Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name:
That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.
They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.
For as much therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.
For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.
Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.
Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.
Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.
~Amos 5:8-15
I've got something to say here, that should not be the least bit off-the-wall of an opinion in a constitutionally-secular country like the United States Of America; If "God Told Me..." is your rationale for anything, you
don't belong in government...or working with the public in
any capacity outside of Ministry in a specific theological strain of Pentecostal church.
Why? Because seriously, I was a Christian for most of my life. We didn't talk like that. I'm
not kidding, even most other Christians don't talk that way.
Perhaps more to the point, I've yet to see Blowbert act in any way that meets any definition of Christian behavior as I was given to understand what those words meant. For people like her, it's almost always all about them. It's all for money, for show, for the gratification of various carnal lists and the greater glory of The Self. And it's the same way, every damned time you run the experiment.
And then people wonder why I say that people like this have thrown Jesus Christ out of his own religion?
And, these fucking people? They never want to do jack shit for anybody else...every single goddamned time.
The Word says different:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. ~Galatians 5:22-23
And I daresay I was (literally) schooled at length as to such things, between churches, plenty of para-church activities, and Christian schools when I was a kid, and greater involvement in churches as an adult...including more positions of authority or responsibility than I ever asked for...not many, but enough...and some of this stuff required me to take actual course work in ethics, ministry and psychology and to prove myself to the satisfaction of the governing body of the Baptist association I was part of...a group of independent Fundamentalist Baptist churches in Northern Michigan that operated under the name of "Victory Baptist." (Also mentioned here)
A couple of these, I was able to simply work into my then-ongoing community college education, and ask my instructor to write a letter or something on my behalf. For the ministry courses...well, considering where I live that was mostly done by correspondence courses at the time. I also had to do all this on my own dime (except for the college courses, thanks to the GI Bill.)
A hell of a lot of it, though, was that aside from being required to show faith in Christ, not only in words but by actions and personal conduct...I was basically required to give a shit about people. And mind you, this wasn't anything major. I ran a church Men's Group for awhile after the old guy who I'd been helping to do it actually died.
And I did it, because my friend wanted me to do it, because I was the person he trusted to carry things forward, that's all.
Can't help but feel that I was held to a much higher standard 25 years ago than a lot of people are today.
And of course now, you can get all the Conspiracy-theory, End Times Narrative bullshit without even having to believe in Jesus Christ at all. In fact, it's probably better and easier if you
don't. Cocaine Jesus here, will show you The Way.
You'll just have to, ya know, support his drug habit, or something.
Seriously, Trump Jr. has a problem, and he constantly films himself talking when he's all coked up. It's sad that nobody gives enough of a shit to tell this guy he needs to get help and get off the drugs.
Remember, Republicans could have been anything, could have stuck with the model of conservatism put forth by Reagan and the Bushes, they chose to be this. Elon Musk could've done anything, he's probably done more than anyone else in recent history to reach for the stars...but fuck all that, he'd rather be a reply-guy to Cat-Turd2 and Scott Adams on Twitter.
Maybe it's just me, but the combination of this small, mean, deliberately conspiratorial, priggish and stupid vision of things
and how hard these fuckers are leaning into it...is starting to make me wonder if there ever really was anything else?
Like, seriously at this point I don't think Reagan or either Bush was ever really in the club. I know these fucking people have been a large part of the Republican base since at least the 1960's and the Southern Strategy...but speaking as a former Republican myself I'm starting to wonder how long these sons of bitches have been eating the Party from the inside-out since basically nobody with an (R) next to their name who's currently in office will stand up to this shit.
And if you think the Republican Party is bad about this shit, you haven't seen anything until you get a good look at how the Christian Church as a whole treats legit bad actors.
It's almost like it's all a lie...
Of course, I know from personal experience with this crap myself, you have to quit and/or be cast into the Outer Darkness yourself to
really be able to see just how bad it
is.
Finding God, or any form of spirituality, is a personal thing. It's a thing you have to want to do. Other people, organizations, whatever...no matter how passionate or well intentioned...they can't do it for you.
And it worries me, that so many people seem to have precisely zero interest in any of that. They'd rather just do what somebody else tells them to.
I hate to sound that way, but I'm going to sound that way: A lot of those people are going to hell.
Organized religion helps for some people, for others it doesn't...and far too many of those claiming to be religious or spiritual leaders are false prophets, exactly the kind of people that Jesus likened to whitewashed tombs. They have, in fact, turned Christianity into little more than a cheap front for the cult of Dis Pater, chthonic Roman deity of mineral wealth and the Underworld.
And if you follow after people like Lauren Boebert, or would deny SNAP benefits and thus food to poor people, I'm going to say it's a safe bet that you're not kneeling at the foot of the cross so much as you're bowing before idols of Dis Pater and Orcus while making offerings to the Emperor.
You have turned the Church of Christ into a House Of Devils, a worship space for a materialistic Cocaine Jesus like Donald Trump Jr.
When somebody says "God Told Me..." we need to start asking "Which God?"
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If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan
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