Missing The Point Friday (Serpent In The Garden, Five.)

And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.
Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.
And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.
And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar, And saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself. And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, This Is The King Of The Jews. ~Luke 23:33-38

This morning when I got on Twitter, I saw this. An Oklahoma US Senate candidate, Jackson Lahrmeyer, saying "America is great because America was built upon the principles of God's Law, God's Order."

I don't know how you get from "Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" to "God's Law, God's Order." Of course, I'm also pathologically incapable of fitting my head up my own ass, so there's that. Kind of makes me incapable of seeing These Fucking People's point of view, and I'll note that I say this as somebody who was a Christian for most of my life.

Because the whole damn point of these fucking people is that Christ and Christianity ain't the damn point. 

Here's some idiot directly comparing Elon Musk to Jesus Christ, and saying that Musk's failed attempt to buy Twitter is like Christ's sacrifice and substitutionary atonement on the Cross. Although this moron doesn't use those words. He calls it "Buying freedom for all who believe."

Believe in What, Melvin? Believe in Who? Do you believe in Elon or do you believe in Jesus? I ask this because in the terms set forth by Christ in the Gospels, one of these things is not like the other one.

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. ~Matthew 19:24

That spell it out for ya, or do I have to use smaller words? 

You cannot serve both God and Mammon, you cannot worship both Elon (Or Putin, or Trump) and Jesus. No man can serve two masters, for surely he will hate one and despise the other.

You cannot serve both the Cross of Jesus and the Hammer And Sickle of Soviet Totalitarianism. A Church subordinate to political ideology or the State or to Wealthy Men is no Church at all but just another form of political indoctrination and social control at best...and Temples to Abaddon and Mammon and Moloch at worst...which is exactly what the "Conservatives" want the Church to be.

"Conservatives" want the Church as a whole, the Body of Christ, to be like the Russian Orthodox of the Moscow Patriarchate...led by an old spy with a long beard and priestly regalia who tells them they can hate LGBT people while justifying genocide, mass theft, murder, rape and war even as he quietly reports their activities and degree of religious faith to the KGB.

And don't think These Fucking People's ideal "Church" wouldn't be exactly like that, hell, they make a politicized soup sandwich out of everything else, don't they?

And don't think, just like the Russians, that they wouldn't be all in on eradicating whole ethnic groups, nations and peoples if they had a "Leader" who gave them some kind of permission to do so, be it real or imagined.

Hell, these fucking people are, in court, coming right out and saying they felt that Trump had ordered them to overthrow the government on January 6th, 2021. What the hell do you think they'll do if they ever get the kind of total power that they want?

It's Good Friday, the day on which Christian tradition says that Jesus Christ was crucified.

As I have said before, modern "Conservatives" do not want a Living God who sees all they do and knows what they done any more than they want a living Constitution with an easily adaptable system that's accommodating of social change...and for the same reason. 

They want a dead Savior on a stick that they can parade before the mob to rile them up or threaten them into compliance, not a living God that might call the people to compassion, mercy, salvation or transcendence.

They want the Serpent in the Garden, whispering promises of eternal life and knowledge and power, not the Sermon on the Mount where a carpenter and itinerant Rabbi said "Blessed are the persecuted."

Again:

Whether one draws one's certainties from religion or science, in order for one to push back against Power one must have one's feet set on a hard floor of Truth, and one must have the freedom to build and to have and to maintain that foundation. This can only exist in the context of a democratic, pluralistic society. Now I don't give a damn if the truth one uses for this is Darwin's theory of Evolution or that God created the Earth in six days and rested on the seventh. People have to have this, and conspiracy theories, false doctrines, junk science, quack medicine and religious extremism are nothing more than shades of the same effort by forces of Greed and Power to undermine Truth on a conceptual level.

These Fucking People just want to force other people to do what they want, and the only way they really want to do this is through the threat or use of armed force. As Orwell said in 1984, the point of Power is Power.

As far as they're concerned , if Truth counteracts Power, then it's Truth that must be destroyed.

And if that's what you believe, yo, this is your day. Death on the Cross, the borrowed Tomb with the stone rolled in front. That is all for you. If you believe in Power and Wealth and rewards in This Life, you get a dead Savior on a stick. Your story ends here.

There is no Resurrection in that, no transcendence into Eternity. Eternal life comes from compassion, not greed. If you believe the opposite, you might as well deify Elon Musk and think Twitter is eternity, for all the good it will do you. 

Man cannot Save Man. When your soul is cast into the Abyss, it won't...can't...be my problem.

But the true point of this day is it makes Resurrection and thus Salvation possible. Whether one believes in the Pagan origins of this time, the changing of the seasons and the turning of the cold dark Winter to the bright warm Spring and the resurrection that represents or whether one believes in Christianity and sees in it the divine Resurrection of a simple Carpenter as the Son of God...the message is not really so different, is it?

And it's Passover, and this year Ramadan as well. Think about that one for a second. I think it's cool as fuck, seriously.

And one must have the freedom of choice to choose between them, otherwise it ain't no good.

Belief and faith cannot be compelled, only chosen freely and freely given. Every person's truth is different, if only because we occupy different positions in spacetime and the universe, and none living has the benefit of an eternal perspective.

Remember that.

I'd like to dedicate this post to my friend BB and her late son, Chris, and to all those who fight for freedom and serve that others may live and be free. 

Whether they do so by force of arms or the strength of their belief in peace, by law in the courts or with mind and mercy in hospitals or through protest in the schools and streets of America, or by trying to lead our nation with the interests of all at heart...and for those who fight with guts, raw courage, Bayraktar drones and Javelin missiles against overwhelming Soviet force in Ukraine...and to those like Chef Jose Andreas and those supporting the Ukrainians with humanitarian and military aid...this is your time too. 

A greater love hath no man than he who lays down his life for others...whatever their respective faiths may be. We're either all in this together or we're not.

Together we rise, or none of us do.

Peace be with you.

Part Four

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For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ~Matthew 24:27