And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counselor; and he was a good man, and just:
(The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them;) he was of Arimathaea, a city of the Jews: who also himself waited for the kingdom of God. This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus.
And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulcher that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid. And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on. And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulcher, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment. ~Luke 23:50-56
It's Saturday, of Holy Week. Theologically, this is the day often equated with death. Some sects, among them old-school Catholics, say this is the time in which Christ descended into hell and suffered for the sins of the world.
In America today it's just another day of Trump trying to gin up ethnic conflict, Evangelicals trying to force some kind of confrontation with the State because they think doing so will bring about the End Times, and Conspiracy theorists spreading a layer of horse manure all over everything.
How is the President's campaign trying to incite racism against Asian people, or the usual conservative default setting of racism against Black or Brown people "Christian" or even conservative? Are you telling me that you don't believe your own stated doctrine that God created all humans, or the long-held conservative belief in equality of opportunity for all, rather than equality of outcome? I mean, if ya'll don't really believe this stuff just go ahead and say so, because to those of us on the outside it's plain to see that where the rubber meets the road there's absolutely a disconnect between what y'all have said for years and what this President wants people to believe and do, and there's plenty of people who will happily jump on whatever hate bandwagon he offers them, just to feel like somebody, so yes, it is a problem even if it's not you individually. If you have not seen this by now it is because you do not want to.
So, tell me, Christians, is this the kind of world you want? Ethnic conflict and racism in the middle of a pandemic where it's "Virus vs. Humans" sounds like a bad idea.
My roommate, for example, said they told him to order the extra-strength bug spray that he needed online the last time he went to Walmart, which he did. The idea being to prevent hoarding, or something...as another wave of that is about, but it's a whole bunch of oddball stuff (including bug spray and hair dye) instead of toilet paper this time.
I'm just sayin' Comrades, Capitalism does nobody any good if there's no one left alive to spend money. You can't spend money when you're dead.
Seems to me that there's a whole lot of foreign bad actors and a small number of U.S. ideological and religious extremists trying to push the USA into some kind of internal conflict...over the fact that one political party seems to care more about keeping all people alive than it does about conservative ideological priors.
A lot of people are being talked into hatred and resentment of the very people who are trying to keep them alive, because they don't understand facing a threat that they can't physically fight against, that affects everybody the same way, and upon which prayer doesn't seem to work very well.
So, we're going to use our imaginations, for a minute.
Imagine if you will that these whack-a-nuts that I highlight in the snipped image above are real, or at least that you think they are, and based on that idea you get a few people together and decide that you're going to start an armed insurrection to overthrow the Democratic governor of Kentucky.
Within about fifteen minutes of the government becoming aware of your efforts, you get shot center mass with a 5.56mm NATO-standard rifle shell fired by an Army National Guardsman or a Police Officer. It blows a dime-sized hole in your chest and somehow manages not to hit any vital organs and stops before it blows a big, messy hole out your back, too. This being, as of yet, a criminal matter rather than a battlefield, you have to be taken to the hospital, which is overflowing with Coronavirus patients. When the ambulance and its masked-and-gloved EMT's get to the hospital, you have to be wheeled in on a gurney by a bunch of medical workers (and a cop, who you've also put at risk who looks ashen behind his face mask) past a whole bunch of obviously ill, coughing or even unconscious people in the hallway which has been turned into yet another COVID-19 ICU AND YOU HAVE A CHEST WOUND and are probably in shock besides that.
Want to place any bets on whether you make it to the surgical unit without getting infected? And what happens to the people who those doctors can't treat for the virus because they had to pull a bullet out of your dumb ass and patch you up? What happens if one of the surgeons becomes infected?
Think about that for a second. I'm not going to give you the easy way out of assuming you died. Imagine sitting in your cell in prison 20 years from now, and finding out that a dozen people including an Army National Guard infantryman, a Police officer, two Surgeons and a nurse died because of you and your ideological masturbation, and that they were a typical American ideological mix right down to the cop who would've agreed with you on most things, right up until you forced him to have to do his duty and guard your ass in the hospital.
The Bible speaks harshly of false doctrines and false teachers for a reason, because there are people in this world who will build their identities around false beliefs and lies that confirm their biases and tickle their ears because that sounds better to them than the truth that might not make them feel powerful or special or like they're living in some special period of history. And to make matters worse, there's a whole lot of people, mostly dudes, who've been fed all type of macho war shit for a couple decades who think that any apocalyptic situation must end in butchery and that civilization surviving is not the endgame they want.
So naturally, they can't stand that it might end with them binge-watching The Walking Dead or mainlining the entire Final Fantasy video game franchise while sitting on the couch for a week straight while the girl next door works from home, makes fresh bread in the evenings, and plays with the cat.
There's a long and dishonorable tradition of idiocy in America that convinces people that peering suspiciously out of their bunkers while clutching their Bibles and guns, eating salted rat or survival taco meat and dysentery-shitting on their own shoes is somehow a better or more noble life than getting up and going to work, then coming home and cooking and playing with the cat.
I don't know about you, but I like civilization, flush toilets, running water, the internet, and my pets not being a potential food source when the canned goods run out.
And I rather like my fellow Americans in all their diverse contrariness not ending up dead on battlefields or in mass graves from disease, let alone both.
If that's what you want, or you care more about poking a finger in some liberal's eye or ranting about "Commies" 31 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain than you do about a dozen or more people around you staying healthy and alive, then fuck you.
If all you can think about on the day that Jesus was in the tomb is finding more ways to put many more bodies in that tomb, especially for profit or some kind of political points, then fuck you.
It's not just that I don't have time for this horse shit, nobody does, one hell of a lot of us are too busy trying to stay alive and get so where we can get life somewhat back to normal and the only way we can do that is by going with facts and reality, reason and science.
If that means that your ideology, your religion or your selfish way of living has to get smacked a few times that's not my problem. It's a pretty safe bet that I have more actual conservative bona fides than a lot of people do, but ya know, being dead before my time is not one that I wish to have.
I'm pretty sure it's hard to find a station that carries Rush Limbaugh in the afterlife, I was taught that heaven was pretty damn non-partisan and you don't get to take your money with you when you're dead, so why don't y'all just try and stay alive, huh?
I don't want my next job to be having to bury your dumb ass.
Yesterday's posts:
Part Eight
Part Nine.
And next...
Part Ten.
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