Rapture (Pride Month, One.)

Behold, I have told you before.

Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.

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.

For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.

Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and puts forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:

So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.

Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

~Matthew 24:25-34

I saw this yesterday, but I wasn't home.

I had to go up to my Mom's partner's house and put the mower deck on the tractor so my Mom could cut his grass and then I ended up making lunch and I got drafted to help plant a bunch of stuff in the garden, so by the time I got home my ass was tired. 

Well then this morning, I saw this Tweet by Prosperity Gospel Liar Lance Wallnau "Some people deserve to starve."

That's literally not what the Lord's Word says.

The Word says Love thy neighbor, and more importantly "Help thy neighbor" while otherwise teaching that we attain a good place in the Afterlife through Compassion, not Greed, through Love, not Hate.

But of course, a preacher of the Prosperity Gospel can't say that without making less money, can he?

And I'm here to tell you from personal experience that money...and a hunger for "Signs and Wonders" so they can get more money...is these fucking people's true God.

But then the Prosperity Gospel holds up Trump as its Lord and Savior, not Christ, and that's how you know it's a lie.

Being poor is hell, being rich is heaven, the cruelty is the point, and who knows what the fuck these people actually believe happens when you die, because their entire religion is bound up in those three things. It's all about this world.

But, being that it's source-code is still Christianity, even that shit has limits.

Ted Cruz Tweeted this yesterday afternoon about the "Kill The Gays" law in Uganda...which the Ugandan government has been fooling around with for going on 20 years now. It's their go-to distraction in an extremely poor, extremely Pentecostal country where the government can't or won't actually do anything much for the people that live there.

You have no idea how serious I am on that last point. Uganda is a very poor, developing country, and it's chock-full of people who believe in and practice Pentecostal Christianity and the Prosperity Gospel. Who prospers? The Bullshitters, that's who.

So they get by on using petty bigotry and religiosity for control purposes, it's just as well because Uganda doesn't have much of a military and the police are...well, just as corrupt and useless as the rest of the government.

And for the record, this garbage came about because of American Evangelical and Pentecostal missionaries stoking up homophobia to the point of ridiculous...mostly on an ideological and yes, for-profit basis.

It also exists because of leftover colonial "Anti-Sodomy" laws and attitudes forced on the country in the 19th century by, ya know, those famously straight Europeans (full sarcasm intended) and the Victorian morality (that nobody actually followed) that was prevalent back in those days.

If the Ugandans were serious about getting rid of homosexuality in their country they'd get rid of the cops and the government and a whole bunch of the churches, because it's the police and the politicians and not a few of the preachers that are the main people who use and abuse the many Ugandans (many of them young people, of both sexes) who can only support themselves through prostitution.

(I know a Ugandan dude who works as a teacher for a religious American NGO, fun fact, he's both extremely Fundamentalist Christian and a Socialist. No, he's not particularly homophobic, either. There, just like here, this shit has been and is being marketed by people with bad intentions.)

And then they can't even really enforce this shit anyway...

Because the Ugandan government would rather buy itself a squadron of Sukhoi Su-30 Flanker fighter jets they did not need (and per their own Central Bank, could not really afford) than spend those millions of dollars helping their own people or policing corruption in their own government, or even funding their Army or police properly.

And this is the kind of country some Americans want us to be. I'll never get it.

See also: "Conservatism" it's apparently the same wherever you go. Note: I say that as somebody that used to be a conservative.

It's all bullshit.

Just like how Ukraine is a mostly-white, mostly-Christian and mostly (small-c) conservative country, and MAGA and the Republicans don't care about that one bit, not least because the Ukrainians chose democracy when given the chance and stood together and fought when fate and the dictator next door decided that they should face the ultimate test.

And because these people are doing what American "Conservatives" have always said they would and fighting the invader (thus showing Putin to be a weak man and Russia to be a weak country rotted through with corruption and theft) it puts the lie to the whole damned mess, so MAGA hates them for it.

It's not even "Heaven isn't Heaven if everybody gets to go" or "Might Makes Right" with these fucking people anymore, if it ever was. It's "Project an image of transparently fake righteousness and strength to a certain kind of person so we can all steal in peace and the goobers will protect us, oh, and fuck that 'afterlife' shit, we don't really care."

And the trouble is, one can never go far enough with this bullshit, or maintain that Edge-lord hate-stance long enough for these fucking people. (Because eventually, even for a notoriously Christian, conservative and Homophobic corporation LGBT people became necessary for Capitalism to function. And/or we'll run afoul of the Law in ways that cost the company money.)

If Trump is their (Anti-) Christ and Putin is his (False) Prophet and cruelty, hate, and mass theft are in fact, the goals...I'm legit sorta curious...if as even these people claim the soul is eternal, I'd hate to see their idea of the Afterlife. Seems like that would actually be Hell, having to spend eternity with all that shit.

And do you really want to spend the Afterlife with a bunch of miserable assholes who can't get through the day without being butthurt about something??

There's no religion in the world that actually lionizes being a miserable son of a bitch, let alone a selfish bastard.

Doesn't it ever get old, being perpetually aggrieved??

Like who the fuck do you think really did you wrong, anyway, and for what??

What's even the damned point??

These fucking people say they believe in the End Times and the Rapture. Many of them say we're living in the former and they await the latter.

But when they say "Rapture" I, being an old video game guy, think of the underwater city from BioShock and when they start talking about Jesus, I think of the slicer by the fish market, singing "Jesus Loves Me, This I know" while he's chopping somebody up.

That's where this "Cruelty is the point" religiosity leads to.

And it's worth noting that the designers of that game based the premise of Rapture on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. 

If you know the game...well, that seems very much like the future certain people want.

If you know what I'm talking about, think about that for a second.

If you don't, do yourself a favor, look it up and learn something.

Either you believe in freedom or you don't. Either we're all in this together or we're not. Make up your minds.

'Cause I'll tell you why there even is such a thing as Pride Month, let alone why it's so widely observed.

Because one group of people stood together and all pulled in the same direction for equality and freedom.

Now imagine what the world could be like if even more...let alone most...of us would get off our asses and do that!

Likewise I find it telling that hatred has to be advertised for and marketed these days, like they can't find enough shitty little haters without it.

Trust me, I've known people who are no longer with us that would have been happy as fuck to live in today's world. 

That's part of why I decided to write this, because sometimes we have to put down our First World Problems, remember those who've gone before and get ourselves back in the fight.

Because together we rise, or none of us do. 

Because our society as a whole is only as strong as the least of these.

If I can say that, being an old straight white man, the least you can do is take the time to understand me.

And you'd better, because this "Trump is God" shit is how you go to hell, being gay or straight or Christian or otherwise has not one damn thing to do with it.

Last Post

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
~Ronald Reagan

...

Judge not, that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

And why behold thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but consider not the beam that is in thine own eye? ~Matthew 7:1-3

You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it. ~Malcolm X. 

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