Saturday, April 4, 2020

Needy



When pastors try this "God won't be ignored" line out, I guess they think it sounds like God is all-powerful and therefore, meager, suffering man should toe the line, but what I hear from it is that God is needy, and will wreck you if Attention is Not Paid. It says a lot more about the person (or parson) who has cast God in their own image. They want open ears and open wallets. They won't be ignored.

The deaths from COVID-19 are indiscriminate as to devotion or sinfulness. It doesn't matter to a virus how many times you pray, so much as how many times you wash your hands. But it always sets me seething a little when disasters (hurricanes, or earthquakes, or diseases) are blamed on the victims of them. Where is the comfort for the living in "Well, you all should have behaved yourselves, you damn fuckups!" It is the theodicy of a sadist. God kills people in horrible ways because he can, so love him for the lesson of pain. Love the abuse. Worship the vastness of his means of destroying the things you love. And thank the nice helpful men of god who explain so cheerfully why this is the proper way of the world. And make sure you tip them well.

Don't forget that part.



Because after all, who is going to blow all this sin and disease away? (Or at least sell you something that will?)

Faith might fill a need. Bullying fills coffers. I believe in science. I'll give to people who need it, and ask anyone, who exactly needs a message that "God is Disappoint" right now?

5 comments:

Ten Bears said...

I think she's really pissed off. The Trump Plague, tornados touching down in Texas, spring floods about to wash Iowa away, it's not nice to fool with Mother Nature. Could be a Darwin Award.

bowtiejack said...

Ten Bears:

Don't forget the 8 hurricanes we may have between June and November.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/forecasters-predict-a-busy-atlantic-hurricane-season/

bluzdude said...

"Don't make me have to smite you again..."

Formerly Amherst said...

Hi Vixen,
I completely agree with you. However, I have to explain that the evangelists' statements are consistent with Christian theology.

Orthodox Christian theology fully accepts the idea of original sin. Their view is that Adam and Eve betrayed God in the Garden of Eden. This created a condition of pervasive sinfulness relative to any child ever born into the world. In fact, the Bible goes so far as to explain that God bestowed a curse that amounted to a woman giving birth in painful labor and a man having to work for a living. From the point of view of Christian theology, if you were born, you were born into sinfulness.

Therefore the evangelists' statement is sort of like saying, “If you fall down, it is because of gravity.” It's true as far as it goes, bur raises more questions than it answers. It is like the Buddha saying, “I give you two things: suffering and the end of suffering.” So in other words, from Buddhas' point of view you are either in Nirvana or you are suffering. (The Dali Lama pointed out that suffering is a condition of the body and the mind, so if you just got rid of them, you would have no more suffering! :-) )

From the point of view of the Qaballah and some Christian theology the Garden of Eden is a symbol for a state of consciousness that is portrayed in imagery in the form of mythology so that the human mind can try to understand the truth deeper than the ineffable symbols.

The Fall represents humanity's losing the level of consciousness mythologized as paradise and descending into a world of disease, death, and an inevitable amount of suffering that is endemic to the human condition.

The idea is to try and regain Nirvana, or Paradise, or the higher level of consciousness discussed as Samadhi, Satori, Tikkun Ha’Nefesh, etc.

So the evangelists are all sort of jerks who never go beyond level 1 of what religion is about. However, their statements about sin is theologically consistent as long as you're looking at it from the most elementary point of view. As The Shadow said, “The wages of sin bear bitter fruit.”

Ten Bears said...

Earthquakes in Idaho, which are a lot more serious than I'm making it out to be.

Every time a christian mansplains Buddhism I piss my pants laughing.

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