Freedom

Carnality, Appetite, Sex, and Attitude

eejoseph, , ,


Here’s an attempt to look into the links between salvation or wholeness and the brokenness of humanity especially as it is perceived in general media and specifically in religious environments.  It is a good idea to  define some of the terms before we dive into the connections that exist.  The New Testament uses carnality (the carnal person’s attributes) to define man’s wayward and unenlightened attitudes and behaviors, but it is popularly used to define behaviors confined to the body.  Now that analysis is surely inadequate, because the body’s functions are either out of or under control, so an attitude of anguish or despair will appropriately come from our own efforts.

Carnality and immorality are more than sexual misdeeds

Carnality comes from Latin, carnis, FLESH or MEAT.  Gee, perhaps one day someone will tell us that human beings are not flesh and bones, but something else.  How can people cling to saying we were all threatened by being flesh and are stuck with carnality, but we might be inspired by the caterpillar who goes from having many legs to having two wings in a most dramatic fashion.  I suggest we humans have an equally dramatic transformation, with receipts.  A couple of men have disappeared from the planet and the speculation has run all the way from (a) they are on some other world that has not been subjected to the judgments and fleeting fortunes of planet earth, to (b) these guys are basically with God.  “With God” is already a fantastic fact made possible by the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Fellowship or intimacy with God is already at maximum for any flesh, and there is an intimacy that awaits when flesh gets transformed.

The pervasive appetite denial

You may have noticed that some foods have the characteristics of the forbidden tree.  A food item is to be expected to be eaten freely .  See the “eat eat” of Genesis 2:16.  When an  item looks good, and has added benefits beyond assuaging hunger a pleasure is clearly in view.  People who spend most days fasting have little appreciation for the gift of appetite.

APPETITE is closely related to and expressed by the terms that define a person’s life (chayyah), being (nephesh), and belly (koilia).  Good luck on having any kind of personhood without a functioning stomach, soul (conscious being) and life force.

When the woman saw that the tree was GOOD FOR FOOD, and that it was a DELIGHT TO THE EYES, and that the tree was DESIRABLE TO MAKE ONE WISE, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. (Genesis 3:6, NASB)

Mixing justice and harems

In the wider sense we find carnality attached to drunkenness, drug abuse, and sexual acts outside of marriage, and gluttony.  In this regard we should note that having an “appetite” does not mean engaging destructive desires.  To claim that we have no appetite means we are trying to be God.  There is, for example, latent mutual desire for cohabitation between males and females, and yet in some circles a woman is expected to be the target of desire.

Sexual wellness and ignorance

A lot of religious rhetoric and propaganda comes out of sexual imaging, and it is not as if the rhetoric and propaganda acknowledge that sexual desire and experiences (good and bad) and part of the fabric of the human race.  Did anyone ever think that without sexual desires fulfilled there’d be no future?  Without sexuality we would all disappear, presumably leaving the planet in the hands of robots and droids.

All up inside your religiosity

Misogyny is probably one of the more irrational attitudes that has been around for so long as to make it seem normal.

Attitudes are the seedbed of behaviours.  So let’s realize that the proliferation of criminal acts all over the globe tells us that people are not guarding their attitudes.  A good attitude takes the time to notice the world around us, takes the time to intervene appropriately, in short, cares about more than me, myself, and us.

It is said that appetite triggered the perennial human crisis

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. (Genesis 3:6, NASB)

The narrative does not talk about appetite as hunger and thirst.  The couple in Eden could not be hungry.  The forbidden tree had unusual fruit.  Curiosity seems to have gotten the best of Adam and Eve.

  • the woman saw that the tree was good for food
  • it was a delight to the eyes,
  • and that the tree was desirable to make one wise (Genesis 3:6a, NASB)

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. (Genesis 3:6, NASB)


I would hate giving us another list, so let’s just try to have an attitude that we can be proud of and I am sure we will find ourselves at home.  The title spells out casa, Spanish for home🏠 .  No matter how hard we try, by rant or rave, all the puritanical resolutions – from Muslims, Christians or Jewish believers – we are going to learn to adopt a healthy respect for the squeaky wheels.  These are the carnal, greedy, sex-starved and sex-bound and low esteem persons for whom no boundaries exist in God’s agenda for humans to be at home with him.

Who is cheering the sudden burst of nationalism?

eejoseph, , , , ,

Barbados and Australia have recently severed ties with the British crown but they have the same system of government as the colonial power that stole, sold, and oppressed Black and Aboriginal peoples for over four hundred years. Now Belize and Jamaica are pressing demands about the role of the British crown in the slave trade and colonization of the Caribbean islands. Who will apologize to all the generations of freed slaves for idolizing the broken and corrupt model of the people’s house? There is hardly a visionary dimension to be found in the governments of the greater and lesser antilles. Who beside the usual armchair freedom fighters and quasi-revolutionary Pan-African intellectuals are cheering?

Embarrassment’s epitome

It was not the British crown that made 99% of the nations in the Caribbean pull out all the stops to maintain a system of useless votes, dubious debates, bogus budget statements, apathetic amendments to law, and the facade of national unity. We did that ourselves because we have had too few leaders willing to think outside of the box. You guessed it if you are beginning to think that we have been robbed of outbox action. The people who were silent over the centuries and in the more recent decades when governments were imitating the United States and Great Britain with the oppression of poor people, the suppression of the legitimate Rastafarian religion, the idolization of law, and the frittering away of homeborn culture. Who should be embarrassed is quite clear.

Useless votes

Since the ballot box serves to establish the public sentiment it is an abject shame that the result of a plebiscite can be a tool in the construction of a national suicide. We should not allow our votes to be used to facilitate opposition and division. We know what happens to divided domains. Making our votes count is not rocket science but it takes a vision and courage.

Dubious debates

Parliaments that thrive on facts and reason are rare. All that matters is mathematics: how many votes in the house can be mustered in defence of the leading party’s initiatives. Speakers have a hard enough time keeping simple speaking order – speak then listen – so it is a Herculean task to hold members of parliament to logic and common sense. Let us not be deceived by what we hear on the hustings. People running for political office are unwilling champions of truth and civic society. What we hear at political rallies and in the pre-election advertisements is a mix of pollyanna rhetoric and juvenile wishes. Real debates are hard to find.

Bogus budget statements

In my experience a family goes shopping with cash or credit and both can run out when the spending is completely transparent. The millions and billions mentioned budgets statements need to be seen in their relevance to improving the lives of ordinary citizens. When the average citizen cannot see how the numbers add up in a Finance Minister’s statement to the nation, greed, discrimination and corruption are in the works.

Apathetic amendments to law

Following what is assumed to be a Biblical basis for legislation most nations in the Caribbean have allowed punishment and the violation of human rights to appear as the solution to the problems of civic society. When laws, amendments or originals, do not pass the smell test – justice, mercy and reliability – those innovations should be abandoned. We all know people who are so loyal to law that they no longer recognize human need. Remember the “too holy to help” kinds of people, like the people in the Good Samaritan story.

The facade of national unity

It must be obvious by why we have examined thus far that the substantive notions of independence and good government have been left on the dusty shelves of our high school textbooks, treated as utopian fantasy, in full defiance of the combined weight of our sacred books, so no-one is raising his or her right hand as experienced offspring and root of what is precious and invaluable. Maybe it is best we say nothing about national unity, even when we have incontrovertible rocks to stand on, such as the men and women who took the first steps in shepherding our people, through the early years of our emancipation. Let it suffice to say that we can always trash our national heroes for moral failings, political missteps, and even for losing their way entirely, but we have no rationale for denying that figures of national importance are immovable rocks. How we build on what they have started will be the measure of our strength as a people and nation. The people of Australia, Belize, Barbados and Jamaica are being duped again by people who choose to forget our recent history and are willing to deny that our choice to imitate the oppressor and not the liberator is suicidal. There are no great dead peoples.