Hallelujah 012216

I checked my wife into a hospital for quick sliced and dices (out patient surgery).  She had just gotten into a lovely back less gown and slipped into bed when a wild eyed bible thumper burst through the thin privacy curtain demanding to know what religion we were.

I'm not sure if he was searching for Muslim terrorist, Jewish money lenders, Hindu fakirs or his own private brand of disciples lining up for a turn at his punch bowl.   Taken aback by the unexpected demand I blurted out that I was a "Reluctant Christian."  With an evil glint in his eye my interrogator pounce, he had discovered a backsliding heretic and was already stoking the fires for a public stake fry.

As he began to gather his inquisitor tools I realized my precarious position and decided the best defense was offense, and Christianity provides a complete arsenal of counter strike weapons.  The first being that a desire for a God (under what ever name) has nothing to do with religion.  Religion is something created by some politician come Priest, Preacher, Imam, Mullah etc. uses in gathering a flock.  The larger the flock the more extreme and dogmatic the religion become.

It's possible that the Holy Land's barren state is due to early Christianity felling trees to feed the demand for fake holy relics by the flood of pilgrims.  The Christian Bishop of Rome used Roman Legions' swords to chop down competing branches of the Christian tree.  A call to counter the rise of Islam was over the loss of pilgrim spending rather than objection to Islam. The then Roman Pope seized an opportunity to consolidate religious power in Rome by calling for a Crusade.  Crusader focusing on loot, private fiefdoms and political glory: raped, pillaged and plundered their way into the holy lands.  Muslims were shocked by Christian blood lust for Islam protected women, children, non-combatants and prisoners.  Crusaders may well have slaughtered more Christians and Jews than Muslims while growing rich on their seized possession.  Driven from their looted kingdoms Christian Crusaders rampaged across Europe as Popes unleashed Inquisitors that devised torture methodologies still used as models by good Christian interrogators. 

The Inquisitors first focused on suppression of heretics, Jews and later Protestants.  Although pogroms were common before the inquisitions, all Christendom now sanctioned Jewish Ghettos and pogroms.  Ghettos were a place where good Christians could demonstrate their piety by breaking a good many heads.

Bored with raiding the Ghettos and fighting among themselves good Christians "sailed the oceans blue" for loot and new peoples to annihilate.  Good Catholic Christians practiced genocide in the southern hemisphere while good Protestant Christians went after native North Americans with ethnic cleansing, torture and genocide.  Nightriders spread their nooses wide burning crosses in black, Jewish and Catholic yards before lashing and hanging the owners.  Lynch mobs knew ever Christian hanging tree and preachers often blessed the ropes.  It was good Christian preaching that spread damnation across the country and later, the Pacific, destroying native cultures and eventually the native peoples themselves.  Good Christian missionaries became rich plantation owners on looted land.

The late 19th century saw the rise of good Christian excesses of burnings, lynchings and looting.  Christian armies went on to establish good Christian empires.  Eventually this led to good Christian run concentration and death camps as good Christians battled other good Christians. Wars opened up the world to good Protestant Missionaries backed by good Christian bayonets.  Basic survival of native populations rested on  their ability to shout a loud  Hallelujah.  Good Christians didn't know the word came from Hebrew or there would have been a rush on mouthwash.  Onward Christian Soldiers opened the gates of death camps and continued an imperial march over native populations with forced Christian conversions or ethnic cleansing of nationalist movements.  Resistance to Christian goals is met by good Christians calling for more crusades.   Modern crusaders, like their ancestors, are met by a fast spreading fire around the globe.  Non Protestant resistance has led to more good Christian demands for eradication of non-believers.  Campaign 2016 sees not so good Christian politicians pandering to good Christians with promises of ethnic cleansing.  Good Christians are already gunning down minorities with impunity.  Can death camps be far behind?

By this time the bible thumper had backed to the wall and was frantically searching for an escape.  When a doctor appeared and thumper used the diversion to slipped out, no doubt reporting me to the good Christian thought police.  Presidential candidates are so locked into good Christian evangelical demands that I'm a marked man.  As soon as all the votes are tallied I'll quietly fall victim to night and fog of the new religious police and disappear forever into a good Christian "re-education camp" until good Christian ovens are built.

Good Christians create their own devils and in the 21st century those devils know how to raise an army on the social media.  Beware of a backlash to Christian fanaticism, the world is not your own.

Unfair 122015

I recently suffered a personal loss that demonstrated the five stages of grief were publish or perish theory, and not my reality.  On hearing the news I went directly to an angry response of “It’s not fair.”

It wasn’t fair, but my mind slipped quickly from the cliche “life is not fair” to all the unfairness of today.  Partly this is an analytical mind distracting itself from pain.  It was also a reach for solidarity with all the others struggling against the unfairness of it all.

It’s not fair that protection under the law has evolved to shoot first and don’t ask any questions.  It’s not fair that the legal shooters can’t even hit their seven-foot target despite filling the air with hundreds of bullets that take out innocents as bad guys strolls away.

It’s not fair that voters are subjected to a two year comedy of horrifying electioneering that will throw them twisting into a purgatory of regrets for four more years.  It's not fair that politicians spend more time electioneering than governing.  It's not fair that they spend more money to gain power than they can hope to honestly earn in a lifetime.

We can live with “good guys finish last,” but it’s not fair that the bad guys always finish on top.  How about a President who took great pride in getting away with lying to the public.  Or the academics who manipulates research to support political biases for government grants.  Then there are the public persecutors who railroad the innocent for political advancement and deny redress to the persecuted..

It's not fair that rich nations have large populations of starving children and homeless.  It's not fair that there are even larger segments of populations that live in fear of their own governments.  It's not fair that the super rich are able to buy elections.  It's not fair that a growing marketing industry's sole product is deception.  It's not fair that the television industry has deteriorated to an opiate for the masses.  It's not fair that the social media now trumps reality.  It's not fair that cheap reality television now passes as quality art.    It's not fair that stores get away forcing you to buy what they have rather than what you want.  It's not fair that customer spend more on gas searching for what they do want than the item is worth.  It's not fair that sales persons know nothing about the products they sell, and only know how to demand cash or credit.

It's not fair that students can graduate on credit for standardize testing and still are unable to read, write or compute.  It's not fair that teachers are not trusted to fairly grade students but are allowed to send them to jail on their emotional fears. It's not fair that the former greatness of public education is falling under the weight of for profit schooling.   It's not fair that as more money is spent on education literacy rates falls.

It's not fair that in the 21st century that the majority of people must even think about life's unfairness.  IT JUST AIN'T FAIR.