Talk:Salem/@comment-28171999-20190701190111/@comment-35434444-20190701212928

I like it. It sounds like just the kind of obvservation Salem might make about these sub-human dust heaps as she watched them whrite out of the dirt over the millenia. It is suitably crypticl, morbid, and lyrical for a being of her age and stature.

What the quote refers to is the fact that you necessarily thrive at the expense of other people. Which is to say that under a moral system like, say, Christianity, you are a selfish and immoral being no matter what you try to do.

Take for instance your diet. No matter what you do, living things have to die in order for you to eat. The fact that you're using this website means you are expeding electricity and thus contributing to global warming. By being apart of society, you are premenantly indebted to other people. No job you can perform and therby earn your daily bread could be possible without thousonds of other people working thier jobs. And so on.

Christ dying on the cross, the ancestors clinging to your flesh -- they are symbols of all of the suffering that happens so that you can have peace and comfort.

And you can't pay it back.

Ever.

The price was paid, the blood spilt, before you even came into being.

The moment you try, you're being dishonest. Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. If you see that you are in debt and try to be a good person to fix it, then you're being a good person because you don't want to feel guilty and not because you care about thouse who suffer.

That's why Christ asked the disciples to accept the bread of his body in "rememberance" of him. When the sacrifice is made, it is "dismembered." Therefore, by the process of redemption, the members are re-attached: the debt is wiped.

Of corse this can't happen literally. All the roasts of beef you've ever eaten can't be turned back into cows. But it can happen psychologically.

That's what the gods want.

The Ozma that was sacrificed, and the huntsmen who fall every day for the good of all, "remembered."

All-encompasing forgiveness.