Jesus didn’t preach hate. He didn’t teach intolerance or suspicion. He responded to violence, greed, intolerance, hypocracy, and hate with only love. So what the fuck are these so-called Christians practicing these days? Don’t just read the New Testament, hypocrites, you’re supposed to live it.
We are not being good Christians. But, seeing Buddhist monks rioting against police and street gangs is a sign that the world as a whole doesn’t have a healthy sense of religious respect. But pointing fingers and name calling isn’t going to lead to world peace. It gave Hitler the edge in catching Europe off guard just long enough to stage a World War. It fueled the xenophobic Cold War. It literally built walls between neighbors. Even as some nations are learning to dismantle theirs, new ones are going up all over the place. Arizona’s complaining that their lack of a wall right now.
We are a complex society. But in such a simplified way. We are a nation of junkies and addicts. Heroin, coke, Coke, Corona, Jack Daniels, Budweiser, bud, Zoloft, texting, FaceBook, WarCraft, Farmville, porn, sex, love, gambling, cigarettes, big screens, jewelry, shoes, piercings, botox, tattoos, gossip, news, attention, power, money. While you can waste days arguing over the individual arguments and relations, it’s pretty obvious that we Capitalists need to need. We need to be told we need it. Because once we’re told that we need it, we suddenly want it. We want it because they want it. Because we need it. Even if the reasons for the need make no sense.
Seriously, why do we NEED a cigarette? How many billions of dollars in advertising and marketing did it take for the tobacco industry to explain that why for us? Cigarettes don’t calm your nerves. They ebb the addiction craving. Its the cravings that are getting all over your goddamm fuckin nerves until you get that first puff drawn in.
Pookie
I mean, until you try it, why do we even have heroin and crack cocaine existing at all? Outside of allaying the cravings for more, what possible positive benefit can you get from hard narcotics? The high? Let the tolerance kick in after awhile and let me know if you still want to stick with that answer. It’s there because we need it. We were told we need it. They wanted it, now we want it. Because we need it.
I won’t even touch on mobile social networking, what we now refer as “what I do all day.” While it might be a stretch to imagine not having an on-demand-omniprescient-online social life if you can turn your mobiles off for a few days, they are going to be naming psychiatric syndromes about it in the very near future. Twenty bucks against anyone who doubts that there won’t be documented study on some virtual Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (iPTSD vs mPTSD) within the next year. Any takers? Baby needs new shoes!
A society of addicts needs religion. There’s a reason why AA has twelve specific steps. By the end, you are now a good Christian armed with the tools to live a righteous, drug-free life with Jesus by your side. Holding your hand when you are weak, smiling with joy when you’re strong. But we need that foundation to remind us what is right and wrong, what is good and bad.
Because we are definitely not able to tell these days. Our laws allow us to bear arms but our Father explicitly told us that we shall not kill. Heck, money is the root of all evil, how ironic we scribble “In God We Trust” all over it? It is in this arena, we have God-fearing Christians parading around the Halls of the US Congress saying, sometimes shouting, and doing very un-Christian-like things. We’ve ended up with too many bureaucrats and not enough footsoldiers. Teachers, doctors, firefighters, cops, soldiers, veterinarians, nurses. Had we really trusted in God, we would know where all that money went, right down to the nickel. The focus could be back to quality of service and away from the race to the pension purse. Jesus would ignore the politics and made sure that the children and their future is taken care of. After all, what you do in the physical world ultimately prepares you for the spiritual. So you might as well start practicing some good ol’ Christian faith. The way Jesus intended.
I mean, does the real Jesus H Christ look or act ANYTHING like THIS?!
We need to slow our roll a bit. We need to stop and think, rather than re-react. We should stop and actually ask ourselves “What would Jesus do?” and try that first without adding a “. . . but. . .” after it. In the middle of a good debate a few years back, a friend pragmatically pointed out “but Jesus wasn’t a politician.” He sees that as a shortfall. I see that as a reason. Our own Savior in flesh in blood would make a horrible politician. Too many ethical and moral codes to sacrifice for the greater good. What does that say about our political system as a whole? There is nothing Christian about campaign smears and pork barrels. But these are the people we selected ourselves by our own agreed-upon system to run this country. And what happened to that system, and the country, when we put a Haliburton executive in the White House? Or the HNIC of Goldman Sachs in charge of the Treasury?
If you go to church to avoid going to Hell, then you are truly missing the point of your religion. It’s not just simply a matter of doing (or not doing) things to avoid some eternal punishment. There is a REASON why certain things are deemed bad. You don’t steal from your neighbor, not just because God tells you, but also because it’s just WRONG. I mean, what is so RIGHT about killing? Even in the military sense? I’m not completely against war or justifiable homicide, but it just feels like that there is a lot of unnecessary death is going on around the globe and I don’t think we’re doing the right things about it. Want to end civil war blood baths in Africa? Clamp down on the illicit weapons trade. Then, not only will it be safe to get much needed humanitarian aid to the remaining victims of nonstop violence, but we can then help these people rebuild their lives and societies and governments so they can contribute to the global economy, rather than continuously drain it. After all, what’s a dictator without ample supplies of RPGs and machetes?
But it’s hard for us to play the role of peacekeeper when we don’t set such a high standard. We send out Secretary of State out to represent us around the globe, but she goes to represent the nation with the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons known to man, ready to go at the press of a button. In hindsight, considering today’s economy, just think how much money, in trillions of dollars, would’ve been diverted to other areas of the national economy, over the decades, had we not gotten caught up in the nuclear proliferation race? While the day-to-day politics will keep us from ending poverty and world hunger, it would be nice to imagine less dependence on not just foreign oil, but oil period. Colony on Mars? Thriving agricultural industry. Just imagine how much more money I’d have if I quit smoking cigarettes?
Dear Lord, please help find the way again. We know how to read, we just don’t know how to think.
Just thinking about the nuclear stockpile blurb. I wonder if there was some theoretical or accepted number for just how many missiles it would take to wipe out the entire planet. I’m pretty sure it’s not a very high number. But supposing there was one, you have to ask why we bothered to build even more nuclear weapons by the score beyond that. I am also curious about how much over did we go and for how long. How many billions, if not trillions of dollars did we spend, rather unnecessarily in any practical sense. But why? Besides “because they were doing it too!”