the fraud’s prayer

pdf: The Fraud’s prayer

Our Market Who Art On Earth.
Hallowed Be Thy show
Thy State Power Come
Thy Will Be Done
On The Streets As It Is In Work.
Sell Us This Day Our Daily Lie
And Justify Us Y/ourProperty.
As We Submit To Those
That Assert Property
Relations Against Us
And Lead Us Anywhere But
Into Autonomous Temptation
But Deliver Us From Anti-Hierarchical Initiative
For Ours’ Is The Stagnation,
The Cop And The Celebrity
Forever Or Never?

Amen.

Prayer written in 1981, the rest related to religion come from various times.

18/10/20:

Chile, Santiago: the church goes to hell

Above: protesters inspire, priests perspire

Below: God’s former representative on Earth shakes hands with the State’s former representative in Chile

10th November 2017:

Chile, Aracunia:

bus torched in Mapuche territory in protest against Pope’s visit

“Hooded activists in Chile have burned a bus and scattered pamphlets in protest of an upcoming visit by Pope Francis to a southern region claimed by the Mapuche indigenous group as its ancestral territory. …The pamphlets read: “Fire to the churches. Pope Francis: You’re not welcome here in Araucania.””

Below:

Graffiti on outside of church, mid-70s

Mary : Orgasms forbidden – only God allowed

Jesus: I died so you might all be enslaved

John: Sacrifice is suicide – so nail yourself to the cross for today’s good deed

This graffiti was quickly covered over, but then the following graffiti was later written over the paint:

Mary: Hey – no-one’s falling for the self-denial, guilt-inflicting bit nowadays – Christ! – what’ll we do?

Christ: Cool it, Mary – we’ll just have to push the abstract love, universal harmony, total acceptance line – that’s all

John: Yeah – get ‘em to surrender to some high-energy charismatic guru or something – ok ?

graffiti opposite church, early 1970s

This was from 1985 – ie at the time of riots against the effects of Thatcher’s blitzkrieg of individualist monetarism. I wrote the following here:

“The contradictions of religion in crisis: when the ruling class tries to make sure that altruism is no longer profitable, the desire for solidarity which is the radical side of altruism comes up against the harsh wall of class power. So the more sincere altruists crack – but still for a cause, for an individual martyrdom that’s sacrificial. This guilty Good Citizens’ “honesty” with professional liars is his way of nailing himself to the cross for today’s good deed (but at least it got him a lighter sentence).”

In retrospect its symptomatic of how deeply the hatred and disgust for the state’s policies went, effecting almost everybody….

*************

Some incidents relevant to a critique of religion

“Religion is a cheat, and profession is a cloak, and they are all cheats…God damn and confound all gods” – John Taylor, blasphemer, 17th century.

17/10/20:

UK, London: man gets cross

17/10/17:

Jamaica, St.Andrew: haile shocking attack on haile respected hero…but heroes need state protection (November 2017)

5/8/17:

Italian-Swiss border: report that in July 2017 (no precise date), a cross located on top of a mountain at 4,171 metres high was smashed up Report also mentions that between October 2009 and spring 2010, a mountain guide had vandalized three crosses erected on the summits of the Prealps of Friborg.

17/7/17:

US, California: yet another critique of the heart of a heartless world More here.

28/6/17:

US, Arkansas: thou shalt destroy all thou shalt nots

“I went to the Garden of Love,

And saw what I never had seen:

A Chapel was built in the midst,

Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,

And Thou shalt not. writ over the door;

So I turn’d to the Garden of Love,

That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,

And tomb-stones where flowers should be:

And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,

And binding with briars, my joys & desires.”

– The Garden of Love (William Blake)

UK, Chelmsford: the soul of souless conditions in a baptism of fire

“The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo. Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.” – Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, 1843. See also this

17/6/17:

Bangladesh, Dhaka: twilight of the idols

10/4/17:

Lithuania: the devil attacks hill of crosses; ideology of sacrifice put in doubt Apparently schoolkids are often forced to go to this hill, covered with as many as 500,000 crosses, in order to learn the joys of Christian duty (e.g.self-flagellation). Schoolkids used to subvert this by stealing a cross and chucking it in the bin.

8/3/17:

Argentina, Buenos Aires: on International Women’s Day, hooded women attack cathedral with bottles and sticks, light bonfires, paint tags…

Buenos Aires, Cathedral Metropolitana

8/7/16:

Germany, Regensburg: 40 immigrants occupy Catholic cathdral

2/5/16:

France, Toulouse: incendiary anti-autoritarian attack on church

11/4/16:

Greece, Athens: two churches attacked in solidarity with imprisoned anarchists Mónica and Francisco

19/3/16:

Colombia, Bogota: activist women occupy cathedral to demand God condemns murders of activists (see also this). This involved activists from a leftist “social movement” called Marcha Patriótica (Patriotic March). Though an occupation of a cathedral in a Catholic country is a rare event, it is rather typical of leftists to rather wimpily demand that the church hierarchy, almost invariably complicit with the political hierarchy, condemn violence against themselves. Patriotism is the last refuge of the masochist.[SF]

16/2/16:

Mexico (Mexico City) : planned anarchist march against the Pope stopped by the forces of disorder, one arrested
According to the communiqué, anarchists were the only ones (along with some feminists) who tried to directly oppose the event. Lots of leftist organizations, groups and celebs have taken part in meetings with the Pope, including some members of the families of the 43 disappeared.

27/9/15:

France, Caen: going to church has its uses – undocumented squat disused church building

26/9/15:

Germany, Leipzig: as 800 cops protect fascists, various masked youths attack both of them with stones etc.; pacifist priest condemns attack on cop car as “violence”

22/6/15:

Armenia, Yerevan: God intervenes to prevent clashes between His representatives and protesters after 3 days of sit-in against electricity hikes

20/5/15:

South Africa, Johannesburg: part of church set alight by residents being evicted by Methodist church

12/4/15:

South Africa, Western Cape: church set alight in continuing movement of land squatters

15/2/15:

US, New Orleans: God killed

13/6/14:

Italy, Rome: squatters occupy opulent church “Pope Francis’ avowed commitment to the poor and the homeless is being put to the test by a group of out-of-work, homeless people who have bedded down amid the gold leaf and opulent marble of one of Rome’s most stunning and sacred churches.A band of 110 squatters, including around 20 children, have been camped out for nine days at the fifth-century church of Saint Mary Major – one of Rome’s four papal basilicas.”

Saint Mary Major basilica, where over 100 squatters have decided to try to live

1/10/13:

Quebec – Nude Femen anti-crucifix demo disrupts Question Time in parliament

24/8/13:

USA, Utah: yet another critique of the opium of the people

21/9/13:

USA, Washington: Thou Shalt Be Condemned To Listen To Tedious Lectures

26/7/13:

Chile: pro-abortion demo attacks cathedral with graffiti, etc.; barricades made of pews

22/7/13:

Brazil: Rio riot against $50m. Pope visit

31/5/13:

USA, New York: Virgin Mary gets cross

18/5/13:

UK, Bristol: another critique of the heart of a heartless world

31/3/13:

US, Colorado: Easter critique of the church here and here in Philadelphia ; ….Carolina: the church shows its real message

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Comments

4 responses to “the fraud’s prayer”

James MacBryde

November 16, 2017

Sam,

what does the vandalising of a statue of Jamaican national hero Marcus Garvey have to do with a critique of religion?

Garvey is not especially known for his devotion to religion; he was a religious man in a similar way that Adolf Hitler was. Your wordplay between “haile” and highly makes me believe this incident appears on this page because of the veneration by certain Rastafarian sects of Marcus Garvey, which is indeed bizarre if one is knowledgeable of Garvey’s ego-maniacal and racist attitude to Haile Selassie:

“It is a pity that a man of the limited intellectual calibre and weak political character like Haile Selassie became Emperor of Abyssinia at so crucial a time in the political history of the world…

The future freedom of Abyssinia must be built upon the highest principles of democracy. That is why it is preferable for the Abyssinian Negroes and the Negroes of the world to work for the restoration and freedom of the country without the assistance of Haile Selassie, because at best he is but a slave master. ”

Marcus Garvey (the great democrat (sic)), “The Failure of Emperor Haile Selassie”

Reply
Selah Posner

November 17, 2017

“Hod will strike you down, whitewashed wall!”

Paul (formerly Saul)

To end one’s life shaven like a convict, covered by carbuncles and anaesthetised by porter, wine and tobacco speaks volumes about the fate of the godless man.

Reply
Kayla Seymour

November 17, 2017

Transcendence of religion, not through its destruction but through its upliftment:

https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2011/rivera/images/img/chronology/fig7.jpg

The Liberated Earth with Natural Forces Controlled by Man, in the Chapingo Chapel, Mexico

Reply
dialectical delinquents » fare dodging was never like this! (Chile, October and onwards, 2019)

November 2, 2019

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