Category: Because It's True

Posted on

It's Disappointing

I know it's not a long-term employment opportunity, and god knows I could never do it, but it's always disappointing when one of your favorite baristas at your neighborhood Starbucks just up and disappears.

Posted on

Because It's True

Maybe it's the insanity of the events of the past two years and the ugly, slimy, underbelly of a sizable portion of our population that those events have exposed. Maybe it's simply the late-in-life arrival of the realization of the absolute cruelty of humans toward each other—and the other denizens of this planet (thanks in no small part to the internet). Whatever it is, I'm rapidly coming to agree with Agent Smith from the Matrix who said:

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague…"

Shorter: This planet needs an enema. Something needs to hit the global reset button because we cannot continue on our present course. Our modern western lifestyle (which the rest of the world for some reason is trying to emulate) is not sustainable; at least not without some very drastic changes taking place—and frankly I just don't see that happening.

Humanity has existed on a global timescale for a very short time, and only within the last hundred years or so have wrecked such havoc on the environment that vast swatches of the world are predicted to be uninhabitable by 2100. While the scientific community is still not in total agreement, many members are warning that we've already passed the tipping point where we can do anything about it. The wheels are in motion, so to speak, and we're heading down a very warm path indeed.

This leads me to the question of intelligence. Are we really intelligent? We have large brains in relation to our bodies and are clever tool-builders and obviously able to effect change on a vast scale for sure, but is that intelligence? The dinosaurs existed for millions of years longer than we've been here, and yet there's no evidence any of those species possessed what we define as intelligence. If this thing we call intelligence really is an inevitable byproduct of evolution why didn't the dinosaurs—who had a hell of a lot longer run on this planet than we've had—develop it themselves? Why didn't they domesticate other species, develop agriculture, build civilizations? Is it possible that our large brains are actually just an ultimately destructive mutation?

And that asteroid out there? Would humanity actually come together and muster the will and the resources to do anything about it if it were spotted?

I seriously doubt it. We're too busy arguing over 2000 year old god-myths and whether members of Homo sapiens with different skin color are even worthy of being called human.

Posted on

A Hospital is a Weird Place

A hospital is a weird place. In one room a man is holding his son for the first time. In another room, a man is holding his father for the last time. In yet another room, some idiot is having something that should never have been shoved up there in the first place removed from his rectum.

Posted on

God Has Nothing To Do With Trump Being President

From John Pavlovitz:

If I hear one more Evangelical claim that God chose Donald Trump, I'm swear I'm gonna rapture myself.

Christian Trumpers really need to stop spiritualizing the man, his campaign, and his Presidency.

It's sinful.
It's blasphemous.
It's lousy evangelism.
It's also just plain asinine.

The hypocrisy on display is historic: after spending the past 8 years straining to find infinitesimal specks in Barack Obama's eye that they could condemn as dealbreakers—Evangelicals are now perfectly fine with Trump's forest of Redwoods.

In fact, in the most dizzying display of theological spin doctoring, it is now precisely his ever-growing trail of personal toxic discharge that supposedly proves evidence of God's hand in it all.

So Trump's multiple marriages, his porn star affairs, his mountain of sexual assault claims, his verbal obscenities, his disregard for rule of law, his compulsive lying, his clear racism, his unrelenting attacks on marginalized communities (things these Christians would have figuratively and almost literally crucified Obama for) are now unmistakable signs that God is using this President.

This is nonsense of Biblical proportions; to try and draw some line between Jesus of Nazareth and Don of New York, is about as farcical as you can get without actually spontaneously combusting from the cognitive dissonance.

Dying to justify their own allegiances to Trump, Evangelicals have lumped him in with other famously flawed heroes of Scripture, suggesting he is actually  God's anointed, imperfect tool of salvation—in the tradition of the Old Testament.(Well, God did apparently use the jawbone of an ass, so I guess there is precedent).

Seriously, this sanctified retrofitting of this godless President to any kind of Providential momentum is the height of absurdity. By that measurement, let's find all the most reprehensible human beings we can, give them carte blanche in our seats of power—and see just what God can do!

No, Donald Trump wasn't anointed by God.
He isn't an instrument of Divine will.
He isn't Biblically hastening Armageddon or Jesus' return.
He's just a hateful, indecent, predatory fraud who is destroying the environment, stripping people of their human rights, and making America a global laughing-stock.

His ascension is not prophetic but pathetic, the result of:

●   Russian interference
●   Fake News
●   Gerrymandering
●   Voter Suppression
●   Hillary Hatred
●   Obama Resentment
●   Fox News Brainwashing
●   Democratic Stumbles
●   The Votes of Bigoted Evangelicals, whites terrified of losing market share, and third-party voters—and the inaction of 100 million Americans who couldn't be bothered to participate in one of the greatest responsibilities of living here.

That's it.

No Providence.
No Divine messages.
No Biblical prophecies.
No spiritual movements.

Just ordinary human beings who chose really, really poorly when they should have known better.

This isn't a mystery or a miracle—and it sure as hell isn't God. Christians need to stop passing the buck to God, and just own the compromises and sick bedfellows they've been willing to make for Supreme Court seats, anti-LGBTQ legislation, weapon stockpiling, and a rapidly assembling white Christian theocracy.

Stop namedropping God.

God wasn't generating fake news or showing up at his campaign rallies or stumping for him at nationwide crusades or using him as an expression of their misogyny.
God didn't vote for the guy who said he could grab women by the genitalia.
God didn't choose the guy who said protestors should be beaten.
God didn't go with the guy endorsed by the KKK.
God didn't excuse the bankruptcies and overlook the affairs and laugh off the racist remarks.

I'm pretty sure people did that—lots of supposedly Christian folks.

And God isn't now taunting teenage shooting victims on social media, or ignoring thousands of lost immigrant children, or turning a blind eye to Constitutional crises, or celebrating LGBTQ discrimination, or laughing off collusion, treason, and human rights atrocities.

Again, Christians.

We really should stop pretending God is responsible for this fast food dumpster fire, when it's clear whose hand is in it all.

This reality is the rotten fruit of misogyny, racism, Nationalism, fear, xenophobia, and bigotry—all released by people who want God to consent to it all so they don't have to deal with their own culpability or face their own repentance.

God does not consent.

Pray on that.