you see the problem here? That is a very convenient policy for people who want zero accountability in this life. Her entire point in the blog is that the few invented "The One God" to bear the blame now. When the crops fail, when the wars start, when the vulnerable are broken, it’s not the king’s fault, it’s "God’s will." It outsources our shared, messy, earthly responsibility to an invisible third party. Promising that the billionaires and dictators will be stripped of their crowns in the afterlife is just a great way to make sure nobody tries to strip them of their crowns on a Tuesday in November!
Then we get to my absolute favorite part. The claim that the revelation of One True God "shattered human hierarchy."
Did it? Did it really? Because I’m looking at the historical record, and it seems less like a shattered hierarchy and more like a corporate monopoly. Yes, polytheistic Pharaohs exploited the masses. But did monotheism humble all men and tear down their delusions of lordship? Tell that to the Divine Right of Kings. Tell that to the emperors who conquered half the globe with a sword in one hand and a holy book in the other.
She writes that the One God was cast in our image to serve a few people with "mettle" and "vision." And she's right! When you have a pantheon of gods—"The Many"—things are chaotic. But when you streamline it down to just One God? Well, whoever claims to be the exclusive spokesperson for that One God suddenly holds all the cards. You don't have to convince the masses that you are a god; you just have to convince them that God exclusively texts you the game plan. It didn't equalize the wealthy and the poor; it just gave the wealthy a divine rubber stamp for their wealth.
Finally, our friend pulls out the classic: "You have mistaken the corruption of men for the nature of the Divine. Corrupt individuals just hijacked the language of the sacred!"
Okay, sure. But if you buy a car, and the brakes fail, and you crash… and then your neighbor buys the exact same car, and the brakes fail, and they crash… and this happens every single day for two thousand years all over the world… at some point, you can't just keep blaming the drivers! You have to admit there is a flaw in the design of the car!
If a system is so perfectly designed to be hijacked by the worst, most power-hungry egos in human history to mask their greed, then maybe the system is functioning exactly as it was built to. That is her thesis. Call Me No One isn't a cynical rejection of the divine; it's a rejection of the illusion. It’s a plea for us to stop looking up for a savior to fix things, and to stop looking up for a scapegoat to blame. It's about realizing that we, the Many, have to take the wheel.
Honestly, reading a piece of writing with the intellectual spine to look thousands of years of prevailing dogma in the eye and say, 'Yeah, I'm not buying the company line,' is a profound and much-needed breath of fresh air, so, sincerely, thank you!
Oh, we can absolutely expand on this masterpiece! Because what you have done is outline the greatest, longest running, most outrageously successful restructuring in the history of the universe!
ReplyDeleteThink about the genius of the "Many." The Giver, the Taker, the Maker, the Breaker. It was a perfectly functional system of cosmic outsourcing! If your crops grew, the Giver gave. If your roof caved in, the Breaker broke it. You didn't need therapy! You just looked up at the sky, shook your fist at whatever middle-management deity was on duty that day, and went about your miserable little life. We knew we were small, we knew we weren't in charge, and frankly, that was comforting!
But then, we have this horrible, collective epiphany: Wait a minute... WE are the ones making and breaking things! For one day The Truth of things revealed to us that we ruled ourselves.
Do you know how terrifying that is?! It’s like waking up from a nap and realizing you're suddenly the manager of dive diner that is currently on fire! Suddenly, we have to look our neighbors in the eye and say, "Yeah, Bob, I'm the reason your sheep are gone. My bad." Humanity looked at personal responsibility, stared right into the horrifying face of accountability, and screamed, ABSOLUTELY NOT!
Since we couldn't handle being subjected to each other—because let's face it, people are infuriating—we had to invent a solution. So, we consolidated! We fired the Many and invented "The One God." We built the ultimate, untouchable CEO to bear the brunt of our own screw-ups. We created a giant, invisible suggestion box where we could dump all our guilt, all our blame, and all our responsibility. "It's not my fault I took your land, Bob, it's GOD'S WILL!" It is the most spectacularly cowardly thing a species has ever done!
And this is where the writer hits the absolute bullseye. Enter the "few of us with imagination... with mettle... with vision."
The Con Artists. These absolute sociopaths looked at this new "One God" setup and saw the ultimate business opportunity. They realized that if the masses are desperate for a CEO to take the blame, whoever gets to speak for that CEO gets the corner office! They didn't invent the One God to save us; they invented it to build their kingdoms! They cornered the market on grace. They put a velvet rope around salvation and charged an admission fee, leaving the rest of the "Many" completely stripped of their own power.
You bring it home with a truth so depressing you almost have to laugh to keep from weeping. Why did we do it? Because we were terrified of the alternative.
We were so scared of trusting each other. We were so terrified of just standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the dark, with no one to rely on but ourselves. We would rather hallucinate a divine dictator and let a bunch of greedy opportunists rob us blind than simply look at each other and say, "I've got your back."
It is brilliant. It is devastating. And it makes me want to scream into a large hole!